Having many syllables / TUE 9-19-23 / Reversible woven fabrics / When said three times classic Benny Goodman tune / South Park kid with a blue-and-yellow beanie /Listen up in Lima / Sir Walter Scott novel set in the middle ages

 

Horace, the ancient Roman poet known for his satire, was merely being gently ironic when he cautioned young poets against using sesquipedalia verba—"words a foot and a half long"—in his book Ars poetica, a collection of maxims about writing. But in the 17th century, English literary critics decided the word sesquipedalian could be very useful for lambasting writers using unnecessarily long words. Robert Southey used it to make two jibes at once when he wrote "the verses of [16th-century English poet] Stephen Hawes are as full of barbarous sesquipedalian Latinisms, as the prose of [the 18th-century periodical] the Rambler." The Latin prefix sesqui- is used in modern English to mean "one and a half times," as in sesquicentennial (a 150th anniversary). (merriam-webster.com)

[The Susquehanna flows through Owego, NY, which celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1941]

Well this is different, and different is good. Weird is good. It plays mostly like a very, very easy themeless with one possibly unknown / forgotten / hard-to-spell word strung across the top of it. No, not OBSTREPEROUSLY, that's a basic word (though I managed to misspell it at first go). I mean SESQUIPEDALIAN. I read the clue and thought "oh, this is ... that word ... it's like SUSQUEHANNA ... SESQUICENTENNIAL ... gah what is that word?!" Eventually as I was filling it in from the back end, it came to me, but I realized as I was writing it that I if I'd ever known its definition, I had totally forgotten it. In fact, I'd forgotten entirely what "SESQUI-" meant, even in SESQUICENTENNIAL, which I knew was a -50 number, not a round 100, but I couldn't even remember which one. 150? (yes). 250? (no). So if nothing else I was happy to have relearned a word, and very happy to have read Merriam-Webster's note on the word, which puts it in proper (critically derisive) context. My high school English teacher used to say (as many of yours probably said), "don't use half-dollar words when a nickel word will do." This was when half dollars were in wide circulation. JFK was on them, I think. Anyway, SESQUIPEDALIAN seems like a word that would only ever be used by people who were actually most inclined to break out SESQUIPEDALIAN words. The fact that self-criticism by the pedantic is rare probably accounts for this word going largely unheard. But it's still a good one. The marquee moment here—the one truly inspired thing—is the breaking of ANTIDISESTABLI-/SHMENTARIANISM in half. I know the word well—the locus classicus of long words—but I never thought to inquire into what it means. So there's another thing I learned today. Cool. If the theme is thematically light, who cares? The grid is actually strong all on its own, with longer answers / showier corners than you usually see in a Tuesday. The fill was (almost) all very easy, but it's Tuesday, and the thematic stuff provided sufficient crunch, so the easiness doesn't feel like a problem today.

The one down side of the theme is OBSTREPEROUSLY, which feels very arbitrary, and, at five syllables, doesn't feel very SESQUIPEDALIAN at all. You wouldn't call "vociferously" or "continuously"SESQUIPEDALIAN (would you?), but it has the same number of syllables as OBSTREPEROUSLY. The clue mentions only "many syllables," and "many" is too vague to be useful. But now I'm arguing with the dictionary definition, which is itself vague. My point is OBSTREPEROUSLY, unlike the other two, seems like an everyday word. Well, maybe not every day, but ... an ordinary word. And it has only 5 syllables, compared to the revealer's 6 and the finale's 12 (!). A poet could even get OBSTREPEROUSLY down to 4 if she wanted to. It's a weird placeholder, is all. I spelled it as if it were POROUS, but that's not why I'm mad at it, I swear.

No trouble with any of the rest of the puzzle except when it came time to enter that SW corner from above and I hit 39A: Chopped to bits and just stopped. Couldn't come up with a word. Even after I had it down to -ICED, I needed the cross (a very unTuesdaylike DAMASKS! (39D: Reversible woven fabrics)) to get DICED, which I always confuse with RICED (which also means "chopped to bits"). So just the slightest of speed bumps there, no big deal. The grid quality is really high today. Enjoyed most every second of solving this. "GET THIS!""I'M ALL SET!" WHISKEY. Lots to like in this uncharacteristically colorful early-week puzzle. Hope you found it similarly charming. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I confess I don't understand the clue on SEE BELOW (2D: Phrase that would be appropriate at the end of 53-Across). Why would it be appropriate? Is the idea that the word is so strange that it would require further explanation? This clue feels like an awkward attempt to shoehorn more thematic material into the grid. [Oh, this is some punny reference to the word ANTIDISESTABLI-/SHMENTARIANISM being broken in half? One half “below” the other? Huh. Ok]

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