Constructor: Peter A. Collins and Bruce Haight
Relative difficulty: It took me 25:17, but I kept stopping because I was bored
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THEME: H — All of the clues start with the letter H
Hey besties, it's Malaika here, for Malaika MWednesday. I opened the crossword website and saw the name Bruce Haight, and before I opened the puzzle, I kid you not, I said aloud "What grid art will it be this time?" The answer is that there are some weird shapes in the middle that look like two Hs. To go with this, all of the clues start with the letter H. There are also several two-word entries (see above) where both words start with the letter H.
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Relative difficulty: It took me 25:17, but I kept stopping because I was bored
THEME: H — All of the clues start with the letter H
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: [Hagiography subjects: Abbr.] as a clue for STS —
- [Harsh rule, metaphorically] for HEAVY HAND
- [Hybrid genre of country and rap, pejoratively] for HICK HOP
- [Hopping mad sort] for HOT HEAD
- [Hypocrite's perch, perhaps] for HIGH HORSE
- [Hog part] for HAM HOCK
- [Helmet-wearer's potential embarrassment] for HAT HAIR
Word of the Day: [Hagiography subjects: Abbr.] as a clue for STS —
A hagiography is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions.
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That makes this an easy themeless puzzle, with constrained (read: weirdly phrased) clues. Oh, and it's oversized! (16 rows instead of 15, to accommodate the central shape.) Assessing the technical stats of the grid as though it were a themeless.... it's kind of a bad one! The average word-length is less than 5 (for a themeless, it's good to hover around 5.3 or higher), there are only eight entries that are eight letters or longer (the two longest ones, SMARTY PANTS and THATS SO TRUE were great, for what it's worth), well over half of the entries (44 / 78) were three- or four-letter words, and the clues were stilted rather than fun or tricky.
When a puzzle has a good theme with bad execution, I fault the constructor, but when it has a bad or meh theme, I fault the editor. The constructor gets to pitch whatever idea enters their pretty little head, and then it's the editor's job to be like "Okay but... why.... is this fun? Will this be fun? No? Okay then, let's not publish it." This happened to me a little while ago-- I pitched a puzzle with a 16x16 grid, a 16 in the middle of it, and certain entries clued as decimal versions of their hexadecimal counterparts (I will not get into the details because I promise you it was very boring and not a good idea), and the editor rightfully rejected it with notable comments including "it doesn't excite me" and "I don't find it very appealing" and "I don't think this will work." Amazing work from him, well done!
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| btw, I'd be a terrible editor |
If the clues struck me as particularly effortlessly smooth, that would be one thing. But they're just weird! They're weird! If someone sent me five of these clues out of context ([Having been sloshed out] ???????? Sir?????), I would assume this was the first crossword they had ever made, and it was posted on a blog with no editing. If this puzzle had some deeper meta puzzle or hidden aspect, that would be one thing. But I "got" what was going on within .01 seconds of opening it. If I felt crossword puzzles were simply a mechanism for constructors to prove that they are able to accomplish Something Very Hard, that would be one thing. But I do not feel that way!
I am so grumpy today! Did any of you mistake me for Rex? I just watched "Scrooged" this evening and I am feeling immensely Scrooge-like. I hope I am not visited in a dream by three horrifying ghosts that warn me not to be grumpy on the internet.
Bullets:
- [Hercule Poirot, e.g.] for TEC— NO ONE SAYS THIS. NO ONE SAYS THIS!!!!! Constructors, if you are reading this post, STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW. AND DELETE THIS FROM YOUR WORD LIST. RIGHT NOW!!!!! RIGHT! NOW!
- Actually, I'm using up all my bullet point real estate to complain about the entry TEC
- It is not a thing! And if it was once, it is not anymore. LET'S ALL MOVE ON FROM TEC, OKAY??
- #DeleteTEC