Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners
Relative difficulty: Easy/Medium (9:49)
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THEME: Missing letters / homophones — Letters that are missing from clues appear in entries
Theme answers:
Relative difficulty: Easy/Medium (9:49)
THEME: Missing letters / homophones — Letters that are missing from clues appear in entries
Theme answers:
- [Lip_on produc_s] for INSTANT TEAS (Ts)
- [_lum-colored _lants] for PURPLE PEAS (Ps)
- [_usy _uzzers] for BUMBLE BEES (Bs)
- [Fr_endly fac_al tra_t] for SMILING EYES (Is)
Word of the Day: PURPLE PEAS (see clue above) —
Bullets:
A pea is a most commonly green, occasionally golden yellow, or infrequently purple pod-shaped vegetable, widely grown as a cool-season vegetable crop. [wiki]
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Hi friends, and happy Malaika MWednesday! This is a big weekend for Crossword Events, and I hope I'll be able to see some of you at Crossword Con (where I'll be speaking) or ACPT (where I'll be hanging out on Friday evening).
I solved today's puzzle smoothly and with no stumbling blocks... But I also didn't really focus on theme, I just zoomed through. I did clock that there was something going on with letters and homophones (T vs "tea") but I didn't take the time to figure anything out.
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| Me, breezing through this puzzle at a dive bar on a Tuesday |
Looking at it afterwards, I actually still don't get it! At first I thought the blanks in the clues would correspond to the circles in the entries, but I don't think that's right. (For example, in the clue [Lip_on produc_s] the fourth and thirteenth letters are missing. But in the entry INSTANT TEAS, the T is fourth and seventh.) I was also looking for the entry to reference the fact that the letter was missing (like "cutoff tees" or even "iced teas") but I don't think that's the case either. Can you help me out in the comments if I'm missing something?
My other beef with the theme answers is that only one of the four is a familiar phrase to me. I'm very unconvinced INSTANT TEAS is a thing at all-- many people use "tea" as the plural, and can you tell me what a non-instant tea would look like?? (Edit: While proofreading this, I looked up the phrase and unfortunately it exists. I'll admit that I'm wrong, but I'm still grumpy.) PURPLE PEAS are a plant I've never heard of, and SMILING EYES feels like it should be "kind eyes" or else some sort of reference to smizing.
The rest of the puzzle was simple enough, with cute long answers like I LOVE YOU and LEGO SETS and CATAPULT and MEEMAW. I just built my first ever lego set a couple weeks ago, and it was so much fun that I immediately ordered another-- pictured below.
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| My second Lego Set-- the first was a garbage truck |
Bullets:
- [House of cards?] for CASINO — Such a great clue that my first thought is "Surely this has been done before??" But I've never seen it!
- [Stately country homes] for CHATEAUS— Would you rather live in an estate or a manor or a chateau or a chalet or a villa or a dacha?
- [Do some work as a teaching assistant, maybe] for GRADE — Undergrad readers: I used to work as a teaching assistant. If you feel something was graded incorrectly, you should absolutely request a re-grade!! When I was a mere freshman, I thought that a TA's word was law. As soon as I became a TA, I realized that we were all very competent, but underpaid and usually grading at midnight or later and prone to mistakes.
- [Anheuser-Busch product whose ads once featured a penguin] for BUD ICE — If I were constructing this puzzle, I would have done "bodice" crossing "rode."
P.S. I kept a pretty neutral tone throughout this write-up because I'm convinced there's something I'm missing! A E-S is known for his layered and complex themes, so it must not have clicked for me! But if the answer is as simple as "remove the B's, and then have the word BEES randomly with another word that has nothing to do with anything and no explainer and no revealer and no rationale, no purpose or motivation for these entries or choices" then.... I must say, I am not a fan :(
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