Unusual meat courses that are neither ... / WED 5-22-24 / Longtime bridge columnist Charles / Like fervent fans at the Kentucky Derby, punnily enough / Private eye, in old slang / Progressive advocacy group for public policy

Constructor: Martin Schneider

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DOUBLE MISNOMER (34A: What 18-, 23-, 49- and 56-Across could be called) — familiar things with two-part names where both parts are "misnomers":

Theme answers:

• EGG CREAMS (18A: Carbonated fountain drinks that contain neither ...)
• SWEETBREADS (23A: Unusual meat courses that are neither ...)
• ENGLISH HORN (49A: Woodwind instrument that is neither ...)
• GRAPE NUTS (56A: Breakfast cereal that contains neither ...)

Word of the Day: ENGLISH HORN (49A) —

The cor anglais (UK: /ˌkɔːr ˈɒŋɡleɪ/, US: /- ɑːŋˈɡleɪ/ or original French: [kɔʁ ɑ̃ɡlɛ]; plural: cors anglais), or English horn (in North American English), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto oboe in F.

The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument). This means that music for the cor anglais is written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B♭ key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E₃ (written B♮) below middle C to C₆ two octaves above middle C. Some versions being made today have a Low B♭ Key to Extend the Range down one more note to sounding E♭₃ (wikipedia)

I don't mind the concept here at all, but the execution (specifically the cluing) made things initially awkward. The first theme clue I encountered was 23A: Unusual meat courses that are neither ... and, well, first of all, I have no idea what "unusual meat courses" could possibly mean. "Unusual"? How? For whom? "Unusual meat courses" feels like a phrase that was never used by anyone ever in the history of the world until this very second (seriously, google it in quotation marks and see what you get (I'll tell you: you get this clue—crossword sites as far as the eye can see)). I thought some kind of strange wordplay was AFOOT. So even grasping what the clue was saying on a literal level was strange. But the real problem with the theme cluing is the ellipsis at the end of each clue. That ellipsis implies that my answer should continue and complete the clue phrase, which means that if I'm following the clue's logic, the answer should be SWEET NOR BREADS. "Contains neither ... SWEET NOR BREADS." My brain was not happy with the missing "NOR." Even after I got SWEETBREADS (mmm, lamb pancreas...), I was like "uh, neither SWEETBREADS nor What!?" Not sure how I feel about a completely made-up term being the revealer. I think I'm neutral. Don't love. Don't mind, terribly. My other issue with the execution today, besides the ellipsis / missing NOR thing, is a technical one, specifically the grid construction. It feels like a first-draft grid, where you've got the themers in place but the grid itself is all imbalanced: wide open corners but superchoppy middle. The word count is bizarrely low for a puzzle with a dense theme (72, when you can go to 78 and most themed weekday puzzles run 74-78). Lots of long Downs (well, four of them) run through *three* themers—when you have to run a Down answer through that many themers, your choices get extremely limited, and while BASE TEN, MISGAUGE, INGRATES, DOWNERS are all fine answers, locking them in (which you'd have to do early in the construction) created an inflexibility that is felt throughout the grid in lots of other less-than-great fill. I'm wondering if a black square in each of the corners might not have smoothed things out and helped avoid, say, DONEE ALENE ESS and adjectival INERTIAL, or ERNO ABOO UTE GOREN EIRE EPEE NENE (that's just one corner!), or plural MANNS, or whatever a CLAY PIPE is (that's a "My WordList Said It Was A Thing!" word if ever I saw one). So, in short, concept fine, execution clunky, in multiple ways.