Constructor: Matthew Stock and Brooke Husic
Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe a little north of that, for me)
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THEME: A MATTER OF DEGREE (54A: Not distinguished by large differences ... or an apt title for this puzzle?) — clues look like university degree abbreviations ([[degree letters] in [some field of study]?]); answers are items that have the same initials as the degree in question and have some relationship to the indicated field of study:
Theme answers:
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Well, if you have an advanced degree in a STEM field, have I got a puzzle for you. Hard drives and MATH TEAMs and website DEVs who all probably went to UNI at YALE (in Crossworld, everyone goes to YALE—it's mandatory). The theme is pretty clever and works pretty well, but it wasn't really MEANT for me. I don't even know what a POCKET HARD DRIVE is. Now, I can guess. I'm guessing it's a hard drive ... that's portable. [looks it up] Yep, that's exactly what it is, though (according to my search returns) they seem to be typically marketed as just that: "portable hard drives." I'm sure it's a common term in some worlds. But not mine. So since the answer couldn't be POCKET PROTECTOR (which would've been right on the money, in '80s computer geek iconography), I had no idea. I even stared at POCKETHARD for a bit, wondering if I was parsing it wrong ("... pocké-thard?"). Eventually I inferred the DRIVE part (shouldn't have taken me that long). The DRIVE area—therefore—ended up being the hardest part of the puzzle for me. DRIVE wasn't there to help out (for a while), and none of the Downs coming off of SLIDE were computing either. I had DEDUCE for DERIVE in there for a bit (30D: Obtain through logic). I basically finished the rest of the puzzle and then backed up into that section via ADDRESS (41D: Speak to). Then the HARD DRIVE part became obvious, *then* I polished off that DEV / DERIVE section. I enjoyed the concept today, though ... a couple things. One, BRAILLE ALPHABET ended up seeming like something of an outlier, since MICROSCOPE SLIDEs and POCKET HARD DRIVEs seem like things directly associated with the fields of study in their clues, whereas the field of "Communications" has nothing to do with Braille. The word "Communications" there is taken much more broadly. It's a minor thing, but a noticeable thing. There was something less-than-snappy about the themers, including the revealer, but I can't argue with the basic logic of the thing. Themewise, I think this holds up reasonably well.
Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe a little north of that, for me)
Theme answers:
- BRAILLE ALPHABET (16A: B.A. in Communications?)
- MICROSCOPE SLIDE (26A: M.S. in Biology?)
- POCKET HARD DRIVE (42A: Ph.D. in Computing?)
The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL). Seasons usually run from August to May, with each team playing 38 matches: two against each other team, one home and one away. Most games are played on weekend afternoons, with occasional weekday evening fixtures. [...] The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes, with a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people. For the 2018–19 season, the average Premier League match attendance was 38,181, second to the German Bundesliga's 43,500, while aggregated attendance across all matches was the highest of any association football league at 14,508,981, and most stadium occupancies are near capacity. As of 2023, the Premier League is ranked first in the UEFA coefficient rankings based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons, ahead of Spain's La Liga. The English top-flight has produced the second-highest number of European Cup / UEFA Champions League titles, with a record six English clubs having won fifteen European championships in total. (wikipedia)
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Well, if you have an advanced degree in a STEM field, have I got a puzzle for you. Hard drives and MATH TEAMs and website DEVs who all probably went to UNI at YALE (in Crossworld, everyone goes to YALE—it's mandatory). The theme is pretty clever and works pretty well, but it wasn't really MEANT for me. I don't even know what a POCKET HARD DRIVE is. Now, I can guess. I'm guessing it's a hard drive ... that's portable. [looks it up] Yep, that's exactly what it is, though (according to my search returns) they seem to be typically marketed as just that: "portable hard drives." I'm sure it's a common term in some worlds. But not mine. So since the answer couldn't be POCKET PROTECTOR (which would've been right on the money, in '80s computer geek iconography), I had no idea. I even stared at POCKETHARD for a bit, wondering if I was parsing it wrong ("... pocké-thard?"). Eventually I inferred the DRIVE part (shouldn't have taken me that long). The DRIVE area—therefore—ended up being the hardest part of the puzzle for me. DRIVE wasn't there to help out (for a while), and none of the Downs coming off of SLIDE were computing either. I had DEDUCE for DERIVE in there for a bit (30D: Obtain through logic). I basically finished the rest of the puzzle and then backed up into that section via ADDRESS (41D: Speak to). Then the HARD DRIVE part became obvious, *then* I polished off that DEV / DERIVE section. I enjoyed the concept today, though ... a couple things. One, BRAILLE ALPHABET ended up seeming like something of an outlier, since MICROSCOPE SLIDEs and POCKET HARD DRIVEs seem like things directly associated with the fields of study in their clues, whereas the field of "Communications" has nothing to do with Braille. The word "Communications" there is taken much more broadly. It's a minor thing, but a noticeable thing. There was something less-than-snappy about the themers, including the revealer, but I can't argue with the basic logic of the thing. Themewise, I think this holds up reasonably well.
As for the fill, the puzzle opens with a high and tight fastball—a real keep-you-on-your-toes clue at 1A: Birth day party? (DOULA, i.e. a "party" (i.e. one of the people present) at a birth)— so I went in prepared for a fight, but it all played at a fairly normal Wednesday level for me (the hard drive fiasco notwithstanding). Felt a little name-y in places, but probably not any namier than your usual puzzle, and anyway, I mostly knew the names. Naomi OSAKA and DEB Haaland are practically crosswordese by now. I've never read (or seen) Life of Pi but I somehow knew PATEL (and anyway, PATEL is a very common surname—not hard to infer from a few crosses) (I'm wondering now whether DEV / PATEL wasn't originally a cross-referenced pair of clues). The only episode of How I Met Your Mother I ever saw was the one that Will Shortz was on, so TED schmed, but crosses took care of things there. Hey, speaking of Will Shortz, there's a fascinating (and very encouraging) interview with him in the October/November issue of Brain & Life, all about his stroke earlier this year and his current recovery process (thanks to reader Mike S. for sending it to me).
The only answer in the whole puzzle that really made me wince was EPL (57D: Soccer org. for Chelsea and Manchester United). I have watched Premier League soccer a bunch over the years (idly, because it was there ... I can get sucked into sports, even sports I know nothing about, really ridiculously quickly if you put them in front of my face ... ask me about literally every Olympics event I've ever watched; doesn't take long for me to get invested). Anyway, Premier League ... Premier League ... that is the term. That is the only thing I've ever heard it called. I got the "E" today and thought "European ... something something? I thought Chelsea and Man U were Premier League teams." And they are. EPL (apparently) stands for English Premier League. This is news to me. It's apparently also news to whoever wrote the (vast) wikipedia entry on the Premier League, since the abbreviation "EPL" appears not one time in the entire thing. EFL appears in the first paragraph, but EPL, nowhere. So I'm just gonna trust that EPL is common online, in headlines, on ESPN and other sports channels and sports sites, etc. (it is, I just went and looked). But yeesh. I don't understand going out of your way to debut that one. Is Crossworld improved by the addition of Yet Another 3-letter abbrev., one that isn't even in common parlance? You actually say NFL, NHL, NBA ... but do you really say EPL? No, you say "Premier League." One thing that's come out of all this is that I now know that EPL also stands for Employment Practices Liability, a type of insurance you get if you're a business interested in violating your employees' rights. When you get sued for wrongful termination, discrimination, or harassment, EPL is there for you—the business, the real victim.
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Bullets:
- 10A: Pick up the tab (BUY)— had the "Y," wrote in PAY. D'oh!
- 47A: "___ Mubarak!" (greeting around Ramadan) (EID)— Like DEB Haaland, this one should be a gimme for you by now. Amazing that EID didn't appear in the puzzle until 2019 (!?). If you think it's a marginal holiday (or, god help you, "obscure"), tell that to the two billion Muslims currently inhabiting the planet. What's truly fascinating is that EID actually did appear in the puzzle a bunch, in the olden days (1957-89) ... just not in Muslim festival form. [Image: Comb. form]? [Oath: Ger.]?? [Canton in Norway]??? [Leif ___, former news commentator]!?! Man, the pre-Shortzian world was wild.
- 7D: Hissing tire's problem (LEAK) — saw that the answer was four letters, wrote in FLAT with no hesitation.
- 44D: Pot (REEFER) — "Man, someone's tokin' some REEFER..."
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]