Hungarian patriot Nagy / TUE 5-6-14 / Pop star portrayed by J.Lo / Wii ancestor briefly / Player of summer lilt / Chevrolet model beginning in 1958 / H.H. Munro pseudonym

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Medium


THEME: PICK UP (47D: Learn … or a word that can precede the ends of 20-, 29-, 44- and 53-Across) — just what it says

Theme answers:

• ICE CREAM TRUCK
• CUTS IN LINE
• TRIVIA GAME
• SWIZZLE STICKS

Word of the Day: PICAYUNE (6D: Paltry) —

adj.

1. Of little value or importance; paltry. See synonyms at trivial.
2. Petty; mean.

n.

1. A Spanish-American half-real piece formerly used in parts of the southern United States.
2. A five-cent piece.
3. Something of very little value; a trifle: not worth a picayune.

[Louisiana French picaillon, small coin, from French, from Provençal picaioun, from picaio, money, perhaps from Old Provençal piquar, to jingle, clink, from Vulgar Latin *piccāre, to pierce. See pique.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/picayune#ixzz30tjIngOC

Pretty standard words-that-can-follow puzzle with an oddly placed revealer.  Much of the short fill is pretty bad (IMRE, YAH (?), D.A. crossing P.D.A., NEDSandSTANS, etc.), but some of the longer fill is pretty good (PICAYUNE, SWIZZLE STICKS, BALL PIT). Puzzle started out kinda hard for me, as NO TIME (1D: "Gotta fly, sorry!"), MINUS (23A: -) and (esp.) CULT (21D: Kind of movie) proved very elusive, but once I got moving, difficulty level swung back to normal. Trying to see if there's very much interesting to say about this puzzle … there's an over-reliance on abbrevs., I think. I wonder if anyone but me tried to answer 61A: Staple of Agatha Christie mysteries with POIROT (instead of the correct POISON). I never had PRE-CALC, just Algebra II then Trig then Calc, so I didn't know PRE-CALC was related to algebra (9D: Advanced algebra class, informally). That meant that I closed the puzzle about as slowly as I opened it, relying on crosses to LOOK ALIKE to get me into that NE corner, and even then screwing things up a bit (PLAN for PLOY initially at 9A: Stratagem).


I believe that's all I have to say about this one. An acceptable, fairly average Tuesday offering.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld