Anise-flavored liqueur / TUE 4-7-15 / Leader of Transcendentalism movement / Aquino's successor in Philippines / Parapsychologist's study

Constructor: David J. Lieb

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: I think it's that the first word of all the theme answers ends "-OUGH," and the pronunciations of the vowel sound are all slightly different from one another. I think.

Theme answers:

• COUGH MEDICINE (20A: Robitussin or Vicks product)
• DOUGHNUT HOLE (28A: Petite sweet treat)
• TOUGH ON CRIME (43A: Advocating long sentences, say)
• PLOUGH THROUGH (53A: Complete without a break, as a labour)

Word of the Day: NANOGRAM (38D: One-trillionth of a kilo) —

noun

1. one billionth of a gram. (google)

Currently soliciting names for a puzzle that fails thematically, but that is so charming (in terms of overall content) that you don't really care. Someone suggested "Hudson Hawk," which I agree fails, but which I never found charming. So the search for the right term is still on. There are several puzzling things about this theme. The first: what is it? I think my above description is accurate, but that's phenomenally light, and weak, as themes go. When you say all those words (or, in case of DOUGHNUT, word parts), in a row, you don't really feel anything interesting going on. -GH is silent sometimes, pronounced "-FF" other times. This means that the (slight) change in vowel sounds really doesn't register. What you hear are the changing "-GH" sounds. I think the final themer there is supposed to contain a bonus "-OUGH" word in the second position. That is, I think THROUGH in PLOUGH THROUGH is part of the theme. But that answer leads me to yet another problem with this theme: who spells PLOUGH that way, particularly when writing that phrase? I see that the clue tries awkwardly to signal Britishness with the tacked-on "as a labour" [grimace], but thumbs down. "Plow through" out-googles the PLOUGH version something like 5 to 1, and Britishizing one of your themers feels cheap.


But the grid! It's great. What's amazing is that it's *this* lively (so many lovely long Downs) and *this* easy. I haven't finished a Tuesday in under 3 in a while, but I did today. And that's whilst having No Idea what a NANOGRAM was. (note: clue on that one was the puzzle's one other serious fault—you can't abbreviate "kilo" and then not have an abbr. as the answer, esp. on a Tuesday; that's crap). Love MALE MODEL and AÑO NUEVO and PIE CRUST and BEDEVILED (EGGS!), and nothing made me go "ick." OK, maybe VIET and OSE did, but they're so tiny! So, in sum, theme is inadequate, but the overall grid is kind of a hoot.

Now, back to more sports-watching. Great opening day for my Tigers (1-0), who shut out the Twins 4-0. Don't really care about the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship, but I picked Wisconsin to win it all three weeks ago, so … go Wisconsin, I guess. Here's a couple baseball names I think you should know, largely because their 2014 seasons put their names in the realm of legit crossword fare. First, José ALTUVE, second baseman for the Houston (A)'STROS, who was the AL batting champion last year (.341). Second, Corey KLUBER, pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, who was last year's AL Cy Young Award winner. I saw them face each other earlier tonight, and wondered aloud about their crossword prospects. My dog, the only one who could hear me, had no answers.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld