When a Lot of People Know Who You Are Crossword Clue
wordplay, the crossword column
Top-of-the-Line
Lynn Lempel's puzzle is a thou ol' time.
- 255
MONDAY PUZZLE — Talk well-nigh top-of-the-line: This is Lynn Lempel's 97th New York Times Crossword! And they don't phone call her the Queen of the Mondays for nothing — of those 97 puzzles, this is her 70th Monday puzzle.
Ms. Lempel writes in her Constructor Notes that she knew this puzzle would run on a Monday, which naturally raises the question: How did she know that?! Does Ms. Lempel take superpowers? Does she accept a directly line to Volition Shortz's brain? Or is there something particularly Mon about this theme?
My bet is on the theme. Mondays simply have a vibe that'south pretty like shooting fish in a barrel to pin down: They're straightforward yet engaging, and the theme entries are generally words that are both like shooting fish in a barrel for constructors to clue and for solvers to guess. All these things are truthful of today'due south puzzle, and beyond that, there are also some "theme types" that run more often on Mondays than on other days. Today'due south theme falls squarely in that bucket — we'll get to that in a minute — but first, allow's check out some of the tougher clues and entries from this puzzle.
Catchy Clues
36A. When I offset started solving crossword puzzles a couple of hundred years ago, I was certain that "Pinnacle-of-the-line" was the clue for A-Ane because of the steak sauce brand, which I idea was the most delicious condiment on earth. (To be fair, I was a child!) Now that I am old and wise, I know that A-ONE just means "the very best possible," merely I still accept no sense of why this is the case. (I'm adequately certain it'due south not related to steak sauce.) Information technology may be related to the fact that "A" and "ONE" are each the showtime entry in a series, then A-1 is doubly first-rate? If anyone in the comments has a improve (non-condiment) explanation, I'd love to hear information technology!
37A. A journalist who EMBEDS with a armed services unit attaches to that unit, going on deployment with it and reporting back from the site of disharmonize, and so "Places among the troops, every bit a journalist" is the clue for EMBEDS.
46A. "One of 435 in D.C." is a REP, short for one of the 435 members of the Business firm of Representatives. Since D.C. is abbreviated, you know the entry will also be abbreviated.
51A. The "Org. promoting oral health" is the ADA, or American Dental Association. (Sorry, non-American solvers!)
11D. When a clue ends in a preposition, as in "Set i'due south gaze on," it'southward quite likely that the entry will also finish in one. "Ready i'southward gaze" ways STARE, but with that "on" tacked onto the finish, the entry must exist STARE AT.
15D. Ben Gurion Airport is in Tel Aviv, so the "Carrier based at Ben Gurion Drome" is the Israeli airline EL AL, which means "to the skies" in Hebrew.
27D. Churchill Downs is the site of the Kentucky Derby, so the "Minty beverage at Churchill Downs" is the beverage of choice for horse racing fans who attend the effect: the mint JULEP.
29D. The word "informally" in the inkling "Capitol insiders, informally" lets you know that the entry volition be abbreviated or slangy in some way. In this case, the "Capitol insiders" are POLS, which is a Capitol insider way of saying either politicians or politically active people.
36D. One of my 2021 New Year's resolutions was to learn the difference betwixt AXEL and AXLE, and I learned cold that an AXEL is a "Figure skating jump" and an AXLE is a car role. Pocket-sized victories! Let'southward hope I practise equally well in 2022 learning the departure between Mauna LOA and Mauna KEA.
Today'southward Theme
At first, I wasn't sure at that place was a theme in this puzzle — the long Beyond entries did not seem to take terribly much in common equally far equally I could tell, and there was no obvious revealer entry. After a chip more idea, I realized that all the long Across entries did have something in mutual: They all finish with the same sound. And, on top of that, all of those rhyming words were spelled with different variations on that audio.
For instance, the first long Across entry is CEREAL BOWL (17A: "Where to become one'due south Kix?"). This entry ends with -OWL. The next theme entry is Baton JOEL (25A: "Singer/songwriter nicknamed 'Piano Man'"), which ends with -OEL. Despite the different spellings of the -OLE sound, BOWL and JOEL rhyme! This is true for all six of the theme entries: LOST SOUL, EXIT POLL and so forth all share a rhyming concluding word with a different spelling.
This is one of the straightforward only elegant theme types that appear from time to fourth dimension, almost exclusively on Mondays. In fact, equally Ms. Lempel notes beneath, information technology is a chip of a throwback — you don't see themes like this as often every bit you did perhaps 20 years ago, so information technology'southward always fun to encounter them on the rare Mon when they make an advent.
Overall, this is a overnice, simple theme — then simple I virtually didn't notice it — which simply makes me appreciate it more. The subtle execution of this rhyming theme is a perfect showcase for Ms. Lempel's talent of crafting tidy theme sets surrounded by clean, crisp fill. Not a bad way to starting time the week!
Constructor Notes
The vagaries of English are always fun to play around with. Way back when, it seemed popular to publish puzzles with rhyming words: theme answers like TRAFFIC LIGHT, PRIZE FIGHT, STAGE RIGHT. In coming up with rhymes, I ever found information technology a lot more interesting when the spellings were unlike.
"Make clean coal" as an answer gave me a slight intermission because it'south debatable whether there really is such a thing. My original clue included something of a hedge ("Dubious term for a greener energy source"), but the editing squad didn't think that was needed. Actually, there weren't many clue changes overall. It obviously helped with clue-writing to know that this would definitely be slated for a Monday.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2022-01-10.html
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