MONDAY PUZZLE — I am not a nosy person by nature, but if I didn’t know better, I would say that the constructor David Alfred Bywaters is feeling down (sorry).
Breakups are never fun, and if you believe that puzzle makers occasionally embed cries for help in their grids, it seems as if he is missing someone right now.
There, there, Mr. Bywaters; it takes time, but things will get better. It may seem clichéd, but the saying is true: Everything will be OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.
I find that to be a comfort when it comes to many issues in life.
Tricky Clues
9A. My tuition dollars at work: The Older Child was an art student in college, which is how I learned all about GESSO and how much it cost over the course of four years.
44A. Hand up if you think we should petition dictionaries to change this word to REUNI, instead of REUNE. If alumni get together on important occasions having to do with their alma mater, aren’t they going back to university?
6D. If I had someone to tell to “get to work,” I would be more likely to say “hop TO IT,” rather than “hop ON IT,” but I suppose you could do that, too. The most common use that I’m aware of these days for “hopping on” something is when someone asks me to “hop on” a Zoom meeting.
13D. Now that I am working from home for the foreseeable future, my lunch hour no longer ends at ONE P.M. It starts with breakfast and kind of lasts all day, connected by a long line of snacks. What even is time anymore, anyway? Or calories?
18D. Newer solvers: Please do not lose heart when you see a clue like “Emperor just before the Year of the Four Emperors.” Even if you are not an expert on the line of Roman emperors, this one is gettable. Take a deep breath and think: There aren’t many Roman emperors whose names are four letters long. Also, if you had _ _ RO like I did, and you remembered that it was Monday (so it has to be a relatively well-known person), you would eventually come up with NERO.
Today’s Theme
Mr. Bywaters offers us five examples of words that start with EX- and the rest of the base entry is a different, whole word itself. For example, at 17A, the answer to the clue “Stress between you and your former lover?” is EXTENSION, which needs to be read as EX TENSION. Similarly, at 26A, the standards-friendly answer to “Thing your former lover said about you?” is EXCLAIM, or EX CLAIM.
This is a nice, tight theme, although I had a near miss with 66A, where I had EXPENSIVE at first, because to me, EX PENSIVE is closer to being “suspiciously preoccupied” than EX PENDING, which was the answer.
Constructor Notes
There are two kinds of crosswords — those that try to be funny, and those that don’t. I prefer the first kind. Even when, as often happens, they’re not actually funny, I respect the impulse behind them. And you’ll find that impulse expressed weekly, in the puzzles I offer free on my website, davidalfredbywaters.com.
In this puzzle, however, I seek to strike a more serious note. Isotopes of XENON are used to monitor test-ban compliance and, with that entry, I call attention to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. And NERO is here as a warning to tyrants everywhere: You may flourish for a season, but your name (particularly if it’s crossword-friendly) will live in infamy!
The Tipping Point
Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.
Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
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"Hour" - Google News
August 24, 2020 at 05:00AM
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End of a Lunch Hour - The New York Times
"Hour" - Google News
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