Inside Jokes

I don't usually blog about what I happen to find difficult in a puzzle because, you know, who cares and I'd rather talk about what I find interesting, but today they overlap. The Sunday, August 10 pangram by Will Nediger (answers) has a typical Sunday sort of theme. It worked as intended for me. Once I figured out the trick, the circles helped me solve some of the clues but I still got tripped up in a few corners.

31 Across and Down was a tough cross. You had to know either that TITUS was "Vesparian's successor" or that TSURIS meant trouble or woe in Yiddish. Post "I, Claudius" rulers are tough but Titus is a good guess for any 5-letter emperor since there were a few. In fact, Vesparian's first name was also Titus. He was part of the Roman force that successfully invaded Britain in 43 AD.

The "divine epithet" clue had me humming Handel's Messiah in my head. There's that sequence plagiarized from the King James Version that goes "And his name shall be call-ed..." followed by a long string of divine epithets. It didn't help because CREATOR was not on that list. I can barely abide that piece but I have a friend who has conducted it every December for many years and loves it every time.

"Cereal killer" is a great clue for ERGOT. It's a disease caused by a fungus that wipes out rye and other grasses. Number 4, Bobby ORR gets a break today with his surname clued as "Yossarian's tentmate in Catch-22." Orr was the guy who was always crashing his plane but never had any casualties. It was all part of an elaborate plot. I liked the clue "Athos's arm" as well. What's the French word for arm again? Doesn't matter; we're looking for the English word MUSKET. Athos was one of the Three Musketeers.

"Razor handle" is a brilliant clue for OCCAM. William of Occam invented the KISS principle back in the 14th Century: Keep It Simple, Stupid. It's amazingly useful advice. "People who no what they like" are PURITANS. I suppose so.

I got lots of mail on the new Word Count page I added yesterday, so I've now included two pages with Daily and Sunday stats. The thumbnail views on these are interesting. Thinking about word count made me remember the deceptive Thursday July 26, 2007 puzzle by Joe Krozel. Try to solve the Across Lite version and you'll see why. If you're not a Times Premium subscriber, you can see the puzzle with answers here. The notepad says "While some Across clues in this puzzle are blank, every answer is in fact clued."

Not exactly word count related, but yesterday's constructor Mark Diehl left a comment on Amy's blog noting that his Saturday puzzle broke the previous record of most 8-letter or longer answers in a 15 by 15 crossword. Frank Longo held the old record of 22. Mark Diehl is the new champ with 24. It's not a stat I track on my web site, but it's a very worthy accomplishment. Congratulations!

Ever since John Keats published Ode on a Grecian Urn back in 1820, crossword constructors have taken advantage of it to clue either ODE or URN. The final couplet is justly famous and ends my post today.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Comments

[CrossEyedBear]

What's a Grecian Urn? Oh, about 15 drachmas an hour.

It's not as funny in Euros, is it?

[KarmaSartre]

TITUS Groan. Now I see why. And TSURIS? More TomKat offspring? Pretty esoteric stuff.

[PhillySolver]

So many years ago our late night discussion centered not on the last couplet, but this earlier verse. We could not agree on its validity.

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter!"
As to beauty, this one should be remembered, too.
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

Today's crossword was entertaining and taught me KERF but I think we had TSURIS recently. I guess the joke is on us.

[joon]

hey, i like that piece too. sam was born in november, and all through december whenever we heard "for unto us a child is born" we giggled like schoolchildren. schoolchildren who had just become new parents, i guess. anyway, we don't call him wonder-counselor, god-hero, father forever, or prince of peace. we mostly call him sam, sammy, mister sam, or crankypants. (but seriously, he's pretty good most of the time.)