Comments on: Friday, 3/12/10

By: Quentinc

Quentinc — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:49:44 +0000

As usual, I’m a day late, but thanks for the great guest-blog Joon. MARESNEST made no sense to me, but after Googling I found a “that should have been obvious” explanation:

“The logical explanation is that “mare’s nest” describes a discovery that turns out to be illusory because mares don’t make nests at all. The Oxford English Dictionary says “horse’s nest” is recorded earlier (1583) than “mare’s nest.”"

By: John Haber

John Haber — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:35:49 +0000

UNHAT and OHOH didn’t do much for me either, especially crossed with RHETT, but “foots the bill” for “pays” sounds fine to me, and clue for the crossing TAKES X-RAYS is great. I had EULER as a gimme, too. Funny thing is that I no longer remember my high-school math, so I have no idea how natural logs were introduced and motivated but use them in calculus easily. Never heard of SHE either.

By: ArtLvr

ArtLvr — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:03:26 +0000

p.s. Loved the altered titles in the CS — I started in the South and got a giggle at GHOUL HAND LUKE! Amusing to find that BEQ had similar theme gimmick in his LAT today…

By: Gareth

Gareth — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:50:39 +0000

Mostly easy Friday, very flashy (but that seems par for the course these days!) Found top-right (couldn’t work out all 3 of those long acrosses without lots of help!) and to some extent bottom-left a bit tough.

I tried REDSKINATION, then realised the N was doing double duty… American sports!

Did love ALPHABETSOUP’s clue, and PINATA’s. STATEN was easy enough to work out for me, as I know Afrikaans (which would be Verenigde STATE and that Dutch plurals end in “n”)

And yes: UNHAT = uffle!

By: ArtLvr

ArtLvr — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:13:15 +0000

Wow, well done, Joon. I clicked the timer off part way through to get something to drink and forgot to turn it on again, but I guess that helped. I immediately saw ALPHABET SOUP and was able to finish the last bit in the NW in practically no time from there.

I didn’t know this RHETT either, and was held up a short while earlier wanting Atra for TRAC. I did remember JOE PALOOKA, so your California was easier for me, plus we just had unlovely UNHAT in another puzzle recently, so I just shrugged it off here.

Oh yes, I thought 38D “Rum, to some” was going to be FISHY and really liked my answer, too bad it was just a RHYME which I solved by going upward from EULER. Bug was great for GLITCH, as were many of the misdirecting clues, but my favorite was the PINATA.

If some action can be a “must” or a “no-no”, I suppose an obligation can be an “ought” — but that combo was the longest stretch to me!

By: Tadd Dameron

Tadd Dameron — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:09:16 +0000

“Teeth is to Hen as Nest is to ?”
(from a Ron Hoeflin IQ test cited in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers)