But the end result was a banner month for WSJ puzzles, and one that will be tough to top, I think.Īnyone want to go back and do the NYT and LAT and compare? Anyone? Bueller? Whether this is all related to my little outburst or is just coincidental I’ve no idea. Shenk, they were definitely of a higher quality. That means that, while we got fewer puzzles directly from Mr. While the average of all non-editor puzzles remained about the same, those of the editor, showed a significant boost from 3.25 to 3.68. The average for the Friday contest puzzles went up moderately, but the daily ones improved markedly. On the whole, the puzzles for January were very, very good. You can see that the average for all puzzles for the month went up significantly (3.27 to 3.58). In the parlance of “Marketplace” on NPR, “let’s do the numbers.” But overall, I think they do an okay job of getting a feel for a puzzle (or at least the reception thereof). I know the ratings here are entirely subjective and prone to inaccuracy and inflation or deflation as the case may be. Just because I think stats are interesting, I started keeping track of constructors and puzzles and their ratings on this site. I don’t know that I’ll do this every month, but I think the stats are pretty telling this time around.īack around the 22nd of December I had a little bit of a meltdown and ranted about the prevalence of editor-created puzzles in the WSJ that seemed below par. Since we’ve started a new month, I wanted to look back at January especially as compared to December. Lovely clue, right there.Īnd now for something completely different. New clue for that name as far as I can tell. It is utterly, utterly shameful.īut I don’t want to end this on a down note. And yet here we are, the richest, most powerful nation, slamming the door in their faces. Per Merriam-Webster, it means “a journey especially when undertaken to escape from a dangerous or undesirable situation.” It made me think of all those fleeing danger and seeking HARBOR in friendlier countries. But once I read up on it, I found it so timely. What are your feelings on 20a HEGIRA ? At first, I was irked at this completely unknown (to me) word. I love the word WINSOME, and SWINDLED and HARBOR make for good fill as well. In other words, getting the rest of the themers didn’t involve much brain power, for better or worse.Īs for the rest, we have a morbid mini-theme in 53a PERISHES and 5d EMBALMS. I cottoned on to the theme with the first one, so that made the rest pretty simple, at least the first half of each anyway. I should think STEP OVER would really look like this: ᴤ⊥Eb STEP BACK would make more sense, but BACK is already taken. This one comes with a *wink wink* since it will only work in the Down direction. WSJ – Wed, 2.1.17 – “Turn Signals” by Paul Coulter Got that? That’s a nice “turn of phrase” (heh heh) to use as a gimmick. The answers are actual phrases that consist of the clue in reverse followed by a word that could roughly mean “reversed.” In essence, the second word is a “turn signal” indicating that the first word is the reverse of the clue. Our theme clues are cryptic single words in all caps. Paul Coulter’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Turn Signals” - Jim’s review I didn’t know there was an Eagle constellation at all, to be honest. What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that ALTAIR is a star in the Eagle constellation. If you have congestive heart failure or kidney disease, we will not recommend lots of fluids. That’s true if you have an acute viral illness. If BAE shows up in a puzzle, does that mean the teenagers will stop using it? Kids these days, I tell you.I appreciated the shout-out to Lucretia MOTT.Am I the only person who dropped in SHELL for at 1a?.The clue phrases are not tortured in any way, and the answers are all solid and in-the-language. That gives us “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” the line preceding LEND ME YOUR EARS in the speech Marc Antony makes at Caesar’s funeral. I finally remembered the advice I was given years ago: if you can’t make sense of the theme in the answers, look at the clues – in this case the first word of each theme clue. I went back and looked for EARS in the theme answers. The information we need is in 51a which is LEND ME YOUR EARS. I tried to find something these three answers had in common – anagrams? Hidden words? Something that could precede or follow one part of the clue? I couldn’t think of any phrase that included KUMAR, or HAROLD, for that matter. I suspect that this clue has 1787 rather than 1776 to make it a smidgen more difficult. 43a are not the Constituional Convention.Somewhere, my high school Latin teacher is shaking her fist at me. I dropped GUARD in right away and had to rely on crossings to get started on PRAETORIAN. I have eaten at White Castle, but not since high school.
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