Oops!

Young Oliver Hill's Sunday puzzle (answers) is his third at the Times and his first Sunday. His previous effort was the brilliant X Marks the Spot puzzle last Thanksgiving and his Q-heavy debut (before I started blogging) was memorable too.

This time he reminds us all why spell checkers are so valuable. Let's face it; English is a stupid language and much of the spelling rules are completely arbitrary. Yes, I know there are often etymological reasons but imagine the poor ESL student trying to learn all the knowledge you've spent a lifetime accumulating and you still sometimes see that squiggly red underline in Word. Well, not you, but I sure do. I blogged earlier about how Mark Twain who was quoted in this 2005 puzzle as saying, "I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way."

Philly Solver sent me this link which describes just how badly the worst-spelled words are mangled. It's fascinating reading. Go ahead and be appalled if you like but not everyone cares as much about words as you do and who knows, it's possible that some of those illiterates lead happy and productive lives. I'm not so blasé that I can avoid being appalled myself but I try to keep it in perspective. (This is sacrilege for a crossword blog, right?)

Spelling certainly does count in crosswords and Mr. Hill has done his best to trip us up. A couple of the clues don't feel right to me. "Photoshop options" are RATIOS? I use Photoshop a lot and yes you deal with aspect ratios and selection ratios but that's kind of incidental and not what I think of as options. I was amused by "like some pens" which turns out to be ERASABLE. Really? The ink might be erasable, but the pen itself?

My favorite moment was when I got "product with TV's first advertising jingle, 1948." I had only the J when the answer arrived like a white tornado; it must be AJAX. But that would mean 55 Across, "X-ray ___" would end with an X. We had this clue just a few months ago in a Natan Last puzzle and it makes me smile. What kid didn't want X-ray SPEX? It said right in the comic book ad next to the smiling Sea Monkeys that you could see right through clothes. Wow. I never did order a pair. I'm sure I knew even back then that it wasn't going to give me quite the thrill it promised. By the way, AJAX is also the name for the technology used to make the Quick Clues module in the top right work.

I also liked 34 Down, "Karl Marx's one." Since he's one of the original Godless Communists I think of him as being Russian but he was born and raised in Prussia.

The painting is by Constable. You can click it for a larger view. Are those ELMS? I hope someone will tell me because it would be nice if it were relevant to today's puzzle but it's pretty in any case.

 

Update: Will Shortz mentioned on the radio this morning that today's constructor Oliver Hill is the youngest ever Sunday NYT crossword constructor. Congratulations! A few other tidbits were dropped: Mr. Hill is 17 years old, a a high school senior, and a neighbor of Mr. Shortz.

Having good neighbors doesn't hurt. Stephen Sondheim was mentioned in yesterday's post. His childhood neighbor was Oscar Hammerstein. What a nice way to pick up some tricks of the trade.

Comments

[PhillySolver]

I like doin crosword puzles, but thay do seam to bee ful of errers mos o the tyhme. Dat Will Shirtz needa git a reel degre frum a propar univesty, if ya ax me.

[Linda G]

Just checking my grid against yours...rather than enter all the answers into AcrossLite. It's awfully hard for me to intentionally misspell words, and I wasn't looking forward to it. Blogging it will be tough enough ; )

They look enough like elms to me...

[KarmaSartre]

Cool ELM picture. What was the name of the Constable who painted it?

[Bill from NJ]

Jim-

I'm not sure of protocol on this post but I wanted to weigh in on the Great Quarfoot Debate. Should I post it under the post where it first showed up?

My suggestion is much simpler. Since we are talking about clue that refers to itself rather than what is being described, I recommend Metaclue.

As to the puzzle itself, I'm afraid I was halfway finished before I realized I was falling into the trap, i.e. Improperly misspelling the words. Imagine my embarrassment(sp)

Bill from NJ

[JimH]

@ Bill, there ain’t no protocol here so post where you like. I had no idea quarfoot would be controversial because I had no idea anyone would take the suggestion seriously but since a few have I’ll continue to use it. Metaclue is also fine and maybe that will catch on. Something will. Or not. You can’t tell.

BTW, I think of metaclue as describing, say, the shaded gray squares back on Spaced Out or, for that matter, most clues with circled squares. They’re clues on top of the standard Across and Down clues that help you fill the grid. That’s unlikely to catch on either, but it’s how I think of it.

I do wonder how long it took people to get the gimmick with this one. I was lucky in that occurrence is one of my personal problem words that I’ve had to memorize and when I saw that it wouldn’t fit I laughed and got the trick right away. If I had started with millennium it would have taken longer for me. Funny that with all the practice we had just a few years ago with that word that I still can’t spell it.

[KarmaSartre]

FYI and BTW, Metaclue is the eleventh most commonly misspelled word.

[john farmer]

Metaclue is the eleventh most commonly misspelled word.

I often see it spelled with a q.

When this puzzle hits syndication, I wonder there'll be an overzealous copy editor somewhere who tries to fix the misspellings. It will be a little harder this time.