Hey everyone! My schedule got away from me this week – I thought I’d have more free time than I actually did so I’m playing a little catch-up here. This week’s quote will give you a clue where I was, and it wasn’t Catfish Row (although I have been there previously). Let’s just jump right in and I’ll keep it quick.
- Name: Kinda Sorta
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 72
- Difficulty: Very Hard (my solve time: 12:26)
It took me a little while to figure this theme out, and it was more complicated than I initially thought. The title “Kinda Sorta” helps – the themers are odd, nearly nonsensical phrases clued punnily. When you examine them, you see that there is an initial word with “ish” added to it, then the word itself ends the phrase. “Ish” makes the word “kinda sorta.” It’s more complicated in that “ish” isn’t only at the end of the word, it can be inserted in the middle, which took me a while to figure out. Hopefully it will be clearer as I go through the themers below:
- 18A: [Cross-over spot in Seville?]: SPANISH SPAN – This one is the most straightforward, but also misled me for the remaining themers. A “cross-over” is a span; “span-ish” is kinda sorta like a span, but also Spanish (“in Seville”). But the entry ends with “span,” so I thought all the themers would end with the word that had “ish” attached. But that’s not the case as we’ll see below.
- 28A: [Buffs up some ski equipment?]: POLISHES POLES – OK, an additional misdirection here – “Polish” is a nationality just like Spanish, so maybe that’s part of the theme? And “ish” is added to POL, but the entry ends in POLES? It took me forever (and the other themers) to see that “ish” was added inside of POLISHES, so POLES was the end of the answer – see? Yeah, it took me a while as well.
- 42A: [Wraps up handing out traffic violations?]: FINISHES FINES – Similar to 28A, “ish” is inserted into FINES, which wraps up the entry.
- 52A: [Building annex for hopeful stargazers?]: WISHING WING – This one baffled me for a while, as I was still under the impression that “ish” was added to a complete word, and W isn’t a complete word (neither is POL, but that didn’t occur to me until later). So the “ish” is inserted into WING.
I had a very difficult time with this, and not just the themers. Killer naticks at 9D/16A and 50D/57A cost me a ton of time and ultimately a clean solve. Read on for details.
Canadian content:
- 9D: [30 in a school zone, say]: KMH – Assuming (I think reasonably) that 30 kilometers per hour is the speed limit in school zones in Canada, and I recalled a children’s story that featured rabbits named Flopsy, Topsy, Dropsy, and probably Popsy, I confidently entered KPH. I had to reveal my error (costing a clean solve) and run the alphabet to get KMH, which I guess stands for kilometers per hour? After an image search, I now see that the signs read “30 km/h.” 🙄
- 32A: [Vancouver punk band]: DOA – While I’m not familiar with their oeuvre, I recall seeing this band in previous puzzles.
- 34A: [Festival featuring Playland]: PNE – I vaguely remember that there was an exposition in Toronto, and initially entered TNE, thinking it was the Toronto National Exposition (that’s actually the Canadian National Exposition). I knew I had 24D correct, so it started with a P. I ultimately went with PNE, which probably stood for something (Pacific National Expo?), but appears to just be PNE now.
- 41A: [Unique camping shelter in the Prairies]: TIPI – Apparently tipi is the common Canadian spelling; tepee is often used in the US but I have also see teepee, tipee, and teepi.
- 43D: [Mounties’ red fabrics]: SERGES – The classic uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is made of red serge.
- 51A: [Maclean’s release]: ISSUE – Maclean’s is a weekly Canadian newsmagazine.
Other stuff:
- 16A: [A sibling of Cottontail]: MOPSY – Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail are siblings of Peter Rabbit. Popsy is not. ☹️
- 50D: [Not final, in law]: NISI – There was no way I was ever going to get this obscure-to-me term– I tried nolo, noto, and a few other combos, but having no clue what 57A was it was a tossup.
- 57A: [Dye used in cosmetics]: EOSIN – With all those tasty vowels and commonly used consonants S and N, I must have come across this prime example of crosswordese at some point in my solving career, but alas it escaped me for this solve.
Quote of the week:
“The Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg.”
– David Cohn