Hot, hot, hot. As July ends we are getting into the dog days of summer, and while I love the month of August for various reasons, the weather is not one of them. I see the first Monday in August is a big day for provincial holidays, so an early Happy Terry Fox Day for you Manitobans, Happy Natal Day to Nova Scotians, and Happy Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and British Columbia Days to residents of those provinces. Celebrate by taking some time off and relaxing by doing a crossword puzzle or two, starting with this one.
- Name: Something’s Fishy
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 72
- Difficulty: Medium (my solve time: 7:01)
I figured “Something’s Fishy” would likely have aquatic creatures worked in somehow, and it does – the themers are two-word phrases where the first word is a fish and the second word is created by changing one letter of the fish to create a nonsense phrase which is then clued punnily:
- 17A: [O.R. doc for a roe-producing fish?]: STURGEON SURGEON – A sturgeon is a type of fish best known for the delicacy caviar, which is made from its roe. Remove the T from sturgeon, and you get a sturgeon surgeon. While they might be an aquatic veterinarian, there is at least one surgeon named Sturgeon, and a study of injuries caused by leaping fish where the victim needed to see a surgeon.
- 23A: [Mocking comment from a predatory fish?]: SHARK SNARK – Change the H in shark to an N and shark snark is what you get. I seem to recall the namesake character in “Jabberjaw” was kind of snarky.
- 34A: [Boxing match between brook fish?]: TROUT BOUT – Replace the TR in trout with B and you get the main event on the babbling brook – a trout bout. .
- 47A: [Swag at a freshwater fish concert?]: PERCH MERCH – Change the P in perch to an M and I’d buy that T-shirt if I was at a Phish concert. I’ll show myself out.
- 55A: [One harassing a flatfish?]: FLOUNDER HOUNDER – Replace the FL in flounder with H and a flounder hounder is born.
This was on the easier side of solves for me, but just barely. The only real snag I had was at 50D/55A. I had no idea who Sammy and Elliot were (and had to look them up) and the sense of hound to mean harass didn’t occur to me so I had an R in there. It took a good part of a minute to review the grid and see what wasn’t working.
Canadian content:
- 27D: [Raptors, on a scoreboard]: TOR – The Toronto Raptors finished 11th in the Eastern Conference of the NBA for the 2024-2025 season.
- 33D: [___ Tom Connors]: STOMPIN – All I know about Stompin’ Tom Connors I have learned from solving these crossword puzzles and writing this blog.
- 46A: [Toronto actress Taylor of “Bones”]: TAMARA – Tamara Taylor was born in Toronto. She played the character Dr. Camille Saroyan in “Bones.”
Other stuff:
- 1A: [Three-letter sandwich]: BLT – I briefly considered putting PBJ in here but my go-to for 3-letter sandwiches is always the bacon, lettuce, and tomato.
- 51A: [Mere commoner]: PLEB – I had the P and filled in PEON, so it took me a little while to figure it out.
- 5D: [Totally cool]: AT EASE – I thought it was amusing that this was immediately adjacent to 4D.
- 7D: [CPAP user’s condition]: APNEA – I initially ready the second letter of the clue as an R and did a double take.
- 45D: [Word before a conclusion]: THEN – I thought THUS and ERGO before finally getting the correct answer from the crosses.
Quote of the week:
“Bad weather always looks worse through a window.”
– Tom Lehrer