Note – this post was started shortly after the puzzle was published on 23 October, but as mentioned in the post for the 30 October 2024 puzzle, I got distracted and never finished it. The below is a partial post at the request of several kind solvers/readers.
The wonderful weather continues here at home and in Cleveland, Ohio where I was earlier this week for a short work trip. The leaves are really starting to fall; I cleared them off my deck before I left on Sunday but they’re back in full force, and will continue to do so until they all fall later in November. They’re probably at peak color now, so I’m enjoying the view while it lasts. On to this weeks puzzle.
- Name: Don’t Take it the Wrong Way
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 78
- Difficulty: Hard (my solve time: 8:51)
I read the title “Don’t Take it the Wrong Way” and promptly forgot it. It took me a while after finishing to parse the theme – each themer is a phrase where the last word can be a synonym for stealing, or taking something the “wrong way:”
- 17A: [Floor exercise where one tightens the glutes and raises the buttocks]: PELVIC LIFT – It took me a while to get this one – I figured the first part from the crosses and picturing the described exercise. But I didn’t know the actual name of the exercise. In any event, the use of lift to mean to steal something apparently goes back to the 16th century.
- 24A: [Suffer under increasing costs]: FEEL THE PINCH – To pinch is to steal something, particularly an item of little value.
- 40A: [1990 comedy in which Schwarzenegger poses as a teacher]: KINDERGARTEN COP – To cop something is to take it illicitly or strike an attitude. I don’t think I ever saw the movie.
- 51A: [Coveted ball in a Harry Potter Quidditch game]: GOLDEN SNITCH – To snitch something is to take it from someone; it also means to tell on someone to higher authority. I never read the Harry Potter books and only halfheartedly watched the movies, so this was probably the hardest themer for me to get.
- 62A: [Show interest on Tinder, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme]: SWIPE RIGHT – the revealer. Each of the final words (at the right end of the phrase) of the themers is a synonym for “swipe.”
Canadian content:
- 1A: [Holey Soles rival: CROCS – I’d never heard of this Canadian brand before, now just known as Holeys.
- 35A: [Peterson of “Corner Gas”]: ERIC – Eric Peterson was born in Indian Head, Saskatchewan and played Oscar Leroy on “Corner Gas.”
- [there are others but I didn’t get to them]
Quote of the week:
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
– Douglas Adams