I wished you all a belated Happy Canada Day last week, and this week my post itself is belated. I’ll blame my tardiness on the heat – it’s been roasting here with no letup in sight. I hope wherever you are you are able to keep cool, and maybe even take time off to go to the beach or mountains (or both). Wherever you go, I hope you enjoyed the puzzle, and were not too disappointed that I didn’t have the blog entry ready once you’d finished. Here we go…
- Name: How Can I Put This
- Size: 15×15
- Entries: 66
- Difficulty: Medium Easy (my solve time: 7:00)
“How can I put this? is something you usually hear when someone has something uncomfortable to say, so I expected a theme along those lines, maybe phrases you’d say to tactfully convey an unpleasant truth. But Barb had a different idea – the themer clues are phrases used to describe certain types of words or actual grammatical terms for words, the answers are a different way of describing the words:
- 14A: [Choice words?]: HEADS OR TAILS – Choice words are words that are very pointed, and often delivered angrily. Heads or tails are words used when flipping a coin to make a choice.
- 23A: [Swear words?]: IM NOT LYING – Swear words (be forewarned – lots of them in this link) are profane or obscene, and not to be used in polite company. I’m not lying is what you’d say if you were to swear to tell the truth.
- 32A: [Root words?]: RAH RAH RAH – Root words are those that other words are formed around, often they are Latin or Greek. Rah, rah, rah! is what you’d shout in support of, or while rooting for, your team.
- 47A: [Loan words?]: I OWE YOU ONE – Loan words are those from one language that are used in another. “I owe you one” is what you’d say to someone who gave you a loan.
- 53A: [Empty words?]: ANOTHER ROUND – Empty words are those said without conviction or insincerely. “Another round” is what you’d call for in a pub when you and your friend’s glasses are empty.
A steady but not particularly easy solve – I actually thought it would take me a lot longer and I was surprised by the “congratulations” pop up, as I was sure I had at least one error. There were many head-scratchers in here – 13A, 15D, 19D, 20D, 21D, 24D, 42A – but crossed with more normal stuff so an opportunity to learn a few new things.
Canadian content:
- 17A: [“___ Pizza” (Charlotte Diamond kids’ song)]: I AM A – Somehow I got this right off, though I’d never heard of Charlotte Diamond and certainly had never heard this song. I guess “kids’ song” was kind of a clue that it would be silly.
- 27A: [Like “The National” every hour]: REAIRED – “The National” is the flagship news show of the CBC.
- 34D: [Dream in Drummond]: REVE – Drummond is a regional county municipality in the Centre-du-Québec region of Quebec, and home to Drummondville.
- 59A: [Tal Bachman’s “___ High”]: SHES SO – Tal Bachman was born in Winnipeg and his single “She’s So High” made it to number three on the charts in Canada, topped the US Billboard Adult Top 40 chart, and reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999.
Other stuff:
- 1A: [Replenish with STP]: ADD OIL – At first I thought this was incorrect because I thought STP was just a fuel treatment, but they also sell motor oil.
- 4D: [Safely backed up]: ON DISC – Or maybe not…
- 16A: [“Video Killed the ___ Star”]: RADIO – This is one of my favourite videos of all time and it was the first video played on MTV, back when they actually played videos. I think I like this live version even better than the original.
- 42A: [Delicate perfume bottles]: FLACONS – I’m sure I’ve seen this term before but it didn’t stick with me.
- 52A: [Common computer code]: ASCII – Another one I thought might have been in error – the American Standard Code for Information Exchange is used to encode information for computers, so I thought it was a protocol rather than something like Python or C+ which are programming languages. But “code” is right there in the name, so…
Quote of the week:
“The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.”
-Iris Murdoch