I hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. Yay, Blue Jays! Sorry, but now I have to root against them as I explained last week. Actually, I wouldn’t be all that upset if the Blue Jays made it to the World Series. On to this week’s puzzle.
- Name: The Theory of Relatives
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 72
- Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 7:23)
“The Theory of Relatives” is word play on the theory of relativity. But this week we have a quip puzzle that is a kind of theory about the relationship between relatives:
- 17A: [Part 1 of a Robert Heinlein quote]: A FAMILY
- 29A: [The quote, part 2]: REUNION IS AN
- 36A: [The quote, part 3]: EFFECTIVE
- 48A: [The quote, part 4]: FORM OF BIRTH
- 63A: [End of the quote]: CONTROL
Quips are a fun break from “regular” themed puzzles. If you know the quip, they can be helpful with the solve, but even if you don’t know it you can usually make intelligent guesses about how the words likely go together. I had heard this quote, but didn’t know it was attributed to Robert Heinlein. I knew of him as a science fiction writer, but he also was a naval officer (graduated from Annapolis in 1929), and an aeronautical engineer. Apparently he is also the source of pithy quips, including one of my favorites: “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” He was the source for the quote for the “Loafing Around” blog entry in March this year. He gets this weeks spot as well.
Canadian content:
- 10D: [Canadian Club products]: RYES – In addition to rye whisky, Canadian Club also makes many other Canadian whiskies.
- 18A: [Green Gables girl’s locks]: TRESSES – “Anne of Green Gables” was set on Prince Edward Island.
- 26D: [Nunavut explorer John ___]: RAE – Though he was born in Scotland, John Rae explored what is now Nunavut and learned travel and survival skills from First Nation and Metis people, including how to use sleds and snow-shoes.
- 27D: [Argos’ prov.]: ONT – The Toronto Argonauts appropriately play their home games in Ontario.
- 30D: [Article in Le Devoir?]: UNE – Le Devoir is a French language periodical published out of Montreal.
- 38D: [Argos on scoreboards]: TOR – See 27D above.
- 40D: [Argos’ grp.]: CFL – The Argonauts are part of the Canadian Football League; see 27D and 38D above.
- 43A: [Rt. ___ Prime Minister]: HON – “Right Honourable” is the appropriate style of address for the Prime Minister and several other government dignitaries.
- 52A: [Montreal Canadiens grp. until 1917]: NHA -The National Hockey Association existed from 1909 through 1917, and is the immediate predecessor of the National Hockey League.
- 59D: [Snowbirds mil. grp.]: RCAF – The Snowbirds are Canada’s military aerobatic team and part of the Royal Canadian Air Force. They are also Canadians who winter in Florida, and an organization protecting their rights, but not for the purposes of this clue.
Other stuff:
- 4D: [Grow softer, on a score: Abbr.]: DIMIN– I couldn’t get decrescendo out of my mind, so had to circle back after filling a few of the crosses to see diminuendo.
- 37D: [To mate]: FRO – I had the meaning from chess stuck in my head so was trying to come up with another word for mate, instead of the word to complete the phrase “to and fro.”
- 50D: [Farmers who make a bundle]: BALERS – I was scratching my head trying to think of the most valuable possible crop, before seeing it’s those who make bales who are making bundles.
- 55A: [Tot’s jumpsuit]: ROMPER – ONESIE fit in here nicely, until I started trying to get any of the crosses.
- 61D: [Record ending]: EST – While it didn’t slow me down much, this had me scratching my head for a while. I was thinking of the end of an audio recording, or a suffix to “record” but EST didn’t work for either of those. Then it hit me that a superlative – like a world record – usually ends in EST: fastest, furthest, tallest, etc.
Quote of the week:
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
– Robert A. Heinlein