![]() 40A: Not be square, say ( OWE) - this is what stopped me from coming flying down the west side of the grid early on.Hard to knock a puzzle that makes you feel all-powerful. OK, I did muff the last one a little, writing in BOWLING PINS instead of BOWLING BALL, but crosses made that error disappear quickly ( DILLY got me out of the pickle!), and I still never saw the themer clue. Got blocked trying to descend via the long answers in the SW, but just reversed and went the other way and did not stop until I'd circled all the way back to those same long answers, filling them in from below to finish things off. But once that answer got sorted, and once I saw what the theme type was going to be, I took off. I had MESS / MUSS / FUSS / god knows what else. And then I had a little trouble coming up with FISH (18D: Rummage (around)), which seemed likewise obliquely clued. am I really moving at all?" I had my customary trouble getting out of the gate today, with DUG IN instead of HAD AT at 1A: Began devouring, say. "Well, the speedometer says I'm flying, but. You can do 90 or 100 in the middle of the Utah desert, but while the scenery is occasionally beautiful, it doesn't change for long periods of time. when the view out the window isn't entirely monotonous. I love the whoosh-whoosh feeling of flying through a grid, but it's a lot more thrilling when the scenery that's flying by is varied and interesting and when you change elevation, swoop around curves. It's nice when a very easy puzzle is also very good. ![]() And yet the solve never felt ho-hum because the "it!" examples are solid and the overall quality of the grid is so high. So, thematically, it's fine, cute, but it's the kind of wordplay you see every day in the crossword, so not exactly special. It's a very nice grid, and the extreme easiness makes it, well, easy to appreciate and enjoy. You expect to find those showy long Downs in the corners, but here you get two more in the bargain. Maybe the "OH" on " OH, WOE IS ME!" feels a little tacked on / redundant, but still, the emotional energy of that answer alongside the insistence of " I MEAN THAT!" is very nice, and THREEPEAT next to BOOKMAKER! I mean, I hate sports gambling, particularly the way sports gambling has taken over sports coverage, sports advertising, etc., but putting the betting term next to the sports term here, and having them both be so colorful? Mwah! And then you've got SURE-FIRE and PINE AWAY tucked in to the middle as bonus longer answers. I always want to shoot the words BIOME and BIOTA into the sun (they exist for me only in crosswords), but nothing else except maybe OHMS gave me that "ugh, not again" feeling, and those longer answers in the NE and SW are real lookers. It's like the constructor knew the theme was a little on the light side, conceptually, and so made sure that there were interesting non-thematic features, and that the grid was very clean and polished overall. What's more remarkable today is the quality of the grid as a whole. Doesn't strike me as that inventive, and yet the effect is kinda fun. an example of the "it!" Normally, clue and answer have to agree in terms of what part of speech they are, and the "!" in this type of clue indicates that the clue is going to violate that norm. SPEED UP), you get an example of a thing you might step on, i.e. Step on it!) and instead of getting a verb or verb phrase (e.g. In everyday crossword solving, the "it!" clue is basically a variation on the "?" clue-you take a familiar expression (e.g. He is also known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy and music theory. ![]() ![]() He introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and notation, including the notion of a mathematical function. Leonhard Euler ( / ˈ ɔɪ l ər/ OY-lər, German: 15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. Word of the Day: Leonhard EULER ( 51D: Pioneer in calculus notation). Basically this is a common clue type (the "!" clue) turned into a theme: THEME: Figure it out! - Themers are familiar colloquial expressions that take the form of imperatives (commands) with "it" in them answers are the "it," if you take the expression as a pun.
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