Orange you glad you solved this puzzle?
SUNDAY PUZZLE –Hi everyone! My name is Tobin and this is my second puzzle of the summer! I’m super excited to share this one because I tried out a theme I’ve always wanted to do! Also, happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! If you have any specific feedback or suggestions for the puzzle, feel free to reach out to me at tobinsax@umich.edu! More general concerns or questions can be sent to crosswords@umich.edu. Happy solving!
Tricky Clues
32A: If you’re not super familiar with crosswords, you might not know why certain crossword clues have question marks, but you might also find these clues to be the most challenging. That’s because they often include wordplay or are PUNS.
45A: OPEC is the largest intergovernmental “Oil grp.,” it coordinates petroleum policies for member countries, focusing on regulating supply, increasing efficiency and providing steady income to producers. Lots of Economics 101 stuff in there!
64A: Even though I love going to the mall, I didn’t know that AERIE was an American Eagle sub-brand. It gets its apt name from the types of nests that eagles build, which are also spelled as eyries.
65A: This is one of those words that is part of crosswordese: a set of words that appear far more in crosswords than in everyday language. Unless you’re from Scotland, you probably didn’t know that a BRAE is a Scottish term for a slope or hillside.
69A: This clue plays on one of my favorite Radiohead songs, “High & Dry.” Here, the answer is SEAS, because it can refer to the “high seas,” which can never be dry since they’re made of water!
18D: Here’s some ancient Egypt knowledge for you: ASWAN is a commercial city on the Nile river and has been inhabited for over 4,500 years!
35D: To have “Used a ‘five-finger discount’” is to have STOLE. This is one of my new favorite idioms!
57D: RENE Descartes was the philosopher that invented the Cartesian coordinate system. This may sound complex but it is likely the coordinate system that most of you know, as it just refers to the x- and y-axis! There are other coordinate systems, however, such as polar, cylindrical and spherical (thank you, Calculus III!).
Today’s Theme
This theme is akin to a Wednesday-level puzzle from The New York Times, as it doesn’t have a traditional revealer like on Mondays or Tuesdays that guides the theme, but fear not—it’s not that bad! There are five clues with question marks and similar cluing structure, starting with “One who…,” and these are the theme entries! Since there is no revealer, the key to solving these words is to decipher the wordplay in each clue. At 17-Across, we have “One who’s the most appealing in the office?” which funnily refers to TOP BANANA, a term for the most important person in an organization. “Appealing” phonetically plays on “peeling,” as you do to a banana. At 61-Across, we have BIG CHEESE, which can be found at the center of a company’s board or a charcuterie board. 10-Down gives us COUCH POTATO, which is hinted at by “rooted” to describe the type of vegetable that potatoes are (they are technically tubers, but culinarily speaking they are considered root vegetables!). 24-Down and 25-Down refer to people with high intelligence: SMART COOKIE and EGG HEAD, respectively. The wordplay here comes from “rises,” which cookies do in the oven, and “cracking,” which can refer to preparing eggs to cook or opening a book.
Answer Key:
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