Have you met this puzzle?
SUNDAY PUZZLE —Hi solvers! I’m back with my fourth summer puzzle, and somehow I published a puzzle on both Mother’s Day and, now, Father’s Day. Unfortunately this theme is not fatherly related, but you should still send this puzzle to your dad to solve! Happy Father’s Day! If you have any specific feedback 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
29A: One of my favorite types of knowledge or trivia to include in puzzles is music-related, because I’m both a musician and huge consumer of music. “Clean or distorted, for a guitar” are two examples of TONE, which can be created through guitar amp settings.
37A: You may either know Arnold Palmer, or familiarly as ARNIE, as the golfer or the drink for which he’s named after. It’s a refreshing mix of lemonade and iced tea!
6D: Crosswords sometimes contain obscure words as a sacrifice to allow for longer, better entries. This was a new word for me too, so don’t feel bad! A SOU is an old French coin, but it also is an archaic term for an “Insignificant amount.”
7D: Perfect pitch is a rare ability that not many people are gifted with. However, through rigorous AURAL training, some music majors can train their ears to achieve it. We aren’t all like Charlie Puth! Try for yourself.
9D: This “Pair of socks?” doesn’t refer to something you’d find in a drawer, but rather in a boxing ring. A ONE TWO is a boxing combo of punches, or socks, slangily.
11D: I hope you paid attention in driver’s ed. If you didn’t, you might’ve had a hard time figuring out this clue (and maybe parallel parking). “Good judgement while driving, e.g.” refers to ROAD SENSE.
22D: This is another quite random word for which I never would’ve thought means what it does. A “Dazzling display” refers to ECLAT. Almost sounds like eclair, yum!
Today’s Theme
I love themes that almost hide in plain sight, and this one is no exception. A “Get-know-you-question … or a hint to what the answers do in 17-, 25-, 40- and 50-Across” is an ICE BREAKER. I’m sure most of you are no stranger to answering these, sometimes awkward, questions at orientation or some other socializing event. However, you may be unfamiliar with recognizing how a word can break up another word within it, which is what each of the theme entries do. We have MAIN COURSE, PILLOW CASES, STARING CONTESTS and BIRD WATCHER, which all break up the word “ice,” indicated by the circled letters. The hardest part of making this theme was finding words that used each of the letters in “ice” just once and in consecutive order to make the theme tighter visually, and solvable.
Answer Key:
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