{"id":5848,"date":"2026-07-19T12:49:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/19\/curvy-clues\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:49:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:49:05","slug":"curvy-clues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/19\/curvy-clues\/","title":{"rendered":"Curvy Clues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Enjoy the snake-like solving!<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/07\/19\">SUNDAY<\/a><\/span><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/05\/24\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/06\/28\">PUZZLE<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/05\/24\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a><strong>\u2014<\/strong><\/span> Hey puzzlers! (I\u2019m trying out a new nickname for you guys) Welcome and thank you for playing today\u2019s puzzle! I have taken a bit of a break from creating themed puzzles, but I am so excited to be back with such a fun theme today. I want to extend a huge thank you to Tobin Saxton, our summer editor, for not only inspiring me to create today\u2019s theme, but for going above and beyond to help me get back into constructing. Despite a deleted puzzle scare, with his help everything came together in time! With that, please direct any questions, comments or concerns to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/constructor-notes-2026-07-19\/mailto:crosswords@umich.edu\">crosswords@umich.edu<\/a>, or reach out to me personally at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/constructor-notes-2026-07-19\/mailto:sammm@umich.edu\">sammm@umich.edu<\/a>. Happy solving!<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tricky Clues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">18A. The TANG of a sword is the \u201cSword part covered by the grip.\u201d Without a grip, what even is a sword? A long sharpened piece of metal, or better stated, an accident waiting to happen. Also known as a shank, the tang of a blade is the incredibly vital piece of metal that attaches the handle of said blade to the blade itself.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">28A. A \u201cCanine\u2019s coat\u201d refers to the ENAMEL of the canine tooth, or the protective coating that prevents you from injuring your tooth. I recently had to go to the dentist, as one of my fillings fell out, and I needed it refilled. I have never been scared of the dentist \u2014 even as a small child \u2014 but for the first time in my life during that appointment , when the doctor hit the sensitive part beneath my enamel, I realized for the first time why\u00a0 people fear dental settings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">5D. While music can often be described abstractly, as in the way it makes you feel or the emotion it evokes, it is often easiest to describe literally in the way the music moves. In this case \u201cBouncy, in a way\u201d refers to UPTEMPO, a speed at which causes the song to \u201cbounce\u201d from down beat to down beat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">8D. \u201cOnes in a Chicago baseball crowd, maybe\u201d refers to CUBFANS, one of two baseball fanbases in the windy city. Now I don\u2019t know too much about baseball, but I was surprised whenresearching for these constructor notes to learn just how often even the best teams lose. In a regular season of 162 games, it isn\u2019t uncommon for a team with less than 100 wins to make it all the way to the World Series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">41D. \u201cFlies all around Africa?\u201d refers to TSETSES, or a species of fly found in Africa. While looking for fun facts about the tsetse, I got jumpscared by a fly finding its way right beside my ear. Who knows, maybe it was drawn in by the huge image of its African counterpart on my laptop screen.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Today\u2019s Theme<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I hope this puzzle sent you for a few twists and turns, because it definitely contorted my brain trying to find a good fill for my\u00a0 strange theme. Starting with 20A, \u201cSphere or cylinder\u201d refers to ROUNDED SURFACE, next 33A \u201cWitches grin, say\u201d refers to CROOKED SMILE, then 40A \u201cWarped perception\u201d refers to TWISTED IMAGE, and finally 54a \u201cAll worked up\u201d refers to BENT OUT OF SHAPE. I love wordplay, and these funky mixed up and turned around words that also fit into common phrases was just too perfect to not make a puzzle about it. Anyways, hope I didn\u2019t turn you around too much, see you in the fall!<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Answer Key:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><\/figure>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enjoy the snake-like solving! SUNDAY PUZZLE \u2014 Hey puzzlers! (I\u2019m trying out a new nickname for you guys) Welcome and thank you for playing today\u2019s puzzle! I have taken a bit of a break from creating themed puzzles, but I am so excited to be back with such a fun theme today. I want to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[5146,5145],"class_list":["post-5848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-clues","tag-curvy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5849,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5848\/revisions\/5849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}