Sunday March 24th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 29:38
Sunday Average: 47:42
Best Sunday: 21:55

Title: Code Switching

Since I spend more than most on the phone with airline representatives reading out series of letters, I’ve recently been making a point of learning the NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET, so I was tickled to recognize the theme of today’s puzzle. There are a couple letters that I forget, mostly because they’re less fun than whiskey or sierra, such as mike and kilo. Mike is really the best we could do for M?

As far as the theme goes, we have common phrases that feature a word that sounds like a letter and replace that letter with the NATO equivalent.

  • “Ballroom dancing event for Beantown residents?:” BOSTON TANGO PARTY. So, instead of Boston Tea Party, we replace the Tea with Tango and wackiness ensues. 
  • “Annoying member of a New York baseball team?:” YANKEE BOTHER. Why bother with the redundancy of having “annoying” in there? Boom!
  • “Wager in which the winner gets the loser’s pants and jersey?:” UNIFORM BET. You bet that sounds like something that would happen at an ultimate tournament. 
  • “Duo ruling a kingdom on Take Your Daughter to Work Day?:” THE PRINCESS AND THE PAPA. I don’t have anything clever for The Princess and the Pea, but it’s hard not to think about Arrested Development when reading the clue.
  • “Exclamation after a performance of ‘Every Breath You Take?:” BRAVO STING. I was just going to say “What a creepy song!” No?
  • “Amusement park named after ‘Peanuts’ boy?:” CHARLIE WORLD. A melancholy Charlie Brown Park sounds more fun to me than Sea World, but is that just me?  
Why talk about the Scoville scale when you could have a clue about Greg SERRANO from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? How many times have I mentioned that show on this blog? Sorry, but it’s one of the most important tv series happening right now.

Wow, I just couldn’t parse AL-SORAN for “One who didn’t even show?” I was thinking there was some text or play that I should have been familiar with. Oh, it’s ALSO RAN. Got it.

I had no idea that DESERET was an “Early name for Utah.” Also, it turns out that it’s not a misspelling of “desert,” but comes from the word for “honeybee” in The Book of Mormon. Speaking of Mormons, I’m reading Educated by Tara Westover, as are about 30 other people I know and I hear there are 738 holds on it at the Denver Public Library, so you’ve probably heard of it. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 24, 2019 at 12:23 PM

    Soran means gravel in finnish, and al is an article in arabic. Where is the crossword built around mismatched language bits that mean something in a third also unrelated language when smooshed together?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. QuillMarch 24, 2019 at 2:00 PM

      Let’s make it.

      Delete
    2. S. SandrigonMarch 27, 2019 at 6:07 PM

      I never got "Nato," I still have a few empty squares. Corrina and I finished it separately while we took separate naps. I didn't guess the theme until Boston Tango Party. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?

      Delete
  2. S. SandrigonMarch 27, 2019 at 6:07 PM

    PS I've real 20 pages of Middlemarch.

    ReplyDelete

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