Saturday, August 17, 2019

Today’s Saturday Stumper

I started today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Greg Johnson, with the question I always start with: Can I do this? For I am never exactly “Brimming with confidence.” That’s 2-D, nine letters.

I saw an easy clue right away: 24-A, “Antitheses of dystopias.” And intersecting that one, another easy one: 11-D, nine letters, “Royal Hawaiian Orchards morsel.” Those two answers gave me seven more answers or partial answers, all of which turned out to be correct. I ended up getting the right half of the puzzle, all of it, before moving to the left. Odd.

Three clues I especially liked: 1-D, nine letters, “Not edgy at all.” 12-D, five letters, “Advice to a waiter.” 31-A, ten letters, “Craftsperson a.k.a. fletcher.” I thank James Tate for the answer to that one.

I think that crosswords teach their solver, mostly, how to solve crosswords. But a clue that taught me something about the outside world: 13-D, five letters, “GPS forerunner.” Like last week’s green wave, new to me.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

comments: 1

Michael Leddy said...

QUITESURE. EDENS. MACADAMIA. SPEHRICAL. INUSE. ARROWSMITH. LORAN.

I owe ARROWSMITH to James Tate’s book of poetry Worshipful Company of Fletchers (1994), which owes its title to the Worshipful Company of Fletchers.

LORAN is an acronym for “long range navigation,” “a hyperbolic radio navigation system developed in the United States during World War II.”