Oh, what a difficult puzzle. Oh, what a difficult grid. Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Andrew Bell Lewis, is a true Stumper. It’s deceptively easy at first: 1-A, ten letters, “Western ethics attributed to Autry.” And four obvious answers start down from that one. Other answers require retrieval from a considerable distance. In other words, they’re farfetched. Take 28-A, four letters, “Avoid capping.” Take 30-A, three letters, “Well-loved trio.” Take 48-D, four letters, “It’s swallowed by piranha.” Take these clues, please.
Some clue-and-answer pairings I especially liked:
13-D, eleven letters, “A Charlie Brown Christmas instrumental.” It’s perhaps the one tune that doesn’t spring to mind.
34-D, five letters, “#2 baby girl name in 1960, #959 in 2017.” I remember three girls from elementary school with that name.
42-D, six letters, “City that sounds like sausage.”
47-D, four letters, “Pit follower.” (BEAN? FALL? No.)
56-A, ten letters, “They have no matches.” (NONSMOKERS? No.)
No matches, and no spoilers: the answers are in the comments.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Today’s Saturday Stumper
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comments: 5
COWBOYCODE. ANCE. ELS. IRAN. OTANNENBAUM. SUSAN. BANGOR. APAT. NONPAREILS.
Here, for students of ethics, is Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code.
Could you explain "Avoid capping": ANCE, "well'loved trio": ELS, "it's swallowed by piranha": IRAN, and "pit follower": APAT?
Here goes: avoidANCE (is that capping?), weLL-Loved (three l’s), pIRANha, pit-a-pat. Tedious, especially the capping.
I had come up with PIT-IFUL, which was not a help. Got the code, the Maine city, and the tune, all of the NW corner ....and then Pfft.
It was one tough puzzle. I found the center the tough spot. I thought AIRS had to be FIRS (because fragrant trees would be a “Sniffy display”?) and just could not see the cross of AXE and OXEN without running the alphabet.
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