Saturday, October 9, 2021

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, has many delightful clues and answers. But it is on the easy side. 1-D, four letters, “Name from Old Norse for ‘grandfather’”: I could guess at that. And then I looked at 19-A, three letters, “Muskrat habitat” and saw that I must have 1-A right. And so it went, mostly. This was another puzzle in which the southwest corner was a struggle, thanks to 33-D, eight letters, “4 Yards More sporting goods.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

1-A, ten letters, “Excessively angled.” Aha.

11-D, five letters, “Numbers put together.” I thought the answer must be about math.

15-A, ten letters, “Modern civil rights phrase.” Good to see this sentiment (a sentence, not a phrase) in a puzzle.

34-D, eight letters, “Coffee creamer flavor.” I would never use the stuff. But my friend Aldo liked the original. That’s why the answer came to me.

38-D, eight letters, “Hot tuna roll ingredient.” I’m glad I already knew how to spell it.

45-D, six letters, “Formal disclosure.” I thought it must be a term from the law.

51-A, three letters, “Letters in Prof. Higgins’ notebook.” Very clever.

62-A, four letters, “Walk-on part.” CAMEO doesn’t fit.

A clue whose answer I understood only after looking it up: 43-D, three letters, “Group kept in banks.”

And my favorite in this puzzle: 35-D, eight letters, “Poppy?”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

comments: 1

Michael Leddy said...

OLAF. FEN. GOLFTEES. (Not -GEAR, not -WEAR.)

OVERFISHED. ALBUM. LOVEISLOVE. AMARETTO. SRIRACHA. ITWASI.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet.) SOLE. ABO. (Blood types.) PATERNAL.