Saturday, April 29, 2023

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by “Lester Ruff” (Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor), is not that much less rough. To my mind it’s a challenging puzzle. My ruffometer may be off.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, eight letters, “Spread around for sealing.” Tile background FTW.

5-D, four letters, “Sound made by toasters.”

14-D, six letters, “One of MLB’s oldest mascots.” I had no idea.

15-A, ten letters, “Conservative leader since October 2022.” Not exactly a giveaway, as it’s necessary to know the spelling.

23-D, three letters, “Lib. ___.” Surprising stuff.

25-D, six letters, “One of ‘The French Dickenses.’” I knew it, I knew it.

35-A, three letters, “Preschoolers?” Groan.

37-A, three letters, “Home deconstruction tool.” It’s really spelled like so.

42-D, seven letters, “One present at autograph sessions.” I want to quibble about the answer, but the answer is a thing.

48-D, six letters, “To whom ‘hello’ is ‘alofa.’” Uh, BAKERY?

50-A, five letters, “KFC freebie.” Gee, thanks, Colonel Sanders!

56-D, four letters, “Thumb-made preface.” Weird and wonderful.

65-A, ten letters, “Keats and Yeats.” I find it difficult to think of the answer as appropriate to either poet.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

comments: 3

Michael Leddy said...

TROWELED. TING. MRSMET. RISHISUNAK. SCI. BALZAC. ROE. ADZ.

FELTPEN. (I think of it as a felt-tip pen.) SAMOAN. SPORK. IMHO.

SONNETEERS. (I think that sonneteer better applies to a poet much more closely identified with that form. Thomas Wyatt, say, or any Elizabethan sonneteer.)

shallnot said...

I suppose it would have to be SPORK as “runcible spoon” wouldn’t quite fit...

Michael Leddy said...

Ha! But that would be a great crossword answer, or clue.