Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by David P. Williams, had me baffled at many points. I’m just going to honest here. I’m not that informed on 1-A, eight letters, “South Carolina symbol.” I ended up switching from a printed puzzle to an online version and figuring out a handful of tough spots with autocorrect flagging my mistakes.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

2-D, letters, “Old-fashioned, technically.” Nicely worded.

11-D, three letters, “Animal in a garnish etymology.” I see it there, but I can’t claim to understand why it’s there.

21-D, three letters, “Dishware arrived there in 2026.” I knew it had to be that there.

22-A, three letters, “JFK predecessor.” Kinda perverse. My first thought was DDE. My second was “What was the code for Idlewild?” I think this clue plays a bit unfairly with the meaning of predecessor.

32-D, three letters, “Thousands of Athenians.” I know what the answer means, but I have no idea what this answer means. Now I do.

33-A, six letters, “Hardly a family man.” Aw, come on.

40-A, three letters, “Yellow belly.” Isn’t it spelled with four letters — wuss?

48-A, four letters, “Arian intro.” Fun if you know about Arianism, but I doubt that was the intent here.

60-A, eight letters, “Lack of ice?” Clever.

My favorites in this puzzle are the two answers that cross at the center: 8-D, fifteen letters, “It’s unreal” and 34-A, thirteen letters, “False response from AI.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.