Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by David P. Williams, is, to my mind, the best Stumper in many weeks. Difficult as #@&! and hugely satisfying to solve. I began with a gimme, 41-A, nine letters, “‘Break me off a piece’ snack.” The clue that began to break things open: 26-D, seven letters, “Among the top-five fastest production cars (270+ mph.)” I don’t know how the answer popped into my head.
There’s a convention of crossword construction that a word used as an answer should not appear in a clue for another answer. This puzzle breaks with that convention. But it’s okay by me.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-A, eight letters, “Surname like Newhouse.” Starting off with a bang.
5-D, ten letters, “It’s ‘between theology and science,’ per Bertrand Russell.” The obvious answer, PHILOSOPHY, won’t work.
7-D, seven letters, “Escape route.” I’ve used it, often.
9-D, five letters, “French English affectation.” Clever.
12-D, eight letters, “Don’t hold back.” Williams’s Stumpers seem to always include a dowdy colloquialism. I like that.
23-A, five letters, “Mark on the curve.” Takes me back, but not to a classroom.
33-A, six letters, “Turkey topper.” GRAVY doesn’t fit.
35-D, eight letters, “Loudspeaker’s moving part.” A word I haven’t thought of in years.
39-D, seven letters, “Start to chase.” Crosses needed.
50-A, seven letters, “Subject of the Masakela song ‘Bring Him Back Home’ (1987).” No crosses needed.
56-D, three letters, “ Things Considered (bird blog).” Smiles.
My favorite in this puzzle: 30-A, four letters, “Personal space.” True that.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Saturday, September 19, 2026
Today’s Saturday Stumper
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KITKATBAR. BUGATTI. CASANOVA.
ReplyDeleteNOMANSLAND. (“All definite knowledge — so I should contend — belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a ‘No Man’s Land,’ exposed to attack from both sides; this ‘No Man’s Land’ is philosophy.”)
VENTING. PAREE. LETERRIP.
PAREN. (Takes me back to a summer as a legal proofreader.)
ARARAT. ARMATURE. STEEPLE.
MANDELA. OWL. BLOG. (There’s the duplication: blog in a clue, BLOG as an answer.)
I whipped right through this puzzle for some reason.
ReplyDeleteThere was a problem with all the online electronic versions which duplicated the Across clues in the Down clues. (!) It seemed like a genius achievement at first but I was getting nowhere until someone pointed out the error so I downloaded a printed version.
Hey I was a legal proofreader too at an agency for that in NYC! Did you have to work with a partner as well? Amazing that Microsoft Word has basically replaced all that functionality including red lining and black lining.
ReplyDeleteI always print it out, and I go to the online version only if I’m really stuck and have to try letters. I’m glad I didn’t see the online version today.
ReplyDeleteYes, all the work was done by partners, one reading aloud, one following along. It was one summer at a Manhattan law firm. When we weren’t proofreading, we were all doing the New York Times crossword. The fellow in charge of xeroxing printed out and distributed copies for everyone each morning.
Yep they had the same setup at Sullivan & Cromwell where I freelanced the longest.
ReplyDeleteIt was a fun summer. I saw a page posted in my English department and got an appointment for an interview. I was so naive that I didn’t even bring a résumé — I mean, it was just a summer job proofreading. The office manager looked skeptical, but she gave me a spelling test, and the rest was history. :)
ReplyDelete