Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Lester Ruff,” the puzzle editor Stan Newman offering an easier Stumper of his creation. It begins with a choice: 1-A, five letters, “It’s much higher than a D.” Are we talking grades or notes? By the time I got to 62-A, five letters, “It’s not much higher than a D,” everything was falling into place.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, eight letters, “Story-telling follower.” Sweet.

15-A, eight letters, “‘Pay less for college. For real.’ sloganeer.” Would that it were true.

18-A, nine letters, “Employer of ushers.” Rereading the clue makes clear that it’s a bit tricky.

26-D, seven letters, “Progress report of a sort.” An unexpected answer.

29-A, three letters, “Word associated with jumps and umps.” Nicely Stumper-y, a plain answer enlivened by a thoughtful clue.

31-D, six letters, “Part of the KFC logo.” Slightly bizarre.

32-A, twelve letters, “‘Ditto!’” I’m so tired of seeing ASAMI and ASDOI in puzzles.

40-D, eight letters, “Letter-reading rituals.” Gentle misdirection.

41-A, twelve letters, “Bat man’s specialty.” I read too quickly and first thought CRIMESOLVING.

48-A, three letters, “Writer next to Jung on the Sgt. Pepper cover.” I knew it right off, but it’s fun to try to name other three-letter writers.

50-D, five letters, “Not fancy at all.” I wasn’t fooled.

My favorite in this puzzle: 25-D, five letters, “It’s home on the range.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Zippy draws Nancy

He’s almost got it: “Sluggo Objects.”

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Groats, grits, grout, Grote

Another word from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, found right next to saveloys : groats, or in German, Grützen. “Usually plural in form but singular or plural in construction,” says Merriam-Webster, which defines groats as “hulled grain broken into fragments larger than grits“ or “a grain (as of oats) exclusive of the hull.”

Its origin:

Middle English grotes, going back to Old English grotan, masculine weak plural, presumably a variant of the neuter noun grot “particle, whit” (also glossing Latin pollis “finely ground flour”), probably going back to Germanic *gruta-, noun derivative of *greutan- “to grind, crush.”

Groats is related to grits, which M-W defines as “coarsely ground hulled grain,” “especially : ground hominy with the germ removed.” Like groats, grits is plural in form, singular or plural in construction.

Its origin:

late Old English grutta “bran, coarse meal,” going back to Old English grytt “finely ground flour,” going back to Germanic grutjō- or grutja- (whence also Middle Dutch gorte “groats, grits” [with metathesis], Middle Low German grütte, Old High German gruzzi), noun derivative from zero-grade of *greutan- “to grind, crush.”

(Reader, do you take pride in your grits?)

And there’s a connection to grout, “thin mortar used for filling spaces (such as the joints in masonry).”

Its origin:

Middle English grut, grout “crushed grain for malt, infused malt, thick, dark ale, mud, slime,” going back to Old English grūt “coarse meal, dregs, spent malt after brewing,” going back to Germanic *grūta- (whence also Middle Dutch grute, gruut “herb mixture used in beer brewing,” Middle High German grūz “a grain, grain of sand”), lengthened zero grade noun derivative from *greutan- “to grind, crush.”

M-W adds a complication about this meaning of grout:

Sense 1, which first appears in the seventeenth century, is of uncertain relation to the earlier senses and perhaps of independent origin. Oxford English Dictionary, first edition, suggests a connection to Middle French (Limousin) grouter “to rough-cast,” Limousin Occitan greutā, but this isolated word, itself of unknown origin, is of unlikely relevance.

The entries for groats, grits, and grout all say “more at GRIT,” and the entry for grit suggests that the reader check out grits, groats, and grout. I think I’m on pretty solid ground in thinking of these words as close relations.

And by the way, if you’re ever having tile work done in your residence, it’s pronounced /ˈgrau̇t/. Like this. It’s never/ˈgrüt/.

I’m not sure what to do with Old Grote.

[The parenthetical question, if you don’t recognize it, is from My Cousin Vinny.]

Why are pencils so popular?

A hard-hitting investigation from MarketWatch: “Billions of pencils are sold a year. Why are they still so popular?”

In a word, according to MarketWatch: kiddos.

“Sure, Jan”

Mary Trump: “Sure, Jan.”

I’ve read that Trump thinks his serious face makes him look like Winston Churchill. I think it makes him look angry, lost, and more than a tad demented.

*

August 27: See also the Kubrick stare.

Brain food

Saveloy: isn’t that a kind of cabbage?

No, it’s not a kind of cabbage. That’s Savoy.

A saveloy is “a type of highly seasoned sausage, usually bright red, normally boiled and available in fish and chip shops around England.”

Merriam-Webster traces the word’s journey into English:

modification of French cervelas, from Middle French, from Old Italian cervellata, literally, pig’s brains, from cervello brain, from Latin cerebellum.

I came across saveloy while reading E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, trans. Anthea Bell (1999). I lack the patience to find out what was going on in the German — perhaps some kind of wurst.

*

[After having the question nag at me while I was walking.]

The word in German in Cervelaten, plural of Cervelat, first found in Rabelais (1522). I searched the German text at Project Gutenberg for Pinscher, which took me to the paragraph with the Cervelaten.

Also from this novel
“Scholarly voracity” : “My little right paw” : Reading and writing in the dark : “O Heaven, were my whiskers neglected!”

Mutts meta

“There are symbols”: today’s Mutts is meta.

Got bail?

“Charges pending in Fulton County?” Here’s where “America’s Mayor” goes: A 2nd Chance Bail Bonds.

The Martin family dictionary

[From the Lassie episode “Lassie’s Good Deed,” April 29, 1962. Click for a larger view.]

Timmy (Jon Provost) and Lassie have met an older man living in a cabin in the woods, a Mr. Jensen, who walks into town once a month to collect a pension check. He’s a Great War veteran, and he’s played by James Burke, who played the hotel detective Luke in The Maltese Falcon. A quick dissolve and we see Timmy back in his living room:

“I found it, Mom, in the dictionary, just like you said. ‘Recluse : retired from the world or from public notice; a hermit.’”

It seems certain that the Martin family dictionary is a Merriam-Webster’s Second:

[Click for a larger view.]

I can imagine Paul Martin resisting a purchase of M-W’s Third, which appeared in 1961: “Timmy, a farm family has to watch every penny. We have a perfectly good dictionary, and we can’t just buy a new dictionary every time one appears.” And Ruth: “Your father’s right, dear.”

The Merriam-Webster’s Third entry for the adjective recluse begins: “removed from society : shut up.” That graceful phrasing “retired from the world” has disappeared, as has the citation from William Cowper, from the poem “Retirement.”

The woods outside Calverton seem to welcome recluses and hermits. See also “The Hermit” (May 22, 1960). You can watch both episodes — “Lassie’s Good Deed,” “The Hermit” — at the usual place.

As a regular reader of these pages may recall, I like to watch Lassie when I fold laundry. Come at me.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts : Lassie posts (Pinboard)

[Yes, the episode’s writers merged the entries for recluse as an adjective and as a noun. Or Timmy quickly moved from the one to the other.]

Turning off Mac auto-punctuation

Dictation in iOS and macOS includes auto-punctuation, which again and again introduces errors, mostly unnecessary commas. In iOS, it’s easy to turn off auto-punctuation: go to Settings, General, Keyboard, and there it is. But in macOS, it might not be so easy. Go to System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation, and you might find nothing about auto-punctuation. Auto-punctuation was on by default on my Mac with no apparent way to turn it off.

I found the solution in a Reddit thread: under Dictation, add another language. I added English (UK). And hey presto, the option to turn off auto-punctuation appeared. I turned it off, removed English (UK), and auto-punctuation is still off.

I noticed that in iOS Settings, the word is spelled Auto-Punctuation. In macOS System Settings, it’s Auto-punctuation. Either way, it’s an unwelcome intrusion, and I’m happy to be done with it.

Related reading
All OCA punctuation posts (Pinboard)