“Big Mama” WILLIE MAE THORNTON, growled blues on "Hound Dog”. Her letter bank is MOTHER-IN-LAW (or WOMAN HITLER), which makes Oedipal Jim Morrison’s WALLOW IN THE MIRE and a stepmom's line: MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL.
Happy Mother’s Day, Moms & Big Mamas
https://t.co/vtegC3gpuB
Last weekend — for the first time in the puzzle’s 84-year history — ‘The New York Times Magazine’ printed an unsolvable crossword. Clues didn’t align with their corresponding answers or were missing altogether. The grid was correct online, but for print-magazine solvers, the damage to their weekends, and esteem, had already been done.
Some solvers who complete the Sunday puzzle in the print magazine (often with pen) complained on crossword forums and social media, saying they were “nearly in tears,” some with fears of “sudden onset dementia” or, worse yet, ineptitude.
When Mike McFadden, in New Jersey, couldn’t crack it, he thought, “something was wrong with me. I didn’t think that they would have an error.” It nagged at him all day. For others, the error triggered an existential crisis. “We trust that it’s always going to be something that at least somebody can figure out,” Irene Papoulis, a former writing instructor at Trinity College, said. “The world is making less and less sense. So it’s like, ‘The crossword puzzle? Not you, too!’”
Several people said they felt robbed of a sacred morning routine. “Maybe I’m overreacting,” McFadden said. “But it ruined the best hour of my week.”
Maggie Duffy reports on the crisis in the crossword community after an erroneous grid was published in the ‘Times’: https://t.co/Ax9hC2By6m
...Online sources add: kalasa, sanskara, antimeson, vedana, wonkery, & gooner.
Older variants include: illision, mannitose.
Of course this doesn't include proper nouns like Weardale, Mansonite, Siriusmo, Mantano, Sexta, & Irvingia.
Or phrases like "land army".
But we digress.
@TerribleMaps' state anagrams map shows how deceptively tricky even simple wordplay can be.
It boils down to acceptance criteria.
Solid, lower case state anagrams in Webster's 3rd Unabridged: anidian, amine, anime, nominates, antinomes, orgone, orogen, taxes, & nowanights...
There are actually two answers to this.
You may have noticed the STATE gets its share, & the rest goes to your ESTATE.
Did you also notice your HEIRS only get what they’re due after THE IRS gets *theirs*? Which is our 4/15 tie-in.
(h/t Stefan Fatsis @ustefanjil for the 1st)
In honor of the day.
Take a word that tells you WHO GETS YOUR MONEY WHEN YOU DIE (5 letters). Actually, they just wind up with *some* of it. Put a letter in front to see who gets the rest.
Happy 4/15.
(Like if you’ve got them both)
In honor of the day.
Take a word that tells you WHO GETS YOUR MONEY WHEN YOU DIE (5 letters). Actually, they just wind up with *some* of it. Put a letter in front to see who gets the rest.
Happy 4/15.
(Like if you’ve got them both)