Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Today's time: 8:06.  Ahh.  That's better.

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Steven E. Atwood gives us a puzzle full of BRITISHISMS --- punny phrases that are centered around historically British terms.  For example, "Monthly charge for a London apartment?" is FLAT RATE.  "Part of a London police officer's uniform?" is BOBBY SOCKS.  The overly prolix "Conveyance in a multilevel London store?" is SHOP LIFT.  Quite clever, that Atwood chappie.  A fun, clean theme.

For "man's name that means king" I had *REX but it's, surprise, ROY.

An ENOKI, also called enokitake, is a mushroom used in sukiyaki.  Varieties of enoki have names such as velvet foot, velvet shank, winter fungus, and seafood mushrooms.  They are generally long, white, and thin, but wild varieties differ in color and shape.  Sukiyaki is a Japanese hot pot dish made with thinly sliced beef, vegetables, mushrooms, soy sauce, and sugar.

"Spot in la mer" appears yet again.  Spots, dots, specks.

KAN appears again, this time not as Fake Manhattan's state but Eisenhower's "home state."  He was born in Deniston, Texas.  His presidential library is in Abeline, Kansas, where he was raised.

I'm not sure anyone refers to Debbie Harry as DEBORAH.  The clue doesn't even have "formally" attached.

"Sine's reciprocal, briefly" is COSEC, for cosecant.  In a right triangle, it is defined as the ratio of the length of the hypotenuse to that of the opposite side.  A sine, in a right triangle, is the ratio of the length of the side opposite one of the acute angles to the length of the hypotenuse.

New or forgotten word: EPOS, an epic or long narrative.  

Clever clues: "first X, say" is TIC (as in tic-tac-toe; it took me a bit for that to sink in!).  "Johnny Appleseed, e.g." is NOMAD.  "Beat people" is COPS; yes, they do.

Well, that was FUN.  Next time OWL do better.