other Washington Post Sunday crossword, December 18 (contains answers)

Posted January 23, 2006 • Comments Off on Washington Post Sunday crossword, December 18 (contains answers)

Cw-051218

Title: What’s Their Line?
Theme entries: first names that are homonyms of regular words that imply job titles. Finally, the puns came back!

23A, Marc?: COPY EDITOR (mark)
25A, Moe?: LANDSCAPER (mow)
52A, Gail?: METEOROLOGIST (gale)
86A, Belle?: CAMPANOLOGIST (bell)
118A, Jules?: GEMOLOGIST (jewels)
120A, Minnie?: DRESSMAKER (mini)
39D, Jean?: BIOENGINEER (gene)
43D, Cher?: STOCKBROKER (share)

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

1A, Salten classic: BAMBI
37A, Business advisers, slangily: RABBIS [this is the best I can do]
50A, WWII battle town: ST. LO
82A, Styne collaborator: CAHN
84A, “David Copperfield” wife: DORA
94A, Mars: prefix: AREO
99A, “Other sea-cities have faltered and ___…”: Doolittle: STRIVEN [I can’t find the whole poem, but it’s hers]
108A, Mohs scale mineral: APATITE [the Mohs scale was among the first things I looked up when I started posting these]
32D, Hoops org.: ABA
44D, Tillstrom dragon: OLLIE [I didn’t know Ollie was a dragon, and I didn’t know Burr Tillstrom’s name. I feel I must make it clear I did know what “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” was.]
56D, Tandoor, e.g.: OVEN [I had Indian food for the first time not long after learning this]
100D, “Valse ___”: TRISTE [I figure this must be a more general term, not just this piece?]
107D, Elementary: BASAL
111D, First Alaska governor: EGAN
113D, Russian-born painter: ERTE [ohhhh, this guy.]

Overall:
I messed up zero squares in this one (along with the puns, my pwoers came back) and got no letters outright wrong. This was a welcome return to form all around. Eight theme entries (average), 15 things I had to look up (high).