Paul Coulter is Pretty Clever. His crossword today includes six two-word phrases in which the last letters of the first word are the first letters of the last word:
Compressed syntax? WORDER (word order)
Compressed carnivore? MEATER (meat eater)
Compressed piece of hardware? COMPUTERMINAL (computer terminal)
Compressed Homeland Security role? COUNTERRORISM (counter-terrorism)
Compressed gastric complaints? STOMACHES (stomach aches)
Compressed
Blue Suede Shoes as sung by Elvis? COVERSION (cover version)
Blue Suede Shoes is one of Elvis Presley's most well-known songs -- along with a few hundred others -- but the original version was by Carl Perkins. In his 1996 autobiography
Go, Cat, Go! The Life & Times of Carl Perkins, the King of Rockabilly, co-written with David McGee -- the book's title came from a line in the song -- Perkins, who recorded for Sun Records in Memphis, explained the origin of the song. He was performing at a dance in December 1955 when he heard a young man tell his partner, "Don't step on my suedes!" Perkins' reaction was, "Good gracious, a pretty little thing like that and all he can think about is his blue suede shoes." Four weeks later, he had written, recorded and released
Blue Suede Shoes and it quickly went to number one on the music surveys of Memphis top-40 radio stations WMPS and WHBQ and #2 nationally. Elvis recorded his own version in March 1956. Among the many other artists who have recorded the song are Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, George Jones, Johnny Rivers and Lawrence Welk. Yes, Lawrence Welk -- his version was an instrumental. Here is Perkins' original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1gggXjEobY"Spanish seashore" is COSTA, which is not used in English. "Nothing, in Nice" is RIEN, which is not used in English. One abbreviation appears in the puzzle twice, as a clue and as an answer: CSA (Confederate States of America) is clued with "Old anti-Union gp." and STS (States) is clued with "CSA's eleven." "Latin clarifier" is IDEST, which means "That is" and is abbreviated i.e. Many people erroneously use "i.e." when they mean "e.g.", which is an abbreviation of
exempli gratia and means "For example." The Oxford Dictionary explains the proper usage of the two terms:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/i-e-or-e-gThat's all for today. It's time for me to go, cat, go.
