Tue., 1/27 Ed Sessa

[magus]

THEME:   last word of 3 phrases is a kind of dupe
   
GOOD ONES:     
Classic comedy theme {& theme}   THREE STOOGES   
Many an Amman man  ARAB [and three men]   
   
BTW:   
Gossipmonger   YENTA [this is one of those words that needlesly found its way into our lexicon --- needless because English words already existed, and only a small fraction of the population actually uses the imported word]   
   
Letter-named thoroughfares in Bklyn.   AVES [I grew on Avenue W and went to high school on Avenue X ---  could there have been more unimaginative names?]   
   
   
RATING:    
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun   

[Thomps2525]

"Avenue X" would make a good title for a horror movie. Speaking of movies---nice segue, Steve!---today's crossword included OATERS ("Films featuring chaps in chaps"). OATER is one of those words that I never see anywhere except in crossword puzzles. ELHI and ASEA are two others. "Oater," referring to a western movie, was first used by the show-business publication Variety in 1946. Both the word and western movies are pretty much passé now. Variety, founded in 1905, is well known for using shortened version of words in headlines: biz, commish, exec, flix, pix, prexy, seg, sesh, sked, tix, veep and many others. A list, with definitions, is at http://variety.com/static-pages/slanguage-dictionary/