Among the answers in today's Daily News crossword by Bruce Haight: GEAR, GIRTHS, HEATH, STRESS, STREETS, TERESA, STARTERSET, THATSGREAT and EASTEREGGS. The center answer was EIGHT, which is the "total number of letters of the alphabet used in this puzzle": AEGHIRTS. I wonder if it is just coincidence that some of those eight letters can spell Bruce's last name.
I was not impressed with the theme answers in Marti DuGuay-Carpenter's Los Angeles Times crossword:
Bunch of valets? PARKINGLOT
Bunch of builders? ERECTORSET
Bunch of contortionists? ELASTICBAND
Bunch of cryptogolists? DECODERRING
Decoder rings were popular in the 1930s-40s-50s. They were offered as premiums to listeners of Little Orphan Annie, Captain Midnight and other radio and television programs. The typical ring had the letters of the alphabet arranged in a circle. An inner disc contained the 26 letters in a random order. The radio programs would give out a coded message and instruct ring holders to decode the message by turning the inner dial to a certain letter. For example, if the code was "G equals A," the inner ring would be rotated until the G lined up with the outer A. The coded message could then be deciphered. Often it was just a message from the program's sponsor, such as "Drink Ovaltine."
The Universal crossword contained some cringe-worthy tree-related puns:
Lazy trees? BEECHBUMS
Delivered tree? PIZZAPINE
Question for a Canadian tree? AREYOUOAKEH
What the paranoid tree-phobic person shouts? FIRGETMENOT
"Pizza pine"? Gak!
Today's NEA crossword: Typical. More of the usual over-used words, including ADE, ECRU, EDGE, EKE, ENID, ERE, ERIE, ESS, GNU, ODE, OGEE and OKRA...and QED, which was crossed with the French word QUOI.
