In today's crossword by Robert E. Lee Morris---I can guess who he was named after---the theme is SPARECHANGE, clued with "Pocketful of coins, and what literally occurs in the circled letters in five puzzle answers." The theme answers are HOUSEPARTY, OPERASOLO, OUTERSPACE, PAPERSACK and STRIPSEARCH and the circled letters within each answer contain various combinations of the letters in SPARE. A very clever idea!
SAD is clued with "Down in the dumps." There is a joke---a very old joke---about a woman who told her friend, "I was down in the dumps so I bought this hat." The friend said, "Oh, so that's where you got it." Actually, the expression "down in the dumps" has nothing to do with a garbage dump. The word "damp" means "moist" or "humid" and derives from the Middle Dutch word damp, which means "haze." The word originally (16th century) meant "confused; bewildered; depressed" and a state of despondency was referred to as "the damps." Somehow over the centuries, "damps" became "dumps."
The Daily News crossword includes the word NIGHT, which can precede either part of the five theme answers: LIFELINE, SCHOOLCLUB, SKYLIGHT, STICKSHIFT and TIMETABLE. Another clever idea!
The Universal crossword included ODDSANDENDS, OFFBEATNEWS, STRANGETALE and WEIRDDREAMS. I'm surprised that the commonly-used word EERIE did not appear. The name of the 1960s singing group Harper's Bizarre (The 59th Street Bridge Song) would also have been a good answer. Maybe next time.
