"NOTE: May is the only month that spells another word backwards. Hence, this puzzle."
That is how Merl Reagle introduced today's
Los Angeles Times crossword, titled "Back It Up." Each theme answer was a familiar word or phrase with one part spelled backwards:
Restaurant eavesdroppers? TABLESNOOPS
Favorite yogurt flavor of undercover cops? NARCBERRY
Ballplayer with an adventure series on Nickelodeon? ARODTHEEXPLORER
Italian food truck? MEATBALLBUS
What forensic science offers? DNAJUSTICEFORALL
Fear of whales? ORCAPHOBIA
The puzzle also included SENOR for "Tijuana address?" In the Spanish language, N and Ñ are separate letters. The word is spelled SEÑOR but I have never seen that spelling in any American crossword. It is always SENOR. And it is always wrong.
"Model of the solar system" was ORRERY. "Orrery"? That didn't even
look like a real word! But it is---I looked it up. The first modern-day orrery was constructed in 1704. Each planet was represented by a ball attached to a small rod which was affixed to a central ball representing the sun. The "planets" were connected to a mechanism which rotated them. In 1713, one such model was presented to Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, whence the name. Little did anyone know that three thousand years later, Pluto would no longer be considered a planet.
