In today's crossword, James Sajdak alters four familiar phrases so they end with ING instead of N:
Québec quiche, e.g.? CANADIANBAKING
Greeting from a faithful friend? WELCOMEWAGGING
Saying 'It wasn't me" when, in fact it, was? COWARDLYLYING
'Wish we had built a bigger pyramid,' e.g?: EGYPTIANRUING
The altered phrases need no explanation. As for the
original phrases, read on.
In flavor, appearance and texture, Canadian bacon is closer to ham than to bacon, and what we know as Canadian bacon in the United States is not the same as Canadian bacon in Canada and the UK. The differences are explained at
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-canadian-bacon.htmThe Welcome Wagon organization was founded in 1928 in Memphis. Welcome Wagon hostesses would present new homeowners with a basket filled with product samples, coupons and advertising from local businesses. In 1998, the personal visits were halted and the company, now based in Coral Gables, Florida, does its marketing via mail, e-mail and telephone. As for "welcome wagging," dog owners are well aware that if they leave the house and come back ten minutes later, the dog gets just as excited upon their return as if they had been gone for a month!
The Cowardly Lion, of course, is a character which first appeared in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz and was portrayed by Bert Lahr in the 1939 movie
The Wizard Of Oz. To learn about some of the most well-known Egyptian ruins, check out
http://www.ancientegyptianfacts.com/ancient-egyptian-ruins.html"Tesoro de la Sierra Madre" is ORO, which is not used in English. "Start of a weekly cry" is TGI. That is a very poor entry. It is three-fourths of TGIF ("Thank God it's Friday"). And "Like petroglyphs" is INTAGLIOED. "Intaglio" comes from the Latin word for "cut" and is related to the word "tailor." An intaglio is a word or picture carved in stone or some other hard object. I suppose a surface with such carvings can be said to be "intaglioed" but that makes for a very awkward adjective.
As a child, James Sajdak watched his father solve crossword puzzles -- in ink! In 2005, James began creating his own puzzles. His first published crossword appeared a year later in the
New York Sun. His puzzles now appear in the
New York Times and
Los Angeles Times.....but very sporadically. Today's is only his third published puzzle in the past three years.
