MIXOLOGY

MATT: This puzzle has been a long time in the making, going through a variety of revisions since I first submitted it (and Will rejected it) in February. He seemed to think it had promise, but didn't like my selection of theme entries. So I found a new set of theme entries and, before rebuilding the whole puzzle, asked if they were better. They were.

So I built a couple of very different versions of the puzzle and didn't clue them, instead asking Will which he preferred. As I clued the one he preferred, I discovered that while the fill was reasonably clean, it had so many Spanish entries that it might as well be a Spanish puzzle! So even though Will had accepted it, I changed it around quite a bit (there is still quite a bit of Spanish in it, I fear), and Will took the modified version.

There are a lot of ways that we could have dealt with the mixed up entries. Will chose what I suspect is the most benign, cluing PLEA BARGAINS = LAG + PEABRAINS as [Some compromises = Delay + dodos]. The nastiest mechanism (which I preferred, of course), would clue it simply as [Drop knuckleheads behind] where the clues for LAG [Drop behind] and PEABRAINS [knuckleheads] are interleaved, just like the answer is. You can uninterleave them by realizing that one clue is italicized and the other is not. (I guess it would have been even nastier to not even have the varying font, but that struck me as *too* nasty.)

My favorite clues that didn't make the grade: [Unsur] for NORTE and [Shortest sentence in English although, on sad occasion, also the longest] for IDO, [Grass opposite] for TURF, and especially [Like Doyle Lonnegon] for STUNG.

On the Dr. Fill side, bottom line is that it found the puzzle very easy, since all the words were in its dictionary. But it made a mistake! At 57-D, GOTAB has seen a reasonable number of appearances in high-quality puzzles, but GETAB has only appeared in less popular places. (You can check this out via my free clue database). So even though DEER is significantly better then DEOR at 62-A, it's so freaked out by the fact that no one "famous" has used GETAB that it decides to stick an O in the intersection square instead of an E. As always, it has no real idea what's going on and doesn't realize (for example) that GETAB and GOTAB are the same except for tense.

I hope everyone enjoyed the puzzle!

DR. FILL: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.

MIXOLOGY indeed, two common words interspersed to create snappy phrases. My favorite was GONZO + RUDER = GROUND ZERO, as GONZO is such a fun word to say, and GROUND ZERO is a vivid entry. BIDE + ODDLY = BO DIDDLEY was another fun example.

I'm not usually a fan of circles quasi-randomly strewn through a long entry, as that usually seems haphazard and inelegant. But this worked okay for me since the resulting phrases were all pretty darn good. I would have liked the two words to stand out better — it's awfully difficult to see GONZO and RUDER unless you're really squinting and toiling and grunting — but it's still a fun discovery.

I enjoyed some of the long fill Matt worked in, too. SEXTANTS and EMBLAZON were particularly nice. Good bonuses.

I wasn't as much a fan of the BIAS TIRE, SALT II, DONE IT ALL, PLAIN FACT sorts of entries. The first two are legit but are more neutral than positive for me, and the latter two seem slightly off to my ear — SEEN IT ALL and THAT'S A FACT or COLD HARD TRUTH seem much more spot-on to me.

And then there's AGNATES and SNAILED … hmm.

I also wasn't a fan of the plethora of gluey short entries required to hold the puzzle together. I don't mind a little A SEC or NEHI here or there, but it did feel like I encountered a lot of gluey bits during my solve — AEREO, NORTE, ISIN, OSA, SERE, etc. Sunday 140-word puzzles are so, so, so tough to make smooth.

Nice theme idea. It would have been great to have some way to make the individual words stand out more, but overall, enough interesting finds to keep my attention.