In his press conference at M-a-L yesterday, DJT was asked if he’d rule out the use of military force or economic coercion to wrest Greenland away from Denmark and/or to grab the Panama Canal. “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two,” he replied. No mention was made of the two additional sled dog teams Denmark has already assigned to defend the island (not kidding). There was some confusion on the follow-up question on whether he might nuke Greenland. He said Nuuk is already the capital of Greenland, which it is!
In another note for Owl Chatter’s “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” Department, Trump also said the Gulf of Mexico should be renamed the Gulf of America, and Marjorie T. Greene already has a proposal on it which she will introduce this week.
[We are unable to include a photo of the Prez-elect for this story, because Phil refuses to photograph him. He sent in this shot of a Greenland woman wearing the territory’s traditional dress instead. He also told us he is marrying her and moving there, but he was probably kidding.]
You’ll never guess who popped into the grid today. ZERO MOSTEL. Leave it to constructor Laura Dershowitz (Alan’s daughter) to conjure him up. He was clued a bit boringly with “Fiddler on the Roof star,” but we’ll take him any way we can get him. Some Brandeis-folk will recall Zero’s son Josh was there with us for a while. Josh just turned 78, kinehora. Here are Zero, and then Josh, and then Gene Wilder talking about Zero in a clip shared with us by Rex today.
With the Super Bowl exactly one month away from tomorrow (on Feb 9), it’s time we talked about Super Bowls. Oops — I made a spacing error — I meant superb owls.
Our friend Miriam Webster sends us a “word of the day” every day, which I often ignore. But I looked at today’s and am very glad I did. It’s GELID and it means icy, extremely cold. Right off the bat I’m the better for it — I wrongly thought it meant, like, gelled, or “having jello-like qualities.” And then Miriam went on to discuss nine words about owls, reminding me as well about that spacing feature of “super bowls” and “superb owls.” Well, it’s about time we devoted some time to owls on Owl Chatter, don’t you think? Here are the first five owls or owl-related terms. (Four to follow next time.)
1. Billywix: a tawny owl. Billy is a play upon the beak or bill, which is very striking in the owl, and Wix is the german weck (a wig), alluding to the ‘judge-like’ appearance. Guilty!, says this fellow — Guilty as charged!
2. Madge: barn owl. Likely short for “Margaret,” it’s another word that has been used for owls generally, and the barn owl in particular. Variants of madge include madge owl, gillhooter, gillihowlet, madge howlet, hissing owl, screech owl, white owl, church owl, padge, and padge owl. Some Brits also use madge to refer to the magpie.
3. Tu-whit tu-whoo: the cry of an owl.
4. Howlet: another term for owl or owlet, often a small one.
5. Harfang: a snowy owl. Sometimes pure white but usually with browning spots or bars. From the Swedish word for “hare catcher.” OMG: so beautiful.
Now that you know what a Natick is in Crossworld (from a recent post), I can tell you I Naticked today at the “O” crossing of LISBOA (“Portugal’s capital, in Portugal”) with ORALE (“Papal vestment”). The latter set Rex off, as follows:
Extremely easy puzzle—hardly hesitated while filling it all in—except for one answer: a textbook piece of crosswordese risen from the dead to haunt and ultimately destroy this puzzle. There may as well not be any other words in this puzzle. It’s so weird and alien and from-outerspace that it’s hard to pay attention to anything else. I’m talking of course about ORALE. This is the kind of word that crosswords of yore used to rely on a lot because, I mean, look at those letters! Choice, common letters. Think about how often you see ORATE or ORALB or even ORANG in the puzzle, Wouldn’t it be nice to have somewhere else to go when facing ORA–? Well, yes it would. So, because everyone was filling grids by hand with no computer assistance, constructors used to cling to just about Anything that counted as a “word.” And so ORALEs filled the grid. Never a dominant word, but … look at this ORALE frequency chart. I mean, really look at it, because it is telling:
If you want to know one of Will Shortz’s greatest accomplishments as a NYTXW editor, just stare at that chart. He slew the ORALE! And not only the ORALE, but lots of other arcane nonsense just like it. He got rid of (or seriously minimized) the awful stuff (known broadly as “crosswordese”) and filled the resulting void with slang, colloquialisms, names from pop culture, music, sports, the supermarket aisle.—everyday things. The constructors had something to do with it, obviously, but the puzzle took a more populist, more general-knowledge, more “fun” turn when Shortz took over, that’s for sure. Goodbye, ORALE! You can see he tolerated it for a decade or so and then poof—gone. For almost twenty years, absolutely extinct. Which was fitting, as the term ORALE itself is extinct, replaced long ago by “fanon,” which is itself pretty obscure. The question is, why is ORALE in this puzzle today? Head-shakingly bad. Everyone involved in ORALE-gate should apologize.
On the plus side, the clue “Noneternal flames?” was great for: EXES. I also liked “Wrinkle remover,” for BOTOX.
Ryder Cowan of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asks:
When your mobile rings, do you
1. Answer, but wait for the caller to speak first?
2. Answer, and say ‘hello’?
3. Answer, and say ‘yes’?
4. Answer, and say ‘may I help you’?
5. Answer, and say ‘what is it’?
6. Answer, and say your mobile number?
7. Answer, and say your first and last names?
8. Answer, and say your last name?
9. Divert to voicemail?
10. Just ignore it?
11. Do something different?
There were 81 replies. Here are some of the dullest.
James Nolan: If it’s my Nana, I say “Hiya Nana.”
Bernhard Slatcher: Only eleven options?
Dave Matthews: I just shout “What!” in a disgruntled voice.
Bill Lord: The one thing I will never ever say to some unknown body on any phone is “Yes.” I do not want anyone to be able to pretend to be me and to buy something by using “yes” from my voice print.
Sarah Robb: If I answer, it’s usually with, “Hello”, or “Hello, it’s Sarah”. The tone I use depends on whether or not I’m expecting a call, and also from whom.
Avi Liveson: That’s not very helpful for those of us who are not named Sarah.
Debbie Mackay: I always say “Yellow.” I don’t think anyone has noticed.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 