Princeton Women’s Ice Hockey. What an intense game! These ladies really go at each other – in a good way. Only two penalties called the entire game and the action was fierce throughout. Princeton took 44 shots on goal, but only, let’s see — zero got through! Yikes! St. Lawrence won 1-0 on a breakaway in the second period.
OK, fellas — ease up now. I know how sexy those unis are. Try to maintain composure.
Alexa Davis scored the lone goal for SLU, a grad student from Philly who went to Cornell undergrad. Hey, Lexy — great shot!
Goalie Emma-Sofie Nordström was a goddamn boulder in goal. It felt like they could have played for another hour without beating her.
George noticed proudly that a banner draped over the boards listed our Sarah (Fillier) as an alum who was an “Olympic champion (2022).” Brava, SF!
The puzzle today took an interesting (for me) little turn in the clue for the word DOT at 31A: It engaged in a little Hebrew School lesson. The clue was “What distinguishes ‘bet’ from ‘vet’ in Hebrew.” When reading Hebrew, if the script contains “dots” it guides your pronunciation. If not, you just better know it. The dot is called a “dagesh.” Anony Mouse helped with this comment:
Here’s some pedantry: “bet” and “vet” are not two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. They are the same letter, one with the dagesh and the other without, and there to tell you how to pronounce the letter (sort of like an e or i after a g tells you how to pronounce it). With the dot: hard b, without: soft (or v). The diacritical does not appear in the Torah scrolls. Only the undotted version shows up there; in fact, it’s the first letter in the Bible–beresheet (in the beginning), not veresheet. The way the rabbi explained this to me when I was a wiseass bar mitzvah boy was that when Hebrew made the transition from oral to written, everyone knew what the word was so they could infer the hard or the soft version of bet. But in later years, as knowledge of ancient Hebrew receded, the diacritical were added to assist readers. And evidently, crossword constructors.
Oy. Stay away from the herring.
The answer at 41A reminded me of a joke Dan Reynolds told me, alav hashalom. This 97-year-old man goes to a lawyer and says he wants to divorce his 94-year-old wife after 70 years of marriage. The lawyer asks “Why now?” and the man says, “Enough is enough.” (The clue was “I’ve had it!”)
Ashley Punter, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posts: I just ate a green pepper that tasted like an orange pepper.
Nick Renouf: That’s the problem with society today.
Paula Adams: They taste different?
Ruth Hunt: It’s a cross-dressing orange pepper which “identified ” as a green pepper?
Avi Liveson: You’re giving new meaning to the concept of “salad dressing.”
Lewis Ewan Jones: Finally – Armageddon!
Avi Liveson: It’s like that riddle: What’s blue and smells like red paint? Answer: Blue paint.
Phil Goodchild: Funnily enough I had a similar but amazing experience with my dinner last night. In the past, one of my favourite vegetables, that being Brussel Sprouts have over the time seemed sweet and some have tasted like Tangerine. I can only presume they have been altered in the crossing of varieties to be less Brusselly. At a local farm shop where I now get my veg, the recent Brussels have that traditional Brussell Sprout bite and they are not sweet like they have been sugared or taste like Tangerine. Last night’s dinner of beef steak pie I made with spuds and Brussells was superb due to the traditional proper Brusselly Brussells.
Avi Liveson: Not sure how that’s similar. In your case, the item in question tasted as it was supposed to taste. Happy for you, though.
Phil Goodchild: Ah yes but my point was a lot of Brussel Sprouts in recent years do not taste like real Brussel Sprouts should so it was a pleasure to find a farm shop that had some proper traditional tasting ones.
Avi: Well put. I withdraw my point.
Jason Andreoli: Pepper varieties are weird, while the red ones start off green, some green peppers never go red, yellow and orange can start green and ripen but others are brightly coloured all along. Been growing them from seed for 20 years and every years crop is different.
Phil Rogers: Are you sure it wasn’t a toilet pepper?
Avi Liveson: I saw no mention of that in the newspepper.
Break up the Jets!! New York 27, Cleveland 20. Two in a row. Woohoo!
Baby steps. We’ll take it.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 