Heteronymitive People

Happy Friday! Usually I write these emails mid-week, but today I come to you bright and early on Friday morning. Why you ask? Is it because I got on a bit of a pinball bender last night and rolled into bed at an ungodly hour of the morning? The jury is out (wait, the jury is back in… yes). But also because this week, I’ve been working on breaking down walls. One specific wall, actually.

Even though one room in my house is a construction zone, the crossword must go on! This theme is one of my favourites in a while, and I hope you love it as much as I do.

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Play

Heteronymitive People by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

I love a theme that plays off of language quirks, so this one was an exciting find. While writing this, I realized [One who’s happy with their work?] would have been a slightly more fitting clue for CONTENT CREATOR, but hey - when you're putting out a puzzle a week, you can't pore over every detail.

This puzzle references the Jacksons, so let's play the MJ song that is probably about people, but I like to think he’s talking about crossword puzzle squares.

Today’s Theme

The three italicized clues are the theme answers here, each describing a person. However, the question mark clues us in that some wordplay is going on here. The answers are JUNK DRAWER, CONTENT CREATOR, and BABY SHOWER, but they don’t quite match the clues - unless you pronounce one of the words differently. Then we have someone who is bad at sketching (a JUNK DRAWER), someone who makes you feel at peace (a CONTENT CREATOR), or someone showing off their child (a BABY SHOWER)!

The title ties it all together - heteronyms are a word pair that are spelled the same but pronounced differently, like DRAWER/DRAWER, or SHOWER/SHOWER (I don’t know how to show different pronunciation in text).

Behind the Clues

5A. Talk about books that stick with you - the [Young adult novel about Stanley Yelnats and a lot of digging] is HOLES, a book I read in school (which school, I can’t recall - maybe late Elementary?) but will probably stick with me until I die. I remember the movie being quite good as well, and if it’s not actually, please let me live in my fantasy world.

15A. This is a crossword, so sometimes, we have to put crosswordese in there - words that appear way more frequently in crosswords than in real life. Today, I give you [Meadow (a bit of crosswordese for ya, sorry)], which is a great one to have tucked away. It’s LEA, and I’ve never heard or seen it used outside of puzzle context.

39A. Self-chuckle alert! ["There is no ___!" (Me as a supervillian who messed with your keyboard)] made me laugh so I put it in. A challenge as a constructor is coming up with new clues to common crossword fill, and I was happy to give ESC a strong showing here.

4D. If you got confused with this long clue, fair. But I was briefly Googling DAKOTA Fanning, aka [Actress Fanning, who goes by her middle name but her first name is Hannah, meaning her first + middle name sounds like a Hannah Montana ripoff lol] to decide how I wanted to clue her, and came across the little factoid about her using her middle name. Makes you wonder how many people out there have the name Hannah + a US state.

24D. You know that when the opportunity to put my boys *NSYNC presents itself, I have to do it. They’re a [90's boy band that sounds like they're coordinated], and honestly, I’ll probably spend the rest of the morning listening to 90’s pop hits (98 Degrees, anyone?). Good news, they have a video that almost fits with the black and white theme from earlier!

25D. What did you think the name of [The orange Pac-Man ghost (the others are named Blinky, Pinky, and Inky)] was? Clinky? Finky? Good guesses, but CLYDE, the business-focused no-jokes ghost, wonders why you’d think he has such a silly name just because his colleagues do. Here’s a menagerie of official and unofficial art of “The Most Unpredictable Character in Gaming.” My favourite is the very good Clyde costume in the bottom right.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon