[Ads-l] "chimney dirt" = newest?

[Joel Berson]

Ben,

Thanks for the information.  I too find the Globe crossword puzzles poorly edited, with mistakes, including using a plural clue for an answer that is singular (or vice versa).  When I once inquired of the Globe they responded hat they do not edit their crossword puzzles, they just get them from somewhere.  Apparently from extraterrestrials (Universalists), for whom English is a second language.


Joel


      From: Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 9:24 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "chimney dirt" = newest?
   
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 3:20 PM, Joel Berson wrote:
>
> Today's Boston Globe crossword has Clue = chimney
> dirt, Answer = newest.
>
> Google finds a number of sites about crossword puzzles
> that assert the same answer ... but I didn't see anything
> that tells me how this equation arose.

Looks like the Globe runs a syndicated daily puzzle from Universal,
which is notorious in the crossword world for being poorly edited. I
checked with some cruciverbalist friends, and the consensus is that
the editor accidentally used a clue for SOOT and it was never
corrected. You find similar sloppiness in other Universal puzzles.

(Google results simply point back to clues/answers from the same puzzle.)

--bgz

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org