Karen Steinberg’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Opa!”—Jim P’s evaluation

Theme: Greek letters have been added to sure phrases thus making new phrases and phrases, though the clues are for the un-Greeked phrases. The revealer is GONE GREEK (62a, [Joined a frat, and a hint to the puzzle’s theme]).

Wall St Journal crossword answer · “Opa!” · Karen Steinberg · Thu., 1.12.23

• 16a. [*Dorm room wall art, often] POETASTER. Poster. New-to-me phrase, once more regardless of my supposed diploma in English. Per Wikipedia, “The term poetaster, meaning an inferior poet with pretensions to artistic value, had been coined by Erasmus in 1521.”
• 8d. *[Pans’ partners] POP HITS. Pots.
• 10d. [*Of lesser importance] MINOTAUR. Minor. Love this one with its Greek delusion connection.
• 17d. [*Sardine holder] TIBETAN. Tin.
• 35d. [*Medicare drug level] TIPSIER. Tier. Meh. The clue may’ve simply been [*Level].
• 38d. [*Anita’s “West Side Story” pal] MARIACHI. Maria. This is a enjoyable one, too.
• 43d. [*Spending limits] CARHOPS. Caps.

Nice theme with a couple of stunning twists. Getting the gist of the theme in that NW nook positively helped with resolving a few of the others.

Eight theme solutions is lots, so there isn’t a lot to talk of within the lengthy fill division. But ADONIS and ORION make for good theme-adjacent entries, and I just like the worldwide really feel with IRAN, BLANCS, ISRAEL, TAOIST, and SENSEI to call a couple of.

Clues of word:

• 21a. [College application edge, slangily]. HOOK. Hadn’t heard of this utilization earlier than. Here’s an excellent clarification.
• 30d. [Org. with a Reflections art program]. PTA. Did you realize there’s a National PTA? I positive didn’t.
• 36d. [Tuck deg.]. MBA. Yet one other new-to-me reference. The Tuck School of Business is at Dartmouth.
• 63d. [“Rats!”]. “EEK!” Cute. Not “rats!” as in a synonym of “darn!” however an identification of precise rats.

Nice puzzle. 3.75 stars.

Grant Thackray’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Average (11m05s)

Grant Thackray’s New York Times Crossword, 1/11/23, 0111

Today’s theme: Spoonerisms

• STUFFING STOCKER (stocking stuffer — “Grocery retailer employee on the times main as much as Thanksgiving?)
• SAUCING FLYERS (alien craft — Pamphlets on easy methods to use marinara?)
• BETTING GETTER (getting higher — Bookie?)
• NUMBING TRACKERS (monitoring numbers — Devices that assist dentists monitor anesthesia?)

This is what some individuals would possibly derisively name an “old fashioned” theme, which suggests it’s someplace within the neighborhood of my wheelhouse.  I feel all of those land fairly effectively, with my solely actual level of competition being that singular and plural theme entries are combined for the needs of grid symmetry alone; that at all times comes off as inelegant, however typically you may’t keep away from it.  I’ve definitely been responsible of the identical.  I’m wondering if it may have been expanded to a 21x, obviating the necessity for the arbitrary plurals.  There are definitely infinite choices (LISTING MAIL — Packages askew?, RAMMING BATTER — Pounding the dough?, and many others.)

Cracking: ROUGH START — I didn’t get off to at least one, for as soon as.

Slacking: AGENTRY — if AGENTRY means the “actions of an agent”, does that make CARPENTRY the actions of a carpent?  

Sidetracking: MEGAFAN — it’s so near MEGAFAUNA.  Speaking of which, do you know that the oldest residing tree on the planet — a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine named Methuselah — was already a thousand years previous when the final woolly mammoths died off in Siberia?