Jeffrey Martinovic points out the obvious.
Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — The 15-letter entry at the center of today’s crossword brought to mind a memorable scene from the 1996 movie “Matilda,” in which a class of elementary school students are terrorized by their principal, Miss Trunchbull. When a student demonstrates her ease spelling this particular word — clued in today’s puzzle as the “Landmark on which most U.S. radio stations base the starts of their call signs, with ‘W’ on the east and ‘K’ on the west” (40A) — Miss Trunchbull explodes with rage.
I hope you stay comparatively positive as you make your way through Jeffrey Martinovic’s grid, which offers both a wonderful Wednesday challenge and a chance to learn something new about how certain proper nouns in our language have evolved. I might even say that you’ll learn twice as much as you expect to.
Today’s Theme
Whether or not you had any difficulty spelling the name of the MISSISSIPPI RIVER (40A), you might have struggled to make sense of the revealer at 63-Across. It suggests that all of today’s themed entries are TAUTOLOGICAL in relation to the bracketed languages at the end of their clues. Say that again? (Get it?)
A tautology, for those unfamiliar, is the needless repetition of an idea in different words. It has a separate application — albeit a similar meaning — in logic, but here it’s intended with its simplest definition. But what makes the theme entries in today’s grid repetitive in relation to the bracketed languages that follow them? Well, let’s look at a few examples.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
