Kathy Lowden shows off her collections.
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TUESDAY PUZZLE — Let’s talk about one of my favorite parts of the English language: collective nouns. These nouns are notorious for grouping animals under winking labels that have some truth to them — a bloat of hippopotamuses, a mischief of mice, a conspiracy of lemurs. My father has jokingly referred to members of his professional field as a “prey” of lawyers. Skeptics may question the need for distinctions among such descriptors, but I see them as essential to the whimsy of language. In fact, I declare that a group of collective nouns is called a “necessity.”
Today’s crossword, constructed by Kathy Lowden, proposes a few lesser-known groupings of people, animals and things. She takes a slightly more whimsical approach to naming her collections, but I’d say her taxonomic methods are sound.
Today’s Theme
Sound! Get it? Because each of Ms. Lowden’s themed entries is a rhyme. They don’t pay me to be this embarrassing, you know — I do it for the love of the game.
Each of the rhymes is a witty, rhyming twist on the clue. For instance, a [Whole bunch at a family reunion?] may sound as if it refers to flowers or food, but it’s DOZENS OF COUSINS (17A). A [Large array for a desk?] isn’t stacks of papers, but SCORES OF DRAWERS (25A). If you mention that [Big group in a dog show?], you must be talking about OODLES OF POODLES (46A).
I’ll leave the last one for you to discover, or you can click to reveal it below.
61. [Massive collection for an alchemist?]
OCEANS OF POTIONS
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
