Untangle the theme of Killian’s crossword in the last puzzle of the semester!
SUNDAY PUZZLE — Happy last week of classes! I hope this crossword will be a pleasant respite before final exam season begins. To all my fellow graduates, congrats on reaching this amazing milestone, and best of luck on your next chapters in life! Forever, Go Blue!
I am an avid daily solver of the New York Times crossword and have become an aspiring crossword constructor in my free time, so I am thrilled to be making my publication debut in The Michigan Daily! Tricky clue explanations along with the crossword’s theme and answer key can be found below. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the puzzle, please feel free to reach out to me at killiano@umich.edu. Have fun solving!
Tricky Clues:
36A. No, these aren’t grades in a unique grading system (actually, I’ll get to that later…). “S, A, B, C, D, E, or F in a ranking system” refers to a possible TIER within a tier list. Tier lists, which originated in video game communities, have become increasingly popular across social media. These lists are ways to subjectively rank anything and everything from best to worst within colorful, lettered tiers (S is the best tier while F is what you would expect. Have fun browsing tier lists or making your own on the TierMaker website). What does the S stand for? I always figured it meant “superb,” but other theories suggest that it could stand for “special” or the letter S from the Japanese grading system, which occasionally awards students S grades for exemplary work. Whatever the definition, I hope my crossword is S tier!
37A. “Predators, on a scoreboard” isn’t referring to a Chris Hansen episode of “Dateline NBC” but rather NSH, the abbreviation for the Nashville Predators of the NHL. TBH, that is a lot of three letter abbreviations, but the Predators joined the NHL in 1998 as the league’s 27th team. The team got its name (and logo and mascot) from the 1971 discovery of a saber-toothed tiger skeleton in downtown Nashville. Other candidate names included “Ice Tigers” and “Attack.” I’d have to say the team made the right choice.
66A. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? 700 pounds, it turns out, but that’s another story for another day. While a beaver’s “Exclamation while chucking” may be “dam,” enough talking about rodents. This clue refers to YEET, a highly versatile slang word that can be broadly used to mean haphazardly throwing something or as an enthusiastic interjection. Or, as an enthusiastic interjection while haphazardly throwing something. The possibilities are endless! Merriam-Webster yeeted YEET into the dictionary in September 2022, so it is a bit of slang that is here to stay. I’m just happy to have included YEET in a crossword.
7D. The “Tyler, the Creator album featuring the song ‘EARFQUAKE’” is IGOR, which won the Best Rap Album award at the 2020 Grammys. Tyler, The Creator is one of my favorite artists, so I will always recommend listening to this great album. Besides the standout EARFQUAKE (the music video is fire, literally), some of my other favorite songs on IGOR include RUNNING OUT OF TIME, NEW MAGIC WAND, and GONE, GONE / THANK YOU.
22D. If you have ever played any video game, you have likely encountered this clue’s answer even if you are not familiar with the term. “One who just goes with the flow, in modern lingo” is an NPC, an initialism for non-player character or non-playable character, which is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. NPCs can often be interacted with by players but usually have predetermined behavior and scripted dialogue. The term has spread across the internet on social media platforms such as Twitter and TikTok, where it has become both a meme and a subject of controversy as NPC has evolved to represent anyone who seemingly just follows the crowd or doesn’t think for themselves.
30D. “Anatomical or botanical ring” refers to AREOLE which is a term derived from the Latin word for “small space” and is used throughout the scientific world. In anatomy, the areole is the round pigmented area on the human breast surrounding the nipple. In this context, areola is the more common spelling and what I was familiar with before creating this puzzle, but areole is a frequent variant spelling. In botany, an areole is a small rounded area on a cactus from which spines and flowers grow. Areoles are a distinguishing feature of cacti, identifying them as a distinct family from other plants. Fun fact, my family owns an indoor cactus that is older than I am! This cactus has pricked us in more ways than one as (despite its infrequent watering needs) the cactus continues to outgrow every new pot it is placed in as it reaches out towards the ceiling.
Today’s Theme:
The shaded squares, what do they mean? The theme revealer at 50-Across begins to unravel this mystery. The answer to “Junior high… or a hint to this puzzle’s shaded squares” is MIDDLE SCHOOL. Junior high is another term for middle school, but this entry also reveals that there are schools hidden in the middle of each theme clue. Which schools are hidden? The familiar names of the University of Michigan’s three largest schools by enrollment! First, at 20-Across, the clue “Percentages of companies’ revenues that are kept after subtracting direct expenses” is a technical definition for GROSS MARGINS which has Ross (Ross School of Business) hidden inside the shaded squares. Next, at 28-Across, the clue “Value in physics that is used to quantify the resistance of an object in a fluid environment” describes the DRAG COEFFICIENT which is hiding COE (College of Engineering). Finally, 44-Across has a much less technical clue than the previous two theme entries: “‘The Daily Show’ specialty” is POLITICAL SATIRE which has LSA (College of Literature, Science, and the Arts) hidden in the middle. But wait, there’s more! If you haven’t caught on yet, each of the theme entries are a subject matter related to a field of study at the shaded school. For example, Ross students might learn about gross margins in a business economics course, while COE students could learn about the drag coefficient when studying fluid dynamics in a mechanical engineering course. Likewise, LSA students may discuss political satire when taking political science courses!
As a computer science major, I originally planned to construct a University of Michigan themed crossword that somehow included EECS in a theme answer. Fortunately, as it turns out, EECS is not an easy string of letters to work with, so I decided to turn to other UMich lingo. Discovering LSA hidden within political satire really brought this theme to life and added an additional layer of depth to the puzzle.
Answer Key:
