After a tough few days, Friday’s puzzle was a bit easier.
Puzzle #1118
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Puzzle #1117
One dumb mistake otherwise not too bad.
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Puzzle #1117
Can someone explain how gossip is pronounced like “T”; is it a reference to TMZ?
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Puzzle #1118
Almost got tricked by a red herring. Way off on the order, though.
Gossip is known in slang as “tea”.
Thaks, @psychobunny. I have never heard that before.
You may have heard it as the phrase “to spill the tea”.
Still doesn’t ring a bell. I had that category figured out first, but couldn’t find a fourth answer.
@Robot_Arm , you obviously don’t do crosswords, because I’ve seen that word with that meaning show up all over the place in them for the past year or so. I’ve only encountered it once in the wild, which is surprising, given that I work in a high school, which should be Ground Zero for slang.
I used to do normal crosswords, like the New York Times’, fairly often. I started preferring cryptic crosswords several years ago. My favorite constructors retired a while ago and placed their archive online, so I’ve been working my way through those.
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Puzzle #1118
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Puzzle #1118
Pretty straightforward RR.
For the first time I felt like I could be sure if the order.
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Puzzle #1118
Saturday. I did okay, but I had to look something up to confirm a supposition. I bypassed the red herring because I don’t know enough Cranberries songs.
Puzzle #1119
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Puzzle #1119
Thought I had the reverse rainbow. Didn’t know one blue and one green but chose the one that seemed to make the most sense.
Not sure I would have ever gotten Blue.
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Puzzle #1119
I had to make a couple of guesses for words I didn’t know, but guessed correctly.
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Puzzle #1119
cranberried what’s in your head 
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Puzzle #1119
Fortunately villanelle was a clue in Friday’s crossword. Unfortunately blue vs. green was a coin toss and my coin was wrong.