uh...that may actually be it, lol

a ricer makes crude, or unnecessary, modifications to cars

RICKROLL

I said that already :P

oh

RACKETSS

Maybe it's RICKLESS again :-P

lol

I actually do wonder if it's ricercar, tbh

Wait, a RICKSHAW is a vehicle!

@Randal'Thor perfect.

the sound part is the rick

(do tell me if you want me to comment on any of these suggestions)

now we need crudely enhanced

I'd like to know if that's at least it - since you're here, I assume it's not

@TrojanByAccident Could that fit the wordplay part somehow?

@GarethMcCaughan we're 90% joking, but feel free to

@Randal'Thor I'll check

@Khale_Kitha making no actual comment as yet, you shouldn't "assume it's not"; I have so far deliberately not been saying anything about any of these.

Right, but I'm asking you if this is correct....no other way to know if it is

OK, if that's an actual official request, then: Yes, it is correct: a RICERCAR is a fugue (a typically-intricate musical composition) and that term tends to be used especially for particularly elaborate ones. And a RICER CAR is a car that has been blinged up with go-faster stripes and spoilers and things in the hope of making it go faster or at least look faster.

too funny

("ricer" can mean either the car or its owner, but I have definitely seen "ricer car" used)

Yeah, I hadn't seen ricer until just now looking it up, so I overlooked it before

It was a bit of a cruel clue because of the combination of the possibly-unfairly-highbrow with the possibly-unfairly-lowbrow.

So double definition

And also because maybe the definitions were a little loose, but personally I wouldn't think them unfair if I saw them in someone else's clue.

Yeah, double definition.

nice

Wow

I didn't expect that

(or I suppose you could take RICER = crudely enhanced -- I think the term can be used attributively, you could have a ricer bike or something -- + CAR = vehicle, and so regard the second half as a charade)

Yeah, I was assuming you meant a ricer's car, basically

@GarethMcCaughan I'd never heard that word.

Philistine!

Likewise, and I'm a composer :P

(Seriously: if you have never heard that word then you have never read "Goedel, Escher, Bach" and I have to say that that really surprises me.)

*either of those words

(just read it properly)

@GarethMcCaughan Own it, have had it recommended to me multiple times, never actually got round to reading it.

(the "seriously" comment was addressed specifically to @Randal'Thor who I know is a mathematician as well as interested in wordplay and the like, and therefore right in GEB's target audience)

Ricer is... kinda derogatory, it's a mocking thing in the hot rod community about asian imports, as I recall, short for riceburner

@GarethMcCaughan hehe

I believe there are two alleged etymologies for "ricer", one derived from "riceburner" and one a silly acronym ("race-inspired cosmetic enhancements"). I guess the offensive one is the real origin and the other one is an attempt to make it sound less racist.

Speaking of doing that to a car... Ran into (figuratively) a Cadillac, last week, that someone had tweaked to have a massively loud muffler noise. ><

Okay so who's next? @Khale_Kitha ?

Yup.

joy.

I need a little bit.

interestingly enough, all of my knowledge on this topic comes from one of the Need for Speed video games

lol

Neopalpa Donaldtrumpi

lol

CCCC "Currently Banned" Board: Will Gareth

@GarethMcCaughan That was good. Bad, but good. :)

Not sure who decided naming an endangered moth after Trump was a good idea, but hey, I'm not a scientist

@TrojanByAccident Oh good lord.

Can we stop naming animals after rich and famous people?

Naming them after the naturalist who discovered them is one thing.

...I wonder how long this guy's been hanging onto this moth, just waiting to do this....

Naming them after presidents ... just, why?

lol

@Randal'Thor Especially when the animal might be actually insulted...xD

Of course it's already listed here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

@Randal'Thor Why? To mock Donald Trump, obviously.

@GarethMcCaughan I don't like how a lot of the media commentary on Trump takes the form of things like "ha ha, look at him, he's got funny hair". If you want to criticise the guy, criticise his political views and policies. It's not as if there's a shortage of things to criticise there.

But this isn't really the right place for that conversation anyway.

Would "A lavatory without" be a fair way to clue "house"?

@Sconibulus Explain?

outhouse=lavatory

seems that'd more clue outouthouse

How does "without" clue "remove out"?

I was thinking house with out could be lavatory

"a house, without" could be a lavatory

Yeah, but how does that clue "house"?

@Sconibulus Surely that makes "A house without" = lavatory?

Double ninja'd!

@Khale_Kitha or "Without a house"

lol

@TrojanByAccident I like that one better than the other suggestion - it's more likely to fit into a surface reading

I was thinking "a house, without xxxx"

ok, that's basically what I wanted to know

I'm slightly disappointed in Obama

The issue's not the splitting of "without", it's that you're using "without" to clue "remove out". If anything it would clue "add out".

he pardoned Chelsea Manning

@TrojanByAccident "Animal is a round hole without a house (3)"

and yet Edward Snowden is nowhere on his list :/

@Randal'Thor lol

@Deusovi it's not though. 'without' is clueing to add out

@TrojanByAccident for a second I thought you meant you were disappointed because of the pardon that did happen

@Deusovi nah lol

commuting a sentence is not the same as pardoning

@Khale_Kitha Not in the clue they were asking about.

@Sconibulus true. it's similar enough, though

Right - I specifically stated that it would only work in reverse =D

and you knew what I meant :P

@Randal'Thor So what exactly does that give?

I think Obama would likely have commuted Snowden's sentence had there been one, given that he hasn't been tried and sentenced though, that'd be hard

a full pardon is a bigger deal

@Randal'Thor I agree (1) that this isn't the right venue for that discussion but also (2) with what you say.

I don't necessarily agree, but I understand it

@GarethMcCaughan Yeah, same here.

@TrojanByAccident COW ("animal" as def, "hole" = O, "without a house" = WC, "a round" means anagram).

@Sconibulus indeed.

@Deusovi I was mostly wondering if you could clue a bit in reverse, by saying what you need to do to it to get to the word in the clue, rather than the other way around

@Randal'Thor wc?

the answer appears to be a resounding no

@TrojanByAccident "water closet", meaning bathroom

@Deusovi ah lol

I forgot about the water closet

@TrojanByAccident en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WC (didn't realise that was only European English)

@Randal'Thor lol we've got water closets, I just never heard WC used for that

Although it's mostly the older houses that have them

@TrojanByAccident WC just means toilet.

^

I do hope your newer houses have toilets too :-P

@Randal'Thor oh

@Randal'Thor most of them

CCCC: agile and twisted rough bo has a hand no more than nine (10)

@Khale_Kitha is 'rough bo' a typo?

no

hmm

well, I know what the answer has to be

but I don't understand one part of it yet

@GarethMcCaughan and what is that?

Anagram of "rough bo" + some stuff?

"rough bo has" is 10

@TrojanByAccident I am not going to say yet in case someone else solves it completely without me :-)

@GarethMcCaughan k

@Randal'Thor Yeah, I'd considered that, but that'd mean "a hand no more than nine" isn't relevant

(or that it is, and "agile" isn't)

ok, I do understand it

the answer is YARBOROUGH

which means a bridge hand with no honour cards in it (though I vaguely thought tens didn't count for that purpose)

@GarethMcCaughan language?

@TrojanByAccident English.

and BOROUGH is an anagram of "rough bo" (though not very anagrammed -- it's BO + ROUGH)

Bridge slang.

Language = card game specialty term

interesting

What about "agile" though? "YAR"?

and -- this is the bit I didn't know -- YAR is among other things a really obscure word meaning agile.

:/

Its primary meaning (which I also didn't know) is something like "ready".

Wow, lots of obscurity recently.

Yeah

Just noticed that half the starboard is once again @Rubio

It was that or clue off Yars Revenge, which would have received more complaints :P

@GarethMcCaughan Yes

...Or write a different clue? :P

:P

@GarethMcCaughan got one ready?

out of curiousity, how would the following have gone over? (I thought it would have been too easy)

one of nyc's five

?

@Khale_Kitha where does the 'yar' come in?

to clue Borough

oh

I understood it

but idk

@Khale_Kitha, "one of the big apple's five" might be slightly more cryptic.

I would have understood that, but I don't know that it's any better than "twisted rough bo".

I thought of that, but was told I couldn't double-clue

Better, but the issue with the clue IMO was YAR.

or "one fifth of the big apple"

yar, it was.

I made sure it was in every dictionary before using yar =D

I like that, Silenus

CCCC: Thought of unnoted jeremiad (9)

@GarethMcCaughan Ha, nice.

I'd accept that. "The Big Apple" is pretty much synonymous with NYC - I can't think of many places where they would be used differently

I was thinking "hmm, saying 'yar' for yes doesn't sound very Garethy", and then I realised.

hehe

> "Garethy"

@Deusovi Okay

@Randal'Thor Ah. I briefly thought you were commenting on the CCCC I just posted, in which case I was prepared to be impressed at your solving speed.

I'd be fine with "One of five in The Big Apple" as a standard crossword clue for "BOROUGH".

@Silenus I think this would have been the best surface read

@GarethMcCaughan I'm not that quick, especially when it comes to CCs :-)