Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Hi All -
I'm a fairly new crossword solver, and am working my way through Peter Gordon's book "Harder Wednesday Crossword"
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Harder-Wednesday-Crosswords/Peter-Gordon/e/9781402719158/?itm=3#TABS

(So if you don't want some of it spoiled, stop here.)




I've done the first few puzzles, and while they are challenging for me, what I don't understand at all is the themes to the puzzles. I will give two examples here with hopes that somebody might be able to illuminate me as to what I'm missing.

The second puzzle in the book is titled "Glass Act" by Eric Berlin.
The longer answers in the puzzle are:
"Shetland Pony", "Penalty Shot", "Fipple Flute", and "Frankenstein"
I have no idea how that relates to Glass, or Acts, or Glass Acts, or even the Glass-Steagall Act.


The third puzzle is titled "See 38-Across" by Nancy Salomon.
The 38-across clue is: "Why should I bother?" (and the theme of this puzzle)
The answer to that is "What's The Point"
All of the other theme clues simply say, "See 38-Across". Their answers are:
"Pencil Grade Ball", "Pressure Selling", "Pin Match Viewend", and "Stand Gun Melting".
This one is even more confusing to me because not only do I have no idea how those relate to "Why should I bother?" But most of them don't even seem to be correct phrases.

So I'm feeling sort of dumb here as nothing is making sense. I'm just hoping someone can point out where I'm missing it.

Thanks!

I can see shot glass, flute glass, stein glass as drinking vessels. Not sure about Shetland Pony.
Zero idea of the rest. Hope it helps.

"Pencil Grade Ball", "Pressure Selling", "Pin Match Viewend", and "Stand Gun Melting"

(almost)all these words can be followed by 'point'
view point and end point - if viewend is two words.
grade point? not heard of.all others tho,ball point,gun point etc.

And a "pony glass" is apparently a small glass.

"grade point" is the academic scoring system in the U.S.

Neckfraid,are you Peter Gordon?

Haha...no, not Mr. Gordon myself. :-)

Anyway, thanks for the help all. That makes more sense. I still think the "point" theme is sort of odd because now I see that, yes, you can add "point" after each of those words individually and it makes sense. However, the words as written together in the puzzle still don't make any sense, so it seems like a very weird theme fill to me.