Jumble Spoiler – 07/13/17

Visual Description:  This guy keeps cranking them out!  (Sorta)

DPAAT  =  ADAPT,  PITYS  =  TIPSY,  SOYMLT  =  MOSTLY,  CIRNUH  =  URCHIN   —   Giving us:  AAPTTPSMOYURCN

Clue/Question:  To sell his new electric ignition systems, Charles F. Kettering created a – – –

Answer:  START–UP COMPANY

(A very clever pun!  Kind of a merging of the old and the new.  The phrase, start-up company, is fairly ubiquitous today, but it’s a relatively new phrase.  Apparently, it was first used in a Business Week article from September, 1977.  Certainly not the norm back in 1911.

All of today’s clue words are old favorites, although all of their jumbles came up as new.  I had to skip, and come back to, “tipsy”.  And, I can see some having trouble with “urchin”, seeing how it starts with a vowel, and it’s not all that common, unless you’re a big Charles Dickens fan, or really into marine biology.  The answer letter layout was beautifully cryptic!  You really had to pick up on what they were trying so hard NOT to say!  And, the cartoon is a great likeness of Mr. Kettering.

I usually learn something new from the Cryptoquote, and the Jumble is usually just stuff I pull out of the cobwebs of my mind.  But today, The Jumble taught me who Charles F. Kettering was!  I’ve heard the name for probably 40 years or more, but just in the context of The Charles F. Kettering Foundation.  They’ve long been huge sponsors of shows on PBS.  But, the name always just went in one ear and out the other, for me.  Just another fat-cat with mega-bucks, I thought.  I’m sure just about everybody in Michigan, and people who may have worked for, or who had family that worked for General Motors, knows who he was.  But, for me, he kind of flew under the radar.  But, what an innovator!  NOW, I finally know who he was!  LOL!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Cryptoquote Spoiler – 07/13/17

“The little windflower, whose just-opened eye is blue as the Spring heaven it gazes at.”   —   William C. Bryant

(Beautiful imagery!  But, it just felt like an incomplete sentence to me.  Possibly because it ends with a preposition?  So, I looked it up.  Of course it’s part of a fairly large poem, but here it is with a little better context:

“Lodged in sunny cleft, Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at— Startling the loiterer in the naked groves With unexpected beauty, for the time Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar.”   —   from “A Winter Piece”

This is the first quotation from William Cullen Bryant, since I’ve been posting these spoilers.  One interesting thing, to me, is that this sixteen word quote, along with the author’s name, uses all letters except for K, Q and X.  Things like this usually make things a little more challenging.  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR