MISFITS?

by Gary Cooper on August 15, 2012
Time: 14:50
Difficulty: 5 / 10
Quality: 8 / 10

Theme: MISFITS? - The theme answers are oxymorons. I think.
Theme answers:

• 16A: Not quite tops (SECOND BEST)
• 63A: Remake of an old standard (NEW CLASSIC)
• 10D: It may be gold to a tabloid (SOLID RUMOR)
• 28A: “I’ll be finished in a minute” (ALMOST DONE)

Word of the Puzzle: DRUPES (17D: Stone fruits)  
In botany, a drupe is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin; and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a shell (the pit, stone, or pyrene) of hardened endocarp with a seed (kernel) inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries. The definitive characteristic of a drupe is that the hard, lignified stone (or pit) is derived from the ovary wall of the flower. In an aggregate fruit composed of small, individual drupes, each individual is termed a drupelet.
Other fleshy fruits may have a stony enclosure that comes from the seed coat surrounding the seed, but such fruits are not drupes.
Some flowering plants that produce drupes are coffee, jujube, mango, olive, most palms (including date, coconut and oil palms), pistachio, white sapote, and all members of the genus Prunus, including the almond (in which the mesocarp is somewhat leathery), apricot, cherry, damson, nectarine, peach, and plum.
Corking is a nutritional disorder in stone fruit caused by a lack of boron and/or calcium.

2 crosswords in a day, impressive, huh? I’m not sure with the theme, but it seems like an oxymoron to me. Other oxymorons like jumbo shrimp, living dead, pretty ugly, etc. If you don’t know what an oxymoron is, let me tell you: An oxymoron is a phrase that is formed by two words, and are antonyms each other. Like pretty is the opposite of ugly, but the word pretty ugly, pretty means “fairly”. That’s how it works.

I’ve been messing this clue for like 3 minutes. I still cannot get what the fruit is until I smashed my head on the keyboard. I tried from DURIAN → GUAVAS → APPLES → GRAPES → PLUMES → DRUPES. I had to say THAT WAS HARD! That was the third hardest crossword clue/answer that I have ever encountered. The first was a crossword about bands and one of the theme clue was “Isolated like a boss” and the answer was THE LONELY ISLAND. The second one was a crossword about medieval times. And the clue was “Nerds in democratic France” and the answer was RENAISSANCE FAIR. The second was my favorite clue though.
 
I don’t want to complain, but words like OREO, ERA, DELI, ERE, EMIR and OBOE has appeared too many times. That’s why I hate crosswordese.

Bullets:

• 1A: Some turns (LEFTS) Do you know that I’m a leftie?
• 15A: Mammal whacked in an arcade game (MOLE) That’s the reason why I laughed in Austin Powers.
• 38A: Broadway’s “____ Yankees” (DAMN) Didn’t expect profanity on crosswords. Except for a PEN IS on a NYT. (That really happened before.)
• 30D: Made typo-free (EDITED) Do you know that tyops rarely happen to me?