Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (***for a Tuesday***) (just a bit harder than your average Tuez)

THEME: FINISHING SCHOOL (61A: Where social graces were once taught … or a hint to this puzzle’s theme) — “SCH.” (the abbr. for “SCHOOL”) is added to the “finish” (i.e. end) of familiar phrases to create wacky phrases, clued wackily (i.e. “?”-style):

Theme answers:

• GRUMPY OLD MENSCH (17A: Crotchety geezer with a heart of gold?)
• SEWING KITSCH (26A: “Home Sweet Home” needlepoint pillow, e.g.?)
• STAYED PUTSCH (47A: Coup d’état that’s been judicially suspended?)

Word of the Day: Pascal’s triangle (16A: Start and end of every row in Pascal’s triangle => ONES) —

In mathematics, Pascal’s triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients arising in probability theory, combinatorics, and algebra. In much of the Western world, it is named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, although other mathematicians studied it centuries before him in Persia, India, China, Germany, and Italy.

The rows of Pascal’s triangle are conventionally enumerated starting with row  at the top (the 0th row). The entries in each row are numbered from the left beginning with  and are usually staggered relative to the numbers in the adjacent rows. The triangle may be constructed in the following manner: In row 0 (the topmost row), there is a unique nonzero entry 1. Each entry of each subsequent row is constructed by adding the number above and to the left with the number above and to the right, treating blank entries as 0. For example, the initial number of row 1 (or any other row) is 1 (the sum of 0 and 1), whereas the numbers 1 and 3 in row 3 are added to produce the number 4 in row 4.

• • •

Spent far too long after I’d finished wondering how the “-OOL” part of FINISHING SCHOOL figured into the theme. I could see the “SCH”s tacked on the ends there, but what the hell was the “-OOL” doing. Did “OOL” somehow stand for something? Was there some kind of pun going on? Was it a metacommentary on the puzzle itself: “Finishing’s … cool?” It was only after a minute or so of pu(t)sching around ideas that I realized “oh … SCH. is the abbr. for “school” so … that’s it. SCH. actually represents the totality of the word ‘school’ … OK, then.” This was a somewhat deflating realization, as I don’t think I have ever seen SCH. used as the abbr. for “school” outside of crossword puzzles, where it’s used in that capacity all the time, both in clues (to signify an abbr. answer, e.g. [Big Apple sch.] for NYU), and in the grid (70 appearances of SCH. in the Shortz Era, plus an additional four appearances of SCHS., yikes). Hard for me to work up any love for that particular abbr. Weird that what’s “finishing” the answers is just … half of the word “SCHOOL.” I know I’m supposed to understand that SCH. *means* “SCHOOL,” but that “-OOL”‘ is still bugging me. Not cool. As for the wackiness level on these answers … starts out good and kinda flags as the grid goes along, with STAYED PUTSCH being kinda clunky and grammatically awkward. Plus PUTSCH is by far the least common / familiar of these words. Haven’t heard it in years. Feels like it belongs more to a bygone era (kinda like “FINISHING SCHOOL,” which I imagine many younger solvers are hearing about for the first time today). STAYED PUTSCH does feel like the wackiest answer, and generally I prefer big wacky over small wacky, if you’re gonna bother doing wacky, but STAYED PUTSCH was somehow the least enjoyable of the bunch. Maybe I just don’t like thinking about the violent overthrow of the government these days. It’s possible.

Between the “?” wackiness of the themers and the proper noun trivia today, this played a tad on the hard side. By which I mean I still solved it very quickly relative to, say, your average Thursday. Under five minutes, probably. It’s hard for me to gauge “difficulty” on easy puzzles because the margins are so slim. 30 seconds is a *lot* of time, for me, on a Tuesday. Anyway, I don’t time myself any more, but I could feel that this one was a little on the slow side. I know Bowen YANG but forgot him— took “Bowen” as a last name and got a bit tangled up. I also know Annie POTTS very well, but Young Sheldon, LOL, the idea that I would’ve watched one second of that is hilarious. I barely know it exists (existed? see, I don’t know). But Annie POTTS is great in Designing Women, as well as in that other thing I saw her in … probably Pretty in Pink:

Didn’t know what a Pascal’s triangle was, so ONES was just an educated guess based on crosses. Didn’t know if the Greek goddess of peace was IRENE or IRENA (knew it was one of ’em) (29D: Greek goddess of peace), so I had to wait there. Absolutely did the NILLA / NECCO conflation again, where it comes out NECCA (12D: Longtime manufacturer of Sweethearts)—I told that no matter how hard I tried to distinguish them in my mind, I would confuse these brand names in perpetuity, and this puzzle has proved me correct. Normally I like being correct. Not so much in this case. Why must NILLA and NECCO both make disc-shaped edibles!!!!? This only heightens the confusion! Sigh. Had REEL (?) before ROLL at 7D: Tape dispenser insert. I think that does it for hiccups and slip-ups. The grid as a whole is actually a bit livelier and more interesting than most Tuesday grids. That NW corner is particularly lovely, with GRUNT WORK and LIP LINER making an intriguing Odd Couple. Gonna make coffee and sit in a dark room with my Christmas tree and my cats until the sun comes up. Here is Max the Cat and his tree (sent to me by reader Donna S.). 

[grumpy old catsch]