Really enjoyed this one. And happy to be back so I can start on 500+ days in a row again (got really, really sick, but now I'm feeling better and the puzzles will help rehab my brain!)
These were fun! Then I got going… First aid station? Compulsive shopper? Molson ad exec? Sauna enthusiast north of Orkney? Observatory docent? . . . SPLINTER GROUP BARGAIN COUNTER BEER PITCHER FAIR ISLE SWEATER METEOR SHOWER help I can’t stop
@Cat Lady Margaret Trinity College volleyball player? Personnel service official for seamen? IRISH SETTER COAST GUARD CUTTER
@Cat Lady Margaret How the heck did you come up with these gems so quickly? Best I could come up with (and it took me several minutes) was : “Unemployed hypnotist?” BAD SPELLER (Of course, there’s always “One who throws crosswords into the trash?”)
Hi Caitlin, I had fun with the puzzle, but I didn't read the theme and title quite the way you did. You write "...all of which include at least one two-letter interjection adding another meaning to the entry." But the er or ers don't change the meanings; the words *containing* them have different meanings. The themer clues ask for a wacky reading of an ordinary phrase using a different sense of a word containing the -er. I read ER, IN OTHER WORDS... to mean "ER in words that have other meanings." YMMV MSRP emu
@Barry Ancona I agree, Barry. I was wondering what the ER had to do with the theme. I guess it’s just that the -ER word gets a rethink. Good, challenging puzzle. I enjoyed it.
@Barry Ancona Thank you! I thought I was going mad. “An off you can’t refuse” or “Numb of the beast” don’t mean anything. This was so clever, and I particularly enjoyed JUNK DRAW-ER.
A rooster's drawing of his home: chicken-doodle coop. (It's not just art, it's poultry.)
@Mike Or it’s just chicken scratch. !!! !!! At least it’s not emu scratch
I had SANK for SUNK. LARCH seemed reasonable in place of LURCH. Sunk sunk me.
@Richard. Me too. But “made” a putt should be “sank,” not “sunk.” Those tenses match. Given that clue, “sunk” seems wrong.
@Richard I was checking my grid for errors when I saw your comment, and I had done the same thing. Thanks!
2023 Wordplay POY Award Results: First, a big round of applause for @Tito for coming up with the idea of the Puzzle of the Year awards and for shepherding us through the POY process these past 4 years. The POYs are less about which puzzles "win" than about paying tribute to *all* NYT Xword constructors. There were scores of great puzzles in 2023, including all of those that were nominated and many more that were not. Without further ado, the 2023 POYs are (winners to be announced at 11:00 a.m.):
Sunday Puzzle of the Year Winner: 5/14/23 ALTERNATE ENDINGS By Sid Sivakumar Pairs of down entries used a “zipper merge” to form a third down entry. This is one of my favorite puzzles of all time. You can see the completed grid at xwordinfo.com, complete with colored highlighting: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/14/2023" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/14/2023</a> 1st runner-up 4/30/23 NAME DROPPING By Lewis Rothlein and Jeff Chen 2nd runner-up 9/10/23 DETOURS AHEAD By Adam Wagner
Let me be perfectly QUEER, this puzzle was a delight! That’s one of my favorite Indigo Girls songs.
Really liked this one, especially the last themer: I nearly died laughing. "Number of the Beast" is one of my favorite Heinlein titles, so it was nice to see it here. I don't mind the Harry Potter answers… I read the books when my youngest was into them and found them to be fairly quick reads and entertaining. So AUROR was a gimme, and the WAND-ER around town was clever as well. There was a lot to like here, and my only regret is that I got finished too quickly. Thanks, John!
This was the kind of puzzle that I remember from Sundays in my early solving days. Tough, witty, complicated, sometimes over my head, and ultimately the best, most satisfying kind, with fills that made me laugh and feel so smart when I got them—the kind of puzzle that made me fall in love with crosswords. This one was a treasure, John Kugelman, and thank you, but only two puzzles? Surely you will give us more!
I’m just gonna say it. Perfect Sunday puzzle. From the fun-but-not-obvious theme, to the “aha!” moments, mixed with clever, fresh clueing, with a dash of crosses that taught me things I didn’t know. Gonna read the comments now, because I’m guessing it’s a happy puzzler party going on… Thank you, thank you, Mr. Kugelman! * chef’s kiss*
22 across made me laugh aloud. 👏 Terrific puzzle.
This was a delightful puzzle, Mr. Kugelman. My compliments as well to your, er, co-conspirators Bob Weisz and Ken Stern for contributing NUMBER OF THE BEAST and AN OFFER YOU CAN'T RESIST. So apocalyptic. I didn't know AUROR (I know next to nothing about tormenting a clay artisan*) but thankfully PETER was nicely clued. *HARRY POTTER
@Henry Su Edit: Ugh, I meant to type REFUSE, not RESIST (although both will work)
Alternate title: "Groan-ER". These theme clues were real dad jokes.
Two of these theme answers were simply brilliant, IMO. Oh, I’ve seen similar plays on DRAWER, WANDER, TENDER, NUMBER and OFFER before in clues, so those theme answers drew smiles and were great fun to guess at, but no jaw drop. However, I’ve never seen such plays on DUPER or FLICKER, and they each drew a mighty “Hah!” for that reason alone. But what made them especially brilliant was the additional wordplay in their clues. [Great ape?] – A standalone phrase with each word paralleling the words in another standalone phrase SUPER DUPER. Wow! And [Switch hitter?], another standalone phrase with the splendid play on “switch”, for FLICKER OF LIGHT – wow again! John, to have two brilliant jaw-droppers in one puzzle is spectacular and memorable. Trust me, “Kugelman” has entered my look-for list. More, please, and thank you for this!
Because I knew that "boot" is the UK term for what we independence-minded English-speakers call "the trunk" (natch, as "trunks" refer to methods of storage, and a car's trunk is the anthropomorphic analog of the rear end, not the feet, which is where one generally affixes a "boot", do you put shoes on your butt, I think not), I immediately understood that: 105D. Some carry a spare one in a boot referred to those round rubbery things that keep our sedans (not "saloons", because saloons are places and don't move without considerable effort, I mean really, zoning permits alone, can you imagine?) in motion without creating a fire hazard. What I didn't remember and likely never will remember is that the Brits cheekily spell "tire" with a "y", sort of like how I spelled my name Gerg when I was five and didn't know how to tie my shoes or regulate my consumption of cereal. Seriously, I will **never** remember this because I never do. Anyway, I had a feeling that the answer might be another bit of mental jabberwocky, but the crosses were all in agreement but one. As I hadn't cracked the theme yet, I couldn't yet be sure that "ANNOFFERIOU CANTREFUSE" was objective nonsense. Boot... saloon... petrol... glove box... what do they call sweaters again? In other words, it's more fun to blame this on Britain than to resolve to remember more things.
@Greg Chavez Call it the curse of 1776 for you Yankees. …… !!!!!!! Emus, Sod off!
@Greg Chavez & TD* I dutifully filled in 105D, but as a border-city dweller (in an international marriage), it made me wonder: why is that place I shop at regularly, the one in the the shopping centre on Tecumseh Rd. in Windsor, not called "Canadian Tyre"? (and does it take cheques?) And those large vehicles which deliver merchandise to the store are neither "trucks" nor "lorries", but "transports," at least according to my Partner. Or is that just him? *Tee hee.
Some Sunday puzzle groaners (JUNKDRAWER indeed) on a Saturday night: a nice end to a nice day. I was not vexed by VORTEXES, although my preferred plural is vortices. The lovely Indigo Girls song, POWEROFTWO, was a gimme for me. Their harmonies are always so gorgeous. I liked seeing ALEC Guinness pop up. Although many younger movie lovers associate him primarily with the Star Wars franchise, for me his best work was in the comedies of his younger years including The Lady Killers and The Lavender Hill Mob. Here’s hoping all my fellow puzzlers made out well through the weekend’s storms and continue to do so through the coming polar vortex.
@Marshall Walthew And of course, his tour de force, Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which he played eight members of the D’Ascoyne family. That is a must see.
The Bridge Over the River Kwai was my favorite. So this comment Might see light of day I have covered it In emu spray.
My partner and I really enjoyed this one! We had many crossings on 22A and at first had "_U_KDRAWER". Looking at each other nervously, we wondered: "There's no way that would make its way into the New York Times crossword." We were relieved when the last two letters were J and N, and not... other letters. Terrific puzzle!
@Dom V. But then we got FBOMB! emu food
I like the way this puzzle takes a not uncommonly used idea from punny clues in the NYT crossword (clues that have a question mark at the end) but turns it on its head. The idea of using these dual-meaning words in clues happens pretty frequently. One that comes to mind is “Wanders around the airport?” as a clue for TSA. I’m sure I have seen all of -er words in the theme answers in today’s puzzle used in punny clues in the past two years. But finding common phrases that use these words and making them the themers (instead of using the words in the clues) by cluing the the themers to the lesser-used (or perhaps unofficial) definition of the particular -er word was a wonderfully clever idea that led to fun and enjoyable results. 👍👍👍
What an absolute delight!! I don't even think I could pick a top five of favorites out of this puzzle because every single clue and answer seemed perfect to me! JUNK DRAWER cracked me up, so did hits the space bar for ALIEN and NUMBER OF THE BEAST! All the themers were great! SUPER DUPER being my least favorite but that's kind of like saying I have a less favorite taco... All tacos are fantastic! I just maybe prefer a chicken tinga over a ground beef one... doesn't mean I don't love both! 😉 Anyhow, I found this a pretty perfect puzzle! And I felt great about my improving crossword skills when I NAILED IT by realizing quickly that it was appropri-ate not appropri-et. I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to get ELROY and ASTRO! I kept running through the song and I could picture them both but kept blanking at their names. But I knew they would come to me. On the other hand, how in the world did I immediately know ASPIC!? I have never made it, I would never be inclined to eat it, and I have no idea why I knew it. Meat jelly?! 🤔 I never heard of IN A PET so that held me up a bit -- along with thinking Dash's partner was Door for a very long time -- but I didn't get in a pet about it! So fun!
Well, I had F WORD in there before the correct entry. Tsk. OMEN before ONUS WALKER before realizing WANDER was the only way to make the Downs work CLICKER before FLICKER (which, BTW, is one of my favorite birds) Fave clue (almost too many to count, but...): Pan handle? Quite a few Unknowns for me: Toons are always stumpers, plus more dang Harry Potterese. But at last I know who TIM COOK is; interesting that he crosses SHAMU. A very satisfying solve. Wonderful puzzle! John Kugelman, I LUV U!
@Mean Old Lady FWORD led me to DASHCAM for the downword clue on the D. That stumped me for a while. What tore me asunder was SANK/LARCH rather than SUNK/LURCH. I always watched The Munsters, but I don’t recall The Addams Family being available when I had the appetite for such shows.
The theme, which I took a while to catch on to, stirs to action the idle “er” element in words like NUMBER, giving an ordinary noun or adjective the new meaning “one who does (X).” It activates in two senses. While the puzzle’s title “Er, In Other Words” nicely captures that transformation, the hesitant “Er” may still seem at odds with the theme. As an alternative title, I’d suggest one likely to appeal to social activists as well as ivory-tower linguists: Agency! ANOFFERYOURCANTREFUSE for “the Grim Reaper” was a stroke of genius.
Should the plural of Vortex not be Vortices?
DISCIPLE shouldn't have been let in- there were 12 apostles, but there are many disciples (former Catholic kid, sorry!). Fun puzzle though- clever.
This one is what the Sunday Times Crossword is all about- A sincere comment from a 50+ year solver (No timer, just pen to page) So clever Thanks for the smiles
I rode the struggle bus to glory this evening. Total blast. Thanks, John Kugelman! Raise your hand if the last letter you entered was the second E in 78a. (Where ELEA crosses PEREMPTORY.)
As a big fan of wordplay, groaners, and just saying words incorrectly to make myself laugh (and occasionally others), I thought this was a TON of fun. Laughed immediately at junk drawer and enjoyed the rest as well! a funny, mildly challenging Sunday. Just what the doctor ordered! BRAVO!
This brutalized me today. Just wasn’t on the same wavelength, never worked out the theme, and the straight knowledge questions eluded me. Tossed in the towel after fighting with it too much of the day. Great puzzle, but, er… not my jam.
@Jeff T I am with you, Jeff T. Nobody will ever read this comment as I am so late with it - mostly because it took me two days to solve this puzzle, and that was with Autocheck enabled. I can appreciate the clueing and wordplay, and I understand why many solvers were delighted with the puzzle, but it was brutally hard for me, way beyond what I find fun.
I loved this puzzle! No zipping through this one for me. The puns were first rate, and it's hard to pick favorites, but JUNK DRAWER and FLICKER OF LIGHT were up there. Hopefully, John Kugelman is just warming up and we'll see more from him soon.
I'm confused on 13D . INAPET as an answer for peeved? I'm parsing this as in a pet.. and googling that phrase turns up mostly websites giving answers to crossword clues and pet adoption agencies. Am I missing something? Is this just an obscure old turn of phrase? Fully willing to accept it as just a bit of crossword-ese and move on with my life, just didn't make any sense to me.
Jacob, Try searching -- in a pet meaning -- or -- in a pet idiom -- or -- in a pet definition. It's not crosswordese. emus are crosswordese
@Jacob Well, it may be somewhat moth-eaten now, but I got it off the -ET. In a snit, in a mood, IN A PET--usually over a small matter and indicative of a short temper. On the continuum, you would have 'high dudgeon' up there with 'in a fury' and in the midde 'all upset' and 'quite peeved'...and then on the low end 'snappish' and 'pettish' ... My, we do have quite a lot of descriptors for bad moods, eh?
73D Fisher uses they/them pronouns, so I think that actor would be a more appropriate clue
@elijah barron “I can’t get sued if I call you what’s on the license.” - DMV Lady, King of the Hill. Lol
I agree, but... They are known for their starring role in Bo Burnham's comedy-drama film Eighth Grade (2018), for which they earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.
@elijah barron Agreed. But the editors failure here surprises me less than I would be if they’d gotten it right.
It took me awhile to work out the theme, as I interpreted “Er…In Other Words", to mean the ERs had been inserted into other words or phrases, but SUPDUP for “Great ape?” had me scratching my head. I forged on, and by the time I hit the lower half of the puzzle, it started to click that the ER wasn’t an insertion but absolutely integral to the phrase and more importantly, to the clue. So thank you for the challenge, Mr. Kugelman! I would have voted your 7/30/23 Sunday crossword as puzzle of the year had I known how to vote—spoonerisms are always welcome, but the rioutously twisted clues made me laugh out loud like no other puzzle in recent memory.
@LordBottletop ....super duper was the weak link. It didn't make sense to me either
Got my first Sunday gold star today. Lovely job - I enjoyed it immensely!
“Elroy criticizes Astro” PETER PAN The Grim Reaper’s alternative phrase to AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE (AN OFF YOU CAN’T REFUSE) is fabulous. Great clue for TIM COOK (“Big Apple figure”). Thanks, John.
@Anita Nice. "Elroy and Astro get crossed up" BEEFED Without re-reading the across portion for "5-down's pet", I brashly decided that this was going to be a rebus Sunday: E L R J E T S O(n) Y By the time I had filled out most of the rest of the puzzle, I had forgotten that I had done this. The cost of untangling it later was significant. Such hubris.
@Anita Oof, clearly I misunderstood the “er”. After cleaning all day I must have inhaled too much ammonia, LOL.
So fun! Clever and just a little tricky with quite a few chuckles along the way. Well done!
Loved this one. One small critique that threw me for a while, the meaning of "BEEFED", at least to us younger folks is less complaint than it is conflict. Beef as a noun vs a verb have evolved into different slang terms. Saying "I'd had beef with them/that" would mean complaint, but the verb form of "I beefed/I'm beefing with them" implies an interaction of some sort. The Cambridge dictionary conflated the two with their definition, and their example phrase "he was beefing about having to do the shopping", is not a way I've heard the word used in common parlance. It might have had that grammatical usage in the past, I don't know. TLDR: nowadays, beef as complaint is usually congugated as a noun, whereas congugated as a verb it is more synonymous to "feud".
@Maia As an old who worked for many years with teens in a very urban setting, it always cracked me up how the kids would say that two people were having beef. It sounded to me like they were ordering dinner. To us olds, the expression was “to have A beef (with someone ”, which had could only be a complaint or a feud. Beef without the article was always cow meat.
@Maia, Respectfully, I have a BEEF with your comment. I hear the usage in the puzzle a fair amount. *You* may not, and that’s fine — but that doesn’t mean that “nowadays” people say things differently. It just means that your generation (Gen Z? Millennials?) says things differently. That’s fine but it is also true about lots of words … Unfamiliar to you doesn’t mean archaic. (Boy, I sound like a cranky old bastard today. Get off my lawn!)
@Maia and @Steve L Thanks! This is the first I’ve heard of this modern nuance. I agree, it’s hilarious. So, the Beefeaters were not only beef eaters, but also beefers.
To be honest, this puzzle didn’t do it for me. The themers were solid — it took me nearly the whole puzzle to figure out the trick, and once I did I got a nice chuckle (especially from NUMBER OF THE BEAST and AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE). But the rest of the fill felt like a slog rather than lively and sparkling. I got through it fine, although it came in dribs and drabs rather than flowing smoothly. I don’t have specific criticisms — it was just a vibe, so I will chalk it up to being on a different wavelength than the constructor. (Robin W is at the opposite end of that spectrum!) YMMV.
PS — A quick read of the comments so far suggests that I am in a minority — which I am glad to see! Maybe it’s just an off day for me …
@Nat K I’ll join you. I often like puns, but I recognize that the person coming up with them often has more fun than their receiving audience, and for me that was largely the case here. And I also didn’t find much of the fill around them much fun to figure out. To stay positive, though: two I did enjoy were RATFINK (because it has been a long time) and TYRE (because the clue and answer are both Britishisms).
Wow, worked hard for that one and very satisfied. I'm a dad joke general and this was so pleasing. Junk drawer is now in my top 5 clues. Great puzzle!
Supplier of armor to the conquerers of England in 1066? NORMAN MAILER Et tu, Emu...
Hi Lewis, Did you just submit this, or did an emu sit on it? Henry Su re-posted NORMAN MAILER four hours ago in CLM's thread after his earlier first attempt did not appear. Recycling great ideas!
I had CHICKENFEEDERS for farmers, and when I Couldn't fill the crosses, tried for fun to think up other crossses, learned very fast that constructing a puzzle is really really hard! This was an amazingly complex example of word wizardry. Many thanks, come back soon, Mr. K.
27 across could also be clued Pirate? AYER
I loved this puzzle. The emus don’t like me at all. Thought 22A was hilarious and I hope to see more from Mr Kugelman! I mentioned 22A and I guess I’m not allowed to. That’s OK. Thanks for the fun puzzle!
I was completely out of step with this puzzle cluing and couldn't get going in any meaningful way. Odd when that happens and frustrating. I hope everyone else enjoyed it!
Very clever theme, brilliantly executed. Still can’t decide which clue/answer was my favorite. Thanks, Mr. Kugelman!
This puzzle was a delight! Every theme gave me a giggle when I got it. Perfect challenge and pay off for a Sunday puzzle. Well done!
This was pretty wonderful. Every theme answer and corresponding clue were perfectly constructed - each so complete and well-crafted that it felt as if it must have ALWAYS been there, waiting, like the sculpture inside a marble block. A couple of people called them Dad jokes. No way; these are much more than that. I checked the author's previous puzzle and I don't believe I liked it much, as it was strained and tried too hard. This one is a major and much less awkward step forward. Well done and refreshing.
Wow! This one kept me going. Blew out my average like a great Sunday should. I had no idea cake or egg were of NORSE origin. Cracking puzzle Mr. Kugelman!
Any puzzle with ASTRO and his boy ELROY is okay by me. Pretty terrific puzzle. And the additional themed pairs provided by Wordplayers are terrific, too.
Fabulous puzzle. I must draw attention to the "16 minutes" stat for Anthony Hopkins. Although this number is widely circulated, its source is unknown and it seems to be inaccurate. Matthew Stewart--who runs screentimecentral dot com, a complete database of screentimes for Oscar-recognized performances--pegs Hopkins at nearly 25 minutes. Still good enough for second shortest of all time!