Hey, what about these entries in the puzzle that turn the other corners? FUNKS SANKA: the drink you need when even coffee won’t cheer you up. TACOS SEER: they will tell your future in exchange for two carne asada. IRATE EDITH: she really doesn’t like your new adaptation of Ethan Frome. PIBB BULLET: latest trend in energy drinks.
@Cat Lady Margaret This made me laugh out loud. I could’ve used a FUNKS SANKA this morning!!
@Cat Lady Margaret Ha very good! All of them. A downward dog taco must be carne asana. I was also look at the L's going upward: there's BEEB /TELL A LIE: British channel accused of falsehoods. LARIAT SKIRT: New trend in rodeo couture. ASK AFTER / DEAR: woman wants to know how her estranged husband is doing, but has a block on remembering his name.
@Cat Lady Margaret Your clue for IRATE EDITH is the best. They are all good, but that one is A ONE.
It's worth noting that Mr. Mendelson maximizes the number of twists in the puzzle. Out of the seven across answers that share an ending with the beginning of down answers, he twists all of them. Pretty neat!
It's Wednesday, and we turn a corner in our solving week. I wonder how many people will take the turns well and how many will spin out. Glad you made it back, Morton; don't wait another five years. KANGA, not emu
@Barry Ancona Ya, I was just thinking that. M-W went just a bit too well for me. Thursday will be hell!
I hold my paintings of elk near and deer to my art. (I fawn all over them.)
Mike, I'll bet they're expensive paintings too. (A lot of doe.) little emu
@Mike Do you really caribout your collection? Have a hart!
@Mike It be-hooves me to tell you that, although collecting treasured art never grows stag-nant, it can bring some to rack and ruin.
Yesterday was ONE L. Today was “What the L?!” for a lot longer than usual. It was a: W O W E D N E S D A Y!
I find questions about names of Winnie the Pooh characters very hard, even though I know the stories quite well, as they are popular with kids over here, too, or at least they were in my childhood. What's the problem then? The Polish translation. Given the, to put it mildly, unusual names of all characters in the English text, the only way to translate the books was to have equally unusual names in Polish, possibly in the spirit of the original, but completely different otherwise. Pooh himself became... Kubuś Puchatek (in Polish Puch- sounds like Pooh; and since there is no name similar to Winnie in Polish, Pooh became... Jake, say, since Kubuś is one of the diminutives for Jacob - Jakub - in Polish; Puchatek indicates he is fluffy - puch=fluff), Eeyore became Kłapouchy (one with the droopy ears), etc. So today some product I have never heard before (I have no idea what SANKA is, but given its slogan it must be some horribly, industrially mistreaded coffee not on sale in Poland for food safety reasons) crossing with the English name of a Pooh character I have never seen or heard before was my personal natick. At least the missing letter was easy to figure out. Also, could somebody please explain Low states: FUNKS? I understand nothing here (which did not help with figuring out _ANK_ in the crossing).
@Andrzej - "states" here refers to moods/states of mind, not US states. Hence if someone is in a funk they are in a lower (further south) state of mind.
@Andrzej if it helps with the Pooh characters, in English they're mostly named after the animal they are. kanga and roo are kangaroos, kanga the mom and roo the kid. Piglet is a piglet, rabbit is a rabbit, owl is an owl. Eeyore is named after the sound a donkey makes. Tigger is a tiger. When something is feeling low, like depressed, you might say they are in a funk. So being in the state of feeling down here is a funk
I relished this theme because it took me a while to figure it out, gratifying my riddle-loving brain, then once I did, things fell quickly, bringing a glorious and extended “Whee!” What a sweet combination! I also enjoyed the drink mini-theme: SANKA, SODA, STOLI, PIBB, and ALE. Morton, I am uplifted by your persistence, continuing to submit puzzles to the Times even through five years of rejections, after having three puzzles published there in less than three years. Thank you for the inspiration, and for a fun ride today!
What an L of a puzzle -- AGAIN!! This time figurative Ls, as opposed to literal Ls, although they are that, too. BUT IS IT ART? -- Loved that. A question both to mock for its pretentiousness and to ponder for its answer. My friend Pat had a baby, we'll call him Reese. Pat loved art, loved going to museums, to galleries, to openings, and would drag baby Reese around with him starting when Reese was six months old. Reese enjoyed it, from what we could tell--he was a tactile kid, liked to look at things, handle things, get involved. He kept being told, especially at the museums, to keep his hands to himself, etc. And when he was one and a half (or should I say half past one?), we all heard him utter his first sentence when some doting friend tried to pick him up: "Don't touch me I'm art." We were all like: Whaaaaat??? Reese is probably in his early thirties now. And of course we still kid him about it, singin' "U don't touch me!" to MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This when we see him...which is usually at an art opening... Anyways, this was a lively, cheery puzzle, with good humor and good intent. I felt challenged & enlivened by puzzlin' through, and even the glue words, ERR, ORCA and the like, had cluing with a bit of pizazz, which always redeems those words in my scoresheet. OK, Sam's photo choice is particularly challenging. They're on a SOFA? They're HOLDING DEAR little Toto there? Did NOT come from different UTERI? Go from soda to ale without getting a ticket? Yeah no.
@john ezra That’s a great story. And I have no clue about Sam’s picture, either. You came up with more guesses than I did.
@john ezra For the photo, go to the headline: "Votes for Multiple Parties". The siblings are multiples, and it's a party! I'd vote for multiples of parties any day. At least when there's cake involved! (I seriously zoomed in on that frosting before I even read the column.) Mmm!! 🥳🥳🥳
@john ezra et al. I was stumped by the photo as well, but I think G probably nailed it with the “Multiple parties” and of course that’s the column title. An obituary of Linda Winchester Harrison (one of the three) on 12/2016 in The Scotsman notes they were born six weeks early on 5/3/1947 in Edinburgh. They had their coming-of-age birthday party at Quaglino’s, a London restaurant popular with royalty, stars, and jet setters. Seems they went on to be a popular cruise-line entertainment group. For a sample, see: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/5x9bbj3w" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/5x9bbj3w</a>
I didn't spot the semi-revealer at 39D until Sam pointed it out. Loved the Potter clue although I am wise to that little trick and I saw it immediately. 15A Pre-nursing homes? was a great clue. Good fun and a classic Wednesday - pitched just right IMO.
@Andrew It never occurred to me that uterus would have a plural. So when I got UTERI with crossings I thought I'm offf the rails here. Agreed, great clue.
I already love me a Wednesday puzzle as it is, but give me one like today's and I'm in heaven. Caught on to how to come up with the dash fills at HOLD DEAR, and it was a splendid solve from there on out. The only glitch was at the crossing of LARI _T and DO _S I DO. Never heard the former and couldn't parse the latter because my brain was stuck on seeing do-si-do. Took a shot at the "A" and -- oh, DO AS I DO. Doh! (Nothing like a good laugh, even if it's at my own foibles..) Such a well-constructed, intelligently clued, and satisfying puzzle. Thank you, Mr. Mendelson!
This one was so fun. Really interesting and very unique in my limited experience. Like a themeless with a twist. No real theme. No real revealer. Just a series of confounding dashes you need solve your way through. It was HOLD DEAR that tipped me off, after my puzzle was 80% complete. I entered the D and thought, I guess HOLD kinda works for “Cherish”? And thats when I noticed the DEAR. Very cool. No “birds flying south”. Just some good old fashioned puzzle solving. (Birds flying south was also very cool, for the record) Thanks for the good time, Morton J. Mendelson
I liked this for a Wednesday. I finished at about 2/3 my average, so it was slightly easier for me. For any new solvers that might not be aware, a hyphen/dash as a clue usually indicates that the answer is a continuation of another answer. Usually it is horizontally on the same row, but today it was vertically, running on from the horizontal, which is a nice difference.
Loved this! Morton: glad you persisted!
Lovely puzzle. Haven’t been to Chipotle in ages, so I figured they could have “tazos” on the menu. Yeah, no.
What!? Yeti a hoax!? YEAH NO! I want to believe! What a lovely puzzle! I really enjoyed it! I definitely didn't get the theme/trick right away... I had three of them filled out with some head scratching as to why something worked -- but I didn't see it until I did. And then I couldn't unsee it. Not that I'd want to. After my aha moment, I pretty much flew through with the exception of TELL A lie messing me up in the SW -- along with not knowing BEEB. FIB makes more sense than lie but it didn't initially occur to me. Favorite: 18A Potter's area of expertise - MAGIC! In my limited solving experience, this felt like a perfect Wednesday. But IS IT ART? I'd argue that yes, indeed, it is art! Glad you kept on submitting, Morton J. Mendelson!! Please do more! :-)
A fun little twist to the puzzle today! It didn't take too long before I picked up on the trick, and that helped to work on the other themers. I'm just wondering that if we're tricky today, what's coming tomorrow? Nice one, Morton; don't stay away so long!
I have the complete works of Edith Wharton on my Kindle, and am sbout three books into it. I've read a bit about her life, including her long-term friendship with Henry James. I've seen photos of the house she lived in, exterior and interior. I know that at one point she bailed out Henry James financially, and that he never knew who did it. But when this puzzle asked me for her first name, I drew a blank for several minutes and had to wait until I got three crossing entries before it finally came to me.
This crossword felt so good. The simple elegance of the theme with no revealer or explanation felt like a nod to seasoned solvers, like the constructor was nudging us and saying “you know what to do”. The puzzle definitely wasn’t a breeze, but it flowed nicely and was a satisfying solve.
Anyone else feel that Wednesdays have been consistently solving a lot like Thursdays? This was clever, just a little tougher than I expect for Wednesday.
CK, The editors may be responding to longstanding complaints that Wednesdays were consistently solving a lot like Tuesdays. emus on a pendulum
Really enjoyed today’s puzzle. Perfect Wednesday puzzle.
Sorry to be negative, but I’m a musician and I always cringe when musical terms are used improperly in word puzzles. Today’s clue for LEGATOS doesn’t feel quite right to me. That word is an adjective used to describe notes played smoothly with no gaps, and I don’t know a single professional musician who would refer to passages as ‘legatos’ and on the off chance they did, they would use the italian LEGATi
@Jacob I always cringe at musical clues because I know nothing about music and musical notation. The closest thing to a legato I know is either a papal legate, a Daewoo Leganza or Subaru Legacy 🤣
Jacob, Don't be sorry. It happens to all of us. I see you used the FITB format many of us have used. Sorry to be negative, but I’m a ______ and I always cringe when ______ terms are used improperly in word puzzles. Today’s clue for ______ doesn’t feel quite right to me. That word is a(n) ______ used to describe ___________, and I don’t know a single professional ____ who would refer to ______ as ______ and on the off chance they did, they would use ______.
I was sure this wasn't going to work for me, because I thought the "-"s were going to be words that turned into some clever sentence, but I stepped back and let the "-"s alone, and it literally fell into place.. Baffling until I stopped overthinking it. Thanks, M.J.M. Nice puzzle.
Enjoyed the puzzle! It took me a bit to see the twist. Today, I started with the down clues and sooo many dashes! I got to 55D and Rhode popped into my head (note my location for why) but it wasn't clued as small or even a U.S. State so I left it blank. (For a while!) I looked at the down clues directly above the dash clues in the grid - looking for an answer that spanned downward but nothing clicked. So, I started the across clues. I finally figured it out with TEASER/RATES. I finished just above my average for Wednesday and had plenty of fun doing it! 15A Pre-nursing homes? Was my favorite tricky clue! Thank you Mr. M for this!
@SuzyQ I agree, "pre-nursing homes?" for UTERI was the best! 😆 .................................... ....................................
I'll add my voice to what I'm sure is a chorus of musicians on here pointing out that "legato" is not, ever, a noun. (In English or in Italian!) It's flat-out incorrect to imply otherwise. Given that the NYT puzzle, in the Age of Shortz, prides itself (rightly) on its accuracy and clarity, this is shouldn't have been accepted.
So "Potter's area of expertise" might be the trickiest hidden-capital clue we've had in a while, but last week's "Big Apple Figure" (TIM COOK) had to be the trickiest hidden-lower-case clue I've ever seen.
@Josh That’s a very good observation you make. We always talk about “veiled capitals”, but not so much about “veiled lower-cases”. I’ll have to rethink that and keep an eye out for these. Thanks for the post… — — — — — — — — — —
Absolutely LOATHE today's crossword. Totally unpleasant. Dumb, annoying, unnecessary. Thanks
Enjoyable puzzle and quite a long workout for me. Catching on to the theme was a big 'turning point' (surprised I'm the first one to say that) but there were still more than a couple of unknowns (not familiar with TEASERRATE for example), but managed to work it all out. Interesting that the 'turn' square letter was implicitly repeated in all of the theme answers, and that of course put a considerable restriction on possible theme answers. Impressive. A couple of really amazing puzzle finds today that I'll put in replies. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: First puzzle was a Sunday from October 7, 2012 by Zoe Wheeler with the title "Space Invasion." Some sample clues/answers: "Good locale for adoptions?" BIRTHMARKET "Ammo that's still on the store shelf?" SITTINGBULLET "Excitement over some presidential selections?" CABINETFEVER "ID for a certain band member?" TRUMPETCARD Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/7/2012&g=39&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/7/2012&g=39&d=A</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta I was beginning to think — the horrors! — that I would finally be stumped by a Wednesday puzzle. I was at the 42-minute mark before I had got halfway through. As it was for you, catching into the theme was the turning point; the so-called AHA! moment. I was trying to find a four-letter word meaning “cherish” that started with HOL and noticed that a D added to it would, with a right-angled turn, give me HOLD DEAR. And then the meaning of the clue in 13D marked as < - > (and all the other ones similarly clued) became clear. Finished the rest of the puzzle in five more minutes of speeding along. So everything “turned” out just fine.
What a lot of fun! Thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. Quick and only a little quirky. Well done!
@Isaac Newton I agree with you. I admire the way Mr. Mendelson constructed his puzzle. Well done. More!
Great puzzle, Morton. This reminded me of a Thursday, which I mean as a sincere compliment. Just unfortunately for me I wasn't ready for that and spent far too long trying to make various words for '-' work. Oh well. Now, once it hit me, I couldn't help but smile! Seeing Sam's discussion about the Potter clue and some of the comments is funny to me. I am of the Harry Potter age, immediately thought that was too easy, and was trying to think of words related to a gardener or one that works with clay. Anyone else?
Very happy! Got the “-“s right away so had lots of fill quickly. Made for a (for me) fast solve!
Overall I liked this puzzle, but I have a minor gripe. I will grudgingly concede that legato can be used as a noun as clued, but I can't imagine many realistic contexts in which someone would use the word LEGATOS. You would never say a piece of music contains several LEGATOS, or that a composer is know for his copious use of LEGATOS. You would say a piece has multiple legato passages or movements, or that a composer makes frequent use of legato. I guess some amount of crosswordese is to be expected in themed puzzles, but I'm using my challenge on this one.
Words to live by: "Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge away." — Metropolitan (1990)
Not my fastest Wednesday, but close. STRIPPOKER? YEAHNO. Well …….
I don't say this a lot but I REALLY hated this one. Terrible.
@Eric It would be more useful if you would elaborate what you didn't like about it? Was it just that the trick was unfamiliar to you? This is a trick that has appeared before, and so it will probably appear again. Or was it something else?
EIGHT Themers! That's a Wow from me. Not difficult, but fun to fill in, and at least one or two spots that made me pause and go for a crossing for assistance. FYI: some of us ZONK out. Yesterday LASSO, today LARIAT. HALF HOUR had to be modified, tsk. DO AS I DO made me think of DO SI DO and what fun square dancing is. Last time we participated in one was a Summer evening gathering in Arkansas--a picnic and dance party with a talented caller. We drove home soaking wet with sweat and went straight for the swimming pool to prevent heat stroke. LOL
Sam’s choices about words she’d never encountered, LARIAT, PEPPILLS and in the comments, I GIVE, are pretty common words/phrases to me. Is it a regional difference, an age difference or a provincial mindset? I was happy there were no pop culture references . The - was fun once I figured it out.
@Elke I suspect at least some is age (pep pills - pretty sure that's quite dated) but might also be regional (lariat)
@Elke - I was just about to say the same thing. I suspect it’s a generational thing. Anyone who grew up on 1950s and 60s TV westerns knows what a LARIAT is (didn’t all the cowboys have that looped rope hanging from their saddle horn?) And anyone who was in college in the 60s was familiar with PEP PILLS. I’ve also heard I GIVE in many contexts.
@Elke pep pills were a 50' phenomenon aka diet pills but hijacked from mom by teens. Mostly girls for sleepovers etc. Lariat is a multi used crossword term. Surprised Sam was not familiar.
Had no, no, no idea what the dashes meant. And since the dashed entries weren't shaded (indicating they go together) I didn't know they were supposed to go together. Luckily I eventually filled in the squares going the other direction. I have no idea what the pairs are, since the author of this article didn't list them (in word form). Dumb and annoying to send out an incomplete list of clues.
@jennie - I should add that I was working the puzzle on my phone, so I was seeing the clues one at a time. No wonder I didn't remember where all the dashes were. I'm hoping that I would have gotten the theme if I had a printed list. I also just read your whole article on solving fancy crosswords. I will stay away from "rebuses" , thank you. Too much hassle on my phone.
@jennie they’re in all the places where the last letter of an across meets the first letter of a down :)
I really enjoyed this one as well. One of my faster Wednesdays but i think it was a Potter-like mind meld that allowed some subtle or tricky answers to pop out of my head! Sanka… Askafter… Lariat… Hold Dear…. It felt great to finish it!
I got STRIP POKER first. Then filled in SHIRT, which turned out to be SKIRT, and I thought the theme was pieces of clothing! A ribald theme in an NYT puzzle? Of course, that didn't get me any further, but it was fun considering it.
Wonderful PEP PILL for Wednesday, but IS IT ART?
I kept looking for a revealer that never revealed itself. I did catch on eventually, so I didn't find it too difficult. I got caught up in the SE corner, until I got the pun in 53A and STRIP POKER came to me. That helped tremendously in getting the answers in the rest of that corner. Well constructed, and quite a few amusing clues... very enjoyable!
I wasn’t getting much, and had no idea how to treat the hyphen clues until the very last one somehow came to me. Not, I hasten to add because I have ever played strip poker. Anyway it was very satisfying to go back to all those theme entries with an idea of how they worked. Great fun, Morton.
Nice job Morton and I am glad you stuck with your submission attempts. The right turns in the fill were at first confusing until I caught on to the device. Keep trying Morton and now that this puzzle has been published let’s hope that it is not another five years until we see another of your efforts published.
Nice warmup for Thursday and fun puzzle, definitely a little more challenging than normal for me, which is a good thing! I do protest, though, that the YETI is a hairy hoax. We once saw the blur of an eerily gray elbow rounding our house as we pulled up the drive and ever since have blamed all unexplained events on you know who. 😉
Congrats, Morton! Excellent Wednesday. Every possible spot for a right turn was used.
I caught the gimmick at 1A/4D, but still managed to be tripped up by EVERY SINGLE theme entry, down to the last. Did someone replace my Aldi's Barrisssimo French Roast with SANKA? Here's a little bit of 1980's fluff by Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy--a founding, but not enduring, member of Duran Duran--in which Mr. Duffy asks a lot of questions, but not the one we really want to know: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7dxgQsJ_2I" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7dxgQsJ_2I</a>
I loved this puzzle! The clues were clever, just the right difficulty for a Wednesday, with a little trick to nudge our brains! Thank you!
A very good day for me. I seldom see themes even when there is a tipoff, so realizing what was going on before I finished was a plus. But the best part was in Sam's comments. I once was fluent in Spanish way back in college and kept wanting to use riata. I never knew the connection between that and the correct entry so it was a huge "really?" for me and something I truly enjoyed.
@festy well that just about makes my day!!
@festy I will say that I was surprised that Sam had never heard the word LARIAT before. I guess she has yet to go to her first rodeo. Maybe she should watch more of Ted Lasso.
Sam writes: With the exception of never having heard of a stimulant drug “informally” referred to as a PEP PILL... Sam, I assume you were being ironic, and you *have* heard them referred thusly "formally?" <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peppill" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peppill</a>
@Sam. We also have riata (same root) that carries the same meaning. But South American ratites are caught using bolos