What is with the puzzles lately? I don't mind that they're hard, but they've been no fun, with so many truly arcane clues. Is the regular puzzle editor away, or has there been a change?
@Sarah Amberwood Actually yes. Will Shortz had a stroke in early February. He reportedly (and hopefully) will be back soon.
Dear Editor, I slogged through it, but way too many obscure clues and answers that needed Google search. Obscure isn’t challenging, it’s tiring. Again, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
@James I had literally four fills after two runs. I’ve been doing the NYT crossword for almost a decade. You said what I didn’t know I was thinking.
This was puzzle #90 for my daily solving journey (three months). A longtime lover of puzzles and language, I had nonetheless always thought the NYT crossword to be unapproachable, without even having tried. Spelling Bee, sudoku, the Mini, then Connections (can't wait for Strands to be out of beta!), yes yes, yes! But the actual crossword intimidated me. One hesitant New Year's resolution later, and here I am. I am not a fast solver. I have to look things up (especially sports). But man, oh man, it is so satisfying to complete a crossword! To know an answer outright, or to take a guess and be vindicated after more fill, or to just look at a smattering of letters and see the words they could be... Is there a word for that feeling?! I'm not great by any means, but I'm better than I was three months ago. This Saturday solve, though VERY tough for me - especially in the NW - feels like a high note. Spring break is over, I'll be back to my normal work and mom grind. I will keep solving, but I probably won't engage in these comments anymore (not that I would expect anyone to notice). From the short time I was actively engaged in this forum, I just want to say this: Be kind to each other. We're all here because we love words and puzzles. Be helpful, be positive, be charitable. Keep encouraging people to discover and enjoy whatever puzzling they can or want to do. It's the NYT crossword! It's amazing! Thank you constructors, editors, kind commenters, and emus.
@MAR1 Do drop in every once in a while. I've been looking forward to your comments recently. Remember that it's the reading of all the entries that takes the most time.
@MAR1 What a lovely post. I love the surprise of knowing something without knowing I knew it. Have a great holiday (for many people) weekend.
@MAR1 I am about 9 months into NYT crosswords, having only done Wordles for a couple of years prior. I knew early on that Mondays were easy and they rolled through the week with greater difficulty. I now do Mondays without look-ups, almost Tuesdays too. Every other days requires help to different degrees, but rather than a cheat, I consider them learning, as I know I have come a long way. As an Aussie, I get stuck on many Americanised themes and words (sports, politics and geography mainly), my two weeks in NY and Conn, have only mildly helped. But time has taught me nuances and new words and I surprise myself how quickly I get some now.
Oof, today was brutally hard for me; I usually take between ten and twenty minutes for a Saturday, but I struggled with this grid for close to an hour. I know there are lots of folks here, either more skilled or more masochistic than I, who will have loved this puzzle, but I found most of it unpleasantly sloggy.
@John Deal I am right there with you. My average Saturday is just over 20 minutes and I struggled with this for an hour and 9! I have never been so off of the wavelength of an nyt puzzle. Still completely solvable and after climbing out of the ring with this puzzle I think I enjoyed it?
@george I certainly feel proud that I got the yellow star with no Googling or other aid, but the road there was frequently rocky.
@John Deal An absolute grind for me too! In the past I would have resorted to outside help but that 100 day streak is so tantalizingly close.
As I contend with a recent diagnosis of Alzheimer's, my solving skills are now beginning to show clear signs of erosion. After years of climbing through to Saturday success, nowadays I find myself slowly sliding in the opposite direction. Today's puzzle, for example, was largely opaque to me, with broad swaths of blank squares. But you know what? I still enjoy it.
@archaeoprof Give it hell, Prof! There’s no shame in the occasional/piecemeal lookup to enable fun. And they’re learning more every day. Peace and best wishes to you and yours!
@archaeoprof It was opaque to a lot of us
@archaeoprof It was not the Alzheimer’s today! It was truly truly a beast of a puzzle. I worked my way up to solving Saturdays over the past few years but I definitely felt like a beginner again today.
Being a barista is a latte pressure. (Sometimes I mocha mistake.)
So much obscure trivia. Even when I knew some trivia right off the bat like OLEANNA it didn't help the overall clunky feel of this puzzle for me. Answers like CRAPPER and NOSERAG felt oddly base, and then there was TAT without it's eternal companion "puddy." Happy Saturday to those who enjoyed this one but today's puzzle clearly wasn't my cup of tea. Looking forward to tomorrow.
@Gregg woof, I’m right there with you in terms of having to slog through the obscurity. Case in point: until I read your comment, I 100% thought it was OLE ANNA 🙃
For me, this was a beast in two senses: Tough to complete, and a stellar accomplishment. On top of that, the grid design is gorgeous – simple, elegant, and calming. Thus, a Beauty and the Beast offering today. THE BEAST. Hard won fill-ins, to start, much clawing and grappling, fist pumps when something hit me. A proper Saturday. At some point, all the work earned dessert, some exhilarating “Whee!”-producing splat-fills. What skill and talent went into the making of this puzzle. Look at all that white! The average Saturday has 69 words and 31 black squares, and this grid has 66 and 24. But where is the junk? Nowhere! Au contraire, there is beauty sparking the answers – just look, for instance, at all four of the spanners. And the cluing – this is a nonstop wordplay/misdirect feast! A sampling: [Wood source] for GOLF BAG, [Patient check-ins] for GENTLE REMINDERS, [Rises in anger, maybe] for REARS UP. THE BEAUTY. Regarding that gorgeous grid, it is super-symmetrical – symmetric along the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal axes. Rare and wonderful. All this together, man oh man, this is a take-a-bow wow Saturday, IMO. High props, thumbs way up from me, Blake, and more please! Thank you for this masterful gem!
@Lewis I agree. This is the kind of puzzle I look forward to on a Saturday.
Beautiful puzzle, crapper notwithstanding. A beast, especially while toggling between Knicks and NCAA b-ball games. The clue for ABIDE is such a Will Shortz-influenced clue. Will, hope you are doing better each day. Peace to all and praying for peace this Easter weekend.
@Puzzlemucker It's not just CRAPPER. Check my earlier reply to Steve for related entries.
I think I'm over Fagliano. These past few weeks have not been enjoyable. Poor cluing, ridiculous answers and just NOT FUN.
@David O Selznick I totally agree! I like a good challenge, but these last few weeks have been filled with lame clues and arcana, nothing to really learn from.
@David O Selznick Totally agree . Too many arcane words and cluing that is totally obscure . Makes solving a chore more than fun .
@David O Selznick 1 to this. I stopped solving the Mini despite how short it is because I felt a lot of times the clues and construction were too obscure for me to enjoy the experience. I am sad to see the main puzzle now suffering from this style of editing and really hope it changes soon.
I’m glad I kept on reading the comments and found out I wasn’t alone in finding this puzzle too difficult to be enjoyable. But I’m also glad so many liked it as it was obviously difficult to construct.
Did anyone else take issue with 25A? There is one EN at the center of Kennedy. The two ENS are not centered. Hmmph.
@Minuteman I did note it, but did not take issue. I guess I figured it was close enough for crosswords since they were going for the play on words. Here emu, play with this.
@Minuteman Yes, I wondered about that. I originally left the first and third letter blank, since the answer could have been “nne.” … … Emu Emus
Ridiculously difficult and unnecessarily obtuse.
The first time I’ve ever just revealed a puzzle in disgust. I really take issue with some of these… CORNPIT? NOSERAG? CONGAME? This was so obnoxious on so many levels. These terrible clues and fill do not meet NYT crossword standards. I’ve done thousands of these and never been so annoyed by a puzzle.
@Chrissys agree! Horrible puzzle. Creators and editors should be ashamed
@Chrissy My goodness! You're not the first to be offended by NOSERAG and you're not the first to be unaware of CORN PITs--they were new to me and I enjoyed learning about them online and then reading about them in the comments. But what on earth is wrong with CONGAME?
Really disliked this one. Not all difficult puzzles are good puzzles. I could make a crossword puzzle referencing all of my friends’ pets and inside jokes and actors from C indie movies and nobody would solve it. Does that mean I’m an excellent constructor? Or does that mean I failed to hit a balance that was challenging but fair and fun? I’ve done puzzles I’ve had to work for and the payoff was good. This one was just a chore.
Tough one today. Needed more lookups than I cared for (1995 and 2008? an obscure Mamet play?), hence a few minutes over my Saturday average. While it didn't impact my solve time, I very much disliked the cluing for 25A. "Kennedy center" is either N, NNE, or ENNED. The ENS are very much left of center. It was easy enough to get past, but a very poor clue, nonetheless.
@Steve You’re right that the ENS are not centered, and if the clue had been “Kennedy center” it would’ve been incorrect. But that magical ?, as in “Kennedy center?” gives the constructor carte blanche to commit all sorts of chicanery — that’s a pretty standard NYTimes convention
So for everyone giving Joel Fagliani a hard time: Folks, the grids are accepted months even a year in advance. It’s pretty likely Will accepted this puzzle. Occasionally there are tweaks on clues late in the game so that may be on the recent editing crew but if you didn’t like the grid because it was too obscure then please don’t put that on them yet. And this is the same editing crew who worked on most of the clueing (with Will’s approval) before his stroke. For my two cents, I haven’t seen a lot of difference since Will left. There have always been irregularities in complexity and enjoyment before and always will but I think overall they are similar and I think people are just looking for things to grouse about.
If this Saturday was any more brutal, it would feature as a Soviet gymnasium. cc: emu handler
In loving memory of my longest streak yet—passed away just moments ago after a prolonged battle for survival. Your pain has now ceased, rest in peace. 🖤
@Scott So sorry for your loss😧
NOSERAG was clearly formulated just for this awful puzzle. It's called a SNOTRAG, gross as that may be. But the creator had no trouble with CRAPPER. Lots of terrible cluing here.
@L B I was easily able to make the leap from snotRAG to NOSERAG, but I have to give you credit; I was surprised to learn that Google ngram has no record of NOSERAG. On the other hand, dictionaries do, so... clue and answer pass that test. Apparently it shows up in James Joyce's Ulysses. yes yes yes.
Another winner of a construction, raising the ante in the puzzles game. An exaggeration, but you might say I felt a little like Molly Bloom at the end of Ulysses when I dropped in the last letter. Some especially scintillating clues: Wood source When we forged ahead Like some schools When the lights go out Paradoxical line of amazement Culprits behind some forced retirements The list could go on until almost all of the clues were included, but you solved it—you know what I mean. Perfect for a Saturday (and if you raced through it without having to stop and think, please don't tell me). You're an artist, Blake Slonecker. Thank You.
“Cornpit”? “Noserag”? What is a Cornpit? I’m from farm country and never have I heard this.
That was awful. I loved every last minute of it.
Posting this before I read any comments: THIS is what a Saturday NYT crossword puzzle is supposed to be. And it was hard! And it took an extra hour to complete! But it was also fair. The Saturday puzzle is not supposed to take 20 minutes. I am sure I will now learn this is "the worst puzzle of decade" or something. Nah, it was just hard.
Oh, glorious! An epically hard puzzle that songs will be sung about (sample verse: OMG, OMG, OMG this is hard!!). As you can tell, Blake Slonecker's definitely going in my "Big Book of Cruciverbalists to Love and Fear (Mainly Love)". There were virtually no gimmes in today's grid: every single letter felt like a small victory, and every single answer a cause for celebration. I had to hide the clock at about the 1:30 mark because it was most definitely mocking me -- kudos to the software engineers for making it morph into Miss Minutes 😀 I was going to list a few of my favorite clues, but I realize that that would involve simply repeating the *entire* puzzle. So let me just say that THEREARENOWORDS for how happy I am that Blake was able to put together such a stellar piece of work (oh, and lest we forget, Joel did a fine job of editing!).
I don't mind hard puzzles, in fact I look forward to the progression during the week. But for one to be really good, the constructor not only has to be clever, but understand balance. This one had way too many extremely esoteric answers that only someone with a major in that topic could possibly know, That's not a fatal flaw, but when the opportunity for an educated guess from crosses does not exist the puzzle simply becomes annoying.
festy, I was a theatre major a long time ago, and I don't think that helped me with anything in this puzzle. But I solved it. Which "extremely esoteric answers" could you not guess from the crosses?
I searched and searched for where to put the ARHAT entry today, but the ARHAT streak has been broken. For me, a typical end-of-week solve. Like many others here, after the first pass I was staring at a near-empty grid. But with the help of Google and a jackhammer, I drilled away and received the gold star. Yes, the NW was a bear. ECTO, I am looking at you. I am sure there are solvers who know all there is to know about parasites, but I am a NAÏF. I really enjoyed the long entries.
@Sherman Haha. Me too! I was very tempted to enter it in 5D “simple souls”. The entry was 5 letters. lol I could have used any gimmie possible. This one was brutal for me.
One for the CRAPPER. Too many clues where the answers could be anything in addition to words and phrases that are rarely (if ever) used. I found myself missing the cleverness that makes a crossword puzzle great. Oh and to anyone saying that one just needs more practice to do well here? I’ve been solving daily for years and know a puzzle that’s lacking when I see one.
@Lake life I fully understand your frustration- this one was a sticky wicket, for sure. But as someone who has also been solving daily for years, I loved it. I loved the challenge. I loved the most difficult corners. I adored the moments (minutes) of impasse where I just stared, feeling there was no way out. Which is exactly why I loved the gold star even more! So, I do appreciate your struggle. Just saying, the struggle is what I come here looking for, every day.
@Lake life Of course you're entitled to your opinion, and you certainly weren't alone in disliking this one. But I *really* wish you were more specific: which words and phrases are rarely if ever used? And as for "...where the answers could be anything", well... it's Saturday. The clues are supposed to misdirect, or require a few crosses before the meaning comes into view.
What a perfect Saturday. I think all I had on the first pass was wAIFS, ENS, fern (for ALOE), OR SO, ERNST and IRONAGE. The down weren't helping, and panic was setting in. The lower right was the first to yield, and that spread up and around until just the NW remained. I just finally stuck in LES on a wild guess, ECTO popped into my head, corrected NAIFS which made me see NET, and little by little, it came together. The cluing was delightfully opaque but perfectly fair, and I will look forward to the next Blake Slonecker creation.
@Nancy J. Nancy I can’t tell if you have mastered the art of sarcasm, or are somehow my mortal enemy who genuinely enjoys 3-4 letter obscure answers to even more obscure clues :’)
This last week’s puzzles have been a slog. They feel more like a chore than entertainment.
THEREARENOWORDS, but one, for my feelings on this puzzle: CRAPPER. 😂 Hard, but not clever or fun. Obscure, but not interesting. Finally getting the gold star felt like a quadruple-overtime victory ...in the NIT.
@CT agreed. Maybe the worst crossword I’ve ever seen
@CT Yep. If this had been my first NYT crossword, it would also have been my last.
@CT Truly one of the worst Saturday puzzles. Full of irrelevant and uninteresting clues and answers.
In a different world (or multiverse, as the kids would say) 36A would have been ITSNOTYOURFAULT and we would be talking about Good Will Hunting and I would have completed this Saturday. In this world, it was not, and I hit Reveal to expose a sea of red. Well such is life. Glad I didn't agonize over this one too much. Me and the constructor are obviously from different multiverses.
@MC I feel like most often these types of clues don’t repeat a form of the word in the answer. For example, in this case, we can preclude ITSNOTYOURFAULT as an answer (which I had also initially thought of) since the clue includes the word “yourself”, which would repeat itself in the “your” part of the supposed answer.
@MC I did the exact same thing and had to laugh at the sheer number of wrong answers. I got there with auto check which I prefer to google.
One of the occasional highlights of crosswords is the laugh I get from parsing incorrectly. Thought CONGA ME might be a dance step I hadn't heard of.
Never would have solved even after reading wordplay. I gave up not wanting to waste my morning on this and used the answer key.
I love looking up location clues on Google Maps (even when I know the answer!) and today’s at 13 down about Mount Chimborazo did not disappoint. I ended up falling down a rabbit hole after seeing a photo of a man ice mining. A little googling let me to an article about him that’s totally worth the read! <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18161337" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18161337</a>
@Joya Thank you — that was a fascinating side trip!
I'm proud of myself - I completed the puzzle without autocheck, and with very few lookups, mostly for the proper name answers and proper-name-based clues. I also gave in and checked the chemistry thing - TITER was new to me. I wanted to know if I knew this word's Polish equivalent, and to my surprise I did not (it's "miano" if anybody wonders, but why would you? I only knew a completely different meaning of this word - it is old Polish for "name," and as such it has nothing to do with concentrations). I had a chemistry course in primary and high school, and I actually remember surprisingly much from it, but I don't think I was ever taught about "miano." We did discuss concentration ("stężenie") though. The clueing was perfect Saturday level - misleading but not unfairly so. I just don't get one thing: why is TAT Sylvester, to Tweety? I know the cartoon, but other than that I am totally lost. Could somebody please explain what's going on here?
@Andrzej "I tawt I taw a puddy tat" is what Tweety says instead of "I thought I saw a pus sy cat", that's how he talks.
@Andrzej Tweety has rhotacism (couldn’t say his Rs) and several other speech disorders. “I tawt I taw a puddy tat” was Tweet’s signature line.
@Andrzej Tweety calls Sylvester a "puddey tat" due to his speech impediment. The "k" to "t" substitution (as well as the "g" to "d" substitution) is evidently somewhat common in early childhood for English speakers. My kiddo had difficulties with the "k" sound, and his auntie thought it was hilarious to ask him if he loved kitties (he did) so he would respond that, indeed, he loved *itties. Sylvester also has a speech impediment, namely a sibilant lisp, which I also happen to have. "Sibilant lisp" is a cruel term to impose on those who can't enunciate the "s" sound! How about that for a rebus crossword, replace "s" with "th"? Does Polish have a sibilant "s" sound? (I have a thneaking thuthpicion that some of my comments are lost in the overnight emu ether, so this may be a repetition of an earlier comment)
I was relieved that so many people found this as difficult as I did. I finally finished clean, but well over my average. I was totally stumped about halfway through when I realized that Nicolas was not one of the cOEn brothers and that the equator (ECUADOR) is the part of the earth that is farthest from the center. With those two breakthroughs the puzzle fell like a bunch of dominoes. Funny how that works out every now and then. Speaking of workouts, thanks for this one, Mr Slonecker.
@Vislander The Earth is slightly flattened at the poles (this was an exciting discovery in the late 1950's, as I recall 7th grade Science)....and ECUADOR is famously equatorial.... as you noted. One girl was particularly adamant that the Earth was 'pear-shaped'....and that was her nickname for the rest of the school year. I can see her face in my mind's eye, but I can't remember her actual name......
Agree with a lot of folks here. I enjoy a challenging puzzle but this was just a joyless slog by the end. There were no “aha” moments; everything so literal and sometimes forced. Hey props to you for making a puzzle but now I’m sad :(
And for those who need to know. Thomas CRAPPER was the English plumber (fl. latter C19) who invented the water closet and the U bend and generally did a lot to improve domestic hygienic. It is tempting to assume that his name is the etymological source for the vulgarism often used for that necessary human function but not so. It may be an early example of nominative determinism because that word predates Mr Crapper by decades or centuries (opinions differ).
@Andrew When I was in college I came across a little volume titled Flushed With Pride: The Story Of Thomas Crapper in the college library. Fascinated, I checked it out, and it turned out to be an interesting and informative read. And decades later, it helped me solve this difficult puzzle. I looked on Amazon and the book is available to this day.
@Andrew Thank you so much for this excellent bit of CRAPPER trivia. These days I only occasionally read the comments for reasons that I'll keep to myself. But I am very pleased that I checked in and found this. Thank youu
@Andrew @Marshall Walthew I believe the role of Mr. Crapper in the development of flush toilets has been over stated and is more of an urban legend. The author of the volume @MW cited was Wallace Rayburn, a kiwi humorist who also wrote the (fictional) biography of Otto Titzling (!) , the supposed inventor of the brassière. There are Wiki entries on all three of these individuals. The Smithsonian Magazine in 2017 speaks to all this in an article titled, “Three True Things About Sanitary Engineer Thomas Crapper”. See: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/39a3878m" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/39a3878m</a> — — — — — — — — — — — —
Not fun. Corn pit? Nose rag? Just no. Brutal but not in a “ah tough but helped me get better” sort of way. I’m not usually negative but this one just put a burr in my saddle.
This one completely stumped me, especially the upper left. Haven't heard of a GILLNET or NAIF or ECTOparasite.
@Steven M. GILLNET really bothered me, I’ve never heard it before and it doesn’t make sense on the face of it. A NET for catching GILLS? What?
@Rachel These nets are often in the news because of the many marine species caught in them inadvertently, like turtles.
ITS NOT YOUR FAULT has the same number of letters as ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. Nice chewy puzzle for a Saturday. Thanks Blake.
@Cynthia That’s exactly what I had for the longest time!
@Cynthia Better than what I got stuck on, which was variations on .. BEHELPED
Dang but don’t I feel respected! Wonderful puzzle with terrific clues. The very best in a long while. Thank you.
Sticking with rent instead of REIN would have meant spending 525,600 minutes on this puzzle. THERE ARE NO WORDS for my admiration of these constructors. Particularly liked IRON AGE.
@LBG Free rent is an oxymoron. If it's free, there's no rent. If there's rent, it's not free. Free lodging, maybe... !!!!!
@LBG “How do you measure, measure a crossword?” (I know my line doesn’t fit, but still…your post actually made me laugh aloud, so thanks.)
LBG, I first wanted a "Free" Ride, but this puzzle didn't offer one. But it did ENTERTAIN. Question, though: Does a FOREIGN CAR come with green paint?
Hmmm... Aren't GILL NETs illegal? Who on Earth ROASTS ribs?? CORN MAZE, yes. A PIT??? You're aware that grain bins are dangerous, right???? And: You put in 8A and then get prissy with 41D? We lived IN Cincinnati during the "WKRP" years, and watched it, but for the life of me all I could come up with was, "TIM, the cute Black guy" until I had a few Downs to assist me. That was quite the work-out--daunting at first....then Pouf! THESE THINGS HAPPEN...
@Mean Old Lady Think of a CORNPIT as a sandbox filled with dried corn. My kids love them when apple picking!
@Mean Old Lady "ribbing" is a manner of joking, so you would be "ribbing" someone at a comedy ROAST. And a delicious and expensive cut of beef is a standing rib ROAST, which is roasted in the oven.
Hated it. So much of that I absolutely did not know and couldn’t even guess, so I eventually ended up fully giving in and looking at the answer key so as not to break my streak of 120.
Wow. Just wow. Hardest Saturday I've in, well, ever. But I'm becoming forgetful in my old age. This was no only not in my wheelhouse, it wasn't even in my zip code. So many words I’ve never encountered in a puzzle, and a couple of words I've never encountered in life. Thankfully, I'm the only one who knows how many words I had to look up, and I ain't tellin'. Humbled but not discouraged.
@Jon Onstot Last week was another big toughie, imo.
For me this was a slow and steady chipping away at the blank squares. I really liked the shape of the puzzle. The NW was the last quadrant to fall, especially the crossing of IN A HOLE and FHA. I tried for REMINDERS that were SUBTLE before they were GENTLE.
@Liz B -- I also tried litTLE REMINDERS before finally getting it right. botTLE REMINDERS just didn't seem like a thing.
25A gave me pause. To me the centre of Kennedy is a single “n” ( en in NYTXWese or “nne”. I felt that ENS meaning “nn” was stretching my friendship more than just a little.
@Patrick J. I had ‘nne’ the literal centre of the word. This one was difficult all over, and I don’t think any of those I tentatively filled on first pass (only three or four) made it through to the finish. I had the admonishment ‘takeone’ for those tricksters’ treats, which at least was close in spirit! The rest felt like I was going down the CRAPPER with every double and triple guess. :(