I thought the saran and sari answer might have been DELHIWRAP (or DELIWRAP with the number of letters) but I was too punny for my own good!
"Doughn't you eat enough bread as it is?" "But I don't just want it. I knead it." ("Okay, I'm leaven you alone.")
Mike, Please pass the OREOS. EAST of emu
@Mike Well, at yeast you don't have a gluten allergy! (Oh, don't roll your ryes at me!)
Sometimes the best part of a puzzle is how it makes me feel. Today’s is one of those. The solve brought a tubing-down-a-lazy-river feel to it, enough bite to feel involved, but no waves to battle. Calmed me right down, felt mighty good. Even better was the fact that a bit through the fill-in, I noticed that my whole being was smiling, and it continued to smile right through the end, and even beyond. Why? The theme answers and clues. Their wackiness, cleverness, and element of surprise. This was top-notch wordplay. Highlights: • SHOULD THE DEED ARISE brought a spontaneous “Hah!” in how it perfectly explained an inscrutable clue, and in the surprise and funny-ness of the transformed common phrase. • DO AS I SAY, DOT AS I DO – So wacky, what a find! • USE YOUR DOODLE was so perfectly clued [“No need to find a professional illustrator!”]. Clue writing as art. • THAT’S A DOUGH BRAIDER brought a mental image of a challah factory tour, which made the humor even more involving. This puzzle was balmy in both its senses – calming and wacky. I relaxed. I was overtaken by inner happiness. Marvelous one, Katie and Christina. I get the feeling that you had as much fun making this as I had doing it. Thank you so much!
@Lewis I would like to sign on to this comment. I feel exactly the same way, but you expressed it much better than I can. This puzzle offered a great start to a Sunday morning
I hold a graduate degree in Linguistics from Yale University. People should be aware that the word "octopus" is Greek, not Latin (oktopous in classic Greek). Its plural is therefore "octopodes." Not "octopi" which uses a Latin plural form (like alumnus:alumni). So, using the most common form of creating plurals in English, namely adding an "s" or "es" is completely acceptable. How many people on this list participate in on-line forums? How many of these forum participants call them "forae"? English usage commonly uses the "s" form to create plurals of foreign words, even when the word is already plural. Anyone heard somebody cringe at the word "candelabras"? Well, candelabra is already the plural of "candelabrum," so it's a "double plural." How about "tortellinis"? Or "antennas"? Or "formulas"? It should be "formulae" and "antennae," but who ever says that? Let's let "octopuses" and "octopi" live together comfortably in the English language, at least until some pedant insists on people using the correct plural form --"octopodes."
@Alexander L While my degree is in physics, I got my degree from a liberal arts college where things like this were drilled into my head from age 17. And while I know that octopodes is correct, my heart (and mouth) says "octopi". Corollary: And while I know better, my heart says that Pluto is the ninth planet. I don't care if it doesn't sweep its path clear. It will always be number nine to me.
@Alexander L I also trained at Yale but I’ve never mentioned it here before, nor will I ever again. I’m not sure why you felt that was relevant here. We’re all just crossword enthusiasts and that kind of stuff is of no interest to anyone here. Are you new here? Are you familiar with our resident marine biologist Captain Quahog or with Steve L’s OCTOPI Net? My friendly advice would be to look at a few previous posts before you start telling us about your Yale Ph.D. In linguistics. Oh, you got a job? See; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/3v4b0k?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/3v4b0k?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/3v4b0k?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/3v4b0k?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
Today I completed my first official 7 day streak since starting doing NYT puzzles bit more than a year ago. I feel a bit emotional heh. I am proud of my progress, even if there’s been some sentiment in the past days’ comments that the puzzles seem easier this week. Not for me, I know I’ve been having to slug it out. Happy to also complete on a Sunday, it gives me an even greater sense of achievement. Today I took 92 minutes to finish. It is fitting that it includes a clue about my home country’s national dish, and one about GBBO, a guilty indulgence. It was a workout today and lots of tricky clues, you really had to be careful! Thanks Christina and Katie. I naturally gravitated to putting in the more common phrases first without the twist, then edited as I went along. Took the longest with the DO AS I SAY DOT AS I DO … the crosses had a few possible options that were eventually fixed (originally had SAY YES instead of SAY SOS, HIED not HIES, DIGS not DISS). Whew! Patience is a virtue, and always keep an open mind. ONWARD!
@Nina Lovely comment, and congratulations on your achievement! Easy versus hard will always be a matter of wheelhouse, puzzling experience, wavelength, or any combination thereof, so pay no mind to it. All that matters is that you did it! You now have a 7-day streak under your belt and that's wonderful!
The puzzle wordplay was nothing to sneeze at. emu allergy
I finished the puzzle with DOUGH BRAINER then checked all my answers before realizing I had to change the N twice in that clue!
@logical I did exactly the same thing! Lost valuable minutes trying to find my mistake, but still finished 15:29 minutes faster than my average.
@logical Same here, that was very sneaky to have two N to D swaps, where all the other themers had only one. ADOBO I had heard of but never eaten. What the heck is an ALT-weekly? Tough corner.
@logical I did the exact same thing. Fortunately I picked it up my first time checking my answers. A very fun puzzle.
With the variety of places a puzzling element can occur (in the clues, in the black squares, in the answers), today’s started right off with deciphering the title! I thought, hold your GAZE?? Hold your TOES?? before realizing, duh, NOSE. Then I got to the challah, and thought “dough brainer” was pretty funny (I mean, the really big ones could do some damage) before realizing we had to hold our nose twice on that one. Dice puzzle!
@Cat Lady Margaret I thought “brained” also before the down clue showed it was a “d” and not “n”.
@Cat Lady Margaret That N in BRAInER was the nit I had to hunt down to get the gold star. The little tiny corners on both sides of the bottom of the puzzle gave me fits.
Now we have a mnemonic for NORTH EAST SOUTH WEST, here's a good one for the Great Lakes: "Lisa Likes Licking Lettuce Lightly" Lake Superior Lake Michigan Lake Huron Lake Erie Lake Ontario
OCTOPI Well played 👌 As someone for whom the “well actually, this one clue is obviously wrong to anybody with the right knowledge” genre of comments is a major pet peeve, I’m thrilled to see the constructors doing the lord’s work here and trolling the nitpickers.
@Man and 2 dogs "well actually, this one clue is obviously wrong to anybody with the right knowledge" What a great subtext to many of those comments! A few recognized the ambiguity that immerses us, but some absolutely do not.
Dis puzzle was a delighd frub stard do finish. Druly a masderpiece of consdrucshun. Nebermind some of da daysayers and haders, I dink dis was one ub da greadesd Sundays I’be solbed in a long dime. Danks Chrisdina and Kadie!
After so many Sundays filled with Dad jokes, we were giggling our way through this puzzle that seems to us to be chock full of Mom jokes. Thank you Christina & Katie, for reminding us how much fun we had trying to converse with our toddlers as we made our way through various colds and allergies, during those years. The resulting abused (toddler) language is still part of our family conversation.
I can't remember the last time I used a mnemonic. But I do say North East South West to myself before tipping the syrup bottle onto my Eggos. The last time Christina Iverson collaborated was really recently: (4/26) with Matthew Stock, and their notes indicated that Iverson was responsible for most of the lower half Stock for the upper. I remember thinking that I really enjoyed the wit and warmth of the lower half and the one clue/entry I particularly liked in the upper part turned out to be hers as well. It provided excellent substantiation that every constructor has an individual, distinct and unique voice. In this grid, however, it's as if Hall and Iverson have mind-melded, because it's very seamless and wittily clued throughout, and the doppelganger aspect (both senior editors of the two great bi-coastal newspapers, both of similar age, both parents, both seeking inspiration in the everyday moments) reinforces this feeling that it would be hard to point to whose clue/entry is whose. That rather upends the notion of the individuality of each constructor, but not completely. Many single malt scotches have identifiable characteristics, but the same can be said for good blended scotches. Dough braider. Hah!
@john ezra The mnemonic I remember from Boy Scouts was, "rowdy boys push blue sleds from big hills," for responsiveness, breathing, pulse, bleeding, s...and I can't remember the rest. Time to turn in my first aid merit badge, I guess.
I LOLed out loud at the groanworthy themers, my favorite being DOASISAYDOTASIDO. I started this last night and all was going swimmingly until the very end, where the little block in the SW corner remained opaque to me. After staring at it for a couple of minutes I gave a shrug and went to bed. When I arose this morning I reopened the puzzle and filled the pesky area in a matter of seconds. It never ceases to amaze me how the brain knits up the raveled sleave of care and solves knotty problems with ease during sleep.
@Marshall Walthew That little SW block had me stymied too, and was the last to fall. Happily, though, I merely needed to walk away from it for a little while. . . . . . . Emu filler
Present company here EXCEPTED, the world just seems to be getting more & more stupid: 101 Across: A mnemonic is needed for the points of the compass 🧭 ⁉️
@David Pearce LOL not sure the mnemomic wouldn’t be harder to remember. But the constructors have a cold obviously, so they get extra credit. (Also, fun puzzle!)
David Pearce, On that topic, there’s a great mnemonic I often use, but it’s a long one so I’ll only give the first part here: A big car drives extremely fast, going headlong into jumbled kangaroos… Use it when you have to look something up in an index, or whatever. :)
@David Pearce That one bewildered me as well. I wonder if some people have trouble with East versus West, much like those who confuse right and left. Maybe it's not stupidity but, rather, some kind of glitch in synapses?
For Barry Ancona: I always enjoy your comments here, and you have explained things for me several times. I am curious - Who are you? Do you work for the NYT? Are you a free lancer? Is puzzling your vocation or avocation. Probably others would also be interested in learning about you. Please let us know. Thanks.
@Manfred S. Rothstein I've heard unverified rumors that he is actually an AI assistant tasked with helping the community. @Steve L. may be one as well.
@Manfred S. Rothstein, over the years I have wondered the same about Barry. I hope he responds. In the meantime, and this is a wild guess, this profile fits the little he has revealed about himself. I ask, “Who is that masked man?” <a href="https://prabook.com/web/barry.ancona/255501" target="_blank">https://prabook.com/web/barry.ancona/255501</a>
Manfred, No.* No. Avocation. Others do know more about me, as appropriate to the topic of a puzzle or discussion thereof. *I was the editor of the Times, but that was in 1969 and it was the Cedar Valley Daily Times.
For completely unfair reasons I'm not always a fan of Sunday puzzles (takes too long! Squares are too small on my phone screen!), but I found this one irresistibly fun with its hilariously subverted expressions.
Loved this one; however, was disappointed in 105D. For heaven's sake, "some godmothers" should be FAIRY! Thank you.
Kind of bummed to see OCTOPI, when the plural should be OCTOPODES or OCTOPUSES. It harshes the crossword vibe to have to fill in a made-up plural, especially when it’s clued normally.
@Sofia OCTOPI has been around a lot longer than "harsh" has been used as a verb and vibe has been a word at all.
@Sofia I wasn’t bummed at all by OCTOPI. Octopus is itself a sort of made-up word, having been adapted from Greek into scientific Neo-Latin during a mania for categorizing and then having crawled into English, so why not a made-up plural? The best that can be said for octopodes is that as a made-up plural it is more consistent with other Greek to Latin to English adaptations. Big deal. I have never once in my life heard octopodes said out loud in the wild, making it a nonstarter in my book. I’ll bet that anyone who loves words enough to be here with us is familiar with the whole octopuses-octopi-octopodes conversation and perhaps bored by it. I’m more likely to use octopuses, but OCTOPI has a respectable history, appears often in print, is more fun to say, fills six squares when you have six squares to fill, and is easier to find rhymes for when composing doggerel. English is full of words and spellings based on misunderstandings, and we like it that way. Being bummed by OCTOPI strikes me as a little like being bummed by OHIDUNNO because Oh I don’t know would be more proper.
I cringed at OCTOPI but after the challah line, all is forgiven. 😂😂 Fun one, especially for me as a former chronic rhinitis sufferer, and a Sunday record 14:02
I always have a good time when solving one of Cristina and Katie's constructions. I've been envisioning stevedores dancing around on a dock to Annie's Hard Knock Life with challah breads in their arms since finishing.
122 across. Supporter of the arts? This one had me laughing out loud.
Not too hard for a Sunday (for me!). Kept going back to the TEN to ONES part as one highlighted the other and I was imagining and contriving some kind of meaning for the D => N trick. None there, and didn’t look at the puzzle name early enough to figure out the hint. Had Lassie for SNOOPY for the longest time, throwing the SE off. Doh!
@Horsefeathers I had lassie, then ScOObY, and then finally had the aha moment. Who knew there were so many fictional six-letter movie dogs?!
So asshat is kosher but bimbo has been canceled. Got it, just trying to keep up.
@TomK Too funny! I'm guessing you're referring to the Spelling Bee. I'm betting most of us keep trying it, waiting for the day it might work, lol.
Sometimes the clues here suggest musical connections that may not be intended. I don't know many show tunes, but 80A reminded me of this great Nancy Griffith song. <a href="https://youtu.be/P8kPv3w8h34?si=j7DMGvw4eGRmWJbE" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/P8kPv3w8h34?si=j7DMGvw4eGRmWJbE</a> It's almost forty years ago that we got a letter at the office complaining that someone was being put on a "pedal stool" It took us a long time to figure out it was actually a 122A. Got all the themers, beat my Sunday average by about ten minutes, but it wasn't until reading the column that I realized the theme was more than "change one of the letters to another one". Very clever. Thanks!
Jack McCullough, Thank you for sharing “pedal stool”! I love such word mixup things, whatever they are called. A non-native-English-speaking co-worker once used the word “patio” innocently rhyming it with “ratio”. Ever after, I and my brother would say “Shall we go lounge on the payshio?” It just sounds so much more chi-chi than “patty-o.”
Appropriate answer history search today was for: IGNORANCEISBLISS (appeared once in a Sunday puzzle) Anyway - Once again I didn't come close on this one and again surprised to see that everyone else found it unusually easy. I guess I should be blissful. For no particular reason - puzzle find today: A Monday from December 17, 2012 by Elizabeth A. Long. Theme answers in that one: KITTYHAWK CATSCAN OCTOPUSSY TIGERLILLY DANDELION Over and out - see you tomorrow. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Once again, I, for one, did not find it easy. I struggled quite a bit for having jumped at an obvious answer that was not at all obvious. Had to tear a lot of poisonous words out to finally almost get it--I had to look up the Philippine national dish.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. I hope it doesn't sound like an insult to the creators of it to say that I've done NY Times Sunday crosswords for off and on for maybe 60 years and this felt old school to me. And I mean that as a very sincere compliment.
As I filled in my last clue, I got an image of stevedores, lined up in rows, tapping their hook handles on the boards to the unsung beats. IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE for us! IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE for us! Emptying these ships of stuff And the pay is not enough IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE!
Will it now be acceptable to use "asshat" in my letters to the editor?
@L B I haven't finished yet, but I just filled that in and couldn't go on. I was just marveling at how things have loosened over the past few years. It's almost too funny. I'm dumbstruck.
Thank you for having my name in the NYT Crossword today. One daughter did the puzzle and texted, Y’all absolutely 100% need to do the crossword puzzle today. Both my daughters and I share our Wordle and Connections everyday. This made for a fun, yet challenging task looking through the clues of The Crossword.
Because I initially had SLAP for SHARP HIT, it looked like the king of Israel was going to be LEROY. Fortunately I discovered my error before the end. Otherwise, as one of the attendees at an All-Twins convention remarked, I would have been in a heap of doubles. It was a fun puzzle…
@Robert Kern Similar problem since I had ALLOKAY for Kosher. Had to tell myself firmly that the Bible has no ELROY's or LEROY's.
As I skimmed through the beginning clues before I started the puzzle, I was dreading that the fill for 12A was going to be PRIDE, because it would fit and I couldn't come up with another five letter word.. In Greek tragedy, hubris is specifically the overweening PRIDE that leads to the destruction of the protagonist. Hubris is not a synonym of PRIDE, hubris is ARROGANT PRIDE. Muddled meanings drive me nuts.
@dutchiris All that you said about Greek tragedy is true, but as I'm sure you know, clues are not definitions, and neither are they exact synonyms. This thesaurus entry shows that PRIDE has various meanings, and at the third one, vanity, hubris is listed as a synonym, though clearly not an exact one. I think that based on this, there's no problem with the clue.
TIL why my kids go around singing “never eat soggy waffles.” I always thought it was just a silly song one of their friends had made up and had no idea it was a mnemonic device! Of course, I then second guessed myself because I was sure the Firenze clue referred to Harry Potter and forest doesn’t end in an a. In the end, I verified the mnemonic with the kids and my husband helped me recalibrate away from thinking of a centaur to just thinking of the name as Italian. I filled in the corrected answers with a rousing chorus of “never eat soggy waffles” repeating in the background.
@Rachel: I was not familiar with the mnemonic. Seems strange to me to use a mnemonic that's harder to remember than the underlying phrase.
The themed answers were so funny I had to read them out to my wife as I solved them.
Wonderful Sunday. Had FIVE in 33A for far too long. Am I the only one in here who has never heard the term WHAP before?
@Sam I think I've heard or read it. Then again, it could be I'm mashing whack and slap, just *thinking* I've heard it or read it. I had SLAP until the crosses fixed it.
Just here to say that 'up the WAZOO' was the clue, and answer, that I needed to start my week off right. That was a wonderful, silly surprise!
A very disappointing week, in terms of difficulty. Also, I have said this before, but OCTOPI infuriates me. Maybe add a "(var.)" at the end of the clue to placate the sticklers like me, who, believe that the accepted plurals of 'octopus' are 'octopuses', or the less common (but more correct) 'octopodes'. OCTOPI is plain incorrect, and is always given as the second, or sometimes third, choice for the plural in dictionaries. 🙂
Big Mike, If you know OCTOPI "is given as the second, or sometimes third, choice for the plural in dictionaries," why are you saying it is "plain incorrect?" (I do agree it was an easy week.)
@Big Mike Welcome to the alternative to the Tamale Trap, the OCTOPI Net. OCTOPI is an accepted plural form of "octopus" <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/octopus" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/octopus</a> and has existed for 200 years. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-many-plurals-of-octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-many-plurals-of-octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes</a> Although some sources list it as substandard, it is about as common as "octopuses" and far ahead of "octopodes". The prescriptivists here are fighting a losing battle.
@Big Mike I did my best at math, and came in at 45 minutes and change minutes under average for the week. I assume some is due to difficulty and some can be attributed to improved skill, but believe it's more of the former.
Fud and tibely, since i'b here dursing by first code id bady, bady years ebu ebu
Dow this was a fud, Sudday mordig. Do complaits frob be. Tibe for by Wordle, Coddectiods, Strads, Add fidally, thed, od to today’s Killer Sudoku! Dice puzzle! Thax!!
@CCNY Ub, Strads was shockigly easy today, Did adyode else thik so? Sit, Ebu, sit. … … .
Thursday was relatively easy and breezy, so I said "Friday will be a beast." Then Friday was easy, too, so I was prepared to cry Uncle at Saturday's offering. But that didn't happen. I was sure this puzzle would be the one to break the mold. Four days of easy puzzles? What's going on?
@Times Rita Hey, just because they were easy for you, doesn't mean they were easy for all of us. I had a difficult time with all four, but was finally able to solve them.
Times Rita, What's going on is four days of easy puzzles for Times Rita ... and for a few others (of which I am one). But not all others, mind you. (There was some kidding a few days ago about "Joel's early puzzles being too hard and the recent ones too easy," which may be true but ignores the hard/easy cycles common with Will in charge.)
A great puzzle even with the **shudder** butchering of my relative at 98D. I was amused by the proximity of ASSHAT to WAZOO, too! 😎 OK, now for the requisite rant: We go through this every time the execrable OCTOPI appears in a puzzle. As awful as it is, I reluctantly concede that it is a valid plural for a crossword. However, my marine biology students learn never to use it. I have to assume that some marine biologist, somewhere, has used this unpleasant plural, but I sure don't know one, and I know several who work with OCTOPUSES. (That's the plural we typically use in normal writing, but in some contexts, OCTOPODES or OCTOPODS would be appropriate; but only the most annoying pedant who is trying to flex their pedantry would use those in normal speech or writing, and they're generally used to apply to the entire clade of OCTOPUSES as a group.) Oh -- and in the culinary world, I believe OCTOPUS can be both singular and plural, similar to how the plural of FISH can be FISH or FISHES, depending on how many species are in the pan/catch/whatever. Come to think of it, biologists also use the same algorithm to pluralize FISH, but I don't think I've heard biologists apply it to OCTOPUS.
Hey CQ, Maybe you didn’t start with the posts from last night, but Steve L , in one of the very first posts, proposed the term Octopi Net ( akin to Tamale Trap and TCS). I responded that I would fully endorse it only with your blessing. Perhaps cycle back to give your learned opinion… — — — — — — — — — — — —
The grammatically correct plural of octopus is actually octopuses, not octopi. The word is greek in origin, not latin.
@Hilary Thank you. This is a common error that makes me want to tear my hair out.
@Hilary Well, going by the Greek, it's actually octopodes, but since it's now an English word, we use an English pluralization: octopuses.
For 120 across (Dog with a star), I was ambivalent between SNOOPY and SCOOBY (as in Scooby-doo) before the crosses made it clear. Although this did give me an idea for a clue if I ever decide to write my own crossword puzzle: "Cartoon Dog that becomes another cartoon god when two letters are changed". (Of course this ignores the second part of Scooby-doo's name, but he is frequently referred to as just Scooby, so I guess that would make it legit :-).)
I don't think anyone has commented on 57D, DNA. I thought this was ingenious and diabolical in equal parts.
This one reminded me of when, on a camping trip, we tried to figure out how to keep the bugs away without using harsh chemicals: A DEET puzzle! Friendly request: as is usually the case other days, please don't make the picture for the Wordplay column an obvious spoiler for an answer, as adorable as the pic may be. I had SCOOBY for awhile before I happened to look below the puzzle on my desktop browser.
Justin, Friendly question: Can't you arrange what you see on your desktop browser so you don't see anything below the puzzle? emus are not depicted here
Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith try American junk food , oopss I mean snacks <a href="https://youtu.be/_R6n5ch-CV0" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/_R6n5ch-CV0</a>
@Ann Thank you, thank you, thank you. That is priceless.
@Ann Someone had to do it. A bit surprised it took so long. Thanks for finding this! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Great job! Very satisfying to complete as I relax with my morning coffee. Thanks for all of your effort in constructing a not too hard but clever puzzle!
I loved this witty puzzle, in particular "Do as I say, Dot as I do!" One of my painting assignments in painting class was to do a painting in a pointillistic style. I needed only three cheats, and I used Wikipedia, which to me is less of a cheat, as I have to hunt a page for the relevant info. Thank you, Christina and Katie!
Not a Sunday PB, but pretty fast - under 22 min. I liked "That's a dough braider". Did a couple of chores, and was out walking by 7. 5 miles goes by fast when enjoying an audiobook. Going to be hitting the crossword archives this afternoon, and watching golf. I lead an exciting life!! LOL