When the obstetrician did stand-up, he had a good delivery. (But some jokes are still in their infancy.)
@Mike ....And some bespeak a mid-wife crisis... Emu babies hatch out and don't need all that equipment/....
Quite a variety of entries which makes an interesting solve, although a bit tough for a Tuesday for me, but that seems to be the case virtually all the time now. In just over a week I’ll be visiting my family in California and will no doubt be seeing the baby proofed homes of my four great-grandchildren.
My years of patience (not sure how many) are finally paying off. I got the theme and used it to solve one of the other clues and finished with no look-ups. I'll get through a Saturday yet.
Oh, this puzzle brought memories of having a baby in the house, how a tiny, tiny being can transform a house, the blissful feel of holding a baby, how life routines completely transform, and all the stuff you get and keep getting to serve that tiny, tiny being. It also brought, with [Counterpart to a land line], memories of the pre-cell days, when phones would ring, when you had to go to where the phone was, when you had an answering machine. And then, how junk calls started creeping in, then dominating, finally forcing the death of the landline, at least in our case. And it brought little serendipitous touches I liked. The abutting EDSEL and INEPT. ACED near CRIB NOTES. The funny-looking QUANDA, GENZER, and triple-S GUESSSO. Plus, an EASES up, and a middle AGE. Speaking of which, that AGE nicely balanced off all the baby stuff. So, your puzzle did some nice poking, Zachary, of memories and fun things, for which I’m most grateful. Thank you, sir!
I would like to comment on 46D, but I can't.
@archaeoprof Well played, sir, well played. Now, if only I weren't prevented from being your spokesperson for it...
As a Canadian (and on behalf of the rest of the non-US, English-speaking world) I hoped for GEN ZED. I knew in my heart of hearts there'd be no chance of it, though.
@Brendan I can never keep the GENs straight anyway. The crosses save me. I don't know why I knew SERVO...none of that is in my knowledge base, even though I apparently depend on them daily in multiple ways. Nice little nugget of new info for my day: got up, made the bed, dressed and walked 1.5 miles, pulled a few weeds, printed the puzzle, sat down with coffee and my pen. Ahhh.
@Brendan First fill for GEN was ZED. Knew if wouldn't work, but did it anyway.
Hard for me, for a Tues, but great puzzle! I really liked the UGG UGH combo and GUESSSO, whose placement made more UGGs.
NYT challenge to make a crossword without using the word 'ode'
@Germ Twice in two days is not common. We got one ODE in April, four in March (a few of which were close together), one in February . . . It does get used a lot, but so do plenty of other words that have a lot of vowels. That kind of glue is what holds crossword puzzles together.
@Germ There have been 904 appearances of ODE overall. That seems like a lot, and it is easily one of the most used words. But keep in mind that 904 days is under 3 years, and the NYT puzzle has appeared daily for over 70 years, and on Sundays for a d Cade before that. So by that perspective, it’s hardly impossible to create a crossword without ODE in it. Fewer than 5% of NYT puzzle contain it.
There seem to be a few people surprised by “servo”…and yet they are ubiquitous. Many teenagers will know them as the steering motors on remote control cars. But they’re everywhere…really a servo is just a “small” motor which does a little linear task…and tends to be interchangeable with the phrase “small motor” pretty often. The eject motor on your dvd player is a servo. The motor which dumps the ice in your refrigerator ice tray is a servo. The motor which closes the rear hatch on your SUV is a servo. One might make the case the the motor which opens elevator doors or the door at a supermarket is a servo. It’s a pretty subjective definition….depending on who made the item the servo is being used upon.
@Paul Never heard of SERVO before. Easy to get from the crosses, but I was surprised. Is this a recent word?
Some of these work. Some don’t. Don’t @ me or I’ll throw a tantrum in the grocery store! An area in a building too small for an adult to walk in, usually used for duct work, plumbing, etc. CRAWLSPACE NASCAR’s racing contemporary. FORMULAONE A fallacy that applies a purported cause or characteristic of one thing to many others of a group without any supporting evidence. BLANKETSTATEMENT Hall of Fame (1937) infielder with a .338 BA, a member of The 3000 Club, and nearly 1600 RBIs. NAPLAJOIE (wave your hand) He will take you to Jabba now. BIBFORTUNA Limburger is often called this. STINKYCHEESE
Cute theme. Slightly annoyed that I had to look up an answer on a Tuesday. I didn’t know SERVO, tried GENZEe and GENZEd but GENZER would never have occurred to me.
All I have to say is GENZER?? I had to go to the reveal on a Tuesday. BAH!
@Leah Same here- ruined a perfectly good puzzle otherwise!
@Leah As others pointed out, Gen X'er is a perfectly acceptable term, Gen Z'er shouldn't be too far off!
Had a tough time getting a handle on this one for reasons unknown. Once it was done, the fills seemed fine, the clues not really sneaky, but maybe I'm just having one of those lead-footed, glazed-brain days when the obvious seems obscure. Nice puzzle, Zachary, a little tougher than a typical Tuesday, but (ahem) under normal circumstances I could have aced it.
35 years…never had ESQ on a business card…my dad neither. The odd letter maybe as an affectation used by some banks in the UK or a posh invitation. It was originally used to signify that you owned property and was short for SQUIRE, was always my understanding. And before I get the dictionary quoted at me, I note it is apparently used as an honorific for lawyers but none of my acquaintance old or young or from the USA.
@William James I worked as a lawyer for the Texas Legislature for almost 30 years. For part of my tenure, I reviewed résumés when we were hiring (which we almost always did before each biennial regular legislative session). Seeing “ESQ.” after an applicant’s name never impressed me.
@William James I’m a lawyer too and have never used it, but I’ve seen it used. I think it’s used by people who wish they could be addressed as doctors are in the US - not that it’s a bad thing, but they are really proud of the accomplishment and want people to know that they’re a lawyer. I’ve never felt the need and I do think those that use it stand out in a way (maybe as a new lawyer or someone who is inexperienced in the legal field), since it’s used so infrequently.
UGG is not an Australian boot brand. It was a generic Australian name for a type of sheepskin shoe which was later registered in the USA and Australian small businesses threatened with copyright breach.
@LY How about "Australian boot, brand" or "Australian-boot brand"?
Hmm...the thiings you need to BABY-PROOF are not the exactly the items/necessities listed, If you can't figure it out (or find a list) the BABY will show you what you need to shop for--cabinet latches, electric plug covers, lamp cord stabilizers, etc. Many of these items are also conveniently adult-proof. One of the great developmental milestones is when you are free to take the trash cans down from the counter tops and put them on the floor again. I'm almost over it....our offspring are now in their 40's.
MOL, It's a two-part revealer. Baby-proof corresponds to "Make safer" in the clue. The theme answers are "proof" of a "baby." .......
@Mean Old Lady Ours are in college and we still have baby gates sitting beside doorways and bubble-wrap covering sharp feet of tables.
Of the five theme answers in this one, three are debuts and the other two only appeared once before. Don't recall seeing that in a Tuesday puzzle before. Anyway - clever theme. Had to cheat a bit to get through it, but I think I'm going to start letting myself do that. Anybody heard anything about Mr. Shortz? Oh - and answer history search today was inspired in a roundabout way by the clue for 2d ('junkyard'). Anyway... The answer MEANER has appeared 32 times and... "Leroy Brown" was a part of the clue twice. I'll shut up now. ..
@Rich in Atlanta I read "Junkyard dog" and immediately thought of Jim Croce(CURoce?) and Leroy Brown. Probably more familiar to GEeZERs than to GENZERs.
Latin words ending in -tas/-tatis or -itas/-itatis are all abstract nouns describing the quality of the stem word. vanitas/vanitatis - vanity, uselessness caritas/caritatis - charity, caring humilitas/humilitatis - humility, abasement As these examples show, they come into English directly. They also come into romance languages: Spanish caridad, French vanité. With a standard confusion of L for R (see Spanish arbor-arbol; peligro-peril), the Sicilians transformed humilitas into omertà (that accent grave at the end is important), submitting oneself to the greater good of the organization, which then becomes synonymous with keeping your trap shut.
Mrs. C-64 has a work colleague named Felicita, whose name always plays as "Felicitas, tatis" in my head.
Great puzzle! I was slowed just a bit by that SERVO and GENZER cross, but otherwise it was smooth and clever. Really fun theme. I need to do some BABY PROOFing very soon myself, as my youngest grandkids are coming for a visit next month. 🥰
"Boomer" and "Gen X'er", are familiar terms, so GENZER ("Gen Z'er") isn't an obscure reference, especially considering that demographic is often also referred to by combining the descriptors into "Zoomer".
@Mojo (this was for the comments complaining about it, not the article writer)
I guess it’s a SAINT’s ‘cross’ to bear the SINFUL…
I spend a lot of my time these days *senior proofing* homes - grab bars, hand rails, etc. That would make an interesting theme. Good friend and neighbor just welcomed her first great-grandchild. Being able to hold babies is certainly energizing.
TIL: that the Versace logo features a Medusa. I did not know that. I had to look it up afterwards. Nice logo!
This seemed a little chewier than the average Tuesday, and that's a good thing. "It might be poked" was a great way to clue FUN. I went to xwordinfo to see how else it had been clued and saw that on Sep. 15, 2019 Andrew Kingsley clued it as "First word across in the world's first crossword". This is the link to that puzzle: <a href="https://www.sporcle.com/games/bazmerelda/worlds-first-crossword" target="_blank">https://www.sporcle.com/games/bazmerelda/worlds-first-crossword</a>
Hail to thee blithe spirit(s)! How pleasant to wake up to a Tuesday puzzle with a bit of grit to it and a reference to P. B. Shelley, and then to be able to spend a little time comparing the experience with the other denizens of this virtual community. My only serious glitch, other than my usual clutch of typing errors was trying ranis before RAJAS (which I usually spell with an H) for Indian royals. Thinking of Shelley’s skylark reminded me of the time a few years ago when I was privileged to see (and hear) a pair of skylarks mounting the sky in tandem over Titchwell Marsh on the Norfolk coast while visiting a college friend who I hadn’t seen in many years. Thanks, Mr. Levy, for triggering that memory.
@Marshall Walthew We are again "in concert." The familiar ode was part of Freshman English Literature, but only after I went to live in West Germany did I understand the fascination behind the poetry... one of life's wonders to behold.
Not a good puzzle. Way too hard for a simple Tuesday.
@Eva H. I'm sure you're going to love the next one.
@Eva H. And here I thought you were really going to like this one. I thought to myself, surely this one will please everyone. Then I punched myself in the arm for calling myself Shirley.
9A. “Lightens (up)” looks as if it’s already a full phrase, but this clue wants us to find a word that means “Lightens” when followed by the word “up.” The answer is EASES. That's about as basic as crossword clues get. Even on a Tuesday. Not sure what's tricky about that. In fact, it's a great introductory clue to teach people how to solve crosswords
Steven M., And presumably that it *is* a great introductory teaching clue is why Sam wrote about it in the [Tricky] Clues section of the column. (Don't mind the Tricky business.)
Aside: I also don’t fully agree with Sam’s text in that part. While “eases (up)” would certainly be one way to interpret the hint, “eases” can also mean “lightens up” on its own.
I'd never heard of "nob" as another word for head. A nob is a rich person I thought. Googling told me that it's used for the head of a penis, but....is that really what NYT meant?
@Barry Ancona “THX” for the lifesaving hint
@Mary Hudson I'd heard that word for "noggin," but always assumed it was spelled kNOB. There's a difference between hearing a word and seeing it in print. NOB for noble was one I had seen.
@Mary Hudson this made me giggle! It was a brighter end to a puzzle that just wasn’t my wave today.
Fans of MST3K weren't phased by the (Tom) SERVO reference, I'm guessing. This puzzle really hit a sweet spot for me for an early week puzzle: no need for lookups, but a couple times where I had to question/change my first response. Very enjoyable!
@Swift Right! The only way I got that was because of Tom SERVO. Croooooow!
@Swift That show definitely helps me remember the word, but I have a general idea of what a SERVO is in real life.
Fun puzzle. The revealer was a little soft—I guess if you go to someone’s house and see those items there’s “proof” that they have a baby? But excellent fill. And a fine Tuesday. Did anyone notice it was a K away from being a pangram? Too bad!
@SP I got I it. NW corner: OKED RILE CRIB… Bam! Pangram!
@SP I know, I was so bummed when I realized he was short a K! I always appreciate a good panagram, and he was sooo close!
@SP Baby proofing means making a place safer for a baby, for instance, putting bumpers on sharp coffee table corners etc.
We got the theme and the fill so the puzzle must be good. Wanted Pac Man not NBAJAM.... but enough of my sniveling and whining. Thank you Zach
@dk At least I've *heard* of PacMan. I played it once. Had to resort to hollering, "Run!" The End. Safe travels.
Opening up the puzzle I thought, “Pleeeeeaase let this not feel like a Monday…” And it did not. Happy solve today. Didn’t know SERVO OMETRA BOTTLEGOURD or REW! Learning on a Tuesday get an automatic thumbs-up from me.
@CCNY Uh-oh. You still don't have a couple of those down... one might be a typo, but the other is just off. May as well be Monday?
No one's gonna get either GENZER (c'mon!) or an obscure motor called SERVO (I mean COME ON!). They cross. Could not get that last R. And felt cheated.
@MmmmHmmm. Just two folks, experience, but GenZer came easily bc that’s our children’s generation. One of their cousins was big into team robotics and loved showing us his work. So SERVO was also fine for us. We really enjoyed the “proof of baby” theme and execution, as well.
@MmmmHmmm SERVOmechanisms were a topic in my Engineering classes back in the late '50s. The etymology is from "slave" or "subjugated" since the function of a servo is to monitor and correct a primary input signal.
@MmmmHmmm I got it... it's fairly common. Folks also say Gen-Xer (my generation) frequently.
I absolutely loved this puzzle. The inclusion of X and Z made me smile. I had to solve around SERVO since I know nothing about robotics, and solve around a few other things I couldn't quite remember. I think I'll encourage my high school-aged kids to do this puzzle. Lots of fun for this tail-end-of-GenX-er!
The first time I can remember the word SERVO was reading, or trying to read, a technical manual about an infrared spectrometer that I was assigned to maintain as a grad student. I think I remember SERVO because at the time it seemed so weirdly futuristic (in 1975!). Even today I don't know what a SERVO is, exactly, other than it's a thing that does this thing. Of course, it as all reinforced by Mystery Science Theater, with co-host Tom Servo, the robot.
Fun Tuesday! Fortunately we're well beyond the need to baby-proof anything, all the grandkids are now adults. Now we just have to deal with all the "baby-proof" bottle closures that make life difficult. No problems with this one other than guessing GEN-ZEe like Sam did, but that was quickly corrected once I got the "filled but not correct" message. Looking forward to more—thanks, Zachary!
I could be wrong here as i am new to crosswords…but i seem to recall when crosswords were about…words. Not 6 word phrases from the ‘new’ dictionary. I just perform poorly when asked what a director said in movie X at the end of filming or what people say in country x when hungry. Actually when playing the catalog of puzzles, when i see a puzzle with preponderance of 22 character answers…i move on. Is it just me? It might be.
Tim, Sorry, but if you are, as you say, new to crosswords, how long ago was it that you were solving crosswords that did not have phrases as answers? And what, if anything, does that have to do with this puzzle? FWIW, there have been multi-word answers in Times crosswords forever.
@Tim If you are new to crosswords, how can you recall what crosswords were like in the past? (It's not just you. A lot of people find a lot of things to complain about. But crosswords are, and have been, like this for ages, and it's not just the NYT.)
I haven't figured out the connection between this puzzle and the photo. But I'll never understand why people like their bagels with big holes. (Thinking of you, Montreal!). How do you put tuna salad or egg salad or whitefish salad on a bagel like that? Even if it's fresh out of the dumpster and free. OTOH, I wouldn't complain if I could get a bagel like that here in this bagel desert known as Las Vegas, where they're all white bread in disguise. Make that "bread desert."
@Times Rita The connection, I think is to "often discarded part of a fruit," which would be found in a dumpster. It strikes me as a stretch, though. When I lived in NYC, lo these many years ago, a bagel was served with cream cheese and possibly lox, with condiments. Bagel sandwiches were a thing unknown.
@Times Rita 62D, SAD, is clued as "Down in the dumps". So Sam used that clue as her title and then picked the photo as illustrating an alternative meaning. We finally have a real bagel shop in our little town. Not quite New York or Montreal quality, but edible and credible.
@Times Rita -- It goes with the title, "Down in the Dumps", which is the clue in the puzzle for SAD. The caption says it is about the "freegans" who forage in dumpsters.
One of my most difficult carpentry projects ever was BABYPROOFing my parents' stair rails and upstairs balustrade. See, the balusters (or spindles) on railings can be no more than four inches apart, to keep the little ones from getting their heads stuck in between. Theirs were five inches apart; not sure how the original builders got that wrong. Cheating to save wood (quarter-sawn red oak) I guess. Anyway, there was much sanding and re-finishing to make the new work match the original.
@Grant, haha, because you say this was your parents’ house, I’m now imagining little baby Grant with his saw and sander, working to make the stairs safe for…himself. Hope you wore your safety glasses.
An excellent Tuesday puzzle! I didn't get the 'baby proof' theme until I read Sam's notes. Might have been quicker on the pick up if I had had childen! Thank you, Zachary!
I’ll be an uncle any day now, so this puzzle came at a good time! Cute theme, but it’s the first time I’ve encountered ODOULS or OMETRA… maybe I’ve spent less timr in bars or watching the Godfather trilogy than the constructor? Didn’t even consider Gen Z’er, as I and everyone I know calls them Zoomers “informally.” And of course any babies born these days would be the successor to Gen Z, which I’ve heard called “Generation Alpha.”
@kittenhoarder As I read down the Comments,, you are the 2nd to mis-type or mistake the 'Mafia code of silence..' I can't keep up with the GENs.
@kittenhoarder Mario Puzo wrote three books about the Mafia, which are generally referred to as a trilogy: The Godfather, The Last Don, and OMERTA. So you're not far off.
Bright and breezy Tuesday. Thanks Zachary David. Agree with Nancy J about 23A.
You can babyproof all you want, folks, but as per the Bee today, the bun in the oven says still I rise.
@JohnWM, I’ve corrected myself once already (see elsewhere eventually), so why not go full idiocy here and point out again, above the fold (?) I meant The Mini, not the 🐝 Oy. Editors have my respect.
I had this theme from CRIBNOTES, which was a gimme for me. I may or may not have used them!! Thanks for the pause to remember - I loved absolutely every second with my babies, and my grands. The littlest grand just turned 4, so unless I can convince them (lol - like that's my business!), babies are over for a while.
Got totally messed up by the crossing of ODOULS and LETS. Would never have got that without Googling. Also, SERVO - another tough crossing. Incidentally, it's Australian slang for a gas station. QANDA is a popular Australian current affairs show. All this and UGG - not sure if coincidental? Anyway, made it to the end, but felt kind of UGH, GUESS SO about it.
Never in a million years would I have guessed CUR for junkyard dog. Combined with thinking “cheat sheet” was clueing CLIFNOTES (I know, it’s cliffs notes), that NW corner stumped me. 🫤 Also was trying to make SEED fit for STEM and THOU for THEE, but ENZYME clued me in to the right answers there.
I made some mistakes, but can’t blame it on bad clueing. It’s not Zachary’s fault that “voice over IP” has the exact same number of letters as “MOBILEPHONE”. Or that I’ve never heard of a BOTTLEGOURD, or of a SERVO engine, which kept me from finding my GENZEe mistake. At least I could count on our old friends ODE and OLE to make fast work of the SE corner.
@Heidi I went the voiceoverIP route as well! I really wanted that to be the answer.
@Will But voice over IP could, of course, be used for a landline.
I have a GENZER at home who tinkers with computers and is trained for electrical and HVAC work, and I learned SERVO at some point from him. (I could work IDLE into this, but he is actively seeking employment.)
I did this puzzle while eating a very delicious bagel. I want to assure you all that my husband paid for it. I think... I didn't actually witness him purchasing it... Hmm. Perhaps he's been down in the dumps and gone foraging in dumpsters. Guess I'll have to confront him later. This puzzle triggered my new found fear of the word SERGEANT from yesterday's puzzle (I think it was yesterday--I've been playing catch-up on my puzzles), in which I realized I'm terrible at spelling that word! No joke, I just misspelled it three times in this comment. I went to check on it in Google and I misspelled it there! What's wrong with me!? (Don't answer that!) Anyhow, I put SERGio instead of SERGEI, which contributed to the only trouble in the puzzle for me—the lower left. Since I'm definitely not part of the mafia and I definitely do not know anything about anything, I also didn't know OMERTA at all! And I thought OH NEAT was so NEAT. I definitely did not know the video game. So that was a tough corner. I'm not quite sure how it came together but it did. In the end though, no happy music. I consulted Sam's article and realized I had GEN ZEe. I'd thought that was odd when I entered it but I also didn't know SERVO, so there we are. I still have half a possibly dumpster bagel left so I better get to it.
@HeathieJ Whenever I dont' get the happy piano. I just starting putting every letter in every square. Today that meant trying 26 to the power of 187 combinations. Takes me a while, though.