Here’s a puzzle that doesn’t scream “TODAY! TODAY! TODAY!”. And maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Martin has made 13 NYT puzzles, but this is his first in 20 years, and his debut came 30 years ago, when he was in his 20s (according to his notes). And while the grid doesn’t have a contemporary sheen, it’s loaded with freshness. When you look at the freshness diagram of this puzzle in XwordInfo, it’s saturated with answers that have seldom or never appeared in the NYT puzzle in every area except the NW and SE corners. That explains why the puzzle doesn’t feel stale even though it doesn’t shout “TODAY!” I loved this. I loved the feel of filling this in. So many lovely answers: EGG CREAMS, CLAY PIPE, ENGLISH HORN, DEMEANOR, INGRATES, MISGAUGE, DOUBLE MISNOMER, LIEGE. And the theme itself, pointing out how strange and wonderful our language is. How beautiful it is in a wabi-sabi way. To me, this puzzle is a jewel, one that stands out. Martin, thank you for creating it. I’m glad you have returned to making puzzles, and for heaven’s sakes, don’t wait another 20 years, please!
@Lewis You are the best! This is my first comment after many years of solving and reading what others have written. I look forward to your kind and insightful commentary every day.
A DEBUGGER is a program used to identify and diagnose errors, a programmer does the actually fixing. In my Philly experience cheesesteaks are usually ordered wit or witout wiz. So I kept trying to make WHIZZ work, instead of ONION. Sigh.
@Skip Intro I agree that this seems like a debugger can magically find bugs in code. If only.
@Skip Intro Philadelphian here. Wit/without had always been onions. And always fried onions- some psychopath once gave me raw onions and I nearly burnt the place down in rage.
@Sarah Agree, the classic order was always "whiz wit" for cheese whiz with fried onions.
The town I grew up in: Ridgecrest. It’s in a valley. How would it be clued, though? “Town no one’s ever heard of that is neither…” It would make a change from Natick, I guess.
@Cat Lady Margaret I live, as you can see, in Chestnut Ridge, where I am not aware there are any chestnuts or ridges. Not sure where they got the name from. I'll bet lots of location names are like that. Greenland is famous for not being green, but I'm pretty sure it's still land...
A good puzzle, but found the way the "Neither" clues were phrased was a little clunky, because it seemed like you should fill in the "nor" to complete the phrase beginning "neither." Fountain drink that is neither egg nor cream. But I don't have a better solution and apparently neither did the constructor or editors. It works, but maybe not as smoothly as some themes do. Anyone else fill in DOUBLE NEGATIVES (which also fits) before erasing it? And yes, per Sam's column today, I did learn something: Mr. T charging ten large per diem to protect...who? From what? Was that the going rate for bodyguards back then? Is that what Kevin Costner's character charged Whitney Houston or did he COST LESS? Did he ever see something fishy on the set and say to her, "Houston, we've got a problem?" off camera? Or is that too much of a Dad joke? I have questions, might have to read The Autobiography of Mr. T to get answers. Here, Mr. T. guards Miss Nomer and Miss Gauge, who might have trouble with a couple men who are Manns. As for the rest of the puzzle, I liked it. It did feel fresh, for the most part, entertaining, with a good healthy pulse. Ironically, I thought the only bad one was BAD ONES. I drive a clunker. It works. Once in a while I put a new dent in it, with my heel, out of frustration, usually when it gasps Newton's first law to me, about how blissful INERTIA is. But I would never insult it by calling it "bad one." Keep pushing, Mr. T! (He's worth every penny!)
@john ezra I was surprised I had to read this far to find a mention of the clunkiness of the clues. This wasn't a puzzle ruiner for me but it seemed odd. I wonder if the solution would have been to replace the elipses with question marks or perhaps no punctuation marks at all.
Great puzzle! Happy to say that 17a was a gimme, as Coeur d’Alene is where I solve all my puzzles:). In case anyone’s interest was piqued, Coeur d’Alene (meaning heart of the awl) was named after the local native tribe. They were given the name, which was recorded by the Lewis and Clark expedition, by early French trappers because of their sharp trading skills. These days we are a lake city of 56,000 (groan) on I-90 thirty miles from Spokane…Go Zags! Also we don’t have many EMU ‘s here👍
@Kevin Smith are there a lot of sheep in Idaho? I definitely know of Coeur D’Alene, and I have a decent knowledge of French from having studied it (though way far from being fluent). But I guess I do not recall having seen the name of the Idaho city written down, because in my mind it has always been Coeur de Laine, which would translate as heart of wool 😂. .:.:.:. .:.:.:.:.
@Kevin Smith I would have loved to see Idaho at some point, but I'm afraid the climate there wouldn't make me feel very comfortable or safe. Not the weather climate. Not trying to get all political, but there are parts of the country these day that i just don't think I would be welcome, if I believe the bumper stickers. It's so sad. It hasn't always been like this, but I don't know if we'll ever get past this mutual hatred.
Very fun puzzle! 50 day streak for me :^)
A soda jerk is taking care of fizzness. (You knew this one would pop up.)
@Mike I would say that this is the last straw, but I want the bubbly puns, your eggcreamental counter to the champagne of bolted beer.
That was a lovely Wednesday puzzle! The fact that 'shampoo' comes from Hindi and has Sanskrit roots was a fun lil bit of trivia for me as a desi :) I hadn't made the connection until today!
@Divs This was news to me too. Never in my life have I heard anyone say, "Honey, you need a new dye job. Your Sanskrit roots are showing." Emus never go to beauty shops. They like to do their own trims.
"...creating a grid with as many lively answers as possible, and using clues that are unexpected, confusing (in a fun way) or interesting as trivia" I have quoted the constructor's notes, as I believe Martin Schneider was successful on all counts with this fun puzzle! With the exception of BADONES..... that was a clunker....
There's a strip mall in town called Pine Creek. To build the mall, they cut down the pines and paved over the creek. Locals call it Pineless Creekless. I guess I have an advantage on some commenters because I've been to Hawaii and seen (and heard) NENE. There's a long-running Hawaiian music show on local station KVMR where the DJ uses a recording of NENE as the sound bed while he announces. Every time I heard NENE in Hawaii I kept expecting to hear his voice.
Hit my one year streak today!! If you want to send me congrats I'll be one happy DONEE.
@Coco I'm five days behind you and trying to avoid tripping up before Monday! Congrats!
@Coco Kudos, Coco! I hope to be there soon! No easy feat with all the attractions of New York available.
Around 1980 my parents, concerned about my mental health, talked me into dropped D&D for three months and trying bridge instead. I've never been so bored in all my life. Luckily, my grandfather came to my rescue and taught me poker. And then I resumed D&D and never looked back. Awesome freakin hobby. That's a *really* long-winded way of saying that I had not heard of the bridge expert/columnist. Today took me 29:59. New record for me for a Wednesday. Peace.
@Alan Parker My parents used to play bridge socially, but gave it up to save their marriage. (Dad was constantly frustrated with Mom.) Thumbs up for D&D though.
I know what an Egg Cream Soda is because of Spider-Man. I know Goren on Bridge because I vaguely remembered that name in the puzzles section of the newspaper back when I was a kid. (The irony of people complaining about a freaking giant of the puzzle section of the newspaper while doing a crossword in the puzzle section of the newspaper is entertaining to me). I pronounced 'donee' this morning in about 18 different ways 'dobee? docee?' because I am ignorant of Idaho geography and was surprised when it was right, but I don't expect to know everything, and crosswords would be pretty boring if they consulted with me every morning to make sure I'd heard of every person or place they thought of using. I've never heard of Horace or Thomas, but that's probably my fault, but I certainly am familiar with being on the lam (but that story is for a different comment section), so I guessed and figured it out. I couldn't name a single state bird, and in 20 minutes I probably won't remember Hawaii's either, but at least I kind of know until lunchtime. Maybe I'm an old softie, but I guess part of my teaching (and living) style is that we all have different pasts and knowledge bases, and if you're letting your hobbies make you angry because you didn't know something or you think, "That's not fair, how could I know that?!!?!?!" maybe it's time to look inside and realize that you know it and get it now. But that's just me, and maybe I learned too much from Spider-Man.
@Greg "I couldn't name a single state bird..." Not even the Baltimore Oriole? The Delaware Blue Hen? I'm hurt. But I agree with everything else you said. My Achilles' heel, puzzle-wise, is Broadway musicals, and I have no desire to correct that.
@Greg I only know that the mosquito is the state bird of Minnesota.
@Grant Mine are wine, golf and pool/billiards; but I'm starting to remember some of the more common answers!
Chinese checkers. Jerusalem artichokes. Strawberries. And apparently, several medical conditions consisting of two words, neither of which are accurate. Anyone else?
@Steve L Pineapple. I remember a Ripley's Believe It or Not from my childhood (some 60 years ago) which proudly proclaimed that "the pineapple is neither a pine nor an apple." Even at that age, I wondered whoever thought it was.
The heat in today's comments around NENE made me wonder. Seems there must be a puzzler's term (analogous to "Natick") for the short words that are wildly overrepresented in crossword puzzles because they are so convenient to the constructor trying to complete a block. These words, the crossword equivalent of cliches, eventually become a near-automatic part of the solver's toolkit. They are sometimes obscure (NENE) but not necessarily (OREO). New candidates arise (AC/DC). Others, once ubiquitous, go out of fashion (ERLE Stanley Gardner and Mel OTT) but still resurface occasionally as nostalgia for old-time puzzlers. On the off-chance no term exists, "Nene" actually seems like a a good candidate. It certainly has staying power -- I remember getting short shrift when complaining about it to an experienced puzzler and that was almost 50 years ago.
@FC I think I've seen such words referred to as crosswordese. But Nene would be good! Vamoose, emus.
FC, A NENE seems to have eaten my reply. Or was that an EMU? The term exists: "glue." For all the little words used to hold the big words together. et tu, emu?
@FC I'm guessing we're going to be seeing ADELE for decades. Well, some of you will.
I automatically tried EMUS for 43D. Do emus do the hula? As a Philadelphian, my preferred cheesesteak order is American wit on a seeded roll. If you are looking for a good cheesesteak, Jim’s South Street has recently reopened. Stay away from Pats/Genos- greasy logs masquerading as steaks. And a roast pork sandwich with rabe and sharp provolone will beat a cheesesteak any day. Happy munching.
@Sarah NENE! No hulas! Their webbed feet evolved for walking on lava, receded from toes, which accounts for their lack of hipness! You can barely sway them. No emu offense intended 🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
@Sarah See below. We have the same culinary taste. Represent.
A debugger does not, by itself, “fix” other computer programs. This would break the halting problem. It is simply a tool by which you, as the programmer, can look through your code as it runs.
@Jacob P Although there are AI-based debugging models that can identify and suggest fixes for potential code faults. I agree that, "...that is used to fix..." would be a better clue.
@Jacob P Yes, "Computer program that AIDS IN FIXING other computer programs" would have been more accurate. But it was easy enough to solve having a few crosses already -- and as they say, it's rarely about a one-to-one equivalency. The clue as written has an element of wordplay -- and thus is a lot more interesting! Personally, I wish they'd debug the emus...
@Chris AI right now is a very fancy autocorrect. It parses input data and just spits out what it thinks the next word in the sentence is until it reaches an end token. It’s pretty good at recognizing typos, and if your code is basic enough it’s okay at giving feedback, though sometimes it’s still pretty bad at that. I would never give it enterprise code and expect to get anything useful out of it.
What a nifty idea for a theme! And for me it began with the most curiosity-provoking one: the one with the clue "unusual meat courses that are neither..." What on earth could that possibly mean? SWEET had mostly come in, and I was thinking of some sort of vile-tasting meat substitute concoction. SWEET TOFU? SWEET SEITAN? I needed a lot more crosses before SWEETBREADS finally came in. Aha! Now, even before I have DOUBLE MISNOMERS, I know what the theme is going to be. In a way, I'm disappointed to know that because I was enjoying the intensity of my curiosity so much. All of the themers are well-chosen and interesting, but SWEETBREADS is the marquee entry for me. A word about SWEETBREADS and why the dish might have been thusly named. It sure sounds a lot more appetizing than "thymus" or "pancreas", doesn't it? And the cluing in the puzzle was great too. Loved OBIT, INGRATES and ROME. A fun and engaging Wednesday.
@Nancy My mother loved sweetbreads. I often had to go to a specialty butcher near me to get them for her. Quite disgusting looking. And, difficult to prepare (I think). Anyway, that is one of the first themers that jumped out at me (after EGGCREAM ... a favorite of my Manhattan bred husband).
Very entertaining and lively! Just today my Facebook feed contained a Venn diagram of [things containing grapes] and [things containing nuts] which overlapped to some extent--and then off in a corner was a little circle with [Grape-Nuts] inside it.
GOREN crossing with NENE is quite the Natick! Definitely had to brute force that one.
@Shrike Maybe, but if you haven’t seen NENE in a crossword before you haven’t been doing this very long!
@Shrike I'm surprised anyone who started solving before 2024 began had any trouble with NENE at all. It has appeared 319 times, including three prior times this year, including on May 3. This is a word you must absolutely know! Not knowing GOREN just tells me you're young. Charles GOREN was the pre-eminent bridge columnist (as well as expert player) throughout most of the 20th century, and his fame was known beyond bridge circles, as he appeared on many TV game shows. A gimme for me, but not for everyone.
@Steve L lol a gimme for me too but who the heck even plays bridge anymore? Remember when there were bridge columns in the paper?
I spent a bit of time trying to shoehorn NOR into the middle of the theme entries, but once I let go of my assumption that the "neither" in the clue should be followed by its syntactical partner in the answer, things clicked into place. Honestly my favorite sort of crossword experience -- a confident beginning, brought up short by utter mystification, then chipping away here and there to create little toeholds that eventually facilitate an aha moment, and the rest fall like dominoes before I've finished my coffee. With some delightful little touches-- I especially liked "Story that starts with the end?" and "Two past cue." Thanks for a happy start to the morning, Martin Schneider!
@Anna E Wait, I’ve been struggling to figure out what that one means! Can you explain “two past cue” to me??
@Allison ‘Cue’ = Q, two letters past Q in the alphabet is S, or ‘ess’
A fun theme, and the double misnomers used in the puzzle are all things I like. I especially agree with Erma Rombauer who quipped of SWEETBREADS “What foods these morsels be.” But the double non-misnomer that appears in the clues is better than all of them — the legendary Philly cheesesteak (although some might quarrel that when made with cheez wiz, the second part is indeed a misnomer). It’s often imitated, but never equaled in other areas. Pat’s and Geno’s in the heart of South Philly get all the publicity when out of towners report on Philly culture, but IMHO a better steak can be had at the recently reopened Jim’s on South Street, and the roast pork sandwich (order it loaded with provolone and hot peppers) at Dinic’s in the Reading Terminal is for my money better than any cheesesteak. I loved the clue for INGRATES.
Before I got to ENGLISH HORN, I thought the theme solved to ediBLE MISNOMERS, the preceding theme answers - and, it turned out, also GRAPE NUTS after the them - we all food items. I quickly saw my error, but it's fun to think of that as a crossword theme.
@Michael Dover Yep! I had ediBLEMISNOMERS too!
The theme was clever, but there were some "clunker" BADONES. Crossing NENE with GOREN, and AIX with MIXSET were guessable, but not normal knowledge. Also, if a DEBUGGER application actually fixed the code, many would be out of a job.
Hi Rob, The crosses you cited were not Rob knowledge. I don't think we've established that Rob knowledge is the norm. (I'm glad you found them guessable.) nenes are not emus
@Rob - ... and if a hammer could drive a nail, many would be without a job, too. EMUS are excellent carpenters and they don't even use hammers!
I'm confused by the people who attest that 'wit' is for whiz and not ONIONs. I haven't been in Philly since 2012, but it's definitely onions from my personal experience. It's a *cheese*steak, it doesn't make any sense to have to specify whether or not it has cheese. It wouldn't be a cheesesteak without cheese (or "cheez"). The kind of cheese, sure, you can clarify, but not its very presence.
@John I think the "wit" is a reference to Philadelphia-ese for "with". Sorta like "terlet" in Brooklyn.
@John There's Philly and then there's a specific area of South Philly where you can get a 'wit whiz' or whatever. It definitely applies to cheese whiz there which is why I originally filled in 'whizz' out of confusion. Everywhere else in Philly, the vendors and restauranteurs have the common decency to use real cheese.
I was reminded of my late beloved father, Norman Goren, by three answers in today's crossword. Norm, who was born almost exactly 103 years ago, was a bridge-playing (52A) opera-lover (54A) with Israeli relatives (51D). Goren is a common surname in Israel but uncommon in this country; growing up in Philadelphia, I was often asked if I was a relative of the famous bridge player (I'm not). Of course, I loved this puzzle!
Looking at 14A as a Philadelphian and I already know I'm unhappy, since it's either misspelled or misused based solely on the number of letters.
@Jim I was trying to make Cheez Whiz fit in there somehow 😂
@Jim Yes. Either 3 or 4 letters could fit the right answer for that clue, depending on whether you use the H. But 5 letters is wrong.
@Jim I'm not a Philadelphian, but my kids are, and I'm there a lot. I've ordered cheesesteaks a time or two, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's about ONION, not cheese: <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/philly/food/how-to-order-philly-cheesesteak-wiz-wit-20180705.html" target="_blank">https://www.inquirer.com/philly/food/how-to-order-philly-cheesesteak-wiz-wit-20180705.html</a> (Personally, I'll take provolone, wit.) (And I like that place on South St...)
This guy gets it! Wowza. Loved this puzzle. Too many specifics to list, but I’d like to order one of these for every Wednesday, please? Thank you Martin!
I’ve never commented on a puzzle before, but I found this one very frustrating! Is it a generational thing? BADONES, TEC, and MIXSET are not things people say. GOREN, HAIFA and AIX are pieces of trivia impossible to infer. The “cue” clue was…not the best choice. And the DONEE crossing ALENE almost made me lose my streak. I liked the theme, but three edibles and a rogue fourth felt unbalanced. Maybe I just need to finish my coffee.
@Elly Zee No one says "tec" for detective; I question whether anyone ever really did. But bad ones and mix set are very common phrases.
@Elly Zee I think clunker/bad one might be referring to jokes, as in stand-up comedy that falls flat.
I'm always happy when I remember previously new to me crossword glue! Today it was NENE! I wasn't totally confident but I was sure I remembered it from other puzzles and was confident enough to plug it in and see what happens! Huzzah!!! As for DONEE, I'm sad to say that I work in fundraising (no, I'm happy to say that, I love my work!) and the word DONor is in my job title, but that was one of my last fills. I was confident of all my surrounding answers except ALENE but I just couldn't understand how DONEE could be right. HA! I was sure it was wrong but then the happy music started after I plugged in ROME, which was great but took me way too long to figure out. Anyhow, I liked this one a lot! Fun theme!! Definitely learned some things, too! Some trickier spots for me but was able to work it out. For a while I was worried about the lower left corner and that I might have to look something up but I set it aside a few minutes and then DEBUGGER came to me and was able to finish strong without help. Love it when perseverance pays off!
@HeathieJ Your comment about NENE perfectly describes what some of us have been trying to say about that word. Yes, it’s not a common word for anyone not from Hawaii, but it’s one that anyone solving crosswords ought to try to remember.
Now that’s what I’m talking about! Great theme! Pleasant amount of resistance. Adored the cluing on ROME, INGRATES, and ONION. I’m definitely not an AC/DC fan but I love Brian ENO so l’ll let it slide. A massive improvement over the past few days. Nice!
This might be a little easier for the older crowd, as I didn't have too much difficulty finishing this one, and a lot of the misnomers were well known to me. Working in dialysis, it was always a great day when one of our patients became a DONEE of a kidney, so we heard the word from time to time. Also knew that SWEETBREADs were often pancreas. Member of the woodwind section in the high school band, so learned about the cor anglais. Used to eat Grape Nuts as a kid. So a lot of the theme material was familiar. Wasn't sure about Coeur d'ALENE, but I managed to spell it right as I entered it. As mentioned earlier, NENE, ENO, and ERNO are seen in crosswords frequently, along with a few others that appeared in today's puzzle. This was a fun one! Thanks, Martin, hope you have time to construct a few more.
This reminded me of the old SNL skit "Coffee Talk." Everytime Mike Myer's character got "perklempt" she gave us a topic to discuss among ourselves. Kept hearing Mike Meyer's voice when I was reading out the theme answers. Ex: "Sweetbread is neither sweet nor bread... discuss!"
@BrianQ Verklempt is the Yiddish word — unless he created a new word starting with “perk” because… coffee.
@bobbie “Verklempt” wasn’t even a Yiddish word until Mike Myers made it up.
@Cam so true. But with the rise of AI, maybe we will soon have debuggers that *will* fix other computer programs for us 🤓 Of course with the current problem of AIs just making stuff up, it might be a while. But there probably already are programs that can at least flag locations of potential or likely bugs. .:.:.:. .:.:.:.:.
@Cam I noticed it too, being a former software developer. BUT, and this is a big but (big but, hehe) when you hear people say something, you know that each of you have a different understanding of the world. So you do your best to understand what they're trying to say.
Perfect Wednesday puzzle! My only nit to pick (besides making inertia into an adjective, which I consider suspect but am willing to believe is possible) is the clue for DONEE. For such a rarely used word, the clue shouldn't be so cutesy. A donee isn't even usually a guy but an organization. I didn't get it till I read the column, wondering the whole time if DONEE was another TV character I'd never heard of. Other than that, fun cluing and a clever theme!
@Teresa What's wrong with inertial? It's a perfectly valid word.
@Teresa In physics we talked about inertial and non-inertial frames of reference. Not terribly common in everyday language, but very common in some circles.
I enjoy puzzles that are “playing with words” and this one certainly was. Just about the right difficulty level as well which is good. I bet Martin could come up with a really fun tricky Thursday puzzle.
A fairly smooth Wednesday with some fun clueing…”They don’t appreciate well” for INGRATES; “This guy gets it” for DONEE… However, I have a question: has anyone, outside of NYT crossword constructors/solvers ever come across TEC as old-fashioned slang for a detective? I’ve read who knows how many detective novels from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and come across several slang terms…PI, dick, shamus, gumshoe…but never TEC.
@Joe Absolutely - it seems to be fake? I just tried Google's Ngram Viewer for "tec". It shows a (quite likely erroneous) high dip from 1800 to 1850. Clicking through, exactly NONE of the resulting hits I saw mention anything about a detective.
@Joe Tec as an abbreviation ( tec. for tech as in technician) will work. A technician is sometimes called to diagnose and maybe fix a problem, thus acting as a detective. [HTML shown for humor.] Emus ... give me Liberty or ...
Got this fun one done in our allotted time as we prepare to head for Maine. Life in a postcard. As I know you all want to know we will post our stopping points. Oh, yeah the puzzle. One nit. A real vanilla egg cream has an egg in it: Just sayin. Tons of fun. Thank you Martin
DONEE? Argh. I had to look it up even after I finished. Other than that, I enjoyed this one. Also agree that Goren and Nene is rough.
Ouch!, that two past "cue" chapped my hide. What the "eych" is the puzzle world coming to? Driving me to an early bed. Well, making me throw out everything I yhought I knew, and picking up on new cluing styles ain't all that bad . . . Buenos Nachos, all.
@Whoa Nellie it took me a while to understand that one. And I was looking at it closely because I had a typo (elsewhere as it happened) that required fly-specking. But mostly I am replying to say that I think the eighth letter is spelled “aitch” 🤓😊 .:.:.:.:. .:.:.:.:.:.
Fun, made me laugh, and I came in way under my Weds average time. What more could one want? I started with DONEr for the Guy Who Gets It since it meshed nicely with OBIT nearby(!) But I lucked out due to kin from Coeur d'ALENE , and having read the GOREN bridge column daily as a kid, and vaguely recalling the Rubik name which appears often in crosswords. Never even saw the NENE clue so no time wasted there. INGRATES clue made me laugh out loud, so I'm happy. Thanks!
Fun puzzle. Typical slow start for me, but a great 'aha' moment when I finally caught on to the trick and it all came together pretty smoothly after that. Has anything like this been done before? Well.... yep - here's a Sunday puzzle from December 1, 2019 by Patrick Merrell with the title "Actually..." A couple of clue/answer examples: ".. It's an ellipse :" STPETERSSQUARE "... It was predominantly German :" HOLYROMANEMPIRE And some other theme answers: RHODEISLAND CHINESECHECKERS ARABICNUMERALS ENGLISHHORN Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/1/2019&g=118&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/1/2019&g=118&d=A</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta One of my favs is MSG (the venue, not the chemical).
Fun puzzle today! Very clever themers, nice to see old friends Charles GOREN (we have at least one of his books in our collection) and the NENE. Whatever the opposite of a Natick, the intersection of two gimmes, that's what that was for me. (I realize I'm showing my age.) My favorite clue today, setting aside the themers, had to be the story that starts at the end. Very clever. Thanks!
@Jack McCullough Ha! That was the last to fall for me.
This puzzle was neither… EASYGOING I’m going to echo the common complaint that the ellipses were very misleading. The absent “nor” was distracting and frown-inducing. There were also several clues that stood out as BAD ONES: -Adjectival INERTIAL made me squint a bit. -ALENE as a novel Natick for me. -I’ve only ever been asked if I wanted my cheesesteaks wit’ Whiz, not ONION. -TEC making another (ugly) appearance. It wasn’t even common slang back when it was supposedly “common.” All in all, today’s puzzle felt like a cheesesteak that’s sat for too long: filling, but mildly sticky, and not entirely pleasant.
@Edward indeed on the ONIONS! I tried WHIIZZ but clearly that didn't work.
Good theme, not thrilled about the GOREN/NENE crossing, but it was my only square left, so I was able to brute force it
@Steven M. NENE is one of those words that I only discovered from the crossword and now fill in without a thought. Coincidentally, there were two others today with ERNO Rubik and Coeur d'ALENE
@Steven M. Try to remember NENE. You’ll see it again. But don’t confuse it with the hip-hop dance Nae Nae, even though they’re pronounced the same. I used to run into Charles GOREN in the archives a lot. I can never remember whether the first letter is G or S.
@Steven M. Don't worry, there are plenty of folks here who will happily tell you how wrong you were to struggle with that cross.
Love to learn new trivia and the etymology of the English horn is fascinating!
Could anyone explain 27A - ESS?
@Jess Cue = Q; Ess = S, which is the second letter after Q in the alphabet. It threw me too.
Any puzzle that cites the great Mr. T gets five stars from me. (Also, very enjoyable to solve.)
@Jeff Z: I pity the fool that doesn't like Mr T!
Maybe I should put this complaint elsewhere, but on the other hand, maybe readers will be interested here. I’m complaining about the SPELLING 🐝 of WEDNESDAY, MAY 22. I have long given up on Spelling Bee EVER improving, or otherwise responding to players’ suggestions. “Let facts be submitted to a candid world.” Today, these words are not accepted: DAVIT, and CAVITATE (and CAVITATED), which are not complicated medical or scientific words. I hope New York Times Games feels my anger & disappointment. I think the SPELLING 🐝 is pretty much a travesty.
@David Pearce There are any number of botanical and nautical terms that Spelling Bee doesn't accept. I'm sure all the gardeners and sailors who play SB utter a mild oath when this comes up. I'm neither, and my oaths are sometimes a bit more than mild.
@David Pearce I don’t think it’s quite as bad as a travesty, but I do get frustrated by the lack of common scientific terms.
@David Pearce I think Will Shortz was/is a mentor to Sam Ezersky & I think the Grid Kid has been really sad/bummed as of late. He’s a human being - let’s be grateful that the puzzles aren’t AI generated and can still reflect the emotions of the puzzle maker. He uses inconsistent word lists *just* to mess with us. Thanks, Sam.
Well, I really enjoyed this one, so thanks Mr. Schneider 😊. Too bad some of us had nits to pick, but I guess that’s always the case. I look forward to more of your puzzles.