DADAISM is such a great bit of wordplay that I literally LOLed and annoyed my husband who is still actively puzzling. That whole SW corner is just fantastic: IVANA, INERTIA & VACANCY Nice
I found it a bit easy for a Wednesday. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the puzzle for June 12th to revolve around dads since that is the anniversary of my own dad's passing. A nice way to remember him and his jokes and quirks. Thank you.
@Eddie may his memory be a blessing today and all days (in a similar vein, it is my dad's birthday).
So happy to see that the LOST DOG was symmetrically “Found”. Fun puzzle! Thanks for the laughs, Simeon. When does a joke become a dad joke? .... During the delivery it becomes apparent.
@Anita Between this comment and one a few days ago where you spotted the ABC / XYZ corners you're definitely on an excellent "I spy" roll! I don't know about eagle eyes, but certainly emu eyes.
I came here to say how much i enjoyed today’s puzzle. Cute misdirects and a cute theme. To weigh in on the photo, i assumed it referred to the battle over climate change and ending fossil fuels. Nice to see Nora Ephron, who died much too young. Keep her memory alive! And on a more somber note, my dad and my step dad both died during COVID, of non COVID causes. Neither told dad jokes or gave much fatherly advice, but they were sweet in their own ways. Now Father’s Day is a day of remembrance instead of a day of presents and lunch.
Here’s a Pop Standard from the repertoire of my dad: “If I get to the meeting spot first I’ll make an x on the sidewalk; if you get there first, you rub it out.” That really perplexed me as a little kid. I mean, was it meant as a dad joke or fatherly advice? I just accepted it as a Pop Standard.
@Cat Lady Margaret Just checking if you were listening?
@Cat Lady Margaret Here’s one from my Dad: heads I win, tails you lose. 🪙
@Cat Lady Margaret the Pop Standard I pull out anyone is caught talking to themselves: "gotta talk to someone intelligent once in a while!"
Reposting my reply to Cindy: Oh, my...where to start? To begin, you're not excluded, but let's examine what you're offended by. Before Christine Jorgensen, there was no need for a word like CISGENDER. Since its definition means that you're the same sex as when you were born, there was no need back then to have such a word, since you could have just said "people". Before there were transgender people, there was no need for a word to describe those who were not. For many decades, the number of transgender people was so infinitesimal that those who weren't, i.e. practically everyone on the planet, if they had to be distinguished from the transgendered, were just called "normal". That label was the offensive one, but since people generally unbothered by it, it worked for a long time. As it became more common for people with gender dysphoria to transition from one gender to another (and of course, it's anything but truly common, still), a better word was needed for someone who was, like most people, not transgendered. That word was CISGENDERED. The prefix CIS has been the opposite of TRANS for ages. Words using it having nothing to do with gender or sex include cisalpine, cismontane, cisatlantic, Cisjordan, cislunar, all opposites of words prefixed with TRANS. CISGENDER is not a slur. The only way you can find it offensive is if you're offended by the need to distinguish people who are not transgendered from those who are. And that's a very bigoted mindset.
@Steve L Has the thread you're replying to been deleted? I think I saw something about this earlier today, but then had to start work. (As a trans person, I'm unfortunately very used to CIS people griping about that prefix.) P.S. No need to use the -ed suffix; the currently preferred wording is "transgender people" (or simply "trans people") rather than "transgendered people".
POP stuff? Uh uh. Then I started working the puzzle. Simeon Seigel, you just birthed a beauty, with lots of new faces and brilliant spins on creaky old bewhiskered fills. Nothing labored or messy, just a perfect Wednesday's child without the woe. Thank you!
Whew! That went fast. My dad never made dad jokes, and a paternity test never came up! But he was great with fatherly advice. Most important, if I was walking across a stage and tripped and fell he’d have been no less proud. I miss him. Thank you for a Father’s Day - adjacent Wednesday that gave me a great sense of accomplishment (kind like my dear old dad, that old man).
As I solved this puzzle, it was still June 11, which would have been my father's 94th birthday. A fun puzzle; DADAISM was great.
Well, this was sweet, cute, fun, and clever in how non-dad common phrases were given a dad spin. But it just didn’t feel Simeon-y to me. I love his puzzles for their how-did-he-think-of-that-and-pull-it-off themes. This seemed too conventional for him. So, when I saw in his notes that the concept he sent into the Times had a tricky gimmick, revealed in the last across answer, suddenly things felt right in the world. But now I want to know what that tricky gimmick was. Simeon! Simeon! Will you please chime in here??? Oh, I adored the clue – [Demos for democracy, e.g.] – for ROOT WORD (Hi, @Pezhead!). And this puzzle reminded me of my dad, who was not a dad joke teller per se; in fact, he didn’t abide dad jokes very well. But he continually came out with such funny non-dad-joke lines. One example. He was a nonapologetic carnivore; barbecued steaks were regularly on the dinner rotation. He loved his meat. He lived for it. So, when I told him that vegetarians live longer than meat eaters, his face screwed up in bewilderment, and then, after a beat, he said, “Maybe it just SEEMS longer.” Thank you, Simeon, for a lovely time in the box today!
Father Time is a papa noun. (This pun is so dad, it's good.)
I loved this and I bet the paparazzi did too. "Can you explain to me as briefly as possible what a desert is?" "Sand. Lots."
Not telling Lewis how to do his job/passion, but I thought 'Demos for Democracy, e.g.' was just plain brilliant!
Two guys walk into a bar; the third guy ducks. Where was I - oh yeah, not an easy one for me, but managed to work it all out. Answer history search today was inspired by YMCA: Wondered if VILLAGEPEOPLE had ever been an answer. Nope - but it has been in the clue for YMCA a number of times. But anyway... a search for 'village' somehow did lead me to one of the oddest puzzles I've ever encountered - a Sunday from January 22, 2012 by Adam Fromm with the title "Snow White's employment agency." A couple of clue/answer examples: "Bad occupation for Sleepy? :" NIGHTWATCHMAN "Bad occupation for Happy? :" GOTHMUSICIAN "Bad occupation for Sneezy? :" FLORALARRANGER and the one that got me there... "Bad occupation for Doc? :" VILLAGEIDIOT Don't imagine I would have much of a chance with that one. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/22/2012&g=98&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/22/2012&g=98&d=A</a> I'm outta here. ..
What a week! Yiminy crickets, I’m having fun! My husband runs in 5Ks, 10Ks, and was on the Cape in Falmouth years ago for a race. He was warming up, jogging a bit… The group of Kenyans flew by him. (Their *warm-up* is doggone impressive, as you’d imagine.) My husband saw them approaching, smiled, and -as they passed - said “Showoffs.” He’s a funny guy, but not sure cracking me up will *ever* get the satisfaction of breaking a few Kenyan strides with surprised bursts of laughter. Loved the puzzle. Happy hump day!
@CCNY Thanks for the wonderful laugh!! A friend had a similar "crack 'em up" story but it's a bit NSFW and I wd not get it past the Emu contingent. Ah, well.
Three for three on fun puzzles so far this week. I guess that means we will be tortured on Thursday. GREAT PUZZLE!
Fun puzzle. I tortured my brain to solve my last remaining clue … what Italian suit designer could it be? Mario Silenti, Versace’s less successful and unknown competitor? Then, I realized, the DADJOKE was on me. Quotations meant the clue was literal. The CIA and the NSA appeared today, we were spared the FBI. And my favorite pair in this puzzle: NICK and GATSBY, reunited in proximity in the grid.
The link to the answer grid has the wrong puzzle, from 2018.
Danielle, Looks like the right answer key is on the link now. If it hadn't been, you could have used this link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/12/2024" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/12/2024</a>
Very nice indeed, not surprising as Simeon has made some of the most innovative and virtuoso puzzles to appear here the past couple years, but not, to my mind, a puzzle of the year contender. Unlike the twists and cleverness of the other themers, pop wisdom isn't a thing -- popular wisdom is -- so it came off as just another name for "fatherly advice." And while Dadaism is very funny, Simeon says in his notes that the editors came up with that one (and it also awkwardly repeats the DAD of DAD JOKES). You can tell from the notes that he's also a little PEEVISH that this puzzle took over a year to get published and that in the meantime another puzzle scooped one of his answers. So, for those of you assuming that Joe Fagliano is the main editor of all these post-Shortz-stroke appearances, think of the long gestation period before this veteran puzzlemaker's effort finally saw the light. I'd be so freakin' peevish I'd be doling out a lot of LOVE TAPS, like Moe does to his fellow stooges. Always good to have those bozos in a puzzle! Also, the grammar-fascist in me (Hans Ezra, I call him) winced and muttered something about ACT BAD is Simeon acting BADLY. I feel you, Hans!
@john ezra Hans: Can‘t it be acceptable in the sense of „acts like a bad person“ as opposed to „acting in an inferior way“? Not sure, since ly-adverbs are difficult for German speakers and I may have absorbed this over the years.
I always adore a Simeon Seigel puzzle, and today is no different, except for a small parent-hesis, a little LOVE TAP on the shoulder about ACT BAD... I get it. It stands for ACT as a BAD person, but, ouch, it hit me like nails on a chalkboard. Still, the whole of the puzzle more than made up for that gulp. The added fun was in searching for where FATHERLY would go, after getting PATERNITY. And the great big smile came from remembering road trips during which my dad would shut us down even before the tenth verse of THIS OLD MAN as well as "99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall," the two most abnoxious songs for any adult. "Here, you can sing along to this," he'd say as he inserted one of a handful of mixtapes with the TOP 100 songs. Chapeau, Simeon. Your puzzles always POP with wit, intelligence, and brilliance. I can't thank you enough!
@sotto voce I tried to put in ACTS OUT (which is what we say in the field of 'Behavior Disorders') but at once saw Bradlee's name, so.... Maybe Simeon doesn't like adverbs? While special ed has different 'diagnostic categories' (so to speak) it doesn't really matter how a student is classified if there is only one special ed classroom in the school-- which was the case in every single place where I taught.
It wasn't long before I GOT the theme, but there were plenty of chuckles and groans for the rest of this puzzle's solve. How bad am I at Roman numeral math? I thought the answer was XXX. (facepalm) 22D "Jazz grp" with its hidden capital (but abbreviation hint) was a brilliant clue for NBA. 56D is not especially tricky, but "Elizabeth with millions of made-up customers" made me laugh. There were a few unknowns, but they were easily deciphered with the crosses, which I always appreciate.
Not a significant challenge, but I found the clueing and theme delightful in view of upcoming Dad's Day on Sunday. I finished rather quickly, but with a grin on my face.
Dadgum, that was fun! (Anyone who disagrees can just skedaddle.)
Good childhood times with Kasey Kasem, every Saturday we would drive one+ hour to my grandma's house and back and my mom would always make us listen to his 70s on 7 show. Now I know more 70s pop culture than any millennial alive LOL! Helps me a lot in these crosswords. Yeah I'm thanking my mom on the father puzzle :P
@B had a similar experience listening in the 90s. Loved the show and took me back to car trips instantly.
@B I listened to Casey KASEM count down the top 40 every weekend in the mid 80s. Good times...
@B We would listen to Kasey Kasem's Top 40 every weekend of the summer on the way to the beach!
As I was solving this puzzle, it occurred to me how in very many crossword puzzle clues (at least int he NYT) are puns, or dad jokes, as it were! Nice to have a theme both making fun of, and legitimizing, the use!
Just wanted to say kudos, not only to Simeon Siegel for a great puzzle but also to this community whose comments — so far, anyway — I found to be free of pedantry and nasty remarks that sometimes make reading them less than enjoyable. Just lots of humour, pathos and fascinating facts. Good on everyone!
@Strudel Dad Have you been reading the same comments today that I have been reading? Maybe some of the posts had already been deleted by the time you got here. Well, just read on, unless these new ones get emued as well. — — — — — — — —
I was literally thinking today that Crosswords, when you get down to it, are a collection of “Dad Jokes”! I put that phrase in quotations for a reason: My mom made these jokes to me all the time growing up, and I’m a little miffed that, particularly in a time of striving for gender equity, these endearing and playful jokes got associated with fathers only. I’m looking forward to Sunday, as a father myself, but when my 5 year-old asks “Why?” and I reply “‘Y’ is a crooked letter”, that’s my Mom speaking through me.
@NY Expat I love that story, and it puts a nice glow on those "endearing and playful jokes". My mom, a lover of words, gets such a kick out of goofy greeting cards, the punnier the better. Have a happy Fathers Day!
@NY Expat I love that :). And I'm sitting here in a tee shirt with a giant Y on it. :)
I've been doing the NYT crossword obsessively for a year and a half. I only rarely stop to take a peek at the name of the constructor, and it's usually when I loved the puzzle. I hope over time I will retain some of these names after seeing them repeatedly (I'm bad with remembering names). And as for now, the only name I remember offhand is Simeon Seigel.
loved this one lol. i picked up on the theme as soon as i got to 23a and was able to fill them all out first round (except 39a. that took a second). 60a made me pause to reminisce. stopped and searched for the term 60a thru my texts and found a couple nice old texts from my dad. he died three years ago so it was nice to remember how comically wise he was, haha. love love love. great theme.
Could anyone dislike this puzzle? I'm a frayed knot!! Weak on my super model knowledge, I was left with a blank cell at DAD_ISM which set the joke up perfectly. What a KNEE slapper! Thanks.
PETTISH worked for 18A until it didn't... 'Kissing bumpers' might be a mnor bump, but vehicles don't do LOVE TAPS. Weird clue. Spelling Bee never allows DADA. 52A made me ask, Why is Stendhal's novel _Le Rouge et le NOIR_ and not NOIRE? Both the NSA and CIA, eh? Hmm. DHubby thinks I am the last living American who does IRONING. Roger Angell wrote a memoir entitled THS OLD MAN. ...he's always eminently readable! Nice Wednesday. Simeon Seigel....Thanks! Welp, I am ready for Thursday!
@Mean Old Lady 1. LOVE TAPS is a perfectly normal expression in NYC. 2. DADA is a proper noun. 3. Color names used as nouns in French and generally in Romance languages are given in the masculine form. 4. But not the FBI. 5. You might be.
@Mean Old Lady This got my brain a-poppin, so I looked up "rouge" in an online French dictionary. Turns out "rouge" is both masculine and feminine, so "Le rouge et le noir" matches, gender-wise. Gendered languages are a pain in the butt.
@Mean Old Lady Hats off to you for still ironing! My iron and board have sat unused for ages. Haven't touched them since getting a store-sized upright steamer. Not as perfect as an iron for cotton button-downs or pants, but still, best purchase ever. I highly recommend it! P.S. In my younger days, I loved to iron – until I spent time overseas at an aunt's, and that became my chore for a family of five. Oy vey.
Q: Why was the mushroom invited to the party? A: He was a fungi. ( repurposed from Mini)
Yay! So much fun. My late father would have laughed out loud. Thanks Simeon.
SILENTI: Ha ha ha ha - not! ko and I agree with the fun puzzle part. Poor ko has to endure my dad and inner 12 year old jokes. I think I am funny but I am snot. Thank you Simeon
Back in the UK, more jet lagged than ever but still had fun with the puzzle. I learned the term “Dad joke”from the puzzle, and was puzzled because my father had a great sense of humour and told really good jokes. Time for a nap.
Pretty easy for me, got Dad Jokes right away. Anyone else have RAF for Snoopy group? Sopwith Camel?
@Jim I had forgotten about that! Snoopy vs. The Red Barron! :-) Thanks for this. I did take Snoopy literally and rummaged my memories as to the why of CIA. Big face palm after reading the column.
@Jim I must have listened to the Royal Guardsmen song a thousand times when I was a kid, thinking this was the heart of songwriting.
I got going in the upper right quadrant and so when I got to 21 across (“pop quizzes?”) saw _ _ _ _ _ NITYTESTS That seemed to solve perfectly to a rather crassly ribald joke I couldn’t believe had made it through editing.
@Charlie Savage I'm disappointed that this actually isn't a NYT Reply but just another comment from a puzzler, a fine and funny comment, but not a reply to a civilian or from the games department. Charlie, I'm with Dutch Iris and others who think you should get a personal account if you want to comment here, otherwise it smacks of noblesse oblige.
@Charlie Savage I must lead a sheltered life because I could not see a crass or ribald joke there. 😄 (truly stumped) ..................................................
Perfect Wednesday puzzle! Loved the theme - clever word play, nice clueing, fast but not too fast of a solve, well placed crosses to take you to the finish. Thank you!
I am a walking dad joke. This puzzle was my anthem.
I'm a little afraid to look. Is there another pitched battle raging below about what letters are silent and what are not silent, regarding 45D?
That's a flat adverb, not an adjective. I learned about these from this Merriam-Webster vid: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/video/drive-safe-in-praise-of-flat-adverbs" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/video/drive-safe-in-praise-of-flat-adverbs</a>
@C-64 Good grief, again! — I don't even think there *is* such a thing as a flat adjective (except for the adjective, flat). Anyway, It's been corrected in the article. Thank you for catching!
DADJOKE was my last fill and gave me a giggle, until I realised I found myself wearing horsefeathers (again). Didn’t get PEEdoff though, nor even PEEVISH when I figured out my NONSENSE mistake because I fixed it just in the NICK of time to still score a PB. 😤
What a fun puzzle! I was so sad when it ended! Can this guy do a Sunday puzzle????
@Susan M. He already did a stellar one that ran on March 17, 2024. His Thursday and Saturday puzzles are excellent as well. This one is a departure from his usual tricky style.
All the serious and informed crossword puzzle experts are apparently saying that this one has too many weasel words. But I thought ‘twas all in fun.
This was such a cute one! I'm intrigued by what the original gimmick may have been. Hopefully we'll still get to see it in a future puzzle!
A fine and fitting puzzle for the Wednesday before Father's Day. But it got me thinking, "Why do Dads have a monopoly on (bad) jokes?" Are there no "Mom jokes"? Are Moms too serious to tell (bad) jokes? Or do Moms have such a good sense of humor that all their jokes are good?
I suspect that many readers will have stories about their Moms and their jokes. This would be a good place to share them.
Wonderfully clever wordplay and an absolutely terrific puzzle idea extremely well executed. I also had to work my tail off to finish it, finding it much harder than most Wednesdays. Not knowing KASEM and KYLO didn't help. And please don't tell me they've appeared before. I'm sure they POP up regularly -- but that doesn't mean I'll ever remember them. My biggest stumbling block was writing in D?N? for the small scratch, which I "knew" was either DING or DENT. Not thinking of NICK meant that I had NSA instead of CIA for the Snoopy group. Don't ask. But I got DADAISM with no crosses and patted myself on both shoulders for picking up that great pun on my own. I haven't read the Constructor Notes yet, but I'll bet my bottom dollar that DADAISM was the original inspiration behind the puzzle. All the themers are really good, but that one's the funniest and the cleverest. Wonderful puzzle, Simeon! I imagine you dreaming up all the theme entries and tucking them into the IDEA MAP you keep under your pillow -- shouting a chorus of "Yessssses!" and "Eurekas!" when you saw that all the symmetry would actually work.
So I went and read the Constructor's Note. Not only wasn't it Simeon's initial inspiration behind the theme; it wasn't even Simeon's own theme answer -- it was the Times's. Not that I expect anyone to take up a collection for me, but I think I just lost my bottom dollar.
Normally I find DAD JOKES too groany to be funny, but these made me smile. I hadn’t come across WAYSIDE before, but then I remembered the saying ‘things fall by the wayside’ and suddenly it all made sense.
I wonder how hard it would be for the electronics to provide a tab at the top of the comments, where any comment that mentioned any day of the week was automatically suppressed? I would dearly love that option.
Tough, tough, tough. 14 minutes, no mistakes, but it was a struggle. A lot of groan inducing clues. SILENTI and NBA were the last to fall. Thought it might have been NeA, but couldn't think of a _Oe word that worked for MOB