After a quick start, the middle of this grid was brutal--especially with the double Natick crossing SISI with two obscure words. The themers were fine, but the cluing difficulty felt wildly uneven to me. Glad to have this one in the rearview.
"...crossing SISI with two obscure words." One solver's obscures are another solver's gimmes. I'm more familiar with ORRIS root's use in gin. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Sapphire" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Sapphire</a> And while I've never been there, I've certainly heard of the IOLANI Palace. <a href="https://www.iolanipalace.org" target="_blank">https://www.iolanipalace.org</a>/
@Josh M I don't think that was a double natick. Iolani Palace has appeared in NYT crosswords before and the wife of Franz Joseph, who was emperor of Austria and king of Hungary for 68 years, has been mentioned many times in history so those are fair game. On the other hand, orris was a total mystery to me but it eventually fell into place. It was a reasonable challenge.
Finally got my seven day streak. The theme was pretty obvious, though the second half of each answer took me a few go arounds to get. After about 35 minutes, I was down to two clues left. ORR_S/S_S_/_OLANI. I figured it had to be vowel in the first spot and consonant in the second. Unwilling up give up my streak, I tried all 126 vowel/consonant combinations. None of them worked. I stared it for a another minute then tried two Is for ORRIS/SISI/IOLANI. It worked. 7 day streak
@Steven M. Was in the same boat as you, but couldn’t figure out this ridiculous portion of the grid. Lost my 22 day streak
@Steven M. Running the alphabet can be tedious, but it's worth it to keep a streak alive. I always review all my answers before that process; it's surprising how often a typo somewhere else needs to be fixed before running the alphabet has any effect--for me, at least. Yesterday I had 3 unknown letters, and finding the right combination was taking forever. Finally--finally!--after all that I found a typo in a different part of the puzzle that I swear wasn't there the first three times I went through it. I finished almost twice my usual time, bloody but unbowed--and my streak lived to see another day.
Well that was fun, with each theme answer a two-part riddle. First – “What do these words have in common?” And then, when you figure that word out, “What synonym for ‘words that precede’ can follow it to make a common plural phrase? Terrific concept, and one which gave me a lovely nut to crack. Also, a bit of bite as well outside the theme, the overcoming of which brought feel-good to the fill-in. I also liked a couple of echoes to yesterday’s puzzle, MR BEAN evoking yesterday’s FAVA, and BASS adding to yesterday’s clue for SAXES that mentioned three other types (tenor, alto, and soprano). Underlying it all was the skill of putting it together. Finding eight terms for “words that come before other words”, not to mention coming up with theme answers that fit the length requirements of symmetry, today two 13s, four 11s, and two 14s. A worthy build. And two colloquial answers that I loved: HARD PASS and SERVES ME RIGHT. Plus, a lovely reminder of today, with DADS. Chandi and Wyna, this was time wonderfully spent. Thank you so much!
“Fail-safe,” originally military jargon, entered general parlance in 1962 with the publication of the novel Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, which was made into a movie. The title describes the command system used by the Strategic Air Command. In an alert, SAC bombers fly to a position (called the “fail-safe point”) where they circle until they receive a command to proceed to their targets in the Soviet Union. After a set period of time and absent the order to attack, they return to their bases. In the words of a fictional General Bogan, who is explaining things to a fictional Congressman Raskob, “Fail-Safe simply means that if something fails it is still safe.” In other words, a fail-safe system is not guaranteed not to fail; it is designed to cause no harm when it does.
@Fact Boy I thought it was more nuanced than that. B-52s held at their fail-safe positions as insurance that "something didn't go wrong", like the Russians nuking the US. Our planes would be in postion to quickly exact retribution. So if they hit us, we'd hit them. Ditto submarines holding a position to nuke any transgressors. "A system or plan that comes into operation in the event of something going wrong or that is there to prevent such an occurrence. "the secondary safety system is indeed a fail-safe"
Fact Boy, Fail-safe is an engineering term. It entered general parlance from military use when the novel was published, but railroad signals were designed to be fail-safe even before they were electric; if the linkage to a 19th Century semaphore signal fails, the blade drops to the stop indication. While over the term has come to mean what the clue says in lay terminology, in practice I agree with your caveat. (And, of course, in the novel, "fail-safe" wasn't enough...)
Years ago, I was traveling on a dirt road in the Southern Laos country side. Our driver and guide were in the front seat, my companion and I in the back. We stopped as a pair of water buffalo crossed the road. I asked my guide, ‘why did the water buffalo cross the road?’ He shrugged and I let him know the answer, ‘to get to the other side!’ He and the driver could not stop laughing for the remainder of the drive. A variation on an old joke for us was new and hysterical for them.
@Billy Ray Johnson I had a similar experience, but got to be the one laughing! I was lucky enough to go on an African photo safari once, and our Kenyan driver/guide kept alternating between 'gnu' and 'wildebeest' when identifying animals for us. One of the other passengers said, "I thought they were the same animal -- is there a reason you use both names?" Without missing a beat he replied: "When they're on the left side of the van, they're wildebeests. And why do they cross the road? To get a gnu name!" :-)
So I see that Wyna has the Mini, the main crossword, and presumably, when it drops at 3 a.m., Connections the game (as opposed to Connections the Sunday crossword). That makes a trifecta, or a hat trick (both good things to know for a solver). I wonder if anyone has had three puzzles published on the same day before, or is this a record? Caitlin? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
@Steve L I don’t know about a NYT hat trick, but I have seen days when one constructor had puzzles published by three of 5e venues covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend (NYT, LAT, WSJ, New Yorker, et al.) But either way, it’s a rare feat.
@Steve L Having just done the new day's Connections, which indeed was created by Ms. Liu, let me correct myself; Connections drops every night at midnight (ET), not 3 a.m. It's Spelling Bee that drops at 3 a.m. !!!!
@Steve L Connections the game drops at midnight, no? Spelling Bee arrives at 3 a.m.
The first parts of the theme answers (the “connection”) were step one. But then step two wasn’t apparent to me right away (what would come after that word). Who doesn’t love a two-part Aha?! (pocket, phone, black, check) (manifest, weird, limb, ore) BOOK TITLES O PIONEERS
@Cat Lady Margaret *Love* O PIONEERS, wow. That is so good!
I recommend today's puzzle for people who complain about "Too much new trivia" or "Too much old trivia" or Too much ...." take your pick. I tried making a list of areas of knowledge drawn on for today's puzzle. This is not inclusive: Chinese, British, and American cinema; Broadway theater; opera, pop, and modern music; French & Spanish; organized and pub sports; card games; Asian food; perfumes; geography; Greek and Indian lore; Cuban and European history; physics; art; modern slang and online terminology; American Sign Language. No one knows all of these, but with a working knowledge of about half of them, I was able to complete the grid with no lookups. Last to fall was 21D. I knew that somewhere in my memory was a Sultanate that ended in "i" but had to run the alphabet a few different ways before, when in a completely different part of the alphabet, the answer got jostled loose from a hidden cranny in my mind and slotted itself into place. My hat's off to the constructors.
@Lynn love that you complied this list! I really enjoyed today's puzzle.
@Lynn Nice list. And don't forget West African pop music! I was happy to run into Amadou & Mariam today. Also units of measure of resistance or conductivity or something, which was a term I had never heard of but was able to get from crosses.
A very big puzzle that I had to interrupt a zillion times to do important things like empty the trash and peel potatoes and....well, a lot of chore kind of stuff, but every time I came back to it, a partial fill smirked at me and said, "What took you so long to see this?" and wow, a bunch of its buddies popped in, too. I had one google look-up, but I had to get on with finishing up the supper. Chandi and Wyna, it was a charming mash-up and mine promises to be pretty good, too (they have garlic). Thank you!!!
Crossing ORRIS, SISI, and IOLANI was brutally tough. Otherwise pretty easy.
(I don't think there's any way to play archived Connections games, but in case there is one I'm unaware of, I'll say SPOILER ALERT in advance.) ***** It's interesting to note that although Connections has various ways to group ideas (for example, a puzzle from six months ago had BUNKER, FAIRWAY, GREEN and ROUGH as "Golf course parts"; ENOUGH, STOP, MERCY and UNCLE for "I give"; BAWDY, BLUE, COARSE and RISQUE for "Indecent"; and DOUGH, BOUGH, COUGH and TOUGH for "--Ough words that don't rhyme." All of the quartets in today's Crossword are in the format " --- (word)", which is another common type of group. In other words, in a regular Connections game, the category for the words in 22A would be titled "--- STORE". The clever part of the puzzle is that the word for each first word is different in the solution: (STORE) FRONTS, (SEASON) OPENERS, (TEAM) LEADERS, etc. On another note, I'd like to thank my niece for having ACL surgery about a month ago. This allowed me to see BRACE for "Boot" almost immediately. She'll be here for Father's Day, so I'll let you know how she's healing. I count eight different synonyms for "something that comes first", and each phrase is an in-the-language expression.
@Steve L - You can find Connections archived here -- <a href="https://connections.swellgarfo.com/nyt/371" target="_blank">https://connections.swellgarfo.com/nyt/371</a>
Something that is FAILSAFE is not guaranteed to work, it is just designed in such a way that when it does fail it will cause a minimum of harm.
@Chris Agreed. FAILPROOF would have been more appropriate.
Japanese, Yiddish, French, First Nations, Latin, Hindi, Mandarin, Bambara, Austrian nicknames and American late 20th Century pop stars exes … this is not a complaint. I love the bit with Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake, a rake, a rake, a rake and muttering furiously each time. Thank you for that. The rest was 20 minutes of enjoyment and 40 minutes of shuffling six vowels between eight languages and a dozen proper nouns to make PENT and PSST kiss. Bob and Cecil are still fighting over the top bunk, somewhere. Cheers
@Michael Nice to see you bring up Cecil here in the comments again. I think it was just about two weeks ago today that our Princeton bound constructor Luke Schreiber included CECIL in the grid, clued as “Looney Tunes turtle”. Missed opportunity, as Side Show Cecil went to Old Nassau. When Side show Bob accused his younger brother of spending four years in clown college, Cecil responded, “I’ll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.”
Late to the party. Did the puzzle early this morning but then had an unusually busy Sunday. Anyway... close but no cigar today. Just couldn't work out a couple of sections. But thought it was a quite clever theme and did work out most of those answers. That's all I got. ...
Repetitive, but enjoyable. But crossing orris and sisi creates a "dead zone" - an area that cannot be "figured out" via word knowledge, and requires SPECIFIC recovery of SPECIFIC names, blocking out the set of all people who do not know that name or in this case, names - it turns the crossword into a trivia puzzle. Having TWO squares affected this way creates an impossible 26 x 26 variant range, or at best only vowels with Y, so 36 guessing pairs. Bad design. Watch out for those deadpools, kids - they make Ryan unhappy.
Malcolm, That cross *could be* figured out without specific knowledge of the words. Scroll down to learn how for next time. The other square could be too. Don't give up so quickly; this is supposed to be a puzzle.
@Malcolm Just in case you come upon the term and don't know what it means, 'round these parts that very thing you described is often called a "Natick". Or adjective, "Naticky". The term stems from a complaint sometime back (I think from Rex Parker in his blog/column about crosswords), a complaint about two words that cross that have exactly that property. Unintuitable, proper names, etc. You've defined it very well, so when you see the word Natick in the comments, that's what they're talkin' about! Yeah, running a square with the 26 letters of the alphabet is one thing, but when you get exponential, fuhgeddaboudit. I too found some Naticky niches in today's puzzle but overall enjoyed it. I do love each of those two constructors, and I gave a big laugh when I saw the title of today's crossword. And overall enjoyed it.
My brain is still working a bit slowly today. I was about to ask you all how share amounts to PIECE... Even after I finished, I was still scratching my head about it. I was thinking more of the sharing is caring sort of share and forgot to let my brain twist it around to other definitions, but as I was starting to write my comment, I finally got it! 🥴 Just me stepping on another rake! I don't know if it's just me getting older, or if air travel really has gotten more difficult these days. Might be both... Recovery seems to take me at least two days now. However, I felt awfully clever way up there in the Northeast, putting down trunk for boot alternative. Granted, it slowed me down a bit up there, especially because I sloppily put down SEASON OPENing first, but it all got puzzled out. Today was unusual in that I got all the corners and edges first and the middle was the hardest. I left the ORR_S and S_SI for last because I wasn't sure, but the letter I seemed the most logical and I immediately got the happy music. I was kind of surprised, to be honest, I assumed I had a mistake in there somewhere because there were a number of little crossings that I didn't know. But I didn't have to look anything up and so HUZZAH! But to call one of the greatest food items in the world, TACO, 27A a mere snack... Hurrumph! Outrage! I jest, but I really did hesitate to put it down for a very short while because I hold TACOs in such high esteem! 😂
@HeathieJ I, too, have been traveling. Just got back from Michigan to meet my ten-week-old granddaughter and to see my four-year-old granddaughter once again. Happy, but exhausted. The amount of highway construction between here and Michigan is biblical.
How is "ease" a word that sounds like its first and last letter. I went through the alphabet and couldn't get it. Oops, ok, it just clicked, two e's.
@CalGal I did the same thing! “I think this clue is…wrong? But the editors are so good…?” After yammering aloud some more I finally got it, whoosh.
@CalGal Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have spent an hour trying to find my mistake. I had ease first, then thought easy fit better and the cross was something I had thought the "y" worked. It didn't occur to me that "ease" fit, "easy" was so much better in my mind. I can't tell you how lovely the little jingle was tonight. NOW I can finally ease into my jammies, and put this puzzle to bed. Again, thank you for the help. Ironically, these are the problems I have with crosswords. I usually get the long multi-word stuff, miss these itty things. Things I am so sure about, that I don't doubt them. Life lesson there.
This was more of a success for me than some of the Connections puzzles I've played (I do get most of them) so it was nice to see this type of cluing in a regular crossword. I had more trouble with show-biz names than with the themers, which is typical for me. It was still a lot of fun and didn't take too much longer than my usual Sunday, and I was more worried that the internet was going to stay out after we lost it during a very heavy rainstorm, but it came back up long before the rain actually stopped. No water problems here, unlike southern Florida, fortunately. Nice puzzle, ladies, and hopefully we'll see some more collabs in the future.
@JayTee Strands #104 “Deep dive” 🔵🔵🔵🟡 🔵🔵🔵🔵
Yeah, SISI and ORRIS were pretty much out of my league 🧐
A nice Sunday morning wakeup activity. Enjoyed this, for the most part. It appears I'm not the only one who didn't care for the SISI/ORRIS/IOLANI crossing. Never heard of any of them, so I couldn't finish without a lookup. But hey, now I've learned something for the next time we're clued those.
@Suzanne I knew Sisi a long time before I knew Kfed, that's for sure!
@Alex Barry I'm with you! IOLANI I knew, but I had no idea about any of Brittney Spears partners, nor do I know French, so the DES was not there. I ended up looking at the answer key for that piece. As usual, different people have different facts in their heads. But, I loved the theme! Pretty easy to figure out the connection. Not so easy to find the second word for starts, etc.
It was easy to figure out the theme and I got several theme answers without many crosses. But I kept running into little snags where things didn’t fit as expected. Then, between Britney’s husband, a misspelling of AMADOU, and a bazillion typos, I ended up clearing the grid and retyping everything twice. Now I have my fastest Sunday time, since by the third time through, I knew the answers pretty well.
"Word that sounds like its first and last letters." That one really threw me. But it does! I got the little jingle immediately upon entering the last letter, which surprised me, because I guessed a fair bit.
@Jeff Z That was the last area for me to fill in. DES? EST? K FED? I wouldn't say I got it with EASE, but technically, I did.
These days the morning doesn’t feel complete until I’ve had a go at Wordle, Connections and the Crossword, in that order. Today our internet connection went out around 10 and didn’t come back till mid-afternoon, which brought home to me how much I’ve come to depend on that ritual. Having to put it on hold for several hours left me feeling something like caffeine deprived. Anyway, by now I’ve done all three puzzles, so the buzz has returned and all’s right with the world. One of the nice things about Connections is that you need to get just three sets out of four to solve. But I don’t feel like I’ve nailed it unless I can figure out what those last four (usually purple) items have in common, which is rare. The reveal often delivers a pleasurable kick: how could anything be so out-of-the-way yet so obvious? Today was one of those rare days when I got the purple set first (a lucky guess), which is sort of like getting Wordle on a second try or solving the Saturday puzzle in under 20 minutes. It more than made up for having to wait.
@Fidelio Some days, I will let the fourth connection (which isn’t always purple) simmer for hours. It’s always better for me to figure it out than reveal it.
@Fidelio How funny! That’s the order in which I complete my morning ritual too…
I was LOLing at TSA being “in the bag” .. I thought oh how clever 😅 then I realized that it didn’t fit and the answer was TEA lol
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes CAPITAL LETTERS are just CAPITAL LETTERS. I'm really not at all sure why they're FRONTS or BEGINNINGS or LAUNCHES or LEADERS or anything else. But, hey, I did have fun trying to figure out the first words in all the themers. STORE, SHOWER and SEASON were really easy. FRESH and ROCKET were really hard. There's such a thing as a BOTTLE ROCKET? There's such a thing as FUNKY FRESH? OHMS instead of MHOS really threw me off for the conductance units. What are MHOS? And I also had wEIGhED before REIGNED for "held sway". Wonderful and baffling clue for DEUCES (29A). It's the clue that provoked the most curiosity in me of them all. But GESTATE (10D) was good too. But don't get me started on the teensy tiny bits of absolutely unimportant and forgettable trivia that I needed to know to finish this. I actually solved* without cheating, but I was compelled to suffer in so doing -- and definitely not in a good way. *But did I solve??? I forgot to check. I solved if EST(?) for the delivery abbreviation is right; if DES (not LES) for French "some" is right; and if KFED (who he?) for the boyfriend is right. If even one of them isn't right, then I didn't solve.
Nancy, You did just fine on your solve. MHOS are called siemens now. Surely you remember them from high school physics? Bottle rockets are very small fireworks. Funky-fresh is an idiom.
@Nancy OHMS are units of resistance, named after German physicist Georg Ohm. MHOS are units of conductance. Conductance is the opposite of resistance, and MHO is OHM backwards. Mathematically, the two are reciprocals. The name MHO has, as Barry indicated, been supplanted by the name Siemens, named after German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist Ernst Werner Siemens. But it still lives on in crosswords. As for the fronts, the four words in each clue form common phrases when placed in front of the word STORE, hence STOREFRONTS. App store, convenience store, general store, thrift store. (A convenience store is called a bodega in Manhattan.) Similarly, the four words in the 32A clue can work as an OPENER for the word SEASON: Holiday season, monsoon season, etc. That's how the Connections game works; you get 16 words, and you have to find the common thread among four words at a time and categorize them until you've solved for all of them.
I’m never sure what’s worse - my memory or my Spanish 101. Either way, PLATeS canyon had me stuck on this for far too long (after having to look up SISI. I really didn’t pay attention in high school). I did know PLATOS canyon but it would never have come to me from the clue I don’t think. Sadly, I did get KFED. Sometimes I’m just embarrassed to be me.
ICY, SPICY, BURNING, RED? Hot leads. A fun Sunday puzzle, thanks, Chandi and Wyna.
@Linda Jo Crosswords are for closers. I mean solvers (Or is it, "coffee is for crossworders"?) from "Glengarry Glen Cross" emus are for emus
Several chances to get Naticked. But it worked out.
I had trouble straightening out the centre: SISI, ORRIS, ARLES, ESOS, PLATOS. I took a little side trip to Google for today’s solve. Nonetheless, an enjoyable Sunday! Thanks.
Welp, my NYT-Crossword French lessons did not include "Some," so 82D ( which clue, crossing the nickname of a boyfriend of a gossip-column-fodder quasi-celeb, I would be ashamed to have known) left me stumped. I finished with one wrong letter and don't care. However: I really enjoyed the themers and got most of them just from tumbling early to the trick. I first tried TYPE OF STORE, which didn't do me any good whatsoever, so I backed up and took another run at it. I can't even pick a favorite. Onward. PhysicsDaughter will be here for the appropriate Father's Day fun... Do you think we should let him win at cards? Our son and his wife sent a manual on "How to Be a Good Dad," with such illustrations as Good Day bringing a goldfish, while Bad Dad presents an alligator.... (DHubby himself sheepishly said, "Well, I did try to drown them or lose them in the bush a couple of times." Not making that up. Fatherhood is not FAIL-SAFE!) Happy Father's Day to those who celebrate.
@Mean Old Lady While the ex-husband, KFED, is definitely a D-list star (before he was Britney's husband, he was her backup dancer), Ms. Spears herself was hardly a "quasi-celeb". She had 6 number-one albums, consecutive except for one number-two album in their midst, followed by a number-four and a number-three album between 1999 and 2016. The first two sold over ten million copies (pre-streaming, of course). She was also on the singles chart with regularity throughout the same period, with several number-one and top-ten hits, and even hit number six with a duet with Elton John in 2022. For those who didn't know her music, she was best known for her various travails that were reported in the tabloids. That doesn't make her less of a star. TLDR: She was a major star in the first two decades of this century, not just a "quasi-celeb". Maybe it's just you weren't her target demographic.
Delightful Sunday puzzle! As an avid Connections player, I enjoyed this one. If you haven't played, some days are "gimmes" where the connections leap from the page. Some days I never get beyond one or two, and am amazed and befuddled by the Connections Ms. Liu sees. I encourage those of you who haven't tried it to jump in. It's quick fun.
What fun! A mash-up between two of my favorite distractions! This was very enjoyable, despite my nodding off several times with the timer running. A little tougher for me than a typical Sunday, especially the middle part, but maybe it's just because I'm tired and not feeling well. I was impressed with the theme and how well constructed it was, I hope to see more from these two puzzle masters.
I erased a chunk of the center because MHOS was obviously incorrect. D'ohm.
@Mark It's a real rarity--a humorous physics units. Resistance is the OHM. Conductance, the inverse of resistance, is OHM backwards.
I’m surprised to see no mention of some interesting crosses. MHOS / MOSEYS is cute. Also ORRIS (Queen Elizabeth’s root) / SISI (Empress Elisabeth’s nickname) is clever.
Hmm, it seems my first response is mired somewhere in moderation, so let's just say this was an otherwise okay puzzle completely ruined by poorly chosen and constructed "natick" crossings. Times customers deserve better. (Yes of course I finished it without cheating.)
Yes indeedy, I had to run the alphabet where the princess met the palace; luckily, there are only twleve letters in the Hawaiian alphabet (Thirteen on Thursdays.) ("Emu" in Hawai'ian is "Emu".)
@Bill The nor'east had a Natick where the princess met the palace The cave beside the Spanish made a clue full of glue. (An "Oy" southwest of Rama had "Roku", "Amadou"... it even had "subdue", so I had Nary/not a clue). (Boo hoo) Actually I kinda liked the puzzle, despite some Natickiness, but your comment put me in mind of that song 🃏
For most of this puzzle I was pretty sure that poor old Side Show Bob was going to step on KAKA, but after the crossings I was relieved to see that he was only going to step on a RAKE.
I hate myself for knowing 79A. I think I'll go take a long shower.
This one wasn't my favorite. As another commenter mentioned, the cluing felt very uneven. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the use of PREMIERE in MOVIE PREMIERES. The other theme entries made sense but this one felt... off. It only seems to really make sense in its French connotation, but I'm not a fan of that stretch. Oh well, just not my fave.
Gregg, I am puzzled that you find PREMIERES an outlier (or only sensible in French) when the English definition of the word is "a first performance" (i.e., opener, beginning, etc.). <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/premiere" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/premiere</a> .....
I love Connections, so I was happy to see todays theme. Thanks for a fun one, Chandi and Wyna. Great clue for EASE at 90D.
@Nancy J. That's 90A, of course. It seems like it would be so EASy to add an edit button.
Austria? Is that where there are kangaroos? Paraphrasing an unnamed felon. No IDEA who SISI is and had to guess at Ms. Spears' former BF. Such is the Tao of X-World. Thank you Chandi and Wyna. Great job!
@dk K-Fed was all the rage for about 5 days some 20 years ago.
Some mistakes are easy to spot, others look fine the second or third time through. I put a tee in my golf bag instead of TEA in my teabag. The homophone of SEAR that appeared as a result is a perfectly nice word and looked just dandy while I skimmed for typos. Don’t you hate having to actually think about each clue again, especially on Sunday.
@Paul Turner I know what you mean when you miss an error because your mistake resulted in actual words. My suggestion is to review the puzzle clue by clue, rather than just look at the completed puzzle. That will tell you if you’ve allowed a cross that doesn’t make sense, even if it’s a real word. Another suggestion would be to do the puzzle in herringbone fashion, alternating acrosses and downs so you catch these mistakes when they happen.
Paul, I solve with a chisel on a stone tablet, so I always check the crosses before entering answers I "know" are correct. My first pass though the grid may take a bit longer, but I rarely need a second pass. And in any case my water clock isn't very precise.
@Paul Turner If you have the Games app on your phone, the List display makes it easier to find mistakes, especially ones that spell words that don’t fit the clue. It’s also helpful for finding mistakes in the Down answers. I wish I hadn’t been too lazy last night to get up and grab my phone. I had an incorrect letter that I probably would have spotted quickly that way. It would have saved me from retyping everything twice.
TIF (tomorrow I’ll forget) (again) some things I’ve probably “learned” on previous todays, slippery facts and slightly-less-common crosswordese, noteably the much-noted SISI x ORRIS x IOLANI. So, this one would have been wrong if I handed it in on paper after my first guesses at those crosses. (I almost said “ ‘K, fed up with this” but instead kept dutifully (insanely?) testing the likely combos.) I guess the app = fail-safe mode = a little “cheat”? While coming up with all the ways to re-start starters is cool, somehow this puzzle didn’t turn my crank.
@JohnWM With you on SISI (weird clue! Why would we have any idea?) but IOLANI Palace is the only royal palace in the USA (well, I did live in Hawaii in the Fifties, and why wd a Canadian know that?) and ORRIS root isn't totally obscure (used in potpourri, for instance)... butI had my own list of stumpers...
@JohnWM IOLANI Palace is depicted as Police Headquarters in Hawaii Five-O. I have no idea if it serves that function in real life.
This felt poorly clued today, not trickiiy clued.
This worked out great for me as it seemed terrifically difficult, but I was able to get through it quite quickly. Had to check that MHOS was really a thing after filling it in, and the last letter of SISI being the first letter of IOLANI had me worrying that her friends called her SISH. The theme answers were a big help, and a fun puzzle on their own; really added to the experience!
@Anthony Conductance is the opposite, or inverse, of resistance, in electrical terms. So the unit name, "mohs," is actually the unit name for resistance, "ohms," written backwards, so it's easier to remember.
It took me all day, but I finished another week's streak on my own. I still hesitate before I write in EELS, as if I should save it for someone else, a fellow non-believer. Maybe they think of me as they realize the fill, too.
This was excellent! Great theme. A tad on the easy side - 11 minutes better than my average, even after I spent a minute finding my typo. I love Sundays.
I didn't dislike this puzzle as much as I could have (or is that should have?). I still think some of the clues were perhaps for another puzzle, though.
Interesting that so many thought this was easy. Not for me. The most difficult Sunday puzzle since I began solving. And connections? I didn't understand most of the connections even after they were filled in (looked up). Not my thing I guess.
@Pat I got a headache, gave up making a serious effort at it, and just looked up maybe a third if it. I still have the headache. I really enjoyed most of this weeks puzzles, though.
@Pat oftentimes I come here looking for company in my misery and feel more alone. That which for me was hard was easy for many. Nice to see some company here today. 🥰
I'm surprised at how many people didn't know who Sisi was. I guess nobody watched the recent PBS mini series or the 1956 movie with Romy Schneider. I guess you had to be there. Pet Peeve: the clue for 103A starts in singular and ends in plural.
@Manuel Pagan Hmm, you may have a valid point on 103A. “Lives with a lover” might work for SHACKSUP. “Lives as lovers” seems awkward, as opposed to “Live as lovers” which would clue for shackup. — — — — — — — — — — — —
@Manuel Pagan No, no. I see what you're saying, but no. John lives as lovers with Mary. (or, John lives with Mary as lovers.) John SHACKS UP with Mary. Interchangeable.
Manuel, If the 103A clue had been in copy I was editing, I would have changed it. If I had been editing this puzzle, I would not have changed it. The "awkwardness" gives it a bit of bite. (It's supposed to be a puzzle.)