When I saw constructor Larson’s name, my whole being brightened, because he brings humor and wordplay into his puzzles. How can you not like a constructor who, in a former puzzle, came up with [Two things associated with Gene Simmons] for KISSANDMAKEUP? I liked the breezy feel of filling this in. In addition, I enjoyed the double-letter fest dominating column five (SEE, EGGO, ELL), the PuzzPair© of PROM and BASH, and the lovely answers BÁNH MI, PREEN, MOUSSE, and PROLIFIC. Plus, I liked ORING as an echo of the theme, as the makers were playing around with the word OR in the theme, or OR-ing. ERUPTED crossing ALPS made me wonder if there are any volcanos in the Alps, and after a shallow dive into that question, I found that the answer is no, and for that matter, neither are there any in the Himalayas. You’re welcome. Congratulations, Amy, on your debut, and thank you once again, Gary, for your engaging cleverness. This put me in a good mood and was a lovely springboard for the day!
@Lewis I love your commentary. I was already in a good mood this morning but this made it even sunnier. Thank you! Happy Tuesday!
Awesome puzzle! Bit tricky for a Tuesday but clever and fun.
Fun theme. I had a ridiculous amount of trouble with 10A; gala before ball before finally getting BASH. The crosses just would not parse for me. Didn’t help that I don’t know Vietnamese cuisine. I’m sure there are eateries in the bigger cities here, but not in my rural neck of the woods. Hand up also for not knowing the sea and trying out iota before atom before A TAD. Phew, lots of TIL this morning. A nice Tuesday workout before donning my rain gear to walk the dog. Yes, it’s raining here. Again. Our current weather patterns are even making headlines, along the lines of ‘where the heck is Summer?’ At least my water tanks are full and there’s minimal watering required in the veg plot. Silver linings and all that.
Was it just yesterday that somebody was wondering if the editors would accept a themed puzzle without a revealer? What are the ODDS?
Does this puzzle set a record for the number of “F”s contained within? Either way, I thought it was an F’ing delight. Sam’s column reminds me of a time in my youth when I got mad and called my sister a “horror”. (I was reading a lot of books by British authors at the time, and was trying out the vernacular.) Like Sam’s friend, my pronunciation was apparently somewhat lacking, and my parents were most definitely NOT amused. I stuck with more common American insults after that.
@Heidi Not at all. This puzzle contains five Fs, which is not even close to the record. Stats have been posted only for the "Modern Era" (since Shortz became editor), and the record for F's is 12, done twice (6/12/06 and 12/20/00). Even so, 12 is a relatively low record count for a letter. E holds the overall record, 78, on 2/9/99, and even X has one with 16 (1/7/21).
Very nice THEME idea, Amy and Gary. I was hoping to see constructor notes to see who did what, but they're missing today. A good BANH MI is a beautiful thing. It's got everything you need. Creamy crunchy sweet acid spicy salty umami goodness on bread. It doesn't get much better than that. I also want to congratulate Sam for taking over as the main writer for Gameplay. More Sam is always good.
I loved this puzzle, especially Boomerbust. Cracked me up.
Another great puzzle! Good difficulty for a Tuesday in my opinion. BANHMI was a lovely addition and I also enjoyed FIGHTERFLIGHT and BABE. I struggled immensely with the lower-middle section - I'd not heard of the terms SOUSED; SAUD and PGA didn't occur to me (I had PRO for a while), and IRAS was always bound to trouble me as a non-American, though I should've got it with "Roth". EGGO is something I've also not seen before, but fits well with the clue! Thanks, Gary and Amy!
Fun puzzle! I was held up for a bit at 67A as I had ATom there. Took me a while to recheck all the acrosses then downs before I saw two words that could not be correct. Before I figured out the theme, I was sure that the [senior center sting] was some sort of shot/syringe! It was fun to sound out the familiar phrases from the "incorrect" spellings! Thanks!
Tricky, going B...B....for the answer to the first "?" clue, then F...F.... for the next two. I was going crazy trying to fill in a F___ERFAIL. I've not had EMU problems so far, but I;ll add this line to feel safer.
@kilaueabart Same. I came here to say just that.
Of course I put 'there' for Gertrude Stein's quote. I also understand Tommy Orange's book is quite good.
@K Barrett There, There is, indeed, very good.
@K Barrett His latest (second) book is good too!
Gertrude Stein may have said "A ROSE is A ROSE is A ROSE" at some point, but her most famous quotation (perhaps other than saying "There's no there there" about Oakland), from "Sacred Emily", is "ROSE is A ROSE is A ROSE". Jus' sayin', Sam.
@Steve L Gonna jump in here before Fact Boy...it turns out the line is: Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. So four roses, but three A ROSEs. Who knew? Well, besides Gary Larson, Amy Ensz, Joel Fagliano and maybe 20 English majors.
@Steve L. Interestingly, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives “Rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose”, but not “There’s no there there”. A different evaluation of memorability? Critically, for this xword, “there” is not […words..] and so is not a possible entry.
Is it just me, or is "FORM or FASHION" not quite as in the language as the other three theme phrases? I found myself wanting "FORM or function" to work somehow.
@Kirsten - “form (and) function” relate in phrases that stand alone, but (for example) “ not in any form or fashion” is very ordinary speech.
Kirsten, I've also heard and read the themer you cite less often than the other three, and there is that other possible ending to it, but given the clue, the other ending wouldn't function and I went directly to FASHION. @@@@@
@Kirsten Like you, when I think FORM, I think "function," since my background is in Design. That, however, wouldn't fit the theme because the correct expression is "Form *and* Function," which means aesthetics and usability must both be present in the utilitarian arts (architecture, interior design, industrial design, et al.) Form *or* function is the exact opposite of the desirable outcome and laudable achievement in Design. I hope this clarifies a very common misquoting of the expression.
That was a lot of fun. Typical slow start for me, but finally caught on to the theme with PASSERFAIL and then guessing the other theme answers was the key to filling everything else in. Couldn't ask for anything more. Noticed that BOOMERBUST was not a debut answer, and... yep - this type of theme had been done once before - a Tuesday from October 19, 2010 by Fred Piscop. The other theme answers in that one: MAKERBREAK LOVERMONEY HITTERMISS And then stumbled across a couple of other remarkable puzzles. I'll put those in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: First puzzle was a very remarkable Sunday from December 1, 2013 by Alan DerKazarian with the title "Two halves in one." That one had a long diagonal of black squares across the middle of the puzzle. And, the implication was that four of those squares represented the word - BLACK, so that four down and four across answers that crossed each other in those squares had an implied 'black' in the middle of the answer. Some samples: Across answer - THEREANDBACKAGAIN crossing - TURNSBACKTHECLOCK Across - HUMPBACKWHALE crossing - WONTBACKDOWN Across - PAPERBACKBOOK crossing - FEEDBACKLOOP Across - BROKEBACKMOUNTAIN crossing - BENDOVERBACKWARDS And then the reveal was: BACKINBLACK And then... a Wednesday puzzle from September 21, 2022 (I'm sure I'd done this puzzle but didn't recall it). Three theme answers: FIGHTORFLIGHT PAYTOPLAY BACKINBLACK And... the reveal - TAKEANL I'm done. ..
Fun puzzle, my only quibble is that three of the four theme answers are alliterative which made the fourth feel off.
@deeb that was it! I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my original guess for the last one was PASSER PLAY. Maybe subconsciously I wanted the alliterative phrase?
“since toilets are sometimes called ‘thrones,’ flushing one could be ROYAL” Hah, no! This refers to a royal flush in poker, but we appreciate your attempt to explain it your own way!
@Shimmer To be fair, Sam's toilet observation was included _after_ she explained the poker definition. She wrote: “Flushes” refers to a hand in poker — but since toilets are sometimes called “thrones,” flushing one could be ROYAL, too. I don't understand why this might be considered her _attempt_ to "explain it her own way". An attempt to be humorous, sure. But the correct explanation is abundantly clear.
I can never see or hear O-RING without the image of The Challenger... Less painful, Gary Larson's name of course evokes the cartoonist's wacky hilarity (and my existential question, "How can he retire? He won't be able to stop coming up with funny thoughts...") So....do we think no one wears petticoats any more? So, now I know the name of a body of water north of Siberia. My life is complete. This is going to come in so very handy! Not. I'd like to indulge in more sarcasm, but yesterday's antics with the baby chainsaw DHubby got me have left me with tired, sore hands and wrists. But you should see the brush pile! I have big plans for when I can turn my attention to the ugly juniper that has been overrun by berry vines and crepe myrtle sprouting from roots.... Oh, congrats to our constructors! More, please.
@Mean Old Lady Is this Gary Larson really that Gary Larson?
I was listening to chapter 66 of Isaac Asimov’s memoir ‘I,Asimov’ just this morning. The chapter is entitled ‘Prolificity’ so 40D came naturally!
I liked how this puzzle had some good plays on words. Good warmup for a Friday mental workout. KARASEA was a new one, I was expecting 67A to be atom or iota, but the crosses made me realize that this was not to be. Considering all the dud fireworks this week, it was good to see DOA for a change.
Fun puzzle with a cute theme. Finished about two minutes under my average. I'd argue (as Steve L may be) that "there is no there there" is Gertrude Stein's most famous quote.
Congratulations on a fine NYT debut, Ms Ensz! Y’all’s theme is easy to grasp, but it was still a bit of a challenge to figure out what common phrases y’all were riffing on.
Catching up on the early week puzzles and this one was a ROMP until I washed out into the KARASEA (ATom). Congrats on your debut today Ms. Ensz, was fun guessing the themers with a minimum of crosses.
Forgive me if this has been said before (I’m sure I’m not the first to think this!), but I was just musing that it would be really great to have stats showing how your average times for each day of the week have changed over time. A basic graph would do. I did my first crossword ever early on during the pandemic, and it’s been really exciting to see the natural improvement just from day-after-day cumulative progress. Putting in my vote for this feature, NYT!!
@Mark Williams the great site xwstats.com will do this for you if you link your NYT account! But yes, I agree - would love to see more detailed stats on this site.
My fifth grade teacher was horrified by someone using the word 'pianist'.
Today learned that LIV Golf is a sports league, not a model of Volkswagen.
Some surprises today that made me realize I have been taking too much for granted. To wit: the smallest particle, in four letters, is not always iota or atom. ATAD (A TAD) messed up my SW for most of the game. Also, I had gala before BASH (well-deserved head slap) and I learned some new geography (KARASEA). That last took me to a map, to stare for a while and realize that I never really understood the part of the world that my ancestors are from. And not just that: my Rotary club supports students in Mongolia, and projects in some of the Stans... I took a long side trip into that map to understand the relationship of all these countries to which I have some sort of connection. No wonder I always got these questions wrong on Jeopardy!
first time solving a crossword with my name in it, thanks!
@Kara Hey! You have your own sea! Don’t be greedy!
@Kara This is the third appearance of KARA SEA as an answer. However, KARA alone has been the answer 41 times, the last one being 5/27/22, when the clue was [Journalist Swisher]. Most of the Shortz Era clues were about Supergirl's real name, but before that, the sea and river were the usual clues.
@Kara Omg thank you for this! My last to fall. Fun jokes today.
Hindi has not been the official language of India for decades. Even at the beginning of the constitution, English was recognized as an acceptable official language and then with the Eighth Schedule of the constitution, this was further expanded to include many more languages. Today there are 23 languages recognized as official languages, i.e. languages to be utilized in the official legislative and judicial documents created by the Indian government. There is no national language in India as there are a 122 broadly spoken languages and over 1500 additional dialects. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in the country with about 44% of the population considering it to be a first, second or third language.
@Lakshmi Thanks for the explanation. Only one problem (if you're claiming the clue is wrong): The clue does not include "The". It does not say "Only". As written, the clue is correct. It would also be correct if the answer were English, Gujarati, Malayalam, etc.
Boo! to perpetuating the use of "fail" as a noun. It's everywhere now and I realize there's no escaping it. But I don't have to like it! Emus are also disappointed in the Times' judgment. Such a failure. ;)
We tried to spell SAUD, SAaD but.... The rest went just fine. Thank you Gary and Amy
Is 31A a circular revealor? . . (Er… I guess not, clearly ering in that suggestion.)
@JohnWM -- Hah! We posted at about the same time and were on the same wavelength! Et tu, emu.
A friendly, cheerful Vietnamese sandwich? BAHN MI!! 🥪 🍷 🥪🍷🥪🍷 🥪🍷🥪 🍷🥪 (Party on, Emu!!)
Slightly closer to my PB than my average. Had not heard of Kara Sea which contributed to me solving in that area slower than the rest of the puzzle.
I couldn’t get the puzzle at first; then it suddenly appeared, but very small making it quite difficult to see, but i eventually finished, but with much more help tan I should need for a Tuesday. Could still admire the clever theme though. Hopefully things will be back to normal tomorrow.
@suejean I'm glad I'm not the only one finding this puzzle hard for a Tuesday! I don't feel so bad!
@Cathall Yeah, I thought that, too. I'm almost square in the middle of the boomers (1952). And although I know I'm heading for the a senior center, or, preferably, the grave, it's not quite time yet. On the other hand, I'm trying to not take offense, because it seems like taking offense is becoming quite the knee jerk reaction. To almost everything.
As I read Sam’s Wordplay commentary for the Tuesday NYTXWORD puzzle on mis-pronunciation, it brought to my mind a few prime examples that drive me around the bend, particularly when I hear them come from the mouths of people who, one would think, should know better, such as radio and TV personalities —and even US presidents: FEBUARY NUCULAR (I’m talking about you, George W.) ARTIC AXTERISK Anyone care to weigh in with their own pet peeves?
@Strudel Dad Yes! The very word "pronunciation" is often pronounced as pro-NOUN-ciation. It might seem logical but it's just not correct. As for the pros, there's the BBC saying "Olympics" without the initial O (watch for it soon) and "police" as "pleece". And while we're at it, you broadcasters, "fulsome" is not a synonym for "thorough" and "impact " is not a verb, and imagery is not the same as images But that's not what you asked about, Strudel Dad, sorry! Pet peeves, I've got lots more where those came from. :)
@Strudel Dad "Chomping at the bit" rather than "champing...," although the former has actually become acceptable because it's incorrectly used so frequently. It's still wrong, and here's why: The phrase comes from horse racing. A bit is part of the apparatus that goes in the horse’s mouth and connects to the bridle and reins so the horse can be controlled and directed by the jockey on its back. The bit fits into a toothless ridge of the horse’s mouth, so the horse never really bites the bit. But it can grind his teeth or jaw against the bit, and if it does, it means that the horse is either nervous, or really excited about racing. That’s how the phrase “champing at the bit” entered everyday communications: to indicate extreme eagerness. It's also wrong to say “chomping,” because “chomping” is a transitive verb, or a verb that needs an object for it to make sense. In other words, you have to have something to chomp on if you want to use “chomp.” A horse doesn’t chomp, or bite, the bit—he champs, or grinds, his teeth. No bit is necessary for a champing to happen, so champing is an intransitive verb, which means no “object” is required.
Delightful puzzle, and mostly a breezy solve, but I got my knickers in a twist in the NE corner and it took me some time to get that sorted. I couldn’t remember BANH MI and held on to “gala” way too long at 10A. But I got there. Thanks for the Tuesday fun, Mr. Larson and Ms. Ensz 😊
@Shari Coats I think you and I played the same way!
This felt ALOT easier than Monday. Finished it a hair under 6 minutes. Cute theme
Hindi is not the official language of India. Assuming so is an insult to the native speakers of other languages in India.
@Allen As per the Constitution of India (<a href="https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/pdf1/Part17.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/pdf1/Part17.pdf</a>), Hindi is the official language of India.
@Allen The clue doesn’t state or even imply that Hindi is the only official language of India. I suppose it would have been more educational for it to say something like “One of the official languages of India.”
@Allen Wikipedia cites the Indian constitution saying that the official language is Hindi: “According to Part XVII of the Constitution of India, Hindi in the Devanagari script is the official language of the Union, along with English as an additional official language.[1][6][7] States and union territories can have a different official language of their own other than Hindi or English.” I see what you mean about there being other languages but it seems like technically Hindi is the official one!
Appreciated another Toughened Up Tuesday puzzle though I wish it had been a little tougher. Enjoyed the theme though.
The ELF/ELK crosser felt intentionally tricky from a visual/trickery standpoint as opposed to a crossword-solving standpoint. I’m open to alternate viewpoints but I’m not down with it.
@Joshua Parker I have no problem with it.
@Joshua Parker With the clues, I personally thought this was pretty clear. I don’t think mountain lions usually eat elves, and even if you didn’t know the movie itself, I don’t think ELK would make sense as a Christmas movie (while they look like reindeer a bit, they aren’t the same animals).
Once again, these Tuesday puzzles are generally not consistent in difficulty across the weeks. Monday, Wednesdays, Thursdays are pretty uniform. For whatever reason, Tuesdays are now the difficult wildcard. SOUSED (with that clue?) and KARA SEA crossed with SAUD? Come on, NY Times, we can do better than that.
@Kristopher Have to disagree. SAUD is a very prominent royal family in the Middle East, so much so that they have a country to their name.
@Kristopher Three sheets to the wind and soused both mean drunk. They may be dated terms, but they are synonyms
@Kristopher It was a fun puzzle, but I did need three cheats. I think this one is a Wednesday level puzzle. Kara Sea and Saud were among my look ups, too. But I guess we're in the slow lane......
I enjoyed this puzzle, but I have to disagree with the clue for 1A. The "B" in the answer indicates that we are dealing with a 4-point GPA, and the structure at the college where I teach -- and at every other college with which I have dealt -- sets a perfect A at 4.0 and a B from 3.0 to 3.9. On that scale, a B-plus would be higher than 3.5. An average grade of 3.3 would result in a B-minus.
@B.C. This website does not agree with you. <a href="https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/plan-for-college/get-started/how-to-convert-gpa-4.0-scale" target="_blank">https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/plan-for-college/get-started/how-to-convert-gpa-4.0-scale</a> What say you emu? Going to allow this? Do I make the grade?
@B.C. - At every college where I taught over a few decades, a straight B was 3.0, and a BPLUS was 3.3, and a B minus was 2.7. Same for the other grades. I believe this is almost universal among universities in the US. Obviously, there must be some variation, considering your college. Can you share its name?
@B.C. - I hit up the electric google machine and entered the search term "how is grade point average calculated?" The very top hit was from the Princeton Review. All the others I looked at conform to what the Princeton Review sez. And the puzzle. <a href="https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/gpa-college-admissions#:~:text=Your" target="_blank">https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/gpa-college-admissions#:~:text=Your</a>%20grade%20point%20average%20(GPA,an%20A%2C%20equals%20a%204.0.
Regarding 14 A. " There is no there, there."
Accidental as I'm sure it was any crossword that includes the great Jock Stein makes my day.
Finished in under 15 minutes. Where’s the challenge!
Now you've done it. Next Saturday's puzzle rushing towards you now, like a clown with a concrete pie in one hand.
@Joe Accardi It’s only Tuesday—stick around! I think of Monday and Tuesday puzzles as time challenges: keep track of your fastest times and see if you can beat them. If that’s not your thing, some Friday and Saturday puzzles (and the occasional Thursday) can be quite challenging regardless of time.
Joe, It's a Tuesday. For a challenge, maybe try to finish in under 10 minutes? *******