I don’t know anything about the Bible, but it’s always ESAU.
@N.E. Body Right? I have no idea what the guy's story was, but his name has become embedded in my head since I started doing these puzzles last year.
@N.E. Body Though I have learned more about hairy old ESAU than I ever wanted to know, I have also learned to be careful when I see a clue like “Genesis man.” It seems like half the guys in that book have four-letter names: Adam, Cain, Abel, Seth, Esau . . . .
So glad that “wintry mix” was included! That one has always struck me as a hilarious cruel euphemism that is so much more unpleasant in reality than how it sounds. Of course, right now during “interminable beastly humidity”, a little wintry mix sounds great. I used this weather pun idea once on a concert poster for our singing group. The set for the concert was a cappella stuff from assorted early composers, chiefly Monteverdi. Can you guess it? PARTLY CLAUDIO
@Cat Lady Margaret Or perhaps "Baroque-n Clauds"? ☁⛅ partly emu with increasing chance of emus
@Cat Lady Margaret Were you a headliner though?
The three Sunday puzzles Katie and Scott have made all feature italicized theme clues. Yet the themes are completely different. To wit: • Today’s weather reports. • Their last puzzle followed the pattern [I visited the {insert health professional) and now I …] – such as [I visited the podiatrist and now I …] for STAND CORRECTED. • Their puzzle before that featured punny exclamations – such as [Dracula has lived half a millennium!”] for BATS FIVE HUNDRED. All three themes hit my happy button, brought warm smiles. I don’t know how long Katie and Scott will continue with the italicized clue pattern, but it’s a formula that works beautifully for me. Three points specific to today’s puzzle: • To add to the zip of the theme answers are lovely long downs: TEAR LOOSE, THE NANNY, STAGE CREW, TOE LOOPS, SAFETY NET, STAR PUPIL. • A world-class never-before-used clue: [One who manages to get by?] for BOSS. • YEET and YEESH, two words I adore, in the same box! Katie and Scott, your puzzles have a sweet feel and are most entertaining, IMO. More please, and thank you for today’s splendid outing!
Coming from a largely catholic country, I was confused by NAME DAYS. Over here every day is a name day (at least two names are assigned to each day; my name day is November 30th, and it is a well known one, called andrzejki, associated with fortune-telling. Interestingly, atheists like me, my wife and most of both our families also generally celebrate name days, even though it is a very catholic thing, originally). As a result, personally I found the clue to be technically correct but also inscrutable - even more so as in Poland we don't specifically celebrate St. Patrick's day, so I did not recognize its date. TAW was new to me. What a strange word. I'll try to remember it. Marbles are known over here but not popular at all. Almost nobody I knew played it when I was a kid. Bottle cap "football" was much more popular - I suppose because we could cheaply make our own game pieces.
@Andrzej I had holiDAYS in there for a while. After a while, I know it was wrong but I had no idea what it was! I've never heard of name DAYS so that was strange to me. I'm born and bread in the midwest, USA, though not specifically Catholic. I also had no idea about TAW... I mean, I know about marbles but nothing more than the fact that it exists. I was however a tetherball champion in middle school. ☺️
@Andrzej I've never heard the phrase "name day" used by other than the staunchest Catholics, and I expect the entry will confuse a lot of Americans as well. And I've never known an American to specifically celebrate his or her "Name Day"--although I went to school with a woman named Cecilia, daughter of proud Irish parents, whose Birthday was November 22nd. Coincidence? I think not. September 31st, the Feast of St. Emu, patron of censorship.
@Andrzej @HeathieJ @Bill I didn’t know name days were so closely related to Catholicism. They are also a big deal in Greek Orthodox tradition, so once I let go of holiDAYS, I figured it out pretty quickly. For my Greek family members, name days can be more important to acknowledge than birthdays.
Is rue a shrub? It's been a long time since I grew any in my garden, but I would have described it as an herb--by which I mean its manner of growth, not culinary use. Wikipedia, however, describes it as a "subshrub"--low-growing, basically herbaceous, but woody at the base. "Subshrub"! What a word! Has it ever appeared in the crossword, RiA? If you don't like "subshrub," you can use the Greek "chamaephyte," or the Latin "suffrutex". I would love it if the "rut" in "suffrutex" came from "Ruta," the Latin word for rue, but, alas, it's a false friend, deriving instead from "sub-frutex," "frutex" being the latin word for, well, shrub. I never regret a day I learn a new word.
@Bill Interesting array of words. They inspired these reactions. - - - - - 🌱 "Ask YOUR doctor about Suffrutex® 🌱 "The band has combined the best (and worst) aspects of Emo, Dubstep, Surf Music and Rap to come up with a new amalgam that's very hot with the younger crowd right now. It's meant to be played at full volume with heavy leaning on the subwoofers: this new genre is Subshrub, and you should definitely check out the Irksome Naticks next time they come to your town" 🌱 2153 (AP) -- "With the increasing scarcity of real fruit due to the rabbit plague that was set off when humankind killed off all the hyenas for use of their fur to stave off the unexpected extreme cold due to the climate change caused by Element 13 which was invented by the singular AI (StatGPT) commissioned to solve all the world's problems, people are now attempting to enjoy or at least tolerate the taste of Frutex™, the new AI-invented "Breakfast of Chompions™ i.e. 'Synthetic Acidic Pseudo-Organic Fiber Meal Compound'. "Frutex™. It's what's for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. Yumm!" ______ Greco Chamaephyte, Ruta RiA, Herb A. Shussgroathe and Vera Woody Bayce contributed to this report
Delightfully breezy and sunny; likely to be followed by hailing. Et tu, emu.
With all due respect to the profession... I once heard a comedian say that a weatherman is the only one who can be wrong 50% of the time and still keep his job. I'll admit, I check different forecasts not because I care to know, but just to see who got it right! The thought going through my mind with the themers was "How on Earth do constructors think of these things?" I imagine cruciverbalist minds that are continuously clicking, clicking, clicking, all the time, whatever they hear and read, wherever they are. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But I'm also grateful for their clicking minds. And today, I'm grateful for Scott and Katie, who really have it down. GAWP got me good. CHIRRUPS is a TIL. And Arcimboldo had me agape that in a university semester of Art History, he never once came up. Or did he? It was over forty years ago, so I'm sure my memory is MOSTLY CLOUDY, or intermittently so. Thank you Scott and Katie, for a breezy, sunny, and educational ride!
@sotto voce An All-Star level batting average in baseball is .300, meaning a hitter is considered a great success if he fails 70% of the time. !!! !!!!
@sotto voce Thanks for your comments, Sotto. I’m replying because you’re exactly right about the way constructors think. It really is a continuous thing, for me at least. Everything is a potential theme idea…it’s so true. Glad you enjoyed it!
@sotto voce I skipped past that first Arcimboldo clue so quick because it didn't ring any bells for me only to immediately face another. I gave in and considered the clues carefully and realized NOSE made the most sense for a pear. I figured the cherry was an eye and was delighted when it worked out; and was even MORE delighted when I looked up the portrait after solving! And thank God I caught GAWP early on! I very much do not like hunting down errors in Sunday puzzles. I was blessedly spared this week.
As a zoomer, it’s kinda wild to see YEET and EBOY in an NYT puzzle. Fun theme, if a little easy — DAMAGING WINDS is great!
@J I'm solid Gen X and not heard of EBOY but YEET showed up in a puzzle sometime within the last year. Miraculously, I was able to pull it out of the dredges of my aging brain... I actually feel like I've learned a lot of younger language from working the puzzles. ☺️
The happy weatherman has a sunny disposition. (But sometimes at parties, there are mostly crowdy sighs.)
@Mike Hail to thee, Munster punster! It seems you're willing to graupel with any topic. You never fail to emus...
So smashing clarinets isn't breaking winds? Well blow me down!
The clever theme and range of knowledge required by the clues provided an enjoyable weekend puzzle. Well done!
Chirrup, I recall, was the word Caleb Car used in one of his books to describe the sound a cheetah makesr This is likely the least consequential comment I've ever submitted to the NYTimes.
A bit faster than normal, but serene before sedate and a few other miscues slowed me down. I liked MORNING FROST because it made me think of his The Hardship of Accounting Never ask of money spent Where the spender thinks it went. Nobody was ever meant To remember or invent What he did with every cent.
@Snorting Elk Loved the verse! As a young man my husband had a category in his accounting called DITA. Disappeared into Thin Air. I think that's why after we got married I took over all the family finances..... Now we have a category called Misc.
[Miami fans still standing and sitting in sync?] I really enjoy these constructors. They come up with wonderful themes. Once again, high school Latin gave me some answers: "Yeet, yeesh, yee-haw!" (I throw, I threw poorly, I happy anyways!) HEAT WAVE CONTINUES
@ad absurdum Thanks for the props!
Ta-da! The streak hit 600 days this morning (not counting the approximately 12,000 done on paper in prior years, sometimes at my father's consternation when I took his paper without permission in early days). An appropriately sunny summer day.
This puzzle was the very definition of smooth, and the meteorological themers were pretty easy to suss out. I particularly liked WINTRYMIX and MORNINGFROST. Perhaps I’m daydreaming about relief from the steamy August weather.
Given the theme, a I figured 'Smashing oboes and clarinets' had to do with "winds", but my first answer was "Breaking winds".... which I thought was hilarious. And "gawp".... seriously, dude? Makes me want to re-read "The World According to Gark".
@S Godwin Yeah, I had the same immediate thought for 125-Across. Later discovered I’d, uh, stunk up the joint.
SHOWERS of praise are LIKELY for this clever and fun theme. The clue for DAMAGING WINDS blew me away, and I doubt anyone will throw shade at the MOSTLY CLOUDY clue. Nicely done, Katie and Scott. Lots of giggles were sprinkled throughout my solve.
After completion, I GAWPed at finding that a switch from TOE LOOk to LOOK solved the error! Surprised the hail out of me! After GAWPing, I went to Prof Google for its definition, plus I recently signed up for XWord Info, so I now know it's been used 7 times in the modern era, which means I've encountered it once before. It was in the August 4th '23 puzzle, which is when I started doing the crossword. Wow, exactly a year ago! Anyhow, fun puzzle! I figured the theme out in lightening fast time, though I, without any crossings or other theme answers in place, entered FROSTed flake at 103A. Ha! It didn't totally make sense but I had Frost from the poem and the reference to breakfast... It didn't stay long but I enjoyed it while it lasted! I've never dyed or tinted my hair but if I had, I could have called myself a FROSTed flake for that one! Finished in good (for me) time and no helps! HUZZAH! There were some little challenging areas, such as putting CAR miLES first and trying to work around it. I still feel good that I got the gist of it even though I had to take out the miLES entirely for a bit before I saw it was SALES. I liked having both ROO and RUE in there! I didn't know there was a flower RUE but it had easy crosses for me and it made me think of Rue in Hunger Games. I'll never not get weepy when she dies. My favorite was DAMAGING WINDS followed by ISOLATED SPRINKLES! Cheers, all! 🍸🍸
@HeathieJ My kingdom for an edit button!! I meant TOE LOOk, as my original wrong answer, to TOE LOOP. C'mon emus, have some mercy on our poor fat fingers!
@HeathieJ One of my last ones was filling in CARSALES. "Line on an auto graph" was a hilarious clue. I *knew* there was some reason by there was a space between auto and graph. But it took me a long time to finally see it.
Despite the constraints imposed by the seven themers, there are some interesting entries in this grid: CHIRRUPS, DESKDUTY, USOTOUR, ETALII, STAGECREW, SYSTEMIC, SAFETYNET, STARPUPIL. Don't think I'm familiar with the terminology NAMEDAY for a holiday such as St. Valentine's Day. Loved "What dry ice doesn't do" for MELT. Carbon dioxide sublimates directly from solid to gas, at least at standard atmospheric pressure. (Yes, dry ice can melt, but only at pressures greater than 5.1 atm.) Of course, any good STAGECREW knows this, since dry ice is often used to produce thick fog---which might come ONLITTLECATFEET, but fails to make it into today's puzzle. Got this one unaided in about half-an-hour, capping off one of my better weeks.
@Xword Junkie If you know any Italians, you can ask them about NAMEDAYs. They are abundant in Italian culture and almost everyone has one in addition to their birthday.
I woke up today to solve Scott & Katie’s pun-tastic puzzle, which totally made my morning. Then, I read the constructor notes, which totally made my YEAR! Thank you, Scott, for the shout-out. It was such an honor to meet you and so many other brilliant constructors at the ACPT this year. I was even inspired to start constructing puzzles myself! If I’m ever lucky enough to publish one here, you will be the first to receive a shout-out. See you all next April!
@Jazzy Hi Jazzy…I was inspired at the last moment when I was writing the Constructor Notes to give you a shout-out because I knew you’d totally get a kick out of it and appreciate it! I’m not sure whether to encourage or discourage you from allowing the constructor bug to guide you! Great meeting you at ACPT…one of my and my wife’s most memorable moments was seeing you show up on stage during the finals. We just looked at each other and were like, “was there ever any doubt that girl was gonna somehow end up in the spotlight??” :-)
Too apt, as we batten down the hatches for Little Debbie here. We won't get HEAVY SNOW or MORNING FROST but we'll get all the other bits of weather. Charge up the phones, clean out the storm drains, check on the neighbors, check on the emus . . .
@Linda Jo Will be pulling for you guys!
A MILD AND PLEASANT MORNING. Would that that were also so outside my window, but the puzzleweather was nice. This was mostly pretty easy, but there were a couple of places where I had write-overs. SERENE before SEDATE for "calm" and ET ALIA before ET ALIA. The latter meant that the ice cream sundae answer began with an "A", not an "I" and kept me from seeing the absolutely wonderful ISOLATED SPRINKLES -- my second favorite answer in the bunch. Instead I was on the path of A SOLiTary something-or-other. The theme answers to from the ordinary to the glorious and surprising. The first three. along with WINTRY MIX, were a bit of a YAWN. But then came the inspired ISOLATED SPRINKLES, DAMAGING WINDS and my absolute favorite, MORNING FROST. A most diverting puzzle. If that sounds like rather mild praise from me, it's not. With all the awful weather and all the awful news, a bit of diversion is always to be hoped for -- and this puzzle provided it.
I very much enjoyed this puzzle, but I also had several tricky crosses! And today I learned many things about et al., which I was pleased to look up AFTER solving the puzzle. I have used et al. countless times in technical documents, but in my head the long version was et alia (and tbh, vaguely knowing this seemed more than good enough). Turns out there are three! Masculine (et alii), feminine (et aliae), or neuter (et alia). Hmmm, this may arise again. "Cite for gal pals?" Answer is ET ALIAE, that's a lot of vowels! Found much info at <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/et" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/et</a> al.
@Nora sorry, the link was messed up <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/et" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/et</a> al.
Zipped through this one until that teensy little section in the east help me up. I had MOSTLYgLOomY. For ages. And, being Swedish, my brain wasn’t allowing NAMEDAYS, as they are a real thing and I spent *many* years begging my parents to celebrate mine in early May, just like a second birthday. Cake, gifts…the whole shebang. Which isn’t even how it’s done in Sweden, but I was determined to try. As I was raised outside Chicago, with three siblings, they never even *considered* it. But my dad would write my name on a piece of paper and stick it to the fridge. He found it hilarious. Fun puzzle! Thank you Scott and Katie!
The perfect puzzle as I sit here with the weather radio continuing to announce severe thunderstorm warnings. "Morning frost" was delightful. Fun theme, but the fill went quickly for a Sunday.
This puzzle was a Sunny Delight to solve.* My first themer solved was DAMAGONG WINDS. Are you out there somewhere, Oboe Steph? Thanks for the fun, Scott and Katie. *Sunny D is hilariously described in Wikipedia thusly: The drink is superficially related to orange juice, but also resembles a soft drink without carbonation.
Happy to see YEET in the NYT crossword!!
@Faye YEET has been in three previous NYT puzzles, all in the last nine months. That’s the only reason I know it.
Whew (again). Kind of a tough one for me and needed to work the crosses for each of the theme answers, but thought this was a quite clever theme and enjoyable solve. Catching on to the theme was the big turning point and that's always a nice touch. Was VERY surprised to see that almost all of the theme answers were debuts, as they were all quite familiar phrases. A couple of possible grid-spanning entries dawned on me this morning. I'm going to put those in a separate post. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened. Two possible (future) grid-spanning entries. 15 letters?: PRESIDENTHARRIS 21 letters?: PRESIDENTKAMALAHARRIS Just have to wait see. Fingers crossed. ..
Wow, 2nd time in one week that I thought of my old work friend, Joey D. He was the one who we tricked by swapping his Coke for 7 up. Today, I knew about NAME DAYS because of him. His mom used to send him to work with a platter of her delicious cookies for his NAME DAY. I had never heard of that concept before. Prior to this week, I probably hadn't thought about him in years.
I'm so glad the ALOU brothers were one of the answers here, because it gives me the opportunity to geek out on an experience I had exactly 58 years ago, on August 4, 1966. I was 10 years old at the time and it was my first trip to a baseball game ever. If you know me at all, you know I'm a serious baseball fan, and a New York Mets fan specifically, and this game is probably the reason why. This story will probably need to be told in several parts, so be forewarned. I often hear that baseball is boring, that football/basketball/hockey/soccer has more action/is more interesting. I think it mostly depends on how you were brought up. For me, baseball was always there, in season, with football for most of the off season. The other sports were mostly ignored (although my parents got into tennis later). My father was a high school and later, a minor league player, but by the time I was born, he was just a fan. I was born two years before his original team, the Dodgers, left for LA, and he couldn't root for the Yankees, so when the Mets entered the majors in 1962, he rooted for them. If you know baseball history, you know that expansion teams weren't given much support to field good teams back then, and so the Mets foundered in last or next-to-last place through 1968. If you were a fan, you just rooted for them to win the game you were watching; a championship was out of the question. (The '69 world champion Miracle Mets upended all that.) CONTINUED.
@Steve L Part 2 Having come into fandom during this stretch of Mets ineptitude, I always picked a team to root for in the World Series, since it seemed that the Mets were destined never to get there themselves. So I spent a beautiful summer afternoon at Shea Stadium with the hopes of just seeing one victory. The opposing team, the Giants, were pitching their ace, Juan Marichal, whom the Mets could never beat, and who would be in the Hall of Fame by 1983. The Mets sent out a journeyman pitcher who no one else remembers, Dennis Ribant. Naturally, the Mets fell behind, and the score was 5-0 by the bottom of the 7th inning. The site baseball-reference.com retroactively calculates that at that point, the Mets had a 1% chance of winning. Oh, well, at least it was a nice day at the ballpark. (The boxscore from that website is here: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196608040.shtml" target="_blank">https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196608040.shtml</a> ) But after the Mets the Mets scored a run in the seventh and gave it back in the top of the eighth, they scored three more in the bottom of the eighth to narrow the deficit to 6-4. The Mets had a reliever, Jack Hamilton, who was known as "Hairbreadth Harry" for allowing baserunners and taking it to the brink before getting out of the inning unscathed, but in the top of the ninth, he got the Giants in order, for a change. In the bottom of the ninth, Ken Boyer led off and hit a homer, knocking Marichal out of the game. 6-5 Giants. CONTINUED.
I loved this relatively breezy puzzle. I filled all the squares, but had some fill wrong. Then I read the first line of Wordplay, that the theme is weather. That knowledge enabled me to fix the errors without too much trouble. Lovely to not need twenty cheats, as I too often do. More like this one, please!
Each theme entry made me smile as I figured it out, so a really fun Sunday puzzle. Many thanks Scott and Katie.
Wonderful, fun puzzle. I always love it when I figure out the “trick” and that helps me fill in the other clues. As a former oboe player, I agree that 125 across is hilarious. Thanks to Scott and Katie!
Not the hardest Sunday, got it in about 20 minutes, but a solid 5 of that was trying to problem solve the mistakes. A solid 4 or 5 spots with some weird spelling crossings. Also GAWP. I've seen it before in the Times but it made me angry those times too.
Fun and breezy puzzle with many smile inducing themers. I thought the clue for 128D didn't print out properly because between the small print and my eyes it looked like the bottoms of the letters were chopped off. I thought, "Well, I'll just wait for the crosses."........ "D'oh!"
@Nancy J. I remembered the clue and had the same thought… got a smile going back to look.
Dove in at 103 A ["The Road Not Taken" enjoyed over breakfast?] trying to make some version of *frostedflake* work so a bottoms up solve this morning. GApe>GAWp>GAWKing at this very clever collection of theme and clues. I do not RUE the time well spent.
@John I wanted FROSTED FLAKEs, too! I am sure it was a missed opportunity that Scott-Katie will RUE forever!
Don’t you just love it when you’re completely on the constructors wavelength? It happens to me so rarely, but today is one of those days. Yippee. Even with a few total unknowns (VISINE, TETONS, USO, TYSONS etc) it filled so quickly I’m only just off my PB at 27 minutes. As my average is more like 50 on Sunday I’m extremely happy.
Gawp? I tanked a 15-day streak on gawp? (and, to be honest, a few other clues as well...)
Sundays are always my least favorite day. Too much compromising fill just for a cute-sy theme. I spent too much time searching for GAWP, not GAWk. Also, who spells MOOSHU pork like that outside the midwest?
I guess I’m in the minority but I entered GAWP without hesitation. I kinda wish it had been GAWk because I’d love to see the clue for TOE LOOkS, hopefully something involving foot fetishes. All around great puzzle!
GAWK/GAWP had me looking at my toes, left to right, over and over. cc: emu handler
Enjoyed being introduced to Arcimboldo and perusing some of his works online. Fascinating and surreal! The GAWP reminded me of Whitman’s barbaric yawp. And I was curious to see what a TOELOOP jump looked like so I watched a tutorial on youtube. Seems to me one of the most wonderful skills one could have is to be able to dance on skates! (Maybe in my next life, LOL!) In short, there was a lot in this puzzle to keep me entertained! Thank you!
--- Chimpsky Ha! Made my Sunday.
Based on extensive Googling, the clue for YEET seems to be one of the less-used meanings. Some sites did not include'forcefully throw' at all. I got it on crosses.....another 'modern slang' term that is not worth knowing if you have any sort of working vocabulary whatsoever. 38D is similarly suited to putting one's teeth on edge, IMHO. We watch the local news most evenings at 5 CDST, mainly for the Weather Report, though sometimes the anchor announces a new atrocity proposed by our Guv, "Tater." Also, it is interesting to see how the young weather assistant is decked out--usually in an ill-fitting, unflattering potato-sack. We get a lot for our entertainment dollars. That was fun, but now I must turn my attention to Sunday Breakfast, served by DHubby.
@Mean Old Lady YEET has been in three previous NYT puzzles, all in the last nine months. Each time, it’s had a clue similar to today’s. That’s the only reason I know it.
@Mean Old Lady I have a doctorate in literature and my primary area of expertise is 18th/19th century British novels, with teaching responsibilities spanning from Beowulf to Zadie Smith. I assure you that my working vocabulary is just fine, yet I use both terms you’re complaining about here as part of my everyday speech. I encourage you to keep your mind open to the ongoing growth of language—after all, if we hadn’t done that, we’d still be saying things like "aglæc-wif" instead of “Mean Old Lady.”
@Mean Old Lady "Yeet" has been used extensively on Reddit, and probably other places on the internet, for years. I prefer "spanghew," though.
Was anyone else reminded of Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle when entering the answer for 104D? Certainly one of Bertie Wooster's more memorable and eccentric friends. A bit of a LOON, quite.
@Alex Barry Ha ha, yes! I can see them now in their ASCOTs. Somewhat coincidentally, the interwebs (was it the Wordplay column, or maybe a commenter?) recently led me to the sheet music for "47 Ginger-Headed Sailors", which I could only hear in Bertie Wooster's jolly tenor. Might be time for a rewatch of that classic series!
@Tricia109 Fantastic series, wot? I've got the whole run on DVD and love the regular revisits. Also, whenever reading Wodehouse I can't help but hear the voices of Fry and Laurie in the dialog. As you say, classic!
Hello Wordplay community, happy Sunday! Elie Levine and I recently developed a quiz to show our commenters how the games forum comments are moderated. If you are interested in learning more, you can access the quiz here: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/29/crosswords/29community-lab-quiz.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/29/crosswords/29community-lab-quiz.html</a> Happy puzzling!
@Greg Mills As soon as I got to comment #2 from AussieBird I realized that I have little faith in this quiz. Many regular commenters “pad” their entries to avoid delay in publication and IMHO it works. More than that, however, I’ve not personally experienced, nor have I heard anyone complain, that a comment was rejected because of such padding. I understand that this situation may represent a bit of an embarrassment, but I do not believe posting quiz example #2 is an effective way to approach the issue.
This was so much fun! When I solved 42 Across, I thought, "This puzzle will be all about me!" Luckily for everyone else, the constructors came up with other weather themes besides little ol' me. I was stuck for nearly ever because I spelled Patton's last name with a D at the end. My method, when I'm patient, to find the wrong square(s) is to review all Down clues, then all Across clues, which made 134A the second-to-last thing I checked. I will not forget Patton OSWALT any time soon!
@Cloudy Rockwell I employ the exact same checking strategy, but today it was GAWK vs GAWP at the end. (Somehow I actually managed to remember the T in OSWALT, though I did doubt it for a minute after I entered it.)
I can't find a comment forum for Letterbox, so I thought I would post it here. *mild spoilers* I enjoy the puzzle and always try to get it in less than par. Sometimes I manage to get it in two words and I feel quite clever. Then I was informed that there is ALWAYS a two word solution, which was quite a blow to my ego, lol. So now my challenge is to get the two word solution each time, and when I'm not successful I check the cheat site so I can learn to play better. Today I managed to get it in two words (T10, T8) and then went to check the cheat site. They had two totally different words! (G9, T5) So there were two possible 2 word solutions today, just to add to the challenge.
@Janine You know, I'm not sure it's a good thing that I now know that letterbox can always be obtained in two. Like you, I've always been happy to be under par, and I get there very quickly. Now I foresee spending even more time in my games. If my husband complains, I'll blame you! Hahaha! 😉
Another good one today - no need to look up any trivia, though I did Google "yeet" after putting it in. "Eboy" is not a word I have ever seen, but enough of the downs were doable to get it. I echo others on the spelling of "mooshu," but, again, enough of the downs were good. Like others, I had "James" before "Crowe" and "gawk" before "gawp," but the other clues forced the changes. Overall, very pleased to see back to back crosswords that did not have interlocking pop culture. And the theme was fun. Keep it up!