I can finish Fri/Sat puzzles about 1 out of 3 times without any lookups. I did a pass on this one and got 2 probablys and 5 maybes. Second pass got one more maybe. At this point I asked myself "Is this a Sam E puzzle?" And yes, it was. I have never been on the same wavelength as Sam. I do the Spelling Bee every day and am often annoyed at the words he excludes and the "words" he includes. So knowing I would not have much of a chance, I pulled all the hints from Wordplay, and still got next to nothing. Then I did a reveal, saw the answers, and moved on. Glad I did. A few clever bits, but mostly too clever by half. This is why I never get too attached to my streaks. Sam is a clever guy but his mind is wired differently from mine.
@MC I don't bother solving Sam E's puzzles anymore, I already know that I don't enjoy his cluing style. I feel like people should pay attention to who the constructor is and their cluing style, I'm willing to bet the vast majority of the angry commentators today wouldn't have bothered trying. Life is too short to slog though puzzles that you don't enjoy, just reveal the puzzle and move on. In other news, today was my fastest solve ever!!
@MC I could have written that. Ugh. Dreadful. And agree with your thoughts on the Bee 100%
I know Saturdays are supposed to be tough, but this went above and beyond. I won’t complain, because not every puzzle is for everyone and there was nothing I could call out as unfair, exactly, but it just wasn’t fun. Not for me, anyway. Sorry.
@Heidi This one was a bit much for me, too. The clues were so obscure you could think of ten answers, all wrong.
Some of the clues had a question mark after it. For me they all could have.
You know you’re in for a rough ride when you get just one answer on the first pass through the puzzle, and it’s in Latin, and you spell it wrong.
@N.E. Body I got only UGG, 6d, on my first pass. An ‘education’ day for me.
@N.E. Body This gave me a belly laugh. Wonderfully put!
@N.E. Body I'll see you one NIHILi.
Tiresome. Not fun. Clever, though, to some, I guess.
Thoroughly unenjoyable. Saturdays are supposed to be challenging, but this was ridiculous. Gave up half-way through. Just because you can publish something like this, doesn’t mean you should.
@James very well put. This wasn't a challenge it was a boring look up slog. Once looked up the answers didn't elicit an aha how clever but a what? Getting some gave little clues to crossings. The literally worst puzzle in years.
SO many stellar clues. My FAVES are… “They’re on their own time” ALASKANS “Reach for the cars?” HAIL A CAB “Line outside a box office” ONE PLEASE “It moves with traffic, in brief” ETA That wonderful quote from Admiral Nimitz for IWO JIMA And a whopping fifteen debut entries. Well done, Sam!
I see the evil overlord of the Spelling Bee has once again tried to invade Middle Earth. Take heart fellow travelers and together we can return his puzzle to the realm of the obscure from whence he dredged this infernal beast.
@Average Joe Hilarious! Gave me a good chuckle 😆 Well done, sir
I found this puzzle to be an unpleasant experience.
Dreadful. Utterly dire impenetrable clues that even when brute forced made only passing sense or relationship to the answers. Yup all justifiable answers, before I am corrected in my “insufficiency” of solving prowess but I am struggling to see how OKAY WHAT or ONE PLEASE made the cut as in common parlance. Awful end to otherwise fun week.
@William James, remember that it's Saturday. It's supposed to be hard! Although both of those clues took me finding most of the crosses to solve, I've said OKAY WHAT‽ in response to something baffling before and appreciated figuring out out. Once I had ONEP__ES_ that one clicked too. I love that it's a line you say rather than aine of people like I originally thought, clever! Your struggles can be someone else's gimmes. Enjoy the challenge.
A lot of answers that are not in common use. Yasqueen? Spare me.
@Lorne Eckersley It's two words, Yas Queen, and although I'll never hear it either it's all over the internet.
@Lorne Eckersley If you don’t hear this often enough, maybe it’s time for a glow up? 😉
@Lorne Eckersley That’s been a pretty common phrase for years!
This puzzle was not fun at all, sorry! Try again next time.
Adding to the chorus ... gratuitously difficult, not even in a challenging way. Sam should be put in a time out for this one.
@HC Tabak. He should already be in a time out for his curation of the spelling bee word list.
Hmmm, what's that whooshing sound I hear? That's the sound of my ego, slowly deflating, punctured by, of course Sam Ezersky's marvelous creation. RIP, streak, we hardly knew ya'.
Bad for me, Ezersky’s name before a puzzle means boring slog.
When I buy McNuggets, I use chicken tender. (Time for me to cluck out.)
@Mike But when you're feeling packish, does fast food really satisfy?
Oof. This took me twice my Saturday usual. I'm torn between lauding the clues I genuinely loved even though they were brutal ("10-point play" was inspired) and the ones that were so ain't-I-cute clever that the solve became harder if the solver knew anything about the subject (looking at you, SAKEBAR—no one would *ever* talk about sake in shots: not connoisseurs, and not frat boys [sake *bombs*, sure]). I also disliked PEDIATRIC for "childish"—is that meant to be witty? There's hard and fair and funny—which I adore and hope for every Saturday—and then there's hard and confused and self-indulgent. With respect, this puzzle was too much of the latter for my taste.
@John Deal Agree. Also FAVES as slang is not at all indicated. I know it’s Saturday, but there are plenty of ?’s. This isn’t limited to Same E., but the use of the quoted phrases is way overdone. These are generally not fun IMO, even if they’re usually not too hard.
I'm glad to see I am not the only one whose brain and sensibility does not line up with Sam Ezersky's. I'm not saying he's bad at his job, I'm just saying he does not give me a good time. When I finally have that aha moment and figure out one of his difficult clues, it brings me no joy, just a reminder that he's younger and cooler than me. It feels like work or an SAT question. Ezersky combines the worst traits of Eugene Maleska and the work supervisors twenty years my junior who constantly find ways to remind me that I'm a fossil lucky to still be employed.
@James Jacobs In Spelling Bee, he loves WANNA, DUNNO, GONNA, and many more such, but eschews countless reasonable words such as OTIC and INANITION, to the chagrin of many. Of today's five pangrams, three were FARTING, GRAFFITIING, and TARIFFING. 'Tis true. Too young.
@James Jacobs I think it’s more like the logic section of the LSAT. Which requires actual diagramming to do well.
First I thought of that one April Fool’s puzzle with the deliberately impossible clues. Then I thought of a movie villain, who enjoys and savors torturing his victims. Then I thought of Cool Hand Luke, where the sadistic prison guard made Paul Newman dig a hole, fill it again, then dig it again. Like Luke, I finished, but this was miserable. I had more lookups today than the entire summer combined. Puzzles are supposed to be fun, but after finishing that now I need to do something that is ACTUALLY fun.
I disliked this puzzle so much I decided to just break my streak rather than use Wordplay. I'm not telling Sam not to do more constructions, but when I see his name in the future I may give a quick glance and immediately turn to reading the TV listings page.
I've hit my finger with a hammer before. It was more fun than this puzzle. Pee Cue? Puhleese.
@Mark — I usually start by going through and entering the answers to clues that I know and work back from there. Today is maybe the first time I hardly knew a single clue. I know Saturdays are tough, but I have solved them many times before with no problem.
Really, Sam - ENSILE? And you won’t give the Spelling Bee annatto or aroar? Fun, challenging puzzle. Perfect Saturday morning fare.
@Mia I have a long list of grievances re the Spelling Bee, especially annoying when words IN THE PUZZLES are disallowed.
@Mia I try annatto many times every time just in case one day it works.
“Oh, a time-to-sequester puzzle” was my first thought upon seeing Sam’s name atop a Saturday. Shut the door. Encase myself in an imaginary shroud. Relax. Let the subconscious lead. Things I know in advance. There will be no junk in the grid. None, because Sam. There will be tons of NYT debut answers, which means my brain will get to improvise. There will be many tough clues requiring multiple visits. And so it was. I’d be working in one quadrant, when I’d peek into another and suddenly see an answer that had eluded me. It might beget yet another or even a mini-splat of answers until boom I’d hit the wall of stuckness once again. Then back to the sweet work of overcoming the vacuum. My brain, throughout, spinning like a gyroscope, inquiring, working behind the scenes, looking at clue words suspiciously, gambling on guesses, leaping at successes. The Ezersky experience. And NYT answer debuts? Fifteen! Fifteen! A grid popping with freshness. So many lovely debuts, too, such a HAIL A CAB, IS BIG, LOUNGEWEAR, SAKE BAR, YAS QUEEN. Crossnerd me calculated that in the first five columns of the grid, three-quarters of the letters belonged to debut answers. Wow! An epic outing peppered with discovery and thrills, and leaving my brain fat and happy. Thank you so much for this, Sam!
Lewis, After YAS as an answer seven times for [_____ queen!], I'm glad Sam finally got the full expression in the grid. Now to HAIL A CAB and hit a SAKE BAR in my LOUNGE WEAR.
@Lewis I have to disagree about your assessment that there is “no junk in the grid.” ENSILE is about as perfect an example of crosswordese as you’ll find (which is probably why it hasn’t been in a NYT puzzle for over 10 years). IS BIG and FRESH SALAD strike me as green paint. But I’m glad you enjoyed the puzzle. Except for some of the clues (CROMAGNON and PEDIATRIC in particular), I found much of it to be a slog.
Interesting comments. I didn't think this was all that bad, or all that hard really. He threw us an emu right at the top. Nobody else tried to fill in Tim Walz for "Coach" in quotes? :) My issues included getting stuck with "stile" because I spelled the name "Ines", not knowing you can have galop with one L (rebus? I wondered) or much about Oklahoma OK, and wanting fresh basil instead of salad. Other than that, and apparently bucking the consensus, I think I actually enjoyed this one. It was hard but wrangleable. Favorite was "nihilo" only because I like the sound of the phrase. I could SO do without hearing the icky phrase "vape juice" ever again though.... /Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade
@B I had INES in here first, too. It's the Spanish spelling... though I did know the 'ancient dance'.... and thanks to recent Scrabble discussions *right here on WordPlay* I finally got the '10-point play' reference. It was nice to finish error-free. Maybe Sam will read his Comments. Did you know ADIEU is not accepted on The Bee? Nor is TIFFIN. It's especially bitter when one game uses/accepts a word but its neighbor does not....
@B Agreed on almost all of this. Fresh salad is particularly egregious. I had “green” for example, which strikes me as more of a set phrase. On the bee I now stop after genius because the choices both in and out are so absurd.
I have to wonder what the people who were complaining about the difficulty of Thursday's puzzle thought about this one. I'm picturing phones flying across rooms, cursing, angry letters and cancelled subscriptions. Somewhere in the world there is probably someone who solved this easily, without lookups and without frustration, but I have to wonder if a person with abilities like that hasn't just transcended what it is to be human and gone on to some higher plane. I absolutely couldn't do this one. I looked up maybe 70% of it.
@Bruce Absolutely the same here, and I am able to solve most puzzles, albeit slowly. I have often wondered if God could make a puzzle so hard he could not solve it. If so, it would look a lot like this one.
@Bruce Me, too. Absolutely, totally out of my wheelhouse. It hurt my brain (and my ego).
I needed ALL the answers provided in today's column to give me any hope of breaking this puzzle. I had just finished patting myself on the back for whizzing through yesterday's crossword, praising myself for being "on the same wavelength" as the constructor. No coinciding wavelengths today, sadly. It was just too difficult for me. Thank goodness for this article, or I'd have been lost.
Awkward! This puzzle was clunky and awkward! I got through it but it was not fun!
"Cleverness is not wisdom" - Euripides
@Ethan I look for wisdom elsewhere, but when I want cleverness, it's crosswords I look for. Has "clever" been so overused ironically that it has become an insult? Turn up the clever to 11 on Saturdays for me.
Ugh. Not on that wave length at all. A one hour slog that ended my streak because I couldn't bear to struggle with it any longer. One thing I liked was the clue for STOPWATCH and I actually got most of the bottom half of the puzzle in that hour, a little more after a few wiki clues, then that was enough. No thanks, Sam--stick to the Spelling Bee. So much just not good fill, not in the language. SOOTS? ZTILE? GALOPS? Even FRESH SALAD is an off phrase--who says that? And the supposed "conversational" fill like OKAY WHAT was missing something. Felt endlessly obscure and yes, "forced" or UNNATURAL. Perfect center word. Can't love them all, I guess. LET'S NOT do this again.
OKAY, WHAT? That thoroughly kicked my MCNUGGETS! I'm off to HAILACAB for ONEPLEASE. I've bought an ECONOMY ticket to stay in a MANOR in IBIZA and drown my sorrows at a SAKEBAR. 😆
@Sebastian HAILA CAB would be a great name for the kind of wine you don't buy because the name's too cute and you suspect it's being used to cover up a sub-average product.
So happy to have a challenging puzzle. I can’t remember the last time I thought “oh wow I’m going to need to Google something to fix this, I’ve got NOTHING for two quadrants!” But confidence that the editors and constructors wouldn’t do us dirty kept me at it, and it was completed lookup-free though my coffee was cold by then. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Please more like this on Fridays and Saturdays.
Hand up for “Coach” TIMWALZ. (too soon, I guess) A nefarious and chewy puzzle. I’m surprised at the frequent negative comments. All’s fair in love and Saturdays. Bravo, Sam!
Reading the other comments, I'm really glad to know I wasn't the only one who struggled mightily with this puzzle. Easily the hardest ever, for me. Congrats to all who managed to finish it!
@J Cuthbertson I finished it—only after I stopped caring about how many times I was looking up answers.
Holy moly, that was a workout. I love Sam's brain. [They're on their own time] for ALASKANS [Line outside a box office] for ONE PLEASE and many others were trademark Sam. Inscrutable at first, then the big aha. Big slowdown in the SW because I had only the G for 44A and immediately put in hARdiNG. Not helpful! This is my favorite type of Saturday puzzle. Almost nothing on the first pass, a small foothold, then gradually building from that until I'm down to one box. Today, it was Z TILE crossing LAC. I'm not a scrabble player, and was just not seeing Ontario as a lake. I stared at that empty box for minutes before it hit me. More, Sam, please?
@Nancy J. [Line outside a box office] is a great clue, but I have a vague memory of seeing something similar in the last six months or so. My research at xwordinfo.com didn’t find anything, so I would be grateful to anyone who can confirm this.
Woke up, made my coffee, saw it was Ezersky, was prepared to hate it, and it far exceeded my expectations. Realizing 1A was VAPEJUICE was like a revolting cherry on top.
@JJ At least it wasn't my horrifying first guess for _APE JUICE. Scary times...
I agree on VAPEJUICE. What an unpleasant thing to include in a crossword, especially at 1A.
"My task for today is to ENSILE my corn," said no farmer ever. "Every time I play with my defective Wooly Willy toy it SOOTS my hands." #nope Also, as a homosexual, I think I have ethos to say that the correct spelling is "YAS KWEEN."
The one-l galop, that's a duple-time dance. The two-l gallop's much faster than a prance. And I bet my buttery scallops there isn't any three-l galllop.
@ad absurdum The three-L version is when the surgeon snips off that suspicious bit of bladder. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade
@ad absurdum You must love Ogden Nash, as I do. For those who aren't familiar... The one-l lama, He's a priest. The two-l llama, He's a beast. And I will bet A silk pajama There isn't any Three-l lllama.
I put in INEZ immediately, and then when I got COTTA right after, I decided it had to be the variant INES because what word starts with ZT? That’s why you have to be flexible with these things. BTW Caitlin: if it’s haute (and not haut) cuisine, which it is, it would have to also be basse (not bas) cuisine.
@Steve L I did the same! Had no idea what the clue for 19A was referring to so this was the crossing that did me in.
@Steve L Samesies! Started with INEZ, changed it to INEs after getting COTTA. It was the last square to fall.
@Steve L In Caitlin’s defense, she did make it a point to contrast haute cuisine with bas cuisine, which is a thing. I understand your point, but it is an expression that has been used in culinary discussions. See: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/234vvbyk" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/234vvbyk</a> — — — — — — — —
About look-ups: When I am working a crossword, I submerge myself in the puzzle, crisscrossing, backtracking, speculating, taking out and reentering fills, until I am hopelessly, absolutely stuck, especially on characters I never heard of in TV shows I never saw or the location of a cafe in Timbuktu, I google or search on Wikipedia, and I love doing it. The rabbit holes have been a siren's song from the time I worked in the library reference department of a major university (not UCB, UTA), and the solid pleasure of exploring a source has never left me; googling or wikipedia-ing is an extension of wandering through a card catalog or roaming the stacks in search of an answer to a question—sometimes important, sometimes trivial. I have never considered finding a fill through searching outside a puzzle anything but a continuation of my education. When you don't know something, considering it "cheating" to look for an answer seems too silly. Find it. Learn it. You don't already know everything.
dutchiris, Thanks to the crosses, I haven't had to look anything up to complete a solve for quite some time, but *after* solving I research the answers I did not know from the clues to learn things -- or people -- I did not know as clued. The older I get, the more I don't know, and I want to keep learning.
I'm glad I'm not alone in finding this puzzle too hard. I don't begrudge anyone who aced it, but I finally gave up. I did crack some really tough clues, but the obscure words did me in. What?? Obscure words?? But look at all the gentle crosses!! Yeah. I'm not the most literate or intellectual guy here. That's for sure.
@Renegator - yeah... right there with you... INEZ/ZTILE, ENSILE and LAC is a lot to ask... but the fact that you also have NIHILO and ELLER/GALOPS in the mix means you can be chasing the solve for a long time. Really hard... needed to phone a friend to get through it. More obscure words that I like in my puzzle. My only regret is not figuring out ZTILE on my own... there were some really clever clues, but lots of esoteric answers that weren't figurable unless you happened to know the trivia.
DNF/DNC (Did Not Finish/Did Not Care). Why is it that some challenging puzzles make me want to try harder, while others feel like a waste of my time? Glad to hear that there were some who enjoyed this one.
@archaeoprof Same here. After my first pass through across and down I had only three words filled, and one of those was iffy. I said to myself I've got better things to do on a Saturday morning. Reading the Wordplay confirms my suspicion that I would have not been any closer after multiple passes. Some days it's better to just walk away.
@archaeoprof I can't not finish one and had to come to Wordplay wayyyyyy too early, *and* hit the look up site, as well. I try to learn from the "cheats", but just could not tune into Mr Ezersky's style, this time. I'll encourage myself with some MTWs from the archive. :-)
For a long time while glacially solving this puzzle, I was uncomfortably aware of how easy it would be for any creator to make a puzzle that would be virtually impossible for almost anyone on earth to solve, especially me with my limited life experience and knowledge. Instead, at the NYT they somehow apply their skills all around that knife-edge of pretty easy to pretty darned hard to ‘will I ever figure this out, woof just barely’ (like today!), to the occasional ‘ok, I'm in over my head, but I’ll get you next time.” And that for people from just about all over the place. Today was not light fun while solving, but it was a higher calling to respond to, and it will keep me coming back for more. One, please.
Ugh. This was a frustrating puzzle that took way too many lookups and word checks before I finally finished it. (I wouldn't claim I "solved" the puzzle today.) The constructor and I were definitely not on the same wavelength - if, indeed, he was transmitting at all. I did not have fun. Hurry up, Sunday.
I’ve done the NYT puzzle every day for years and this was my least favorite puzzle ever. The clues were more obscure than clever, with some answers I didn’t understand even after checking the answer key. YASQUEEN? SOOTS? GALOPS? ENSILE? Way too much self-indulgent pedantry on the part of the constructor. Please don’t accept more puzzles like this — it was no fun at all from start to finish.
@Momdoc57 thank you for saying it so I didn’t have to.
Yikes! Just when I was starting to get cocky...tough puzzle but I thought it was great!
I had a streak, and I just let it go. What a relief.
Not my favorite. Yes, it's Saturday, but, really, ENSILE? AMNESIC (usually "amnesiac")? Pretty obscure, and the cluing awfully vague even for Saturday. But also - how is FRESHSALAD not akin to GREENPAINT? Really?
Chris, The FRESHSALAD GREENPAINT question was posed earlier. Here is a link to the thread: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/41ho5v?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/41ho5v?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a> EMUS do not eat salad
A tough one for me in the NE corner, partly because I had gREenSALAD, which didn't really fit the clue, and ENSILo. (I'm sure that the Amazon oCHODOT must be version 8 in Mexico.) I put the puzzle away for a while, then came back and said "Okay, this has to be LAO and this has to be ROOTS" and finally got LALA and was able to proceed from there.
@C-64 I laughed out loud at that oCHODOT explanation Funny! 😂 Emus love a good joke, too.