♯ This is a a sharp (if it shows up properly in the published comment), with two vertical strokes. # This is a a pound sign, hash, or number sign, with two horizontal strokes.
@Gary K quite agree, as a musician myself!
@Gary K interesting. I didn't know the difference
@Gary K Don't know how those repeated a's slipped in!
This is the first time I finished a puzzle with no hints! I just started really playing these crosswords about a month ago so I’m ATAD proud of myself. :) This was a fun puzzle to play. I kept thinking “orcas” would be involved with ramming boats and scaring people in 17A, so that was the last part I could get.
@Ryan Congrats on the no hints! FWIW, Orca was the name of the boat that hunts down the shark in Jaws, so you were on the right track at least!
Dictionary? MOUTHOFWORD Hey mama, don't you treat [him] wrong? HOPEOFRAY It cannot be created nor destroyed? FACTOFMATTER Dionysus? GODOFACT Hercules' last testament? WILLOFSTRENGTH The second apostle? DISTINCTIONOFMARK Abutting? Adjacent? After? Beside? Ensuing? KINOFNEXT Set down the sax, pick up the oboe? CHANGEOFWINDS Landfill? SPACEOFWASTE
Start of an '80s drug epidemic? DAWN OF CRACK After Oliver asks for more? FATE OF TWIST People's Choice Award winner's discarded trophy? LITTER OF THE PICK What the convict felt when sentenced? GRAVITY OF LAW Nicholson's testimony in A Few Good Men? TRUTH OF COLONEL The Gilded Age, to those espousing a simpler life? TIME OF WASTE Car on cinder blocks in Adonis's driveway? JUNK OF HUNK Granary on your regular jogging route? MILL OF THE RUN Hippie's brain? MIND OF PEACE The moment of shaving mishap? TIME OF NICK Universal big crunch? DEATH OF TIME
@Steven I guess the list of possible theme answers isn’t as tight a set as some. !!! !!! !!!
“Hah!” is how I reacted to LIFE OF JAWS, from the sweet ping at seeing the scheme, to the funny clue, to knowing what the other theme answers would do and knowing there would be fun ahead in trying to guess them with as few crosses as possible. Knowing that each would be a riddle to crack rather than a mindless slapdown. I did love that huge piggy bank, the regal feel of LIONS OF PRIDE, and the sheer silliness of ARMS OF COAT. Not to mention answers that added beauty to the solve: ARROYOS, NONE BUT, BEHAVIORAL and KINETIC ART. Add in three palindromes (ERE, TET, ONO) and a trio of longer semordnilaps (A TAD, DEFER, and G ILA). Sweetness all around in the box. I’m still remembering the stellar wordplay of Barbara’s last solo puzzle (8/2/23), where the theme answers were, get this, syllable palindromes! For example, KAZOO BAZOOKA, which forward is KA ZOO BA ZOO KA, and backward is KA ZOO BA ZOO KA. Another answer was TIC TAC TOE TACTIC. Wordplay like that and like in today’s puzzle tickles me top to bottom. More, please, Barbara, and thank you for today's stellar outing!
@Lewis -- And, speaking of missed palindromes, the biggest in the grid: ROTOR. Et tu, emu.
I needed the comments below to understand that the club a tomato is part of is a CLUB sandwich. This - and many previous puzzles - made me realize the American terminology for sandwiches is much more standardized than the Polish one. Over here sandwiches, even though they are popular breakfast and lunch items, do not have commonly or even regionally known types or names - no heros, hoagies, BLTs, lobster rolls, Italian or club sandwiches for us Polish people. Sure, each bar or restaurant usually names their sandwiches, but these names are idiosyncratic. The standard way to describe a sandwich in universally recognized term is to just list its ingredients. Also, when we visited the US, I was amazed by how much meat you stuff into your sandwiches. Slice upon slice upon slice upon slice. That was so weird compared to European standards! And the weird, soft, sweet bread...
@Andrzej Come to Northern California and we'll challenge your teeth and jaws with a crunchy hard sourdough roll. If that proves to be too much most local delis also offer a 'soft French roll'. :-) Regarding the amount of meat - I sometimes ask for half and that is sometimes still too much.
@Andrzej That's why so many of us make our own! Sandwiches, I mean. And bread. Even so, I still miss the wonderful breads in European countries, with that crust which I can't achieve no matter what (not owning a bakery.) sigh.
@Andrzej You must have been eating that weird, soft, sweet bread here in Vegas. After nearly 20 years here, I have yet to find a decent bread, one that's crisp on the outside and dense on the inside, isn't sweet and is just plain delicious. Every hoagie, sub, or the like that I've had here has been on miserable soft bread. How I miss East Coast bread!
Barbara Lin, I loved this puzzle and your notes. The only difference between you and me is that I know I’m funnier than my family thinks I am.
Fun theme! Nicely done, Barbara. And since I love a good MUSICAL (and the crossing with SHARPS), here’s my contribution to the theme. 76 trombones PLENTY OF HORN ♯ ♯ ♯
@Anita love this. Plus now I am going to be singing one of my favorite songs!
Had to take a break during this puzzle to feed the boss -- cattus interruptus, you might say. Sorry.
OH COOL I loved all the theme entries, each one brought a smile as I figured it out, can’t ask for much more than that. Also just about right for a Wednesday. Looking forward to your next one, Barbara.
I would have peferred REVERSAL OF FORTUNE, but one can't have everything. FOOL before FUSS before FUTZ. NEWB before NOOB before NEWB. ALE before IPA. DELAY before DETER Trickiest Clue goes to: 47D Part of a club I had it filled in from crosses, and thought, "What??" Doh! Really nice puzzle for the day; thank you, Ms. Lin!
Finished below my average but this felt hard for a Wednesday. High dudgeon?
This felt hard for a Wednesday, but at 13:40, my solve time was indeed below my Wednesday average. Not sure what was meant by ERSE, but DIANa/aRSE seemed to make sense until I remembered her first name was really DIANE
@Steven M. Yep, as an Irishman, this completely baffles me. Never ever heard this before..
@Steven M. FWIW, we see this word very regularly in these puzzles. Overall 739 times, which puts it in the top 50 4-letter answers of all time. Might as well get used to it. — — — — — — — — — — — —
Nice puzzle with great choices for the themers. LIFE OF JAWS and FORTUNES OF CHANGE were favorites, but all were excellent. I think this was the first time I wrote in OPI without a second thought. It's finally cemented in my brain.
I got A TAD slowed down at the very end, watching the 9/11 reading of names when I was about 90% done with the puzzle. I don't watch every year, but on a day with a sky so perfectly cloudless and blue, I can't help but be called back to that memory. So the puzzle had to be put aside! I'm certain to be reading too much into it, but the grid had a nicely American, dare I say NYC, feel to it today. From the jump with the delectable STELLA Parks -- do check out her recreations of classic American snacks, as well as her other great recipes -- all the way to the bottom with ANTZ being clued to Central Park. (That was a TIL for me, knowing nothing of the film!) Add in New Yorker DIANE Sawyer and the classic club sandwich, PRIDE and its NYC roots at Stonewall, Broadway musicals and American hotel chains... How about that CAN of soup adjacency with TOMATO -- hello Campbell's and Warhol! Almost last (in the grid) but not least, there is the Manhattan setting of Ghost and its opening scene in a dark alley in Soho, so close to the twin towers. Today of all days is one of ghosts who's memories are kept alive as a LABOR OF LOVE.
@G, I love how you found references to NYC in so many of the clues. My heart goes out today to all of those who died that day, to all of those who mourn them, and to the strength of New York.
@G I so appreciate your comment. Today's brilliantly blue sky took me back to that morning 23 years ago. I started the puzzle and finished within a decent time. Then I went to the comments to seek some comfort and perhaps a smile. Your comment really and beautifully helped. Thank you.
@G There's also SNL! (I originally had SVU - also NYC.) Did club sandwiches originate in NYC? That one made me smile when I finally got it! I just had one yesterday! Love your comment! (Well, that's not unusual but in a different way today!) :-)
Today's crossword really turned me off with some incredibly obscure clues and unusually cryptic clues for a Wednesday. There were some clues that were quite straightforward so I got off to a good start but the last few clues stumped me, with "Erse" for example (obscure enough to trigger Mac's automatic red underline for a spelling error) and "For yuks" being such an uncommon expression that when you google it you get crossword reference websites coming up before even a dictionary entry result. High dudgeon was remarked upon in Wordplay. I could go on. It took me almost as long to solve this one as Sunday's but much more frustrating.
Lingered too long over a nice CUP of soup.
@Ambrose And I over URN, WHICH fit ok with NEO
too many proper nouns killed the fun. it's impossible to solve when you shove this many proper nouns in a puzzle. really didn't enjoy today's effort.
@Charles Again I will remind a commenter that there have always been proper nouns in puzzles, from the very first clue in the very first NYT puzzle in 1942; that puzzle and every puzzle since has had proper nouns. I can appreciate that you may prefer puzzles with fewer of them, but keep in mind this is just your personal preference. Plus, it’s not fair to say it’s impossible to solve a puzzle with many proper nouns. I and thousands of other people solved this one, and I’ll bet most of us didn’t even feel that there were too many proper nouns. And there were very few proper nouns that might be considered obscure—maybe OLAF, STELLA and ODA MAE. But DIANE Sawyer, EMMA Lazarus, Yoko ONO, HYATT hotels? All well known. And all fairly crossed.
Fun theme Well clued What's not to like? **************
"Swim around, scare some people, ram a boat …?" HA! Oh my goodness, loved that for LIFE OF JAWS! So funny!!! That was my favorite, but lots of smiles all around! Very fun theme! Once I got the theme with the JAWS one, it definitely helped me fill out the remaining themers and make a couple corrections, like Svu to SNL and FUss to FUTZ. And it confirmed OLAF for me, which I was glad of because I had it there but wasn't positive. Thank you, Barbara Lin! Enjoyed this very much! You're funnier than your family thinks you are! :-)
The archaic/obscure clues and words made this one feel like solving a crossword from the archives, maybe from the 1940s. It’s one way to make things more challenging without making them more fun.
Fun puzzle and an enjoyable solve. Had to go through the down answers before I caught on but then the theme answers came together pretty smoothly. Ended up right at my Wednesday average. Interesting puzzle find today that I'll put in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from June 8, 1975 by Alfio Micci with the title "Coarse code." This one was all in the clues. Some examples: "Rirosyng :" RINGAROUNDTHEROSY "Ho Use :" AHOUSEDIVIDED "Upon a time ... " ONCEREMOVED "Roo Ms :" SEPARATEROOMS Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=6/8/1975&g=33&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=6/8/1975&g=33&d=A</a> ..
I'm in with the in crowd... There's those who can And those that can't Help but follow like mindless antz So don't defer To mindless rot Do not defer Then sob, "I lost" Odamae can you see A newb, she needbe A new armsofcoat Changeofseed - that's for me
Got the theme fully at ARMSOFCOAT even though I had LIFEOFJAWS, CHANGE, LABORS and PRIDE. I think I was just overthinking what the theme might be. The northwest was very Friday for me. Long downs that aren't gimmies are always tough for me. My brain has a hard time parsing the words so BEHAVIORAL came cross by cross which came inch by inch. LOL! I didn't know STELLA, didn't expect two words for OHCOOL and NONEBUT and I didn't think we'd have COITUS in a NYTimes puzzle. I also had bUTS for OUTS and eary on I had cry for SOB.
@Joya I also had a super hard time with NONE BUT. Even with all but one letter, I just struggled to see it! And I meant to mention in my comment earlier but I forgot to that I was really surprised to see COITUS, as well. I think it was the first appearance of it.
Tough for a Wednesday, with quite a few proper names and bits of trivia I hadn’t known (characters in Ghost, the Vietnamese celebration, etc). But once I picked up on the theme, I was off to the races. A fun one to work through!
@Stephen I suspect that you may be in a younger generation. None of us who were around during the Vietnam war will ever forget the Tet offensive. I'lll add that it works both ways. I had no idea that the title of the animated movie was spelled that way and it added a bunch of time to my solve.
I got 47D on cross clues, but it took the longest time for me to catch that the "club" referenced in the clue was a sandwich. It was one of those cases where I was so caught up in thinking of a weapon or entertainment venue or group that I couldn't make the jump to the other definition. I quite enjoyed the puzzle, though.
@B.C. It was my very last clue in the grid, and I came here to the comments hoping to find an explanation for it. Thanks for that.
@B.C. That's why it's good to step away. Clears the mind of the "thought ruts" that set in after too long of staring at a clue.
As the constructor said, this is not a new theme. but it was a new take and a good puzzle nonetheless.
Gosh darn it. ANTZ with a Z! That cost me five minutes. Shoulda spotted that more quickly. Fun puzzle. Thanks, Barbara Lin
A bit tougher than I expected for a Wednesday. Really enjoyable! Thank you for a great puzzle!
@Mark I did not get the "rot/tomato" combo, having 'rob' instead (and was clueless about the 'club', thinking of clubs you join, or clubs in a deck of cards, (not realizing it was a 'club' one can EAT!). And I forgot the movie 'ANTZ' was spelled with a "Z". Great fun, though. I did get all the clever phrases.
Gotta say I didn't not particularly enjoy this and abandoned it before finishing, which is a rarity for me. It insisted upon itself.
Great puzzle! Fun theme, well executed. Interesting entries and good cluing. Much appreciated.
I assembled and quarter-cut enough clubs during my HoJo restaurant short order work (one LOVE OF my many LABORS) so as not to fall prey to that misdirection. But the dells, say, was a horse a different hue. Could not get the “Stay In My Corner” ‘68 ballad out of my head. <a href="https://youtu.be/nhnJI6Z__08?si=svipYxBn7RCQtgw6" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/nhnJI6Z__08?si=svipYxBn7RCQtgw6</a> Speaking of corners, the NW beat me to my socks. Had to seek a remedial reveal or three to finish. I LOST, Bru
I enjoyed figuring out the theme entries..very fun. Had a lot of trouble with the northwest at first, but persevered and got it!
Great puzzle. I loved the LIFEOFJAWS clue. I went through the puzzle twice though and could not find the error keeping me from completion. I resorted to checking the column and quickly found that I was missing a zed in FUTs and ANTs. Funny the things your brain allows.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought of Tom Tom Club at 47D. Elsa Einstein would solve to LOVE OF GENIUS. LOLed when I got the TOMATO. FUTZ made me smile, as that was my mom's description of what dad was doing in his workshop.
@Grant The TOMATO was my favorite. And GENIUS OF LOVE would have been, well, genius! Love it! FUTZ was much better than my first fill, fuss -- I went from slight disappointment to admiration within the space of two small letters. (Getting ANTZ from the Z, knowing nothing of the film, was a great feeling, too!)
OK so earlier today I saw some clever solver-concocted versions of the theme (way downstream now in Comments), & scribbled a few ideas but then had to get a lot of household things done. These are more green-paint-y— or rather, the clues are more forced— than the nice ones I saw posted earlier, but I felt like sharing 'em anyway! ---------- 1A: Stye, maybe ↪STORMOFTHEEYE↩ _____ 17A: Dawn on the day of the first ever annual dreidel-spinning competition! ↪MORNINGOFTHETOP↩ _____ 24A: A single-minded baseball-card collector looking to acquire only vintage cards of Brooklyn Dodgers #42 ↪TRADEOFALLJACKS↩ _____ 31A: "Style" columnist's biting criticism ragging on some 'ugly coifs' at the Oscars ↪DOGOFTHEHAIR↩ _____ 48A: That instant when the wonderful taste of that fresh piece of chewing gum pops ↪MOMENTOFTHEFLAVOR↩ _____ 57A: Supplies carried by the expedition's head Sherpa ↪PACKOFTHELEADER↩ ___ 67A: Anecdote about how Aesop came up with all those nuggets of wisdom that sum up his fables ↪STORYOFTHEMORAL↩ ____ 2D: Village in County Cork which houses the castle featuring the famous Blarney Stone ↪TOWNOFTHETALK↩ ____ 18D: The task of trimming a large photo of a pitcher full of Half-and Half, for a New Yorker ad that needs more room for copy ↪CROPOFTHECREAM↩ ___ "This bag of Fritos is so old it has some criminally stale ones! Just set the bad ones aside here, behind this yellow police tape" ↪BLOCKOFFTHEOLDCHIP↩ ___ There. Now I can move on to Thursday's puzzle!
@Becca *that third one was supposed to be TRADESOFALLJACK, goofed when fixing a typo there's no emus in baseball
Gliding along…feeling quite chuffed… (“I’m really good at this…lah-dee-dah… 🎶…) Then, bam. Stuck in the mud of FUTs ANTs COA…s?? For sooo long. Oh, FUTZ! But fun puzzle with a clever theme! Thoroughly enjoyed! Until…you know…
Might be my favorite Wednesday of all time. Clever, just enough misdirection, and 17A clue is perfect. Well done!
Imagine my surprise when today's theme ECHOed Will Nediger's and my TURNS OF PHRASE puzzle of Sunday, 1/23/22 in the NYT. But Barbara's themers are all different and I'm sure she had no idea of the similarity because absolutely no one can see every puzzle or remember every puzzle that has ever come down the pike. Perhaps the NYT should have remembered though? Anyway, I found it a very enjoyable puzzle -- and while "jaws of life" is not a phrase I'm familiar with, I did love the playful way it was clued. I thought the best clue/answer combo was LOVE OF LABORS. And I sort of imagine that even after combining this puzzle with my previous Sunday puzzle, the potential list of reversible "of" phrases has yet to be exhausted. Will we be seeing a third such puzzle in the not-too-distant future?
@Nancy It sounds as if you folk in NYC have not cultivated enough speeders and reckless drivers--maybe too many people using the subway or cabs or Ubers?--and therefore you have only low-quality fender-benders as a result. For really big pile-ups and massive wrecks (often involving semis/tractor-trailers) you need more road rage and carelessness. A really thorough crash will leave passengers and driver trapped inside the vehicle, necessitating the JAWS OF LIFE to pry the twisted metal apart before there's a fire. (Firemen usually have this apparatus on their fire truck.) Hope this helps.
I'm beginning to think that Wednesday is the new Thursday...
Sightly above my Wednesday average time. Brava to Barbara! So many entertaining and clever comments today. The time you all spent coming up with them was not wasted. Happy Wednesday!
A good puzzle of heck. (Was the clue for 17A once the title of a book about punctuation?) Pandas, emus, and sharks: oh heck!
"Study, of course" would have been a good one too. I liked this puzzle a lot. Thanks Barbara!
Another post to continue my campaign to end the use of ERSE, unless clued something along the lines of “obscure name used interchangeably for Scots Gaelic or the Irish language only by NYT crossword makers”
@Lisa Wiktionary defines it as "dated and sometimes offensive" so maybe they'll take the hint.
@Lisa Have you written to the editors about this yet? I don't think anything's going to change by commenting on it here. But writing to this email will get you heard by the right people <a href="mailto:NYTGames@nytimes.com">NYTGames@nytimes.com</a>
Strange one for me--I had the hardest time, especially in the NE, and especially for a Wednesday. With very few exceptions, though, as the puzzle filled in, I had no complaints with the cluing or the fill. EMMA Lazarus and STELLA Parks were new to me; OH COOL didn't strike me as an in-language expression of ["That's pretty nifty!"]. But a bit of new trivia and a hard clue or two doesn't usually derail me. I guess I just stayed up too late last night reveling in the punditry! No complaints at all.
@Josh I wonder if "oh cool!" is generational, perhaps? I'm on the cusp of Gen x/Millennial and I say that alllll the time.
This was fun, with just enough challenge for a Wednesday and a great theme. Thanks, Barbara Lin, and the whole team.
I've never heard "Jaws of Life", so I assume it's a US idiom. I had LIFE OF JOYS in there at first and that threw me. (Yes I have seen the film but it was a very long time ago now). A couple of spelling pitfalls for me too. I had LOVE OF LABOUR, well I would wouldn't I, and that threw me too, and it took me a wee while to make sense of 3d. All in all though, I enjoyed this and the theme resonated with me more than the average theme.
@Rosalind Mitchell I may be wrong but I believe JAWS OF LIFE are what the fire brigade call the huge grippers that unpeel metal in car accidents. They open crushed cars like a can opener, allowing the paramedics to get to the injured, hence the name.
Saved by the FUTZ. I would never have gotten ANTZ as opposed to ANTS any other way.
@Allen Didn't help me - I've heard of FUTZ (at first I had FUSS) but I've never seen it written so I put FUTS, which seemed to work with ANTS. I went through several passes and eventually googled FUTS and saw my problem. But I loved the themers in this one, especially the clue for LIFE OF JAWS.
Harder than the average Wednesday for me but I enjoyed it!