I thought I was friends with the programmers, but they gave me the code shoulder. (That bytes.)
@Mike Sometimes I wonder if Mike in Munster is writing a book.... ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing) (There is no pun in this post)
@Mike they left you out of the loop did they? .:.:.;.;. .:.:.:. ,;,;, .:.
@Mike WHILE that may have happened, I'm sure they had a good reason FOR doing it. You've got plenty of CHARACTER, which lets you FLOAT through life. Anything ELSE, emus?
The crossing of AFI_IONADO and SA_HA got me, initially - I corrected the crossing in the end, but I was annoyed to do so. Why annoyed? AFISIONADO looked OK, and those of us us Slavs who spell the diminutive/nickname with an"a" at the end style it Sasza/Саша (that strange letter in Russian is a "sz" sound to us) - the clue clearly indicated the spelling used in Slavic cultures was meant, so SACHA is wrong: that is the French/English spelling of the Slavic name. In fact, I am not overly sensitive, but I see some racist undertones in the clue. All us Slavs were lumped together, even though we are diverse people with strong national identities, varied histories and different languages. Historically, those who treated us as a homogenous group did it not out of the goodness of their hearts but to murder us and turn us into slaves. Some of us know your "Sacha" as Sasza, sure, but to some us it is Sasho (Bulgarian) and Sasze (Macedonian). I would have preferred the clue to refer to *some* Slavic cultures, or simply to a specific Slavic culture: Ukrainian, say. Even then though th spelling with a C would be wrong. And yes, I know this is an English puzzle, but the clue literally says "in Slavic cultures". Other than that it was an enjoyable puzzle, not very hard once I looked up some personally exotic American trivia.
Having said that, Polish people do not use the nickname/diminutive "Sasza" for Aleksander (our spelling of Alexander). For us it is either Alek (pronounced like your Alec) or Olek (that "o" is not an "oh" but a shorter, harder sound, like the "o" in "dorm"). In modern Polish, among young people mostly, I've also heard the version Aleks [Alex] - probably influenced by English. What's more, Aleksander is not to be confused with Aleksy, a different name altogether, though much rarer - that is our version of the Greek Alexios.
@Andrzej Really enjoy reading your posts!
@Andrzej I too, enjoy your posts very much. Is it safe to infer that Olek might have been anglicized as Oleg? (As so happens, my first name is Helgi, which is related to Oleg.) The things we learn in crosslandia! I look at the string of consonants in your name and in my mind goes to autopilot and I pronounce it André. I finally took a minute and learned how to say your name properly. Online translations are a godsend!
This was a nice puzzle with some fun clues. I tried Sasha before SACHA and found the NW a little sticky until I remembered MOZAMBIQUE, but overall it went down as smoothly as a cold beer after a few hours of working in my garden. As a retired lawyer I got a chuckle out of appealing outcome for RETRIAL, and also enjoyed poor resolution as the clue for ANTICLIMAX. Not as tough for me as some Saturdays, but a very appealing puzzle.
After rejections on his first 21 Times submissions, David said he almost abandoned hope of getting a yes. I’m so glad he kept on. I relish his puzzles because they contain: • Beauty in answer. Today, for instance – AFICIONADO, MOZAMBIQE, MELEE, POT DE CRÈME. • Relatable everyday expressions. Today – IS THAT A YES, ARE YOU NUTS, I CAN RELATE. • Wit, humor and care in cluing. For instance, in the major crossword venues, ANTICLIMAX has been almost always given dry direct clues, such as [Big letdown]. But today, David gives us [Poor resolution, say] a brilliant misdirect. He did the same thing with his witty clues for CUBICLE and RETRIAL, two answers also given colorless clues in the past. • Words never having appeared in the Times puzzles before, three today, including PEACH EMOJI and INTERMIAMI. And look at these lovely debut answers (among others) from his previous puzzles: FAT FINGER SYNDROME, MORAL OF THE STORY, SPITTING IMAGE, and SLAM DUNK CONTEST. Today’s puzzle had all this richness plus enough bite to satisfy my brain’s work ethic, not to mention the sweet PuzzPair© of UTTERANCE and I CAN RELATE. What a feast! Thank you once again, David, for a splendid time in the box!
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past seven years, it is my duty to inform you that this puzzle has an unusually low number of double letters, at four, where unusual is any number less than five. This is the fourth time this year that this has happened. I remain your humble servant, ever on the alert. Et tu, emu.
I dropped in the last letter, ready to start my mandatory fly specking routine, and was congratulated instead. A welcome anticlimax, and okay by me. Thank you, David Karp, for a clever, engaging puzzle that was fun to work, with no crazy stretches of credibility in the clues. (We'd had enough for one week.) Come back soon.
Tripped up bc “difficult figure skating jump” implies being the actual NAME of the jump - lutz, axel, or flip, in this case. I guess the best way to describe it is the number of rotations is a variation of the jump itself and in the singular you need to specify WHICH jump. For instance: she’s working on a triple lutz, he’s working on his quad flip, etc. And yes, you can refer to the rotations when there are multiple jumps in her question: she’s planning three quads, he has all of this triples, because there the jump itself isn’t important. Yes, I’m a figure skater :-)
@Jill from Brooklyn Right? As an avid fan of figure skating I thought the same. Thank you for a professional comment 🙂 Rhythm dancing emus.
@Jill from Brooklyn My sister is also a figure skater, so I know all that stuff by osmosis. I can do a waltz jump (AKA half-lutz) in full hockey gear. I also know way too much about Alexandra "Sasha" Cohen.
I will certainly regret saying this, and maybe I’m still recovering from Thursday, but this was one of the easier Saturdays in a while! No complaints, I need this to recharge my ‘excitement battery’ for NYT crosswords after the ordeal culminating in Thursday’s debacle. No I don’t think I’m being dramatic, WHO SAYS IM BEING DRAMATIC. Well done!
@Mickey Just hilarious! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 On that joyous occasion when I get the happy piano, my first thought is "Great! Now, on to the Comments Debacle!" I guess I miss this, because, as a retired academic, I'm used to endless debates over minor issues, splitting the already thrice-split hair, picked every nit, and crawled into the nuances of every nuance. Go ahead and say a puzzle was easy! (Personally, I had less trouble that I usually do with Saturday). We just like to hear ourselves argue.
@Mickey I agree but also had a breezy Saturday the weekend before last. Got a PR and everything. Would have bested myself this week had it not been for misspelling AFICIONADO - and in turn trying to fill in the blanks of _A__SaTA to no avail.
Today I learned that I never knew how to spell AFICIONADO.
A very dense crossword. Nothing was easy: for example I had AXEL as the skating jump - it's the hardest one - but of course QUAD works. And for the Beethoven key - I had no idea but you know the second letter will be M - and I quickly surmised that there was no way 54A would have J as its penultimate letter so it had to be a MINor key. And 10x 10-letter answers!
@Andrew I held on to LUTZ for the longest time
@Bill in Yokohama I oscillated between "axel", "loop", and "lutz" 🤦♂️ needles to say, NW was the last to fall.
(Second attempt; perhaps the emus don't like me talking about their fellow avians.) Interestingly, in French, the word for turkey, dinde, literally means from India (d'Inde). So the poor turkey is known by all sorts of incorrect national names, and the nation of Turkey had to recently change the spelling of its name internationally to the local form (Türkiye) to avoid being associated with the bird or the slang use of the bird's name as a loser or dud. Similarly, guinea pigs are not from Guinea. And they're not pigs, either.
@Steve L Though they appreciate a nice buffet spread as much as the next rat. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Steve L In Polish turkey is called "indyk", which related to India, yes, but not the Asian India - rather the West Indies, from where it was imported to Europe, including Poland, in the 16th century. The name is not geographically incorrect at all, and I presume the same is true in French. Of course, Caribbean's misidentification as India by Europeans is behind the name West Indies, so there was a mistake involved along the way (in a way).
About that “health class topic”: A local cafe used to have a hand painted menu board listing the fillings for the different sandwiches. Some had abbreviations, like guac, mayo, cuke, etc. And then there was “STD”. Sun-dried tomato. I’m sure they’d had every kind of question about STD on a sandwich, so I would just smile and order the #7.
Really liked the cluing for MELEE and PEACHEMOJI
"Butt text?" was the clue of the month, IMO. Props.
Such a TANGY, sharp, piquant, and flavorsome Saturday! So many great clues... slowly unraveling them was like savoring a rich POT DE CRÈME. If it seems like I'm hungry, it's only for more delicious puzzles from you, Mr. Karp. Thank you so much!
I really wanted “Sharp, in a way” to be FANGY.
AREYOUNUTS? ICANRELATE is more empathy than I've come to expect from the NW quadrant!
Ooh. I got lucky today. I have a Coton de Tulear. Her name is Zuzu. She’s a dog. When we got her, we had never heard of the breed. Turns out, Coton de Tulears are (were?) the Royal Dog of Madagascar. And legend has it that a pirate ship went down with a bunch of these little dogs on board, off the coast of Madagascar, and they were great little swimmers! So silky soft, small and clever they were the “cotton” of Tulear. But only royalty on the island were allowed to own them. Crazy story. But when I looked it up, I remember seeing the island was directly across from Mozambique where my husband has traveled as a missionary! So, 1A. A gimme! SAILed through on sheer luck. Loved the clue for MITE. Enjoyed every minute of this gem! Thank you!
@CCNY Oh my. I’ve just googled your dog. Sooo adorable. I’ll do you a trade and give you my dog breed. He’s a Shiba and yes, he looks exactly like the Shiba picture. They come in three colours but he is the red that they usually show. I think my dog is the cutest in the world, but I have to say yours is right up there. Looks like a total cuddle bug.
My hats WAY off to the constructor and the cluers that put this together! It was just a delight, a groan of puns (which is a whole lot!) One spectacular example: 25A is brilliant in at least two ways.
@Francis A groan of puns. Very nicely done.
Wow Somehow the NW corner took me as long as the rest of the puzzle. I had to pause and return multiple times, then smoke my meds, then finally got gold. Fun puzzle Loved PEACH EMOJI
This was a perfect Saturday puzzle for me, challenging but not impossible. It was probably an easy day for most others though, lol. Friday was tough, and sadly Thursday's crossword was a streak-ender for me. I've broken streaks before because I didn't finish the puzzle in time (Christmas with the family, gah!), but this was the first time I ended one with "check puzzle". I struggled just to finish, and then must have gone through the puzzle line by line about 10 times trying to find my error. I finally gave up and hit check puzzle. Turns out it was the crossing of NOUGuT and LuMINA. It's obvious in hindsight, but ALAS my brain just refused to see it.
Very enjoyable! Loads of fun clues and smiles! Not as easy for me as it sounded like it was for a lot of you. This was a lot harder for me than yesterday's, which was a personal best, but that seems to be an opposite experience for many. Mileage and what not, tralala! And even though I say it was difficult, it was a joy to complete! Lots of fun and sparkles! MELEE and PEACH EMOJI and MITES being some favorites.... Also, HAM IT UP! And, I am extremely proud of how easily I plopped in the geography entries. Well, Sarasota took me a while, but MOZAMBIQUE, BUENOS, and PERU all came very quickly, again thanks to the geography game I play. Those were big helps It made me smile big to plop in SAsHA immediately on the first go round. I eventually had to switch the s to C, but I have extremely fond memories of a particular man named Alexander/Sasha. I thought he spelled it with sh but it was very long time ago so I may be misremembering. I also have read the comments and see that there is some explanations of this. I also think that he might have spelled his name Aleksandar... Hmm. Either way, it is a joy to think of him and his family, who I loved so dearly, and the many, good laughs and stories we shared in various kitchens and living rooms and picnic tables. ❤️ It's funny how puzzles can elicit such deep memories.
@HeathieJ Okay, for anyone who is interested or has any insight into this, I just confirmed that I was correct in the spelling of Aleksander but his nickname was spelled Sascha. He came here from Serbia.
This was a fun Saturday. I managed to get through it in great time for me but still found it a fun challenge. Thanks constructor! After every Saturday puzzle I feel relief that I've kept my streak (of over 1,100) alive through the hardest part of the week. Phew!!!
Nice one, David. [A whole bunch of people in a row] for MELEE and [Butt text?] for PEACH EMOJI were favorites. I liked seeing [might] and MITES at 25A. Will someone invoke a non-existent rule?
Tough but fair. Two thumbs up. No cheating 😎
Late puzzle find, inspired in a roundabout way by 'figure' skating (and a comment below). Anyway... a Sunday from October 12, 1997 by Nancy Salomon with the title: "That's an order." Some theme clue and answer examples: Order to a longshoreman? : GETALOADOFTHIS Order to a C.P.A.? : GOFIGURE Order to an art gallery worker? : HANGINTHERE Order to a quarterback? : TAKEAHIKE Order to an editor? : MARKMYWORDS Order to a surgeon? : CUTITOUT Order to a sloppy senator? : CLEANUPYOURACT Just thought that was really clever. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/12/1997&g=32&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/12/1997&g=32&d=A</a>
Going to the Inter Miami VS. NYCFC tomorrow to see Messi!
@Erick Have fun! I took my son to see Messi take on the Revs this summer and attribute his obsession with soccer with my ability to crack open what was a mostly empty puzzle.
@Erick Enjoy the match! The only reason I got INTER MIAMI is because of Messi.
Is it bad to want a pot-de-crème for breakfast*? After a successful solve, I feel I've earned it. I felt so proud to work out [Two o'clock?] to HARD C. Too bad it was wrong. Enough has been said in the comments about the confusion in European languages concerning the origin of "turkey" that any further discussion would be beating a dead fowl. But I should add that the Linnean name, Meleagris gallopavo, translates--in a mixture of Greek and Latin--to "Guineafowl rooster-peacock," so the confusion doesn't end there. *At the hotel, an "orange-scented chocolate pot-de-crème" is on one of the standard banquet menus, and I will usually make one or two extra, lest one breaks in transport or the guest count goes up. And yes, I have been known to snarf a leftover one down the first thing the next morning when I want a sugar rush to start the day. But I am not at work this morning.
@Bill "Dessert-breakfast is a time-honored custom at my sister's house.... crepes filled with almond custard and garnished with chocolate are a particularly happy memory!
Swift solve for a Saturday (for me, at least). No complaints. Being an amateur musician helps me with clues like 46D, because even if I don't know the actual key, I know that the second letter is M, the third is either A or I, the fourth is either J or R, and the first is one of the first seven letters of the alphabet (A-G). Of course, one does not have to know how to play an instrument (or sing) to know basic key signature nomenclature (just as anyone who has seen The Sound of Music probably knows basic solfeggio), so hopefully it's a helpful tip for someone.
Was it a deliberate choice to run MARTIAL LAW on 21 Sept, the anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in 1972 by then-President Ferdinand Marcos in the former American colony of the Philippines? If so, great job NYT!
Great puzzle. My favorite encounter with Portuguese was when visiting Macao back in the 1980s. It was amazing to see slow, inefficient bureaucratic colonial paperwork imposed on a Chinese territory. The Japanese word for “bread” (pan) comes from the Portuguese.
@kkseattle I really enjoy these personal stories that help me remember trivia 🙂. Thanks! In Polish "pan" means "mister", and "Pan" means "The Lord", as the Christian god, to believers. In official letters, when you want to show somebody respect, you capitalize their pan or pani ("madam/lady"), for Pan/Pani. It probably looks confusing to non-native speakers of this very weird language.
I loved the main puzzle today - my second-favorite this week after Thursday’s brain twister - but I have a bone to pick with the clueing/editing of 1D in the mini. Makers Mark is first and foremost BOURBON, not WHISKEY. (Although bourbon is a type of whiskey made from corn.) In addition, Makers Mark describes itself as “bourbon whisky” (no E). A different brand like Seagrams or Jameson would have been a much better choice. (Can you tell I solve minis Downs-first, and that misdirect totally broke my solve?)
@Greg Anderson Yes I can!!! I can also see you display an extraordinary, if not to say a worrisome, fixation on liquor.
@Greg Anderson You make a great point about the spellings of whiskey vs. whisky (plural whiskeys vs. whiskies). My understanding had always been that American and Irish spirits were spelled with the “e”, while those from Canada, Scotland, and Japan had no “e”. I never noticed the odd-ball Makers Mark spelling, but now I see the company officially tweeted in 2012 that they “decided to pay homage to their Scottish-Irish heritage.” Of all the American brands of WHISKEY they just had to pick that one!
Thank you Caitlin, David, and the family of commenters for their gentle humor. This was an enjoyable evening!
I zoomed along through most of the grid, but got a little stuck in the NW. My first guess for 1A had been Abel Tasman (yes, I know where Tasmania is, but that doesn’t preclude the Tasman Sea from being 6,000 miles away — some of those 17th century explorers really got around!). When none of the crosses worked, I ditched it and left most of the NW empty, though I managed to get I CAN RELATE and a few of the Down answers. Then I stepped away for a few minutes. When I came back, the YO from AYN and MORALES (both gimmes) suggested the YOU of ARE YOU NUTS and I was more or less finished.
@Eric Hougland SW stopped me for a moment, too, but I needed to look up LEXI in the SE corner to get a hold there, too. There are few things I care or know less about than golf, musical notation is a mystery to me and I don't know the names of sports teams, so I had no idea if NBA or NFL or NHL was meant. The only gimme there was the M of the key (that much I have picked up from these puzzles: I knew it had to be [some letter]M[IN/AJ]). Looking up LEXI made that whole nexus of arcane mysteries much easier for me.
Wow, fantastic Saturday! I definitely needed a long break between first and second passes to conquer it, but very satisfying. And TIL that I’m possibly the last person in the world to know the weird use of that EMOJI—although I haven’t had time to read all the comments, so possibly not…I must also note that RIDIC brought a big cringe to my countenance 😬. Ewwww! Please tell me that no one actually says that? Do you have a country named after you, dear emus?
@Kate I dunno. Casual use of "countenance" in 2024 makes me cringe more than hearing "ridic", which is one of the most benign abbreviations I've ever seen... :) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Kate in re: RIDIC, it seems constructors often include words they wish were in use.
@Kate sheepishly admitting that I, a 43 year old mom, use RIDIC semi-regularly. It generally refers to a good thing - like a delicious bite of food - vs the full form which I use when my children are being, well, ridiculous.
Thanks David for a nice, smooth puzzle. After the anguish of the last 2 days crosswords this was a relaxing stroll. The only stumble I had was TELEPHONE, which I've never heard of. My wife says we should get out more...
@Dave S Personally, I’ve never played TELEPHONE at a party, only in a classroom.
Interestingly, in French, the word for turkey, dinde, literally means from India (d'Inde). So the poor turkey is known by all sorts of incorrect national names, and the nation of Turkey had to recently change the spelling of its name internationally to the local form (Türkiye) to avoid being associated with the bird or the slang use of the bird's name as a loser or dud. Similarly, guinea pigs are not from Guinea. And they're not pigs, either.
Steve, Here is your first attempt to comment on "turkey" last night. Not sure what the filter saw, but clearly the live bird found no issues here.
@Steve L "Similarly, guinea pigs are not from Guinea. And they're not pigs, either." Coincidentally, the guinea pig is native to PERU--where it is raised as a domestic food livestock. Locally, it is called "cuy" (pronounced "quee")--perhaps an onomatopoeia for the squeal it makes as it's being caught. Sorry, Muffin. (Kind of the emus to let this post some, what, eleven hours later.)
@Steve L Since the bots reposted your post, I'll repost my answer. In Polish turkey is called "indyk", which related to India, yes, but not the Asian India - rather the West Indies, from where it was imported to Europe, including Poland, in the 16th century. The name is not geographically incorrect at all, and I presume the same is true in French. Of course, Caribbean's misidentification as India by Europeans is behind the name West Indies, so there was a mistake involved along the way (in a way). Oh, and in Polish "Guinea pig" is called "świnka morska", literally the "piglet of the sea", and the name makes perfect sense, strangely enough. Why a piglet? Because the squeaking of a Guinea pig is much like that of a piglet. Why "of the sea"? Because it arrived from overseas. The English etymology, as I just checked, is similar, at least partially. Guinea probably is a placeholder for a faraway, mysterious, overseas country, so it is an analogue of the Polish designation, in a way.
Got my lowest Saturday time ever with this one, aided partly by the Messi-related easy SW fill — loved the cluing so thanks to David Karp!
Great puzzle, tho I was done in by overthinking in the NW corner. Ozone instead of ANODE (thinking of free radicals I guess). a figure-skating jump named after Michelle Kwan (except I spelled her name as Kuan), heat instead of ZEAL (maybe, could be). All complicated by knowing Peter Parker but not Miles MORALES. And so.... I didn't get the obvious MOZAMBIQUE and BUENOS. Although the clues are more challenging on a Saturday, the answers are (almost) always things, people or places I've heard of. You'd think I'd know that by now.
@Esmerelda - Are you a free radical researcher? Much of my own work has involved oxidative stress. (Emeritus member of SfRBM here.) I generally think of ozOnE as an electron acceptor, not a donor, since it is such a strong oxidizer. Of course, I haven't studied ozOnE specifically, but it's hard to avoid. Am I missing something?
I couldn’t stop staring at 18 across and DNF’d, although I’m sure some preferred 54 across.
@Dave Rosenbaum They've appeared 16 times, always clued to a bird. In the singular, they've appeared 129 times, mostly clued to birds, but occasionally as [___ for tat] or similar, and twice in the 40s as a small horse. That's how you get them into the puzzle.
Well, I was doing great until I got to INTERMIAMI - what??? I had xxTERMIAMI which obviously had to be Outer Miami, making the dust critters motes (as in The Mote in God's Eye, a classic SF book by Larry Niven, or maybe the mote of dust in Bahamut's eye upon which we all exist, which I only know from the Hazmat Modine song) but ... two o'clock would then be hauds, which made no sense at all. I ran through the alphabet to see if that D might be something else, thinking maybe the acronym had changed while I wasn't paying attention. Thank goodness for the Wordplay column. A pretty quick solve for a Saturday, 18 minutes, if it weren't for that pesky soccer team.
Enjoyed the puzzle and David’s notes. When my husband and I visited Portugal (many years ago) we learned as much of the language as we could and found it appreciated everywhere we went. No ANTICLIMAX today, nice variety of entries throughout. Keep them coming, David.
The clueing tried to be my ungluing but I avoided the charms of those little "misses" until I wound up in the NW pondering what European explorer/colonialist was memorialized. Sheesh! Insisting on lUtz for the jump made me fall on my PEACHEMOJI. A lookup on the WNBA team broke the ice there for the win. First rate puzzle and many thanks.
Terrific Saturday puzzle, and it felt a bit more accessible to me than yesterday’s. There were more things I knew (such as the book “Maid” which I had read and really liked back when it came out). I always have trouble with sports clues, but I eventually got INTERMIAMI with help from a few crosses. And my husband watches a LOT of golf, so I must have absorbed the name LEXI. Crosses helped me out all over the puzzle. Like Caitlin, I got a kick out of the great clue for MELEE. Thanks for the Saturday workout, David Kapp.
I had the heart to sail through this puzzle with zeal, and without going in endless loops; it wasn't anticlimactic! Steve at 10:29 PM on Friday night.
Can anyone explain 28A [Two o’clock?]? Feel like I’m missing something obvious.
@Doug it may be a stretch but my best attempt at understanding the clue in a way that fits the answer is that it's asking "what are two things of/from a clock", thus HANDS. Curious what others think!
@Doug o’clock is short for “on the clock.” Hands are two (things) on the clock.
Caitlin Clark and the WNBA is all over Utube so she got me to Dallas and opened up the NW corner. That got me to a just over one hour finish including the usual weekend interruptions. My kind of a Saturday after a week of tougher than usual weekday challenges.
It's a good thing geography is one of my strong suits; I count nine answers in that category, if you include DALlas and Sault STE Marie. RIDIC! I did wonder which explorer was featured in 1A, because "namesake" in the clue implied a person's name. Vasco da Gama was too long. Oh, a place name? Well, why not?
@Grant Today I Learned that, according to Wikipedia, Mozambique “was named Moçambique by the Portuguese after the Island of Mozambique, derived from either Mussa Bin Bique, Musa Al Big, Mossa Al Bique, Mussa Ben Mbiki or Mussa Ibn Malik, an Arab trader who first visited the island and later lived there[ and was still alive when Vasco da Gama called at the island in 1498.”