My jokes about maize are corny. My jokes about eyes are cornea. (And I have acorn-y one about trees as well!)
@Mike There are some kernels of truth in what you say.
@Mike A veritable cornucopia (just popped into my mind). 🌽🌽🌽🌽 Something I cobbled together.
Mike, Ear! Ear! Such silky smooth puns you’ve given us today! (No surprise - it’s your stalk-in-trade.)
@Mike Shucks. Srsly.
With respect, gonna have to vote "nay" on this one. Themed clues were met with a "huh. OK, I guess I get it" rather than one of those delightful exclamations of joy and surprise when wordplay really clicks.
@qzac ugh i was zipping through until the end and became so irritated. i didn’t know ANAPEST. i know i don’t know everything but that annoyed me. AS SAD too. i had am sad. smh
Very fun. Favorite: TIRADE IDEALS. This could apply to many areas of life, so why not Wordplay? 1) The tirade should contain some wittiness in addition to the subject of the tirade. 2) The tirade should be fun to read about, for people who might not be the experts in the tiraded subject. 3) The tirade should inspire interesting counterpoint from other commenters. 4) The tirade should not cast aspersions on constructors, editors, or columnists. 5) The tirade should keep the emus in mind, and strive for a tone that won’t anger them. 6) CORNIER STORIES could ideally be incorporated into a tirade.
@Cat Lady Margaret I shall print this out and keep it next to my screen to temper my knee jerk reactions to some commenters. Thank you
@Cat Lady Margaret Perhaps you could suggest a similar code of ethics for judges of SCOTUS. Not to make light of this, but a light-hearted treatment might shed some light on the issue. Watt say you?
Cat Lady Margaret, Most excellent and witty! (I hope those who fall into the plaint genuses (sic) enjoy it as well.)
@Cat Lady Margaret Thanks for raining on my tirade! jk You get a gold star for this post as a whole and a bonus star for "tiraded subject".
@Cat Lady Margaret Agree!! Particularly in the wittiness part. A tirade without these points is boring and a tirade without wit is a lost cause.
A unit of light is a lumen. A watt is a unit of power. The amount of power a lightbulb uses is expressed in watts; the light it emits is expressed in lumens.
@Fact Boy Sort of. Although technically true....For more than 100 years people used the power of a lightbulb to mean brightness....Which is how people viewed a 60, 75, and 100 watt bulb. When someone used to look at a fixture and put in a bulb with a larger number...The thought was almost always to getting more light in the room...and not power consumption....well unless the point was being made about some miserly person working in too dark a room in a movie or something. When we switched over to LED the boxes continues to have watts prominently displayed with the subscript describing the light equal to whatever bulb's brightness it was.....and thus power usage was being dismissed....AND the lumens were typically hidden on the spec panel on the side of the box. Dont even get me started on color temperature in kelvins. (sadly....too many people cannot differentiate between the different colors of light....AND it really matters for how nice or terrible your room will look)
@Fact Boy Quibbling over the right units for luminance seems like light nit picking. (Seriously though, I found this mildly irksome too)
Fact Boy, Illuminating as usual (for those in the dark). Waiting for Mike from Munster to run with this one. ### Kelvin color temperature?
@Paul I spent years in digital colour printing, and the worst customers were those who didn't understand how the colour of their environment lights affected their output. There are industry standards for that.
@Barry Ancona re Kelvins: <a href="https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/understanding-set-lighting-and-color-temperature" target="_blank">https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/understanding-set-lighting-and-color-temperature</a>/ The other place you'll see this is in digital photography when discussing 'white balance'.
Before discussing my solve, two notes: Serious: I hope Lewis is ok in Asheville. Not serious: I hope Captain Q will be ok with 68A. #####
@Barry Ancona Yes, Lewis. Let us know you're ok when you can.
@Barry Ancona - Honestly, I didin't notice what the answer resolved to until I read your comment, Thanxalot not! I've been very distracted by a very sick pup -- lots of laundry being done, a late night excursion to the distant emergency vet, hydrating by using a syringe to squirt water onto her mouth, and she is demanding my almost constant reassurances, including in the middle of the night. And now her sister is feeling shorted by all the attention lavished on the sick one, and is demanding all sorts of special treatment she never needed before. It's all very tiring. I need some sleep. My niece lived in Asheville until recently; I'm glad she's not there now. Best wishes to everyone here who lives there or in other affected areas.
Our constructor notes: I hope everyone had fun solving this puzzle. Having a second Sunday puzzle published and completing a second Monday through Sunday cycle have been goals for quite some time, so this one is extra special to me. Joe, Lots of fun, thanks. Well done, and congrats on the second cycle.
Fans often ask me, the world-renown ornithologist, with many species named in my honor, that, after all, was there something missing in my soaring career, some bird, perhaps, that, like the barnyard chicken, had escaped my pursuit? To which I reply, with all humility, "I've lived my life with no EGRETS!" (I'll show myself out.)
@Steven Okay! I have no words.!
@Steven This was such a weird mix of brilliance and dad-joke, a silly bit of fun at the expense of ornithology. I'm impressed. Emu.
@Steven haha this brought me more joy than the puzzle. thank you
It took me 45 minutes to fill the grid, so about my Sunday average, and I needed no lookups or autocheck to do so. I am quite proud of this latter feat, as it is quite rare. Usually the size of the Sunday puzzle and the resulting number of trivia entries force me to seek outside help to finish. However, I am also somewhat sadly aware my relatively good performance probably means many US solvers found this puzzle way too easy. After posting I'll browse the comments to find out if that really was the case. This happens often - I do well in a puzzle and feeling great I turn to the comments only to find others just improved their PB by 76%, and of course they did because this was Tuesday, nay, Monday, difficulty. I may have completed the puzzle on my own but I did not get the theme. I mean, I understood some letters were changed or added to some expressions to alter their meaning, but not knowing most of these original expressions meant the theme was opaque to me. I got the themed entries with crosses and some mental gymnastics, in the end. I enjoyed remembering some names I have learned from these puzzles, like SOUSA and REBA. I do not understand the "Comparatively low" clue. ASSAD? I would appreciate an explanation. Is it about, say, Andrzej being as mortified and AS SAD as Agatha about the maniacal rule of some dictator: Assad, maybe?
@Andrzej “Comparatively low” was one of the clunkier clues, but it resolves to the meaning you guessed. One might say, “I was as sad as my friend to see the 49ers blow yet another game,” but one would never say “I was comparatively low as my friend…”.
WIRY SIMILE felt sloppy to me, especially when everything else was so clean.
@Raven Pfister The third "i" in WIRY SIMILE bothered me. All the other theme answers have two I's, which when removed, make a new phrase. Cute theme. But WIRY SIMILE has three I's. I tried several ways to substitute for the third, but kept coming back to removing only two. As I said to my wife, I was surprised by a third "i" that wasn't removed, because The Times's themes rarely have such a glitch. In other words, not all the ayes have it. That said, congratulations to Joe for his second cycle.
@Jam Each of the theme phrase words has one added I, and is consistent in that way. It’s just that smile already had an I. So yes, it ended up with two but the word was treated the same way as all the other one-I-added words.
@Raven Pfister Yeah, I thought I was wrong with WIRYSIMILIE the entire time since when I removed all the “I”s it didn’t work. I did see a WRYSMILE World…and maybe that should have pushed me from “remove all the Is” to “remove one I from each word”.
Funny, this one, such kooky themers, each one more wonderfully shambolic than the last. Have you noticed how everything is "shambolic" these days? Campaigns, events, books, radio shows, entire teams (am I right, White Sox? If we're calling you shambolic I've never known a team to EARN IT as much as you guys!). Anyway, unlike the White Sox, this one worked precisely because the fill was of the CORNIER shambolic variety: it made me snort a few times. And don't forget, people, I warned you very recently about the dread ANAPEST! We were born before the wind Also, younger than the sun 'Ere the bonnie boat was won As we sailed into the mystic Hark now, hear the sailors cry Smell the sea and feel the sky Let your soul and spirit fly Into the mystic Yeah, when that fog horn blows I will be coming home Yeah, when that fog horn blows I wanna hear it I don't have to fear it And I wanna rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old Then magnificently we will float Into the mystic... It's one of the most beautiful of Van Morrison's songs, and when he gets it right, it can uplift me into a temporary little magic place, a good one, one I wish would last a bit longer every time. No LSD needed, Bill W. Listen to this one from 1979: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glldCPMFj3Y" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glldCPMFj3Y</a>
@john ezra Into the Mystic is one of the most sublime songs ever. I hope those not familiar with it will take a listen and let themselves be transported, as you and I are, to their own "little magic place."
@john ezra I'm a real slow learner on poetic stuff, but I assume you're saying this poem/these lyrics are in ANAPEST? If so, I'd love to understand this better. Is it like every third word is stressed, like "we were BORN before the WIND", like that? But it doesn't seem to me to hold constant throughout. Is it supposed to? Or are breaks in the rhythm typical? Thanks!
@Francis Yes, just as much of Shakespeare’s plays are written in iambic pentameter. Western poetry and plays used to be constrained by quite rigorous boundaries.
@john ezra i didn’t get the warning. i wish i did bc i got very frustrated!
@john ezra Thanks for the lyrics. Into the Mystic always evokes memories of my late wife.
Oh, that Joe Deeney! How nice to see something besides IAMB for the poetic "foot"! And John Phillip SOUSA, The March King, appears again, along with half of the quote AD ASTRA PER ASPERA (or is it the other way around?) My fave was WIRY SIMILE. Living the live I lead, I have many opportunities for WRY SMILEs. Anyone else try AEGEAN before IONIAN? I can never keep them straight...just another Right/Left puzzle for me! PhysicsDaughter was here to cheer Penn State with DHubby, who then stayed up late to see the Dawgs robbed by Bama. As you might suspect....I went to bed at a decent hour.
@Mean Old Lady I'm with you on Aegean before IONIAN! And on right / left! I recently shared with my husband that I have to think really hard about right versus left, and actually have to always use the L shape of my hand... It was never a secret, I guess it just hadn't come up in our quarter of a century together. He was speechless and looked incredulous... So I yelled, "Hey, you already married me! Better or worse and what not! No take backs!" 😂
@Mean Old Lady I definitely started with Aegean. I only got IONIAN because of the comment helping me with WIRY SIMILE :-)
@Mean Old Lady My "Aegean" guess was my last spot to be solved
@Mean Old Lady I think that I've been told that word order doesn't matter in Latin. It's the reason that students have to learn all those grammatical cases and declensions.
This was a brute force solve. As others have noted, the cluing was sloppy and often just wrong.
This theme gets a wow from me but only got a FAIR FROM HOMIE. Meh. This constructing stuff is harder than it looks. I liked it. While I understand the argument that WIRY SIMILE seems inelegant due to its third "I", I disagree. And that was my favorite entry. I'd like to thank all the commentators here who enlightened me as to what's watt. Hey, can anyone tell me why today's column photo just shows a completely empty plain?
@ad absurdum I like what you did there
Hate to say it, but this was the least joyful Sunday puzzle I have solved in a long time
Got hung up for the longest time on WIRYSIMILE. I didn't know WHALE or ANAPEST, and the 3rd i gave me fits. Nice work Joel! Great puzzle.
@Dave S Ditto your comment, to a tee. It took me a long time, leaving that area and getting back to it quite a few times, until the W and the A were put in, the last letters to fall. And that second "I" of SIMILE also threw me off. Nice to know I wasn't alone in that bit of hair-pulling. But all's well that ends well, not needing to flyspeck on a Sunday. Yes, absolutely a great puzzle!
A doable Sunday, which is always good. I got the theme reasonably early with 22A but it didn’t make the rest any easier to find. Being a Northerner I was raised on RUGBY League; we lived a half mile away from Bradford Northern’s (now Bulls) ground so I went to every home game with Dad from around age 7. The Northern clubs broke away from the Union I think in the 1920s over whether to pay players or not; the North said yes, the southern Union no. Union has dominated the sport since, but is considered by us Northerners as a ‘softer’ game as they have more players (15 to our 13), therefore less ground to cover. There are other differences but it’s basically the same game. Both types are brutal compared to your US style of football. There are no pads or protection other than a skull cap if the player has prominent ears (stops them being used as ‘holds’). I still recall watching a game in 1972 when I was 12 when one of our chaps took a flying tackle that flung him in the air. The resulting crack as he hit the ground, breaking both legs has stayed with me ever since. Despite that he tried to get up to carry on playing and had to be pinned to the stretcher. We’re made of stern stuff up North.
@Helen Wright I imagine most Americans got their first taste of RUGBY with sevens in the Summer Olympics. What's this? A sport that little Fiji dominates? Good for them! I've played the game myself, but only in the larger "union" format. I wasn't particularly good at it, and was always getting my feet stomped om.
I enjoyed this solve and the thematic twist, but the resulting words (Cornier Stories -> Corner Stores) are a dead end. So what if without the I the phrase becomes a different more common phrase? What does Corner Stores have to do with the clue or the theme, other than it’s a phrase without Is in it?
@Jon G., yeah this was an absolute dud of a Sunday, sadly. I know NYT has to beat their own drum and I’ve actually kind of started enjoying the Fagliano era, but what was this? No real connective there and absolutely no payoff with the I’d removed, including Wiry Simile which has too many I’s to even work. Good on the constructor for finding these words. But that’s it? That’s the theme? Sundays should be better
@Jon G. Peggy Lee finally gets her answer; Yes, that's all there is, my friend. That's all there is.
@Jon G. Give the constructor some credit. It's hard enough to come up with answers that match a theme. Now you want the "alternate" phrase to have some bonus relationship to the clue? If you can pull that off, I'd suggest submitting a puzzle yourself.
@Dave Munger It wouldn’t have been hard. For instance, for the first one, the clue could have included (mom and pops) after the punny clue, signaling that there was more to this than simply filing in the apparent answer.
“Light units” is an iffy clue for “Watts”. Watts measure the energy used by a light bulb, not the amount of light produced.
@Gerry Kingsley Yeah, I was reluctant to let it be that. My first thought was that maybe there was a rebus or something that would let "lumens" fit, or maybe that this was misdirection that was playing on light as not-heavy, so I left it blank until crosses made it obvious.
Ooh la la. Everybody’s got a bad case of the grumpies this morning. Why not scroll down to John Ezra’s post and chill to some sublime music? Or else join me and my emu in going back to bed with a nice Sunday cup of hot cocoa. And a perfectly enjoyable Sunday crossword to chew on.
Whew. Really slow start for me, but finally tumbling to the trick was a huge turning point and this ended up being an intriguing and enjoyable solve. Answer history search today was inspired by EGRETS. Wondered about a.... dropping one letter type of theme. Something like... "Lack of long-legged waders?" NOEGRETS Nope - couldn't find anything like that, but that did lead to a 15 letter find - a long time favorite song. It's been an answer in four puzzles: MISSOTISREGRETS I'm done. ..
@Rich in Atlanta That’s probably my second favorite Cole Porter song.
My third eye must be closed today, or else 47A borrowed it for its WRY SMILE, but this one wasn't quite for me. I got 'er done, including getting the theme early on, even though the third eye in 47A was a bit of a slowdown since it seemed to deviate from the others. Anyhow, no complaints, of course, I just didn't find it particularly amusing or fun, as I normally do these kind of themes, and as I normally do with most Sunday puzzles. Each steamer solved was kind of just like, "Oh, okay then..." But that's just me and I still always appreciate time spent in a crossword. It was interesting to learn though that LSD was thought to be a treatment for alcoholism. I did not know that. I also did not know that McDonald's no longer serves salads. And I even go to McDonald's twice a week! But only for the gold standard in fountain Diet Coke! I work remotely 3 days a week but on the two days a week I go into the office, I treat myself to a fountain Diet at McDonald's! Guess I haven't looked at the food menu in a while. Of course it's always fun to see Seinfeld in the puzzle! I just watched a few episodes last night. Plus, I think of George every single time I lick an envelope...
@HeathieJ Lol! Just this week I licked two envelopes, thinking "I hope I don't die from this!"
@HeathieJ In the bad old days before remote work became acceptable, I used to have Macdonald's salads quite often. Since those days are over for me, I was unaware that they'd phased out salads. Guess they didn't sell well. Some commentator suggested that salads had only been to placate the mothers when the whole family was dining out together. Or at least so the lone health-conscious member of the family could set an example. So are there not enough such customers any more?
Don't you love that ANAPEST is not an anapest? Fun puzzle today. I just sat down with it and chugged along. Never stuck, although it took several passes to complete it. Got most of the themers without truly getting the theme, and I still think THE first name in country music is Hank, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Oh, and congratulations on the double cycle!
@Jack McCullough We have an adopted son who is a wonderful musician. Perfect pitch, can play anything he hears, writes harmonies and obligatos on the fly, etc. When he was about 28 years old he found his birth family and his great uncle is Hank Williams, Jr.!! Now we know where the musical talent came from.
It’s a remarkable day when the puzzle elicits comments that include humorous public radio shade (thank you Francis!), Van Morrison (john ezra, your link made my morning), and TIRADE IDEALS by CLM. Add to that Joe Deeney’s completion of a second cycle and it seems to me this was a pretty special puzzle whether you liked it or not. For the record, I did. (Full disclosure: I always do.) Many thanks to Joe for a fine puzzle and to all commenters for, well, everything else.
since everybody else has already kvetched about almost everything else, i'll say this: i can stomach one spelled-out letter, but two in the same grid! it's just unbecoming...
This puzzle was by far the most irksome of all the Sundays since I've been doing the NY Times crosswords. Even after learning what the theme actually meant, I did not feel an, "oooooooh, now I get it" moment. To sum it up using a common word found in puzzles: MEH.
I finish this puzzle with a smle on my face
It’s called a “SWINGMAN” way more than “TWEENER” and it fit perfectly. Had me held up for ages, especially since the “W” fit in both. Agree with the general tone of the comments. Clunky clues and dud of a theme
Hate to be that guy, but Watts is not a unit or measurement of light, it’s a measurement of electricity. Lumens or foot candles are a unit of light.
Matt, Not to worry; you aren't that guy. Lots of guys have been that guy since shortly after 6 pm ET yesterday.
Nice workout! I was a little concerned about 45 minutes in. A lot of white and a lot of unconvincingly filled squares. When I finally got the theme, it made my theme entries make sense, but not before. Nice fake out with the Everglades. Finally dumped gatorS for EGRETS. And I always have to refigure out what it is about cocoa, or cacao, that I can never get the spelling right? I think there are things going on in the world that I know nothing about. Someone's not telling me something.
Congratulations on your second cycle, Joe. I liked the theme (PLIANT GENIUSES!) and the cluing, especially [Small square] for ONE and [Where to watch the big game]? for SAFARI. How about a 3rd go round?
Underwhelming theme… also light is measured in lumens. Watts are a unit of power.
@Remi Lightbulbs are commonly designated by their wattage, which provides the consumer an idea of the light output. Lumens are also listed, but are not the customary standard.
@Remi Totally agreed. Call me a 108a! 😶🌫️
This theme is rough. Even after reading the explanation, I need yet another explanation. “I’s” being in common phrases to make other phrases somehow pays off “the ayes have it”? Not sure about this one, Bob.
Like Caitlin, I wasn't acquainted with the sense of 31A (TWEENERS) as used in the clue. Instead, the definition of tweener as "a shot in racket sports that is performed by hitting the ball between the legs" is more familiar to me. Here's one of the great tweener shots of all time, executed by Roger Federer in a semi-finals match at the US Open in 2009 (against a pretty decent opponent): - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_hyaB9pgg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_hyaB9pgg</a>
@RichardZ Thanks for the link! He makes it look so effortless…
@RichardZ I was there that day with my dad. It was jaw dropping in person, and although the video doesn't show it, Djokovic had a look of utter disbelief/awe/wry amusement. Later in the match, Novak hit a weaker than intended lob and when he saw Federer preparing to hit an easy overhead, he turned around, bent over and pretended to moon Federer, much to everyone's delight, including Fed. What a match.
@RichardZ i miss roger. i love when tennis and cross wording come together. i want to be around tennis lovers and crossword players for the rest of my life.
Draymond Green is incredible. Power forward, center, point guard. Perennial DPOY candidate. Truly one of the best TWEENERS in the game. Except. No one has ever said that, ever, and might get beat up if they did. Kidding - but not really. TWEENERS is not a term thats been used in the forty years I’ve been around the game of basketball. A TWEEN is a 10-12 year old child. It might have been more of a gimme, but I would have gone in that direction with the clue. Fun puzzle. Picked up on the theme early on and battled through. Finished quite a bit under average. Thanks, Joe Deeney
@Striker I'd never heard it either but a web search for 'basketball tweener' turns up a lot of hits. Here's one: <a href="https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/2191793" target="_blank">https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/2191793</a>
@Striker I appreciate the link provided by TMD, but I didn’t have to go any farther than M-W to figure this one out.Tweener: “ a player who has some but not all of the necessary characteristics for each of two or more positions (as in football or basketball).” FWIW, Rex over at the other blog had never heard this term either.
"Comparatively" implies a relative difference (which, combined with "low" in this case would imply "sadder"). "Comparably low" on the other hand, would imply similarity (i.e. "as" sad), and would therefore be (in my humble opinion) a more accurate clue.
Pat, It may imply a relative difference, but it isn't limited to or defined as a relative difference. "Comparably" would be an *easier* clue, but this is a puzzle. <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/comparatively" target="_blank">https://www.dictionary.com/browse/comparatively</a>
@Barry Ancona agree to disagree. Every example but one (which uses the word comparitive, not comparitively) cited on the page you linked is paired with an adjective, just like the clue was ("low"), and therefore implies a difference to the source of comparison. I'm not looking for an easier puzzle - the longer it takes, the better, in my opinion.
Excellent puzzle! I loved the theme answers, just my kind of dorky humor. I worked as a cocktail server part-time during my last year of college and I don’t think I ever heard the term ZEST for the lemon peel garnish, always a lemon twist. I think ZEST is the shavings, not the intact peel. Craving a big bowl of steamer clams, with lots of fresh sourdough to sop up all buttery garlicky herby broth.
@Cyndie Great. Now I'm hungry. You are right about the TWIST. What to do about the clue editors???!!!
Cyndie, Your bartender would have used a zester to create the twist to garnish the drink. <a href="https://craftyourscocktails.com/guides/how-to-zest-a-lemon-for-cocktails" target="_blank">https://craftyourscocktails.com/guides/how-to-zest-a-lemon-for-cocktails</a>/ Shaken, not stirred. Or is it stirred, not shaken?
@Mean Old Lady They should be required to spend more time researching cocktails bars!
@Barry Ancona Not at the Rusty Pelican. I even sometimes made them. You take a paring knife and cut into the peel down to the flesh and peel it off the twist. Regardless, I can’t think of anyone calling it a ZEST.
Well, my study of prosody 45 years ago finally paid off, and I remembered the stress pattern of ANAPEST. Felt smart for a minute, then spent 40 minutes on the rest of the puzzle. :)
ZESTS are not drink garnishes and GEORGE is not a curmudgeon. Has Joe or Joel ever made a cocktail or watched a Seinfeld episode?
@Sam Zests are definitively drink garnishes, George being a “curmudgeon” is maybe somewhat arguable but still fine cluing.
@Sam GEORGE is getting upset! <a href="https://youtu.be/CAR7jqSG46E?si=wyWADIqXPzHsljrX" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/CAR7jqSG46E?si=wyWADIqXPzHsljrX</a> The clue gave me a moment's hesitation too but then I immediately knew it had to be George. And while it wouldn't be my first descriptor of him, the case could be made!
@Sam ZESTS can certainly be drink garnishes when they are long trimmings of citrus peels, often called “twists”. In cooking we often grate citrus to get ZEST to add to recipes for more intense flavor. George is a curmudgeon, although his father would fit the definition somewhat better. The puzzle theme took a while to decipher, but as I filled in the first few I caught on. Not one of my favorite Sunday entries, but not too bad.
@Sam Agreed! Some here insist that zest is a drink garnish but I’m a former cocktail server I have never heard “I’ll have a vodka martini straight up with a zest.”
@Sam I guess technically a twist is a long zest. I agree on George though. I waited until I had another across letter to get that one because I couldn’t decide who to choose.
@Cyndie, but a twist IS, by definition, zest. It's a clever misdirection, IMO.
106D: "WATTS" aren't units of light; they units of power. Engine "horsepower" can be expressed in Watts. OTOH, light can be measured in "lumens" or "candelas".
@John thank you! I had these square blank for ages, having typed in WATTS and then correcting myself, but not knowing whether there was a term for Lumen (or other) that I was not familiar with.
@John The clue isn’t “units of light.” It’s “light units.” Units related to lights. Watts works.
@John Yes, it's weak, but if the "lights" are the bulbs themselves, then yes they are very often sold by wattage. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
Why can’t the puzzle in the NYT app have the title visible while you solve? It would make finding and solving the theme 100% more enjoyable.
@Lurker Assuming you're on the Games app on a phone, the title is available on the page that opens when you press the little i icon for information. I don't know where you think they could put it on the puzzle page. The real estate there is very crowded already.
@Lurker as Vaer pointed out, the title is easily found. And while for you, seeing the title makes the puzzle more enjoyable, that is not true for everyone. I, for one, find it much more enjoyable to solve without knowing the title ahead of time. For those that want to see the title, it is easy enough. For those, like myself, that enjoy the additional challenge, we get to have that without the title being forced upon us. So I believe the current scheme gives the best of both worlds. After successfully completing the puzzle today, I admit that I was unable to deduce the theme until I revealed the puzzle title. Then I berated myself for not figuring it out without the title, as it seemed so obvious afterwards. 🤓 .:.:.:.:. .:.:.:.
Well, that was as “whatever” a puzzle as any to go out on - canceling my games subscription rather than continuing to subsidize this paper’s increasingly baffling journalism standards.
@Gooffking This one wasn't a favorite puzzle of mine but where do you see increasingly baffling journalism standards in it!? Inquiring emus want to know!
@Gooffking - Buh-bye! No flouncing necessary!
@Gooffking Here's some heartfelt advice for goofing a little less: Try not to look for journalism in the Games app; that would make everything a little less baffling. ;-)
Ride the train into Manhattan from Yonkers to hear the wheels screeching that Gershwin credited as the inspiration for that clarinet glissando.
I'm familiar with HOHOS, but don't recall ever seeing Yodels. Maybe they are/were regional? I grew up in Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the 70s and 80s, and have lived in California for since '92.
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen Chiming in from the upper Midwest, same! I've only ever known of Hostess and Little Debbie snack cake brands.
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen per wikipedia: "Yodels are frosted, cream-filled cakes made by the Drake's company, which was bought by McKee Foods after former owner Old HB went bankrupt. Yodels are distributed on the East Coast of the United States.[citation needed] They are similar to Hostess Brands' Ho Hos." Yeah right! (And don't even get me started about those Ho-ho-hos Dolly Madison and Little Debbie!)
Thanks all - I did read the Wikipedia page on Yodels before posting here, but was unclear on when they started being sold.
Oh Jesus, this entry was about baked goods? I had no idea what was going on there. Maybe Santa noises? :D Yohoho and a bottle of yodel.
I cannot tell a lie. I liked it.
Today is my day to be confused. What's the deal with 30A [Small square] DOH! Like always, I see it as I'm in the act of asking. Squares are the numbers 4, 9, 16... the smallest is one. Although Terence Howard swears to me that 1 times 1 is two. So that can't be right.
PUBLIC RADIO is popular? That's news to me.
@Sam There's a lot of things that are news to people who don't listen to public radio.
@Sam All things considered, this isn't the most informed post. Public radio has been a part of this American life for more than 50 years now. Many a Midwesterner has found a prairie home companion in their local public radio station. Wait, wait, don't tell me... you watch Fox News instead?
@Sam I suspect Sam was making a joke, and a decent pun, but I do like the replies!
Very clever! Bravo! And the Van Morrison reference got a good ear worm going for a change. The song was our choice for our first wedding dance many moons ago. Thanks to Barry for reminding us about Lewis. I hope he checks in soon.
I had the chance to listen to that famous clarinet glissando this year in honor of it's 100th anniversary. A concert I'll remember for the rest of my life!