"I need to have my laptop fixed! All my keys fell on the floor!" "Well, I'll pick up the tab." (Sounds shifty to me.)
There's no escape from this guy!
@Mike Once you've spilled all of the keys and such, you have no ALTernative but to hunt and peck...
@Mike F2, Quis ut Deus? Then fall, keyboard! 🏟
Lewis is OK!!!! Here's his email to me that he's asked me to share with you: "Hi Nancy, No damage, but for two days, no power, NO WATER!, no internet, no phone. Saturday night the power came back on, but all the other things are off. (I found a wifi place a good distance from home.) Anyway, I'll let you know when news happens and I'm able to report it. We're basically doing okay. The killer is being without water, and it sounds like we'll be without it for at least two weeks. Anyway, would you be so kind as to let both blogs know that I am okay and anxious to return, and I will when we get wifi once again; don't know how long that will be; it is rightfully lower on the priority list of needs in the area."
Nancy, I’m a newb around here, and a slight curmudgeon, but huge smile at seeing this post!
@Nancy Thanks for passing along the word. Great to hear.
@Nancy, thanks for this update. I picture Lewis as pretty calm and resolute in a bad situation, but no one needs what’s happening in NC. Glad he is alright.
@Nancy Thank you for sharing Lewis’s email. I’m glad to hear that he is OK, though it sounds like his life will be a bit challenging for a while.
@Nancy @Nancy this is great news! Thank you for sharing
@Nancy Thank you for sharing the news. I was late solving the weekend puzzles and came here hoping to see a post from Lewis. Glad to see that he’s doing OK!
@Nancy So nice if you to relay his message. Very happy to know he's okay, all things considered. Please let him know we miss him and have him in our thoughts, anxiously awaiting his return to the forum and hoping for a return to normalcy in his life.
Isaac, I don't think the Monday puzzles are a challenge for constructors because they have a hard time lowering themselves to earth, so to speak. I think it's more that they can't get out of a tricky place in the grid by having an obscure-ish answer, and also that it's hard to come up with straightforward clues on answers that come up over and over again in crosswords that don't seem trite.
@Bea Also true! Great point, thank you.
@Bea I heard long ago that easier puzzles can be the most difficult to set. Unavailable to use is the vast lexicon of arcane trivia, foreign words, literary references, etc., to be substituted with common words and phrases familiar to the most casual of solvers. Pity the constructors for the easy level pages of the Dell Puzzle magazines. Day after day coming up with moderately challenging but generally easy-does-it solves within the standard format of size and symmetry.
EZRA Pound reviewed "North of Boston," a book of poetry by AMHERST professor Robert Frost, including the poem "Mending Wall" Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. ... We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: ... He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: ‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. ... Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.’
@Whoa Nellie Thanks for this post and for mentioning Robert Frost in the same breath as AMHERST. Yes, he was for a short time a professor there, but his biggest legacy is that the library at Amherst College was named for him. Frost died in January of 1963 and on October 26, 1963 , John F. Kennedy and his military escorts landed on Amherst’s Memorial Field so he could make remarks at the dedication ceremony for that building (remember Frost had performed a reading at JFK’s inauguration). It was to be JFK’s last speech, as he was assassinated 26 days later. I’m putting a link below to a photo of the Presidential motorcade traveling on South Pleasant Street in front of the Octagon ( Amherst President Calvin Plimpton and poet Archbald MacLeish were in the open-topped motorcade)(shudder). MacLeish said in his speech: “The people of this countryside may forget in ordinary human course what anyone says on this occasion, but they will remember, for many, many years that a young and gallant President of the United States, with the weight of history heavy upon his shoulders, somehow found time to come to our small corner of the world to talk of books and men and learning". See: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/bdv65eu4" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/bdv65eu4</a>
Never in my life have I heard Not worth a SOU. Seems really obscure for a Monday.
@Christina H I felt the same way about TORI (the only Tori I know about is Amos).
@Christina H I was hoping this would be included in the column's "Tricky Answers" for a little backstory. I've never heard it either. But it looks like that's exactly what happened on 11/12/2023 when this clue also appeared and the column noted: "21A. A SOU was a French coin of low denomination, so to say that something is “Not worth a SOU” means that it isn’t worth anything to you. (I’d say this clue phrase has fallen about as far out of use as the denomination it cites.)"
@Mike Les Mis probably kept it a little more familiar for a while with the lyrics to Master of the House.
"Never in my life have I heard Not worth a SOU. Seems really obscure for a Monday." Christina, OK. You had never heard (or seen) the expression. I trust the crosses were Monday enough that you could fill the three letters? And now you have learned a new expression. Seems like a good Monday.
@Christina H I learned hit from a lyric sung By Ethel Merman, I've been wracking my brain trying to remember if it's from Annie get your gun? Maybe "Anything you can do" ?
That was the hardest Monday in a while mostly because I had no idea what THE SIS STATEMENT was. :-)
@Geoff Offermann Argh!!! Didn’t get it. 🤦♀️ Until reading this thread.
I normally don't notice the amount of it, and I enjoy seeing it in crosswords, but starting at the top of this puzzle I felt like I was swimming in PPP. There were 16+/- proper nouns in this puzzle -- not a high number -- but more than half of them were Across or started Down in the first four rows. After that, I definitely needed a SANITY CHECK.
@Barry Ancona So many missed opportunities: 1A could have been [Band drummer Levon]; 19A could have been [“Brown-Eyed Girl” singer Morrison] . . . .
You mean it's not ACID TAp and pOO BIRDS? Well, well, well... what do I know? Obviously nothing about either of those. I'm not the sort to be a BOO BIRD when watching sports, and the only way I'll ever drop acid is if a reputable physician tells me it's sine qua non in order to save me from a deathly, rare, and mysterious illness. There I was, breezing through this puzzle, having a grand ol' time, even chuckling at the revealer, only to be done in by an ACID TAB and BOO BIRDS. At least I haven't been stranded and LIBELED like Simon and Garfunkel just trying to "Keep the Customer Satisfied"... <a href="https://youtu.be/uFOi0pfroiU?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/uFOi0pfroiU?feature=shared</a> Thank you, Alexander Liebeskind, for a fun and engaging Monday!
Correction: *slandered* and LIBELED. Stranded is how I ended up after finishing the solve with that P instead of B gumming up my success.
@sotto voce Close: For you . . . Count Basie: Flight of the Foo Birds-65 <a href="https://tinyurl.com/2arx3b3v" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/2arx3b3v</a>
@sotto voce Thank you for the Red, Hot + Rio recommendation yesterday. I haven't had a chance to give it a deep listen yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
@sotto voce I always thought/assumed “boo birds” began with Philadelphia Eagles fans, but I can’t prove it.
Good puzzle but felt like a Tues or even Weds. Figured it out in about triple my usual Monday TIME. ACIDTABS was a fun answer. I think it took longer because I just played a show at Union Pool after coming home this morning at 5am from a show in Philly and was taking the R train home while solving.
Wait until Maude plays today's puzzle! (See yesterday's comments)
@Bill in Yokohama I thought the same thing! 😅
Bill, Not to worry. I think she only does the Mini. ###
@Bill in Yokohama I missed it yesterday and you prompted me to go back and search it. Was that the longest thread ever? Surprised the emus did not take it down but they were probably too busy laughing.
@Bill in Yokohama Did "Maude" ever clarify what part of what puzzle she was objecting to? If so, I didn't see it.
@Michael Weiland She didn't, but pretty sure it was the first clue in the Mini "Politician whose name sounds like 1-Down (and not like a dance!)"
This was a really fun crossword! I liked traversing my way through it and in the end, the entire experience was on the house! Excellent work!
This was slow for me for a Monday, at almost 10 minutes: probably because of quite a lot of trivia and expressions I did not know, like BOOBIRDS. I enjoyed the solve though and needed no lookups. However, I was not very fond of the clue for SLAV. I know it was technically correct, because many Balkan nations are largely Slavic, but not all of them are: what about Albanians and Greeks? There are so many better ways to clue SLAVs - why use one that is either inaccurate or misleading, and on a Monday, too? Yesterday Sotto Voce asked about kohlrabi (the Polish "kalarepa/kalarepka") and Joya was interested in it, too. It is quite a common vegetable here, available for most of the warm months. It is whitish or pale green, round, of a size that varies somewhat - usually it is about as large as an orange or grapefruit. Sometimes it is sold with leaves, sometimes with the greens removed (they are edible, I heard, but never tried them myself). You have to peel it with a sharp knife, making sure you remove all the tough fibers which sit right below peel on the root end. The flesh is juicy and quite firm, and it should be sweet-ish. If it is dry and beginning to crack, it has been sitting too long and it will taste of nothing. You can eat it raw, but it is also delicious diced into cubes (smallish ones) cooked in water and served with melted butter (I enjoy vegan food, but sometimes butter is the only fit for something, and this is one of those cases, IMO).
@Andrzej I got kohlrabi right away yesterday (yum!), second word found anyhow, but never heard of boobirds, to my recollection.... Even my autocorrect wants to change it... The clues for SLAV almost always make me cringe.
@Andrzej I agree with you re SLAV, slightly cringy. Love kohl rabbi; we grow a lot of celeriac which is quite similar but slightly less sweet. Cooks the same way. I make celeriac dauphinoise with onion, butter and cream as part of our Sunday roast. Delicious.
@Andrzej After all this talk about salads, I want to return to your criticism of SLAV. You said that the clue is technically correct, but inaccurate or misleading. I'd say it was neither innacurate or misleading, and it was just fine. The clue [Stately tree(s)] has almost always (15 times) produced ELM(S), but one time, the clue was [Stately tree of Lebanon], and the answer was CEDAR. So we see that not all stately trees have to be elms to be the right answer, and by the same logic, not every stately tree of Lebanon has to be a cedar. This is the normal way clues function. Not all Balkan natives are SLAVS, but the clue and answer are just fine. As a matter of fact, this clue has been used 11 times, and three more times preceded by "certain," "some" (nativeS) and "many a". The answer has been SLAV(S) five times, SERB seven times, and CROAT twice. All of these examples follow the convention I explained in the first paragraph. I don't think there's anything misleading, inaccurate or misdirecting here.
@Andrzej I missed yesterday's column entirely (having only time to do the puzzle). Kohlrabi is a common vegetable here in the northeast US. However, your treatment to cube and boil it, then serve with butter - as well as @Helen Wright's à la dauphinois - remind me of my favorite root vegetable, with an all-too-fleeting season that starts about now! Where I'm from in southeastern Massachusetts, we have a root we call the macomber turnip (though other areas have their own local names). It originated in the late 19th century: a cross of rutabaga (itself a cross of turnip and cabbage) and radish; about grapefruit sized, a beautiful but tough skin pale green-to-purple, and creamy white within. I've been sad that summer is truly over, both on the calendar and now with the weather. But the reminder of this wonderful vegetable has cheered me up! It's also very good roasted with red onion and pears... As all your discussion of savory dishes with fruit reminded me, too!
@Andrzej Since you brought up kohlrabi, I think I should mention a good find of mine in the frozen food aisle. Green Giant has a line of “riced” vegetables which are aimed at those who love rice, but want to cut back on carbs. My favorite is riced kohlrabi, good texture and flavor. I used to be able to find it when I lived in Manhattan, but alas I’ve been unable to find it elsewhere.
@Andrzej Thank you for taking the time to deep dive into kohlrabi and its preparation. I spend very little time in my kitchen, so I know I won't be preparing it any time soon, but it feels wonderful to not be in the dark about it should I encounter it in the wild, and at least I'll know what it is I'm eating if it's ever on offer. Much appreciated!
@Caitlin No worries. Worth the wait. tnx
As others have noted, several "un-Monday" entries today: CYAN, and TORI ( but all easy to get from the crosses. I wasn't sure how to spell Ms. Kagan's name, and a "'this-is' statement" seems to be a fine way to start an essay. Here is clip of a cyan-clad Ms. Amos and her Bösendorfer, from a 2003 music festival which celebrates 21% of air: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P8mUBI4A4" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P8mUBI4A4</a> (Thank you, Helen Wright, for the suggestion.) Lewis should have chimed in by now--I hope he is safe and sound.
@Bill I meant to add that 41A is one of my least favorite common crossword entries, and bits of vocabulary in general. Persons who would throw a hissy fit if any other body part is mentioned, bandy it about with total disregard for its etymology, or precise definition in Freudian psychologial theory. It is, of course, much less offensive if spelled AÑAL. (This post may show up again later, with a few etra lines of text. Prudish emus.)
@Bill Is CYAN not well known? That was an obvious one to me. Never heard of TORI though.
This is possibly the shortest crossword column I've seen. I know it's a Monday, but surely there's more that can be said. Also, I'm really sad it's missing the constructor notes (or short bio or really anything about them. )
@Sonja I think someone snoozed The column was posted rather late Might've been a last-minute slapdash
An enjoyable Monday puzzle. None of the theme answers dawning on me just from the clues, but they all fell together with some crosses. Just made for a nice workout. Puzzle find today - a trick I don't recall encountering before. A Thursday from February 10, 2011 by Derek Bowman. Five theme answers, all proper names (with a five letter surname) and each one changing one letter in the surname from one to the next. Those answers: DONNAKARAN ELENAKAGAN CARLSAGAN KATEYSAGAL ERICHSEGAL Can only wonder if anything like that has ever been done in another puzzle. Might do some searches. Oh, and here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/10/2011&g=20&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/10/2011&g=20&d=A</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta Whoa - one more puzzle find from the same constructor I linked to above. Never saw another like this either. A Sunday from August 29, 2010 with the title "Going for a run." Here are the theme answers, with the 'trick' capitalized: ArmyBrat CarbonDating ExhaustFans GrayHairs InsideJob KittyLitter MixedNuts OuterPlanet QuickRead SpeedTrap UsedVehicle WinterXgames YearZero Thought that was just amazing. Here's the Xword Info link for that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/29/2010" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/29/2010</a> ...
I do SANITY CHECKs daily. They have nothing to do with feasibility... It's a crazy world! Just happy to still be considered reasonably sane! Hi, emu....
What a great photo today for the column! Also, I hope Lewis is safe in (or possibly out) of Asheville. I look forward to his “favorite clues of the week” wrap-ups.
I was stuck on FLEUR DE LyS for a while, but then I learned that the spelling I knew all this time is actually the alternate.
@Jon ah, that makes sense. It is the less common spelling in the US, but my familiarity with the Fleur de Lys is from my time living in Quebec, where the 'y' spelling is the standard.
A little trickier than the average Monday for me: BOOBIRDS, EZRA, IRA, AMHERST among the unknowns, but the crossings were kind. We’re getting a couple of our neighbour’s 38D’s today for pasturing. In about 18 months they’ll be in our freezer. Delicious grass fed, local (literally on our land) beef. With apologies to the veggies out there.
@Helen Wright Agreed. Never heard of BOOBIRDS and only managed to complete the BOOBIRDS/TORI cross with a bit of luck.
Well shut my mouth! After all these years I'm first to comment. I usually wait until morning. Got the reveal first then ran through the themers figuring out the ends then filled in the rest. Good fun. Thanks.
@John Carson Congratulations. Tonight finding Wordplay was the puzzle. There wasn't even a link on the Page not Found page to report the broken link.
Great Monday puzzle. I maintained my unbroken solving stretch of never ever having realized what the theme was. It’s been years now. The picture, to me, looked like it could be captioned « Child at a Paris Fashion Week Show ». But I have to go now. My emu says I need a SANITY CHECK, fast.
I was worried that I was going to be the only one who thought this quite difficult for a Monday after reading the first few comments, so was glad to see quite a few found it tricky. The reveal entry was fun (and helpful) and I did enjoy the solve.
A new word_ Tori. Plural of torus. Geometry a surface or solid formed by rotating a closed curve, especially a circle, around a line that lies in the same plane but does not intersect it (e.g., like a ring-shaped doughnut).
Alexander Liebeskind (how sweet!) turns out such nice puzzles! It's just that they run out too soon... Uh-oh. I just spotted a Leftie Liberal mention of NPR...AND that Obama fella's name, as well. Alert the media! And what's this CMYK business? Is that the Russian alphabet??
@Mean Old Lady You missed the lefty Supreme Court justice. No worries though, I'm listening to Buck Sexton...a graduate of AMHERST College.
@Mean Old Lady Throw in ELENA KAGAN and it's *obvious* that NYT puzzles are a subliminal/overt brainwashing conversion ploy! "Holy smokes, Batman! Puzzledom has been overtaken by an evil conspiracy and we must save it!"
@Mean Old Lady CMYK refer to the colors of the four-color printing process, the most commonly used one: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and "Key"--which is usually Black, but not necessarily so, as DC likes to remind us: Sepia, for instance, could be an option. Until I was eight, my father owned an offset printshop. My memories are somewhat vague, but I can remember jars and jars of cyan and magenta ink.
We published this cute little guide to our community forums today and y'all are the OGs, so I wanted to make sure you saw it! <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/crosswords/gameplay-forums.html#commentsContainer" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/crosswords/gameplay-forums.html#commentsContainer</a>
@Elie Levine PLEASE create discrete comment threads for Strands and Letter Boxed! They have been overwhelming Spelling Bee for too long. Very annoying. Maybe in a catch-all for Other? Thank you.
Sanity check made me smile. It reminded me of the Marx Bros. routine about a "sanity clause" in a contract. We could really use some sanity clauses. LOL Enjoy the week !
That has to be the shortest Wordplay column I can remember seeing!
Now why in the world am I going to have to pay for a THESIS STATEMENT, SANITY CHECK and BUFFALO BILL? Let me ponder that provocative question for a moment. Oh, right, it's Monday -- a day when, more often than not, only one word in a two-word theme answer gets to be involved or relevant. Sigh. But, still, it's a graceful, grown-up grid with some very nice long Downs and nothing that's too VANILLA or STALE. And there's a lovely clue for SINK (11D). So as Mondays go, it's not half bad (pun intended). Addendum to the AIR clue at 61D: Well, at least it was. A tip to those not in the know: The thing I was told practically the first day I set foot on the Smith College campus is that you don't pronounce the "H" in AMHERST. It's pronounced AMerst. Say it right or get the side-eye from just about everybody. I thought this had a bit more crunch than the average Monday and I appreciated the lack of names.
@Nancy "I appreciated the lack of names." There were actually quite a few names: ROSA, MALIA, EZRA, NIKE, TOM, SIRI, ELENA KAGAN, IRA, EMMA, ADA. I think, like me, you knew them, so it didn't seem like a lot.
Just one glitch I struggled to find. I was a little uncertain about the spelling of Barack Obama's elder child and therefore not quite sure which way to go for 3d – the medieval French way used in the heraldic phrase 'fleur-de-lys', which the clue hints at (the name of a feew pubs I've drunk in by the way) or the modern French word for lily, 'lis'. I got it the wrong way round. Curses, but no great harm done except for the hurt pride in getting a not-quite-right on completion, on a Monday too! Grr! (Earworm of the day: Me and Bobby McGhee as rendered by Janis Joplin, in memory of the great Kris Kristofferson since we were talking about 4-letter first words in Country yesterday. Kris would fit well, he wrote some great songs that don't just work in a country idiom either. And lest we forget, a damn fine film actor too!
Buffalo is western NY. WNY. Not upstate!!! Otherwise great puzzle.
@Lad919 From where I sit, the rest of NY is all upstate, except for the rest of LI, which is out east.
@Lad919 Upstate is a direction, as Vaer has said. If you're in Brooklyn, Westchester County is upstate. If you're in Westchester County, you don't think you're really upstate. But most definitions of it start just north of Westchester and Rockland Counties (the first counties alongside the Hudson River north of NYC and NJ) and include the mid and upper Hudson Valley, and everything else to the north and west of it. Some definitions go farther north into the more distant northern suburbs of NYC before Upstate begins. According to Wikipedia: Upstate New York is a geographic region of New York that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area of downstate New York. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, the Capital District, the Mohawk Valley region, Central New York, the Southern Tier, the Finger Lakes region, Western New York, and the North Country. Major cities across upstate New York from east to west include the state capital of Albany, Utica, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstate_New_York" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstate_New_York</a> Western New Yorkers have a strong regional identity, as do those in the various other NYS regions, so they might not consider themselves upstaters first and foremost, but they are. The farther north and west you are, the less important an identifier it becomes, but there is no definition that omits those regions from Upstate.
@Lad919 I'll say this: I've loved New York City every time I've visited, and I'd love to visit again. And I've never found New Yorkers to be rude or offensive more than any other part of the country I've lived. However, I will say I would not put it past New Yorkers (city) to wave their hands and say that the entire rest of the state is "upstate". I don't know that they have a real sense of north, south, east, or west, outside of the midtown and uptown grid. But I really do 👍🏽 New York, both city and state.
@Lad919 This whole thread reminds me of that The New Yorker cover page by Saul Steinberg: “View of the World from 9th Avenue.” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Avenue?wprov=sfti1" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Avenue?wprov=sfti1</a>#
As a Ravens fan who solved on the drive home from yesterday’s game, I appreciated the cross of BUFFALOBILL with BOOBIRDS. Thank you for the laugh and the puzzle, Mr. Liebeskind!
Loved the shoutout to my adopted hometown at 27 Across! The colleges are why I'm here.
This was surprisingly tough for a Monday, at least for me. I had to fly speck my last error, the crossing of 13A and 2D. MArIA and ErENA are names too! (sorry, I don't know the names of the Obama kids)
A first today. I actually knew all of the people in the puzzle without crosses. I never remember which is the older daughter, but at least I could fill in _A__A at 13A and wait. Fun Monday.
@Nancy J. Oops, that sounded like bragging. It's just that I never know anyone, so I was shocked to see names I actually knew.
Having TORI and TORO intersect when I didn't know either word had me ending the puzzle by tapping every letter until I got to T and the lovely Congratulations screen and music played. Nice puzzle.
The only thing I’ve got this morning is a beautiful-sounding binomial for a beautiful-looking alga, prompted by a less-than-beautiful-sounding answer (which is likely not a puzzle theme pattern we will see any time soon). Acetabularia crenulata
@JohnWM For the life of me, I can't think what entry you are referring to, unless you're thinking of CYANobacteria, of which A. crenulata is not one. D. novaehollandiae
@JohnWM - Acetabularia is a very interesting genus of alga -- one huge, multinucleate cell. I never worked with them, but I marveled at them all the time when I was diving or otherwise working in their habitats. They're really quite beautiful. I have worked with other multinucleate algae, particularly siphonaceous algae. I used to rear sea slugs with very narrow dietary preferences -- each species of slug specialized on one or a few species of siphonacious algae, slitting open their cells with their radula and sucking out the cellular contents like drinking a milkshake from a straw. (Cue clip from There Will Be Blood here.) These slugs digested everything but the chloroplasts, which they then used to photosynthesize. Yes! Photosynthetic animals! The stolen chloroplasts are called kleptoplastids. Acetabularia may be one giant cell, but it is not multinucleate, which is in itself interesting.
We loved this one. It was not hard for us. Got the gold in short order. SANITYCHECK, could have been clued as a New Orleans team.... maybe, sorta, kinda. Thank you Alexander
Strands #211 “Words with weight” 🔵🔵🔵🟡 🔵🔵🔵🔵 I was definitely weighed down by this one. The second half was impossible without external help. *please, no spoilers before the fifth comment*
@sotto voce Today was one of the rare days when Strands expanded my vocabulary. Strands #211 “Words with weight” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🔵🔵🔵 I’ve never been interested in that subject, but it’s kind of hard to avoid learning some of the terminology.
Strands #211 “Words with weight” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🔵🔵🔵 I haven't had any interest in today's *thing* for years, yet I was able to recall the terminology. Another easy Strands puzzle for me.
@sotto voce Strands #211 “Words with weight” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🔵🔵🔵 This one made me seriously think about consulting a neurologist. Instead of breezing through guessing the Spangram right off I managed a single word then stared at it off and on for more time than I'm comfortable confessing. When I finally figured out the theme you could probably hear the forehead slap. It was a goodn'
From 804 down to 1, my streak starts over. Wish I could. 😢
@dutchiris I'm so sorry to read this! This morning I saw your post from yesterday - way too late to have been of any help. I take it the tech team couldn't get it fixed for you? It may be salt on the wound to give my advice now. On the off-chance it helps in the future (or someone else), with the caveat that my personal "rules" - and attachment to streaks - make this a possibility for me... If all else has failed, I pull up the solution on xwordinfo in another tab, and compare word by word! It's gotten me out of a jam, including yesterday's. 🙏
@dutchiris So, is that it? No explanation? No help? Please keep us updated on how this plays out. It's a first world problem to be sure, but it's still a problem.
I think I’m back to normal because something has been decided(I think) and am not using Word check or doing look ups anymore but I was 2 minutes slower than my average today. Emu
The “upstate” in the football player from new york clue was unnecessary.
Matt, True, of course, but this is a Monday puzzle, so the editors didn't want any misdirection. (Don't tell anyone the Bills don't play in Buffalo.)
@Matt Lololol…cheers my fellow long suffering Buffalo fan!
@Matt The next time I visit the the state of New York I intend to visit that one particular rest stop. You know the one... it's where they have the white line painted across the floor, with one side labeled "New York City Metopolitan Area," and the other side labeled "Upstate New York." You can get your picture taken standing astride the line, straddling the two worlds.
@Matt Probably true. As someone who doesn't know anything about football, having "upstate" in the clue didn't help me, and people who do know about football probably don't need the extra info.
Matt, FWIW, the last time I attended a Giants game, it was in New York. Also true for MLB Giants. ###
@Matt The biggest reason the clue didn't need the qualifier has nothing to do with geography: The only NFL player on a New York team that would fit in the allotted space is BILL. // As far as geography, though: upstate has many regions, one of which is Western NY. Says the poster who went to college in the Capital region...
I had never heard of the term "sanity check" before I started working as a software developer in 2000. Now I'm curious if it was a concept outside of development. I knew when I saw a debugging line is some code with a comment that it was a "sanity check" I immediately understood. I'd been writing FORTRAN forever, and I was familiar with the idea that sometimes you have to do something, and if that didn't work then your troubles were way worse than you originally thought.
@Francis Before today, I never knew it was a thing in the IT world! Guess we both need a sanity check!! Emus do too!
FWIW, I just noticed that the wordplay column is already up for the Tuesday puzzle. I think this is the first I’ve seen it this early, but perhaps a more senior commentator can confirm or refute this observation. — — — — — — — — — — — —
@Hardroch It has been a funny day in Wordplayland. A column goes up before the puzzle drops. At least we both got to be the first commentors this week.
BUFFALO BILL should have been New York State Football Player, since the Bills are the only football team NYS has.
Jill, You're late to the game! Scroll down for a replay.
It's a bit of a scroll, so here is a shortcut: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/426blu?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/426blu?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a> We now return you to your regularly scheduled emu.
I think I’m back to normal because something has been decided(I think) and am not using Word check or doing look ups but I was two minutes slower than my average today.
Four dupes in NYT/LAT: USE, ANTE, LUG,SMOG. Coincidence? Methinks not.
@Flyboy54 It's a coincidence - those are just fairly common fill words. As an example: In the history of the NYT crosswords... USE - 642 times ANTE - 1,177 times LUG - 114 times SMOG - 300 times It's gonna happen. ..
I'm just curious as there is more emphasis on streaks why there isn't anything about crossword puzzle streaks for either mini or main crosswords. Maybe I'm missing it but neither one of the apps include this number. The NYT app got a facelift today so I'll look around.
@Judith Fairview I solve in the iPad version of the NYT Games app. For the big crossword, when I complete a puzzle, I get a pop-up screen with a congratulatory message that includes the length of my current streak. And in the main screen in the app, I have a Stats link at the bottom that includes both my current streak and my longest streak. It’s been that way for years. Do you not see that information in whatever interface you use to solve puzzles? (There’s no similar information for the Mini.)
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