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 Thank you, thank you Nancy, for passing this on….so many of us are so relieved. Hang in there Lewis! — — — — — — — — — —
Nancy, Thanks for reposting in today's Wordplay comments (for those who didn't see it in yesterday's comments). #####
@Nancy Thanks again for posting the update on Lewis. Glad to hear he's doing OK amidst the chaos and destruction.
@Nancy Oh, thank you for this! Have been traveling and had only enough time to complete the puzzle but not check comments. Lewis is the only one I *know* in Asheville, and I’ve wondered and worried. Looking forward to his return here.
I felt like I got left hanging with the whole homonym angle - I expected the “typos” to be cleverly acknowledged in the revealer. Maybe “cryptypo” zoology? Overall a fun Tuesday and I since I got the theme early I had the satisfaction of filling in the themed clues first.
@Julia THIS is a brilliant fix to make it clever instead of cringe!
@Julia It makes sense if you think of them as false sightings. Something that looks like Nessie, but then turns out to be a log, might be a NESSEE. All the theme entries end with something like "never mind," letting you know that the cryptid spotter may not be the most reliable witness.
@Julia I’m with KE on this one, that would have been the perfect way to elevate this puzzle to a whole new level. The old POW or Tuesday of the year, perhaps. Could still use the same 15 x 15 grid, just a little reworking on the center and east couple of rows. Thanks for this great suggestion!
@Julia that would be brilliant! I'm an enthusiast of all things ooky spooky. A homophone makes enough sense for Nessee since the clue acknowledges the mistaken identity, but the rest of the clues are quick fleeting sightings typical of a cryptid. Having typo worked into the revealer would have made the remaining clues add up. As is it is, it struck me as an "oh, we're just spelling the answers wrong, huh?" theme.
@Julia You could argue that the "ypto" in "cryptozoology" is a typo of "typo"!
@Julia Perhaps 38D could have been clued in a way to relate to the theme?
I thought my friend would listen to the cryptozoology podcast. Yeti doesn't. (You knew I'd be kraken a joke.)
@Mike It ain't nessiesarily so....
What is the point of misspelt monster names embedded in the theme answers? Yes, they sound similar but since they aren’t real words, they aren’t homonyms either. Would’ve been more interesting to embed the correctly spelled names.
@rajeevfromca I believe the nod in each clue is the “I thought I saw…” type ending. Did you really see Big Foot? Or was it actually BICFOOT, which is nothing really?
Agree that homonyms for the theme answers was very underwhelming. I think it’s because usually when there’s something a little off about a puzzle, you learn it’s because of some clever wordplay you missed. In this case, it’s just because the constructor wanted to hide Bigfoot in the puzzle and couldn’t figure out how to do it without fudging his goal. Meh.
For some reason the use of homonyms for the concealed monsters left me a little flat. I actually caught on to the trick at the first themer and guessed that none of the others would be spelt correctly, so it didn’t slow me down. What did slow me down a bit by making me get the dreaded “something’s amiss” message was having isayno and ene instead of ISAYSO and ESE, which actually could have been right. It was a perfectly fine puzzle, but just not my cup of tea.
@Marshall Walthew I got a chuckle out of the misspelled monsters, but that same crossing annoyed me for the same reason. This is probably one of those rules that doesn’t actually exist, but it really should be possible to pick the right answer without just guessing. Or if there is a crossing that has two good answers, it should be considered correct both ways.
Love it. Combines cryptozoology (from kryptos - Greek for hidden; the study of hidden animals) with cryptology (or cryptography; the study of codes -- and how to break them -- i.e. the study of hidden words): hidden animals/hidden words, put 'em together and you have this puzzle! That's a laugh, Bill Nye as the true north crowning entry of this grid: he's been a lovely debunker of pseudoscience and promoter of actual science, so I bet he'd grin to find himself enthroned atop a puzzle of cryptid seekers, and Igor, of course, cryptid-adjacent. Well, off to the gym. We're working with a trainer who usually gives uS A SQUAT CHallenge. Wait! Did I just see a huge dude covered in FUR walk by? Nah... While I'm out of my hotel room, I hope they make my bed. Wait! Does that woman doing a CIRCUIT in the pool have a fish tail?? Nah, I guess it's the chamBER MAID.
Ah, the legendary CUBICFOOT. This is a European species closely related to another high-mountain dweller, the Dahu. We have many of these noble animals in my part of Switzerland. They are quadrupeds who have evolved with two legs on one side of the body shorter than those on the opposite side. This asymmetry allows it to move in great comfort around a mountain. Unfortunately, only in one direction. Hence, two types of dahu exist, the laevogyrous, or lefty, dahu and the dextrogyre, the righty. I believe, in a prehistoric evolutionary sense, they are also closely related to an American bird, the snipe, and are hunted with much the same technique. This evolutionary correlation between bird and animal can also be observed in my own favorite pet, the emu. For those of you interested in adopting a specimen of one or another of these wondrous species, I highly recommend the excellent Fiona Bowron’s « How to Keep a Werewolf: And Other Exotic Pets Which May or May Not a) Exist or b) Eat You. » Wondrous puzzle. My cryptid and I thank the constructors heartily.
@Rusty Wheelhouse You are a wonderful additiion to the Commentariat! I will pass this to DHubby to read, as my reading it aloud (as I often do with humorous comments) would temper the fun of seeing ths spellings!
@Rusty Wheelhouse Bravo. This comment is so, so, much better than the puzzle itself. Thoughtful, crafted, and funny. The top and bottom of the mountain must be quite the sights of dying, mating, and spawning. I imagine the two species of necessity must do a binary switch between generations... ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Rusty Wheelhouse Thank you for this wonderful post! The Dahu was completely new to me and I think I will look up the title you suggest. TIL the manner in which to capture one of these creatures: “…to catch a dahu requires two people: one with a bag, and another who is good at imitating dahu sounds. The former stands at the bottom of the slope, and the other behind a dahu. When the dahu turns around to see the source of the sound, it will lose its balance and roll down the slope to the person with the bag.” (From the wiki entry). Priceless!
OMG, they're ALL spelled wrong!!!!! What a dummy I am! I was so flummoxed by BICFOOT, couldn't replace that C with a G no matter how hard I tried, so I came here to see what Rex had said about it. Was there perhaps an alternate spelling of BIGFOOT? Yes, I had noticed NESSEE, not NESSIE -- and was going to complain that they'd chosen a "less familiar and less accepted" spelling. It never occurred to me that NESSEE wasn't a spelling at all. KRAKIN and YEDI sort of sailed right over my head. Did I pick up on the deliberateness of the misspellings when I saw the word "pseudoscientist" along with "sightings" in quotation marks in the revealer clue? Ah, but that would have taken something resembling actual intelligence and Today I Am An Idiot. This puzzle has it all: Enormous originality, terrific humor, and for me, a much-too-long-delayed "Aha Moment" that blew me away. An irresistible candidate for Puzzle-of-the-Year.
@Nancy Doh! I missed the typos in the clue and kept trying to add TYPO into the word…
@Nancy totally agree, this might be my favorite puzzle all year. I’m totally baffled by the number of people who don’t get the joke here—this puzzle is brilliant!
Ah, the power of wishful thinking. You see bicfoot and want to believe you've seen BigFoot. This was a fun one, thanks Kevin and Jeff. Helene left me without power for 3 days and without internet for another day past that. No AC, no coffee in the morning, lots of tree branches down, lost some roof shingles, lost all the food in fridge. But blessedly, no lights ruining the night sky. Exceedingly fortunate that we only caught the edge of that storm. Some tornado damage in the county, but not the disastrous conditions that most of Georgia suffered.
Hopefully,,I’ll be the first to comment on the Tuesday puzzle, almost 12 hours before the puzzle is set to drop. Seems this is a tough week for the wordplay column, but that seems to be a pretty regular occurrence in these parts. I can’t really comment on the puzzle yet, but will just add my thoughts in support of Lewis and his Asheville friends and neighbors, we all have you in our prayers.
I loved the puzzle. Despite what others might say, the homonyms make sense in that a cryptozoologist looks for something they is there but actually doesn't exist, like the words might appear to be the mythical creature but actually aren't. Hiding in plain sight! Well done!
So many people not getting the theme... It seemed pretty obvious to me, and super cute. They're false sightings, that's why they're spelled wrong. The idea of a hairy monster with cigarette lighters for feet cracked me up. "No no, that's BICFOOT. He's not mysterious at all."
@Katie Oh we got the theme. It's just not very good. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
YIPES! Not a lot of love in the comments today. I thought it was a cute idea. Just like the person who used to cut my husbands hair who frequently thought she saw BIg(G) FOOT at her camp (and had photos to "prove" it), you could read CUBIC FOOT and think you saw BIg FOOT. It worked for me.
@Nancy J. Its hard to tell if the majority liked or didnt like it, since the negatives are more likely to comment.
I loved this one! I'm still relatively new to crosswords and this was a no-lookup-Tuesday for me! I'm always pumped when I can achieve that :) I thought the theme was super cute
@Lara Congratulations! Stick with it! You’ll have no-lookup-Saturdays sooner than you think!
@Lara You're on your way to Saturday solves! About a year ago, I guess, I was happy to get a M-W with no lookups, but I only took half-hearted stabs at Friday and Saturday. Now I generally get them, but am sometime blindsided still. It wouldn't be fun without the possibility of "failure".
The monsters’ names are just spelt wrong. Doesn’t make sense.
I spent forever flyspecking my mistake. Compass direction could be ESE or ENE, as the cross because I SAY NO works just as well as I SAY SO. Both should be acceptable as it works in both directions.
@DocP thank you, I was mystified what was wrong
Absolutely baffled by most of the Reader's Picks comments for this puzzle. I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was incredibly well-constructed. It was fun filling in the shaded portions, then realizing they were purposefully misspelled. The [SIC] and COPYEDITOR in the southwest quadrant especially felt cleverly cheeky. One of my favorite puzzles in my 3 years of completing NYT Crosswords!
@Michelle Kim Agreed, this is a best of the year for me. Icing on the cake was the Napoleon Dynamite reference (Nessie, “our underwater ally” anyone?”). The comments section today revealed how humorless so many solvers in our evidently are!
I kept waiting to see the JERSEY DEBIL appear, from out of the Pine Barrens. Left disappointed.
@Grant I missed seeing Champ and Memphre, as well as my favourite, Ponik, who resides in lac Pohenegamook ( on the border between Québec and Maine).
2 years of (89% of the time) completing the crossword. After 1 year, I had yet to complete a Friday or Saturday without lookups. So I set myself 10 goals for year 2. 1-7: Bring average daily times below a certain time, personal to me - all achieved 8-9: Complete a Friday and a Saturday with no look-ups - achieved. Maybe not as often as I would like, but that's ok. Some weeks I can fly a Friday and get nowhere on Saturday. Next week can be the opposite. It is getting easier though, I think! 10: Construct a crossword - far from achieved, but attempted at least. Grid design is a complete bafflement to me. Kudos to all who do Goal for year 3: Continue to enjoy :)
@Ciarán Congratulations on achieving so many of your crossword goals. And good luck with the others. You’ll get there! If you haven’t read Patrick Berry’s “Crossword Constructor’s Handbook,” it’s $10 well spent. <a href="https://aframegames.com/store" target="_blank">https://aframegames.com/store</a>/
@Barry Ancona. I laughed out loud after a few minutes of struggling to understand 10d (Against the rules). NO TOK, what the heck is NO TOK? Then I was reminded of the crosswordese knowledge you recently shared on being DOOKed. Did others DO OK with 10d or did others feel NOT OK about the clueing to NO TOK? My wife thinks it’s funny when I chuckle to myself while doing the puzzle. Thanks to the puzzling community for providing humor to my day.
Never has the "Congratulations!" message been less satisfying. I "finished" the puzzle before I felt ready - the apparently correct answers looked wrong. Just a lot of work for what felt like a non-sensical theme that was not worth the effort. But I "solved" it !?!
28A (AREEL) is familiar to me as a word which Spelling Bee doesn't accept (joining a long list of words which are frequent or at least occasional crossword entries, but verboten as far as Spelling Bee is concerned). Per Ralph Waldo Emerson, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," so I've decided to embrace it as a lovable quirk of NYT Games.
@RichardZ Spelling Bee, eh? It seems like for the purpose of the crossword you can slap on an "a" prefix to almost any word, but Spelling Bee shudders at the very thought. Also, I keep trying to enter carrack, midden and liana from time to time, hoping those words were added to the word pool but no...
@Helen Wright don't give up! Galangal was added at some point, I remember when I half heartedly tried it yet again and it worked!!
I still don't understand why the theme words are spelled wrong! Is it because you just think you see them but they're not really there?
@MB That seems like the best explanation, doesn't it. After all, Nessee is as real as Nessie. Or maybe it's just because the constructor SAYs SO... [Emoo]
@MB Yes, I guess the quotes around “sightings” are indicating that what we think we are seeing isn’t really there (as confirmed by the misspellings).
I immediately plugged in CRYPTOZOOLOGIST when I saw the revealer clue, but when I started getting the theme clues and saw they were misspelled, I was sure I’d have to revisit that and change it to CRTYPOZOOLOGIST to acknowledge they were typos. I was surprised when the victory music played when I entered my last letter without going back to that. Upon reflection, it’s obvious that the joke is meant to be pseudoscientists seeing things that aren’t really there. The scare quotes around “sightings” should have made that clear to me. Now that I understand the theme, I like it. However, a minor edit for clarity to something like “false sightings” or “disputed sightings” would have made the theme much more legible and probably avoided all the comment section grumbling.
@Lauchlin CRTYPOZOOLOGIST is fantastic. That definitely should have been it. But I thought they were pretty clearly clued as false or disputed sightings with the “oh, never mind” and so on.
@Lauchlin CRTYPOZOOLOGIST would have been so delightful! Would have made it feel so much more intentional!
Having worked in the industry, I’ve encountered BICFOOT many times. Someone steps on a cheap pen, it breaks, ink gets everywhere. Terrible mess. It’s an experience that will literally leave stains on your sole. I’m hoping for an October with as little unwelcome chaos as possible. Take care everyone.
I asked myself “why are the cryptids spelled wrong?” a) They are creatures studied by a “crypto crypto zoologist”. I mean, loads of people have seen a Bigfoot, but who has seen a Bicfoot? b) It’s a commentary on cryptocurrency, which is, um, faker than fake… c) It’s Jeff Chen’s ploy to get us speculating amongst ourselves, while Nessie and friends take over society.
Assam is in Northeastern India, not northwestern.
@Apurv You are correct. But I am willing to cut Elie Levine a little slack. The Wordplay column is not her regular gig, and I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t have a COPY EDITOR.
@Eric Hougland Having lived in the midwest until his late twenties, my husband knew east as "toward New York." It took a minute to adjust after we moved to CT.
It is quite rare than I can enter a spanner without any crosses, but today that was the case. I typed in CRYPTOZOOLOGIST before I actually had any of the themed entries - basing my guess on the clues themselves. I learned the word from the amazing PC game Disco Elysium, a visual and narrative masterpiece with some of the most amazing world-, story- and character-building I have ever experienced. Before I got that far though my heart sank when I saw the first themed entry was sport-based. Would they all be like that, I thought with despair. Well, no, but... imperial units? Oh dang! In the end though the puzzle was easy enough to complete, if not particularly quickly, for a Tuesday. No lookups needed. It's just a shame the homophone part of the themed entries had no revealer.
@Andrzej great game! Takes a certain personality to enjoy it since it is literally just text but the atmosphere and writing are superb
62A is wrong it’s said 5 times in the chorus not 4 and that really threw me off.
@Ev Well, by definition, if it's said five times, that means it's also said four times but... Nah, I think it's just a mess up.
@Ev Said once, then REPEATED four (more) times. So just like the clue says, repeated four times. Your comment made me smile!
@Ev "That really threw me off" keeps making me laugh (laugh laugh laugh laugh).
Stumped by ZEE because here, we go by ZED. Otherwise, good one - always happy to see Jeff Chen in the list.
@lioncitysolver I have learned over the years of filling in the NYT grid to remember the many different US ENG/ENGLISH ENG variations in spelling and pronunciation. It still catches me out occasionally when I forget to drop a U (colour/color) or transpose ER (sabre/saber). I’ve spent many frustrating minutes tracking my errors, knowing I’ve got the clue correctly but not seeing the spelling. Zed/ZEE is one of the few I do seem able to recall at will.
After scanning the comments: Thank you Nancy/NYC for the update on Lewis/Ashville NC. Glad to hear he and his family are safe. Excellent fixes suggested for The revealer: CRYPTYPOZOOLOGY The clue: [Pseudoscientist investigating "siteings" . . .]
@John Carson After reading more comments and thinking about it I'll amend, possibly emend "fixes" for "alternates". Still a good puzle.
Fun puzzle, but the misspellings were pointless.
@Matt They weren’t pointless. You just missed the point. (See all the parentheticals in the clues.) For what it’s worth, I didn’t think this was the cleverest theme ever, but that doesn’t mean the misspellings were pointless.
I thought this theme was really clever. I didn't really think of them as homonyms (mucKRAKINg not pronounced the same as Kraken) - just that the words were false sightings, typical of cryptozoologists: I see Bigfoot! Nope - it was just something resembling Bigfoot but actually explained by something else.
@Michele This was my take, too. The first cryptid I found was "YEDI" and it definitely slowed me down and made me do a double take. I ended up really liking that this puzzle created that "seeing a shadowy figure in the distance" reaction as part of the solve.
My reactions solving- Nice! An early-week that requires some effort! HOORAH! Wait…that’s not how it’s spelled… Uhh..that’s *obviously* not how it’s spelled… Is there a rebus I’m missing? Not sure I like this one… Finished, got the gold star. Went back to look and realized I was *seeing*things that weren’t actually there!! Yay! Mispelings fer tha winn!
@CCNY Actually, US Marines are known to shout HOORAH to express enthusiasm. (In the Army, it's HOO-AH.)
Ah, thank goodness for the commentariat. I was pretty annoyed with this one until I read other puzzlers' explanations: The theme clues are not homonyms as much as false sightings. The qualifying language in each theme clue and then the scare quotes around [sightings] in the revealer all point to it, but I didn't get it (at all) until I came here. Not sure if that makes the revealers insufficient, the puzzle extra clever, or me extra slow! Whichever way, this was for me a puzzle enjoyed primarily after the fact.
A copy editor isn't a professional proofreader. I know because I was a professional proofreader once upon a time. I was lukewarm about the theme until I read the comments that made me realize we're all "seeing things" in this puzzle. A visual pun makes more sense than misspelled homophones, and is much funnier.
@Pat 100%. I've been both—completely different roles. Surprised to see such a silly mistake.
@Pat When I worked for the Texas Legislature drafting legislation, we had legal editors whose jobs included copy editing. We also had proofreaders, whose main job was to make sure that the final document matched the marked-up draft sent to the document processing division. Those were very different jobs. Both groups saved me from making mistakes many times.
Pat, Reading proofs and editing copy are indeed two separate activities, but since The Times overall is falling short on both, I no longer expect the Crossword to make the distinction.
@Pat - I second that emotion. I really loved my time as a proofer, as I was born to the task. I can look at a page of text and point out the errors without reading it. (The same inborn talent made every word search puzzle a yawn for me.) And boy-oh-boy if we ever, ever, ever questioned an editorial call? “Off with their heads!” Proofers see; they are not paid to think and get in trouble if they do!
I’d like to vent about Vertex being dropped.
This didn’t slow me down because I had the cross already, but YIPES?
@Jared In the few years since beginning the NYTimes crossword I have learned to leave that center letter blank until I check the crosses lol!
I agree with those that find the themed answers annoying. It's not funny enough to make me like it.
Sorry, I didn't like this theme. Purposeful and outright misspellings under the guise of them being "cryptic" seems fake, phony, and also lazy. The ham-handed workers clue was fun though. Now to read the comments. ;) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@B Just got to the comments and yours is the first I'm reading. Totally agree with you.
@B This is the continuing evolution of the NYT "crossword" into the NYT "word game". Evidently crosswords don't generate new subscribers like games.
@B The DELI clue is pretty good. Perhaps it will make Lewis’s list next week, assuming things are closer to normal in Asheville then.
Clever and fun theme, but not a Tuesday level puzzle for me. No surprise, as I am finding this the case more often than not. At least I didn’t have to turn on Auto correct. Always nice to see Jeff’s name.
Nessie is of course alive and well, and visitors are welcome to come and see her frolicking in the loch. There's a charge of course, for the hire of the special binoculars you need to see her properly. Available from street vendors in Inverness and Fort Augustus. Nessie is a problem for the endangered wild haggis which inhabit the woods on the quieter south-east shore. What is this LDEASTS of which you speak??? (Only kidding!)
Thanks to author of the Cryptid Catcher and the Cryptid Keeper, Lija Fisher, today’s revealer was easy for me. I got nessee thanks to Stephanie Myers of Twilight. So honestly this puzzle read more like a literary fantasy theme. I found it interesting and fun.
@Megan Wow! I went to college with Lija! I’ll have to check out her books.
“Rather than running through the clues in order, I start by filling in what I know.” I don’t get this. How do you know anything without running through the clues? Do people actually just look at the grid and know the answers without reading any clues? And if not, then are you trying to say that you just read the clues randomly and not in any order? (“Hey, let’s try 25D. Why not?”)
@kkseattle I can explain what she means, because I sometimes do the same thing. Rather than enter in any guesses, or spend any time on decoding trickier clues (ones with wordplay or requiring a modicum of thought), you skim quickly through the clues (in order) and enter only answers that jump out at you as absolute gimme’s (for example, from today, [Bill ___ the Science Guy]).
I was perplexed by the misspellings, but overjoyed to see my alma mater show up. A little love for WASHU, the Harvard of the Midwest (or so they said when I was applying back in 1989). Go Bears!
@UCCF I always thought Harvard was the Washu of the East!
@UCCF I just noticed, perusing recent college football schools, the the University of Washington is now referred to as WAZZU. (Akin to Missouri’s MISSOU). !!!!
Fun puzzle except for the words being spelled wrong. That seems like cheating on the construction to me.
@NMarie I agree completely. If the closest you can get to your construction goal is to change its spelling, and you find you can also do that with other similar words, does that make a theme for the solver or just a fun exercise for the constructor? It didn’t feel fun to solve.
@NMarie The incorrect spelling of the words was the point. In CUBIC FOOT, you are imagining BIG FOOT, just as these creatures are imagined.
I don't know about this one. I figured out the theme pretty quickly and filled in the shaded boxes with the actual spellings of the cryptids which, predictably, caused a lot of confusion. There wasn't anything inherent in the clues that the spellings of the cryptids would be different which it seems could have been done in the parantheticals. Feels like the author really wanted to do this monster hunt theme but couldn't quite figure out how to make it fully work.
@Eric very strongly agree - if there was a revealer referencing mishearing or misspelling, this *might* have worked, but as is, it just confused and frustrated me.
@Eric I've not read the comments here yet so maybe there are better explanations but once I realized that 57A had the word "sightings" in quotes, I thought that was part of the revealer, along with the parentheticals. I originally thought it might be a rebus. Anyhow, I think they did figure out how to fully make it work. Just a tad sly!
Just feel like saying this: Probably all of us are baffled when people can't see what we can see clearly. Funny, though, that we aren't all the same and don't see the same things. I was once told that that was the power of diversity, bringing together different perspectives and making the group/team stronger as a result. p/
Renegator, A thoughtful post! I suppose the problems arise when we see different team boundaries, and different monsters that we think make us stronger. …and disagree which side of the cage we’re on, in this cryptozoo. :)
What fun! Congrats Kevin Curry for a wonderfully wacky Tuesday grid. Great clues and fill throughout. Thrilled to see Jeff Chen again. You are missed!
@Great Lakes Hi! Seems like forever since I have seen you here! Welcome back!