A collection of scientists using microscopes is a focus group. (Just let this one slide.)
@Mike That would be the ultimate zoom call. (This won't bear too close an examination.)
@Mike Take care when you focus not to bat an eye.
@Mike Those using electron ones are, " going nuclear "!
Got hung up for a while on POCKET HARD DRIVE, which is a term that I doubt anybody has used in the last twenty years and was never common parlance in any case. Otherwise the other themers were pretty fun.
@Shrike With the prevalence of thumb drives and SSDs, the size of hard drives has shrunk. From the days of platter-type drives that might fit in someone's back pocket, you now have multi-terabyte drives that can fit in a shirt pocket or any pants pocket. I haven't heard "pocket hard drive" used, but the term is consistent with the hardware size.
@Shrike I currently have a "pocket" hard drive, providing backups for my laptop. Wouldn't fit in a pants pocket though - needs something more like an overcoat pocket...
@Shrike Agreed. I have a portable hard drive, and it would fit in my pocket, but I'd never call it a POCKET HARD DRIVE. (I've now read the word "pocket" so many times that it doesn't sound like a word anymore. Pocket pocket pocket.)
I once thought that the growing use of DOULA in crosswords was evidence of recognition of our profession. As a solver, though, I realize it’s got more to do with vowels, and handy consonants. Nonetheless, I’ll take the win. We’re in good company, along with Alan ALDA and Felipe ALOU -- two of my favourite crossword personalities.
@Esmerelda Your comment made me curious, so I visited xwordinfo.com and learned that DOULA made its NYT crossword debut on January 2, 2012, with the prosaic clue [One providing nonmedical support for a woman in labor]. But now I’m somewhat less impressed by the wittiness of today’s clue, because the June 6, 2021, puzzle by Robyn Weintraub used [Birth day presence?]. Oh, well. A funny clue is worth repeating or tweaking every few years. And it’s a testament to the growth in awareness of what doulas do that constructors and editors are engaging in wordplay when clueing it.
First in a long time I have seen braille alphabet as a crossword clue answer. Grew up with a blind family member so I truly appreciated this. Got pocket immediately and had to get hard drive with a few downs and then fill in the blanks. Enjoyed this overall
Birth day party was delightful.
@Justin My first guess was "LABOR" -- it happens on birth day, and I was thinking it's the name of a political party (but in retrospect that would have to be "LABOUR").
@Justin My first guess was NURSE but then I thought I was really smart and changed it to OBGYN. On the right track but not quite.
Paging Captain Q. We need you at 6 Across. Nice one, Matthew and Brooke! It has SPARK and STYLE.
@Barry Ancona I smiled and thought the same thing when I saw 6A.
@Barry Ancona That’s funny. I thought of you when I saw B.A. in Communications.
@Barry Ancona He's probably too busy getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner with the fam. (Oh God, don't tell *they're* gonna be here, too!)
@Barry Ancona - Thanks for the call-out! I had a busy day today and, although I usually get to the puzzles in the morning, alas, it took me until now (7PM in the evening, to be redundant) to get to them. It seems whenever I'm later than usual getting to the puzzles, there is a CLAM-related entry!
Ahhhhh, PLOYS not PLOtS -- that had me hunting at the end, but since I've never eaten RtE bread, I figured it out....
This might be the first time ever, in four years of solving crosswords, that I breezed through a puzzle by Matthew Stock and Brooke Husic. I'm stoked! It didn't start out that way, of course, as I skimmed the clues and only got a toe-hold in the lower center, with RIO and DODO. And I just realized that it does indeed say something about me! – I do, after all, have a foot in (another) Rio, and I can attest to being a dodo sometimes (case in point, how I had almost finished the puzzle before I caught on to the gimmick.) I truly had a blast with this solve and how it seamlessly opened up. Thank you, Matthew and Brooke! You both are truly ICONIC.
@sotto voce me too! It seemed I had the same strategy.--Although the clue about the athlete had me stumped. My fastest time and now on a streak of no cheats for the week.
@sotto voce Brava to you my dearest lady! emu food more emu food and a few more sprinkles to get rid of the error
PhD in interaction design? PUSHHEREDUMMY
That was a fun puzzle but 3D is incorrect. Canada is NATO's largest member in geographic terms, which is the way I think most people would read the clue.
@Ed it’s one way to read the clue, but that doesn’t make the alternatives (largest by population, largest by GDP, largest by spend) less correct.
@Ed Canada didn't fit. I got it straightaway.
@Ed crosswords often try to misdirect you to a more “popular”answer instead of the less obvious, but still acceptable, actual answer. USA is an acceptable answer because it’s largest by population.
@Jared that would be most populous. These are word games after all. Accuracy is important. Canada is (a little) larger than the US but the US is (much) more populous than Canada.
One little quibble: Shouldn't the answer to the "Ph. D" clue consist of two words, the first of which starts with PH and the second with D? !!!! !!!!
We gave them the option to do it either way and they chose this way 🤷♀️ Hope you enjoyed!
@Steve L It's all wrong, no matter how HARD you try to make it work! It is the worst themer, agreed? emu food
I was on my high school MATHTEAM. We went to State! What a bunch a nerds.
@MFSTEVE You've come to the right place. A sizeable number of varieties are represented here.
@MFSTEVE Me, too. We were the Mathletes! (A less athletic group would be hard to find.)
@MFSTEVE Same here, but I left the math team for the far cooler chess club
Tough one for me, and must confess that I had to stop and ponder for a bit even after I filled everything in to entirely grasp the theme. No complaint - that's all on me. Puzzle find today - with my compulsive letter counting, it dawned on me this morning that: ITSRAININGCATSANDDOGS is 21 letters. And... it was an answer once. It was the 'reveal' in a Sunday puzzle from January 5, 2012 by Finn Vigeland with the title: "Weather report." The other theme answers were all downs, with scattered letters in them highlighted. A couple of examples (capitalizing the highlighted letters): CAblesItCOms - (CALICO) BrEAkinGtheruLEs - (BEAGLE) MAsoNdiXonline - (MANX) antiPERSpIrANt - (PERSIAN) Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/15/2012&g=66&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/15/2012&g=66&d=A</a> I'm done. ..
The plural of “lei” is “lei.”
@Susan Avallon In Hawaiian, maybe, but this is an English puzzle, and there's no indication that we need a word in another language. <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/lei" target="_blank">https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/lei</a> <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lei" target="_blank">https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lei</a> <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lei" target="_blank">https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lei</a> (The tamale trap rides again!)
@Susan Avallon MW, dictionary com, and Wiktionary all list LEIS as an acceptable plural form
@Susan Avallon can’t get anything past the Steves!
@Susan Avallon It's curious how the response to little corrections like this is never "thanks for pointing that out, I learned something today" but instead always a vigorous defense of the "legitimacy" of the clue/answer. Even though your original comment never even said anything about legitimacy one way or the other. I'm regularly surprised by the lack of intellectual curiosity in these comments. Learning how to be more correct isn't something to run away from. Anyway, thanks for the comment and the mini lesson.
Am I the only sailor here? To moor a boat has nothing to do with a dock. It's putting the boat on a mooring--one of those buoys you see out in the harbor. Putting it on a dock is docking your boat (and if you're a viking, you'd better dock it on the Port side, so you don't mess up your Starboard). This is the second time I've seen it misused in the NYT crossword. Enjoy doing this every day! It's a victory if I don't need a cheat or two on the wednesday puzzle.
SailorJoe, There are plenty of sailors here, but most of us also read dictionaries, where the lines cross (as it were). This is the Crossword, not Chapman.
@SailorJoe Both my sailboat and my stinkboat have mooring lines. (Or hawsers, if you will.) Last winter's ice carried off our buoy, so I had to moor the sailboat at the dock, until I could dive for the anchor line, and replace the buoy. Not fun, the water was very cold! But technically, you are correct about mooring vs. docking, per Chapman. (H/T Barry)
@SailorJoe thank you for saying that, I’m not a sailor, but I’ve been on boats, and I didn’t fill that in at first because “moor” just didn’t seem to fit the clue.
POCKET HARD DRIVE being like a flash drive? Or a floppy? Or a portable/external hard drive? Anyone calling something a pocket hard drive may be a DODO in the obsolete meaning of the word. Which also doesn't usually mean obsolete without "going the way of"
@Steven Why yes, I keep any number of portable/external things in my pocket.
@Steven Yeah, if you went into Best Buy in 1995 and asked for a "pocket hard drive" they would probably laugh, and then take you to the Iomega section. There were portable hard drives, but they weren't something you would put in your pocket - well maybe some geeks would. Isn't the best meaning of PhD, "piled higher and deeper"? :D
Maybe it's me but I've never heard "pocket hard drive" used (@barry a no need to post a google search -- I'm sure it was used somewhere for a brief time). But I think it would be better clued as "PhD in Human Sexuality"! :)
@Super8ing Indeed, why seek actual evidence when complaining about how uncommon something may or not be. Sam is surely correct when writing "Some people scoff at the idea of continuing their education as adults."
Looking at the top comments it seems I am the only one underwhelmed by the theme today. It would’ve been more fun if the abbreviations were legitimate, rather than made up. I rate this theme 1/10..
Anand, Whether you looked at the top comments or the bottom comments, I don't understand your comment. The theme abbreviations are B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. They seem quite legitimate to me.
@Anand The theme is OK, and the abbreviations are legit. The revealer is good. But I agree that the application of the theme in the three "degrees" is rather underwhelming.
The theme was somewhat underwhelming, IMHO. The BRAILLEALPHABET is at least a specific (and interesting) thing, unlike a MICROSCOPESLIDE or a POCKETHARDDRIVE (which I've never heard of, despite being a bit of computing geek). Frankly, today's Connections was more interesting. Let me it there.
@Xword Junkie Oops. I was so afraid of "spoiling" today's Connections that I failed to even write a sentence. Let me leave it there.
@Xword Junkie Pocket hard drive is just bogus, unfortunately. Portable hard drive, sure, but pocket hard drive is not a term that many people have ever used. I well remember when smaller 2.5" portable hard drives became more prevalent. These could arguably be called the first pocketable ones. No one called them pocket hard drives. And if the constructors were thinking of USB flash drives or something, well then I suppose they didn't know what a hard drive is? Agreed - all the theme answers today could have been better. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Xword Junkie Agree about POCKETHARDRIVE! That was a stretch to say the least. emu food more emu food
Done in by a one(a) two (d) punch. Great puzzle, very clean, very fun, just a bit of an evil way to start, something I’m sure was intended. Not that it mattered as thole was new to me, but it seems like it should be in between tholes.
Snorting Elk, Literally, 2D should be [...between tholes], but I've only heard "thole" (mis)used to refer to a pair of them, as in the clue's wording. See oarlock.
This one was a really good example of what I think I’ve said before—the puzzles seem to be getting easier…until they aren’t. I breezed through, loved the theme, and then got stuck in the sw corner on what was a little natick cluster for me. It seemed a very quick Wednesday til then.
@Crevecoeur I aim to do the Wednesdays without cheats. It's a matter of pride. But after a while, I quit being stubborn. I couldn't imagine the actor's role, and of course I spelled the Italian spelling of "Milan" wrong. Two cheats! But overall quite fun!
John DEERE dealerships are thick on the ground in these parts. My recent visit from brother Ric and his lady-friend had an entertaining moment (as they were exclaiming in shock that MS does not have a Trader Joe anywhere in the state) was the revelation that the population of Mississippi is 3 million. (Their neighborhood in NoVA is larger than that. Okay, I lied. It's 2.9 million. Having started down in the SW, I solved bottom up and had a few "What?" moments. Is there really such a thing as a POCKET HARD DRIVE? And how is "gets along well" translated into GELS, which I would have clued as "comes together" or "forms into".....? I guess I see it...dimly.... Well, on with the day! Likely to be late to the party tomorrow, as I have fasting LABS to start my day--woo hoo--followed by Annual Wellness, followed by a DexaScan, and somewhere in there a HAIRCUT. I hope I can stand the excitement. All y'all behave.
@Mean Old Lady I've heard GELS in the context of a collaboration, though usually as a singular verb ("We started off rough, but managed to gel by the deadline.") I agree that it's quite gluey.
@Mean Old Lady the GELS clue works when it's referring to people (e.g. "The team began to gel after getting to know each other).
Was the choice of BUY or paY a trap carefully laid at 10A? I fell right into it and had a hard time getting 10D or 11D immediately thereafter. My "pearls" looked for all the world like pOBA -- and I had no idea what that was. Also, when I obtain something from logic, I DEDUCE (30D). That blasted 2nd D made it look like the answer to the Tinder clue was going to be FIDO. Which was perfectly silly. But eventually I straightened everything out. I enjoyed the resistance of a harder-than-usual Wednesday puzzle and I thought the revealer worked. But I do have the sneaking suspicion that the idea for the puzzle occurred to the constructors first -- and that they then set about finding a revealer for it. (I have no idea whatsoever why I think that.) Anyway, a very nice Wednesday.
@Nancy Yeah, DEDUCE for me too, which had me guessing what kind of DEVICE a PhD might be. I also enjoyed the DEGREE of difficulty.
@Nancy PAY and DEDUCE at first for me as well.
@Nancy, Grant and Seward I never got to DEDUCE because I was being a wise guy and on the first pass through the acrosses I put in DATE for 38A. Once of the many nice misdirects in this puzzle. Really liked this one.
@Nancy I fell into the same two traps. Nicely stated. In keeping with the theme, I should say that was a PHantasticDissertation.
@Nancy I initially made the same error regarding deduce and Fido.
I liked this one a lot. It was witty! Didn’t take too long but very stuck in the Southwest and forgot James Baldwin was gay, but “as in” should have given me a clue to look that up! I try not to do lookups but in this case would’ve learned something. Grateful to Sam for AMEX!
In my print version the tractor tag line sat right at top center so I jumped in there and solved bottom up, including the reveal. Big mistake. Just like the DEGREEs my level of achievement diminished as I moved up and I did not catch on until I reached the first tier. Oh well, still good fun. Many thanks. Going to put on that Dylan song . . . . . . LEI LEIA LEIS.
Did anyone catch the concurrence of DEV and PATEL? Re: DOULA--if this word is questionable because of its etymology, it's not the fault of the constructor, who is merely applying a brilliant clue to what is now a common and tacitly accepted word. Rather, it is the fault of the culture that adopted it.
@RDJ I remember first hearing DOULA 10 or 15 years ago, and have a Facebook friend who went from being a lawyer to being a doula, but I didn’t know the etymology until now. It’s strange that the profession adopted that word. (And yes, it’s a great clue.)
Coincidentally, and aptly, my final entry was 29D If you can't get enough of Brooke's puzzles, they constructed yesterday's in The New Yorker too: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/crossword/2024/10/22" target="_blank">https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/crossword/2024/10/22</a> (The New Yorker one took me almost 5 minutes longer than this one, so perhaps a bit more challenging.)
@Bill in Yokohama Brooke Husic is one of my favorite contemporary constructors, though the puzzles she they puts on her website (they put on their website?) often have many cultural references that are far outside my experience. The Tuesday New Yorker puzzle was a nice challenge that took me almost twice as long as this one. It also took me longer than any New Yorker puzzle in the past few months.
Needed even more help than usual to solve this tough but impressive Wednesday puzzle .
Fun and breezy! Liked seeing DEV and PATEL snuck in the NE. Happy hump day! If I only had the CLAMs to take hubby out for a nice mid-week dinner. Meatloaf and mashed it is!
Great puzzle and according to the post solve note, my 100th consecutive Wednesday.
General post(s) theme: The puzzle was hard and fun. We agree and got a gold star for it. GAGA over the puzzle Matt and Brooke, thank you.
Nice Wednesday puzzle. The theme was clever and funny. I had my suspicions about 1A, and sure enough, there was no cake or ice cream involved. The "space buns" clue brought a smile. Only one lookup. This was a terrific contrast to Wednesday puzzles that are too difficult to be fun. Some tricky clues, but most of the answers only required general knowledge. Let's have more verbal music from Husic!
I was expecting to see lots of comments referring to this as more of a Tuesday puzzle. Breezed through this one, must have been on same wavelength today. Record Wednesday time and less than half my average time!
Great theme and a fast Wednesday for me. Any day after Tuesday with no look-ups is a bonus.
I call BS on this puzzle! But seriously....GAYLIT was a surprise to me, as I had assumed that James Baldwin wrote exclusively on matters of race. Maybe if I'd ever bothered to read any of his work?
@Grant - oof. 1) Baldwin’s prose is amazing 2) His honesty against the grain is his superpower. There was a gay bookstore in center city Philadelphia named “Giovanni’s Room”, after the title of a Baldwin novel. When there was no home, for many, Baldwin was home.
Since we don’t have a connections forum, I loved today’s connection. Had it once I saw “purple rain” and “yellow journalism.” I wasn’t expecting all of them to match up to the colors. that was quite clever.
@Red Carpet It doesn’t bother me because I have already solved Connections, but some people might not appreciate the spoilers. There *is* a forum for Connections: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/crosswords/connections-companion-500.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/crosswords/connections-companion-500.html</a>
@Red Carpet If you click on the Connections lightbulb, you will be taken to the forum! I never appreciate peple putting info (even "results") for other puzzles here. I will usually flag that entry as off-topic! So, behave, now! ;-)
I was a bit disappointed by the theme, the answers were rather random, I thought there might be something to tie things together more. It would’ve been cool if they all shared something or had to do with the word “matter” in A matter of degree.
Neil, Did you notice that the "rather random" answers were from fields appropriate to their respective degrees? i.e., BRAILLE ALPHABET and [Communications]?
This was a relatively hard Wednesday for me — it took 35% longer than average to solve. The theme answers came a lot more slowly than usual. Nice challenge.
Always amazed that DOULA is acceptable language.
@Ιασων I didn’t know the origin of the word. Here’s an interesting discussion about its continued use. <a href="https://healthlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Doula-Terminology-Issue-Brief-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">https://healthlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Doula-Terminology-Issue-Brief-FINAL.pdf</a>
@Ιασων Why? It’s not an uncommon word in my experience.
@Ιασων Judging by your handle, I assume you know Greek. By that standard, it's clear that you're an insider and know why DOULA ( not δούλα) might be problematic. This is indeed a case where I learned something I did not know before. But one might consider if that problem exists when δούλα leaves Greek and becomes DOULA in English. Words change their meaning and their etymology is forgotten in a new language. LATTE becomes a coffee drink with milk in it, and not just milk. German borrows our HANDY and SMOKING and they become their words for cellphone and tuxedo, respectively. Italian takes our FEELING and uses it to mean chemistry between people. As far as the connection to slavery goes, the Slavic people had better change their ethnonym, since that and the word for forced servitude are etymologically related. And Italians and all those who borrow their greetings had better stop saying "Ciao", since it's also related to servitude. And God forbid we refer to a "master bedroom" anymore. I'd better give back my master's degree, too. As to gender, words go from single gender to unisex and back all the time. MAN once referred to all humans, and still can (man's inhumanity to man). But we get caught up in gender politics and forget that words can have multiple meanings and conveniently lose sight of etymology when it's convenient to. Bottom line: Replace DOULA if you can, but most people don't find any problem with it because etymology only counts so much.
I completed the puzzle but had absolutely no idea what the theme meant until I read the wordplay article.
Well, I knew I was no longer trendy, but 62A proved it. Wish that could have been the column picture. Puzzle went very smoothly. Feeling chuffed at having plunked in the last 6 letters of the revealer straight off. But not so chuffed at how long it took to come up with the rest of it.
@RozzieGrandma If I could, I would share a picture of my sister-in-law, who’ll be 75 in December, throwing axes at a bar in Dallas. She and her partner are the only people who I know to have done that. I first read about it in the NYT five or six years ago (which probably means eight or nine years ago). The combination of alcohol and axes has always struck me as unwise.
Yesterday's fun and interesting subsitute teacher was replaced with yet another today...actually two!...an inspirig pedagogic team! Bravo et brava!! Look forwrd to your return!
I got hung up for a little while with NOTHING STOPS A DEERE. I was so sure it was the slogan for Trane, which manufactures HVAC products. But after getting the correct answer from the crosses I went to the Trane website, where it gives their slogan as It's Hard to Stop a Trane. Close, but no cigar. At least I figured it out.
@Times Rita Maybe you should take another look at the clue. It was [Nothing runs like a ___]. (My wife’s car certainly was able to stop a deer. Unfortunately, it also stopped the car, and we got it back a few thousand dollars later from the auto body shop. Thankfully, most of that was State Farm’s money.)
The Hawaiian language does not use "s" for plural words. Lei is used for one lei or two lei.
@Check Thank you for pointing it out. Here's a link to an earlier thread wherein @Steve L gives a nice explanation for the use of LEIS in the puzzle: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/42m3vg?rsrc=cshare&ogrp=dpl&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/42m3vg?rsrc=cshare&ogrp=dpl&smid=url-share</a>
Amused by 49A-- in my first fill I typed in GAY but figured it wouldn't be that explicit. One of the best books I've read, well deserving of a 5-star Goodreads review and homage in this puzzle.
Clever one. It took me a while to let go of DEBUT for birth day party!
TIL DOULA. and btw, PLOtS are also cunning plans even though RtE isn't an alternative to white or wheat. But my brain wouldn't get to RYE. Old brain......I hope the EMUs aren't hungry.
Bested some cruciverbalists. (That is my introductory assessment, based on the available crossword science.)
Generally enjoyed this puzzle, but despite being a person who reads a tonnnn of queer fiction, I'm not a fan of 49A. I feel like it's not really a term people use?? and it put two answers where you had to know trivia together and instead it could have just been GAsLIT and sALE and you still could have come up with fun clues for those and it wouldn't have been as esoteric.
Doula? I done learned a new word on a Wednesday!