Said one banker to another, "We were mint for each other." (They keep things interest-ing.)
@Mike How long have you been saving that one? (Just checking.)
@Mike If you wanted to recharge your sterling reputation, you could teller a thing or two!
@Mike I was going to criticize your CD pun, but I'll just leave it a loan.
TENDER GREEN KALE, DOUGH, CHEDDAR - it might’ve been a pizza in the making? Anyone else ever experience the hilarious situation where management decides to give the employees a pizza party instead of their deserved pay bump? But I got the right theme in the end, because Sid Sivakumar would never dream of doing such a lowdown thing, least of all with a kale pizza.
@Cat Lady Margaret Kale and dough definitely had me thinking pizza as well, especially since the largest commercial buyer of kale used to be Pizza Hut, for decorating their salad bar (or so I’ve heard).
@Cat Lady Margaret @Justin Keep your kale off my pizza!!! (And "tender kale" is an oxymoron!) ;-)
Sid has the chops. He has the chops, in his themeless puzzles, to clue at the highest level, with wit and guile. Today his skill in building a themed puzzle really shines. Look at what he had to do: • Find theme answers that would accommodate the pay bump words. • Because of symmetry requirements, three pairs of these answers had to have an equal number of letters. • That “bump” letter above the theme answer, greatly restricts what the vertical answer that includes it can be. • Theme answers had to be chosen and placed in a certain order to make the gray-lettered PAY BUMP happen. Sid made it work. On top of all this, Sid spaced nine NYT debuts answers pretty evenly around the grid, giving it pop. Terrific build. My fill-in included a big wow moment when I simultaneously saw and grokked the theme elements. It also included getting two out-of-my-wheelhouse long answers – FREQUENCY SHIFT and MOOD CONGRUENCE – which happified my brain on several levels. And I loved seeing all the long-o enders: EL PASO, BONGO, TITO, AMMO, OSSO, ECHO, DITTO, DYNAMO, EURO, and wannabe DITTOS. Thus, a splendid outing, as I’ve come to expect with Sunday in the box with Sid. Thank you, sir!
As someone who works in labor and delivery, “epi” would refer to epinephrine, not an epidural. Definitely not something we want to be giving in the delivery room. Furthermore, an epidural is not an injection, it is a continuous infusion. I’ve never commented before, but this clue was extremely frustrating in its inaccuracy.
@Hannah I completely agree that EPI is epinephrine. But just FYI for anyone not in the business of anesthesia: labor epidurals today are usually continuous infusions in the US and often are partially controlled by the patient—but that isn’t always the case. We still do single shot epidurals on occasion or place a catheter without a pump and just give bolus doses as needed. And of course we use the epidural space for anesthesia for other cases in the OR and for other treatments outside the OR.
@Hannah Agreed completely. Absolutely incorrect clue. (though I understand the attempt to use something other than ___pen. )
@Hannah We’ve been through this EPI thing before, and I think we can all agree (as BA has already pointed out) that while it is quite unlikely for medical professionals to use this term to refer to epidural anesthetics, there certainly are some (or at least one) lay person(s) who do(es) use it this way. The last appearance in the NYT xword was 7/29/2023 , by none other than Sam Ezersky , 33A [Delivery room offering, informally]. At the time a couple of people wrote in to say they thought it was shorthand for EPIsiotomy…..
Completely anecdotal but as someone who participated in online pregnancy and parenting forums, it was very common to see epidural shortened to “epi”. Often when people would type out their birth stories, they would say things like “at that point the contractions were so bad, I decided to ask for the epi”.
I've never heard anyone call money KALE before
@Hugh, Similar to CABBAGE, another slang term for money.
@Hugh You apparently don't hang out with enough gangsters, or you're not old, but you're not young, and you started solving the NYT puzzle after 12/28/21 which is the most recent time it was clued as money.
@Hugh You apparently don't have outlaws for friends or you're not old, but you're not young, and you started solving the NYT puzzle after 12/28/21 which is the most recent time it was clued as money. Reposted with minor changes to see if it will escape the filter.
@Hugh & @ NYC T: Legal tender for hipster foodies.
@Hugh Here you go: <a href="https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/co2onwi" target="_blank">https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/co2onwi</a>
@Hugh neither have i. It's not even in this video, <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSjMbt1Xh" target="_blank">https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSjMbt1Xh</a>/, which is about slang for money. I was expecting mulah at least to show up.
Hi Sid, Thanks for yet another remarkable construction (and fourth Sunday in a row). You were an MD/PhD student at Wash U for your NYT XWP debut on June 22, 2020. The puzzles have been great; how are the degrees coming along? Best wishes!
Barry, I appreciate the kind words! At the risk of jinxing things: it looks like my thesis defense will be in 2025, and then I’ll head back to clinics for two more years of medical school. I used to struggle to convey the concept of a “time void,” but the pandemic seems to have given everyone an idea of what that’s like. More or less, that’s a reasonable way to think about the timeline of an MD/PhD program. Thanks for checking in on me!
Enjoyed the puzzle, even if it took me a bit to figure out the relationship of the theme words (“Kale” threw me off). I have a minor quibble with 9D. EPI would not be used as an informal word for epidural (at least, I am assuming that is what it is supposed to be short for). In the medical world, “epi” generally refers to “epinephrine” which could be used in a delivery room, but not routinely.
KadyRN, I haven't spent much time in a [Delivery room], but when I have, I have heard an epidural called an EPI. (One more push and it was not needed.)
@KadyRN I've been to a lot of births, but I haven't heard epi for epidural. And the mothers who ask for it practically spell it out, in no uncertain terms.
@Barry Ancona Agree. Been there. Had that. ..epi prior to delivery of baby….who eventually came by csection anyway. The EPI referred to spinal anesthesia to lessen the pain . Was standard lingo at least in 1986….. Patient ( who was also a doctor)
ODESSA being clued as a city in Texas is a great example of why these puzzles can be very hard for a fluent but foreign English speaker with a lot of knowledge about the world. To me that is and always will be an Ukrainian city, featured in many European works of culture and in recent years, tragically, in the news...
@Andrzej For me it always brings to mind the song “Odessa” by Charley Crockett.
@Andrzej It seems that the Ukrainians would like their city spelled ODESA, as the two-S version is a transliteration of the Russian spelling. That's most likely why the puzzle uses its Texas namesake instead.
@Andrzej I can’t even count the number of cities and towns here that have names borrowed from the old world. And, sometimes, we mess with the pronunciation (not sure why). For example, Cairo, NY is pronounced CARE-oh.
@Andrzej Wait until you hear about Warsaw Kentucky.
@Andrzej Odessa TX is one of the cities where I have friends since I visited it on my American travels many lifetimes ago (i.e. the 1990s). So as soon as I had a couple of crosses it was a gimme. As for the spelling of the original Ukrainian Odes(s)a, the version with ss seems to ensure that it gets closer to the original pronunciation. Otherwise it might be pronounced "Odeeza" in English. Since Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet there's always the dilemma * Do you use a traditional transliteration, even if it is no longer considered politically correct or opportune? (E.g. Kiev) * Do you follow an official transliteration system even if it does not result in something that can easily be pronounced correctly? (e.g. Zelenskyy) * Do you use a spelling that leads a reader of the target language to get the pronunciation sort of right without having to overthink? (E.g. Selenski, the German transliteration of Mr. Zelenskyy). It's especially tricky when a traditional transliteration could lead to the assumption that ownership is disputed or illegally claimed. German-language media still use the traditional Russian-sounding Kiew (yep, with a W here), but have easily adopted Luhansk (over Russian Lugansk), Dnipro (over Dnjepropetrowsk) or Lwiw (over Lwow), even though the latter are all still in everybody's old high school atlas. Probably because it's much harder to change a name everybody knows than one nobody has ever heard.
@Andrzej I think Texas is a bit of a mis-direct for those who live in the states as well. I know there's a Moscow Idaho, and there's a Paris Texas. And yes, as Warren says, there are a ton of names here borrowed from the old world.
@Andrzej As a recovering Texan (I grew up there, but moved away over 30 years ago), I can give you a little insight about why it was clued to the Texas city. The twin cities of Odessa and Midland (about 20 miles apart) each have a population of just over 100,000. They are in sparsely-populated west Texas, and exist primarily because they sit in the center of a huge oil-producing region. They are awash in money, and one of the ways this has manifested is through obscenely-over-funded American football teams at their high schools. They have stadiums to rival large college programs, all the newest equipment, and a large staff of coaches, trainers, etc. The football games have become the cultural focus of both communities. This has created an epic rivalry between two schools in particular -- Odessa High School and Permian Basin High School (in Midland). This rivalry was used as the model for the fictional American television series called Friday Night Lights (so named because high school games are almost always played on Friday evenings). When the TV show became a huge hit, Odessa, Texas suddenly became known on a national level here in the States. So for American solvers, the way it was clued makes total sense.
NOONE was a gimme for me, but I thought it too obscure for most. Few outside the profession have even heard of Roderick Noone, although among the cognoscenti he is regarded as having been perhaps the world’s greatest juggler.
@Paul Turner I’m sure I am not the only one who used crosses to determine that assuredly NO ONE has done it. Thanks for the correction!
@Paul Turner Well, in fairness, few know of Noone since, along with his nephews Peter and Herman, he was a bit of a Hermit.... ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Paul Turner OK, are you yanking our chains? Is there humor that I’m not even getting here?
@Paul Turner I thought it was kind of funny to learn that Roderick Noone was actually born at midnighte. At least according to the burban dictionary.
@Paul Turner OK -- I just had to Google Roderick NOONE. I think it's the first time I've ever Googled a name and NO ONE popped up with that name! I had the _OON for a long time, then got the first N and it finally hit me. I have a son who juggles, and I've seen him do 4 or 5. But 15???? No One made perfect sense!
I enjoyed this more than most Sunday puzzles. And I really love Sunday puzzles! The cluing today was really fun. I can't tell you which I loved most because I just don't have that much time in a whole day. Every new clue made me laugh. I needed that laugh today, because I am also writing my mom's eulogy; her funeral is in a few days and doing the puzzles today was a nice break. In our family, doing puzzles together on a Sunday was a ritual while I was growing up. In later years, after she and Dad moved to Florida, I would sometimes call her to help me finish a puzzle. She would do them all, when she was younger...cryptoquotes, jumbles, XWDs, anything that came her way. I think she stopped doing them somewhere around age 98. Her eyesight wasn't as good. By age 100, I could still ask her to help me with them, but it wasn't the same. She lived to over 103, long enough to influence a few generations of word and puzzle lovers. So I dedicate today's win to her, because I suspect that somewhere, she was helping me with it, whether I knew it or not. Thanks Mom.
@Momerlyn My condolences. And kudos to Mom! She done good, if initiating you into crossword puzzle love is an example.
@Momerlyn Beautiful dedication to your mom. I'm so very sorry for her passing. I do believe she'll always do puzzles with you, by your side and in your heart. Always.
@Momerlyn This is a beautiful tribute. My condolences to you and your family. My grandma did all the puzzles in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and I remember the day we showed her the symmetry of the grids. I think she was 92 and had never noticed. You learn something new every day! I love reading references to families solving together. My dad makes copies of the local Sunday puzzles for my mom and my aunt (and me when I'm in town) so they can share in the experience. Keep on passing it down!
@Momerlyn I’m sorry to hear about your mother. She sounds like a wonderful person. My best wishes to you and your family in a difficult time.
Project GUTENBERG is a source for 74,000 free eboooks. I have found a couple of out-of-print books I wanted to read. The site also has audio books.
This puzzle was right on the money. It was an especially satisfying solve for me because I finished without any typos for once (after having to chase down three after struggling through yesterday’s challenge). I solved this one without paying any attention to the circles, and only recognized the monetary theme after finishing. The fact this one could be completed without any resort to “gimmickry,” while at the same time including some bonus wordplay and construction legerdemain, provided a little something for both of the two main classes of puzzle solvers. Here’s hoping everybody found something to like here.
As someone who spends his life in 'shallow pursuits', I searched for slang terms for money. My new favorite, which I had not known,is 'Dead Presidents'. (Note: I owe 'shallow pursuits ' to the comment today by Andrzej , in which he described a life of 'idleness and shallow pursuits', which I now plan to use in my obituary)
@coloradoz You have my blessing to do that 🤣 I just hope it won't be for many, many years! I must think of a Polish variant for my headstone 🤪
@coloradoz There's an excellent pub in Wilmington, DE called Dead Presidents. You can book the Oval Office for special events.
Satisfying puzzle, but not as much as watching the Dodgers crush the Yankees.
Sid Sunday! I was just thinking the other day that we haven’t had a puzzle from him in months. This was a smooth and steady solve. I caught onto the theme with GODDAUGHTER, and enjoyed the discovery of each PAY BUMP along the way. And I’m enriched by having learned some new phrases. I laughed at the “Turning some heads” clue. Fun crossing of I AM, I CLOUD, and AYE. Thanks, Sid. I eagerly look forward to the super mega!
Thanks for thinking of me, Anita. Glad you enjoyed the puzzle, and nice work picking up on the theme early! It might be another stretch before I have more puzzles in the Times. But the great news about the Super Mega is that it doubles as a crossword calendar for an entire year (if you solve exactly two clues per day).
Any puzzle featuring a FRENCH PRESS is an UDDER delight. I keep wanting to dook BE AT EASE to BE A TEASE. Nice job, Sid.
I started solving crosswords earlier this year. I started doing all the Mondays in the archives for past couple of years, then made my way down the days of the week. I am SO CLOSE to solving Sundays without lookups...there's always a couple each of the past few weeks. I was feeling like today would be the day, but FLUE and LENT TO tripped me up. ARGG.
@A.B. Very similar crossword solving history here. And I had problem with same clue today, did not consider that "let" could be past tense also. I have made through two Sundays without help but those took hours.
@A.B. FLuE and LENdTO tripped people up. FLOE and LENTTO are the correct answers. Fortunately Steven M explains it a few posts down and so I finally got the puzzle completed.
I had sis instead of SIB for the longest time. Couldn’t find the mistake, since I’ve never heard of the root beer. Lovely puzzle overall!
@Sonja [Fam member], or some variant, comes up fairly often, and almost always, I misread it as "farm member."
@Sonja I was stuck on the same square. Finally remembered the root beer brand.
A painstaking construction feat that adds nothing to the solving experience.
@obertb Wow that is harsh but not inaccurate. Similar to what I and others put a bit more gently. I still liked this puzzle though! ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
As always, once I realized that the tiny little circles didn't need to be changed or manipulated by me in any way, I solved this as a pleasant if less-than-exciting themeless. I then took a brief look to see if I could see what was going on without any undue effort. And, yes, with the help of the title I saw the KALE and the CASH and the TENDER and all the rest of it. Yawn. It would have been the exact same puzzle for me without any tiny little circles and without any money appearing at all. Am I the laziest person on the blog? The least curious? Don't answer that. But at least you can say that I'm not greedy or over-focused on money. I did think that the "Moved across the aisle" clue was world-class.
@Nancy We get it. You don't like circles. In this case, if you understood what might go in those circles, it had the potential to help you fill in those circled cells if you were having difficulty otherwise filling them. You had no difficulty filling in the circled squares without knowing their significance, but others may have appreciated the help.
It's so embarrassing to be probably the only person here who doesn't know this, but was it in "Police Academy 3: Back in Training" or was it "Police Academy 7: Yes, Seriously 7" that he invented the printing press?
@ad absurdum Actually, I think it was in 3 Men and a Baby. Unfortunately, they spelled his name wrong on the patent application.
@ad absurdum I think it was after he invented the Bible?
@ad absurdum It was actually during "Police Academy Goes Hawaiian: Book 'Em, Dano". 'Cause they needed some way to read perps their rights. /it was in all the papers /literally /he hated being typecast ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
Thanks to the puzzle constructor! I managed to solve this without any lookups or clues, and in that satisfying process have also learned many new things. I have heard of the GUTENBURG bible but didn't know they invented the printing press; RUMBALL sounds like something i'd love to try one day; and I was stumped for a few minutes at the end with SIs/sARQ. In my region, root beer is A&W, I wonder how BARQ tastes like compared to it. Very apt puzzle theme for near the end of the year! Inflation ain't kind, hope everyone gets a huge PAY BUMP!
@T gutenbUrg? The B in SIs/sARQ was exactly what i needed. THANK YOU!
@T At the risk of inciting an irrelevant discussion, I find A&W much superior to Barq’s.
@T A word about Gutenberg—I forgot whose list this was (maybe the History channel) but Gutenberg was named number 1 of the top most influential/consequential people of the millennia from 1000-2000, and for good reason. His invention sparked all kinds of changes in the world, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment. Before that literacy was very low and reserved for only the elite because books and scrolls were very expensive to make and own. One could argue that the invention itself was bound to happen one way or the other and by no means was Gutenberg the smartest or most creative guy who ever lived—but he came up with the printing press and it changed the world dramatically.
@T My husband makes very tasty rum balls. No baking required; you grind up walnuts and vanilla wafers (which may not be available where you are; they’re pretty bland straight from the box). Add some rum, some melted chocolate and maybe a little corn syrup. Scoop out spoonfuls and roll them up. Fini!
I enjoyed this puzzle but I never did figure out the secred coded message. I assume it has something to do with drinking Ovaltine, but it was too faint on my screen to make out.
For three beautiful minutes this afternoon, I thought Shaq had launched a bestselling root beer. Thanks for that.
Sad to say Sid that I'm not a huge fan of this puzzle. I thought your longest entries clues were awkward or silly, and too easy. A lot of the crosses were trite and stale. Plus the theme seemed irrelevant, like an afterthought.
@Dave S I thought some of the long entry clues and answers were challenging and original: ALASKA PENINSULA FREQUENCY SHIFT MOOD CONGRUENCE
I got my gold star after a very long hunt for my error. Still amazed I found it, and I think it's a legit Natick. At first I had astronaut MAy crossing CONGRUENCy
@Bill in Yokohama It's my understanding that a Natick is supposed to be an uninferable crossing. An E instead of a Y is not uninferable. That was my mistake, too. I just gave up looking for it and am a little mad at myself because I knew the astronaut's name was MAE.
Bill, I can see "many solvers" not being sure of the last letter of the term at 86 Across, but MAE the astronaut has been in the grid 14 times in the past five years. I think she should be in your orbit.
@Bill in Yokohama Thank God for our first responders. No, not firefighters etc - The Natick Police! 🚓🚓🚓🚓 🤣
Excellent Sunday puzzle ! Was definitely not expecting to see Trisha Krishnan feature in an NYT puzzle - that was a nice surprise :)
Gotta try BARQ's root beer now -- after adding 30 minutes to today's solve, it better be worth it!
@LBG Come to Hatttiesburg they sell it at the local butcher shop.
@LBG Just a heads-up, that unlike other root beers it has caffeine in it! It's my favorite, as far as widely available brands go.
Welp....I hoe Sid knows I love him and admire his works, overall, but this puzzle...meh. That was a lot of work (much use of the magnifying glass), and while the long entries were rather interesting--and probably debuts--, the other fill was not of equal quality. I am still cudgeling my brains to 'GET' 81A. Pedestrian clues/entries. Everyone who has heard of money referred to as KALE, please raise your hands.... I thought not. DITTO with CHEDDAR. (I was waiting for other cheeses...) And it's not the time shift...I managed it nicely, although my "atomic clock" hasn't quite adjusted itself. Okay, the pancakes are almost here....TTFN.
@Mean Old Lady Read my comment on CHEDDAR, below. KALE is close enough to CABBAGE that I wasn't surprised--what I was surprised by, was that the slang "kale" is as old or older than "cabbage," and not some 21st century rebranding, as I thought. Per OED, Sinclair Lewis uses it in *Babbitt*.
@Mean Old Lady Cheddar yes, kale no, for me.
I don’t usually come to the comments until I’ve gotten a star but I filled the whole thing in and checked it twice so here I am to find out what I’m missing. Sigh. They should give me a raise.
@Justin Hilarious that the post immediately before this one would’ve given me the answer had I managed to read it before posting, but thankful to T for the assist!
@Justin I had the same problem, but after scanning my puzzle and viewing the pdf a few times, I finally saw it. I had the name "Elle" instead of "Elly", and thus left the crossing word "denamo" instead of "dynamo". Maybe it's too late and I'm tired? One 'cheat' isn't bad for a Sunday. I figured out the 'pay bump' on my own, and it was fun.
The first "raised" answer I got was D(O)UGH, and I assumed that the raised answers were all going to be "things that rise." The second raised answer I got was KA(L)E, and I thought, "KALE doesn't rise! I guess they are just random words." It wasn't until I had finished the puzzle that I could see the theme of the raised answers, not to mention the PAY BUMP. This puzzle works in so many ways! Well done, Sid Sivakumar!
I've never heard of KALE as a synonym for money, and was sure that was what was holding up my solve music, but it turned out the errant squares were elsewhere in the puzzle. Cute theme, regardless.
Perfect pregame puzzle for West Coast Warriors fans (game on at 5 p.m.). I had a ball, but without the helpful crosses it would have been too tough to trip through so quickly (well, sort of quickly). A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, with a crafty mix of straightforward clues and tough ones. Thank you, Sid Sivakumar, for putting me in such a good mood. Just the thing for a Saturday afternoon! (Puzzle 19 sounds terrifying.)
@dutchiris What a nightmare that was! After being up as much as 31 points iin the 1st half, they barely managed to save it by 6 points in overtime. Oh well, the puzzle was a clear winner, and the Warriors won their game. What more can I ask?
Alas, after an hour of solving and a thorough checking, I could not find my mistake. LENdTO was a valid answer, and I could not think of TAG as the crossing. As for the theme, I don't like themes on Thursday and Sunday that make the solving easier instead of harder. In this case, if the shading and squares were not there, the solving would have been the same without the advantage of using the theme to gain extra letters more quickly
@Steven M. I enabled autocheck for many reasons, but the cross you mention was one of them. Not very fair, was it?
@Steven M. Same issue for me. Took a few minutes of staring at every square to finally figure out “it” referred to “tag.”
@Steven M. I had the same mistake. It was my last change to get the happy music. After I filled in TAG I thought "of course!"
In Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, you can buy tshirts bearing a map of the islands with the rest of the uk in a small box at the bottom. I wonder if something similar is available in San Juan.
Lost in the supermarket searching for SARQ’s root beer,
@Nitpicker Yes I saw the sib vs sis trap, and waited to fill in that third letter. Luckily I had remembered the BARQS brand after I had most of the letters. (Not sure won't eat my comment if I don't lengthen it a bit. Look here's another sentence that may not be necessary.)
Interesting way to introduce screwing. Are we getting more risque these days? Would have loved to see moolah, but no complaints - just some random thoughts on a fun solve and fine distraction.
@Min, MOOLAH unfortunately wasn’t possible, but an early version of the theme set did include THER(MOPLA)STIC -> MO(O)LA — which I thought was fun. Someone who solved an early draft of this puzzle also commented on SCREWING. I guess I should’ve anticipated the interest in this word … after all, it’s the only one of the six classical simple machines that effectively converts torque to linear displacement. Pretty special! :)
@Min It's referring to turning the head of a screw. Nothing risqué about it
Now I’m wondering if there’s a word for the kind of wordplay where a word like screwing is used in a way which is not risqué at all, but it still makes people clutch their pearls reflexively because they’re used to seeing it in a different context.
20A, just retriggered a memory of the best RUM BALL I ever had. Coincidentally, it was at Cafe Europa in Anchoage ALASKA in 1999. I think about it often.
How is this a theme?? I totally disregarded the circles and shades and solved in just under 20m. I'm not even going to review the grid to figure out the message.
@Michael You show 'em! I'm sure Sid will be devastated. You really pwned him!
If I were still working, I wouldn’t want to get a pay raise only to have it go back down. Might the theme have worked better if the synonyms/slang for money had been on a diagonal, rising continuously from the left to the right? I was also slightly put off by the overall grid design, particularly the large areas of black squares that isolate the NE and SW corners. But it was nice to see so many debut words, surprising as it is that no previous puzzle has had RUM BALL (betcha can’t eat just one), GODDAUGHTER, FREQUENCY SHIFT, FRENCH PRESS or CIVIC-MINDED. MOOD CONGRUENCE is new to me and nice to know.
@Eric Hougland Breaking the grid up so we get little leverage from our answers seems to be a key approach for the creators of NYS crossword puzzles. On many occasions I have had to slowly snake my way around to get some traction in a particularly difficult section.
@Eric Hougland That's a very insightful catch about the pay being raised only to then going back down! (Maybe it's a momentary high point before inflation eats at it again?)
Kale is a euphemism for cash? Since when? I'm pretty old and have never heard that. Lettuce and cabbage, sure. Never kale. Anyway, decent easy-going Sunday, and another classic "why did this bother to have a theme" situation. It didn't really add much and wasn't helpful in solving. For a while there I really wanted "device with a plunger" to contain "parachute" (the plunger being the person) but alas. Just like Caitlin, it just took me too long to get French press, even as I've been a regular user. Not much else to say. At least it had more verve and inspiration than yesterday's. Nice little puzzle. /not looking forward to the inevitable carping about including BLM, sigh ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@B -- [Device with a plunger] for PARACHUTE, what a terrific clue/answer! I'd love to see that out there one day -- it's never been used in any of the major crossword outlets yet. Et tu, emu.
@B What I found for kale as slang for cash was that it originated in 1902. I recall encountering it in that context is some gangster novel from the 1930s…possibly a Perry Mason novel, since I read a lot of those from that time period.
Mr. Sivakumar, you never disappoint, what with the high caliber of your puzzles. Every. Single. Time. Solving this one put me in the highest vibrational FREQUENCY, which is claimed to be the one of love. The misdirects pushed my brain out of its comfort zone, but were gentle enough for pleasant ahas. Oh, and the construction! Fantastic! As usual, I forgot to read the title until I was done, and so, despite the gimmuck not helping me with the fill, I was able to go back to the grid and take it in, admiring it, enraptured. I'll try my best to keep with me this lovely feeling you've provided as we head into a week of everyone everywhere holding their breath. Thank you!
Lol, it's come to my attention that auto-correct accepted my "gimmuck" typo. But there was nothing mucky about this gimmick! It might have been superfluous to the solve, but it was still a thing of construction beauty.
Okay... so THAT happened?! FWIW... I am a longtime NYT solver who started in print and moved over to digital during the pandemic. I normally only do Th/F/S/S puzzles. I don't monitor my streaks or my timings. And I enjoy reading this column and comments on occasion and used to dabble in Rex's world. This is my first comment ever... here. I enjoyed this one and finished it in one sitting. I regularly do the xword over 2 breakfast sessions. "Having said that..." I saw the puzzle title. And I saw the note about the shaded squares. I saw NO NOTE about the circles? So I went about my business and after a little (ok... a LOT of) trouble up in the NE corner... COMPLETED IT! I still had NO IDEA what the circles meant or how they played into solving? I then read the WORDPLAY column which confused me even further. And then read many of the reader COMMENTS. This occasionally at least reassures me that I am not alone... Sooo... different words for money? With each one getting a BUMP up on one letter by one row? Which I only saw AFTER. And which didn't help in solving? Hmmm... I have always LOVED the so called egg ZZZ tra hour of sleep the DST fall back gives me. But seem ZZZ I may have been sleepwalking through this pu ZZZ le? Am I even typing this comment? Some nambuli ZZZ t I am?! But fun pun the le ZZZ t!
@an egg ZZZ tra hour? Figuring out that there were different words for money certainly could have helped solve the puzzle because it would you another way to fill in a letter other than the given across and down clues. In order to know where the slang words for money were, you kind of needed the circles to tell you that something out of the ordinary was contained in the circles, since there was no explicit instructions that the puzzle contained such things.
@an egg ZZZ tra hour? (shrug) For me this was themeless. Oh, slang terms for money, with one letter raised up, Got it, great. No idea what the shaded letters were about and I don’t really care. I truly enjoy, or minimally respect the craft behind, many puzzle themes, if not a majority. But a themed puzzle where I can ignore the theme with no interference in the solve: I am totally ok with that.
What a slog. What happened to the fun, the delight, the joy?
At 59 A, why is AMA the solution to "Q&A format" At 81A, why is THE the solution to "Word following a comma in an alphabetized list" Thanks for any help!
@Francis DeBernardo typically, “The”, “A”, and “An” are not considered for sorting purposes to ensure the primary term is prioritized and easier to locate. Example: 1. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The 2. Catch-22 3. Great Gatsby, The
@Francis DeBernardo AMA, ask me anything, is a format of Q&A. Possibly for emus, too.
@Francis DeBernardo AMA = "Ask Me Anything" I suffer through leader AMAs at work every week.
@Francis DeBernardo If it makes you feel better I didn’t understand those either
@Francis DeBernardo I don't know if it's commonly used elsewhere, but AMAs are common on Reddit. They usually are titled along the lines of: "I'm (generally someone famous). Ask me anything! " Obama did an AMA while he was still president, and it broke all records at the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a frequent Reddit user; at least one of his many spontaneous AMAs was done from his seat on a long flight. It is a bizarre experience to be killing time on Reddit, see an AMA pop up, and find yourself seconds later cooresponding with, say, Cher.
Thank you! I was stumped on why "THE" was the solution for that clue, as well. I am certain I never would have figured it out. Thank goodness it was as short answer that completed itself.