And that, my friends, is how you construct a Friday puzzle
@Steven M. Meh. More like Wednesday difficulty for me, and I’m not a fan of the casual, conversation-snippet clueing that could be almost anything. Also, why the question mark for “high chair?”.
@Steven M. Agreed! Still, this Franco-Scot team has a couple of complaints: the Grand-Marnier clue was not grammatically correct and therefore made no sense to francophones, and Burns is NOT known as the peasant poet! The World Wide Wisdom tells me John Clare was, however. ??
Well constructed and very enjoyable. Had that great Friday quality of feeling overwhelming at first and it slowly whittles away to an excellent sculpted solve.
A wildebeest is an antelope. Who gnu? (Should've read "Graze Anatomy.")
@Mike The cattle get your tongue, even though you try to appear sheepish with these. You probably learned this watching a Rambo vid, eh?
Mike, Just checking the archives, to see if your pun is a repeat… Ooo! New!
@Mike My favorite pun of all time in a children’s book is when Llama Llama meets a particular animal friend for the first time: “What’s the gnu girl want to do?”
Now *this* is a crossword puzzle! I had so little filled in across that I just knew downs would come to the rescue. They didn’t. Then, sudden inspiration struck again and again until I was suddenly in the southeast corner thinking it was all over for me. Surely, FUR wasn’t the [bear necessity]. It was! I only knew NERFING because of a NYT Gen Z quiz (my kids aren’t big gamers so I don’t know the lingo). I feel like an absolute genius for this smooth solve. WHOKNEW? 🤣 AARP won’t get me yet! Unfortunately, I get exactly one day of this feeling because, like LSD, Saturday’s puzzle will surely change my perspective. I’ll return to my usual status of cruciverbal PEON. Welp, I have a HOTDATE with my electric blanket because it’s so cold. Adeus, as minhas palavras amigas!
LETSSAY I KINDASORTA KEPTITREAL. YEAHIMSURE.
This one felt strong, solid, had a classic feel – like it’s not going to be out of date anytime soon – and just had the stamp of quality. I never got the feeling that Robert’s priority was in impressing, rather, it was in making the puzzle a good experience for the solver. To me, there was just the right combination of resistance and openings, of ANGST and YEAH I’M SURE. Highlights for me: • The meta column one, which reads SPICY SAUCES, and with the clue for the latter word consisting of two spicy sauces. • The lovely answers WREST and WHORL. • The DOOK sighting of NOONES. • Post-solve learning that the horses in polo may play until age 18 or 20, and, according to Britannica, are judged to be 60- to 75-percent of a player’s ability. • The aha when the answer to [Component of many a trial] hit me. • After reading in Robert’s notes that he likes to make aesthetically pleasing grid designs, looking at his past puzzles, and being reminded of the melt-my-heart beautiful 7/22/23 puzzle design – worth a look, IMO. Robert, filling in your creation was a rich experience for me. I’m so glad for having done it. Thank you!
@Lewis PLACEBO was my favorite clue/answer today
This is the first Friday puzzle I solved independently (no Google, no dictionary, no thesaurus)! It is going to be a good day!
@BarbD Congratulations…that’s a wonderful feat.
@BarbD That’s great! (And not an easy one!)
@BarbD - Congratulations! Isn't that a great feeling? Good luck tomorrow!
@BarbD There was so little that Could be looked up! I loved the major lack of trivia -- no pop stars or 80's bands or football players. Thank you!
Whoa, who knew about ponies!? I think this'll really improve my polo game. All this time I've been playing on a lark. L'orange you glad I didn't say l'banana?
Lots of fun and unexpected things here. It looked impossible at first and then suddenly it was done. I didn't know NERFING but now I do.
Liz B, Same experience for me. Then I looked at the top of the column and wondered what would happen when I clicked on Today's Theme.
@Liz B It's quite commonly used nowadays to describe the changes made to characters, guns, abilities, etc. after patches or updates. And in case you didn't know, the opposite is "buffing".
The perfect Friday puzzle, and what a breath of fresh air. So it *is* possible to construct a grid without 20 obscure proper names. WHE KNEW? I breezed through it but it felt like there was a genie sitting on my shoulder this morning. Or rather, a jinni since the Quran is in the house today.
I enjoyed this puzzle and found it just the right difficulty for Friday - I solved it in my average time for this time in the week. BANC and SPITBALL were new to me, and I had to look up the four or so trivia clues there were (what a nice change from yesterday with its excessive 20+ proper nouns!).
@Andrzej A rare congruence of opinion. Sweet. :) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Puzzles like this make me grateful for the app, because this would otherwise be a two-eraser solve. I filled in maybe five answers in my first pass through, and I’m guessing three of those were later changed. But thanks to a lack of proper names and some really excellent clueing, I was able to wend my way through and earn my first lookup-free Friday gold star. Thanks, Robert!
Wow. I fell so in love with LATRINE for “Private watering hole” that it messed me up for a long time. Very thankful I learned “nerfing” (the hard way) from a recent puzzle…
@Joe P - Me, TOO! I had never heard of "nerfing" before the recent use of it. It feels good when we're rewarded for learning new words...
@Joe P I had planned to comment on [Private watering hole?] once I had waded through all comments. I didn't fall for the misdirection, but when "mess hall" and "mess tent" didn't fit, I held my nose and entered "lAtrine". Was happy to be able to change it to CANTEEN. ;)
A much better experience today. Here's the thing. Hard puzzles don't bother me. Tricky clues don't bother me. This isn't the easy-peasy syndicated crossword next to The Family Circus. But you can just tell when parts of the grid are forced, or when a computer might have helped put the grid together. Yesterday's puzzle had that problem, today's did not.
@Jamie Well said. Friday and Saturday are my favorite puzzles because they don't suffer from having to brute force a theme into the grid.
Sometimes surfing doesn’t refer to the Internet, and seniors doesn’t mean students! But trials aren’t always in front of a jury. Nice combination of straightforward and tricky, and I didn’t have a breakdown to end the work wk.
Where was the clunky fill? Where was all the crosswordese? What just happened? Seemed so sticky, but every single answer opened up two more. Loved the mood, and flew through this puppy so fast my tea is still hot. Thank you Robert. Happy Friday all!
The SPITBALLing I did in grammar school produced exactly zero bright ideas.
A very welcome and enjoyable crossword puzzle after yesterday's crosspropernouns puzzle
I know that I'm older than most solvers (78) and this puzzle took me back a few decades. I really enjoyed it! Really great!
Perfect Friday feel to me. Lovely misdirects that worked themselves out. 3D was my way into the grid. As a mother of three, I have definitely UNSNAPped my fair share of onesies 🤣 I completed this one last night following an unexpected evacuation warning alert. We are approximately 20 miles south of the closest fire (Palisades Fire), so we were confused as to why we got an alert. We walked out front and several neighbors had wandered out as well to see what was going on. We noticed a plume of smoke extremely close. One of our neighbors had a fire start in their kitchen while they weren’t home. Firefighters were able to cut into her roof and put the fire out within 5 minutes of their arrival. We got a follow up emergency alert that it was accidentally sent to the whole county but was only intended for the Kenneth Fire. It was completely coincidental that we had a fire so close to us. Needless to say, everyone was shaken up. I turned to the crossword puzzle as soon as it came out and it completely calmed me down in a way like nothing else can. So thank you, Robert Logan, for saving my sanity on an otherwise crazy, emotional roller coaster of a day. I appreciate you and all constructors out there for making each of my days just a little brighter 🥹
@Jacqui J, Thank you for the stark reminder of why I agonize for weeks spending countless hours putting each of these puzzles together. I am honored and humbled that I got to play a part in brightening your day during such trying times. You just made my decade. Glad you enjoyed the puzzle. Please take care of yourself and stay safe. Robert
Why the definitive L'ORANGE when you clue "un cognac"? That seems to go against some rules (conventions? Norms?).
@Søren Thustrup That clue was over the top in general. It required knowing both the contents of Grand Marnier (ok, my liver and I are familiar with it) and more than simply knowing the French word for orange itself.
@Søren Thustrup I agree, the clue should have read “le cognac.”
@Søren Thustrup Possibly they decided that having le in the clue and l' in the answer broke the rule of no word in the clue can be in the answer. Even though l' is short for la in this case, le and la could be seen as the same. But I agree, for me it would have flowed better.
@Søren Thustrup It’s un cognac a l’orange, somewhat like pie a la mode, where we wouldn’t say “the pie a la mode.”
Can't resist, in honor of 43A Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear; Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair; Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy-- Was he?
@RozzieGrandma Yeah. And how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
@SteveG_VA I never figured out the answer to that, but I always knew that a woodchuck could chuck woodchuck wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
RozzieGrandma, Maybe if he wuzzn’t fuzzy, then like Samson in a video game, he’d been nerfed?
Never thought I’d finish today’s crossword - think I got one almost certain answer on my first pass! Very satisfying once I cracked it though - enjoyed that one even if it did take a while!
My favorite part of today's puzzle was how "rolling source of entertainment," despite showing up at my door dressed up as P__TY_US, was somehow not "platypus."
Ha!! I also had platypus! I think they’re entertaining.
I was getting really grumpy with this puzzle as I stared at a nearly empty grid for ages - grrr, this just too difficult, obscure, blah blah... Yet when I finally finished it most of the answers are things I am familiar with. I was undone by the clever clueing. The fault was all mine, of course. Once again I learnt some new expressions - hit me up, pinky swear, on a lark (I only know FOR a lark) and one I could've done without knowing - spitball (eww). Every day is a school day for me here!
@Puzzled Brit @Andrzej mentioned SPITBALL as well; it's an odd idiom, and its provenance is murky, but it's very much in the language. As for the LARKs... apparently the two phrases mean the same thing, but "for" is more common on your side of the pond. I'm familiar with "for a lark" from the act I finale of Sweeney Todd.
I thought that was an excellent puzzle! Thanks RL! Was it hard or easy for me? Well, at first I thought it was hard, but I did not abandon hope. I had about half of it filled in and could not go any further. I took a nap. When I got back to the puzzle, the answers seemed to just fill in by themselves. So it was hard until it wasn't. I have posted more or less this same comment a thousand times. For those of you who get totally stumped by a puzzle, take Sam's advice, don't abandon hope. Just put the puzzle down, go do something else, come back later and for some reason your brain will have it all figured it out. One other thing. I live in Valencia, where we had the devastating floods a few weeks back and thousands of people lost their lives, their homes, their entire neighborhoods, so I may have some idea about how terrible the devastation has been in southern California. What can I or anyone say?
Nice puzzle. Very solid fill with no names or obscure trivia. The SW was tough for me because I entered PLEB for PEON, but everything else was smooth. My only gripes were its lower difficulty and high number of black squares. 8/10.
@George I too had PLEB before PEON — which I thought was sometimes used as a slur, but apparently not here, anyway? 🤷🏼♀️
I was misled by the "classic spelling"...I put in QURAN, which was more than No Help At All. I know we just saw that NERFING business, but it didn't really stick with me... AS A LARK misled me quite effectively for a good while. I also did my favorite screw-up, entering an answer in the wrong space--(both the wrong numeral and wrong direction! Now, that's real talent!.... Robbie Burns was BONNIE Poet, was he not?) I just refused to renew our long-time AARP membership because they have thrown in with United Healthcare to offer and advertise a Medicare Advantage Plan under their aegis--violating any principles or integrity that supposedly guided the Association.
@Mean Old Lady 26A is interesting, isn't it? I also thought it meant use the classic spelling for the holy book, but is that Koran, Qoran, Quran Qu'ran or what? Turns out it meant that "suwar" is the "classic" spelling for what translates as "chapter", more usually transliterated as "sura" in my (admittedly limited) experience. I was just getting used to the idea that those 19th century translators of Chinese had tin ears (it's Beijing not Peking!) and now I'm going to have to believe it of the Arabists too?
@Mean Old Lady Thanks for the AARP info. Will do the same.
@Mean Old Lady Amen! Quit AARP, too! They seem to promote a lot of products/services that are NOT a great deal to seniors!
@Mean Old Lady I just entered RAN and let the crosses take care of the rest.
@Mean Old Lady When I turned 55 -- 20 years ago -- and started getting junk mail from AARP, i asked them to take me off their lists, and they did! Never a peep since. Amazing!!
STONES "set in a ring" made me think of Stonehenge before jewelry. Clearly, I've been watching too much Discovery Channel.
@Grant That's what I thought too! Jewellery never occurred to me.
@Grant funny, I immediately thought of STONES but decided it was too straightforward and racked my brain for too long to come up with something punny, à la the usual for NYT.
Lovely. Yesterday used all the nouns that didn’t get through the sieve and today we got the almost pure puzzle. Thanks.
Nice Friday puzzle. Not particularly easy for me, of course, and did have to cheat a bit to get through it, but lots of nice 'aha' moments when I finally worked things out. And... a rare early morning when the puzzle was not my primary focus. On that note - a couple of answer history searches (and a puzzle find) today. First search was for SNOWING. Was very surprised to see that that string of letters has only ever appeared by itself - never in a longer answers. And... never in a Shortz era puzzle. And then - one 21 letter answer find led to a Sunday puzzle from January 15, 2012 by Finn Vigeland with the title: "Weather report." That 21 letter clue and answer: "Weather comment represented visually by this puzzle's circled letters" ITSRAININGCATSANDDOGS And then there were a number of circled letters in 6 long down answers. One example: (P)H(O)N(O)GRAPHNEE(D)(L)(E) Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/15/2012&g=66&d=A" target="_blank">https://xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/15/2012&g=66&d=A</a> I'll be out on the back porch. See you later. ...
@Rich in Atlanta A little update. Looks like we may be headed for over a foot of snow here today. Can't remember the last time that happened down here. As a former Yooper, I'm really enjoying this. ...
in re to 12A. In an old "Honeymooners" episode Norton mispronounces "polo ponies" as one word (emphasis on the second O). It then becomes a running gag through the show.
@R.J. Smith Yes, it gets into Ralph's head and he's ready to start the Poloponies War over it. This inspired me to rewatch a clip from the episode on YouTube, and it's the first time I've actually been amused by interruption by the inane ad warning "Five words you pronounce wrong before your brain starts shutting down..." The usually annoying ad could imaginably have been algorithmically prompted, based on appearance of the word "pronunce" in the video's comments, or it could have just been coincidental, as I've encountered the ad randomly before.
I don't get why so many people don't like proper names in puzzle answers. This one had proper names in the clues. What's the difference? Either you know that person / fact / definition or you don't. I'd argue that some proper names are more familiar than some words. I actually l like learning about people in puzzles. Yes, I, like many middle-aged solvers, have a gap in my knowledge of 2000s popular music, but I don't mind learning about it now. Like many of my nerdy colleagues, I don't follow American football, but it's probably a good idea to know a few of the major stars in the sport. This puzzle was a little tougher than the average Friday for me, and that's okay too! Cheers!
@Dave Munger The main reason I do crossword puzzles is words and wordplay and language, not trivia. I don't like it when proper names cross other proper names, or if there's a section where there are so many names that it becomes impossible to solve if you don't know them. If it's an English word I don't know, I'll try to memorize it. But there are aspects of the U.S. culture that really don't interest me (like your sports), so if it's a football or baseball player, I'll try to get it from the crosses and forget it immediately. And yes, I know it's an American crossword for a primarily U.S. audience and I'm not complaining, just explaining my likes and dislikes :) Trivia-heaviness is the reason I never do crosswords in my own language.
Veni, vidi, solvi
I like how he snuck a l’orange in there. A smooth puzzle, engagingly quick solve. Comments poll: If you think “whorl” should rhyme with “girl” hit Recommend. If you think “whorl” should rhyme with “moral” hit Flag, and select the reason of your choice. (I’m kind of curious to see if this comment gets pulled!)
@JohnWM In my dialect it doesn't rhyme with either. It has the "o" vowel but one syllable. Hey, is this another word like "orange" that has NO rhymes? In California-speak it's ORNCH but that has no rhymes either that I can think of. Whirl is what rhymes with girl.
@JohnWM Following up: is "moral" pronounced more like one syllable in Canada? I guess we emphasize it more down here. Or a least a certain ORNCH-haired guy wants to make folks think so. Though we shouldn't be giving him oxygen, should we?
Can’t believe the number of people who keep track of their times and even brag about them!!!! Mine was 21:07, today, in case anyone cares.
@Jon I pay no attention to times except on Monday. I DO see them, but none of them stick in my head. All I care about is my completion streak -- 1699, as of today.
@Jon I don't track (or than what the app tells me) or post my times and if I did, I would certainly not be bragging... they aren't great! ;-) But I don't typically see it as a brag when people do. I think it's just the way they share their excitement or improvement or as how they analyze their own performance.
@Jon Uhh, the game does that: keep track of times, that is. The Statistics are there; whether or not you look at / reference / share them is another matter. As for commenters discussing their stats (times, streaks, or whatever else), why assume they do it to brag?? Everyone comes to this community with their own interests, and speed-solving certainly is one of them. Personally I find those conversations rather dry -- so I just skip over them. No harm, no foul: no affront taken!
A fun and challenging crossword with difficult yet realistic clues. I really clicked with this one. Thanks, Robert, for an enjoyable puzzle.
Lots of fun language in this one. I always like WHORL. I also got along with the cluing. Lots of blanks at first like all Fridays but I was able to grind. Northwest corner fell into place first after replacing JUICY with SPICY. Then SWEDEN gave me a leg up in the northeast corner. KINDASORTA (which I really like) was a big help across the middle/southeast corner. A really lovely puzzle with hardly anything boring or that was a stretch.
@Todd I was certain WHORL was wrong. This reminds me I forgot to look it up!
Pretty sure that Friday and Tuesday this week were switched. Breezed through this one and Thursday as well. Still reeling from Tuesday.
@FH yep. Tuesday took me about 1.5 times longer than this one!
@FH For me it took 6 minutes longer than this Tuesday, which in turn took me as long as a Wednesday does, usually. I found today's puzzle to be properly Friday-ish.
@FH Me, too! 16 minutes isn’t a usual Friday time for me!
@FH this was an odd week. My Tuesday (nearly twice my average time) took about a minute longer than my Thursday (significantly faster than average), which took about 25 seconds longer than today (even faster than average).
@FH Tuesday was brutal!!!! Thought I’d lost too many brain cells Monday night!!!
Wow. This was a “I’ll never get it” that somehow came together. Good one. My music came with: “6:48 slower than your average.” Are they now only averaging since the start of the streak or something? In my case, I rarely make it through a week, So it’s apples and oranges. Should I say, L’ORANGE? I did enjoy seeing how I compared to me on other Friday puzzles.
@Jennifer The average that your current time is compared to is the average of all you gold star puzzle times for that day of the week.
@Jennifer “I’ll never get it” ‘s that “somehow come together” are the best. Well said!
Really pretty hard for me and a good Friday puzzle. Both halves of the top gave me some trouble, and the bottom wasn't a picnic either. Ultimately solvable, fair, and enjoyable. I don't think I have any nits to pick at the moment. Give me time. ;) I read the constructor note; I'll never quite understand why anyone cares what a crossword puzzle grid LOOKS like. It has nothing to do with the game. This puzzle might be the highlight of the week so far, except maybe that fine if misplaced Tuesday. Thanks. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@B Right? I also never pay any attention to the looks of the grid. I just care how long the entries are - which is a consequence of the layout. For pretty things to admire I look elsewhere. I suppose I understand how the grid itself could be if interest to somebody, but I don't share the sentiment myself.
@B I would have loved it if the diagonal black squares had a kink in them to match up with BENDYSTRAW.
@B In the other camp. For this puzzle, the first thing I noticed was the very pleasing grid. I simply admired it for a moment, then I was quite pleased when the fill was equally fun.
Once in a while the grid may intentionally represent something that pertains to the theme, so I can appreciate that. And sometimes it doesn't represent anything, but still may look unique or interesting to some, and I can appreciate that. Because of the symmetrical nature of the crossword grid, sometimes people think they see a swastika, but I cannot appreciate that being anything other coincidental. @B, @Andrjez, I guess I feel about pangrams the same way you do about how a grid looks -- it has nothing to do with the game.
Nice little discussion. Thanks, all! What bugs me about the esthetics is the thought that it may be depriving us of otherwise fun, juicy puzzle possibilities. I'd really find it hard to care less about "puzzle symmetry" than I already do. Just, why. Why in the world is that close to a prerequisite for an interactive word game. Combine that needless restriction with an urge to have the whole grid be pretty, and it's a true wonder we ever get a clever puzzle at all. I wonder what kind of good stuff we'd be getting if those conventions were lifted and completely discarded... Respect to the constructors, working with two hands and a toe tied behind their backs. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@B I never paid much attention to the look of the grid until I started commenting here. Now, thanks to the comments of those who notice those things, I find there’s an extra bit of aesthetic satisfaction in appreciating the patterns and symmetries in the black and white squares.
After two days of suffering (finished solving both Wednesday and Thursday the next morning - thanks, time difference, for letting me sleep on it without missing out on a gold star!), this felt like a breath of fresh air. A perfect Friday! Just the right amount of struggling.
@Turing Do you know that if you don't start the puzzle from today you can go back to yesterday and always still get the gold star? It's helped me keep my streak going many times....
LETSdAY, LETSdAY, ...... ok SAY. Guess which fill we labored over. Nice one Robert, thank you
Perfect Friday puzzle. Just challenging enough; fresh, clever ideas. Two quibbles. Don't we say "who knew" when we are surprised by some bit of information? I don't see it as a sarcastic response to the obvious. And I don't think "spicy" has the negative connotations that "salacious" does. Also, just one day without a gaming clue--please.
"Don't we say "who knew" when we are surprised by some bit of information?" Teddy, Yes we do, but we also say WHO KNEW as a [Sarcastic response to an obvious statement]. (The clue is not the only clue that would fit the answer, but the answer certainly fits the clue.)
@Teddy I’ve seen and heard “who knew” used both ways, although I agree your interpretation has been more frequent. I picture the sarcastic version coming from someone seething during a meeting after someone louder than them has just repeated their idea without attribution.
As many others have said before me, this really felt like a “perfect” Friday puzzle. Beautiful grid, clever and challenging clues and fill. Thank you, Robert Logan! Thanks also to Sam for yet another excellent, relatable column. Sam’s fresh and thoughtful commentary is, for me, often the perfect complement to any puzzle, regardless of difficulty or day of the week. Extra credit for humor and humanity, Today, the three B’s: breathing, blinking, and breaks…my solving experience in a nutshell.
Wow, feeling genius as I cruised through today’s puzzle! Although, Tuesday’s puzzle seemed like a Thursday and Friday’s was like a Wednesday, but Monday was like a ….. Regardless, it was fun to dominate!!!
Nice puzzle--a fun solve that paid (more than) fair returns on the opportunity cost of the time spent with it. Rather the opposite of yesterday's, I'd say.
47D [Start to work?]-- Once again, the Hegemony of the nine-to-five. My "weekend" this week has been Wed. and yesterday--hence my greater presence on Wordplay. So it was Thurs. night which filled me with ANGST, thinking "How the hell will I get the cheesecake baked, cooled, cut, and plated before dinner tomorrow?" Managed to get the puzzle done in the few minutes I have to sip coffee before this PEON sets off to make the SAUCES. Ciao, belle!