When I got the idea of the trick, I just treated the letter U as a pocket holding the thing in the clue, and it worked fine. No elaborate rebus-entry required. I guess it was a kind of rebus, but I just thought of it as a cool Thursday twist.
@Dave S When I didn’t get the chime I went back and replaced the Rebuses with the original U and viola! Kinda fun and mock Rebus! 😉
@Marcella. Since it is a double rebus, if you enter both components they need to be separated by a slash. U/KEY etc. otherwise KEY or U etc should work.. possibly a sneaky little error in one of your rebuses.
@Dave S That is how I solved it, just imagining the items in the Down clues.
@Eric Hougland I also just entered the U and thought I might get away with it. I just considered the down items to be in a pocket and therefore out of sight.
@Dave S I did the same. My reasoning was that one would never enter a rebus that was already explicitly stated in the clue. The revealer also demanded U's, not rebuses.
"Wait, where do I put my keys in these pants?" "Come on, it's not pocket science." (These puns are jean-ius.)
Mike, When you thought of that pocket joke, I bet you had a smug lint in your eye.
@Mike Quite often we read your puns and think to ourselves, "This guy needs a belt...."
At long last, this puzzle reveals the reason behind one of the incomprehensible irritating features of some store-bought clothing: LADIES’ PANTS: no pockets!!!
@Cat Lady Margaret That and the random sizing system that varies from store to store. And the fact that in SML sizing for things like athletic wear what used to be a medium or even a large is now a small.
@Cat Lady Margaret Fashion advice for men’s pants: Don’t use the pockets. That’s a rule I frequently violate.
@Cat Lady Margaret Thank you! There are designers who apparently think we don't want them. Hear this, designers: you are wrong! RIP Liz Claiborne, who designed stylish, practical clothing for working women. The pants had nice deep pockets.
Cat Lady Margaret, I think I’ve heard that sometimes WOMEN’S PANTS may have two pockets, but they’re really skinny and practically useless. True?
@Cat Lady Margaret Actually I read a book by the name of Pockets that goes into history of pockets and one of the things it touches on is why women’s clothes don’t have them. I know it must sound like a pretty boring book but it was really quite interesting
@Cat Lady Margaret this may get buried here, but I'm reminded of Catherine Tate's first appearance on Doctor Who, in what was supposed to be a one-off, The Runaway Bride. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXNCuB4o0lE" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXNCuB4o0lE</a>
@Cat Lady Margaret I won't buy pants that don't have pockets. The real problem with women's pants is that they assume everyone is the same height, no matter how big around they are. Why do men's pants come in waist/length and not women's? LandsEnd catalog is the only place I can buy pants for my 34" inseam need.
This is the first time I've ever had to spell JODHPURS, and I got it wrong. I've read it multiple times, I'm sure we all have, but I've never written it down before. Not often I get many firsts at my age. Oh, and fun puzzle too. Love the graphics, they nicely revealed the theme which I had entirely missed. (I've had better days...)
@Dave S As I’ve already mentioned two or three times, this seems to be an issue among this solving group! JODHPURS!!! (Or just call them riding pants.)
@Dave S I was certain I had JODHPURS spelled incorrectly. I have never heard of the word before, nor seen it written down.
@Steve L. As a former rider I had riding pants but always thought jodhpurs were a special form of riding pants. The thigh portion was flared out to the side in the pictures I’ve seen. I’m no expert so someone who knows what they’re talking about might chime in here in case I’m wrong.
@Dave S after I realized what pants had to fit, I used Google as a spell checker by typing in a weird set of letters that could only resolve to JODHPURS
I was buoyant after coursing through this high-quality feel-good creation. OMG-SO-CLEVER. • Coming up with the idea that the letter U can represent a pocket. Where did that come from? Genius! • Going from that to a puzzle whose theme is items in pants. What a leap! HOW-DID-HE-DO-THAT? • Finding four types of pants that not only contain the letter U, but contain lengths that fit the requirements of symmetry. • I don’t ever remember a rebuts puzzle where I didn’t actually have to write the rebus or its first letter in, where I could simply imagine it. Is that not expanding the envelope or what? Plus, a grid so junk-free that it makes me calm just to look at it. Sweet cluing – I loved being misdirected by [Matches or watches], where I was thinking nouns, not verbs (Hi, @Deb!). And lovely serendipities. A backward SERA, echoing that answer from yesterday’s puzzle. The cross of WOO and a backward AMOR. Not only was I buoyant after solving, but I will be buoyant again when I see your name atop a puzzle, David. Thank you for a splendid outing!
@Lewis Wouldn’t this be a “rebutts” puzzle? Sometime in the last few months, we got a rebus puzzle that I solved when I was sleepy. Like I did with this one, I completely missed that it was a rebus puzzle and just imagined certain words in the grid. I too am looking forward to David’s next construction.
Maybe things have changed since I was in the Army, but when I was in uniform, the mess was where you ate; what you ate was "chow" or "Army food." Particular recurring items had their own names, such as "SOS" for chipped beef on toast. Also, elemental sulfur is odorless; the stinky stuff is sulfur compounds such as mercaptan and hydrogen sulfide.
@Fact Boy My mom used to make SOS, although of course she never called it that. When my big brother came home from the army he almost choked when he served it for lunch. My mother never knew the term, but the rest of us loved it.
@Fact Boy not trying to be argumentative but if the hall in which the meals are eaten is the mess hall, then the meals eaten therein must be mess (and merriam-webster agrees). Maybe you’re describing the more modern usage versus how it was used originally?
@Fact Boy I think there might be a slight odor to elemental sulfur, owing to reacting with oxygen to form tiny amounts of sulfur oxides, some of which are really smelly. But true, what is being smelled is not the elemental sulfur.
@Fact Boy Yeah - 'on a shingle.' I guess I was in the minority but I actually enjoyed that particular dish. At least it was better than C-rations. ...
Ingenious puzzle, its construction must have been a pleasure. Happy cluing. The theme, once you figured it out, lost a little of its "aha" vibe each time, but there was much joy and liveliness about the whole affair that the easiness is more like breeziness, in the best sense of being uplifting. What a puzzle should do: lift spirits. Fete accompli! This puzzle is sibilant with esses. An astonishing number of plurals, plus words like sass and oasis, let alone "says so." If Louis, that old poppa-doppler or whatever he calls himself, can enlighten us, or some other logotician, as to which puzzles had the most esses ever, I'd bet this would be in the top ten. Great to have Jason MOMoa and teen DADs in this puzzle. Maybe a little wave from the constructor to his family, which, if I remember, were all great puzzlemakers, like our version of the Flying Wallendas. Well I'm glad Mr. Steinberg is still willing to griddle one up for us. A nice little pick-me-up after another day smelling the odor of sulphur reek ever more pungently. Who's in whose pocket?
@john ezra Not to nitpick, but "fête accomplit" means accomplished celebration. You are looking for the idiom "fait accomplit" , which means mission accomplished or it's a done deed.
Nice to see David put in an appearance with a very David Steinberg Thursday offering. I hope U were up for it!
Brilliantly conceived, though that’s par for the course for David Steinberg. Ahh, BIG LOVE next to TABERNACLE: well played, David, well played. As someone who grew up at the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon, I came of age—literally, geographically—smack dab between the two.
@Sam Lyons Not to make you jealous, but I’m at the Silverfork Lodge in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We’re on the highway side, so it won’t be long before the stream of cars heading to Brighton and Solitude starts. If it’s any consolation, the snow is hard, hard, hard. I heard that nasty scritchy sound on trails at Brighton that are usually powder runs. It’s still fun, though.
Ooh! A extra little dopamine hit after the music! We get to see what's in those pockets! What a fun puzzle.
@Catherine I wish I could edit and change "A" to "An".
Great "aha" moment, well done!!
This was brilliant, I thought, as finished the puzzle. That's when I went to the byline. But of course - David Steinberg! Genius idea and what a great ride this was. ............................................ Another great ride was the 1996 JETTA manual VR6 I used to have. Many good memories of driving it, but for one: I was crossing a Portland bridge at night, when suddenly I saw one single headlamp in the rearview, coming at me at the speed of light. I got so spooked that I stepped on it to get to the other side and onto the highway as fast as I could, where I intended to let the crazed motorcyclist hopefully pass me by and be on his way. When I got on the highway, he got on the same lane and came up right behind me! And that's when it came on, that darned red light spinning round and round. I pulled over. "Why were you speeding?" "Because I was being chased! Oh. Wait. That didn't come out right, officer. Sir. Um. Uh. Let me explain..." ............................................. Thank you, David, for a fabulous puzzle. Please don't stay away too long!
@sotto voce I took myself for a ride on this one. I knew 4 D had to be GOT O PEN. So, I figured pants that held a pen were CAR PEN TERS, popular when I was young. That took me awhile to walk back. Speaking of BLUE JEANS (were we?), here’s the beautiful Americana I used to block out the Ugly Americanism elsewhere yesterday. Did you ever get to see Carrie Rodriguez or Jimmy Dale Gilmore when you were in Texas? <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f5HIkroOk14&pp=QAFIAQ" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f5HIkroOk14&pp=QAFIAQ</a>%3D%3D
@sotto voce I loved my 96 Jetta too, it had the road feel of a BMW. Thinking about your story do you remember if the motor officer was wearing jodhpurs? Yes folks this once was common for motorcycle cops; maybe some still wear them. I think they now call them breeches though.
@sotto voce Thanks for that story. I’ve been lucky and haven’t been stopped for speeding (or anything else) in decades. One time I pulled up to a traffic light to turn left just as it turned red. I knew from experience that I would sit there for a few minutes while the light was red and that no one would be coming from the other direction, but that as soon as the light came on for an unprotected left turn, a lot of traffic from the other direction would reach the intersection. So I made my left turn on a stone-cold red light. Too bad I didn’t see the police officer who was right behind me. He was justifiably a bit snarky with me: “Just couldn’t wait for it, could you?”
Fantastic puzzle, even without a pocket full of posies. Surprised at today's unfamiliar-to-many word. I don't always wear pants, but when I do, I prefer jodhpurs. Stay THIRSTy, my friends.
@ad absurdum Once more unto the breeches.
Wonderful puzzle! I take my hat off -- and pull my POCKETS out -- to puzzle maker, David Steinberg. I think it would be difficult enough to come up with four kinds of pants that have a U in them. And then to structure the puzzle in such a way that each U can hold something that we actually put in our pockets. So clever! Can't get enough of Mr. Steinberg. Make us another one soon!
I’ll put myself on record for loving rebus puzzles—and anything tricky! This was one a charmer.
I knew there would be a lot of opinions today! I'm throwing in with the happy people. Put that in your pocket. 😊
Oh wow, I did this without lookups and in 17 minutes, too (that is, Wednesday time) - this would never have happened a year ago, when I was stumped by almost any Thursday puzzle. It's nice to see I'm making progress. That was a neat trick - however, even though my grid is filled and I see the graphics, I still don't understand the sports thing or know the title of that HBO show: I entered U/[down ending] rebuses in the other themed squares but in these two cases I got away with just the U. Had the theme been implemented differently - for example, requiring rebuses in all squares, I would probably have failed to complete the puzzle.
@Andrzej The HBO show was "Big Love". It was a TV series about a sort of "outlaw" branch of Mormonism that promoted polygamy. I watched it all, and my skin crawled almost every minute of it. The combination of smug religiosity and sleazy corrupt church politics, including the effective prostituting of young women, turned my stomach. But it had some great actors in it, including newcomers like Aaron Paul of "Breaking Bad" and Amanda Seyfried, as well as old faithfuls Bruce Dern, Harry Dean Stanton).
@Andrzej In either version of football, basketball, hockey or a variety of other sports, when a defender is guarding you and you have managed to move a good distance from him or her so you could receive a pass, you GOT OPEN. (I assume that’s the sports thing, right?)
Re: Jodhpurs. My daughter in law and I were discussing the puzzle. My ten year old grandson joined in with the observation that if his friend Jon had a pair of pants with dozens of pockets for kittens, they’d be jonpurrs. Ta-dum-tum.
JODHPURS - Finally a word to rhyme with CLOTBURS! (Comment intended for longtime Wordplay commenters.)
@Andrew Haha! Hoping @AudreyLM will see this, or maybe even @Lianne!
@Andrew I just snorted out my coffee. Miss the old gang!
@Andrew FWIW, IN 1941 Swiss engineer George de Mestral came back from a hunting trip in the Alps with his dog. As he pulled burrs off his dog’s fur, he examined them under a microscope and saw little hooks which could catch on any type of loop in fur or clothes. He copied this concept and called it Velcro. All from the humble burdock, Arctium Lappa, aka clotsbur. (I see MOL was in that July 1 thread!)
Having never tried my hand at crossword construction, I imagine one of the most challenging aspects is coming up with a novel clue for evergreen words like EPEE, ERA, and so forth. With that in mind, a major tip of the cap to the constructor for the clue Deb mentioned - [Watches or Matches] solving to SEES was absolutely brilliant.
@Jeremy I don’t have a whole lot of puzzle construction experience, but you’re absolutely correct. It’s difficult to come up with a new (and amusing) clue for the common fill, especially the three- and four-letter words.
That was very satisfying. I got the theme with MICKEY and the rest followed from there.
Love to see David Steinberg back. 28 seems a bit old for semi-retirement, but I’m glad we can hope for some more puzzles from the old geezer.
@Puzzlemucker I asked David about that when his last NYT puzzle ran. He told me he would still be editing the Universal crossword puzzles, but that he didn’t want to spend as much time on construction. That’s understandable, given that he was about 13 or 14 when he made his NYT debut. For anyone who has never done the Universal puzzles, give them a shot! They tend to be clued more gently than the NYT puzzles, but the themes are often just as much fun.
For some reason it never occurred to me to fill in those squares with a "rebus." Fortunately, it wasn't required. Autocheck accepted the letters from the Across fills as being enough. I read "MICU" as MICKEY, but didn't write it. The same with PERSE(PHONE) on my CORDUROYS. Had it not been for those two, I might never have understood that GOTOU was GOT O(pen) and I had never heard of BI(G LOVE) before tonight and ended up googling "biglove" to try to figure out what was going on. I'm glad google knew, although it wasn't necessary in order to get the music. In fact, the red glove was already showing in its square before I turned to googling.
Thanks to the editors for Wednesday and Thursday rebus puzzles, neither of which called for squishing more than one letter into a square.
I'm just not seeing this puzzle as a rebus puzzle. It is a tricky Thursday puzzle to be sure, but even though the puzzle accepts a rebus as an answer, the puzzle theme wasn't asking for a rebus, it was asking you to view the U as a pocket. It even told you what was in the pocket. I had fun with it, and I liked the creative spirit that led to a new type of wordplay.
Dave, It is definitely a rebus puzzle, in the classic meaning of the word rebus, and the only meaning outside Crosslandia. The U's are POCKETS that contain objects (which do not need to named in the grid, since they're already named in the clues). It is not a puzzle that requires squishing more than one letter into a square. Yesterday's puzzle was also a rebus that did not require squishing.
In Hindi, there is a different letter for a different sound: D and DH are how we write two different Hindi letters when using the Roman alphabet. Dharma is a five-letter word, because “dh” is a single letter. T/TH, B/BH. Buddha is B-u-d-dh-a. Siddhartha is S-i-d-dh-a-r-th-a. Gandhi is G-a-n-dh-i. This is a common thing when transcribing letters from other alphabets: Hebrew: חַלָּה, challah (bread) distinguishes the letter CH from the letter H, which are both distinct single letters in Hebrew. Ukrainian / Russian: борщ, borshch/borscht (soup) uses the four letters shch to denote the sound of the single letter щ in Roman spelling. Polish uses a different four letters for the same: szcz. The letter H is always brought in to show aspiration or affrication - breath complications, softenings. So T contrasts with TH, S with SH, D with DH, B with BH, etc. Jodhpur(s) is an ordinary word to horse folks and fashionistas. Reading it, even for the first time, understand that the H belongs to and softens the D, and has nothing to do with the P in the next syllable.
@David Connell Thanks for this very interesting info. At one point in life, I spent several years working with an international linguistic organization. Today’s tidbits from you help me to build on that foundation. I always appreciate when you comment. I’ve learned much from you over the years through this forum. Don’t be a stranger.
Brilliant, really. For such difficult restrictions (pants that have a U) the puzzle was amazingly clean and simple -- with the possible exception of "tell of," which seemed a bit awkward.
@Brian But I'll bet you were okay with, "I sing of arms and the man".....eh?
Gee whiz! Am I late? It's not quite 8 a.m., but I see the villagers are out with their pitchforks and scythes....or maybe not. I shouldn't assume that this SuperStumper has aroused ire....but then, it IS David Steinberg. (We knew you couldn't stay away!) Aside from the struggle to remember how to spell JOHDPURS, this wasn't a difficult puzzle, except where....well, U know. I wanted CERES instead of ... And while I was still in Stumperville, I thought about LOCKERS, LOCKETS, COCKERS, COOKERS, COOKIES (I was getting desperate)....and then I went back to my earliest suspicion (because I start puzzles at the bottom) and MICKEY Mouse gave me a wink (and a smirk, too, I believe.) Wonderful way to start my Thursday, Whippersnapper!
@Mean Old Lady I know when there are many comments you don't necessarily scroll all the way to the beginning, but please look for Andrew from Ottawa's comment posted last night.
@Mean Old Lady My brain was stuck on PERSEUs for some reason, which was totally wrong. I forgot about the PHONE until afterwards. I must have eaten the pomegranate seeds by mistake!
I’m surprised so many haters are in the comments. I had a blast solving this puzzle. Very fun and significantly faster than my average! Puzzles are supposed to make you use your brain, not follow a staid formula.
This felt hard while I was doing it because I couldn't figure out the theme, but ended up finishing pretty quick for a Thursday. I finally got it when I saw the nice little pictures. It was definitely easier than yesterday for me. I had never heard of JOHDPURS, it's nice to learn a new word.
@Kevin If you looked up JODHPURS, did you find that you had seen them? They’re a common cliche in a few contexts.
Hee-hee! Yesterday, my archive find was a David Steinberg Friday puzzle from 2015, and I woke to a fresh-as-a-daisy Steinberg Thursday. So SASSy! With a fun graphic! After Wednesday’s lloonngg fun! Two days, two little digital gifts. I never thought to add anything to the U squares, so it was quick and so *very* satisfying. Happy Thursday all! The Friday of Fridays!
This may be controversial, but I LOVE rebuses, and thought this puzzle was great, and pretty breezy for a Thursday :)
@Cam Plenty of us enjoy a good rebus puzzle. Even when some of us (me, anyway) are too tired to even realize that it is a rebus puzzle.
No wonder the Wednesday puzzle was so Thursday. The Thursday puzzle was even Thursdayer! What a treat.
To David Steinberg -- You submitted this puzzle in September of 2023???!!! If the NYTXW makes a crossword celebrity like YOU wait nearly a year and a half from submission to publication -- and even more astonishingly in the case of a puzzle as ingenious, entertaining and original as this one -- what hope is there for the rest of us mere mortals? In any event, it's good to learn that you're not completely retired from puzzle-making. You should never retire. Hoping for more, please!
@Nancy - hello, mere mortal, it’s nice to see you stopping in again. Please visit more often - i know I’m not alone in enjoying what you have to say about the puzzles.
@Nancy The publishing schedule may have been thrown way off by Will's sudden illness and Joel's having to rush to the rescue as the interim editor. Joel had to quickly build a bank of edited puzzles ready to publish while I assume Will gradually did the same as he was able during his recovery. This could have been in Will's "in progress" pile when he was stricken and had to wait for completion until his return. I thought Joel did a great job, BTW.
I really must remember how to spell jodhpurs. I wore them often enough growing up horseback riding. The h/p sequence always trips me up and certainly lost me a bit of solving time here. No matter. It was a marvelous puzzle and a real rush when you realize you've been putting items in your pants pockets.
Yay, I'm glad of Mr Steinberg's semiretirement. Welcome back.
Shaking my head at how many times I saw “mirror image” before the mirage cleared. Has my visual cortex been corrupted by too much wordplay? A lot of pocketsize words jammed into this one. But fun to do.
NOW THATS WHAT I CALL A THURSDAY PUZZLE FIRE EMOJI
I debated for a while whether or not to enter the down clues as a rebus, but then decided since the items were mentioned in the theme clues I would just imagine them hidden in the U pockets. When I finished the crossword I was delighted to find the puzzle put them in the pockets for me! This was a fun, though fast, Thursday... and I certainly have no complaints.
This is the most fun I've had solving a crossword in a long time! Thanks!
Today would have been easy and fun except I chose the hard way 😖. Since reviewing my answers netted no errors (I thought), I focused on the rebus. For several stressful minutes I toggled U, U/PEN and PEN, etc. It turns out I misspelled MOMOA and had not even looked at ROO 🤦🏾♀️! Somehow, I still ended up 3:57 faster than my average Thursday speed. Streak is intact. No look-ups! Pretty fun. Without my blunder, the puzzle was otherwise a breeze. For those of you who are wondering, OSHEA Jackson, Jr. is Ice Cube’s son. The constructor’s addition of “Jr.” was superfluous since Ice Cube is OSHEA Jackson (Sr.). Note DMS in 1D. I had to slide that into my comment 😜. It’s going to be gray and dreary here today and part of tomorrow but it’s almost Carnival Time 💃🏾! Wish me luck in not missing any days on here during this — ahem — *hectic* time 🥴🤕🍸.
@Pani Korunova That is one of my most dreaded crossword situations to find myself in — getting the “horsefeathers” message on a rebus puzzle and having to decide whether I should be trying to format the rebus squares differently or flyspecking for errors elsewhere in the puzzle
So fun! Thank you for a terrific start to the day. The Zamboni a while back was the tops, but the little graphics in this one are so great, even if only viewable on one’s PERSE-PHONE. And who doesn’t love pockets—especially in dresses and skirts? Ralph Lauren has definitely made JODHPURS part of the American vernacular.
@Lizziefish Agree - except to say that the post-solution graphics were indeed visible on my laptop. (Now I see what you meant -- that they don't appear on paper. True.)
David, it always makes me happy to see your constructor byline. I enjoyed figuring out how the pockets worked. I regret that I solved this while half awake after a longish day of skiing, as I don’t think I fully appreciated your puzzle’s charm. Deb, it *is* an elegant touch that the only U’s in the grid are the pockets. But from my Scrabble-playing experience, I would argue that U is the most useless vowel in English. It’s not unusual for me to get stuck with one at the end of a game. Thanks, y’all!
For anyone who is just learning the word JODHPURS, do yourself a favor and se “Sunset Boulevard.” It’s an absolutely fantastic movie that well deserves its place in the Hollywood canon. Bonus points for a hunky young William Holden. Towards the end, watch for the director Cecil B. DeMille playing himself. He’s wearing jodhpurs.
@Eric Hougland I love that JODHPURS brought Sunset Boulevard into the discussion today, thanks to you. It is a must-see classic for so many reasons, including the DeMille cameo, Gloria Swanson’s over-the-top performance, Buster Keaton, Hedda Hopper, and of course the handsome young William Holden. It rates 98% on Rotten Tomatoes which is pretty darn good but makes me wonder what caused them to subtract 2%…
Another great Thursday puzzle! The only problem I had with it is there were no mentions of Bilbo, Gollum and the Ring.
@Justin A guy once offered to share a joint with me by saying “What has he got in his pocketses?”
I got the theme at 8 down because I knew it had to be Big Love, and saw the "g love"= Glove but I didn't do it as a rebus; I just filled in the U of bluejeans and settled for BIU figuring it would work itself out. I did the same on the others and used the "in the pocket" clue as a hint to what the down answer was. It all worked fine and the cutesy pictures showed up in the completed puzzle.
Such a clever and delightful puzzle! Thank you, Mr. Steinberg!
Wow this was about as tight a theme as you can have! I love that it took me awhile to figure it out but once I did it was delightful. Well done!
I quite liked this puzzle! As someone who'd consider myself a beginner, I agree with other comments in that it was easier than a lot of other Thursday puzzles, but one of a few that I've managed to solve with no help at all. Very fun.