An enjoyable puzzle. I especially like the crossing of MORAL COMPASS with ABRAHAM Lincoln. Congratulations on your NYT debut, Victor. After 20 submissions it’s fitting that this one finally put you on the map.
@Anita Thanks! Did not foresee the LEGOS vs LEGO controversy on this, enjoying the discussion 😂
"Will there be food at the cartography convention?" "Oh, yeah, it's Mercatored." (With prime meridian rib.)
Giving you plenty of latitude today, Mike.
@Mike Atlas, some guidance and relief from this directionless confusion. Let us relax now with a little music, composed especially for this gathering, a lounge etude.
Perhaps the U.K. folk here who want to strip the S from LEGOS will give it to the Greeks to add to GYRO. Then we can all have tamales.
@Barry Ancona But what shall become of the panini?
@Barry Ancona Are you fishing for a kudo? :-)
@Barry Ancona I think they've already given the S to "math" (yielding "maths"), so unfortunately there's nothing left to give to GYRO.
@Barry Ancona I've never heard of GYRO and I think you should give the S back to MATHS.
This theme is packed with lovely, with its gorgeous phrases LIVING LEGEND, MORAL COMPASS, and ALL OVER THE MAP. Those first two, by the way, are NYT answer debuts, and the third has only appeared once before. Buttressing the lovely are HUBBUB, ERRANT, CROONER, CAMEO, and MEDLEY. My TIL of the day is the mellifluous ERITREA, which I learned comes from the Greek name for the Red Sea – the Erythraean Sea – based , on the adjective “erythros”, meaning “red”. Lovely to see the echo in ROJO. Victor, congratulations on your debut, and thank you for a box gleaming with beauty today!
@Lewis You may find The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea interesting - it is the only trader's travel guide to have survived from the ancient era. It provides amazing insight into some of the aspects of the daily life of Roman traders, who sailed as far as India, possibly even further. I know it from books about travel and trade in the ancient world, but already the wiki article on it is quite interesting: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea</a>
I like to do a drinking game whenever there's a common complaint or controversy in the day's puzzle. Tonight's drinking game is brought to you by LEGO, where only the best is good enough. Methinks a big hangover is in my future! Now LEGgO my eggo... errr, S! Cheers, all! :-)
@HeathieJ Let's trigger some people, why don't we 🤣. The internet troll in me feels the need to fan the fire - in this case the toxic fire of a heap of LEGOS, billowing acrid smoke of linguistic outrage. My wife and I love our LEGOS: we have Hogwarts, Rivendell, a blue Mustang and Luke Skywalker's landspeeder displayed prominently in our apartment. Three cheers for LEGOS! (Ieggo my eggo was nice wordplay BTW)
@HeathieJ When I saw LEGOS in the puzzle, I knew that that would be the conversation of the day. Like it is every time.
@HeathieJ @Andrezj I'm late to the party so you may not see this, but do you watch Seth Meyers' Corrections videos? It all started with a commenter correcting Legos to Lego bricks... It's been doing a while now and honestly is funnier if you go back and watch from the beginning. I think you would both enjoy it if you're not already jackals!
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. What might keep you up at night? (3)(4) 2. Whom to call when you have a packed house? (6) 3. Hay there! (4) 4. Royal adversary (4) 5. Excellent, average, or bad, depending on the context (4) BED SLAT MOVERS BALE TWIN MEAN
@Lewis At least an honorable mention for "Higher in rank?" SMELLIER
Two days in a row now of debut puzzles where the constructor’s submissions were rejected a double-digit number of times before the yes – an inspiring message to not give up out of despair, to keep fighting, that things can turn around. Oh, may that be true!
Lewis, I was also inspired by how today’s constructor was willing to establish a new games section in a paper, to improve his chances of publication! :)
I solve on the webpage. For the first time, the puzzle is showing me across on one side of the puzzle, and down on the other. I don't care for this layout, as I feel like I'm watching a tennis match looking left and right. Any way to get the old layout back?
@heatherkay I solve on a laptop and it shows a keyboard when I don't need it, so now the grid is smaller and I don't see as many clues.
@heatherkay This just happened to me too! I didn't do Saturday or Sunday this weekend so I did those first this morning and it was fine, but when I opened the Monday crossword there was a giant keyboard and a totally different format. It's almost like I somehow toggled to a phone/tablet version of the crossword without knowing it and now I can't switch it back!
@heatherkay I hate it so much. To the point that I might stop doing the crossword.
I really don't like this new format. It makes it harder for me to navigate through the puzzle. Also, Wordplay was hard to find.
@heatherkay here to gripe about the same thing. Bottom half of my screen is now a keyboard, across and down on opposite sides, puzzle is tiny. Don't want to solve while it's like this at all.
@heatherkay I'm usually solving on a big monitor, so the keyboard at the bottom was not as much an issue. But I sometimes solve on my laptop screen or even my tablet, and it will be VERY difficult on the smaller screen
@heatherkay This change begs the question "What problem were they trying to solve?" Makiing the change without warning and without an explanation is not particularly good customer service.
A brief history of LEGO: The company was founded by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a Danish carpenter who first became a successful maker of wooden toys. In the 1940’s, he was introduced to a new manufacturing material, but unlike Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate, he decided plastics were his future. He held a contest to name his new plastic-based toy company, and like many a corporate boss before and since, declared himself the winner. The new name was derived from the Danish words LEG and GODT, meaning “play well”. Kristiansen bought an injection molding machine from a company that helpfully provided some samples of the work the machine could produce—including some interlocking plastic bricks from a company called Kiddicraft. LEGO made and marketed its own version of the toy bricks while the Kiddicraft company foundered, seemingly unaware that its patented idea had been co-opted. (The inventor committed suicide in 1957.) Many ups and downs later, the LEGO company is thriving— and very protective of its name. It insists that LEGO be used only as an adjective, not a noun, in order to protect the brand from becoming a generic term for any plastic building block. (Like, say, a Kiddicraft brick.) The name must also be capitalized, as the LEGO gods intended. If you say “Legos” instead of “LEGO bricks”, the Kragle will find you and glue your mouth shut. Forever.
The Lego comments are hilarious, and a happy lead-in to what will be a disappointing week at my Midwest Statehouse. Nothing more to add about that. But I would like to acknowledge that Lego is a made up word, and if some of us want to pluralize it with an “s”, it doesn’t feel like the worst sin.
@BST All words are made up! That said, I agree with your point - policing language usage is silly, especially when it comes to corporate trademarks.
Nice debut and a good Monday puzzle; and a good example of perseverance in finally getting it published. Hope there are more puzzles coming our way in the future. Thanks, Victor.
Great Monday puzzle. 3500 solved puzzles!
@Dana Scully Amazing! Congrats.
@NYTimes -- How do I get rid of the onscreen keyboard and the split screen A/D clues on a computer? With a computer, I already have a keyboard, so don't need the onscreen one. And the A/D clues not being side-by-side on the right make it difficult to quickly switch between them. Plus, the onscreen keyboard takes up so much screen real estate that the puzzle is smaller -- almost too small to comfortably see for older folk like me. Please give us an option to go back to the previous layout.
Happy to see The Bear classified as a drama, as it should be. Always glad to cheer on a debut constructor.
@Amy Yes! I, as well, caught that. Who on earth decided it should compete for an award in the Comedy category? And two years in a row! Mind-boggling.
@Amy Yes! I mean, I usually laugh my tuches off watching it, but it is hardly a comedy. But I suppose with drama and comedy being two sides of the same coin, it kinda works.
@Amy still a comedy. Not all comedy is guffawing. But I’ll let my wife know you disagree with her.
Vote by mail is just normal the way here in Oregon—and it’s wonderful!
Congratulations on a fun NYT debut, Mr. Schmitt! I admire your perseverance!
This new layout is AWFUL. Keyboard on the screen is so distracting. If you won't switch back to the old format, can you at least add it as an option please??
In Canada, there’s a furniture store called The Brick. Actually, there’s more than one… C’mon people: what doesn’t snap us apart K’Nexes. I liked the puzzle, with all its features!
Well, wasn't this a dainty dish to lay before the ....CrossWorld! Neat as a pin, Monday-easy but not shop-worn or boring, and fun! I was using a pen low on ink, plus the eyedrops have my vision blurred, so I was reading CAMO's C as an O: SOA- had to be SOAPS, right? 9D to the rescue, with its L. Time to change the ink cartridge in this pen. I was just thinkiing about NIGH recently--how it's not used very often now...and here it is! Still in perfectly good shape, apt, and useful. Let's not leave it on the scrap heap, WordSchmitts!
@Mean Old Lady Per George Thorogood: No I ain't seen my baby since a-NIGH on a week Gotta get drunk man 'til I can't even speak... ...and that's the only instance I can think of. But that don't confront me, long as I get my rent money come Friday.
WHO CHANGED MY SCREEN AND HOW DO I GET RID OF THAT BLASTED KEYBOARD THAT TAKES UP HALF OF THE SCREEN? WHY DO YOU PEOPLE INSIST ON FOISTING CHANGES ON US? WHAT CRIME HAVE WE COMMITTED?
Hi everyone, Thanks for your bug reports regarding the crossword layout. We've reported them and the tech team is trying to resolve them. Thanks for your patience!
@Deb Amlen You guys should reflect on the fact that everyone just assumed that you had changed the layout randomly, making the product worse, rather than it being a bug
@Deb Amlen I am just happy to find out that it is a glitch on the NYTimes website and not some setting change that I inadvertently caused to happen.
Whew, I'm glad to see this message. I thought I had screwed something up badly!
Whew! With the incessant promoting of solving on the app I was sorely afraid this was done on purpose to force us to use the app. Such a relief!
@Deb Amlen No no no no no, these are not bug reports. These are reports of "We do not like your choices. Put it back." We don't want you to keep this awful format, but make it work better. We want you to PUT IT BACK. This is not the fault of the programmers, who probably executed the intended plan perfectly.
What's the HUBBUB, bub? I've played with LEGOS since I was a kid, and have never once referred to them otherwise. I refuse to back down to this Danish tyranny!
Here to join in pointing out the plural of Lego is Lego
Great debut and a perfect Monday. Gave me just enough resistance to make it interesting.
Personally I don't get the intensity of people's feelings regarding LEGOS. Interestingly though, I just realized Polish doesn't pluralize the word, either. We may say "klocek LEGO/klocki LEGO" (LEGO brick/bricks; klocek does not literally mean "brick" btw - that would be "cegła"; it's just our name for a toy brick), but we would never pluralize LEGO itself - which would make it LEGa - for words ending in "-o" our way to make them plural is to change that "o" into an "a": chomąto/chomąta (horse collar/collars), or "stado/stada" (herd/herds). It's not like Polish has some rule about avoiding pluralizing brand-related names, either. For example, in Polish trainers (the shoes) are known as "adidasy", which is a plural generic noun derived from the brand name. In this case we are fine with pluralization. A lot of Mercedes cars are Mercedesy. But I've never seen Volvo pluralized. What a linguistic mess 🤣 Btw, ROLD Gold is one of the most random things I've ever seen in my life. Get your sh... together, American brand namers! I know it's probably because you can't trademark a natural language phrase like "rolled gold" but c'mon, ROLD... Finally, the puzzle was heavy on trivia, but gentle crosses let that not be an issue for me. I solved the puzzle in non-record time, but well within my Monday standards.
@Andrzej I don't have a favorite in the Great Lego Plural Debate of 2025, as it seems even more irrelevant and unpredictable than language normally is. Advertiser spellings often make my skin crawl.
@Andrzej ROLD Gold is a very old brand name; I recall it from childhood,, so.....yeah. O L D. Who knows why?
Fun Monday puzzle. But I do need to point out that every single genre-specific award “The Bear” has won — Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice, even the NAACP Image Award — has been an award for comedy, not TVDRAMA.
@JGinDC and I think most would agree that it’s been one of the most egregious cases of “category fraud” in recent memory. The show belongs in Drama, not Comedy. Kudos to the constructor for calling them out!
Lovely debut! I always loved the term knight-ERRANT. Speaking of LIVING LEGENDs, last night I watched an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which had a CAMEO from none other than Will Shortz! Brooklyn Nine-Nine is shaping up to be one of my favorite shows of all time, and I highly recommend it.
@Katie, have you got to this scene yet? (Not a spoiler for actual plot) (but also a crossword moment) <a href="https://youtu.be/dL4N08TKXrM" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/dL4N08TKXrM</a>
@Katie It's in my top five all-time favorite shows! It's completely wonderful and I never tire of watching it!
5:14! A new record for me! By a good 30 seconds too
@Rebecca New record for me too!!! :)
@Rebecca And I thought my 13:40 was amazing.. Good job!
@Rebecca Nice! Not ny best Monday at 9:10, but it keeps my gold-star-streak alive at 1363 puzzles
Good, solid, Monday puzzle. Beat my average Monday time which was nice. Some tough fill that was easy to get with a few cross clues. Haven’t seen Hubbub in a while.
Loved this. Got through quickly. Got the theme. A fun way to start the week. Thank you!
I hereby declare that on this day and on all the other day to come, all plural is the same as the singular. Likewise, the verbs will never be modified to agree with either singular or plural. A lot of man and woman hates this, but it will keep peace in these forum. This will be so much easier. No more argument over octopuses or octopi. Plural is octopus. Same with syllabus. Now whenever you look at the clue in puzzle, you won't have to remember if it's French or British or American or Spanish or all of the other language, because there is no plural in any of it. (No more "them" as a plural for "it").
Francis, Everyone took a vote on your suggestion, but it ended in a tie: one to one. :)
@Francis For what it’s worth, the proper Hellenic plural of “octopus” would be “octopodes.”
@Francis come to Indonesia. Plurals are made by repeating the noun. No need to add an s or account for different etymologies. One book: buku. Multiple books: buku buku. So simple! And in texting you can just write buku2.
Legos Legos Legos Legos. And a million heads just exploded.
@Marcus I shouldn’t let it get to me, but it’s right up there with “to all intensive purposes” and “the central tenant of the argument” in the pantheon of wrong.
Nice Monday puzzle and a cute theme. A number of things that weren't dawning on me just from the clues, but everything came together with a few crosses. Ended up just a tad below my Monday average. On the other primary topic of discussion today: LEGGOMYEGGO was an answer once. A theme answer in a Sunday puzzle from April 17, 2002 by Emet Ozar with the title: "On the hunt." That puzzle had 7 rebus squares, and all the rebuses were - EGG. Some other answers in that one: BOOTL(EGG)ER V(EGG)ESOUT R(EGG)AEBAND B(EGG)EDTHEQUESTION WINNIP(EGG)ER And there were more. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/17/2022&g=64&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/17/2022&g=64&d=A</a> ...
@Rich in Atlanta That puzzle sounded so fresh and good that I immediately went to search it out in the NYT archives. Then a couple of funny things happened: I realized there's a typo in your message (but the Xwordinfo link is correct). The puzzle ran in 2022, not twenty years earlier. 😉 I actually had completed the puzzle when it ran, but I no longer had any memory of it! Oh well, at least I got to appreciate it all over again. Thanks!
What is with the useless fake keyboard taking up half of the screen?
All I want to ask is: 1. Is LEGOS really the plural of Lego? 2. Is a GYRO really a sandwich? 3. Is it IGOR--or Eye-gore? 4. Why is she MEGAN Thee Stallion, when a stallion is a 33D horse (so to speak, as they say in cryptic clues)? 5. Is the clue for ABRAHAM an example of one that's even too easy for a Monday? (At least say "Biblical patriarch".) Have a great week!
@Steve L no, legos is not the plural of Lego. It’s one of those things a decent editor would have tattooed on their arm.
“Honey, would you please do daddy a favor and clean up those LEGO® brand toy building bricks (US patent no. 3005282A) on the floor?”
There is no such word as ‘Legos’ unless you also now allow ‘sheeps’. Lego say the plural is Lego, or Lego bricks but never Legos
@Jonathan Baldwin of course ngram is no good for comparing lego and legos because there's no way to filter for "lego" as a plural. But legos is substantially more popular than lego bricks.
@Jonathan Baldwin although the Lego company likes the idea of using Lego as an adjective to modify “Lego bricks” that doesn’t particularly address how people actually use the word Lego which is as a noun and is singular and plural as they see fit.
The Cambridge dictionary shows no plural for Lego in the main listing (and notes it is a trademark) ... and then has "Legos" in the U.S. cite! <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/lego" target="_blank">https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/lego</a>
@Jonathan Baldwin There's a difference between correct and common usage, and between Danish and American English. I don't believe that the average American parent is going to tell their child to pick up their lego—the kid will pick up _one_ and the floor will still be a hazard. They're going to say "pick up your legos", especially when the child is learning that most plural have an "s" appended or the plural word is different (e.g., mouse vs. mice). Yes, the company prefers Lego as both singular and plural, but crosswords often present common use terms over the technically correct.
Great crossword today 23rd March. Can almost but not quite forgive 56D - LEGOS. No Lego fan would add the S. The plural of LEGO is LEGO.
@Moira LOL is this your hill to die on? I just typed a fairly conciliatory response to another of your comments, but I would posit that many Lego fans are USA children and virtually all of them would add the S unless specifically instructed by their parents not to. In these parts plurals generally involve an S. And again, I want to part on good terms. Moira is a lovely name, and you share it with some of my dear relatives. I wish you nothing but the best.
@Bob T. Probably not. I had no idea that the word with an S is in common usage in the States. It was an assumption on my part. Please accept my apologies. Most of all, thank you for spelling my name correctly. I’m a member of a flash fiction group. They kept spelling it as Moria. It’s even spelled wrong in the published anthology of our work.
Fun, quick solve! As a result of jumping the gun with 10D. I got stuck on 8A. For a commonly used crossword answer, it's nice to see a new trick for an old dog!
Congrats on a fine debut, Victor. And Go Blue!
@Mitch I really feel sorry for Victor. It seemed like a fun puzzle, but wanting to vomit while completing it made it not so fun.
bro the plural of lego is lego, as per the LEGO Group
What have you done to the puzzle. Where did this giant keyboard come from? How do I get rid of it so that I can see the full puzzle and all the clues?
Please flood the technical people with comments on this new format. I agree that it is terrible; seems to assume everyone is solving on phones or tablets. I won't be able to see Sunday at all.
@JP Could not agree more. This new format, clearly designed for a phone app, does NOT work for the web browser, for folks that use actual physical keyboards, and for folks that actually want to concentrate on the puzzle and a particular clue as opposed to this cluttered, overly-busy interface that wastes at least a third of the screen space on a useless on screen keyboard. If this isn't fixed I will be looking for some other source for online crosswords.
Coming in late today, one of many people pointing out that the plural of Lego is Lego.
The plural of Lego is Lego… there is no such thing as “legos”….
@Steve Wagner exactly what I came here to say! I’ve seen this mistake in other crosswords but never in the times.
@Steve Wagner and Julia Late to the party!!
Very quick and fun solve today, barely had time to wince at LEGOS as I wrote it in! After a quick glance at the comments I don't think I need to add anything... Actually I thought the Mini was much more problematic today (esp. for non-Americans): - [Indianapolis football player] for COLT? Come on, it's not like there aren't various other options... - A floor of a buildings is spelt "storey" where I come from, so the pun didn't work for me - Never heard TINE used to refer to the prong of a fork, but that's perhaps more my simple ignorance All this added literally seconds to my time!! Congrats and thanks to XxSlickVic420xX for the much nicer main crossword, we appreciate the perseverance!
@Alex et al I never even saw the clue for LEGOS. My solve went 50D, 49D, 48D, and then I went to the bottom and filled the crosses, checking the clues only to verify my guesses. I'd have gotten it anyway, Our son still has his LEGOS, I think. If a regular fork doesn't suggest TINEs to you, what would you call them? Prongs? Or...just think of a pitchfork--a sharp reminder of the word, eh?
Geography major here (once) with a minor nit - I think compass is not a synonym for compass rose. Fun puzzle!
After accidentally stepping on one of his son's Lego, he hopped on one foot. (That just doesn't sound right.)
@redweather After accidentally stepping on one of his son's Lego, he hopped on both foot. (That sounds even less right.)
@redweather The plural of Lego is indeed LEGO, as per the company itself. Plural forms and usage — especially lesser used ones — can sound odd. Another plural instance that usually doesn’t sound right is pluralizing the first word (the noun) in multi-word term that is a noun itself, e.g. attorneys general or (god forbid) mothers-in-law.