@Chris Disagree with the sentiment, but appreciate the use of the 1 Across fill.
@Chris Perhaps, for some, a Thursday puzz play-by-play: Nope? First I mope. Then I Grope Go for broke. I can't cope. (Wash my mouth out with soap) Wait. There's still hope I won't choke on plaintoast. Who knew butts could float? Might not be the g.o..a.t. Yet increased my puzz scope. (YMMV)
@Chris LOL Literally came here to say exactly that
This was just not for me. No zest or sparkle, just frustration and indifference. I’m guessing this puzzle will get mixed reviews.
Whether it’s the clueing, the fill, the theme, or some combination of all of the above, this fell off the tricky/rewarding tightrope into the pit of frustration. Gap between developer ambition and user experience on display.
@MICHAEL You described my experience, exactly 👍🏾
@MICHAEL C'mon, this was totally fair. Several clues, such as the one for TAILS made it obvious the answer didn't fit as-is, so you try as a rebus and then see that something else is up. And then the revealer is a gimme. I admit that at first I thought all the corner or even all edge entries had to stick out, and then I managed to forget that SOME should (PLAN instead of DECOR in the SE, CORK instead of CHAIR) in SW). But not all that long.
@MICHAELI got the theme, but still had to do way too many lookups to get even that. In general, this week has been much tougher than last week's solves.
Hated it. Far too much obscure fill. Theme that was difficult to follow in the app. This one never should it made it past the editors.
@Zézito Complaints about difficulty and "obscure fill" seem to have contributed to the puzzle becoming much easier and much worse lately, so I guess you should be thankful that you're at least usually the target audience now
@Zézito If only there were some sort of system where some days of the week were easier and free of "gimmicks" and other days were tricky and hard, so that everyone's preferences could be met. Oh, wait...
Dear puzzle constructor, Please do not listen to these people carping on about their dislike of your puzzle. It was brilliant and creative. Their complaints say way more about them than they say about your work. I look forward to Thursdays because it is the one day where the word 'puzzle' is emphasized a bit more than most days. As someone who has attempted to create crosswords myself, I know what a grind it can be. These kinds of puzzles allow a solver to connect - in a small way - with the creators, because we get a glimpse into the wit that spawned the deviousness of breaking the orthodoxy. Some people want the same meals -oatmeal, a PB&J, and spaghetti - every day. These are the folks that get uncomfortable with variety and anything that challenges their dogma. Don't listen to them. The vast majority of us don't bother to weigh in on online sounding boards. They are the repositories for curmudgeons.
@Dan Sullivan Agreed. This was a really hard Thursday, full of educated guesses for me, but a really interesting theme that required more right brain than usual. Very impressive construction. And yet Peleton instead of peloton is what ate up a big chunk of my way above avg time. If Tuesday was a Thursday and Thursday is a Saturday, what’s Saturday going to be?
@Dan Sullivan Impressive, you've really managed to deduce a lot about the character of a lot of people based solely on whether they liked a crossword.
@Dan Sullivan Totally agree! Keep it up Dan!
@Dan Sullivan I loved it too!!! Hated the beginning because the fill was so hard, but figuring out the "butts" that were hanging out was just a moment of pure amusement and delight It was so creative--thank you Puzzle Constructor! ps. I personally would not mind an easier fill next time tho as long as the theme is as interesting and different as this. I suspect a lot of the complainers are people who just looked up the theme and didn't get to have the joy of figuring it out
@Dan Sullivan I loved the puzzle but the problem is that many of us filled in the tricky squares with the correct letters as a rebus, but were not rewarded since apparently we were only supposed to add one of the letters? How’s that fun? Or intuitive?
@Dan Sullivan Someone always says this when a lot of people don’t like the puzzle. I didn’t even hate this one. It was middling for me. But come on. A lot, lot, lot of people disliked it. That doesn’t just “say something about them.” (As if it’s somehow immoral or rude to dislike something?) Please stop encouraging the NYT and its constructors to *not* learn from the things that didn’t work.
@Dan Sullivan I would love to eat oatmeal, PB&J and spaghetti every day but my A1C is too high. I did like this puzzle very much.
I didn't understand the rules. I tried to put in rebuses, since it was Th. and it was obvious some words needed extra letters. I can solve puzzles if I know the rules, but I don't like changing / ad hoc rules. Forgive my crankiness.
@Jonathan Without rebuses, everything is a valid entry. With rebuses, there are entries like UPABLMO. I believe that is why it is correct without rebuses.
@Jonathan It's Thursday. On Thursday, part of solving the puzzle is figuring out the rules of the tricky theme. Some of us don't want to know the rules ahead of time because that decreases the challenge. I'm not saying everyone should like it. Just that the editors have to appeal to a wide variety of skill levels and tastes, so some of the puzzles will have rules that have to be figured out, and some will have more straightforward clues and "rules."
Got it. Hated it.
What a tedious, tiresome puzzle. I think that if I didn't have a nice streak going I would just pass on these oh-so-cutesy entries.
@R.J. Smith Yes, agree. When a puzzle is constructed with over 25 entries being either foreign language, proper (capitalized) words, archaic, slang, and acronyms/initialisms, in order to make the puzzle’s vague theme “work”, there is a lot to dislike.
Cute but problematic as there is no way to mark the missing letters in the app. So it was hard to remember which letters had been butted out. I figured it out, and finished the puzzle, but it didn't work well without paper.
@Dan yeah, I felt the same way. In HINDsight, I wish I'd printed out the puzzle. Maybe next time.
@Dan I had this problem as well. Too much to keep track of in my head. Someone suggested acting like it's a rebus and adding the missing letter into the corresponding square on the edge, which allows you to keep track of things. The downside is you have to go back at the end and take out the rebuses in order to get the happy music.
@Dan I had the same problem, but solved it by getting pen and paper to notate the letter outside the grid. I ended up with a diagram similar to Deb's. You may say that we shouldn't have to do that, but think of all the paper solvers who complain about missing out on the animations. Someone is often missing out on something.
@Dan if you don't want to write it down on paper, you could have just put the missing letter in the Notes app or something.
I never don't finish a puzzle. This one left me behind. No fun intended.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! I love those puzzles where I have no idea what I am doing, walk through the entire grid desperately hoping for something to stick, and the closest that I could come was BRAS for Generals and such -- not exactly a confidence builder. But bit by bit, square by square, the crossword yielded its secrets. Now, the only question is, what's Dan going to do for an encore?
@MP Rogers I'm waiting for someone to ask what BRAS have to do with Generals. 😉
@MP Rogers hopefully, Dan will find a different hobby. When only the constructor and maybe the editor understand where to look for the edited words - the ones where some letters are either modified to fit as a rebus in fewer squares, or eliminated totally to make some point… When there is no particular reason for those specific words, and only those, to be edited in the puzzle, while all others are present in full… When these things occur, The Times (and deluded solvers like yourself) should not wonder why some find the Thursday series of increasingly ludicrous constructions earns so many criticisms. You shouldn’t feel good that you “got” and enjoyed this puzzle - you really should be worried.
I can foresee some strong + mixed opinions on this one but I really enjoyed it. Challenging (but not too challenging) and some great fill and cluing.
@Rahul Absolutely. This is (or at least comes close to, for the first time in a while) the level of difficulty Thursdays should be at. Enjoyed it all around
Nothing about this puzzle bum-med me, nor made me SAD, nor made me MOPE. It was glorious! I noticed off the bat that the "T" was missing for (T)AILS, and the rest was delightful history, figuring out which other entries would have letters outside the grid. Thank you for a terrific Thursday, Mr. Caprera, with a grateful shout-out as well to the graphics team for the ICING on the cake. Altogether, a work of art!
P.S. Erm...was URANUS meant as an Easter egg? [Blushing, giggling, and running.]
OK, I got the theme and I got the theme words, but I entered the out-letters as rebuses, and was marked wrong. That's not fair.
@Eric Ressner But if you enter the “out-letters” in rebuses, then they aren’t *out* of the grid, right? Also, the crosses don’t work if you use rebuses for the theme answers.
@Eric Ressner. I did the same. Then went back and used only the “innies” (in Severance speak). Once the “outies” were ignored, then the happy music played. Like in Severance, I initially had no idea what was going on. But I was sure the work was mysterious and important.
@Eric Ressner Same here, so annoying!
@Eric Ressner I agree. I figured out the trick before I caved and lost my streak, but it’s very frustrating that keeping the rebuses in doesn’t solve it. Yes, the butt being “out” could mean physically removing the letters; but it could also mean that one would have to imagine the letters being taken out for the words to make sense. Either way, it fits the theme, so either way, it should be granted a successful solve. I lost about 30 minutes of my life staring at this thing trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong before I realized I hadn’t interpreted the “out” part as literally as the puzzle writer. Ugh. Incidentally, you can always complain to tech help and they might restore your streak.
@Eric Ressner I did the same. and agree..no fair
@Eric Ressner Same here!! I almost tore my hair out looking for my mistake! I had a rebus for each, and got the error message...what a waste of time looking for my incorrect entry until it hit me...don't use a rebus! Took 'em out and voila, finally! I liked the level of difficulty and the theme was kinda cute, but how it was structured, I guess you could say, well, they can kiss my BUTT, if you'll excuse my French...
@Eric Ressner I sympathize. You guys haven't lived until you bang you head against the wall for a few hours deciding how a constructor decided to randomly demand letters in an art heist themed puzzle.
@Eric Ressner I agree. I don't understand why so many people here are arguing that it's somehow obvious not to use rebuses. There are plenty of trick puzzles where some of the crosses don't form valid words, so why would this one be any different? Usually the app accepts multiple inputs when the correct format is ambiguous, and should have done this time as well.
I think I'll sit down for the reactions to this one. Nice Thursday, Dan!
@Barry Ancona My prediction is that there will be a very high number--over 500--of comments for this one. This is a trick that has been done 18 times previously, all but one of which was in this century, but there's always a big contingent that's never seen it before.
@Barry Ancona, "I think I'll sit down for the reactions to this one" DUN-DUN…DUN-DUN…DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN You're going to need a bigger chaiR
for everyone complaining - what do you expect from a thursday? its supposed to be tricky and “break the rules” of the usual crossword
@maddie mini magic I expect Thursday level fill and clues. This wasn't even close to that.
@maddie mini magic Yes, we expect trickery and fun. But missing letters where there is no place to put them or keep track of them is pretty frustrating. Which leads to not much fun. I mean I got all the clues but still felt like it was unpleasant because I couldn't track all the missing letters.
@maddie mini magic This was way harder than a typical gimmicky Thursday — took me almost 21 minutes and had to look up a couple clues (compared to my last five Thursdays, which were all between 7 to 10 minutes, unassisted.)
Cute fun theme, once I figured out what was, ahem, behind it. Nice that all the behinds were arranged the same way on all four sides. (Hmm, that does sound a little sleazy…) And that the butted-out words were real words! Now, to try to get into the one-size-smaller jeans tomorrow…
Finished it correctly and I have no clue what the theme was other than missing letters. I’d rather have a REBUS puzzle than whatever that was, and I hate REBUS puzzles generally.
That was different. I'll stop at that.
Many of the clues were outright dishonest. Mayo to mayo? Should’ve been Mayo to Mayo. Months are still capitalized in Spanish. Who needs grammar when a new constructor wants to be clever? Abbreviated answers are also supposed to be indicated via abbreviations in clues. Single elims? Zero indication in the clue that an abbreviated colloquialism will be the answer. Isms (which isn’t even a word) for credos? Come on. Ideology and creed aren’t even close to synonyms, even if “isms” is treated as a real word. And if the Mayo nonsense weren’t enough, we got to end with MENSA, yet another abbreviation/acronym answer that was never indicated in the clue. I could also TAKE A DIG AT that awful Saturday answer that has no business in a Thursday puzzle. The whole thing was a failed attempt at being clever. Just awful from beginning to end.
@Bob not addressing everything you said, but the elim was signaled by tourney. Isms is also pretty common crosswordese, I’d say.
@Bob. Sorry, but months are NOT capilalized in Spanish. Neither are days of the week.
@Bob The word “ism” appears as an entry in both the Merriam Webster and Oxford Dictionary apps. It is defined in Webster’s as “a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory.” So yes, it is a word.
@Bob Tourney clued the shortened ELIM. Months are not capitalized in Spanish. MENSA is Latin for table, not an abbreviation or acronym. And yet your entire comment was stated with such utter confidence.
@Bob Only been doing this a couple months but it seems fairly common for late week puzzles to not explicitly indicate all abbreviations/acronyms.
@Bob I'll add to the chorus of folks easily contradicting all the incorrect things you said by mentioning that Dan is by no means a new constructor. He's had several puzzles published already. I get if you're frustrated, but it's worth doing a little bit of research before blithely making confident claims regarding things about which you're not actually informed.
Shouldn’t “Mayo to mayo” be “Mayo a mayo”? (1) It need not be. The entire clue need not be a foreign language signal; one word is enough. (2) It should not be. It's a trickier clue as written, since it may not immediately be recognized as Spanish.
@Bob "Isms (which isn’t even a word)" Yet again, I will say that people really should consult the dictionary, literally any dictionary, before making posts like this. It is not difficult, and takes about 2-5 seconds. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ism" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ism</a>
@Bob "Months are still capitalized in Spanish." SpanishDictionary.com begs to differ: <a href="https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/capitalization-in-spanish" target="_blank">https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/capitalization-in-spanish</a>
I like the Thursday gimmicks; they're fun, whether refuses or other shenanigans. However, I solve in the app, and this is one that would have worked better with pencil and paper. I got the trick when I got the revealer BUTT OUT, and I realized something tuchas-related would be outside of the grid. And that explained some of the entries that seemed to be missing a letter, but didn't really seem like a rebus would work in both directions. But there's really not a way (that I know of) to add letters beyond the confines of the grid in this app. So maybe next time I run across this kind of tomfoolery, I'll print the puzzle, then I may scribble as I please. Fun trick and challenging puzzle! Overall, I enjoyed it. Thank you, Dan Caprera and Will Shortz. I imagine there will be complaints... this kind of buffoonery doesn't sit well with the more rigid solvers.
I hate these puzzles. I don't think it's neat or cool or clever to not follow the rules of crosswords. I think it's lazy. Usually I just click "reveal puzzle" the instant I realize that they haven't followed the rules of crosswords.
@Connor Oh, I'm not going to blow my streak! So I consulted the Wordplay and other aids, nineteen cheats, plus the rear grid in the Wordplay. We've had some lovely puzzles of late, I suppose we had to have one that's not so much.
@Connor then you should be aware that traditionally, the Thursday puzzle almost ALWAYS breaks the rules of crosswords. That's the whole point, and that's what makes it fun. If you don't like those kinds of puzzles, just don't solve Thursdays. 🤷♀️
Connor, What rule was broken?
@Connor "I'm giving this horror movie zero stars because I don't like being scared."
@Connor -- You may not like these kinds of clever, devious, offbeat and very challenging tricks -- but "lazy" they're not. If you had ANY idea just how much harder it must have been to construct today's puzzle than an ordinary one that follows "the rules". Five times harder? Eight times harder? Twenty-three times harder? I don't know, but trust me that they're much, much MUCH harder to construct!!!
@Connor To be fair, a puzzle like this is extremely tricky to build, there’s nothing “lazy” about it.
I smiled as soon as I saw what was going on, marveling at the creativity and skill of the constructor. Lazy would be to run an easy, joyless puzzle on a Thursday.
I figured out the general idea quickly thanks to the revealer and clue 13A… but then way overthought everything after that. Went down the wrong path of thinking that all theme words were also related to the revealer (à la TAILS) and kept doubting everything that didn’t fit my preconceived notion. Definitely grateful for the Wordplay column help, this was beyond my ability to solve alone! That said, count me among the fans of Dan’s creation! I have only become a daily crossword solver in the past year or so and find these out-of-the-box puzzles fun and stimulating. I’ve seen a huge difference in how far I can get in the later days of the week and aspire to reach the levels of the experts on here who can solve Thursdays and Saturdays easily! I’m content (for now) with the fact that I 1) figured out the basic idea and 2) got pretty far… I loved the challenge!
@Beth C I too got (T)AILS and BUTTS OUT and expected the other words missing letters to be butt synonyms. Congratulations on your success with late-week puzzles! You have a great attitude about them. I don’t think it will be long before you’re able to solve most of them easily.
@Beth C I finished the puzzle but didn't notice how (T)AILS fit the theme, so kudos to you for getting that one even if it ultimately didn't help your solve.
@Beth C Yes, I also loved the challenge of this puzzle, it was one of those that I was sorry to finish and have the fun end
I liked this one very much. I figured out generally what was happening fairly early on, and got the gold star, but I didn’t get exactly what was happening off the grid until I glanced at Deb’s column. I didn’t need to see her depiction of the secret words, but I had a big “Aha!” moment in the second paragraph of “ Today’s Theme.” And I appreciated the little dig at my local paper, the Washington Post, which I recently ditched after 30+ years when it went all billionaire-class on us. Thanks for a cool Thursday puzzle, Mr. Caprera!
I predict a lot of complaints, so let me add some praise: this was crunchy in a good Thursday way. It was a bit slow because I was having trouble keeping the extra letters in my head -- I got the revealer* and figured the letters would be outside the grid, and figured they'd make words relating to butts, but I hadn't pinged that they were symmetrical, and with a different word on each side ... slow. (*actually the HALFTON/NOONE clued me in first-- HALFTON via crosses, and I know the music one was missing an E ... couldn't be a standard rebus because the E didn't fit in, which meant outside letters or nonstandard rebus. But then BUTTOUT popped into my head, plus I realized the three letter "Field" could be ARE(A), and the E and A could be part of "rear" ... that side ended up being "seat", but potayto potahto.) But(t) I enjoyed it :)
I've been doing these puzzles for over 30 years....this was one of the least enjoyable I've ever encountered. Please, stop with the gimmicks and just provide a challenging, but "fair" Thursday puzzle. Perhaps a puzzle like this can be provided as an "extra" somehow with a proviso as to its weirdness.
@marty Surely it being published on a Thursday _is_ a proviso for its weirdness?
@marty If you don't like gimmicks, maybe don't do the NYT Thursday puzzle instead of insisting they stop doing the enjoyable thing they've been doing for Thursday puzzles for decades
@marty If you've been doing the puzzle for over 30 years, you should know that Thursday puzzles are almost always "weird" in some way or another. You should allow yourself to take the day off if you don't like them. As for me, the weirder, the better! I look forward to Thursday, and I'm disappointed if the puzzle isn't weird.
@marty my guy, just skip Thursdays. It’s that easy. Some of us really look forward to Thursday for the extra trickiness.
@marty These kinds of comments always remind me of a line from a 90s B movie called Road Trip, where an outraged customer at a diner exclaims “We’ve been coming here for 20 years!”…and the waiter responds, “We’ve only been open for 8 years.” I, for one, have been doing crosswords for much less than 30 years, but I have spent a lot of time in the NYT archives…and there is absolutely no way that anyone who has been doing NYT crosswords for 30 years would find today’s (Thursday) puzzle especially gimmicky or unfair. It just isn’t even a remotely plausible claim…
@marty You write as though a gimmick is a bad thing.
@marty "I'm giving this horror movie zero stars because I don't like being scared."
@marty I'm surprised you did "Art Heist" and found this one too tricky.
Unseen letters outside the grid?! Yep, they can do that. Fifty some years of solving the NYT crossword puzzles lets me take this type of theme twist in stride, but I empathize with those seeing it for the first time. Anything goes, especially on Thursdays.
Bold prediction: People are going to hate this one. It is a real challenge. Nice to finish.
@NYC Traveler agree with everything you said until “nice to finish”
NOPE. Just no fun. No, not "just" actually ... much more than that. The opposite of fun. Un-fun. In an unpleasant way. Silly (and next to impossible to follow on the Android app) theme trick aside... How does this one annoy me? Let me list some ways: TORTORO? PABLO? ALAIN? Japanese liqueur? There's trivia. And then there's Trivia. With a capital T. TAUTEN? So obscure a word that I, a word loving life-long reader (by which I mean I've been reading for 65 years or so) had to check the dictionary to see if it existed. (According to Google's ngram viewer, it had a peak popularity in 1929 at a bit less than 1 in a trillion printed words, or 0.0000000986%. Since 1950, it hasn't been above 0.5 per trillion). The perfectly cromulent pronoun THOU, familiar from both the King James Bible and Shakespeare, clued as an amount of money with no hint towards it being either slang or an abbreviation. SEEP not= permeate (to permeate is to suffuse; be ubiquitous; fill. To SEEP is to slowly leak) MOPE not= "Be" anything - not even down in the dumps. (MOPE is something one does, or a person who mopes, not a state one can be in) Also, as a non-American, ESPNU, CNN (as clued), and MTA might as well be Japanese hooch.
@Grumpy you wrote what I came to say. This was a ridiculous puzzle. I worked out some letters were off grid but there's no pattern. The trivia was beyond obscure. Look-up puzzle
@Grumpy TOTORO, PABLO, ALAIN, and Japanese liqueur may all be trivia, but even if you’re monolingual, you’ve likely acquired a feeling for the shape of common Japanese, Spanish, and French words, particularly first names. With just a couple of crosses, the three names in question fall in easily, n'est-ce pas? (Also, Alain-René Lesage is the author of Gil Blas, thus I’d argue not all that obscure.) TAUTEN may not be common but, again, eminently deducible: to draw tight is to tighten. Tight and taut are synonyms, and most adjectives can become verbs with an -en ending. Voilà, we have TAUTEN. THOU was signaled loudly as slang because its clue was slang. I’ve never written a grant proposal seeking a “nice chunk of dough.” The clueing for SEEP is tricky in one way: SEEP is not quite a synonym for permeate, but prepositional phrases derived from it are: coffee can either SEEP or permeate into your pillow if you’re not careful in the morning. The latter feels maybe a tad awkwardly phrased, but has been around for almost 500 years. Besides, with 59A calling for a plural, what else could S _ _ _ be? And I really don’t understand your nit with MOPE. How is being in the dumps not moping? Our vaunted editors do sometimes get a clue flat out wrong (case in point, ETC yesterday). And obscurity of trivia is very much in the eye of the beholder. Plus, I fully honor anyone’s right to just be plain annoyed with a puzzle, as you were today. Maybe I’m just in a puzzle-defending mood.
@Grumpy Thanks for commenting! I liked the puzzle. I agree with some of your points and disagree on others. No one can know everything. Maybe you knew the actor at 68A? I didn’t, because I’m not up on current films. But as the spouse of a Japanese, TOTORO and PLUM were gimmes for me. San PABLO? Guess neither of us was aware that the northern section of San Francisco Bay is named for St. Paul. Meanwhile, those more familiar with the SF area gleefully entered those five letters in a trice. In other words, it’s not trivia when you know it. THOU is slang, so I think the clue was fair, because it also included a slang word (“dough”). That word tipped me off that the answer may be a slang word, too. 100% agree that SEEP and “permeate” are poorly matched. I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t feel right. MOPE, though, is a very good match with “to be down in the dumps”, I think. I test the thesis by attempting to use the terms interchangeably: “It was an embarrassing loss, Pierre. You have every right to MOPE.” “It was an embarrassing loss, Pierre. You have every right to be down in the dumps.” Finally, I get that US-based cable programming is unfamiliar to many who don’t reside in this country. MTA may not even be recognizable to citizens of Albany and Syracuse, let alone Toronto! But folks who struggled for those answers might know about titan-begetting gods, Broadway stars, brand-name exercise equipment… and even 17th/18th-century French authors, so it all evens out, no?
@Grumpy Replace “be” with “is,” the present form of “be.” Is down in the dumps =mopes. Be down…=mope.
@Grumpy when I am stuck on a one word clue, I often look it up in a thesaurus. SEEP was right there for [permeate]. So maybe you don't like it, but Roget did (or at least the Merriam-Webster lexicographers did).
@Lauren The butt-ed out letters are in a symmetrical pattern.
I can honestly say I have never been more irritated by a puzzle in my life.
I found this especially hard for a Thursday. I think it probably would have been easier on paper, where you can write in the margins. Because the missing letters were invisible to me, I kept forgetting where they were (since the answers in the grid were all still valid words) and couldn't see what they were spelling.
Deb Amlen is hilarious.
@SIa K. Her column today was the best write-up of a crossword that I have ever seen. Thank you Deb.
I don't really get the hate for this one. I guess if you haven't done one like this it could be frustrating, but once I realized there were letters missing around the edges I didn't find the fill overly difficult or obscure.
I would like to share a concept that many people in this comment section (and the elected officials we are sadly stuck with in the US) seem to find difficult to grasp. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it is terrible, or shouldn’t exist, or that other people shouldn’t like it. If you don’t like something, don’t partake and move on. You don’t need to rant about it and try to stop others from enjoying it. To everyone griping about the puzzle and complaining that this type of Thursday-style PUZZLE should not exist or not be published in the NYT: thank you for reminding me why I typically stay away from these comments. The whining is unbearable.
@Jess ....and yet, here you are, eh?
@Jess Comments shouldn’t be hindering anyone’s enjoyment (and, it seems, some people are liking it in spite of the overwhelmingly negative response). If you have a problem with the negativity, fine, then maybe you should stay out of the comments section. As it stands, people who pay to play these puzzles are expressing their distaste about a puzzle they didn’t like. It’s completely fair and valid.
@Jess The worst kind of whining, IMO: whining about people voicing their opinions. News flash: it is perfectly fine for people to not like things, and to be emotional about it. I much prefer a good rant to sickly sweet praise.
@Jess Exactly what I wrote in yesterday's comments. Too much negativity. If you have trouble with a puzzle, relax and try to take a lesson from it to improve your skills. Hit "reveal" and move on with your day. Google helps with a lot of naticks.
@Beth I just don't share your view. I enjoy many things many others think should not exist - like pizza with pineapple on it, or free speech - I don't interpret their stance as belittling me.
This was no fun in the app. The info button could have been used to point out that this puzzle was best done on paper.
This puzzle was a pain in the... Well, you know.
Nice one, Deb: “You will see butts emerge from your puzzle, which, for my money, is worth the price of a subscription alone. It’s not as if you’re going to get this kind of highbrow entertainment from The Washington Post.” I absolutely loved the puzzle! Tricky, yes, but so satisfying to finally solve and figure out the four words outside the puzzle. Once I figured out the trick, some of those four words helped me figure out areas where I was stuck.
Sure made me think a lot more than any puzzle in recent memory, and I appreciated that. Also nice that (for me) figuring out the theme actually aided in solving. Quite enjoyable.
Hit the wall hard at about 60% completion. This felt utterly impossible without starred clues indicating which words were affected by the theme. "a hint to four sides of the puzzle"? Okay, so which of the literally 50 words that touch the sides is it a hint to? Felt frustrating and completely unrewarding.
@MC Yes! The four sides thing threw me completely off because I couldn't see the pattern online of which ones were overflowing and which ones weren't, so I questioned every single clue touching the edge, and then was flummoxed when some of them seemed to need to overflow and some didn't. Frustrating solve that ended up breaking my streak because I got stuck on (B)RAID in the upper right and figured the Olympic name was an overflow name that I just wasn't familiar with. 1/10 would not repeat.
I read the column after solving the puzzle and not understanding the theme/trick. I knew it had to do with some edge letters being omitted but the animation with the red letters went by too fast, and all I could see was the word "TRUMP" flashing in the upper part of the puzzle, which gave me the ick. Still, this puzzle is a good reminder that you can't spell "Trump" without "rump."
@ASK it’s probably safer if you and I just pretend that was a coincidence and not an incisive commentary on current affairs on everyone’s mind by the constructor (who may well have completed this puzzles long before Jan 20)
Just stopped in to glance at the comments, sorted them by Most Popular—and ended up scrolling through doom and gloom. I’ve got to run so I don’t have the time to write the eloquent paean the puzzle deserves, but write an eloquent paean is precisely what I’d do if I had the time. There was a time—not too long ago, some 6 or 7 years ago when I first started solving—that the challenge this puzzle posed would be par for the course for a Thursday, both the fill and “the trick.” The comment section already existed then. Check it out sometime, folks, even on a tricky Thursday: The gnashing of teeth was a thing, of course, but it was always offset by a rival, usually much larger contingent of those who loved the challenge. I don’t know what this says about us. Or maybe I do, but hope that I’m wrong.
@Sam Lyons Thank you from a solver who appreciates your sparkle and bloom! Perhaps "no solver left behind" means sometimes the tired rider whines? ☺️
@Sam Lyons Frustrated anger is a great toehold if your goal is to divide a society. It's easy to feed via social media, movies, any number of ways. In the short term it feels more satisfying to throw something across the room rather than to calm down, think about the problem, and find a solution. If you encourage the first approach you can sow a lot of chaos.
I got the theme early on, but had a hard time figuring out how / where it would apply. It honestly seems a bit arbitrary as to which words along the sides it would apply to.
@Ors That’s exactly my issue. I realized that the shortened answers were in symmetrical locations, which ultimately help to know where to apply the theme, but that was not a very satisfying solution . Add to that the fact that the missing letters were simply absent for electronic solvers and I doubt very many picked up on the significance of “butt out” as any kind of clue.
Not one for me. I do crosswords for the words, not to indulge the author’s fantasies
@Trevor This puzzle had lots of words, and how would you know anything about the constructor’s fantasies?