Just stopping by to start the complaint thread about the AMOR/NOOMI crossing. ;)
@Embee ah! This was the only one I had wrong before coming here for help. I had NaOMI just because it looked like a common name. Thanks for starting this :)
@Embee Agree that NOOMI will be obscure to many (it was my only lookup) but a lot of us can dredge Latin and Greek mythology out of our unconscious. I only wondered if it might be EROS not AMOR.
RIRI is reduplicated - it's a duplication of the shortened name word Ri. ISIS is not reduplicated, it's a single morpheme, not one where either syllable in has its own extractable meaning Sorry, had to weigh in with the linguistics perspective. Good puzzle
@Ian I was wondering about “reduplicated.“ Isn’t that a bit…. err… redundant? I mean, why do we need re- when we already have copied?
@Ian Thank you for putting into words what I felt but couldn't name. I know my Egyptian gods, but given the wording of the clue I just could not come up with an answer without a few crosses.
@Ian You don't pronounce it, "izz-izz"? :D
@Ian All I could think of was that visually it’s reduplicative, even though not actually so.
@Ian Now I’m confused… Is ISIS IS IS or is IS IS ISIS?
Ian, But do you consider the 21A clue suffixient?
@Ian Yes, I agree, an iffy clue. At one point, I was considering the reduplicative nickname of that icon of pop theology, Ra-Ra. But I guess was just being over-zealous.
Ian, Maybe you’re too busy now to answer my earlier question about 21A, but could I see you after words?
CORN BELT two days in a row. EOM
@Barry Ancona Having it two days in a row is odd, especially because CORNBELT was one of the theme answers yesterday, so it's not like we are going to forget about it so quickly.
“Supernovae” is actually the standard plural for those of us who talk about them in our day jobs!
@Astro prof I'm a Law prof but I knew enough about SUPERNOVA(E/s) to leave the last square blank and wait for crosses to reveal whether one or the other plural would be used. I think I've encountered both in past NYT puzzles.
@Astro prof Wow! Teaching astronomy (astrophysics?) in Canada. I could even come out of retirement for that. It just occurred to me: I'd rather work to the day I die in Canada than be a retired American.
@Francis I sure hope it's not astrology 🤪
@Astro prof The Latin plural didn't bother me but the ? indicating wordplay did. Aren't supernovae basically starbursts? Our esteemed Canadian neighbo(u)r may feel free to correct me.
@Astro prof This I did not know, and I would have lost my gold star streak had it not been noted. I learn something everyday.
@Francis Not at all an attack, just genuinely curious...why would you not want to be a retiree in the States? As a retiree I actually have government-provided medical coverage. After a lifetime of fear, I can't tell you how much of a relief it was to qualify for Medicare, and a "Medigap" policy was affordable. I have a tiny pension ($364 a month) from a six year stretch as a union member...not much, but it helps. I would be in bad shape had I not bought a house earlier, but I did, so rent's not an issue. I don't live in luxury, but I don't worry about where my next meal is coming from, either. And most of my career was spent in factories and warehouses. It's a lot better than what millions of other people have waiting for them in a lot of other countries.
@Astro prof The Latinate plural may be what astrophysicists use, but to the 99.7% of the population who aren’t astrophysicists, SUPERNOVAE sounds super pretentious.
@Francis I would invite you to Poland but we don't need any astrologers ;p (nobody does, but still)
@Astro prof I've so given up on anyone using "supernovae," "aurorae," etc. that I actually put "SUPERNOVAS" as my answer here, then was delighted when I went back to my previously unfilled 50A and realized that I could change the "S" to an "E". Yay NYT!
Thanks, Sam, for confirming what I was experiencing. This was an exceptionally challenging Wednesday puzzle. Not a complaint, just an acknowledgment! Consider me enlightened on many levels!
@Deborah Bailey I thought I was overly exhausted or going crazy!
@Deborah Bailey Agreed. Took me much longer than a normal Wednesday.
@Deborah Bailey I got through it pretty easily -- except for AMOR NOOMI natick. I had to look at the answer key to find that one. Who names their kid NOOMI instead of NaOMI?
CORN BELT again, dear? The better to make AREPAS, I suppose. Another Worthy Wednesday, thanks Rebbeca and Adam.
Vaer, And, so far, everyone is enjoying the AREPAS.
To me CORN BELT two days in a row is a super no, Vaer! (Not really)
@Vaer And I just had a DELICIOUS arepa yesterday from a cart on the Boston Common. Deep fat-fried to order. @Andrzej will be happy to hear that I have good health insurance and take cholesterol-control medicine.
"Are they paying you for your regression line?" "Yeah, I get residuals." (I need some more math puns, stat!)
Mike, I could pretend I know a great statistical pun, but you would all just cry “Out, liar!”
@Mike Sorry, no puns today, but here's a random thought. I'd rather be in Monte Carlo sampling the Poisson.
@Mike I wonder if I'll get many comments form peers on this product of the moment.
@Mike My husband said, “Nothing unreal exists,” I said, “but what about irreal numbers or the square root of negative 1?” He said, “That’s too derivative.”
In a state of dejection, I had to hand my phone over to my wife when the areas NW and directly N had me stumped. She dealt with it with gusto. I personally found the whole puzzle very hard, because, for example, I have no idea what a scatter plot or REGRESSION CURVE is, so that whole row remained incomplete for a long time. Also, the clues were not on my wavelength, at all. It was a fine puzzle - I just was not its optimal solver 😉. My wife and I solved without lookups, but it took as long as a Friday or Saturday - mostly because of how much I struggled before giving up and seeking help with the smarter person of the household.
@Andrzej I spend a lot of time in Dejection, too. Scatter plots and REGRESSIONCURVES were *right* up my alley and were a big part of the puzzle. Even so, I was losing hope there at one point, having cycled through what was left several times without putting anything on the board.
Hi, @Andrzej! Sorry to carp on yesterday's topics, but-- --Did you ever get a chance to look at that Stanislaw Lem short story I linked yesterday? I wonder what your take was. I have often wondered what Lem reads like in Polish, and how translators handle all the wordplay and neologisms. Many of them are based on Latinate techno-jargon, and I'd guess a word like "narcissator" (a type of electronic circuit) would sound similar in the original Polish. But the rest? Apparently, Lem praised his English translator, Michael Kandel, as being "inventive in finding semantic equivalents in English in difficult cases." Here is the link again: <a href="https://gwern.net/doc/ai/poetry/1974-lem-cyberiad-trurlselectronicbard.pdf" target="_blank">https://gwern.net/doc/ai/poetry/1974-lem-cyberiad-trurlselectronicbard.pdf</a> (A story which centers on AI-generated poetry--written in 1965! And it even mentions crossword puzzles (at least in English.)
@Bill Not yet, but thanks for reminding me. Wednesdays are my busiest days - I solve the puzzle in the early morning and then I lecture and have classes for hours. Then I do some shopping, I take care of the dog. I'm usually completely drained after all that and usually just fall asleep on the couch 🤣. At present I am at the shopping stage.
@Bill I compared the first paragraphy of the English translation with the Polish original from my bookshelf: there is a *huge* difference in style. The English has none of the charm and uniqueness of Lem's Polish. The Polish is understated but elegantly so: it has an almost poetic flow, and the vocabulary displays Lem's touch - he often chose less common synonyms for what he was describing. All that is completely lost in the translation. Even the subtitle is very different, stylistically. "Electronic bard" has nothing on Lem's Polish "Elektrybałt", which is pure linguistic genius. Elektry- may be understood as a prefix meaning what follows is electrical. "Rybałt" is an old Polish term for a travelling folk artist. The fact the "ry" of Elektrybałt make sense in both parts of Lem's neologism gives me a wordgasm. Also, the very inclusion of the almost ancient "rybałt" in a futuristic story is interesting in itself. None of that is reflected in "Electronic bard", at all.
@Bill I wonder why the translator did not go for something like Minstrelectrician: that reflects the original better, methinks. Anyway, it's better to miss the nuance than go through the horror of learning Polish, probably, so don't be too sad 😉
@Andrzej I so envy that you solve with your wife. Hubby is *not* a word nerd. But that makes him so very valuable for obscure history and sports clues, so…. I’ll keep him.
@Andrzej Your wife sounds cool! Please say hi from us!
So much Wednesday crunch! I do like me some crunch. Leaving for the airport in an hour to fly to younger son’s graduation from medical school tomorrow. Then Friday night we fly back with him, because older son’s wedding is Saturday afternoon. 1,000 miles apart. 45 hours between events. And our flights keep getting changed. And flying makes me nervous. And the wedding is a bit of a circus. And… Wish me luck? Trying to enjoy these big, happy events and look past all the chaos that is surrounding them! But bringing my iPad. Not doing this week without my puzzle! Not no-how! Happy hump day all!
@CCNY Good luck! What a blessing for you!
@CCNY Mazel tov! Twice. Good luck with the flights.
@CCNY amazing accomplishments!! Fingers crossed for smooth flying.
@CCNY I sure hope you’re not flying into or out of Newark!
@CCNY Duffy had better get his act together! I sincerely pray it goes smoothly! Wonderful celebrations :0)
Wednesdays are the toughest days to clue for. Most are too easy (usually too many gimmes) or the gimmick is cloying. This was one of the best Wednesday puzzles I can remember. Kudos.
Just a blitz of creativity in this one! First, the cluing. It felt as though Rebecca and Adam put in the time to make every single clue shine. Devilishness abounded in wordplay wit, and misdirection. Then, coming up with this crackling theme, never done before. And delivering -- generating worthy theme answers plus having them fit the demands of symmetry. Wow! Finally, plumping up that goodness with a remarkable level of freshness. Three of the four theme answers are NYT debuts. Three of the four vertical 10-letter longs are debuts. A grid with eleven debuts plus a pair of once-befores and another pair of twice-befores. Wow again! Memorable moment: Putting in TEPID for [Not hot or cool], only to erase it ten seconds later and insert it for [Lukewarm]. Bonuses: Five double-Os, LEE and EEL in the SE, a backward ISIS to go with RIRI, and an extra column. Humor, skill, and polish in the box today. This was one of those special ones. Thank you so much, Rebecca and Adam!
@Lewis I did the same thing with TEPID. Loved the trickery!
Whoa, indeed! That sure was a sweet little solve. More lift than stoop - the way we like 'em. Thank you Rebecca Goldstein and Adam Wagner for that gem of a Wednesday grid.
Oh, I loved this so, *so* much… So much wordplay—and on a Wednesday, no less! Lately, overall, it has felt like an intended dearth of playfulness, like our editors had taken a wrong turn somewhere off the wordplay highway and were now heading down the dusty road of literalness. And then we had gems like Mr. Quigley’s Sunday—and, in fact, I remember all of last week as above par. And such a treat today. Thank you, Rebecca and Adam, for making me smile before I even ground the morning beans.
I was definitely on the constructors’ wavelength on this one. My only error on the first run through the acrosses was entering tepId for UNHIP and then realizing it was actually the answer for 35D. I loved those two answers crossing each other. I thought TOOTH for canine that bites was clever as well. Rebecca and Adam, BE A PAL and collaborate more often. I truly enjoyed this one!
The juxtaposition of RON Howard and "I've made a huge mistake!" made this Arrested Development fan very happy. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQW3KW3DCc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQW3KW3DCc</a>
Nothing TEPID about today’s puzzle. Five clever theme answers supported by some outstanding wordplay: Do a spit take? Starter starter? Certain blue note?? Rebecca and Adam, give us SOMM more!
All who know me, know I champion those Latinate plurals, and I would about as likely to say "supernovas" as I would say "pia maters" or "irises," which I do, all the time, "out in the real world." Well, for once, "the real world" appears to agree with me! Sam, according to Ngram viewer, "supernovae" has "supernovas" beat by .00001%, which I gather is a big deal in Ngram-land. ("Supernovæ," with the ligature, scarcely places--People! It's Alt-right+z! I see I still have my work cut out for me.) According to Ngram, "supernovae" hit its peak--.000035%--in 1984, just about the time Yours Truly was bursting onto the scene--coincidence? I think not.
@Bill As I see it this confirms that your first word was, in fact, “supernovae.” Thank you for corralling these stats!! I was so busy being indignant I did not consider that it might actually be more popular (in the very, very limited contexts in which it’s used) 🫨
@Bill If you're the expert on Latinate plurals, was PIA MATERS correct, or is that Anglicized? And, because you're in the biz, is SOMM a common abbreviation for sommelier? We had a "sous" in our country club's kitchen, but we weren't fancy enough to have a wine guy.
Really like REGRESSIONCURVES. Those used to be my life.
@Francis And I have no idea what they are 🤪 Is it not cool how we are all good at different things? Ultimately, the sum of us is great at everything. Now if we only managed to agree to always rely on this communal skill....
@Francis A couple of folks want to know what REGRESSIONCURVES are. I replied to Andrzej with an explanation, but my reply seems to be hidden. (Why is this bug so hard to fix? Roll back to pre-bug code??) Here we go again ... @Andrzej A "regression line (curve)" is a line (curve) that "best fits" a given data set. Sometimes "least-squares line (curve)" is used a substitute. I seem to recall you mentioning that mathematics is not one of your strengths. But if you plot the points (1, 3), (2, 2) and (3, 7) along with the line y = 2x, you'll have a (small) data set and its regression line. (Finding this line was Problem 6 on the applied linear algebra final exam I gave yesterday.)
@Francis That answer made this finance professor's day!
@Xword Junkie Your asking me to do math almost triggered a PTSD episode for me 🤣 One of the advantages of being a privileged yet unambitious professor of law is being able to never, ever use any math. You have no idea how happy that makes me 🤪
Took me 21 minutes, about twice my usual Wednesday time. I thought I was in the twilight zone. The combination of cluing and theme threw me for some loops. 🤷🏼♂️ But respect to the constructors!
Whew. Amazing piece of construction but... 11 debut answers in this one and 5 others that have only appeared once or twice before, and... some of those were completely unfamiliar to me: NOOMI, PRGURU, SOMM etc. Anyway, had to cheat more than a bit to get through this and almost everyone else found it unusually easy. Probably shouldn't count it. I'll defer to the majority. Might be past time for me to return to my home planet. ....
@Rich in Atlanta It seems that more commenters found this to be on the tougher side for a Wednesday. It was my slowest Wednesday this year.
@Rich in Atlanta I'm only halfway done and I'm already well past my average solve time.
Harder than usual for a Wednesday. But who doesn’t love a challenge—especially when it’s unexpected!
@DQ To be honest, I've never liked a challenge 🤣 And the unexpected ones are the absolute worst 🤪
Thursday clues are no tougher, and are often easier, than Wednesday clues. The trick is what makes Thursdays hard (if the trick is tricky). Some of today's clues are worthy of Friday or Saturday.
This one was so fun! First time in awhile I’ve noticed so many clues and answers that aren’t frequently used but are still the right difficulty. Nice one
What can I say but GRR. In the end, I figured it out, but it wasn't easy. Forgot she was NOOMI and not Roomi, and couldn't read the TEA leaves. Otherwise, I managed to get it done, though deeply puzzled most of the time. (e.g., never hear of SOMM).
@dutchiris I actually tried changing it to NAOMI but it didn't work with the Down...
@dutchiris It didn't help that there were two versions of that movie, and one actress was named Noomi while the other actress was named Rooney... I kept getting their names mixed 😆
I liked this one a lot, except I've never heard anyone ever say, "TSA bin". It's just a bin. Maybe it's a regional thing.
Parker, The region would be Crosslandia.
@Parker It tricked me, but I think it works. What kind of bin? A TSA bin. Not a dust bin. I penciled “IN A BIN” for too long before I found my way.
@Parker I would say a ‘tray’ and they are usually grey.
@Parker as I know them as “tray” or “security tray” you are a step ahead of me
@Parker it was quite a stretch to include it, that one
@Parker hence why I started with “the bin,” as in “put your items in the bin.” Hear that in the airport all the time. I’ve never heard “put your items in the TSA BIN.”
Had supernovas until the end. Solid Wednesday!
Yup, Naomi for me too. Who noo? Or, as Sinatra and Blaine put it in Guys and Dolls: Call a lawyer and sue me, Noomi What can you do me I love you Give a holler and rate me, debate me Go ahead and play me The last half hour of my life I was a fool to give to you Alright already, I got Steve Nicks Alright already, it's true So noo, so sue me, Noomi What can you do me? *** I also had "In a bin" for a long time, since nobody says TSA bin, do they? Maybe those who magically find foot rests under the seats in front of them say TSA bin! Loved tepid / unhip cluing. Character arcs was pretty awesome. The return of cornbelt was eerie. The cluing for "eye" didn't have that touch of AI I've come to expect, but Goldstein & Wagner would not STOOP so low! Now THAT would be a regression curve.
@john ezra I love it. One change I would recommend. Go ahead ... debase me!
Posted at 10:25 Tuesday night, “approved“ at 10:40 this morning. I guess this is their new “streamlining.“ you would think that if anybody would avoid gobbledygook and Reed excuses for poor technology, it would be the New York Times games section, but no, when asked about it they reply that this is the new normal. I wish they would hire somebody who actually knew what they were doing there.
Not a fan of this one. Obscure names, obtuse clueing. Certainly not a typical Wednesday for me.
@Peter So, you're saying, mission impossible for you?
"This thread will self-destruct in five seconds."
Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?
Very tough. And very cool (or hot, or hip.) I expect nothing less from Rebecca Goldstein and Adam Wagner. Always, my experience with their individual puzzles is that I'll never finish them, until I do (though I did do a check puzzle in the end because SPERNOVAs got me good.) The amount of misdirects was challenging but completely thrilling. Fabulous ride. Thank you so much, Rebecca and Adam – for the puzzle and for making me revisit this: <a href="https://youtu.be/kBYHwH1Vb-c?si=bZIvukbUH8Naqv6Z" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/kBYHwH1Vb-c?si=bZIvukbUH8Naqv6Z</a>
@sotto voce Thanks for the link! I hadn't heard that performance.
@sotto voce I'm not surprised that while I was down the Fleetwood Mac rabbit hole you've posted something. I came up with this, a 1970s performance of Rhiannon. The guys look like every guy at my college back then. And Christine McVie (RIP) is so far off to the side the camera barely shows her. Also note the gong behind Mick. Same one? <a href="https://youtu.be/jQAK6sVovUk?si=41obDxctvF_3oWDq" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/jQAK6sVovUk?si=41obDxctvF_3oWDq</a>
I've replied to both Eric and Vaer. My replies show up in the email links I received, but don't show up here. And its been happening with astounding frequency. It's not just frustrating; it's absurd.
@sotto voce I see your replies when I hit the time stamp. (Someone needs to write lyrics to a song to called Let's Hit the Timestamp Again to the tune of the Rocky Horror song.) Andrew from Ottawa? Whoa Nellie?
@sotto voce I see without clicking the time stamp the post Sotto wrote she can't see without clicking the time stamp. Go go NYT IT team, you're doing a great job!
@Barry Ancona My display shows your comment as appearing 14 minutes ago...yet I'm sure I saw it there last night. What the h-e-double hockey sticks is going on?
Vaer, My "Who's on first?" post in this thread showed up just seconds after I hit SUBMIT.
I came to say two things really. The first one is that that was pleasantly challenging, taking a bit under 5 minutes longer than my average. In the end I had to flyspeck through it to realise that 28D had to be AMOR, not AMaR, as NaOMI made it seem. (Even then, I didn't understand ATA till I read the wordplay column). Second thing I came here to do is to gripe about 5D in the mini. I could accept "Bottles of pop" as a clue (with or without an "e.g."), but not "Pop bottles, e.g.". The containers are not their contents!
@Grumpy There are places in this country that call soda pop. So I wouldn't find it strange for them to say something along the lines of Put those Pop bottles in the recycling with the other glass.
@Grumpy For those who haven't looked at the mini the clue is: "Pop bottles, e.g." So by convention, the answer should be multiple (plural) things that "Pop bottles" would be an example of. But the answer is SODA. Not SODAs, not a thing made of glass. Not a container. Not something that can be recycled, or used as a whistle, or is breakable, etc. Just SODA. 🤨
Grumpy, You may still be grumpy, but SODA can mean more than one carbonated beverage, as in this cite: But Santa Cruz is the first one to institute a new one since legislators and business leaders struck a deal that was signed by the previous governor that prohibited local governments from imposing taxes on soda until 2031. —Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 2025 <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soda" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soda</a>
"...it won’t surprise you to learn that Rebecca and I wanted to make this theme more difficult." I found it was pleasantly difficult for a Wednesday. Looking at my times this year, it took me longer than 4 Saturdays did, than 9 Fridays, and 10 Thursdays. Adding to my enjoyment, I used the theme to help me solve. (More often, the theme is checked/understood after solving.) If only some of the super easy late-week puzzles this year offered as much of a challenge as this Wednesday!
That said, there have been 5 Wednesdays this year that took me longer than this one!
@Bill in Yokohama Curious as to how I can see my solve times for any particular day of the week? I know how to see the cumulative stats for a given day (in fact, my stats are almost a perfect stairstep pattern from Monday to Sunday), but except for going back and looking at each puzzle individually, I'm not sure how to get the information that you have.
First Wednesday in a long time I gave up on. Not fun.
@Ernest So did I. Agree no fun. My dog actually chewed it up and I gave him a reward.
Speaking as the mother of a Villanova alumnus and crazy Nova fan, perhaps SUPERNOVAE refers to the Pope who is a graduate of Villanova and has the same degree as my son! And it's Latin, to boot.
Romped through this one as fast as I could type, then died in the NE. Never heard of GASX or AREPAS, PR GURU and XRAY CAMERA are alien phrases to me, and I thought the "samoyed" was an actual Siberian person (despite the lack of capitalization), never having heard of the dog breed. Sigh.
@Oikofuge I was ok in the NE but the NW was just too much. Had to ask my genius wife for help, and she delivered.
@Oikofuge Agreed. Although I've heard of GasX, I worked in a dentist's office for 25 years and never heard the term Xray camera. It's an Xray machine.
Cute puzzle that gave me a good workout for a Wednesday. The gimmick was well done. I was surprised to get the happy music when I filled in the last square because I thought PRGURU must be wrong. I had to to stare at the completed puzzle for a moment or two before I made sense of it.
Usually I am the one stumped by the name in these puzzles, but apparently today I was in the minority (?) for whom Noomi was a gimme. A nice change! A situation not soon to be repeated, probably :D
Noomi? Really? Even my autocorrect disagrees.
@Katy Noomi Rapaca is a very good actress with a strange (for non-Scandinavians) name.
@Katy Your autocorrect knows Swedish names? Guess you never saw the original version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
That was tough for a Weds but I dug it
I thought the clueing was a bit tough for a Wednesday puzzle. Not really an enjoyable puzzle for me.
Thanks for the correct spelling of SUPERNOVAE In the real world we do use supernovae 😀 Nice puzzle. More work than a normal Wednesday but I agree with Sam that it was an excellent puzzle.
NOOMI crossing AMOR broke my streak. Another NYT proper noun trivia fest.
How long was your streak? AMOR appeared in the grid six times in 2024.
@Paul Z. I'm a little surprised by the number of NOOMI/AMOR complaints. Sure, NOOMI is an unusual name around these parts, but AMOR seems like pretty common crossword fill.
I filled in PRGURU exclusively on crosses, looked at that weird combination of letters and thought, "Well, that's clearly wrong, but I'll swing back and correct it later." Swinging back, I thought, "Oh, now I see it." I'm smarter than I thought,...or not!
re 46A: Lately, my Partner and I have become fond of those British TV police procedurals, and Saturday evenings will often find us watching an episode of *Vandervalk* (the reboot) or *Midsomer Murders* ("and ice cream after the second corpse!"); so the pictures-and-string idea was a gimme for me. "But I want to know where they get those photos!," he demands.
@Bill One of my recent finds in that genre is "The Chelsea Detective," in which the main character has dyslexia. He has trouble with written notes, so he takes pictures of everything with his phone, and tacks them up in his houseboat.
@Bill (@Grant) Along those lines, there is a French series, *Astrid* (*Astrid et Raphaëlle*, en français), in which the title character has Asperger's. I found it very good--the season 1 finale is excellent!--although I've read that experts on autism find it unconvincing. OTOH, having dealt with my Brother-in-law . . . I'll have to look up Chelsea Detective. I replied to your post about "Pia maters" and "somm," above.
@Bill I see it now, hidden behind the time stamp curtain.
@Bill Ludwig is about a puzzle creator turned crime solver. You should check it out!
Very good puzzle. But not a Wednesday.
Definitely a "Modern Era" Wednesday. A tougher than average Wednesday. The usual Wednesday is the hardest 15x15 themed but not "trick" puzzle of the week. And that's what we have today.
Today's crossword inspired anecdote: The Samoyed are a Siberian people discussed in Anna Reid's "The Shaman's Coat: A Native History Of Siberia". When I bought that book from an on-line store, I received an unusual recommendation: "People who bought The Shaman's Coat also bought The Hidden Code Of Cryptic Crosswords." Presumably someone had once bought both books. But it was a fine recommendation for me, so I also bought the cryptic crossword book. Which presumably has firmly convinced the recommendations algorithm that these two books have a lot in common.
It's interesting to me because this puzzle was pretty straightforward for me - no look ups at all. I had to ponder a few times, change a few letters here and there but that's all. But there are lots of puzzles that I think are insanely difficult and others breeze through in single digit minutes. It's just how our brains work, and which phrases and references are familiar! Thanks this was a fun one!
Well, I fell as if I just went through a Wednesday character arc! Excellent challenge...though I admit I've never heard of regression curves...but I suppose that's what the USA is going through since the election. May we create a dividing line from it next election!! Amen sisters and brothers!
@Norwood I read and I re-read all about regression curves, and still can't make the connection you concocted.