Anyone else have "Waist" for "Watch this space!" crossing "HAA" for "Very. Funny."
@jeb yep. Exactly what had me going over and over trying to figure where I went wrong. I’m not even sure why wrist is the correct answer.
@je Yes — “waist” (as in “watch your waist”, a common dieting term in the 70s and 80s), and “haa” (think extended, mildly patronizing/disgusted mock laughter) work just as well as “wrist” and “har” (which I’ve never seen as a term representing laughter without at least a second “har” after it).
@jeb WHIST (the card game) and HAH for me.
@jeb @jeb My last letter. I first had HAH with WHIST (maybe a word?), HAA with WAIST (made sense as "watch you waist is a saying I've heard), then tried HAR with WRIST and was shocked when I got the music as I thought I must have screwed up somewhere else. Like Chris I have no idea why is "wrist" is the answer. Anyone?
@jeb If you had really wanted to wind up in a muddle you should have tried HAw, which like HAR usually comes in pairs.
@jeb I got hung up here, too. “Watch this space”? I kind of get it: a watch goes on a wrist. But I’ve never heard “watch” used as a verb, or a wrist referred to as a space. The clue felt very forced to me.
@jeb Yes! Took me waaaay too long to figure out where I made a mistake!
A fair amount of unguessable proper nouns here, like AUDRE LORD, MES as clued, Sony's PSP, MONTERO, along with relatively obscure words like AKEE. I beat my Friday average, but I can see how some might really struggle.
@BB I knew PSP right off the bat. I guessed AUDRE LORDE after getting a few crosses, and was able to dredge up the name MONTERO after remembering that was what his debut album was called. As I've said many times before: if you widen your horizons, the puzzle will become much easier. Read a book you wouldn't normally read, listen to music you wouldn't normally listen to. Play a video game--you don't need a PSP, there are plenty you can play on a basic PC. It will pay off, I promise.
@BB Akee rice, salt fish are nice, and the rum is good any time of year.... Elementary school music class for the win. ;)
@BB I felt like AUDRE LORDE was reasonably guessable. I’d never heard of that poem (although I’m terrible about poem names. and song names. i can’t name most of my favorite songs.), but “Black Unicorn” in 1978 suggests a member of the Black Arts Movement, and given that, a few crosses go a long way.
Kate was cooking with gas here. ITSYOURLUCKYDAY? KISSEDBUTT?? TELLMEMORE??? Love seeing a constructor use their CREATIVELICENSE for a banger puzzle like this!!
"What did you talk to the pain specialist about?" "Well, it's kind of a sore subject." ("Yeah, that aches sense.")
@Mike I hope he had some sensitivity training, but didn't get all touchy-feely.
Watch this space -- it took me quite a while to figure this out.
@Michael Because 64 down isn’t a word/sound used by itself. It is only used when repeated, which should have been in the clue.
@Michael HARd to figure that out for a while. My last fill. WhISTed a lot of time staring at it.
@Michael I had HAA and WAIST but now seeing the answer is WRIST realize that it is where I put my wristWATCH, so the space on which I put my watch is my wrist.
I needed lookups of the many names, trivia and abbreviations to get some crosses going. My heart sank right at the start of my first across pass, when having been primed for failure by the clue referencing fastfood joints I encountered the long entry of a poet's name. The only LORDE I know is a poet, in a way, but she was born in 1996 so she can't have written a poem in 1978 🤣. Then *of course* there was a brand, a golfer, a sport team member name, what turned out to be a college, a rapper's real name, several abbreviations... All in all a kick in my Polish nuts. In Jamaica I ate AcKEE and saltfish. I suppose there may be spelling variants, but using the less common one always feels like a cheap trick in Crosslandia. What's ADU? Is CEE ('First in command') a chief executive officer? I resorted to revealing an entry in the end. I could not understand "watch this space" (I only got it as I was writing this), and I will never, ever remember HAR may mean a laugh in American English. It does not look or sound like any laugh I have heard in my life. I seem to remember it's a Three Stooges thing? I watched something by them once and found them painfully unfunny. I also didn't get the clue or the answer of KEY STROKES. What loggers are meant there? Well, anyway, with a few blanks there I made guesses in pencil, but I did not get my star, so I started revealing squares, and yeah, it was HA(R)/W(R)IST. As you realize by now, this was not an enjoyable solve for me.
Ah, I just got the KEY STROKES thing. Loggers as in key loggers, the tools hackers use to get passwords and such.
@Andrzej I also find the 3 Stooges eminently unfunny.
@Andrzej I got stuck on HAR/WRIST too. And I completely agree about the Three Stooges. An ADU is an auxiliary dwelling unit, like a little house you build in the back yard for an in-law or to rent out. I may or may not have watched a few too many home renovation shows on tv. Lucky for me, I retired before KEYSTROKE logging became a thing. It seems to be something some employers use to see if their workers are goofing off.
@Andrzej "Cee", as in the letter "C" for cookie, is the first (letter) in (the word) "command".
@Andrzej The clue for "First in command?" ends with the question mark, indicating a pun or play on words. The first letter in 'command' is the letter C, or CEE.
@Andrzej CEE is the first letter in “command.” It took me a bit to get that one.
Never heard of ADUs either. Here we’d call that a granny flat — a flat (ie apartment) where granny might live when she needs to be nearby (either for free babysitting or because she’s getting on a bit I suppose). Though occupants need not be grannies! Grownup children or AirBnBs probably at least as common these days
@Andrzej I'm totally with you on this one. The Three Stooges were on television when I was a child (they were reruns; I'm old but not THAT old). Their act went back to vaudeville so it was very old-fashioned by that time. Our parents wouldn't let us watch it because they didn't want us to see grown men beating up on each other. They were ahead of their time. I didn't mind because I thought the Stooges were stupid anyway.
Agreed. Too many vague and obscure answers to be much fun. Crossing a poet from the 70s with a relatively unknown school and an insider real estate acronym… I didn’t have much of a chance.
Thank you all for your replies :) Clue/answer combinations like the CEE one usually get me. Only rarely do I realize that simply the first letter is meant. It' such a cheap shot... I wonder: how often do you actually spell out what a letter sounds like, in English? I don't think I have ever seen the individual sounds of letters spelled out in writing in Polish. Actually, I'm sure I have not. How can I be sure? Well, I was in my late 20s when I met my future wife. I come from Warsaw in Mazowsze (Mazovia), and she hails from another part of the country. Only after months of listening to one another did we realize there are minor differences in our Polish. Among them was how differently we pronounce the letter "e" after a consonant, especially after "g", as in the name Genia (diminutive of Genowefa, Genevieve). When I say it, it sounds as it were spelled Gienia [hard G as in gun; followed by "yeah" and "nyah": G-yeah-nya]. When my wife says it, it sounds as it is literally spelled, without that additional soft "i" after the G. So my wife's Genia sounds like [G-Enya: that's the hard G again, and the artist Enya]. So, apparently, were I to spell out the G sound, it would be "gie" (in Polish, so probably gyeah in English), but for my wife it would be "ge".
In Jamaica I ate AcKEE and saltfish. And the rum is fine any time of year.
@Andrzej ADU = Accessory Dwelling Unit. Big deal these days in California. The state government passed a law a few years ago that any property zoned for a single family house could also have up to 3 ADUs! Some 'exclusive' cities are still having fits and involved in lawsuits. We bought our home in 1975, and it already had an ADU because it was built in 1947 before the area was part of any city -- just rural farmland. Yes, rural farmland in the heart of what is now Silicon Valley. But we had to get a letter from Palo Alto City to give to the bank to get our loan stating that the ADU was allowed because it was built pre-zoning. Now the 1950's tract houses in our neighborhood are being knocked down so mini-mansions can be built, as there is no empty land for miles around. Every one of the new homes has an ADU.
Part obstacle course, part garden of beauty, the ideal Friday terrain. Escape room spots where I clawed and scraped, just what my brain aches for, plus “Oh, how gorgeous!” moments that make me happy to be alive. Joys of Crosslandia. Sweet answers: TELL ME MORE, CREATIVE LICENSE, SIDE STREET, FACET, TRY THIS, ASK FOR HELP, FAST CASUAL, IT’S YOUR LUCKY DAY, SORE SUBJECT. Those last four, by the way, are worthy NYT answer debuts, sparking the grid. Moments where my face screwed up as I tried to crack a clue: • A think-pause as I wondered what four-letter sylvan areas a cabin might be found in. Big “Hah!” when SEMI became clear. • A standstill as I explored [Watch this space!], thinking ads, gaps, even the cosmos. Then a further juncture after the crosses revealed WRIST, as I sought to crack the clue/answer connection, and when it came – The wit! The wordplay! – standing-O stellar. A splendid outing from your hand, Kate. Thank you, and enthusiastic thumbs up!
Natick with AUDRELORDE and ADU. Fortunately it was the only square I was unsure of, so I could brute force it. My first thought was Audre Lorre and Alternative Residential Unit
@Steven M. Accessory Dwelling Unit. It's a hot topic in the suburbs. Attached or unattached living space on your residential property. Generally with a separate entrance. Sometimes called a granny flat. Fun puzzle.
@Steven M. I’m surprised Audre Lorde is an obscure enough figure for people to consider this a natick, I would have thought she was a household name in the US
Sarah, The Times Crossword has fewer "Naticks" for solvers who read The New York Times (or are otherwise literate). AUDRE LORDE should be recognized if not from the clue then after a couple of crosses. Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) popped up in an article earlier this month.
[Fake I.D.?] CREATIVE LICENSE Har.
Kate Hawkins is quickly becoming one of my favorite constructors. As always, the puzzle gave some pushback, but in the end, nothing was too out there, and it all came together in a Friday-ish time. It didn't hurt that the answer to 1A seemed (and, in retrospect, was) very obvious to me. Those two chains are perfect examples of what FAST CASUAL is supposed to mean.
@Steve L Thankfully more obvious to most than the satorial confusion of a Casual Friday 😉
@Steve L I remember being very put off by an early Kate Hawkins NYT puzzle that had theme answers that used euphemisms for “toilet” and the revealer POTTY MOUTH. But since then, she’s given us several puzzles that I’ve quite enjoyed. She’s someone whose work I look forward to solving.
@Eric I combed through xwordinfo.com (she only has 17, and most of them are themed) and couldn't find such a puzzle.
Steve, This is the puzzle: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/23/2021&g=57&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/23/2021&g=57&d=A</a>
Poor Hercules. He slays the Nemean lion. Dispatches the Hydra (lots of work, that one—good grief, all those heads), starts capturing beasts far-left and right, cleans out some stables, then more slaying, then more capturing… oof. Finally, he drags Cerberus out of Hades, settles in for his lunch break and—of course: he’s called back for overtime. Labor #13, the Subduing of Trythis. Trythis, a shapeshifting eel-terrier hybrid raised by elves and rogue CEOs used to serve mojitos in Thessaloniki but now she’s grabbing elk by the wrists outside a Chipotle in Athens, right off US-78 W to Atlanta. The historical sources are scarce, contradictory. Tacitus (in Dialogus, apocryphal appendix) redacts the whole affair. Herodotus footnotes it as “a sore subject.” Livy? He dismisses it entirely—“creative license gone amok.” Hercules orders a Chipotle bowl. He’s tired. More than a little teed off. Sure enough, faster that you can say Fair Labor Standards Act violation, Trythis grips his wrist. “It’s your lucky day,” she hisses. “Tell me more,” Hercules says, mistaking guile for flirtation. They ride westward in a dented Malibu, then swerve down a side street past the Acropolis. A party with Artemis goes catastrophically wrong. Trythis bites three demigods and eats the olives. Eventually, Hercules gifts her cement boots—not as punishment, but to keep her from floating off when she dreams. Athens exhales. Somewhere, a terrier barks, and Herodotus sighs, “Well. It could have happened.”
@Sam Lyons I was hoping they would meet in the gymnasium and vie via pankration!
@Sam Lyons I think they were headed down the Atlanta highway looking for a Love Shack getaway. <a href="https://youtu.be/hA49fkJ3wRw?si=5PZJaMGZvpEBvCZF" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/hA49fkJ3wRw?si=5PZJaMGZvpEBvCZF</a>
@Sam Lyons Oh dear, what's the backstory on that Malibu? Boffo post!
I just flew in from Natick City in Northwest Acronym/ ProperName and boy are my brains tired
Was this a FASTCASUAL Friday? Did it take an unusual number of KEYSTROKES? FARLEFT was on the far left. HAHA. TELLMEMORE? TRYTHIS: ITSYOURLUCKYDAY. Thanks, Kate.
Bunch of grouches in the comments today! Any puzzle mentioning the great Audre Lorde is a good one in my book. I also like the crosses of TRYTHIS / ITSYOURLUCKDAY and TATTLETALES / CREATIVELICENSE. Fun Friday.
Shoutout to any fellow SDSU ALUMS out there. Double shout out if your diploma is signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a good time to be 22 and living in San Diego.
Sometimes comments read like they were overheard grousing in a high school hallway, students whining about how it was all so unfair to them, and how inept and dumb their teachers are. It's a crossword puzzle in the New York Times. If you had a tough time solving it, well, it's a Friday and that's what it's here for and that's why you came to work it. Calling out clues and fills in a puzzle that are factually wrong is great. But insulting a constructor for clues that made you have to think and PUZZLE OUT what they meant is not.
One fun thing about doing puzzles a lot: because it's Friday, I saw Athens and "probably the one in Georgia" immediately leapt up. Sometimes I'm so used to twisty clueing that I overthink Monday ones..
@Isabeau I was sure it would be some American Athens, and I seemed to remember there was one in Georgia. However, in my case it didn't help at all. An abbreviated name of an American institution will always confuse me 😢. I'm primed to expect trickery but some things are ungettable for me and will remain so.
Calif. school that runs AUTOshop Friday solving had me a blast Friday solving happened so fast I filled a grid easy for me While chewing akee, sweet as can be Friday grids drifting away To-ah! Oh, those Thursday nights Well-a, well-a, well-a, har Tellmemore, tellmemore Did you get very far? Tellmemore, tellmemore Did you win a gold star? Hydra scared me, swam by my feet Acres of ocean, and we had to meet! I saved her life, she nearly drowned Nine big heads, splashing around Friday's done, something's begun But ah! Oh, the Thursday nights Well-a, well-a, well-a, har Tellmemore, tellmemore Did your will semi melt? Tellmemore, tellmemore Did your brain askforhelp? Easy solving, tonight clues were fair Isee you noticed that Paddington's bare We made out with no rout or shock So most grids filled before ten o'clock! Friday fling, don't mean a thing But ah! Oh, the Thursday nights Whoa, whoa, whoa Tellmemore, tellmemore I don't gotta brag Tellmemore, tellmemore Cause my streak's in the bag! Kate's guile watching that space Who knew a TIMEX was my saving grace. Her grid was sweet, number seventeen We'll await more, you know what I mean! Nightly treat when solving alums meet But ah! Oh, the Thursday nights Whoa, whoa, whoa Out of keystrokes, here's where it ends Isee no rebus, so this grid's my friend So I sip mojitos, as time allows - Wonder if itsyourluckyday now? Friday themes ripped at the seams But, oh those Thursday Nights! Tellmemore, tellmemore, more, more
@Whoa Nellie There are worse things you could do Than to rhyme a line or two Even if the Crosswordhood Can't agree if bad or good They just really have no clue I think your fill's all fun, no glue.
24D is definitely misspelled. It should be ACKEE. I’m grew up there and have never seen it spelled without the C.
@Dom hit send too fast! I grew up there*
@Dom I’m seeing dictionaries list AKEE as a variant spelling of the more common “ackee,” though I’m not sure how common it is or whether it’s used more inside or outside the Caribbean. Tripped me up, too.
I spent several weeks in Jamaica and ate the traditional breakfast of ackee and saltfish. I can't recall ever seeing a spelling without the C there.
@Dom I only know it as akee…from the spelling bee. (People complain all the time that it’s not included, and that’s how they spell it ;) ) It is a variant spelling according to MW…
@Dom Well I too have only seen it spelled with a ‘c’, but now I see it has appeared here 23 times spelled without the ‘c’ and not once with it. TIL, the scientific name Blighia sapida is in honor of Captain William Bligh who brought some back to old world from the Caribbean.
ADU, Accessory Dwelling Unit, is the little building where you keep your best loved hats, scarves, gloves, etc.—sometimes necklaces, earrings, neckties, tiaras and boas. Shoes always get a kick out of visiting, but there is so much that I can hardly get my TOE in the door. (You have no idea how much MONET all this cost.)
Mini tale: “I’m suffering from GYM TOE.” “TELL ME MORE.” “It’s a SORE SUBJECT.” The end.
WATCH THIS SPACE. One of the worst clues ever.
Mike, The Crossword is a puzzle. Clues -- especially on Friday and Saturday -- are often intended to be puzzling. You were not alone being puzzled by [Watch this space!]. That makes it an excellent late-in-the-week clue.
@Mike K 100% agree. My 90 day streak ended today because this literally makes no sense whatsoever.
@Mike K -- it came with an exclamation point.
@Amy F It could have been worse. Like "RIng this thing!" for EAR. I entered WAIST, which to me makes as much sense as WRIST, given the clue. But WAIST forces HAA instead of HAR, and HAA is questionable at best.
Amy F, It doesn't make any sense ... to you. We get that.
@Mike K I didn’t particularly care for that one, either. I had to go through every letter of the alphabet to fill in my last letter for the “r.” I guess, it is kind of funny to have the sincere HAHA as well as the sarcastic HAR in the same puzzle. Now I can refine my online comments. Har dee har har
After all those hints, WRIST and HAR turned out to be too much for me. Boo hoo.
Bart, You're in good company, but unlike most of the others, you're not blaming the puzzle. Be well, and keep up the solving.
Would M_NTERO / M_NET be sort of a limited Natick? Like a Dedham maybe?
@Matt Kopans this made me smile.
@Matt Kopans I suppose many, if not most, of us didn't know Mr. Lil Nas X's given name, but know MaNET and MONET, but sadly get them confused. With early Monet this is understandable, but when we start talking about the big water lily paintings and the home in Giverny, you should know its MONET. If your a fan of impressionism, it's worth the trip to visit his home there.
Too much trivia, not enough fun. The cluing felt more contorted than clever. Even the grid spanners felt dull and uninspired. This many proper nouns, acronyms, and abbreviations felt like sawdust filler in already-stale bread: -AUDRE LORDE -PSP -UGA -MONET (Naticked with Ma/ONTERO) -SDSU -ADU -TOM -HEDY -CTR Glue, glue, and more glue. No shine, no sparkle, no stars, no thank you.
@Edward I agree, it wasn't fun and it wasn't fair. I'd like to know how many solvers "really" solved it with no lookups.
@Laura Stratton Many of us were able to solve on our own by using crosses, deduction and calculated guesses in the areas we were stuck. Examples: I didn't know AUDRE LORDE and first had SFSU for the school, but AUfRE didn't look like a name, so I figured it had to be AUDRE. I started out with HAh for the laugh, but couldn't justify WhIST for [Watch this space!] I did a mental alphabet check to arrive at what seemed reasonable. I didn't know any of Edward's examples, but each one was solvable using one method or another. It's surprising how little you actually have to *know* to solve a lot of puzzles.
Laura, Quite a few, I'd say. (I was quite surprised you didn't get AUDRE LORDE.)
@Barry Yup. I used *logic* and *deduction* for the entire puzzle -- but that tricky, tricky R (I had H) took a bit to come clean! No harm, no foul. Happy Friday solve!
Audre Lorde crossing adu and SDSU feels unfair plus har and haha in the same puzzle? Not a fan
@James I totally agree with you. In fact, I just finished the puzzle and came here to complain about both spots you mention. ADU? Wrist for "Watch this?" Terrible.
James, The Crossword editors expect solvers to have a certain amount of literacy, or at least familiarity with it. One need not have read the works of AUDRELORDE; one should have heard of her. (You're in the U.K., so you get a pass on ADU and certainly on SDSU, but you would get them from the crosses.) Paul (from Brooklyn, NY) AUDRELORDE went to Hunter High School and Hunter College and was Poet Laureate of New York State.
@James Both were gimmes for me, so, as usual, YMMV.
@Barry My unscientific sampling of today's comments indicates that Audre Lorde is unknown, outside of the faculty lounge at Columbia. Are there 13 ways of looking at a Black Unicorn?
@Grant As you should know, not everyone who knows something chimes in to say they know it. I didn't know AUDRA LORDE to drop her right into the puzzle, but I have heard of her and I am not on the faculty of Columbia.
Grant, As I noted in another thread today, I read complaints here I doubt would have been raised when one had to buy The Times to do the Crossword. But I'm not surprised by your comment: you admire people who favor illiteracy.
John, Respectfully, in one case you are not understanding what I wrote and in the other case why I wrote it. Best wishes.
@Westchester I did not take it as a verb, but as an instruction that might be on a diagram with an arrow pointing to the wrist. You know, for folks who have never seen a watch. Hey, there could be some. "First take the watch out of the box, then put it where indicated."
It saddens me to see how many commenters say they'd never heard of AUDRE LORDE. I had thought her name was better-known. As she was a Black lesbian feminist, I fear that future generations will forget about her altogether if things continue the way they are going currently in the U.S.
Naticked by 54A crossing both 3D and 9D. I've never heard of either the poem or the observatory (or the term ADU, for that matter). On top of which, the phrase FAST CASUAL is new to me, and I just don't see how FAIR is related to Upright. Oh - almost forgot: LECHE didn't make sense to me, because café is a French word (we do French here in Canada, not Spanish). That whole NW corner was a complete mess for way too long. Not to mention (but of course I will) the crossing of a rapper's given name at 42D with an artist. Since you only need 1 hand to count the paintings I know the title of, I figured 47A could've been either MaNET or MONET, and both MONTERO and MaNTERO sound equally likely names to my ear. As it happened, my first guess was right, but if I'd gone the other way, it's only one letter that I'd have to change.
@Grumpy Café also means coffee in Spanish. Pronounced differently than French café.
@Grumpy In this context it’s “upright” in the sense of honest or morally sound, like “upstanding” - ie, FAIR
@Grumpy Your experience was pretty much the same as mine. Bunching up and crossing names and abbreviations is so annoying...
The problem with WRIST, aside from being a very obscure pun, is that WAIST can work almost as well both across and down there. I actually think WAIST is a better answer, and HAA seemed weird but reasonable. Also far too many "plug" words, and after yesterday's masterpiece this one fell completely flat.
@dougschoemer The clue for WRIST only works if you accept "watch" as a verb, as short for "put a watch on." (I do not.) Similarly, HAR HAR at a minimum, but never, ever just one HAR.
@Grant I did not interpret "watch" as a verb, but as part of an instruction, as in "Watch goes here."
I don't love the two separate "laughing sound" clues, but that's my only nitpick. Great Friday puzzle--vigorous but not too difficult.
The NW corner beat me today. Like many others, I've never heard of AUDRE LORDE or ADU, so I had to look her up. And the clue for WRIST is quite a stretch. But it was otherwise a pretty good Friday for me. Thanks for the fun!
As tough a time as I've ever had here. I see that others have flagged the difficult/questionable parts. It started merely mildly frightening for me, but then I found myself breezing through much of it. And then I went back to the upper left... and stayed there forever. After many attempts I figured my streak was finally broken. I rolled the alphabet one last time - so it was ADU and not Additional Rental Unit. Never heard of it. The real problem was a minor poet from 50 years ago. I see the resident supercilious snoboscenti have already made sure to try to make those of us who don't know him/her feel small. I was pretty sure on most of the down answers, but the somewhat ludicrous spelling of the poet's name held me back for quite a while. It's from half a century ago, I thought, surely the constructor wouldn't find someone with unusual first AND last names, right? Wrong. Must be Lorre, right. Wrong. Audra certainly, maybe Audry? Nope and nope. This person's name with ADU was my personal Natick. It didn't help that I kept toggling to Manet/Mantero just in case, though I was pretty confident on Monet. Another vaguely Naticky square for me. It also took me a while to change from Waist to Wrist. I see many others did the same. Personally I enjoyed Wrist as an answer. Verbing is so common that I found nothing wrong with the entertaining clue. The gap in knowledge is my own failing and this puzzle was still well done. But whew.
@B I guess I count as "supercilious snoboscenti" because I mentioned that I recognized the work and knew the author. I was given the volume as a gift back in the late '70s. That poetry collection, and that author, are important to me. And I felt lucky to be able to get that clue straight away, out of a morass of unknowns. Sometimes people know works and authors you don't know; sometimes people know works and authors I don't know. But I have the good grace not to call them names, just because they've been fortunate enough to read something I haven't.
@Oikofuge Well said. Pease allow me to shake your hand!
Oikofuge, The author and her work is important to you. You felt lucky to know the answer. Those are (in my opinion, and I am betting also in the opinion of B the OP) pleasant emotions and statements. As I recall, you did not, as at least one other commenter did, imply that those who do not share your luck and enjoyment are “illiterate”. I, for one, don’t lump you among those whose comments here can often make others feel small.
Lots to like here, but I kind of feel like ADU and AKEE shouldn’t be fill in the 15x15 grid. (I have yet to figure out what ADU is short for.)
@Ken W. I’m guessing something dwelling unit. Alternative, adjunct, another, also…. Others?
@Ken W. Accessory dwelling unit. A second small dwelling built on the same lot as a primary dwelling. In some areas these are a relatively recent innovation to permit denser use of space. Could potentially house relatives or be a rental unit.
@Ken W. You can't escape the term here in California where building ADU'gs is a hot topic to help with the housing crunch.
AUDRE LORDE and MOJITOS? ITS my LUCKY DAY! This one KIckED BUTT. Happy Friday all!
Oh geez. I JUST got “wrist.” [eyeroll]
@MB this is the entire reason I came to read today’s column but had to come to comments to get the joke! Otherwise I loved today’s puzzle.
Nope. Not enjoyable. Audre Lorde crossing ADU, and an absolutely awful clue for Wrist don’t make for a fun Friday.
54 Across: HAH vs HAR; 52 Down: WAIST (i.e., watch your waistline) vs WRIST (i.e., place for a wristwatch). I couldn't for the life of me figure out where my mistake was.
@Elizabeth This was the same mistake I had. It is a rare situation where I think you could make the case for both. Hah fits better with across, but wrist does make more sense for the down.
@Elizabeth It's HAA/WAIST or HAH/WHIST or HAR/WRIST. I don't see any way to make WHIST work with "Watch this space!", and HAA is questionable at best.
@Xword Junkie HAR is also questionable at best. It may be slightly less questionable than HAA, but you're not finding either one of them in the OED (at least, not in the sense the clue was looking for here).
@Delg I didn’t check the OED, but I’ve been hard-pressed to find HAA anywhere at all. I entered HAA/WAIST, but I’m finding it difficult to call this choice correct, as much as I’d like to. WAIST is certainly acceptable for the clue, but HAA … I just don’t think so.
HAR dee har har. at the Mini, too. Both puzzles felt rather tortured, stretched on the rack. Perhaps caffeine will make me more sanguine.
I have zero HISSes to give this puzzle. My toughest spot was in the lower right area. However, after reading most of the comments, I'd say I'm pretty fortunate that I am extremely fond of MONET and a frequent spouter of the word HAR. Guess ITSmyLUCKYDAY! Har! I like the crossing of TELLMEMORE and TATTLETALES. Also the crossing of ACHIER and ACRES.... but would have really appreciated if SORESUBJECT could have crossed ACHIER.
@HeathieJ I had WAIST (as in waist watchers) crossing HAA and could not figure out where my mistake was without help... It was HAR all along. I guess that means this puzzle was too HARd for me...
@HeathieJ I could have sworn I replied to myself when I tried to reply to Delg, but alas, my comment is hidden behind the timestamp. Guess I'd rather believe that I forgot than the possibility there might be another glitch. It's really not intuitive to not respond to the person you're responding to.... Say that 10 times fast!
ITS YOUR LUCKY DAY when there’s a puzzle by Kate to solve! I TRY THIS and that, may ASK FOR HELP or TOIL a bit to finish, but I love every FACET of her gems. HAHA this is a good one! Kate, please take out your CREATIVE LICENSE and construct more jewels!!
Got it, but not thrilled with a number of clues. And I thought it was "ackee".
A PSP in the ADU and TOM will never leave and go back to UGA. SORESUBJECT crossed with BUTT reminds me of my first MS150 bike ride. A FAIR game with plenty of GUILE. Thanks, Kate!
And I'm never going back to my old school <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCX635Z7_PE" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCX635Z7_PE</a>
This felt a little more challenging than most recent Fridays. I’ve heard the term FAST CASUAL before but it didn’t immediately come to mind. (The nearest Chipotle is about 100 miles from me; the nearest Panera is over 160 miles away. And that’s not the sort of restaurant I prefer anyway.) I didn’t recognize the AUDRE LORDE title and putting her name in based on the letters I had didn’t seem to work until I remembered SDSU (I think I earlier tried UCSD). Blanking on MOJITO didn’t help. I don’t believe I have ever heard anyone say KISS BUTT; it’s usually a bit coarser than that. Otherwise, my solving experience was pretty smooth. There are lots of clever or amusing clues. Thanks for the fun, Ms Hawkins!
@Eric Hougland I have heard of the expression you reference, and its coarser version as well. Neither one passes the breakfast-table test, IMO, but these are coarse times so I guess anything goes.
Whenever I see a clue like [1/48 cup], I am reminded of an incident at work: a former chef asked a co-worker to prepare something--biscuits, perhaps--and gave her a recipe*, which she then had to multiply by 22. The original recipe contained an ingredient--baking soda, say--with an amount of 1 tsp. Now 22 tsp. is as close to 21 tsp. as no matter, which is 7 tbsp, which is 3.5 fl.oz., or 1/2 c. minus 1 tbsp. (To be totally accurate, 1/2 c.-1 T+1t.) In other words, a scant half cup. Which is how I would have measured it. But no, I watched her measure out twenty-two individual teaspoons of baking soda. Now repeat that with the salt, the sugar, all the other ingredients. I considered giving her some advice, but I didn't really like her, so I enjoyed watching her struggle, *I hate it when chefs pull recipes off the internet and expect them to work: first off, many of them are not very well tested. More importantly, home recipes often don't work very well in a professional kitchen, and vice versa. Chefs do that more often than one would think.
@Bill You have no idea how weird all those American measures look to me. I understand almost nothing of your post 🤣 Props for not helping a person you didn't like though 🤩
@Bill I might have done the same thing, depending on how much I disliked the coworker in question. My husband baked me a birthday cake yesterday from a recipe adapted from one used by a bakery in Austin. It’s a good recipe, but it calls for things like 2⅔ eggs.
@Bill Boggles the mind of this home cook! Strange that she -- hired to know what she's doing, I would assume -- wouldn't have taken a moment to make the translations herself, since the chef hadn't done so. And I agree wholeheartedly about recipes from home cooks on the internet!
@Bill (& @Andrzej & @EH): I don't know how many times a server has come up to me and said "the diner at table 22 loved your Bumpy Cake, and wants to know if they can have the recipe." God, I hate that! Not out of some professional secrecy, but out of logistic. First off, most of my recipes are in bulk, and I have to divide them down to smaller quantities, which give you things like "2 2/3 eggs." Also, most of my recipes are by weight, and most American cooks don't use scales* (although this is changing, I've noticed.) Many of my recipes involve ingredients which are common enough in a professional kitchen or bakery, but hard to find elsewhere. Have any sheet gelatin lying around in your pantry? How about Sweetex? Finally, there are techniques which are easy enough to demonstrate, but difficult to explain ("mix it until it resembles--what does it resemble? well, I don't know, "it."); kudos to those cookbook authors who can do so. Not to mention, writing it all out. Although at this point, most of my recipes are on the 'puter, a mere Ctrl-P away. *Even at home, I will weigh out things like dry pasta. Portion control. Weird, I know, but it has kept my waist, and my wrist, relatively slim. @EH--Tell him: either two eggs and two yolks, rather sloppily separated; or three smallish eggs, the kind they sell at Aldi's
@Eric Hougland Those fractions of eggs make me loathe to scale baking recipes up or down. I'm so lazy in that regard! Even @Bill's solution of X eggs + X yolks is almost always too fussy for me. Though I would make an exception for a dear loved one, such as a spouse. :) In some circumstances, I make an appropriate amount of "flax egg" for the fractional amount of egg required. Works well for chocolate cupcakes! I'd never do it for a vanilla cake. (Stir to combine 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed + 2½ Tbsp water, let sit 15 min until thickened.) Also, happy belated birthday!!! I hope the day was fun -- and the cake delicious. 🥰
Bill, I have fun trying to cook using ingredient measures from Department of the Army Supply Bulletin 10-261 (August 1969) 28 Day Master Menu (based on serving 100). N.B. It does have weight and measure conversion charts if you're only feeding 50 or 75 (or up to 300).
@Graphic That was me 🤣 The thing is, with the metric system knowing what decimals are - which is a very simple concept - lets me deal with all weights and measures. I can be very and at math and yet have no issues whatsoever in everyday life. With all the 1/48th etc of the imperial system it wouldn't be as easy...
The verbing of the noun “watch” in “Watch this space” reminds me of a recent experience: I got a new doodad. It came with an app. The instructions for the app told me I should “favorite” the locations I wanted to use frequently. Maybe this verbing has been around for awhile, and I just don’t get enough new doodads. I’ll know it’s in the language only if Lewis gives his Monday list by saying “Clues I favorited this week.”
Good morning!I admit that I did not know AUDRELORDE, and ended up looking it up. I had not heard ADU before, also tried a couple of other college acronyms before SDSU. Also I had "sucre" before LECHE. Was anyone else tiny bit surprised by ALUMS not having an abbreviation hint? (I mean of course, what else could it have been?) I enjoyed the cluing, especially when I got to the R of WRIST, after trying A & H like many others. I LOLed at that. TGIF.
@Amy Re: ALUMS Words like those are shortenings but not abbreviations, strictly speaking, if they are in the dictionary as their own word. English has literally thousands of them. Such shortened words do not require an abbreviation signal.
@Amy Sucre before LECHE 🙋♀️ That accent aigu is a trickster!
@Amy ALUMS was one I couldn't guess, let alone quin-whatever. We tend to say 'former pupils/students.' Alumni is of course far too long a word and has to be shortened to ALUM!
@Jane I think that we use ALUMS specifically to replace "alumni" and "alumnae"; ditto for the singulars.
Fun challenge that took me almost 23 minutes. So good value for money. Not happy with “Watch this space!” solving to WRIST.
@Byron I don’t understand that clue/answer. What does it mean?
Boggler, I wear a watch. Guess where...
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen Yes, using watch as a verb. And i dont mean watch as in seeing either.
Had to enter CREATIVE LICENSE through gritted teeth. I mean, hardly anyone over here spells it properly these days either, but I reserve the right to be pedantic. Would you take some advise from someone? Or would you take some advice? Don't worry everyone, I'm fully aware that's the official spelling in Americaland, language evolves, yada yada, my beef is with someone several hundred years ago, not you ;-)
@Tim Don't be incenced! Just kidding. We also have organize vs organise, but not advize. I had to fight with auto-correct for that sentense, and I won.
@Tim I get not being a fan of Noah Webster, I do. In fact, I’m happy he reached deep inside himself and found restraint before he put his fevered dream of “fiillip, fyzzic or fizzic, karacter, korus” into an actual dictionary. I mean, can you imagine what John Oliver would’ve done with *that*? Having said that, you can relate to Noah’s frustration. Good grief, y’all still hadn’t decided which way you wanted to go on Licenc/se the Noun by the time Noah wanted to put the question to rest, once and for all, nicely bulleted, better yet numbered, preferably in Excel format, and definitely color-tabbed for intuitive visual appeal—the way we Americans like our information delivered—half a millennium later. Just for fun, here is the spelling timeline from OED’s cites for Licenc/se the Noun. (I hope you know I rib with a smile. Besides, it feels unseemly to pick nits with how you guys spelled a Latin-derived word before we were even, you, know, a country.) 1362 — lycense c1386 — licence 1422 — licence 1493 — licens a1500 — lycence a1513 — lycens 1526 — licence 1532 — licence 1548 — license c1550 — lecens 1551 — licence 1640 — License 1675 — licence 1719 — License 1761 — licence 1765 — licence 1807 — license 1838 — license 1863 — licence 1888 — license
@Sam Lyons What on Earth was fiillip supposed to be??? The others I get no problem, but this...
@Tim (& @SL) Of course, we pronounce "advise"(v.) differently from "advice"(n.), but we pronounce "licen[c/s]e" the same in both parts of speech. Or do we? I consider myself a pretty typical speaker of SAE, albeit with a mid-western accent, so I tried saying "license" to myself in various contexts. Now analyzing one's own pronunciation is a tricky matter--a Schrödinger's Parrot, as it were--but I'm pretty sure I say "Licence to Kill" with an "enss," but "driver's license" closer to "enz." Of course, Noah Webster did not drive, nor was he an employee of MI6.
@Bill How do you pronounce "houses"? Is it different as a plural noun and a third-person verb? I say how-zes in every instance. And I find it annoying when I hear it the other way. And although I love the song, I cringe when Dan + Shay sing the word with a voiceless S (at 1:11). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjlNSaXq0Ik" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjlNSaXq0Ik</a>
I'm not sure which is worse, accessory dwelling unit or referring to it as an ADU. In the first case it's pretentious, and in the second it suggests, to me at least, that we've gone overboard with abbreviations.
@redweather Oh! I could not figure out that one for the life of me: I simply let the crosses do the work. I agree with your assessment 100%!
@redweather IMO, ADU is a better descriptor than "in-law apartment" which is the term it replaces
@redweather @Pythia A friend in SoCal has such a residence which she calls her "casita". I thought that would be a good term for it.
@redweather Better than cluing the soccer player.
@Steve L Hey now, I would have gotten Freddy ADU. The crossing obscure FAR LEFT poet, not so much. And I'm guessing that the Dwelling Units in question are also a west coast thing...thinking of Kato Kaelin.
@redweather Given the housing shortage, it surprises me that anyone is not familiar with adu. My neighborhood, after years of squabbling, was recently designated for adu’s by the city. It’s now in the zoning codes that we can build small living structures on our property to help with housing.
Graphic, It would not have been a problem for most solvers when the Times Crossword only came in the newspaper.
@redweather, ADUs have been discussed a lot in the US as part of the (potential) solution for various cities' housing crises. Having converted an old garage into one and gotten it officially habitable and rented out, ADU was easy for me.
@redweather How is it pretentious to call something by its name? In my city they are everywhere— garages converted into rental units or Air BnBs. And yes, the acronym is most commonly used.