Monday, June 2, 2025

@Mike Well, that was an off the cuff pun.

@Mike I love the way you tailor your posts to each day's puzzle. Fitting.

@Mike You always end with a clothing line.

@Lewis 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆 Make way for ducklings.

@live your life It took a while for CAMERASHY to develop for me also.

@live your life I got as far as checking the solution. As Bugs would say, "What a maroon!"

@live your life. But do you DOOK in the end?

@live your life Hahahaha I did too!

@Insert80sName Congratulations on your transition from the voiceless to the ... um... yeah, let's try that again. Welcome to the commenters! All voices are fun to hear here. (Hear hear!)

Massachusetts, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

@Lewis How many millions did MIT spend to study OREOS? Was it taxpayer funded? Probably a grant from the FDA.

@Lewis And I had to sing the "Fifty Nifty..." song to get the 3 short ones -- Iowa, Ohio, Utah.

@sotto voce Loved the video! If Steven Tyler and Jack Sparrow had a kid together ...

@chef disch So funny! Thanks for pointing that out

@Heidi The thing is, no matter how cutesy you are in clueing OREO, it will forever remain crosswordese glue. People trying so hard to make it feel special annoys me, for some reason.

@Heidi Less is more in language, too.

@Heidi Right. Likewise "orientate". I know, these things have a strange power over us. I would love to know why some things clash cacophonously in one's ear, and others just rumble by. I think it's the adrenal gland. I've always been a little suspicious of that little bearcat: "Here, let me be the gatekeeper on something that can make a maniac out of you, and I promise I'll be good 😉😉 "

@Jack McC The leftist in me dislikes inside jokes because they are exclusionary 🤷

I don't get the Oreo milk thing. Is it from some ad campaign? Pairing cookies with milk is not a thing here - it's tea or coffee for us. I don't eat cookies, anyway.

Kids don't drink tea in the US? Wow, ok. Over here parents generally don't offer children coffee, but tea is enjoyed by people of all ages.

@Andrjez The Oreos and milk thing exists because Oreos are so dry that they’re virtually impossible to eat without something to dunk them in (or at least wash them down). They’re not bad broken up and mixed into vanilla ice cream.

@Eric Fair enough. BTW, the simplest cookie in Polish is called "herbatnik". "Herbata" means tea, and "herbatnik" is something that goes with it. Traditionally, we would dip our herbatnik into tea and eat the soggy bit. That's how my grandmother had hers all her life. The custom is no longer popular though, and few people eat plain herbatniki in general. As kids in the 1980s we were served milk in kindergarten for the calcium, and a campaign encouraging people to drink milk was launched in 2003, featuring Poland's best athletes at the time. Still, there is no association between milk and cookies here, that I know of.

@Andrzej Kids don’t typically have tea in the US. I don’t know that their parents deny them tea, but other than sugary iced tea, I don’t think kids drink much tea at all. And as for adults, many are really into tea, but it’s not a major option overall. Most restaurants offer coffee and tea as hot beverages, but coffee is overwhelmingly more popular.

@Steve L Tea was Poland's default hot drink for almost two centuries before coffee become more popular once our market opened to imports from all over the world in the 1990s. It is still probably our most commonly consumed hot beverage. My wife's niece always asks everybody for "herbatka" (little tea). Kids usually drink their tea with sugar, adults often without. My wife and I have several teas a day, Earl Grey for her, unscented Ceylon for me, no sugar.

@Heidi My most hated corporate speak word is “ideation”. Same response to it.

@Andrzej I gotta say that jumped out at me, the mother of all misanthropes, too, about the asp, or any creature of a similar body build. Last I heard, our fear of snakes is inborn and instinctive. If so, it's natural for use to fear them, but... we are supposed to have a powerful brain. That powerful brain is supposed to be able to make distinctions, like between viperous and non-viperous, with maybe a "stay away just in case category". But anyway, to call an asp "vile" is weird. Maybe it was a typo and was supposed to be "nile"?

@Francis "Nile" was also in the clue, so I'm guessing it was supposed to be a cute little nile-vile rhyme.

@Andrzej I might have missed something, but the only other clue I found in which a name “sounds like a bird” was from 2/24/25: [Cartoon dog whose name sounds like a bird] for REN. Maybe that’s what you remember?

@Eric My head is a mess so always assume I'm wrong, unless I'm ranting about bad clues concerning Slavs. It may have been WaPo.

@Andrzej The "vile asp" is from World of Warcraft, isn't it? (But I suspect it's just there for the rhyme.)

@Oikofuge How on Earth and Azeroth did you know that 😮 I spent literal years playing that game - my "mains" have hundreds of days /played time, each - but I can't recall the name of every mob type. Wow.

@Andrzej Only one I know, I suspect. I used to get trapped in the pub with two WoW enthusiasts, and they'd talk past me for a couple of hours. One night the conversation went, "Yaddah yaddah YADDAH yaddah vile asps yaddah yaddah..." And I perked up and said, "That sounds almost Shakespearean." "What, mate?" "Vile asp." "No mate. It's in the game." "Yes, but ..." "Yaddah yaddah yaddah YADDAH yaddah ..."

@Andrzej To heck with the puzzle...How do you feel about the election results??

@MOL I'm in denial about them. I'd rather not discuss them.

@Oikofuge Why would they discuss vile asps, in particular :O WoW had many kinds of mobs, and many were infamous (Lakeshire Murlocs of the original, vanilla version of the game were the stuff of nightmares), but not the vile asps! It was just some generic, forgettable mob. Interesting - to me, anyway. Also, why would your friends talk about WoW with you there :O. My wife and I are both gamers, and we talk about our games, *a lot*, between ourselves, and also when other gamers are involved - but never when non-gamers are around. It would simply be rude, to exclude another person from the conversation like that. I can only imagine how you must have felt - probably much like me when I get caught in the middle of a conversation about children, which I neither have nor are interested in, in the least.

@Andrzej "Why would they discuss vile asps, in particular :O" I dunno. It's a while ago, and "in particular" doesn't really address the sort of conversations that used to go on. Some game-related anecdote, I guess, along the lines of "You'll never guess what happened to me ...!" But there was a lot of listing, too. So maybe it was a list. "Also, why would your friends talk about WoW with you there :O." Because we're old friends, amused by, and forgiving of, each other's foibles. Sometimes we just sit and admire the verbal wallpaper the others are creating---it's almost performative. My role at that point was to inject amused inconsequentialities until the topic shifted. Don't you have social evenings that go like that?

@Oikofuge Not really. I don't socialize much, at all, and when I do, it's with people I have common things to talk about. When people around me start talking about stuff I don't care about (sports or theater, say) I just take out my phone and don't hide my disinterest 🤣.

@Andrzej But if you pay a bit of attention, sometimes you hear something interesting. Like "vile asps".

@Oikofuge You may be right, but I am who I am. Who knows, maybe I'm slightly autistic or something. I'm really interested in a lot of stuff, and I can talk and listen about it for hours, but I don't care at all about most things. Vile asps of WoW are not very interesting btw 🤣

@Andrzej The *phrase* is interesting, to me, as I'm sure you understood. :-) But given your difficulty with poetry, which you mentioned elsewhere, maybe "vile asp" doesn't seem striking to you.

@Oikofuge Apparently.

@Sonja Thank you for pointing that out! I completely missed it!

@Lydia Congratulations!!!

@Barry Ancona The thread explains little. I can't be bothered to solve the puzzle, and without crosses I have no idea what 31 across might have been. Given how inaccurate Slav-related clues and answers usually are, I'm not sure I am ready to reveal the entry and be annoyed by it. I glanced at the puzzle yesterday, and when I saw it was about anagrams, I closed it. Tricky puzzles are hard enough for me with the letters of clues in the correct order...

OK, I revealed the clue. What a relief. It was just wordplay, and no stereotypes or factual mistakes were involved. Also, I know these things come naturally to you native speakers, but how do you actually *know* Polish and polish are pronounced differently? That is so weird to a Polish speaker. Over here, if it's spelled the same, it's pronounced the same, always. We don't just agree to pronounce words however we like :D. This is one of the reasons why we commonly say that "po angielsku nie czyta się tak jak się pisze" ("in English one does not pronounce things as they are written").

@Andrzej We can usually tell by the capital letter, or lack of one. But this was a “veiled capital” because it was the first word of the clue. Usually, we can also tell by the context. On the other hand… Every year there is a “POLISH FESTIVAL” around here, written just that way (all caps) on signs stuck into the ground everywhere. I say to the wife, “Oh, they’re having the polish festival again! They’re all going to be there, I hear. Shoe, floor, furniture, nail…” She shoots me a dirty look every time.

@Steve L Yes, I understand this particular case. I meant in general - you basically have to learn how to pronounce words that share spellings but not pronunciations. In Polish if you can read a word, and know nothing else about it, you will pronounce it correctly.

@Andrzej There are so many examples, it's hard to generalize, but one class is the noun-verb distinction. We say someone is going to con-VERT to a new religion (verb), but he's a CON-vert (noun). This is quite consistent over dozens of words. Most of the time, context is the only clue. Wind is one example. With the short I, it's the atmospheric phenomenon; with the long I, it's what we do to (an old-fashioned) watch. There's no good way to orthographically represent either sound differently, so either one works. But again, one's a noun, and one's a verb, so context clarifies. This leads to the opportunity to create some crossword misdirection. On Nov. 28 of last year, [Winds] leads to SPOOLS; there's no way to know which "wind" is being used. On Sept. 17, 2021, [Wind on the water?] leads to REEL, which is a fishing reference, but the context makes you think it's the other "wind". Still, out of hundreds of clues, only a few are ambiguous, and that's intentional. It's always easy to make clear which "wind" you mean if you're not aiming to confuse the reader.

@Hanson Our rules of pronunciation are generally very simple. The language looks understandably strange to those who don't speak it because we use different letters to spell sounds otherwise well known elsewhere. For example, your ch as in chess is our cz, your sh is our sh, the French g/j is our rz, y is always pronounced as the i in big, i is always pronounced like your ee, etc. You'd learn it in a day or two, if you needed to.

@Alexis I suppose I know these things, too, after 40 years of getting to know the language. My pronounciation is generally very good, and I don't have to think about it for it to be so. I only make occassional mistakes. Still, it does seem strange that spelling does not unambiguously (I'm so proud I know how to spell that!!!) reveal pronunciation.

Andrzej, The problem is that "Modern" English has "streamlined" the spelling of words that were once slightly different, as in the case of wind/wind: Noun (1) and Verb (3) Middle English, from Old English; akin to Old High German wint wind, Latin ventus, Greek aēnai to blow, Sanskrit vāti it blows Verb (2) Middle English, from Old English windan to twist, move with speed or force, brandish; akin to Old High German wintan to wind, Umbrian ohavendu let him turn aside <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wind" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wind</a>

P.S. You may not have enjoyed seeing [Polish language] as a clue, but I do hope you enjoyed that so many of us thought of you when we saw it.

@Barry Ancona Thank you for that historical-linguistic explanation. It makes a lot of sense. I still find it quite strange that people across the ocean think about generally quite insignificant Polish me, but I do enjoy it - it's nice to be a part of such a fine community. Thank you. Just please, never make the mistake of thinking of me as a typical Polish person. "Polish" may make you think of Andrzej, but Andrzej is much less Polish than you think.

@Oikofuge Proud to say I've never misquoted that line. Also proud to say I've never quoted that line.

@Oikofuge P. S. "Proud" was a bad word to use in the second sentence. I would very much like to have been able to understand a remember poetry.

@Francis Ditto on poetry. It's never been my thing, and I sort of wish it were. Alas, I'm way too literal and non-romantic to tune into it, even in Polish.

@Andrezj Like there are colors that others can see that I can't. I suspect there's something fundamentally wrong about the way we approach poetry, but I've never been able to find out what that might be. I do know that some similar artistic endeavors (like prose) can invoke intense emotion in me. I wish I could learn to get that from poetry as well.

@Francis Right? I love reading prose, and I take joy from how writers of it use language. With poetry I just don't get the same sort of feelings, or even - often - any understanding of what's going on, or why there is anything special about it. Do you like theater? I don't, probably for the same reasons as poetry - to me it just seems like a very convoluted way of expressing something.

@Francis Please, never invite me 🤣 For a beer, sure. To the theater - that's a huge nope 🤪

@Marlene Woo. "Play Misty For Me"!

@Oikofuge You have introduced me to the poem, and the poet, for which I thank you. Fun Fact: Edith M. Thomas was born about 20 mi. SW of the town in which I grew up! Fun Fact II: We are both dropouts from the same educational institute! Holy Moly!

@RoseAnn Mulford I didn't know KIRBY and decided to try and get it from crosses, instead of looking it up. That slowed me down. But it was a fun puzzle. Suited me to a T.

@RoseAnn Mulford A very nice puzzle, but with stuff like KIRBY, definitely more of a Tuesday feel for me than a Monday. This was my longest Monday time for quite a while.

Seemed like a Mondayish Monday to me. I also did not know the Pink Nintendo character,* and filled it from crosses (as I usually do at least once on a Monday). *I must have filled it from crosses, and clearly did not recall it, from its first appearance on a Saturday in 2012.

@RoseAnn Mulford xwstats.com says it’s my second fastest Monday ever, at X:06. I’m not sure it’s really #2, as I feel like I have broken X minutes at least twice. But either way, it was about 25% faster than the typical Monday. And lots of fun, too.

@Eric Hougland. Eric, Thanks for your reply. RoseAnn

@RoseAnn Mulford @jennie I only knew Kirby from a picture my then four-year-old (now 33!) created for me that he called “medieval knight Kirby.” Took a while for him to explain it since he didn’t play Nintendo and had learned about Kirby from an older cousin. I still have the picture, and that’s exactly what it shows: a colorful rotund fellow with a sword and shield.

@Patrick J. Do you mean HOA? A HomeOwners Association doesn't make any laws; it's an agreement about rules/policies. Any disagreements over the HOA's restrictions can be settled by a civil suit, but are not enforced by police, for instance.

@Marty Happy Birthday! 🎊

@Marty Happy birthday! I hope you enjoyed the puzzle even as you zoomed through it.

@Michael Dover Never a bad thing!! It's fun to see how phrases develop different associations over time.

@Brian My mom once told me about a woman she met who worked for a construction company. Her name was Budynek (Building).

@Brian It’s not in the potty-humor category, but decades ago I knew a woman named Susan Flowers, who was in charge of public relations for a botanical garden. She did a weekly gig on the local NPR station. (The name came from her husband, who was a police sergeant.)

@Brian Our first pediatrician's name was Richard Youngpeters....and (I'm not making this up) he went by the nickname "Dick."

@Brian I've known/known of physicians named Hurts, Mangels, and Tickles (that one was a pediatrician).

@Brian My last pre-employment physical was amusing and foreboding. The company contracted with a Dr's. office in the city and all was routine until the receptionist read back my appointment. "Your appointment is at 9:30 with Dr. Paine." 😥

@Brian hey we have an apt "Beaver" in town here too. He runs a tree-trimming service!

@Brian There's a doctor at our hospital named Dr. Kill.

@Parker Inquiring minds would like to know what you do for a living!

@Alexis He's a gamekeeper, naturally.

@Parker I thought he was a valet at an upscale resort.

@Lily Congratulations! I thought I was on that path as well, then realized I misspelled kebab & had pouf for poof. Oops!

@C Haha, was on that same trajectory and stumbled on the same clue

@Grant There's a dentist in my area named Dr. Payne.

@CCNY A hideous yet entirely plausible suggestion

@Linda Jo For someone who always has a visual response to words and phrases, that one is particularly disgusting.

@Linda Jo a bit rude any day

@Linda Jo Aw, don’t have a cow, man.

@Mean Old Lady anymore, I’ve sadly come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to be rich such as a millionaire or billionaire so I’ll be treated like a 2nd class citizen especially since I’m a woman who can’t produce children. Therefore; my freedom of speech is limited. Pretty much if you’re rich then you can say/do anything you want without any consequences. The rich loyalists are above the law and the poor non loyalists are below the law. However; I just remind myself that this thing called life is only temporary and take one day at a time. I cry at least once a day since it cleanses the soul. Also, at least I know in my heart that I truly tried my best and while my bank account may be low, I’m not morally bankrupt! Anyways, sorry for the novel and my apologies in advance if I said anything that may have offended you. Hope you’re having a Marvellous Monday and Namaste!!

@Mean Old Lady My previous comment has been emued, so I'll try to expand on it while not mentioning the name of the vexatious garden implement. Yes, I believe the clue correctly refers to the little short-handled triangular tool, which can be used just as precisely as a trowel. But it seems even the long handled item for general garden weeding is also used. Here's mention (and a photograph) from the Aldgate Roman cemetery excavation in London some years ago: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/467zc5zn" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/467zc5zn</a>

@Rich in Atlanta Oh, what the heck - one more late (and very unusual) puzzle find. A Thursday from September 24, 2015 by Peter A. Collins. Don't recall seeing another like this either. Clues and answers: One volume in the Encyclopedia of Movie Pets and Sidekicks?" TONTOTOTOTOTOME "Let someone's father borrow this Arp or that Duchamp?" LENDADADADADA "Statement from the proud snake as its eggs were hatching?" IAMAMAMAMAMBA "Recounting of the time you introduced the Egyptian goddess of fertility?" THISISISISISAID Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/24/2015&g=58&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/24/2015&g=58&d=A</a> ....

@Nancy J. “Have you heard the news?” he said with a grin “The Vice-President’s gone mad!” “Where?” “Downtown” “When?” “Last night” “Hmm, say, that’s too bad” “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” said the neighbor “It’s just something we’re gonna have to forget” “Yes, I guess so,” said Ma Then she asked me if the clothes were still wet

@Nancy J. How is there a Roches sing--from1980!--I don't know? Was this on any of their albums? I own all the early ones, even Seductive Reasoning, and most of the later.

@Nancy J. Thanks for that link! I'd only ever heard the original "Basement Tapes" version, and I haven't listened to that album in decades.

@Linda Jo Great call! I'd never heard Tom Jones singing it, only Joe Cocker. Thanks for posting this.

@Linda Jo. A song that is now always associated in my mind with “The Full Monty”.

@Linda Jo I know the Joe Cocker version best, probably first from the movie 9 1/2 Weeks. But while down the rabbit hole was reminded that the great Randy Newman wrote it.

@Linda Jo et al I looked through several videos of the song, including Randy Neumann and Joe Cocker and even Etta James, but most had lousy audio and blurry video. So I picked this Tom Jones version, at least the audio was clear.

@Xword Junkie How can you be tired of a word? Bespoke is not new; it's been around longer than we have! (And, I don't know how old you are, but I'm in my 8th decade.) You might as well say you are tired of cars, or the sky, or the word "Oreo". (BTW, loved the clue for it today. For a change.)

@Marlene Have you never heard a word so often you got sick of it? I have no beef with "bespoke," but "iconic" has been getting on my nerves. It's like "epic" back in the day--it got used to death, and every time I hear it I cringe. I also had a thing about "plethora" for many years. My immature, incompetent high school English teacher would use the word constantly. Many of us who suffered through her classes learned to hate "plethora" with a passion.

@ Marlene I understand this is not a new addition to the language. I have known the word for a long time. But, of late, it seems to be appearing everywhere. (According to <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/ngrams</a> usage of "bespoke" hit its minimum just about when I was born, and has been rising since then.) I find it equally strange that you apparently don't tire of seeing or hearing certain words or phrases. ;-) Happens to me all the time---sometimes accompanied by violent imagery, like that of me strangling the next person I meet who uses the expression "top of mind". Or anyone who uses the verb COMP. Probably the emus won't like this reply.

It's not been in the crossword that often—only twice in the Shortz era and six times before that. I've also noticed that "bespoke" seems to have become a "word du jour", especially in advertising.

@Xword Junkie The words "curate" and "pivot," thrown into conversations at every opportunity, tend to bug me. I think the "curate" thing is dying out, though. I hope so, anyway. "Pivot," though, in its current usage meaning a change of policy, a changed mind, a change of toothpaste preferences, etc., is both a political and a business buzzword and will continue to buzz around for some time to come. I hadn't noticed "bespoke" having it's run yet, but I'm sure it'll stick out like a bright orange billboard against a blue sky after today.

@Xword Junkie Welcome in! Have a good rest of your day! Mischeeevious

@Cathy I could care less.

@Linda Jo Strands #456 “On the vine” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵 A true aficionado would have trouble with this one. I, on the other hand, am much more open minded. :)

@Linda Jo Strands #456 “On the vine” 🔵🔵🟡🔵 🔵🔵🔵 Of course the first word i found was not helpful.

@Linda Jo Strands #456 “On the vine” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵 TIL one I hadn't heard of!

@Linda Jo Strands #456 “On the vine” 🔵🟡🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵 Pretty easy to figure out the theme. I didn’t recognize the one in the lower right. That was the last word I found.