They *really* got me with ETALIa crossing with NEaL. I’m sure that will be a common experience. I knew it was NEIL but, given the cross, I second guessed myself right away and it took me forever to give it a second look while I was fly specking. I kept thinking I had something wrong with TINCT so I tried everything I could in that section before looking elsewhere. No complaints. Fun puzzle!
@Striker I see @Chris mentioned the same below. Worth noting, Chris’s comment, nor most of the others, were showing up when I made my comment.
@Striker I got caught up in that part of the puzzle, too.
That crossing of NEIL/ALIA/ALII/ENO is brutal. I could have sworn I tried every permutation of vowels, including the correct one, but no gold star. Double checked everything twice and didn't see any mistakes, so had to check the reveal. Very frustrating
@Steven M. I flunked out on that too! I didn’t know the list extender could be what it turned out to be… oh well, at least I’m always learning. ;)
@Steven M. ANO has been clued to Portuguese or simply "abroad" lately most of the time because it has been pointed out quite frequently that without the tilde, ANO means something quite difference in Spanish. So this one might be something to commit to memory.
@Steven M. That area had me completely stuck, too. A lot of "I" endings felt gluey today. (OSCAR I?! The crossing was fine, but what a weird fill on the across!) Off topic but I have to ask: Was that you posting on the 100 restaurants piece? I thought your comments were spot-on, if it was! Though you* have dined at far more listings than I have, I have experienced enough of the ones from the last few years to have an educated opinion! 😉
Lemonade stand owners have a zest for life. (But if they served other drinks, it'd be sub-lime.)
@Mike I had a friend who wanted to make -ades with other fruits. I told him "man, go!"
@Mike I tried to teach my cat to sell lemonade at a little stand I made, but she refused. What a sourpuss.
@Mike Orange you ever going to get tired of doing this?
@jma Oof. Mike left himself wide open for that punch ( to the navel?)
I'll add to the chorus and say ET ALII crossing NEIL is construction malpractice. Because ET ALIA is a fully legitimate answer to the clue, picking the correct vowel is dependent entirely on knowing which form of Neil/Neal Mr. Tyson uses. It's hard to fathom how that got through editing.
@Shrike I fell into the etalia/neal trap as did so many others, but I day fair play to the constructors.
@Shrike I would reason that since ALIA Shawkat is in the puzzle, ET ALIA couldn't also be an answer.
I've never heard of OPDOC. I fully relied on crosses to give it to me. Apparently it's a NYT thing? Now that I know what it is, I get the name. (Games are the only feature of the NYT I am familiar and with.) I realized I had no idea what LAICS could mean in English. We have a very similar word in Polish - laicki - which means secular, as in, having *nothing* to do with the church or religion. A congregation is anything but "laicka" in my native tongue. The only word for a priest's flock in Polish is "wierni ", the faithful. In church-speak they could also be referred to as "owieczki", little sheep. I needed lookups in the NW corner. AMCS I must have seen here before but I couldn't recall it. An American brand which is also an abbreviation? Two of my nemeses rolled into one... I know some Italian names of pasta, and the corkscrews are actually the type of pasta I cook most often, but I realized I have no idea what they are called, beyond ending in -NI, as is almost always the case with pasta in Italian. For 20 years I've just been grabbing them off the shelf at the store, not looking at the label... ICES IT was unfamiliar to me, as was ALICE. I needed lots of crosses to get JANELLE MONAE - I have seen neither of the movies in the clue, and having confused Moonlight with Moonstruck I was confused how to stretch Cher into all those squares 🤣. I actually forgot the ALAMO for a moment there. Good thing I'm not American! The theme helped me solve, for once. It was OK.
@Andrzej I always enjoy reading your comments. I can't imagine trying to solve a crossword in a language other than my native tongue, much less deal with idioms, grammar, and other vagaries of the English language. You inspire me to move beyond my American mindset (especially nowadays). I'm too old to learn to speak the Polish language, but I enjoy learning about it through your comments.
@Andrzej I'm clueless about OPDOC, too. I remember seeing it and wondering but I went on and forgot it. Regarding the Alamo: the whole thing should be impossible to forget because it's so embarrassing. Sorry, Texans, but I just can't.
@Andrzej a more recent film with Janelle Monae is Glass Onion starring Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc. I always love a good murder mystery myself. And I also thought of Moonstruck and Cher initially! 😆 I went back and reread the clue much slower the second time.
@Andrzej If I was Danna, I would take an “okay” from you as a compliment. It’s always interesting to me to see what you rate specific puzzles. I’m impressed with your desire and ability in completing crossword puzzles in a second language. I struggle with English as my first language.
@Puzzled I love how doing these puzzles adds another dimension to my familiarity with the English language and American culture. I watched The Simpsons in English as a 12-ish year old boy in the early 90s. It was my introduction to American daily life 🤣. It all seemed so alien! Over 30 years later I'm rewatching the series, and it's amazing how much more I understand with the experience of NYT grids: idioms, customs, etc. It's amazing how different our cultures are, despite sharing much of the same, European heritage.
@Andrzej Here’s Alice in a fairly recent cover version: <a href="https://youtu.be/LeHlvXvG6vA?si=-Dvkndk6q_BximG" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/LeHlvXvG6vA?si=-Dvkndk6q_BximG</a> Moonlight is a great movie. Feed your head.
@Jacqui J I saw that one and really liked it, even though I don't generally enjoy films featuring the super-rich. Janelle Monae was really good in it, and I like her as a singer, too. I sometimes invite my father over for a movie, lunch, a walk with the dog - we've always been close but since my mother died I've been trying to spend as much quality time with him as possible, even more than before. It was on one of those occasions that we watched Glass Onion. He enjoyed it, too. @Elizabeth Connors I don't rate puzzles - I just give my personal opinion of them. I don't pretend my posts are reviews, especially objective ones. Today's theme was ok for me, rather than great or bad, because I was only partly familiar with its elements. ___LEMONSTER took me a long time to complete, because I've never heard of a tickle monster, and the expression about making lemonade is only vaguely in my head. @Francis Another characteristic we share, apparently: lack of respect for national myths and the preferred, patriotic narrative 🤣. Poland's Warsaw Uprising of August-September 1944 is considered by most a heroic, worthy struggle against German occupiers. To me it was a pointless, hopeless mess, that cost the lives of 200 000 innocent people (that's not a typo - nearly a quarter of a million people died in 2 months, almost all of them civilians...) and ended with the near-total obliteration of the city. Nothing good came of it.
@Eric H. That does not sound familiar at all. I feed my head no problem. You may remember I'm not a movie person, in general, and which films I do and do not watch and like is extremely idiosyncratic. The description of Moonlight sounds nothing like what I'd likely enjoy: if a movie is deep, an exploration of the soul, etc., I balk at it. Serious, moving stuff is to be read about, in my world. For example, I'm in the middle of an Olga Tokarczuk reading spree - I'm devouring her novels one after another.
@Andrzej OPDOC meant nothing to me either. But a quick search reveals that it's apparently a NYT thing. To quote sffilm.org: "Op-Docs is the New York Times’s award-winning series of short-form documentaries by independent filmmakers". It apparently is an abbreviation of "Opinion-Documentary", but as far as I can tell from 10 minutes of research, the term was invented by the New York Times, and is almost exclusively associated with the newspaper.
@Andrzej ALICE is Alice in Wonderland. White Rabbit is a song with lyrics that reference the book, plus drugs. Here's the Airplane performing it at Woodstock. (Maybe you had to be alive and of a certain age in 1969 to fully appreciate .) <a href="https://youtu.be/Vl89g2SwMh4?si=ZFRneYwKx3rayd7c" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Vl89g2SwMh4?si=ZFRneYwKx3rayd7c</a>
@Andrzej (I'll try to sneak one more in here. It may get lost in all your fan mail. 😂) I think I saw a movie about that. Or at least there was a movie based on a plot to kill a really bad Nazi (not just a normal Nazi, but a *really bad* one). They succeeded but the retribution was overwhelming. It was quite a sobering movie for me. I rooted for what turned out to be a genocide. And I should have known that all along. And yet I rooted for the plot.
@Andrzej Interesting, I thought that take on the Warsaw Uprising went out of circulation around 1989.
@Vaer Well, that song has no significance for me, at all. I was born in 1980, so Woodstock is just a historical event for me. Alice in Wonderland is not a part of Polish cultural heritage, and I've never tried any drugs, not even weed - I just let alcohol almost kill my liver. @clue by four Well, before 1989 the regime told people what to think of the Warsaw Uprising. After 1989 we needed new myths and a new version of Polish patriotism - the Uprising emerged as a huge part of what effectively became new propaganda. Most people who drive around with "1944 pamiętamy" bumper stickers (We remember 1944) know nothing about it beyond the heroic vision created by the propagandist narrative. Even many of the veterans of the Uprising protest against that vision - they don't see themselves as heroes but rather as victims of history, and they tell people to learn from the mistakes of the past rather than glorify them. Alas, most people are fine with sticking to what they've been told is the only *true* version of patriotism. Critical thinking is frowned upon rather than encouraged. As a son of some of Poland's best historians I spent almost a year studying the Uprising myself. I know too much about it to be fooled by the simplistic, heroic propaganda.
@Andrzej I, too, kept thinking of Moonstruck (and Cher), but knew it couldn't be her because I have seen Hidden Figures and knew she wasn't in that movie.
@Andrzej If you watch Peewee's Big Adventure you'll probably never forget the Alamo again. ;)
@Bob T. Nice to see you back here! I was teasing Andrzej just a little when I quoted “White Rabbit.” That lyric is so embedded in *my* head that I forget that not everyone will immediately recognize it.
@Andrzej I'm pretty familiar with WW2 lore, as my father served in Germany in 1944-5. I just finished listening to "Midwife of Auschwitz" based on true story. The main character's husband was killed in the Warsaw uprising while she was in Auschwitz. Then someone recommended "The Light of Days" which is non-fiction about women in the Jewish Polish underground. I'm about 2.5 hours in to the 14 hour book, and I think I'm going to quit. It's very brutal and depressing, and I'm not to the bad parts yet. May this sort of thing never happen again! Except it is -- in Gaza and other places we tend to ignore, mostly Africa.
The “nickle monster”: the horrible uncle who does that tiresome trick of pretending to pull a nickel out of your ear. Also, he can’t spell. I hope Danna keeps working on the Schrödinger cat puzzle - that would be two of my favorite theme elements.
If you ever meet a monster in france, do not TICK LE MONSTER off.
@DH I am ashamed to say that I snort-laughed at this
While we're at it, making LAIC plural is pretty absurd too. This one needed some cleaning up.
@Shrike - laics is the plural of laic just as clerics is the plural of cleric.
I once won a free latte when the coffee bar question of the day was "What is T. S. Eliot's" full name?" Long before, I'd cataloged a small collection of rare editions of Tom's work, so how could I miss? I had a feeling they were going to have to hand out a lot of free lattes that day. Good work, Danna. Crosses were enlightening, so no look-ups, and it's always a pleasure to see that powerful mountain in a puzzle. (I would love to cruise the Gulf of Mexico on the USNS Harvey Milk.)
@dutchiris That's fascinating, Dutch, about you cataloging editions of TSE. I was just thinking about visiting a bookstore in London some decades ago and they had a beautiful limited edition of the Four Quartets, signed by Eliot, in a vellum binding, printed in Verona at the Stamperia Valdonega press of the Mardersteig family, beautiful typography, handmade paper. I really coveted the book, which was 2500 Pounds, but glad in the end I didn't splurge. It's good sometimes just to admire something like that, not possess it. Anyway, were you cataloging those Eliots in a library, or for a collector or a bookseller? There's a story there!
@dutchiris In Austen? A Freudian slip, perhaps?
Even after all these years of doing NYT crosswords, there is still a moment of excitement as I look at the blank grid just before tackling it, where I don’t know what’s going to unfold, but I know there are going to be new things in it, that it’s going to be fun and maybe even a jaw dropper. That moment of excitement – every day – is priceless, a gift due to the skill and artistry of the constructors and the Times team. High props and deep gratitude all around for what you do!
@Lewis Yes, I understand. More than once I've hit the page url that serves up the current crossword at the transition time. Clicking refresh, pausing a moment, clicking it again, no, still too soon, another click...there it is, the next puzzle! The crackle of that moment is magic. Unfortunately, magic gives way to other things. I most sincerely second the motion.
@Lewis Absolutely with you. The beauty and potential of the empty grid. Followed by the thrill of the solve! And then I get the joy of coming here, and finding you all. The Spanish word, “sobremesa” is a noun that means that time after a lovely meal, sitting around the table, prolonging the appreciation of both the meal and the company. I feel like the puzzle is a beautiful meal, that we stop to gaze at before diving in, and this is our sobremesa.
@Francis Lately, I've noticed that if I click on the puzzle page at 10:00 on the dot, it stills shows the same day's puzzles, already completed. But when I click on the mini, the new one opens anyway, and can be solved. The same thing does not work with the main puzzle, which would still show the previous one. At precisely 10:01, though, everything flips, and all is right. Up until recently, this issue didn't exist. Also, it doesn't seem to be an issue on Sat. and Sun. evenings at 6:00. What are those developers are wasting their time on when there are bigger issues to solve?
@Lewis Would you kindly remind me where/when your recent puzzle was published? I wanted to do it at the time but couldn't and failed to make note of the details. Thank you! :-)
@HethieJ -- It was Friday, May 16, in the Los Angeles Times, though I'm not sure how you can access it, as the online archive just goes back to May 22. Maybe someone knows if the older puzzles are archived, and where.
Easy overall, but the crossing of ETALII and NEIL feels like a no no given the plausibility of an A at the intersection
@Chris Blisteringly hot natick, for sure.
@Chris Agreed. Especially when "et alia" IS one of the meanings of et al. (the neuter one) and is most often cited as the full term. I had to resort to looking at Sam's column to find my error, a Class 3 cheat in my hierarchy.
@Chris That one caught me too, even though a little voice told me that "Neal" didn't look right.
@Chris Add my agreement, even going back to high school Latin, I was never taught the masculine form/ending is also used just the feminime .
@Chris Although NEIL and Neal are both spellings of the name that is a homophone to "kneel", the former is the more common one, and has been for most or all of our lives. Even if you weren't sure of Dr. Tyson's name, it seems to me that NEIL is the logical first guess. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/32uudvhr" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/32uudvhr</a> Plus, what Ed said.
@Steve L Neil isn't a logical first guess if you've already done the cross and put ET ALIA, which is a fully valid answer.
@Chris I wasn’t sure if NDT spelled his name with an I or an A, and “et al.” could end with either. It was definitely gonna be one of those two letters though, so I wouldn’t call it a Natick (or even a no no). I tried A first (being more familiar with “et alia”). When that didn’t work I tried I and got the completion.
@Chris I put in ETALIa, but thought at the time that it could also be an I at the end. When everything was done, and still no happy music I was checking for typos. I tried that I instead of A, and voila! Didn't remember which spelling of NEIL/NEaL he uses, but I knew it had to be one or the other.
@Steve L Usual spellings? We have two families of friends. One is NIELSEN (or NIELSON?). The other is NEILSEN (or NEILSON??) I never can remember which spells it how, and we've been friends for almost 50 years!
One of those times when the OED agrees with the general consensus on Wordplay. Here is the earliest usage of LATEN: 1855 ‘But, captain, the hour latens.’ ‘Latens! By what right do you use that word?’ ‘It's a good word, captain.’ ‘So it is; but I never heard it used before.’ W. G. Simms, Forayers xlv. 532
@Sam Lyons That's great - I love the concept of a good word but one I've never heard before, and laten is the perfect example. Thank you for this 🙂👍🏾
@Sam Lyons Once, a Japanese friend arriving late apologized with, "Sorry for lating!" I've always liked that and wish it would become part of the vernacular.
Though I generally disapprove of the word natick even as originally intended and certainly as generally used here, I can’t fault those who, unclear on the spelling of Neil’s name, cry foul today. It’s a fair complaint. Alius means “other” masculine person or thing; “others” becomes alii but adds a dimension: when a group of persons includes any male person at all, “et alii” means “and others that are either all male or mixed genders.” Alia means “other” feminine person or thing; “others” becomes aliae but only when the “others” are exclusively feminine gender. Alium means “other” neuter thing; “others” becomes alia when a group of things is described. So “et alia” is not the correct decoding of “et al.” in a list of co-authors. It is “et alii”, or in the rare case where all co-authors are female, “et aliae.” “Et alia” is to be read for “et al.” only when the other things omitted are actually things. In which case “etc.” “et cetera” “and the rest”* is usually the commoner and better choice. *Professor and Mary Ann 🎶
@David Connell, Thanks for this explanation. I knew there must be a difference between the two, but had no idea what it was. That crossing was devilish. Finding it added about three minutes to my time. Will I remember how to spell Mr. deGrasse Tyson’s name now? Probably not.
@David Connell - I had no problem with this entry. I did enter ET ALIa at first, but when I got to 58D a said to myself "self, how does NE(a/I)L spell his name? Better make a mental note to check back here if I don't get the happy music." Sure enough, I did not get the happy music, but I did two seconds later after I converted the incorrect "a" to the correct "I". This sort of thing is fair game and is what makes the puzzles puzzling.
@David Connell And Allium is garlic.
@David Connell It can be a list gender, but you’d have to look for something like Cicero in his full taxonomic mode: “(…) affectio est animi aut corporis ex tempore aliqua de causa commutatio, ut laetitia, cupiditas, metus, molestia, morbus, debilitas ET ALIa, quae in eodem genere re-periuntur.” “An affectio is a change in the soul or body brought about temporarily and for some reason—such as joy, desire, fear, pain, illness, weakness, and other things that fall into the same category.”
@David Connell "So “et alia” is not the correct decoding of “et al.” in a list of co-authors. It is “et alii”, or in the rare case where all co-authors are female, “et aliae.” " In hoc saeclo novo, when the articles will be co-authored by ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Grok, and DeepSeek*, would not "et alia" be appropriate? *list provided by GoogleAI The hour latens, and the world . . .
Good one! I'm the opposite of Danna when it comes to lemonade: extra squeezes of lemon, half as much sugar. Other than that, nothing sours me to this puzzle, and there's a lot of sweet elements to it: to have both DENALI and DENIAL in the same grid; to have both ET ALII and ALIA; the Muppet-adjacent TICKLE MONSTER (as in Tickle Me Elmo) and OSCAR I, King of the Grouches. I even liked the weird words -- LATENS, LAICS, OSAKAN -- shy, socially awkward words, not very popular, never invited to the cool (DOPE) parties, but late bloomers who find their proper place in the world. And I learned Janet Jackson and Janelle Monae have the same number of letters. Shows what I know! Crazy, I was just thinking of Thomas Stearns Eliot today, he's a Missourian after all; would he be appalled a Missouri senator is begging for FEMA, yet wants to defund it? And particularly of The Hollow Men, his 1925 poem in several parts. The first part: We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour. Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men. *** Spiritual hollowness puts us laics on the bus to Sodom. Time to make lemonade!
@john ezra Great poem for our times. But, sadly, also for all other times. Did humans invent hatred?
@john ezra P.S. My God. I really am an Eeyore, aren't I?
@john ezra Both DENALI and DENIAL, yet neither is a river in Egypt.
🙋🏼♀️ Hand up here for the dreaded ETALIa/NEaL crossing. I also had a fat finger typo for TOSCi/iGED 🤦🏼♀️ Those two errors took me about 10 extra minutes of searching to find them. That being said, I thought this was a great debut from Danna. Well done and I hope to see more!!
I'm glad the TINKLE MONSTER isn't a thing.
@Joe P. You should have met my youngest brother who after becoming bipedal did not favor wearing a diaper and would remove them but was not yet potty trained and so...well, I'll leave that to your imagination.
I would have finished under my average but for the SE corner. I'd never heard of an OPDOC, and I was trying variations of Jean(e) until the light bulb lit. With JOANN, all became clear.
@Eric OPDOC was new to me, too. JOANN might have been easier for me than most, being a single syllable 'Joan'. I wasn't clocking time, but I managed without cheats, so I'm pleased. I hope to see many more puzzles from Danna Rosenberg! No sour lemons here, only nicely sweetened one.
@Eric I had Janet/Jane on my first pass.
Perhaps this is the Schrodinger puzzle after all with NEaL and NEIL exiting in the same space and time? A fun debut. Well done.
. . . existing . . . Sigh. I'll exit now.
Tunas are warm-blooded fish, as are the lamnid sharks, the best known of which is the great white shark.
@Fact Boy I was thinking the exact same. How does the Times mess this up?
@Fact Boy According to Wegner et al. (doi:10.1126/science.aaa8902), the opah differs from tunas and lamnid sharks in that it exhibits full-body endothermy, its heart pumping warm blood to all vascularized tissue, as opposed to being endothermic only in specific regions of the body (as is apparently the case with all other known fishes described as warm-blooded). I think the clue might still need to be reworded to be correct, though.
@Fact Boy <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cold-blooded.html" target="_blank">https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cold-blooded.html</a> "The opah is the only known fully warm-blooded fish that circulates heated blood throughout its body. A few other fish such as tuna and some sharks warm certain parts of their bodies, boosting their swimming performance. But internal organs including their hearts cool off quickly and begin to slow down when they dive into cold depths, forcing them to return to shallower depths to warm up." My first guess was mako. I enjoyed this little rabbit hole.
Excellent debut puzzle, Danna. Particularly well done for a Wednesday which seems to me to be a difficult day to meet solvers’ expectations.
Congratulations on your fun NYT debut, Ms Rosenberg! I especially enjoyed the crossing of MAKE LEMONADE and BEER. My younger brother died a little over two years ago, and LEMONADE was his drink of choice. Me, I’m more of a BEER drinker. Oddly, though, the rest of that SE corner took me almost as long to solve as the other 80% of the grid. I’d forgotten that SYDNEY had hosted the Olympics, the clue for JOANN falls into the category of “It’ll take me longer to figure this out than it will to solve around it and fill in the missing letters,” I blanked on OP-DOC, and the clue for BEER was new to me. I’m glad the sax type was five letters; if it had been four, I might still be solving. Thanks, and I hope you will be back soon!
The TRES Chic JANELLE MONAE was a gimme as was MAKE LEMONADE, a combination which helped with the other themers. A fun puzzle all around. TOSCA, again! Congrats on the debut, Danna.
@Vaer I really like Ms Monae as well. So much talent and beauty.
@Jacki J This is somewhat oldish. Janelle with India Arie and Jill Scott at a at a Stevie Wonder tribute singing one of my faves of his, As. <a href="https://youtu.be/3P-0Q3q7G9w?si=WSCuNlas4pvpAjdB" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/3P-0Q3q7G9w?si=WSCuNlas4pvpAjdB</a> PS Whenever I see your location, I get a Patti Smith earworm. Do you know the song?
@Jacqui J Sorry. I misspelled your name.
I’ve been writing and recording film reviews for some 17 years, and I’ve never come across the phrase “Op-Doc”. Doesn’t mean it’s not a thing! Just means it’s never too late to learn something new.
@Stephen I feels to me as if we're going through a language shift. So many shortenings of words, "sci fi", "rom com", "op doc" basically turning two words into one by combing the first syllables. It feels like it's becoming so common that we just use it, whether it's an established thing or not. I feel I quite frequently have to ponder dialogue in more modern productions to decipher this...it's more than slang...it's a pattern for producing slang. A slangifier.
@Sam Lyons and when disappearing down a rabbit hole, I discovered that "OK" may have to do with a 19th-century misspelling/abbreviation fad in and around Boston. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK</a> So yeah. Plus ca chance, plus c'est la meme chose.
@Stephen I still think of 'cool' as slang (meaning good) so I was looking for slang word meaning 'not warm'!
@Stephen I know them from the NYT - if you search NYT for Op-Doc, you'll get a long list of them. Here's one I enjoyed: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/opinion/japan-education-childhood.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/opinion/japan-education-childhood.html</a>
@Sam Lyons And made-up words like LATENS.
@Stephen NYT began producing Op Docs in 2011, and for all I know they could have coined the term--I don't easily find any other occurrences of it. If you don't read NYT online you would have little reason to know it.
What an apt puzzle for me today. I arrived at my health centre for my annual bloods, having fasted for 18 hours, to be told I had no appointment, despite showing them the written evidence. The ‘who cares’ shrug from the receptionist made remembering I’m a lady quite difficult. Never mind, I said to myself, I’ll get to the shop earlier than planned. To find the lifts and stairs from the under ground car park out of action and general bedlam from irate customers. I gave up, came home, made a cuppa with the last teabag in the house and found this puzzle to chill out with. I have no LEMONs to make LEMONADE with (they are genuinely on my shopping list), but I have picked a bowlful of fabulous strawberries from my patch to break my fast with. Love JANELLE MONAE. Hidden Figures is one of my favourite films. MAKing LEMONADE indeed. Thanks Ms Rosenberg.
@Helen Wright Sorry your day got started so badly. I hate having to skip breakfast for lab work. I hope the fresh strawberries made up for the other stuff. I haven’t had good strawberries in years. What you get in an “American” grocery store is a huge, beautiful berry that has almost no flavor.
People who are a*romantic* (ARO), as the word implies, are less motivated by romantic interest, but might well be sexually active. People who identify as a*sexual* ("ACE") might have strong romantic feelings for others, but little or no interest in sex, per se. You can be one without being the other, or both. I'm not complaining, as such; this was a perfectly fun puzzle. It's just odd that this is the second time in three days that the NYT has clued "ARO" as an informal term for people who prefer "platonic" or "non-amorous" relationships, when this is not what it means to be aromantic. (As distinct from people who are aromatic. They might also be aro or ace. I guess it depends on what they smell like)
@Sandy My clue for ARO says “ Experiencing little to no amorous attraction, informally.” How is that not accurate? Signed, An Aromatic Romantic
@Eric If you’re an aromatic romantic, I’d suggest taking a shower before getting too romantic!
@Sandy I haven't had a romantic notion in a long time, does that make me ARO, or just old?
Unlike most contributors to this space, it seems, I complete these puzzles in the physical newspaper with an actual pen so I don't get any guff from the Emu if I mess up a little. But, I also don't get flashing squares or triumphal music if I do it perfectly. The only sound effects are usually my own, like "Are you kidding me?" or, "I miss Teri Garr and Hedy Lamarr," or, as in the case of "Neal/etalia," I say, "close enough!" After all, no astrophysicists were harmed by the incorrect completion of this puzzle and anyone who has seen/heard Dr. Tyson knows he has a sense of humor and he's probably having a good laugh today.
Great walk in the crossword park by Danna Rosenberg. Thought I was lost in the woods, but slowly and surely the answers. Been a lot of smoke here today. Breathe easy!
@Red Carpet For some reason, the emus will not allow my post. I have to frigging idea why not. Two might show up later.
Paracelsus was Swiss, not Greek.
@Dave Oh good grief—I just saw that! I had missed it by not reading all the down clues. NYT, this *is* embarrassing. I ran a quick search for “paracelsus” “beer” “divine medicine” to see where the editors may have got the idea Paracelsus was Greek: Looks like maybe Facebook, Instagram, or beercartel.com. Rigorous editing.
@Dave The NYT assures me that Paracelsus was from the Greek portion of Switzerland. They're also telling me the comments are working as expected.
@Dave I found it! :) <a href="https://www.greekmedicine.net/whos_who/Paracelsus.html" target="_blank">https://www.greekmedicine.net/whos_who/Paracelsus.html</a>
@Dave We are used to be confused with Sweden, but this was a stretch.
I have to laugh at myself – I, who after so many years of solving, am still so gullible. I won’t tell you how long I pondered over what, beside dens, lions live in. Or how long I parsed the first word of [Drink with a straw] as a verb. On the other hand, I saw those LEMONS right away, and – and this is a big “and” for me – after leaving the revealer blank and not reading its clue, I actually correctly guessed it! This is a skill I’m so weak at, so I hammer away at it whenever possible, almost always with no success. I will stand a little taller today. I loved seeing ASP, clued [Egyptian snake], in the same puzzle as DENIAL! Also, I’m pleased (and embarrassed) to say that I learned what Eliot’s middle name is, then found out his first name; these are TILs I’ll remember. Also, the theme reminded me of my mom, who often invoked the “When life hands you a lemon…” adage. This warmed my heart. Thank you for all this, Danna, for a lovely outing in the box today!
All the themers were opaque to me today: JANELLE MONAE's name unknown, though I'll have seen her in "Hidden Figures". TICKLE MONSTER more disturbing than endearing---a concept I can only associate with Scary Uncles. ANKLE MONITOR seems like something with which you'd monitor your ankles, but I'm guessing it's what I know as an "ankle tag". Wanted LAIty rather than LAICS, of which I'd never heard. Likewise for OPDOC (what?) and AMC cinemas. BTUs always make me laugh when they come up in the NYT---are they still in use in the USA? On the other hand OPAH was a gimme, a favourite ever since it was the "O" in my animal alphabet as a child. And I'm a little surprised at the reaction to LATENS, which seems like a routine sort of word to me. I'd use it for seasons, and phases of the moon, as well as the time of day. But, to be honest, as the day gets darker I'd say it "advesperates"---because why wouldn't you? <a href="https://oikofuge.com/advesperate" target="_blank">https://oikofuge.com/advesperate</a>/
@Oikofuge My wife has been wearing a glucose monitor. She does not wear it around her glucose. I had "laity" too; not sure how common LAICS in the plural or as a noun is. BTUs are indeed still used in the US. "Advesperates" sounds like it has something to do with getting onto an Italian scooter.
@Oikofuge Our holy mother Canterbury, who sits With tatter’d robes. Laics and barons, thro’ The random gifts of careless kings, have graspt Her livings, her advowsons, granges, farms, And goodly acres— (Tennyson, 1884) <a href="https://tinyurl.com/bddn79zr" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/bddn79zr</a> But, as a noun, LAIC doesn't seem to have much currency from 1900 onwards.
@Oikofuge, Had no idea that you had a blog. Lots of interesting topics to explore there. I started with the About Me page and quickly felt like 14A. I’ll have to spend some time here.
@Oikofuge As Steve L said, we still use BTUs here. But I’ve only seen it as the measurement of the cooling capacity of an air conditioner.
@Eric And we also sell light bulbs by their “wattage,” although in small print, it says that the number is a “wattage equivalent.” The 40-watt equivalent really uses about 12 watts now.
Terrific fun Wednesday but the clueing for SODA could’ve been better. ANKLEMONITORS gave me and my sister a great belly laugh.
Great puzzle, Danna! Congrats on your debut. Loved that Janelle Monae got a mention. For those who may not know, she is also an author of sci-fi/fantasy books. All around talented young woman.
@Valerie Wow. I didn’t know that about Janelle. Truly a renaissance woman.
Great debut Danna. A little clunky and gluey in spots (and the Neil/Neal spelling gave me pause too) but that’s to be expected on a first go. Here’s an idea for a genetic counselor/ physicist combo— a Schroedinger puzzle where the missing letter could be A/T or G/C? Good luck with that! I’ll get you started: it gets your adrenaline pumping: RAGE/RACE.
fine puzzle except for the et alia/alii thing. Never have I seen et alii but whatevs, it's a crossword.
@Asher If I don't have the last cross, I always put in ET ALI_ and wait for the cross to reveal whether the masculine or feminine version was meant. It comes naturally to me, as Polish, like Latin, is a gendered language.
Our two sweet little ankle monsters have motion-sensitive tickle monitors that when triggered are as loud as car alarms. And if life gives them sour faces, we kiss them for first ade.
Denali and denial. Loved it
ET ALII/NEIL is flat out evil, but OPDOC is bull. You can't make up your own word in your opinion section and consider it fair game in a real crossword.
It's been "in print" elsewhere for quite some time now. <a href="https://variety.com/2021/awards/features/ny-times-op-docs-documentary-short-films-garrett-bradley-1235121592" target="_blank">https://variety.com/2021/awards/features/ny-times-op-docs-documentary-short-films-garrett-bradley-1235121592</a>/
Ok I somehow ended up with coNDoM for 8D and wanted this to be the right entry for a while lol
Regarding hidden lemons, problem one for cyclist Greg Lemond, was finding the little monster who stole money out of his pocket – he saw it on the telemonitor – and when he succeeded it was celebrated tout le monde!
I don't check things while I solve, and I wasn't sure of Tyson's first name --there being many iterations--so I have a wrong letter, it seems. That's all on a par, because I went to look at Yesterday's Spelling Bee (my daily 2 a.m. habit) only to find I had "scored" a zero by opening that--not realizing that Something Was Wrong. In almost 700 Bee games, I have failed to get Genius Plus only 13 times--a small 'thrill of victory' but it seems unfair that I'm penalized for someone else's error here. TICKLE MONSTER is new to me! TICKLE, TICKLE, TICKLE (with descending fingers all set) is one of the earliest baby-games; we never escalated to MONSTER. (It's kind of a milestorne when the baby can differentiate between tickler and "tickle-ee"....) I was slow to parse HAL FASS ("Frisch vom FASS" having recently been recalled by a puzzle reference to "on tap")...but I'd still say HALF A**ED... as with ICED TEA. On the other hand....BACK AT YA...who says YOU with that phrase?
@Mean Old Lady not only do I not say you, I say Back atcha 🤣
TINCT, LAICS, ICESIT, LATENS, OPAH, OPDOC. Lots of words/phrases I’ve never heard of, so much so that I was very surprised when I got the gold star. I thought at least some of them were wrong and I was making up words 😅
@bayonetta All fairly uncommon words, but they will come more easily as you gain experience. You’ll especially see TINCT and OPAH a few times a year.
Fond memories as a kid on many a hot afternoon at the lake helping my dad make lemonade. I did the slicing and squeezing, he got the glasses, muddled the mint from the garden with powdered sugar (I never learned about simple syrup until a friend from the South made us mint juleps for Derby Day), and measured out the ice, juice, and sparkling water. What a treat. And my hands smelled of lemon oil all day.
@kkseattle We used to add juice of oranges to the lemonade...and call it "Witches' Brew"....
Congratulations on your debut, Danna Rosenberg. Now I want a mile high lemon meringue pie.
P.S. I believe this year has now tied 1969 for having the most occurrences of ARO (six), though the cluing was different in the sixties, having to do with a Nigerian people group.
Reference: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Finder" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Finder</a>
@JohnWM that would be an interesting way to mix up the clueing for it, if they brought back the old clue
A challenging Wednesday puzzle for me. Took me longer than usual, and not just because the grid had an extra column. Liked seeing the anagrams DENIAL and DENALI, and the theme was solid. I'm glad the "hidden" LEMONs were not highlighted in any way. The SE corner was especially tough for me. Still don't think I know what OPDOC is. Took me much too long to convert SY_NE_ into an Olympic place-name, and even JOANN was slow to reveal herself. Not a fan of GETSANA, and not yet sure whether I consider ETALII crossing ALIA a feature or a bug. Will need to consult a dictionary before commenting on LAICS. Found this themed Wednesday puzzle more challenging than some of our recent themeless Friday puzzles. So, thanks!
@Xword Junkie The SE corner was tough for me, too. After solving, I Googled OP-DOC. The first hit was for a New York Times series of video pieces. I almost never watch those videos because I prefer to *read* the newspaper.
@ Eric I no longer read the NYT. But now I'm familiar with OPDOC. Thanks.
@Xword Junkie As clued, ALIA is fine. Clued as a Latin word, it would be problematic.
This puzzle messed with me, and not because of NEIL, but because of ALICE. I read "Go Ask Alice" in my teens and it depressed me to no end. The book is titled after the line in Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and depicts, in diary form, the downward spiral of a drug user. After reading the book, the song, with its haunting cadence and instrumentals, became unbearable to me. I solved the puzzle last night, and went to bed with the malaise that was elicited by being reminded of the book and the song. Having slept it off, I can now come here to congratulate you on your fine debut, Danna Rosenberg. Thank you for reminding us to (keep trying to) make lemonade in these times when lemons abound. P.S. On a much lighter note, my childlessness was in full display when, for the longest time, I held on to TInKLE MONSTER. I was even thankful to my parents and nanny for never having threatened me with a monster coming after me if I tinkled when and where it wasn't allowed!
@sotto voce. That was an awful, awful book.
I also read go ask Alice in high school and was enthralled by it. It also made me decide to never do hard drugs and 15 years later it’s still stuck.
I'm a very uncool DOPE right now. That word ate up about 10 minutes, I think.