"I don't carrot all about your vegetable puns." "But they can't be beet!" (Lettuce move on.)
@Mike It would be best if you don’t leek this information.
@Mike If you remain upbeet, you’ll be raddishing to others.
@Mike Aw shucks, it seems you never run out of corn.
I think we need to squash this right now!
@Mike Looks like soupçon. (Be sure to mind your peas and cukes when you go bowling it.)
@Mike Seedy effort. You need a hobby! Maybe learn to play the tuber?
@Mike Please asparagus from any more of these. You start, and then your followers spinach chain of segues. My friends the Greens wouldn't give up, so I finally had to call the police, who came and collared them. (It was that or start a rhubarb.)
Huge fan of this crossword.
@Michael G Pride of ownership? Congratulations! I-L-L!
A bit funny that a grid centered around all things vegetarian is literally centered around the STOMACH (of a) PIRANHA. Made me smile.
@Sam Lyons I thought the same thing and also the narrative might also include a visit to the LOO. PLOP.
@Sam Lyons It took me no short of four iterations to get the correct spelling of piranha.
I disagree with the column -- segue vs Segway is hardly a chicken-and-egg thing. Segue is much older and comes IIRC from Italian, and also parallels with the Spanish verb seguir meaning "to follow". Segway the company did a play on the word because the Segway is a *way* to get around, but in no way came first.
@Isabeau I was just going to come on here and say the same thing (minus the etymology lesson, thank you!) Definitely not a chicken-or-egg dilemma, and disappointing that Sam Corbin doesn't seem to know what that actually means.
@Isabeau and @DW I think perhaps you only glanced at the AI summary or the Etymonline entry after googling ‘segue.’ Yes, its first occurrence in English is noted in 1740. However, it remained a purely musical direction for almost a quarter of a millennium after. In the 1970s, it began to be used figuratively, but very sparsely. Its popular use in the sense most of us use it today does indeed seem to spike right around the time Segway was founded. I’d bet the farm that, had it not been for Segway, ‘segue’ might be as well known as ‘cacchinnate’ or ‘deipnosophist.’
Sam, I am not trained as a musician, but I certainly heard and used "segue" before Segway existed, an M-W suggests non-musical use was around before I was born. First Known Use Imperative Verb circa 1740, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Verb circa 1913, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Noun circa 1937, in the meaning defined above <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/segue" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/segue</a>
Sam, I'm not disputing that the arrival of the Segway in late 2001 may have led to more widespread use of the word "segue," but I was using it even before those three decades pre-Segway when even you indicate it was being used more widely than before.
I'm surprised more of you aren't familiar with no cap. It's an abbreviated version of a response to someone questioning if they should trust you. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" "I'm not wearing a red cap."
@ad absurdum, Ahhhh. It all makes sense now!
@ad absurdum Still don't understand - why red cap?
@ad absurdum You have terminal TDS. It’s short for capping, which is a slang that has been used in rap for a couple decades, specifically coming out of the Atlanta scene. So no cap would be I’m not capping, or, I’m being truthful.
Monkey bread. Welsh rabbit. Ants on a log. Beaver tail (threw that in for our Canadian friends). Grasshopper pie. Bear claw. Elephant ear. Cold duck. And the reverse. Sweetbreads. Head cheese. English is weird.
@Steve L Apart from Welsh rarebit .... I don't know these; I'll look them up. I can't think of many similar dishes, except fly cemetery - an open pastry tart filled with currants and raisins. In my grandmother's day, early 20th century, a sheep's heid or head was the food for the extremely poor, which she was.
@Jane Wheelaghan Fly cemetery reminds me of spotted dog (or spotted Richard for the emus)
@Steve L I was going to add mincemeat, but I realized that, while the revealer says nothing specifically about the names of animals, it does say "despite how their names start." So, never mind.
@Steve L Neither head cheese nor cheese is vegetarian.
@Steve L And for BYU fans, add Cougar Tails! Big, long maple or chocolate-frosted donuty bars sold at sport events, named for the mascot Cosmo Cougar.
I love our quirky colorful language, and puzzles that highlight it. I love that here is a perfect theme idea – vegetarian foods that start with animal names – that no one has ever thought of before, and in an apple-dropping-on-Isaac-Newton’s-head moment, it hit Michael out of nowhere on a drizzly Seattle day. What a lovely puzzle – if you have a food theme, why not make the whole box a cornucopia? Aside from the theme answers, pour in additional food-related answers: CRISP, PIT, SUB, STOMACH, EDYS, ELOTE, BONE, OATS, DASH, ATE. Cleanly stack HORSERADISH over CRABAPPLE, and support them with four theme-answer pillars -- gorgeous. Craft a junk-free grid that is a pleasure to scan, and add to the beauty with SEGUED and PIRANHA. Plus, a pair of bonuses for me. First, the rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (TESSA). And second, the last name “Sweatshirt” which I find so delightfully unexpected. The last time I reacted this way was with the name of the racehorse favored in this year’s Kentucky Derby – “Journalism”. Here in one box is the art and science of crosswords, rich with pleasure. Thank you for this, Adam and Michael!
@Lewis Also the resonance of SORE, BORE and TORE fluttering down the grid!
@Lewis Great review! I liked how ELOTE & EMOTE were opposite each other.
If you’ve come here to complain about “nocap” Don’t. It’s just an age gap thing. There are plenty of words the younguns don’t know because they were slang in your generation and aren’t used anymore… At some point those who know today’s slang won’t know the next generation’s slang…And it will happen sooner than they think. No cap.
@Paul - WHERE DOES "NOCAP" COME FROM? Not here to complain, just to learn. I'm happy to pick up current slang (even though I know that if I try to use it I will probably just get eyerolls. LOL) Can anyone educate me? What is the basis or root of "NOCAP"? How did it come to mean "dead serious"?
William, If you haven't found it already, here is the answer from an earlier thread: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/48ifj2?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/48ifj2?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
Nothing much to say about the crossword itself, other that the NW corner would have completely stumped me not long ago, and it was very close to doing it today. I learned SOLO CUP from these puzzles. HANOI and PIERRE came to me with many crosses only, as did UNCLE. Had I not need able to recall the title RAN (a movie I haven't seen), I would have needed lookups even today. CHU was a complete enigma. I can't say I'm a fan of stacking trivia and proper names like that. And now for something completely different. Garbus means hunchback in Polish, and it is our term for the VW Beetle: it's VW Hunchback in Polish, effectively.
Had I not been* able D'oh. I must have made a typo and Google musy have corrected it nonsensically.
@Francis The double e in the middle of my typo'ed word must have made it easy for your brain to misread it as the right one. VW didn't really take a hit from the emissions scandal in Poland (it was about emissions rather than mileage), since most Polish people don't give a flying frack about emissions in the first place (I mean, a typical car in Poland is 18 years old, a diesel, imported as a wreck from Germany and fixed up cheaply to put it back on the road. No, I'm not joking or exaggerating). I haven't looked at their sales figures recently, but given how many new VWs I see on Warsaw streets, they can't be doing too badly. We got a new VW (not a diesel though) in 2016 and we're happy with it. I won't be getting another VW though - most their models are SUVs these days, and I can't abide those. Also, VW autos don't offer the performance I expect of my next car. I was fine with FWD and 8s 0-60 acceleration in 2016, but given the state of the world I want something much more exciting (read: twice as fast and RWD or AWD) to enjoy before I die (in the water wars/by Putin/beaten to death for my liberal views/etc). There is the very fast VW Golf R, I suppose, reasonably priced for its performance, but I just don't see VW and excitement in the same sentence.
@Francis My mother was a gearhead. I take after her. In the 1980s we made a scrapbook of "Western" car ads, scavenged from old French magazines, smuggled into Poland. I still have it. She also kept borrowing my Mustang (and doing silly things in it, as I learned from the tickets sent to my address 🤣). I drive safely and sensibly, actually, but I do like to reach the maximum speed limit quite fast, on occasion 🤣. My father once took several years to learn the brand of car when drove. He probably never knew the model 😆.
@Francis I'm really torn between - on the one hand - wanting to tell all of you who my mother was, name and all, as a tribute to her, and to tell you some exciting things about my father, too, and - on the other hand - my obsession with privacy. A book about them both and their ancestors would probably be quite interesting to Americans, as a chronicle of Poland in the 19th-21st centuries (it would feature an impoverished noble dying on a sled ride in the 1900s, a village boy being miraculously saved by American medicine from a North Korean bug in the 1950s, a teenage girl helping her father pick music for Polish radio in the 1960s, inheritances wasted on designer French shoes in the 1970s, the despair of the early and the hope of the late 1980s, surprise careers in the chaotic 1990s, fast cars, slow cars, sauerkraut, caviar, affairs, stories of unwavering fidelity, and more). I might write one yet. It's not like I don't have a frackton of free time.
@Andrzej Oh my goodness. Reading the ‘conversation’ between yourself and @Francis has made my day. I imagine the two of you, sat at a cafe table somewhere, drinking espresso, discussing the merits of VW v (insert fancy care marque here). All very chic. As for your family history; write it, publish it. I’ll buy it.
@HelennWright Chic is one of the last words I'd use to describe myself, and I'm much more likely to be seen sipping beer than espresso 🤣. Ideally with rock music in the background, and Jorge the Lab curled around my feet. (He's too old to make it to all but one of my favorite restaurants though, and his old joints no longer allow him to curl much 😢)
@Andrzej I don't know how much of your family's history would be of interest to me, but I'd certainly want to read the chapter that included World War II.
@Andrzej CHU was a gimme for me, because he comes from a local family that has run Chef Chu's restaurant for 50 years. I'm not a movie fan, so never know actors or directors -- except this one, because I love the families great food. Corner of San Antonio & El Camino Real in Mountain View for anyone who wants to visit.
Sigma or nah? That’s the gyatt question. 🤔** Is it more skibidi to take the L from life’s big fanum tax, Or to clap back against the Ohio rizz of trouble— And YEET them all? 💀 To unalive… to no-scope sleep… 😴 And by sleep, we mean ditch the rizz—end the dubs and L’s That your mewing flesh is heir to? GYATT, that’s a W! 🙌 To sleep… maybe to dream (sus). 🕵️♂️ But nah— ‘Cuz in that sigma sleep, what Ohio nightmares might come? When we’ve left the group chat of life? That’s the ick. 🤢 That’s the glow-up that makes us take the L so long… Who’d suffer the cringe and L’s of time, When they could just self-unalive with a based dagger? 🔪 But pause… 🛑 The fear of Ohio after death— That unfound country from whose skibidi border No Sigma returns—grills our rizz. So we stay malding instead of pulling up to peace… And thus the sigma grind is glazed by this thought, And big W’s of drip turn L’s instead. 😮💨
@Justin Will!!! You've come back!!!!
Could somebody please explain to me what's going on here? I'm completely confused.
@Justin I’m sending this to my 13yo; she will love it
@Justin Awesome! (I'm guessing Andrzej didn't pick up the Kiss Me Kate in your reply. Shakespeare and musicals, not his jams.)
Pierre is the only capital that does not share any letters with its state. Great trivia question.
Juneau is the only state capital you can't drive to. At least that's what the cruise director told me
@Ro Was it ever a free country? It's always been a matter of degree (relative to your wealth, status, color, sexual orientation, religion,...) and dependent on your definition of "freedom".
27A. Held office = SERVED Wow, what a concept. Seems rather quaint these days. /s I loved the puzzle. Afterwords, looked up ELOTE, horchata, and TIGER NUT. I'd like to try some horchata if I could find some locally. I wouldn't trust Starbucks' version, I can't STOMACH their flavoring syrups. Great photo pick, Sam.
Happy Canada Day to those that celebrate! I hope the weather is sunny and not too hot wherever you are!
@Lara 😭😭😭 I wish I could celebrate.
@Lara It was sunny but way too hot.... a nice evening for fireworks though. (Official ones, over the lake... don't want to start fires)
I’m not a native speaker and I typically use ChatGPT a lot if it’s not a Monday puzzle but today it was just me and Google, lol. First time I’ve ever solved something “not Monday” without crying “Help me, ChatGPT!” Thank you, Games Team
@Sergio Theodore congratulations Sergio. It is hard enough sometimes in your first language. So it is extra impressive to do it in another language.
@Sergio Theodore I read where French people have been giggling every time a news presenter mentions ChatGPT, because it sounds like "chat, j'ai pété" which means, "cat, I broke wind."
Oh this was a real cutie! I don’t quite get NOCAP, but perhaps my age is showing again. And though, as others have said more eloquently, 42A brought a tear, and this coming Friday feels more like a funeral now, we will NEVER say 17A.
@Brenda <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/no-cap" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/no-cap</a>
@Brenda The emus came back for my original post on 42A. It was simply: "42A brought a tear to my eye." Apparently that is now banned speech.
Well, here I am on one of the Bay Islands off Honduras, where one of my favorite humans calls home. She's a 13 (going on 30) year old girl, who I've loved dearly since she was 6 months old. She's in full-on teen angst these days but still every bit the delight I have been close to for all this time—until she's not—but when she's not, it's only temporary. Anyhow, I've worked to give her a proper GenX musical education the last couple of years. She actually remembered most of Juke Box Hero from last year (my favorite) and this year, she mentioned cowboys, so I introduced her to Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive... She then introduced me to a crossword favorite, Lil Uzi Vert, to which I said, OOOH! He's in my crosswords. (Insert eye roll here. Har!) She said it's also a song about cowboys but I can't discern how. I guess I'll take her word for it. We are both getting a musical education, I guess. 😁
There's a wafer we all know, Part hockey puck, part wall plaster, all bad. Mystical runes stamped on its guts. The clues so cute, cloying and tasteless. Shuddering, it enters your psyche, Cursed, coerced but needs must. Like tiny mouse droppings, you think you've caught it But somehow another shows up. Spawned in sets of millions. Cloned by endless bots, sardined into Cellophane tunnels. Born to clog, to sludge in a gritty, pasty slump. A surfeit of cakes, chocolate bars and grids. The Escher that echoes through black and white frames. That inexorable, ineluctable four-letter word. This pestilence Infiltrated the Mini today. A pox on Mondelez!
@Whoa Nellie But the umami The twisty, crunchy love and hate Alas I crave it
Like a fresh garden salad, this was cool, crunchy and totally enjoyable. Love the theme, despite being a dedicated carnivore! TIL TIGER NUT, never come across them before, nor the dish they’re used in. Ditto ELOTE. One day, when travel is safe again, I must try these dishes. Over the weekend I had a polite conversation with a vegan over our differing ideas on food and animal welfare. She politely refused to acknowledge that animals raised for the table can have a good life. I politely disagreed that her super restrictive diet was a healthy, human one, or better for the planet. It’s safe to say that neither of us changed our stance, but wished the other well. I then went and gave some extra cow nuts to Bramble, the Hereford that will be on our table come Autumn. He mooed happily in his pasture.
@Helen Wright One of the all-time great comments. Thanks for the early morning laugh.
@Helen Wright If Bramble is a he, wouldn’t those be bull nuts? Or would Bramble get mad because he no longer has his?
@Helen Wright Animals raised for the purpose of feeding us humans have quite a good life. They're fed a strict diet, medically cared for, nicely spoken to and protected from natural predators. When there is dissension among the herd, brood , they are segregated from the less fortunate. I can't speak on behalf of their sex life, the poor females are constantly… well, you get it. For the most part, they're exempt from the top two rules in the animal kingdom. Our cattle are mostly Angus here in the US. Regarding dear Bramble, I've been told that giving names to your future dinner meal makes for some uncomfortable dinner time discussion. True?
@Jane Wheelaghan - Still, only eaten by humsn predators, and get room and board.
Nice Tuesday puzzle. A lot of things not dawning on me from the clues, so a lot of working the crosses, but that just made for an enjoyable workout. And... the reveal was one of the last things I worked out; that just made for a really nice 'aha' when I pondered for a minute and finally caught on. Really unusual puzzle find today. I'll put that in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from February 14, 1971 by Gladys V. Miller with the title "Central activity." Don't recall seeing another one like this. Some theme clue and answer examples: "Arty district and actress" BOHEMIAFARROW "Winter Olympics site and movie star" CORTINALOUISE "U.S. general and tennis ace" MACARTHURASHE "Egyptian queen and S. A. lake" NEFERTITICACA "Leander's milieu and high priest" HELLESPONTIF And there were a couple that I really don't grasp. One example: "Muse and wall writing" MELPOMENEMENE Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/14/1971&g=146&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/14/1971&g=146&d=A</a> I'm done. ....
@Rich in Atlanta - Mene, mene, tekel upharsin on the wall in ancient Babylon foretold that King Balshazzar's days were measured (i.e. numbered). It's from the Book of Daniel. I assume the first half is Greek. I will let someone else confirm.
Could've had DRAGONFRUIT in there, as well (who says dragons aren't real?).
Most solvers are probably familiar with the Tower of HANOI, although they may not know the game by this name. It's a child's game in which the player attempts to move a number of concentric discs from one rod to another, being careful never to place a larger disc on a smaller one. Typically, the game has five discs, and the puzzle can be solved in 31 moves, if you know what you're doing. But why is it called the "Tower of HANOI"? No one knows for sure, but my favorite theory is that there is a Hindu temple which contains a tower of 64 golden discs in which the monks are continuously working to move the discs from one to another. When the monks finish the task, so the story goes, the current world will come to an end,...and another world will begin. But surely that story is nonsense, or the world would have ended long ago, right? Don't be so fast! If this story were true, and the monks worked around the clock and were able to move the discs at the rate of one disc per second, it would take them over 584 billion years to finish the puzzle! That seemed impossible to me, but I did the (rather simple) calculation, and it's correct! It's easy to see that the number of steps required doubles with the addition of each disc. The number of steps required to move a stack of 64 discs is 2^64-1. Check it out for yourself! Isn't math amazing?!
The X-Phile, Sam Loyd via Martin Gardner for me. You?
@The X-Phile there is an old science fiction short story which pursues that question called The 9 Billion Names of God. <a href="https://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/writ510/readings/The%20Nine%20Billion%20Names%20of%20God.pdf" target="_blank">https://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/writ510/readings/The%20Nine%20Billion%20Names%20of%20God.pdf</a>
@The X-Phile Ewwww, math 😢 (I didn't know the game btw)
@Barry Ancona I first ran across a variant of this amazing truth in story about an ancient Persian game of chess, in which the victor, told he could ask for anything after defeating the Shah, asked for a grain of rice in the first square, two in the second, four in the third, and so on until the 64th square of the board. The emperor laughed, thinking that the chess master had chosen a meager sum for his victory. Then they began to do the calculation. (The sum total would [again] be 2^64-1 or roughly 18 quintillion grains.) Carl Sagan tells this story in "The Persian Chessboard", but I don't think I first saw it there. Perhaps it was in one of Martin Gardner's books.
@The X-Phile Play online: <a href="https://www.mathsisfun.com/games/towerofhanoi.html" target="_blank">https://www.mathsisfun.com/games/towerofhanoi.html</a>
Many moons ago I was out at East Point, P.E.I., nearby where my grandfather had an old farm. It is a windswept place of stunted vegetation. I chanced upon a patch of intertwined, low-growing, fruit-laden gooseberries and blueberries laid out like a magic carpet before me. The best tasting and largest berries of either sort I have ever had. I will have to settle for currants these days for I have not seen a GOOSEBERRY in years. Blueberries of late have been hybridized to rival those of my sweet memory. Today’s puzzle was easy as pie!
@Mark Between Duluth and Grand Marais is a very popular sight called Gooseberry Falls. I've never eaten a gooseberry, but I highly recommend the Falls.
Lovely, snappy puzzle. Thanks guys!
@Pythia You could have told us that yesterday, Pythia, albeit possibly more obliquely.
@Andrzej I wonder how many people here will understand your comment. @Pythia Great nick!
@Beth in Greenbelt The Pythia was the priestess who communed with the God Apollo at Delphi. People came from all over Greece to ask the God questions, and the God spoke through her in answering them. She always spoke truthfully; however, her responses were often enigmatic and misinterpreted by us mere humans. The existence of the Pythian priestess is a historical fact (Socrates, for example, learned of his "divine mission" from the priestess), although the oracles she delivered form part of a number of myths (as in the Oedipus tale).
Easy-as-a-taco Tuesday. Wasn’t sure how to get NOCAP from dead serious, though. Oh well.
@Peabody <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/no-cap" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/no-cap</a>
Fun little romp. Was going smashingly well until I hit the bottom Took me far too long staring at the corner of TIGERNUT and NOCAP Apparently I am one of the Olds now
Raced along until I reached the south-central portion, at which point I began to think I would be defeated by this one. In the end, I simply guessed ... correctly. Never heard of TIGERNUT or NOCAP. Wasn't sure about the actress and not familiar with "overnight oats". Took me almost eleven minutes, of which the last four were surprisingly stressful for a Tuesday.
@Xword Junkie There’s also such a thing as overnight buckwheat…😄
@Xword Junkie Had just about the same experience. I vaguely think I've heard of Tessa Thompson and maybe I've heard someone say "no cap," so in my case it was a bit of an informed guess. Now we know!
Is it wrong that I feel the theme answers deserved a better revealer? Maybe some of these foods don’t grow on them, strictly speaking, but ANIMALFARM was right there and it would have fit the grid.
Very enjoyable puzzle with a clever theme. Loved that STOMACH was in the center of a food themed puzzle. Was that a coincidence? Congratulations on your debut, Michael! Thank you, Adam, for mentoring a promising new constructor. What a team!
Bravo! What a fun entertaining puzzle! I love the way you guys think! Keep up the great work!
Thank you, Adam and Michael, for shining a light on (yet another) inscrutable aspect of the English language. It stopped me in my tracks and made me take the time to ponder, and that's one of the things I love about these crosswords. Thinking about our language was a nice distraction from what's being SERVED up that we're having to STOMACH. Another nice distraction: there's a rubber BAND, there's a wedding BAND, and then there's just the unforgettable THE BAND. Here they are, singing with The Staples, in their farewell concert filmed by Martin Scorsese ("The Last Waltz" released in 1978) - <a href="https://youtu.be/ccJTFXvkXkA?si=UUVOYAV-Gbz2BFd0" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ccJTFXvkXkA?si=UUVOYAV-Gbz2BFd0</a>
With every passing day I feel more irrelevant. Never heard of "overnight oats" or "no cap". At least Pierre is still the capital of South Dakota. Still able to complete the puzzle in average time (which ain't fast), so I guess I'll keep at it.
@Jim Funny of you to mention that. Our grandson’s recent third birthday party was well-attended by the 25-35 age group. There was an ample supply of Topo Chicos and White Claws, but they were kind enough to include a limited supply of Mic Ultras, because apparently it's what “old” people drink. (They see us as old, we don't). So, I went up the street for some Stella and Shocktop, and all was right with the world. The other grandfather reminded me, “At least a sick dog has the good sense to crawl away and die, we just keep showing up places.” Ha ha!
Just missed my best Tuesday time by 28 seconds. Got tripped up and had vegetation instead of vegetarian (I often work downs first and adjust from there).
A. Aaronson is one of the biggest gossips in town. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3uZ41CoEY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3uZ41CoEY</a>
@MC As I read your posting, I cannot think about anything else but inner-city substitute teacher Mr. Garvey roll-calling that name in biology class.😆
Time to get snooty: 51A is improperly clued. Reverb can be an electronically produced or naturally occurring. It is merely the way something sounds in a room or space. If you say something out loud right now it will have the qualities of reverb that pertain to the space you are in. I doubt that one would associate that with echo unless it was an extreme case of very high reflectivity in a rather large space. Reverb as an electronic produced effect is never applied to make an "echo effect" Those effects are achieved by a different class of effects called "Delay" which make echos of the signal that is fed into them at an adjustable rate, amount, diffusion etc... Let the nerd debates begin!
@Jesse Yeah, I got nothing. I could only afford acoustical when I was a kid.
@Jesse 100% , echo is delay not reverb. I think most any audio effect enthusiast would know what the clue meant but still be slightly irritated at the inaccuracy.
@Jesse @max You are presently pardoned for your pedantry for presenting it in a polite and pleasing post.*** ***You're not going to believe it, but I didn't push that string of "p" words--it wasn't until after "pleasing" that I knew noticed it, and I had to come up with one final "p" word.
@Jesse I understand the distinction between the two terms, but I would not consider this improperly clued as echo is given as a synonym for reverberate. Therefore this is close enough for crosswords.
@Jesse "Reverberation" predates electronics (by quite a bit). "Reverb," however, seems to me to mostly refer to the electronic effect, and it probably comes from the abbreviation of the earlier version on amplifier dials. All speculation on my part. I should probably be looking up references and citations at this point, but I'd rather make breakfast instead.
@Jesse Your point reminds me of the joke attributed to the conductor Thomas Beecham that composers should always premiere their works at London's Royal Albert Hall because that way they could guarantee to hear them twice.
@Jesse I've been playing electric and acoustic guitars for decades now, and never pondered your observation much. Nonetheless, you make a good point, because many of the FX ambient settings on the sound boards and amps are called "large hall," "warm lounge," "cathedral," etc. They contain both delay and reverberation characteristics. As was jokingly pointed out to me yesterday, at least it isn't a wawa.
Good tea. Nice house. I've long wanted to say that Lt Worfism about a puzzle and now is as good a time as ever. Enjoyed this puzzle. Found the placement of ELOTE and EMOTE very satisfying and easy to STOMACH. Enjoyable theme. Though it filled itself in, I still appreciate it! I haven't worn a CAP in a long time but I'm not all that serious. Still, don't call me Shirley. Honduras might be making me a bit slap happy... 😏
@HeathieJ Yeah, well, you don't call me Still!
A fun puzzle with some tough spots. EARL and EDYS crossed with TEE was tough, as was SEGUED with PIERRE and ELOTE. I thought the theme was clever, and it helped me get TIGERNUT (which I have never heard of before). All in all, an enjoyable solve.
@H I remembered EDYS from previous NYT crosswords but did not know what Dreyer's sold. TEE and SEGUED were my routes into solving the other clues. And I only got SEGUED once I had S_G__D. For me TIGERNUT crossing with NOCAP and TESSA was also a challenge. It was one of those wait-and-see moments as I entered the last letter and didn't know which message would flash up.
N.E. Body, If "Anywhere" is in the U.S.A., you should see either EDYS or [Dreyer's] where you see Breyer's.
Jane, And you probably won't find U.K. ice cream brands in the New York Times Crossword.
Jane, And I knew you knew that!
If you've never tried ELOTE, it's a must do. For a simpler version, just remove the husk from the cob and throw it on a hot grill. Baste with butter regularly. When nicely charred, serve. The charring evaporates some of the water and concentrates the sugar in the corn. Yum.
EVILER sounds clunky to me; I'd say "more evil". But it's a word. If it's in a dictionary, it's a word. CISGENDER is also a word. CIS is a prefix that doesn't necessarily have to precede GENDER, but sometimes it does. (CISJordan, CISAlpine, etc.) It means "not across from." Your sexual politics has nothing to do with whether or not it's a thing. (And by the way, your sexual politics may be a little confused.) If people use it, it's a thing. (As I was doing the puzzle, I was sure someone was going to challenge this one.) NO CAP is an adverbial phrase. It exists. I don't use it, but I've hear of it. It really does exist. The fact that you don't use it doesn't negate its existence. If it's in use somewhere, it's a phrase. And if it's in the puzzle, it's probably (i.e. >99.9%) legitimate. The NYT Games Dept. has more test solvers and fact checkers than you do.
@Steve L Don't you mean Sass Jordan? Only Canadians will get this, and maybe Bill in Detroit.
Wikipedia to the contrary notwithstanding, for over 50 years I've known it as "Towers of Hanoi", not "Tower of Hanoi".
@Wes Wouldn't be much of a game would it?
Fun, elegant Tuesday puzzle! Thank you for a most pleasant experience.
@Lucia how do you find that elegant. It was up obtuse at best. Elegant is the last word I would suggest for this puzzle.
Loved today’s puzzle. Finished in record time for me (16:35) and only one Lookup. Very pleased with one’s self!
Tough Tuesday for me. CHU, KEIRA, HANOI, ELOTE, TIGERNUT, OATS, NOCAP, and TESSA were all no-knows. Very clever theme and construction, though. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nice puzzle. Difficulty wise felt more like a Monday. You can tell I'm 42 because the last clue I got was NOCAP.
@Chris So was mine, but I'm 90. Now if they could have figured out some way to make it snocap.....
@Chris Can you imagine how confused a guy 45 and Polish was by that entry?
@Chris I’m 48 and it was a gimme!!
@Chris I'm 60 and it was a gimme. I don't think this an age issue but a cultural one.
Lambsquarters (aka pigweed or goosefoot - Chenopodium spp.) were, and sometimes still are, used as a “wild” (weedy) supply of greens for soup or just as a side vegetable, around these parts anyway. I can’t see or hear “gooseberry” without thinking of England, cinnamon, yogurt and Catherine Tate: <a href="https://youtu.be/DfITfSPjBmM?si=1jPcWAgQltEMAk3U" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/DfITfSPjBmM?si=1jPcWAgQltEMAk3U</a>
@JohnWM Well, dandeLIONS ....I have a pesto made with dandelion greens that was a David Liebermann sp? Recipe. Wonderful...
@JohnWM Lamb's quarters are an excellent pot herb. Much better than most spinach. And the seeds are akin to quinoa.
Coincidentally, just before I left work yesterday, I made a fresh batch of Hipster Fodder, aka "Overnight Oats," aka "O²" (This allowed me to dispose of the last batch, which was in danger of becoming "Overfortnight Oats"): 1lb. 5oz. rolled oats* 14oz. golden raisins 10oz. sweetened shredded coconut 2-3 T. cinnamon 1 large carrot, grated 1 tube dairy-free coconut "yoghurt" (I'm not sure how much this weights; 2lbs. ?) 6 cup. vanilla soy "milk" Vegan. I'm told, by my coworkers, this tastes good. I wouldn't know.
@Bill That's quite a batch! I'm amazed that you could go through it in just a fortnight. But reading your last paragraph, it's unclear whether you eat *any* of it. Is this purely an act of workplace generosity?
@Bill Good grief - and my overnight oats is - a bowl of porridge oats soaked in milk overnight, some fruit added in the morning!
I had fun doing this! 26D makes for a wonderful pickle (or relish) where I live. Full of Vitamin C too!
Aside from TIGERNUT and NOCAP, neither of which are familiar to me, this was a pleasantly themed and well constructed puzzle. When I ponder such terms in our naming of fruits/vegetables and their origins, I often wonder just how they came about. Often these origins are lost in the mists of time.