Work of art! The beauty of the blinkers flashing at the end, revealing the perfect placement of Rs to the right and Ls to the left...wow! (No, I did not latch on to that while solving; I was a little busy feeling cross-eyed with reading the across themers first this way, then that way, then this way again.) The fill was smooth, the construction was superb, and I had nothing but fun solving this gem. I also appreciated the crossing of IN YOU GO (with a push) and STAY OUT (maybe also with a push?) It made me laugh. Thank you, Mr. Wagner for the magical workings of your mind! P.S. FADE reminds me of an old Levi's jeans ad: "Levi's jeans never die. They just fade away." It also reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Radiohead, a band that didn't yet exist when I had all my music in LP's or ON TAPE. (Apologies if I've already previously posted it.) – <a href="https://youtu.be/2y6kop0VTXY?si=vPRx_anLgF7MN7_7" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/2y6kop0VTXY?si=vPRx_anLgF7MN7_7</a>
@sotto voce Such a beautiful song on such a greatly underappreciated (by me) album. I was so enamored of OK Computer that I overlooked The Bends for years. And now I'm having deja vu. Did you post another song from that album a while back that I commented on with almost the exact same sentiment? Looking... Looking... Found it. Maybe you're having deja vu too right now, because it was the same song on March 30. Definitely worth posting again!
@sotto voce I generally never comment - this was such a fun puzzle! The theme was truly a work of art/every one of those answers made me chuckle. Bravo Adam Wagner!
"I hope everyone learns about turn signals." "Yeah, that's wishful blinking." ("But drivers know how to stop, right?" "I hate to brake it to you...")
@Mike If they don't, they'll get a crash course.
@Mike They never take direction. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Mike “Gee, and haw’s that working for you?”
@Mike Hands up if you knew what we did without them. Signalling today is pointless.
@Mike These puns are simply terrafic!
News flash: Puns are Mike’s vehicle, and we should all just stay in our lanes.
@Mike You always come through in the clutch -- you're a real exhilarator!
After rage-quitting a few tough crosswords as a child, I took a forty-year hiatus because I was obviously bad at them. (For context, I love and excel at most word puzzles, my husband and I play Scrabble TO THE DEATH, and I'm a librarian.) I reluctantly tried a NYT crossword about three months ago, and while I won't say I'm hooked - well, yes, I will say that. Why lie? However, I admit I've been skeptical of commenters who claim to love the tricky Thursday puzzle. They're like people who say they adore kale and actively enjoy early morning uphill trail runs. Like, sure, maaaybe those people exist, but are we maybe just bragging for the internet? Well, I stand corrected. It turns out that when you figure out the trick on the first clue, instead of completing the puzzle in a fog of angry confusion, reading the column, perusing the comments, and then squinting at the completed puzzle and saying "OK, I guess I can sort of see that", it's a lot of fun. Today's was my fastest Thursday puzzle yet, at almost exactly half my average time. See you bright and early on the trail! (Forget about the kale, though. I still don't believe those people.)
@Bee Winberg kale used to be a fancy garnish for fancy buffets until the kale growers decided they weren’t making enough money so they brainwashed us to think it was edible.
@Bee Winberg Just like kale, if you "massage" balsa wood enough it becomes a viable salad ingredient. See also Chaplin's boot. I never liked Scrabble at all. I can tolerate it more these days but it's still not fun. Boggle, now there's a game.
@Bee Winberg Morning, uphill, and runs are not for me but I love Thursday puzzles and I very much like kale. ☺️ Glad to hear you've come back to the puzzles and come around to Thursday tricks. They are a lot of fun! And if you ever want to give kale another shot, try this very quick easy dip your toe into the kale world recipe. I use cashew seeds instead of pepitas because we always have them and I think they're really good in it. <a href="https://www.loveandlemons.com/kale-pesto/#wprm-recipe-container-54611" target="_blank">https://www.loveandlemons.com/kale-pesto/#wprm-recipe-container-54611</a>
@Bee Winberg. I think Scrabble requires its own skill set. I'm terrible at it but pretty good at crosswords, especially the Thursday tricksy ones. And I like kale. Wonder if it's related.
@Bee Winberg I lost smell and taste three years ago, and I much prefer kale to limper salad! I also loved this puzzle with blinkers and L R. Great puzzle and crunchy salad.
@Bee Winberg You’ve only been at it for three months! You’re doing very well, in light of that fact. Note that those who do the puzzles with ease have upwards of a half century of practice and experience. I’ve been doing them for about 45 years. With the column, the comment section, other puzzles available online and other crossword commentary websites, you can get good much faster than in the old days.
@B Any vegetable that requires you to massage it in order for it to become edible, is a food that is too needy. I know a few people who, if you massage them long enough become quite edible, too. And that reminds me of a W.C. Fields line: "I've never met a tough child. If you parboil them for a few hours, they always come out quite tender."
@Bee Winberg I hate kale, I hate running, but I love Thursday puzzles. I swear that they're my favorite puzzles of the week. I even own a compilation book that has only Thursday puzzles (even though I have access to the NYT archives). Welcome to Team Thursday! Keep at it and you'll love them, too!
Loved it! I got the BLINKERS reveal and figured it was going to be on/off based on some of the down clues, but the alternating L/R brought the puzzle to the next level!
@AS I thought maybe the Thursday "trick" was to parse it as "B LINKERS" since several of the theme entries started with a B. Had to get to about 50% fill to figure it out.
Happy brain today. Even though it failed in its quest, its work ethic was well satisfied. Oh, sure, I caught on quickly that the circled letters were L and R, and I figured they represented “left” and “right”. I also quickly saw their on-again-off-again conceit. But I also knew that the there was a reveal in the SE, so I left that whole corner blank and made it my mission to figure out what that reveal was. I foraged my mind for phrases containing “left” and “right”, phrases with “off” and “on”. I had “Come on, brain!” periods, waiting for inspiration. What simple eight-letter word could explain what was going on? Eventually I caved, uncled. But oh, what delicious labor, ambrosia for my brain. Whatever deflation my ego underwent was easily countered by seeing my LR initials flashing, as if on a marquee, in the finished box online. So, happy EGO too. Praises go to this very impressive puzzle build – requiring extraordinary skill and, I’m guessing, much persistence, trial, and error. Bravo all around, Adam. So many happy boxes checked on this one. Thank you!
@Lewis "...waiting for inspiration..." Yeah, I think that's what I do more than actually think. Or is that thinking?
When the link in the app is broken, like today, the NYT should really flash the hazard lights. 😜
I solved in my average Thursday time without any lookups. The trick - which I at first wanted to dismiss as not sophisticated enough for the day - was more complex than it seems, I think, in the end. To find pairs of words that worked with the revealer and the gimmick can't have been easy. I struggled with some of the fill, especially in the NE corner, where I obviously put in Paris (expecting it to be wrong - it's not Monday, after all) and did not know the Toronto NBA team, the state park, and the actor. Thankfully RASTA was a gimme, and once crosses made me switch Paris to ROUEN, I handled the rest. I follow track and field, so SHA'Carri was a gimme. Also, that name always seemed cool to me, too, and it has a nice ring to it, so I remembered it instantly when I first encountered it several years ago. I occasionally watch gymnastics, and SIMONE Biles is such a phenomenon I would have recognized her from the news even if I've never seen her compete. So, even though RAPTOR eluded me for most of my solve, the other sporting clues were gimmes, for once. It felt nice 😃 Polish trivia: our main Christmas meal is a meat-less supper on Xmas Eve, when the first star shows up in the sky as it darkens. Polish people traditionally eat pierogi with sauerkraut and mushrooms, barszcz (borscht, to you), fried carp, and a side dish of more sauerkraut and mushrooms (my weird family always ate different things though). We do have HAM, however, on the following two days of celebration.
@Andrzej I think I benefitted enormously from having learned a lesson fairly recently about how to think about clues that are divided into parts. Concerning gymnastics, that's a great example of how I feel I don't really appreciate what many others do. When I watch virtually any gymnasts in national or world class, I don't really see any differences. They all look perfect to me. Same with figure skating. It's hard for me to see differences unless something truly dramatic happens--a fall, a stumble. Your Christmas menu sounds great, except for all the sauerkraut.😀
I finished the puzzle ferociously fast, then couldn't figure out why it wasn't. Took out the letters in the circles. No go. Came to the column and saw that I was right the first time and that I should look for a typo, so I put them back in. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to find. (Let me just ADMITTO it being something about DEEPSEx—I may have been swayed by the SPICES fill earlier and thought the puzzle was going to be a bit kINKY.) Adam, all I have LEFT is the RIGHT thing to say to express my appreciation for your flashy construction. Keep them coming, and may you never have to tell us that you RAN DRY.
@dutchiris I guess your head was still full of GRAPHICDETAILs.
Fun theme! The finished effect of the blinking blinkers is indeed something you see some indecisive drivers do. (Is that maybe worse than not using the blinker at all?) Some of the unblinkered entries were intriguing: I’m imagining what a “bald sport” could be, hmm. On another matter: that house cry of NAY, I hear it!
@Cat Lady Margaret, Bald sport is blinkered. No r bald spot for area not covered. No l bad sport for poor loser
@Cat Lady Margaret Or “lover done”, which could be a lament or a sigh of relief, depending on the situation.
I’ve never commented before but felt compelled to after completing today’s puzzle. I do the crossword every day (except Saturdays), and this one was an exceptional delight! Absolutely brilliant! Kudos to you, Mr. Wagner!! Please keep them coming!
I love it when I can figure out Thursday theme clues without having to turn to Deb for a little guidance. This was a fun puzzle and a fun theme, though I wasn’t sure what BLINKERS had to do with it until I saw my solved grid and I didn’t see that the circled letters were all L and R until I read Deb’s column after solving.
I was looking at my stats literally yesterday (I've finished about 300 crosswords over the last year) and noticed that Thursday was the only day where my best time was quite close to my average time. Very consistently tricky between 35 - 38 minutes. Well, not anymore! I absolutely raced through this in under half my average Thursday time... I immediately guessed the thrust of the theme with the HAM/HARM and IDEA/IDEAL entries, and those L/R circles only sped up a super smooth solve of the filling words - sometimes you're just on the same wavelength as a puzzle and everything falls into place very satisfyingly. Thanks, Adam, next time make me a double-sized version for me please!
This column's URL should be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2025-07-03.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2025-07-03.html</a> -- on the Wordplay page it is missing the "2025-".
It’s fun to read how easy it was for you guys. Really fun… Meantime, it took more than an hour for me to beat this puzzle with a lot of help of my friends Google and Chat GPT, lol. On top of that, my “uncovering” of the theme was actually wrong 🤣 Thankfully, just slightly wrong. Feel so dumb, even though English is my second language
@Sergio Theodore If I had a second language, I would never feel dumb.
@Sergio Theodore No, please don't feel dumb, if for no other reason than that you're breaking my heart when you say that. This isn't an IQ test and no one's measuring intelligence here. Really. Thursdays are tricky and it's not uncommon for solvers to have a tough time getting it, even for native English speakers. Tip of the hat to you for tackling it and not giving up, no matter how long you took and how many resources you used. Keep at it and always remember: you're engaging with nothing less than the gold standard of crosswords as an ESL speaker! Be very proud! We'll be rooting for you. ;-)
@Sergio Theodore You've earned my respect for entering the game and playing it out. Slow maybe. Dumb never.
@Sergio Theodore Keep at it. I was confused by late week puzzles for months, and actually, I only started dealing with most Thursdays on my own and with actual pleasure after a year or a year and a half of solving. I never used ChatGPT though. I just looked up names, abbreviations and trivia. The non-trivial entries I just revealed when they eluded me no matter how hard I tried to understand their clues. Once you do enough of these puzzles, you get on most constructors' wavelength - clues once opaque become crystal clear.
@Sergio Theodore Oh, no sirree are you to feel dumb for taking a bit longer to crack the code. Many of us have been solving for ages, but if you switched the language to, well, *any* language but US-English, we would cower away and hide behind a curtain til it was over. Bravo! You did it. Color me impressed and inspired ( as I am *every* day with Andrzej and our other solvers whose first language ain’t English)!
@Sergio Theodore Yes, as @Andrzej said, the more you do the more they'll start being easier! You'll start seeing patterns -- and "crosswordese" -- you recall from other grids. For example, if I'm a little stuck on an answer, I'll try to see if a two-word response fits -- such as ADMIT TO today. (I'm so not a fan of that type of answer! Which is probably why I almost never see them right away.) But I don't think ChatGPT is your friend here, unless you go back and figure out how the answer relates to the clue. Or perhaps if you're using it to provide all meanings of a certain word... So much of crossword solving involves lateral thinking, especially late week! I am always impressed by solvers for whom English is not their first language. And on tricky Thursday puzzles, no less! 🙌
I caught on to the "down" blinks first and though, OK, it's just one letter used or not. THEN I figured out the "across" blinks and went WOW, that's impressive and it actually helps solve the puzzle! I liked this one.
Earlier today I had a Reel on my phone which discussed the origin of “bear” and how it ties to “arctic” which makes me believe that AI and internet searches are watching the NYT web searches and know what will be in the puzzle before it’s published. That’s a pretty esoteric thing to just be random.
@Paul Happens to me all the time. A few weeks ago the song DONTSTOP was featured, which I haven’t heard for years. Did it on the airplane and heard it playing in the Uber on the way home.
⬅️ Really enjoyed this one. ➡️ ⬅️ Keep ‘em coming, Adam!! ➡️
Does anyone else here play the (crossword-adjacent?) "Waffle" puzzle? It's available at <a href="https://wafflegame.net/daily" target="_blank">https://wafflegame.net/daily</a> . In the game, you move letters around to create six interlocking five-letter words in the form of a waffle. One nice aspect of the game is that afterwards, the constructor gives definitions, etymologies, and examples of usage for each of the words in the puzzle. A bonus for us language nerds. All this is prologue to the following. In today's puzzle, the word GNOME appeared. And this was the sample sentence: "Gardens are protected at night by dwarves in red hats; that's a little gnome fact."I thought solvers of yesterday's puzzle might find this amusing. (Especially you, @Mike.) And, on another tangent, the etymology of "gnome" is pretty fascinating!
Fun fact: Proto-Indo-European, the conjectured parent language for most European, and many Indian and Central Asian, languages, did not have a root word for "bear," or if it did, linguists haven't been able to reconstruct it. Presumably, bears were so awesome (in several meanings of the word) that one didn't even speak the name. Instead, one would use a euphemism: "Honey-eater" (the root for Slavic languages), "Brownie" (the Germanic root, including "bear"; think Tim Treadwell's buddy Mr. Chocolate). The most probable one is the Greek "arktos,"--from the PIE root "*h2Rktos" (pronounced with a hard "*.")--but it might have just meant "demon." Bring this up at your 4th of July backyard barbecue and watch the blank stares you get! *** On Jordan's stormy banks I stand And cast a wishful eye To Canaan's fair and happy land Where my possessions lie: O! the Transporting scene Which rises to my sight: Sweet fields of living green And rivers of delight! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuwqNayqu84&list=RDMuwqNayqu84&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuwqNayqu84&list=RDMuwqNayqu84&start_radio=1</a>
@Bill Love it! The Voldemort of beasts.
Wow, I LOVED this theme so much- I'm constantly amazed by the creativity and originality in the NYT puzzles! And my fastest ever Thursday solve at 14:10 :)
What a nice Thursday puzzle. It was actually doable (is that a word?). TIL the etymology of the word "Arctic". I caught on to the theme / trick fairly early, although totally missed that the letters were L and R (in their correct spots!). Had to look up several US athletes, but I did get RASTA. Loved the blinking lights at the end! A great construction. Hats off to Adam Wagner, and may your road be smooth and uncluttered.
I had a feeling this was going to be a special Thursday puzzle. After seeing the blinking graphic upon completion I was left with the satisfaction of knowing just how right I was. Excellent work, Adam!
Alt. revealer: BLINK AND YOU'LL SEE IT
I don't comment on many puzzles, but wanted to compliment the constructor on a fantastic effort. I didn't notice the L/R pattern until they flashed upon completion, so what a pleasant surprise! Rare Thursday with no Google assistance, so I'm extra happy!
A very fun solve. A bright spot on this dark day for the nation. The blinker seems to be stuck on R.
A fun idea, which I found too easy tor it to be at all challenging.
@polymatha And here's average solver me, so pleased that I was able to solve this Thursday puzzle without any cheating! I'm not a 'polymath', so I'm still proud of myself!
So much fun! I sometimes struggle with Thursday puzzles but I enjoyed this one very much. And Deb, that's one of my pet peeves too. I love reading your commentary btw.
Thank you, @Cheraffe!
What an amazing puzzle! I have no idea how people come up with these themes. I tried to make a puzzle once, and the best theme I could come up with was "birds." If I had one nit to pick, it would be the way the down answers were clued. I had assumed, from the across answers, that you would read the L with the left clue, and the R with the right clue. That logic continues with L entries like BO(L)OTIE, but is inexplicably abandoned for R entries like RAND(R)Y. Am I overthinking it? Possibly. Am I missing something? Even more possible. I'll finish my coffee now.
@Katie I think it's just that the first down clue gets the answer with the extra letter, the second gets the answer without it. Side note: I always enjoy your comments here!
@Katie this totally threw me off. All of the down R clues seemed like they should be flipped.
Such a fun puzzle! It had that indescribably satisfying feeling of solving the clues and watching the theme emerge simultaneously (fellow puzzlers, IYKYK). Good stuff!
@Amy lol I agree. No need to add a comment from another Amy!
No matter how embarrassingly long it took me to understand that RANDRY was RAN DRY, I really enjoyed this puzzle a lot! I glommed onto the theme pretty quickly and plugged in the other Ls and Rs. Fun one!! Even though I knew the name of the city at 55 across immediately, I somehow first thought it was spelled CAaNAN, then when that didn't work I thought it surely must be CANnAN. Sheesh! Bad Sunday School HeathieJ! I'm not super sportsy, but I am a huge Simone Biles fan. I like that she follows EMPRESS in the grid and crosses with ROIL. I know it's not royal, but still, well deserved for our goat! Shout out to MN's own Suni Lee. These women do things I can't do in my wildest dreams. I mean, I fell a couple weeks ago because I stood up too fast... I really enjoyed the theme! It reminded me of when I bought my beautifully cute bright orange car a few years ago and I was talking on the phone to my mother, hands-free, when I had to turn on my blinker, as all good people do when they're going to turn or change lanes... Mom suddenly exclaimed, "Honey, what's that sound!?" She's seriously sounded panicked. I'm like, what sound? My mother's little high strung, to say the least, but she seriously thought it was a bom-b. I'm not sure what kind of life she thinks I'm living up in Minnesota, but the likelihood of my car being secretly bom-bed is pretty low, I'd say. Sure, someone might want to slip a mickey in my Diet Coke to shut me up for a while, but a car bom-b is not likely.
@HeathieJ Until I read your comment, I had been reading the "was exhausted" entry as "R-AND-R"-Y. Thank goodness it isnt!
@HeathieJ Here's how I respond to car bombs. I figure it's very unlikely to have a bomb wired to my car. And it's astronomically unlikely to have *two* bombs wired to my car. So I always keep one bomb wired to my car.
Finished this one in a BLINK. Fun puzzle and always love a good animation for a reward. I’m in Tennessee staying with some friend’s for the fourth and have been enjoying the amazing “fireworks” show the fire flies have been putting on each evening. They had us talking about the angler fish this evening. Nature is pretty cool. Especially when it glows.
@Striker We were at an outdoor gathering in Northern Virginia a couple weekends ago. As the daylight ended, the fireflies emerged. I hadn’t really noticed them around here for the past few years. It was a delightful sight for all to see.
@Striker My family was just talking about what plant we might use to try to attract fireflies. I haven't seen many in Minnesota. But Tennessee, Alabama...gorgeous night time display. As a chemist, I used to do "magic" shows, which were really chemical demonstrations. One I love was to make luminol, a substance that produces a cool blue light, for a while. I would demonstrate the glow and talk about chemiluminescence, and fireflies.
@Striker In Greenbelt, we have a firefly sanctuary... an area in a clearing along a creek where they're not allowed to spray chemicals or cut the grass too short. The trees light up like Christmas. It's incredible.
We have fire flies in Poland, but they are extremely rare. I first saw them when I was 9 or 10, in the Bieszczady mountains. It was something straight out of a fairy tale. I loved it. It took decades for my next sighting of fire flies - several years ago they showed up at our housing estate, and my wife and I marveled at them on evening walks with Jorge the Lab. Then they disappeared a d I haven't seen them since. We call fire flies "świetliki" (roughly, lighted little ones) or "robaczki świętojańskie" (little bugs of St. John, because they show up at the historical time of St. John's feast).
@Striker With the rain and heat in our area, the lightning bugs are out in force in the trees in our backyard. It’s quite a calming sight in the evenings around dusk, but they always make me think of Groucho Marx.
such a fun puzzle!!!! i loved figuring out the thursday-ness :))))
I always like a puzzle with a second twist that takes it from good to great. I caught on to the theme pretty quickly, but when I saw the animation and realized the circled letters were pairs of L/R, I had to tip my cap. Nicely done.
Really enjoyed this one. Took me a while to catch on, of course, but then was just a lot of fun pondering on each of the theme answers and finally having them dawn on me. Had to go back and look at the referenced previous puzzle - the collaboration with Rebecca Goldstein. Pretty amazing to come up with two variations on the trick. Looking forward to more. ....
I think this is one of the most clever Thursday puzzles in quite some time.
Am I the only one who does not care about the post-solve graphics? I don't mind them, but in no way do they influence my experience as a cruciverbalist at the NYT.
@Andrzej They don't affect the solve, but I think it's a nice finishing touch. The cherry on the sundae, a visual San Jose Strut.
@Andrzej Kind of like X-File, I don't ever think, oh I hope there's a graphic at the end or anything like that, but it's a fun surprise when they do it. I've never felt like oh this crossword better have a graphic at the end though. So to sum up, I appreciate them but can kind of take them or leave them too.
@Andrzej Agreed, the post-solve graphics are not important to me. I solve in pen-on-paper 86% of the time anyway. That's 6 days out of seven, I save a tree on Mondays. I do often think during a Thursday solve, that the theme would lend itself to a nifty graphic. And sometimes a theme/gimmick seems so convoluted and the solve such a slog, that I think that they'd better have a good graphic as reward for solving!
Worthless piece if information… as many times as “epee” appears as a crossword solution, the fencers in the photo are using a foil. 😁
"BLINKERS" is a term for the flashing lights on a vehicle that indicate the direction one intends to turn, and is (I believe) pretty much only common in the US, and possibly parts of Canada - but not the parts I grew up in. I've always called it a "turn signal", and I know they call the same thing an "indicator" in the UK, but I'm not sure about other parts of the world. But I know that when I see a driver who somehow thinks they're somehow saving time or energy by not moving their left finger those whole 4 centimeters till they're actually half-way through the turn, I never, ever, think "Use your BLINKERS". I always shout something along the lines of (leaving out the profanity) "Why the --- don't you use your --- signals, you --- --- son of a --- !" If it wasn't for the crosses, I'd never have thought of the word BLINKERS.
@Grumpy Over the past year I’ve learned BLINKERS is an Americanism. I was talking on the phone with one of my colleagues out here while I was driving one day, and I tend to, er, have comments directed at other drivers when I’m in a hurry. And I happened to, er, get emotional at someone who’d just cut me off. My outburst went along the lines of, “[Unquotable]! Ever heard of [unquotable] blinkers]?!” And my colleague on the phone deadpans in his clipped English, “Actually, Sam, he probably hasn’t. What might blinkers be?”
@Grumpy I grew up in Brooklyn, and we always called them turn signals.
@Sam Lyons I recommend an Alaska Bear sleep mask. They're soft, don't touch your eyelids, and are one of the very few that are fine for side skeepers. I used to have to sleep during the day because of my job. Over the years I wore out many different sleep masks and tried many different types, but those were the ones that finally worked for me.
@Grumpy Officially -- such as what we learned in driver's ed -- they're turn signals. But I think only driving instructors and the DMV truly call them that! As @Susan E said elsewhere, in Massachusetts where I learned to drive, even the state RMV has leaned in on "blinkahs"! Her comment: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/48k54v" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/48k54v</a>
@Grumpy I agree. For turn-signals, I always use the term, well, "turn-signals." If I talk about turning my "blinkers" on, it means the emergency flashers. And of course, on my bicycle they're "blinkies," as in, "you can never have too many blinkies!"
@Grumpy Yes, always indicators. When they’re all flashing at once they are “hazard lights” or “the hazards”. I’ve heard that in the US they say “four-way flashers”.
Cute little dopamine hit at the end of the puzzle!
crossworld, are y’all feeling this heat? just got one degree hotter for the class of 2025 🎓😎🎉 (seemed like i BLINKed and just like that i was walking across the stage) it’s been a few months since i’ve done the crossword (couldn’t let that degree slip through my fingertips when i was so close to the finish line) but now that all that uni stuff is finally over it’s time to put my degree to the REAL test: the NYT Tricky Thursday crossword puzzle. luckily this one went pretty easy on my fledgling degree. pretty decent first pass, got the revealer instantly, and was able to fill in most of the rest before i had to rendezvous with Ms. Amlen to wrap up the rest. the smooth fill had me considering going back for my masters of science in crosswording… but let me see what the end of the week brings before i start putting in any applications 😆 ❗️spoiler❕ just a personal preference 😅 but… it would have helped me a little bit if the answers for the (R) downs followed the same convention as the acrosses, with the clue on the right being when the right ‘blinker’ was ‘on.’ ex: 5D might have been [Christmas entree/ Injury]: right blinker off = HAM; right blinker on = HA(R)M 🎉congrats to my fellow class of 2025 grads! 🎉 no assignments = time to catch up on the archive :)
@DZ 🎇 Not an impressive fireworks emoji, but congrats on your graduation!
@DZ I was an avid Player vs Player participant in World of Warcraft when I was working on my doctorate 20 years ago. Each day for 18 hours, every hour I wrote for 40 minutes, waiting in the battleground queue, then fought for 20. I'm not sure I would have completed the thesis without this rhythm 🤣
Lovely how the reveal BLINKER echoes the across answers, containing as it does an L and an R in order. Et tu, emu.
Enjoyed the post-solve visual! Like happy music for the eyes.
This beautiful puzzle's for all of us in the on-line community. But I have to admit that I feel a little sorry for the paper solvers who won't get the animation at the end. But not very.
The X-Phile, I imagine the animation while solving on the stone tablet delivered to my cave, but since I am online I can always see what online solvers see by re-solving or revealing the puzzle on the NYT site or by looking at xwordinfo.com: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/3/2025" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/3/2025</a>
@Barry Ancona Yes, I suppose that it's only troglodytes that don't have access to an on-line version of the puzzle. But I assume that the people who are solving the paper version are doing so because they don't want to solve on-line. They may not even be aware [gasp!] that there is an on-line animation that's worth seeing.
Given Deb's intro to today's Wordplay column, I expected a number of comments regarding people's biggest "pet peeve". Let this comment serve as an opportunity for your to reply with your "favorite". Mine? I could list several that have to do with driving alone. But my biggest pet peeve (at this moment) is when people park their shopping carts in the checkout line, and then go back to do more shopping! Drives me crazy! Apparently the comedian Gary Gulman agrees with me: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5BZvV1ZTyE" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5BZvV1ZTyE</a> And dealing with these situations? I try to practice my Stoic exercises: Breathe deep, and remind yourself that you can't control the behavior of others, but you can control your own reaction. (But it's not easy!)
@The X-Phile While fueling up at the pump, exit your car for a "quick" trip to the convenience store (aka, Wawa). Twenty minutes later . . .
@The X-Phile My peeve: neighbors mowing the lawn or blowing leaves at dinnertime. I do these things at the proper time: 7am on Saturday.
@The X-Phile Whoa, people do that!? I've removed myself from line with my cart to go get something I forgot but I can't imagine just leaving it there.
@HeathieJ A person so good that (s)he can't even *imagine* someone "misbehaving" in this way. You sound too good to be true!
Pretty easy for a Thursday but 62a made me chuckle mostly because STEEDS was my third answer after “swords” and “sabers”
Not signaling is one of my pet peeves too. It happens too often here in the DC area. On the Beltway, people are afraid to signal because they know if they do, others will speed up to keep them from switching into their lane. But now folks don't even signal at intersections! Why? Why???!!! Enough! There are more important questions to ask! Such as: Do the chickens have large TALONs? <a href="https://youtu.be/RAtoMSjOQ1A?si=gcJIu1oGuwH51prB" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/RAtoMSjOQ1A?si=gcJIu1oGuwH51prB</a> How low can you go? <a href="https://youtu.be/eM8QL8CE2OQ?si=4PdrkWiLT4UF3C09" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/eM8QL8CE2OQ?si=4PdrkWiLT4UF3C09</a> "Please, not that again. I'm LIMBORED!" Can you guess this rejected theme entry I found in the trash outside the puzzle editor's office? Josh crows about his Tony nomination / Bin liners produced by a Clorox Company brand I know. I hear your groans. That's what I get for dumpster diving at the NYT.
@Beth in Greenbelt ["I'm so happy to have figured out your themer so quickly", et al] GLAD BRAGS I thought I should spell it out as Josh Gad isn't as well known as he should be. Good one.
This puzzle made my day! A fun theme and a brilliant (literally) ending!
Didn't spot the L-R trick till the end, and happily surprised and amazed. Not sure when it was first introduced but I guess by now most cars sound an audible alert when a blinker is left on too long. Kinda helpful, but maybe another alert system that sounds after a turn or lane change is made without signaling might actually go much further toward discouraging carelessness. Been near-walloped countless times by drivers expecting me to read their minds!
@Long walks n sunsets Our Subaru has that alert.