So the theme is just entries that can be broken up into two unrelated words at each end joined by one of many different words that are synonymous with "join"? I think I was expecting some punny revealer or something. Didn't spark joy for me but hats off to the constructors anyway; better than I could do!
@MikeW The way I see it, the clues of the form [A + B] have three parts: a word defined by [A], a word defined by [+] (i.e. a synonym of [join] or [add to]), and finally a word defined by [B]. When the parts are "joined", the result forms a meaningful entry (which is not defined separately; that would probably have made it much too easy for a Thursday). As a bonus, the use of shaded boxes instead of circles makes the joining word a little like a hyphen (if you look at it the right way).
@R. Finn I agree with people that this puzzle seemed like a Wednesday or Tuesday level gimmick. But I like your hyphen idea. If the constructors had figured out a visual way of representing the hyphen as a rebus square and then clued them down as the whole word (ie "insured" =bond-E-D or "have a wild night" =tie-O-N-E-O-N) then it might have had that fuller Thursday feeling of depth and cohesion.
Thanks for the puzzle. ‘‘Twas fun. Thank you also for using shading instead of circles.
Playdough is actually Playdoh
@Jessica "Playdough" is a play don't.
@Jessica Doh!
@Jessica The real issue is not the misspelling of the product, but the claim that it smells like vanilla. Huh???? Have they been making changes at the Fun Factory since my child grew up?
My, my, my. Most everyone seems cranky and not too nice today! Stephen, believe it or not, some of us enjoyed your puzzle! It was a great debut! I hope to see more from you.
@Mark I second Mark, Stephen. I enjoyed your puzzle, too. I'm sure you appreciate that you're going before an audience with an enormous range of experience and skill, and you're now batting in the big leagues.
Shout-out to [Clutch producer] for HEN. A very fresh and clever clue for a word that has appeared dozens of times. And a shout-out to Jeff Chen who, according to Jim Horne of xwordinfo, has hit a significant milestone with this puzzle. It’s his 117th NYT collaboration, movng him past the previous record holder, Nancy Salomon. Congratulations, Jeff and Stephan, on a collaboration that tied everything together very neatly.
@Anita That one stumped me. Even after going through the alphabet, I sailed right past the N. Oh well, win some, lose some.
Seems I must now add “never liked the smell of PLAYDOH” to the list of ways I felt I did not fit in as a child. I managed to turn out okay despite this aversion.
I had to stop and get some popcorn for today's comments. Deb Amlen, you seem to have far more lovers than haters. You have gotten me through more than one tough puzzle. Keep up the good work making the medium sized bucks.
This was so good! I figured it out myself without having to use Wordplay. On a Thursday. Yay me! Thanks, Stephan & Jeff. This was just fun. Happy Thursday, y’all!
I found the theme underwhelming, especially considering Jeff Chen's involvement. Sets of two straightforwardly clued words joined by terms for joining? Well, ok, but I would expect to encounter an easy gimmick like that on Wednesday rather than today. Most of the clues were also somewhat too direct for this time in the week, IMO. I only had any issues because of proper names and the like, which is not the sort of challenge I'm looking for. However, I managed without Google. I dredged ELOISE, PLAYDOH and SERTA from deep recesses of my mind (none of those are known here, so I'm only familiar with them because of these puzzles). Of course, I went for USSR before CCCP, but once I realized the cross would be COMES, I was golden.
That being said, I couldn't parse CARAMELDELITES for the life of me. I needed the column to get that one. So it's a product name, misspelled (for legal reasons, I guess) as is the American custom? Ok... Delightful that is not.
@Andrzej yeah, but you forgot the dessert. when you get the straightforward words and the joining term you get a fun two-word phrase! dude!!
@Matt I'm wondering if you're being serious or sarcastic. The resulting phrases are all over the place, unconnected to one another in any way other than by how they were clued. They are not particularly exciting in themselves, are they? To me it's one of those themes that work on some level, and I can appreciate the skill of finding phrases that could be clued thus, and incorporating them into the grid. Still, the solving experience wasn't exciting (for me, and many others, as the comments reveal).
@Andrzej "Sets of two straightforwardly clued words joined by terms for joining? Well, ok, but I would expect to encounter an easy gimmick like that on Wednesday rather than today." I rarely agree with you, but today you nailed it (IMHO).
The column says 13D is spelled PLAYDOUGH, but it's actually PLAYDOH in the crossword puzzle, which is correct since that's how the brand name spells it. This warrants a correction.
@Zef Wagner and 53A. Is HORAS, not HORA per the article…
Wordnerd me loved coming across in-the-language phrases made up of three unrelated words patched together like TOO+KNOT+ICE. Riddle loving me loved filling in the outer two words (such as TOO and ICE), which were fairly easy to get in this puzzle, then trying to figure out what that middle word is. Accomplishment loving me wowed at seeing that the four grayed words were connected. This could not have been an easy answer set to come by. Acts-of-kindness loving me beamed at Jeff Chen’s once again taking an unpublished constructor, and guiding them into a NYT-published puzzle. Serendipity loving me enjoyed learning CARAMEL DELITE, then being further reminded of cookies when I came across ANIMAL and Hydrox-sounding HYDRA, not to mention getting an extra boost of sweetness with NERDS. Thus, many lovely pings in the grid today for me, and thank you both. Congratulations on your debut, Stephan!
@Lewis You need to cut back on the sweets! I really get horrified by all the clues and entries that are about candy, dessert, etc. (Yes, I was that lady who gave out peanuts or coins for Halloween.)
Perhaps this should have been saved for Halloween, as it was more treat than trick. And as far as I’m concerned, Deb can spell the name of stinky toddler paste any randough way she pleases.
@Heidi The smell of Play-Doh, for some reason, always made me a little nauseated and gave me a mild headache. I couldn't stay in the same room with it, and I never bought it for my kids.
@Heidi Stinky. Yes. Not vanilla. I love vanilla. Amusing that Hasbro has trademarked the stink.
@Heidi She can spell it however, sure, but it's an incorrect clue in the column that still hasn't been fixed.
First of all, congratulations, Stephan, this is a solid debut and I would expect nothing less given input from Jeff Chen, one of my favorite contributors. The theme was clever, and if I had some disappointment about it, it would be that that the choices for the theme elements seemed a little meh to me. I liked CARBONDATE and TOOKNOTICE; I’m a little leery of CARAMELDELITES, since that would only be spelled that way for the Girl Scout Cookie, which is a little niche, but given that MELD is a tricky connector I would let that slide; but NINETIESKID seems very green painty (I’ve never heard of that per se—is it any more special than an EIGHTIESKID or a SEVENTIESKID?) and CREEPINGOUT seems pretty meh. I haven’t tried too hard to look for better ones but it seems like you could have found better choices for PIN and TIE, and I don’t like that NINE has the same root as NINETIES. Also for a Thursday I would have liked the ends to be clued more wittily (Auto and Consumed? Also and Frozen Water? That’s the best you could come up with?) My favorite parts were actually the NE corner, and then the SW, which had some nice ministacks, some more interesting clueing (I loved the PLAYDOH one) and a misdirect (USSR before CCCP). I hate to come off too negative because it was a clever idea, probably harder than it looks, and not a bad solve; just felt it had some more unrealized potential. I look forward to more from you soon!
@SP I’m going to amend my first comment in a positive way. This actually was a lot harder than it looked. I couldn’t come up with anything better for PIN; and the best I could do for TIE was Average + Broken glass PARTIESHARD, which isn’t so much better. Still think it would be nice to find a way to clue the ends more interestingly, but I retract any criticism about the quality of the themed entries.
@SP For those of us old enough to remember, a careful reading of the clue gives me the opposite of a misdirect. By saying "letters on Ivan Drago's tracksuit," and not just "Cold War abbrev.", the clue directly points to what was on those Soviet uniforms back in the day, which was CCCP, not USSR. Now, whether those were actually the letters of the Roman alphabet we use, and not a different set of Russian letters that happen to look like our Roman letters, that's a different nit. Romanov letters, perhaps...
@SP I’ve seen NINETIESKID in the wild. Fairly frequently, actually. Usually in the context of “Nineties kids will remember this” or similar.
Congratulations on a fine debut, Stephan -- I hope we see more of you! I also enjoyed your insightful and reflective constructor notes! A humbling experience regarding PLAY-DOH: While attending graduate school some years ago, I had an in-demand (and, fittingly, demanding) professor whose words always had us at the edge of our seats. During my first class with him, I could not make heads nor tails of what he was talking about until he said what I THOUGHT was, "Take PLAY-DOH for instance ..." I thought, "Well, finally, some kind of connection to my (un-evolved) brain" and added it to my notes. He spoke more at length and then said, "On the other hand, Aristotle ..." I quickly put my hand over my notes and quickly got caught up on my philosophers!🙄 Happy Thursday, everyone!
@Kelly H Love this story! 😅 Thanks for sharing!
@Kelly H Another name for the "Republic" is Plato's Fun Factory.
Fun puzzle - finished well under average but had a good time. Congrats on the first puzzle! I admire Mr Chen for helping so many new people publish their first puzzles.
I find it irksome that some folks found this too easy. There are all levels of people doing the puzzles, beginners, etc., so how can a puzzle suit everyone? It’s like trying to describe a smell. (See what I did there?) The crossword is not an Olympic sport. Would you say, “This long jump was too hard” or “this marathon was a piece of cake?” It’s all a matter of degree. No one is forcing you to do the crossword, so why complain? Some are easy, some are hard. I guess I need to stop reading the comments. you kids need to get off my lawn.
@Liz Evans So what is your expectation? That we all before posting consult you on your personal solving experience and refrain from commenting ourselves if we found the grid of a different difficulty than you did? For most experienced solvers, and even semi-experienced and foreign ones like myself, this was way too easy for a Thursday. Your finding the puzzle hard doesn't mean anybody else had to think the same, and it definitely does not require of us to keep quiet about our own experience.
@Liz Evans one man's trash is another man's treasure. Each day, everyone's experience is different. No point in getting riled up - life is too short.
@Liz Evans Difficulty is subjective but at the same time the late week puzzles are supposed to be harder/trickier than the early week ones. No one is going to complain about monday being too easy because those are supposed to be easy, Thu/Fri/Sat is a different story.
@Liz Evans Yeah that word “irksome” is what irks me a little about your post. Don’t take it personally when someone wants to comment on the difficulty level of a puzzle; it’s a fair topic. I do like to call out people if they are elitist about it and seem to put down people who find it too difficult; but that’s rare in my experience. I also get annoyed by people who call a puzzle “bad” because it’s too easy or seem to be way off base about their expectations; but even then they have a right to their opinions and to post here, and I just respond with my own opinion. If it bothers you that much then yes, just skip the comments, but I always find the diversity of experiences to be refreshing rather than disheartening.
@Liz Evans Gosh, what a bunch of grumps these replies represent! Liz herself acknowledges your issue in her closing lines. "You kids need to get off my lawn" is the cliche example of pointless unjustified grouchiness. She knows the problem. No need to lecture her.
@Liz Evans I thought it was too easy, and commented. But that doesn’t mean I’m complaining. Just making a comment..
@Liz Evans It gets under my skin, too, and it sometimes rises to the surface in one of my posts. I think it's a natural feeling, and one that's likely to come up with a relatively large group of people who span the spectrum on crossword abilities. From people who create them themselves, to people who can solve virtually any puzzle, to people like me who try but fail with some regularity, to people just getting started. The thing to try to remember is that everyone goes through at least some time in the "just getting started" phase. As long as I don't perceive an personal insult to the puzzle producers, I've gotten to understand them.
@Liz Evans It seems to me that commenters who post that the puzzle was easier than what they look forward to on a Thursday are basically addressing other longtime solvers who share their pleasure in late-week NYT crosswords. I don’t think, just by sharing their personal reactions, that they’re targeting newer solvers.
This puzzle was not good. It wasn’t that difficult, just not much fun. And especially disappointing for a Thursday.
@Charles Nelson Reilly You used to be my favorite on Hollywood Squares. Sad to see how far you have fallen...
@Charles Nelson Reilly Not good. Not difficult. Not fun. Disappointing. Luckily it was only a daily crossword puzzle.
We don't usually comment, but feel compelled to today based on the surprising amount of negativity. We solve every day, and we enjoyed this puzzle thoroughly. It was a lovely debut, and a fun Thursday.
PlayDoh really does smell fantastic. And it tastes good, too. (Yeah, I was THAT kid. Now you know everything.)
@Shelby Turns out it's pretty much just flour, water, and salt, so bon appetit!
@Shelby I guess it's like cilantro. I have always hated the smell of PlayDoh. But I do love cilantro, while others are sure it tastes like mud. And my husband loves dill pickles and I don't.....
I laughed when I saw PLAY-DOH as the answer to 13 D (Toy with a scent trademarked by Hasbro). Ages ago, I taught an introductory professional writing class that included advertising and one year brought in mini containers of the product and gave it out to my students so they could consider its features/benefits. One student commented on the scent and I realized they were right…the scent was a product benefit. Who can sniff it and not feel comforted? From then on (don’t judge me, if you haven’t already), I kept a container on my desk and took a whiff from time to time on a stressful day. Honestly, I can’t recall a time it didn’t bring me comfort.
If the unclued answers somehow cohered, or related to the two clued halves; if there was some point to having five variations on the word fuse; if the clues sparkled: if there was real cleverness in the overall conception and execution, I would have gladly bowed down to the creators of this puzzle.
@David Are you trying to become the Roger Ebert of the crossword world? Too bad because your second point is easy to discredit: The point to having five variations on the word "fuse" is to connect all the theme answers so you could call it a theme.
Great fun. Admittedly easier than usual, but still fun.
I've liked just about every puzzle I've seen that Jeff Chen had a hand in. But not this snoozefest.
OooohKAY! This was an interesting way to SPLICE three words together to achieve one two-word phrase, with the added filip that the central word is a "means of connecting." Wow The mental gymnastics required to construct this from scratch suggest someone in need of a long, quiet stay in a recuperative setting, methinks. And it also meant a lot of short fill that was ...oh, well. I probably just need another extra-strength tylenol. That concrete sure was hard!
@Mean Old Lady Getting worried about you, MOL. Have you seen someone with an MD after their name to discuss this?
I love that Stephen discovered that crosswords are “playful conversations between constructor and solver”. Especially when including answers such as Eloise (at the plaza), play doh, Girl Scout cookies, nana, Ronald (McDonald) .. A good reminder to approach a puzzle with a dose of whimsy. Bravo to the debut!
This was a fun themeless for me. because the theme went over my head. But I will figure it out ex post facto (since it's too late for ex pre facto).
@Dan I think I ordered that at Starbucks.
Very nice puzzle. It achieves what many others don't these days: a theme that you can actually use during the solve rather than just noticing afterwards. Very satisfying! Thanks Stephan (great debut) and Jeff!
Here’s a little nitpick. Americans like to call a beer mug a “Stein”. A Stein is actually a unit of measure, aka the volume of beer, not the vessel. And you would not find a German beer mug (Krug) containing “ALE”, which is an English style of beer. A Krug might have Pils, Weizen, Helles, Bock, or simply Bier, but not Ale. Nevertheless, Prost to a fun puzzle today. :-)
Ok now I have to correct myself X-D On consideration, we do call the one-liter mug a “Stein” in some regions ;-) but it’s uncommon and a bit archaic. You’d more likely ask for a Maß. Anyway! Enough pedantry!
@Nik In a Kneipe or Biergarten, you would get your Bier in a Krug, but aren't those (hideous?) ceramic or pewter mugs called Steine? Of course, it doesn't matter for the puzzle. The clue doesn't mention Germany at all. And, in case you want to improve your colloquial English, one should say "Here's a little nit I'd like to pick." The problem is the "nit", the activity of dealing with it is the "nitpicking". (Enough pedantry, indeed!)
Loved the puzzle. Fun solve. Just a tiny little note to @DebAmlen ... in your commentary, you mention the answer to 13D as "PLAYDOUGH", when, in fact, the real name of it (and the correct answer to the clue) is "PLAYDOH", although in real life there is a hyphen. Thanks for all your work. Sorry to be such a pedant, but I kind of had the feeling you might want to know.
@Mimi Just a small respectful suggestion—when you are commenting on an error or typo in the article, especially later in the day, please check earlier comments to see if it has been brought up already. This one has, ad nauseum.
@Mimi. IMO, no one should feel obligated to read all the comments before posting their own. It’s perfectly fine if certain points are repeated.
Excellent puzzle Stephan and Jeff! A lot of fun. And Stephan, please do a pun-filled puzzle, the wilder the better. Some of us really like the highest form of humor.
@Ken I don’t love puns, but I find I like people who like puns! They are usually fun!
I did not read through all the comments to see if others have pointed this out, so apologies if I’m being repetitive. But I can’t help but notice that, under “Tricky Clues,” the article spells out PLAYDOUGH, but the spelling in the puzzle (and the name of the brand) is PLAYDOH. It’s also odd that the article uses HORA (singular), while the answer was actually HORAS (plural). Sorry to nitpick!
@Veritas vos liberabit I notice this frequently, and it drives me bonkers! Glad I am not alone.
Things have really gone downhill. Twenty years ago there were never any typos in the Wordplay column.
GIRLS tripled led me to DOCTOR doubled. As in the Thompson Twins. Not a NINETIES KID, but more of a seventies/eighties kid 😜 <a href="https://youtu.be/Pf0_Be5PPPU?si=VtlRKQUahr9pKnJN" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Pf0_Be5PPPU?si=VtlRKQUahr9pKnJN</a> Congratulations on your debut, Stephan. Happy Thursday everyone.
@Jacqui J and thank you, Jeff, for helping so many new constructors. What a blessing you are to the entire crossword community!!
@Jacqui J I am also a 70/80s kid. Like probably most here. If you have Spotify. The year end analysis (2025 wrapped) was released today. Mine was basically all 80s alternative. But for you 90s kids. Here is a fun tune, if you have never heard it. <a href="https://youtu.be/iMKcWsUjdzg?si=-Z_e2v18ZVVXiWnO" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/iMKcWsUjdzg?si=-Z_e2v18ZVVXiWnO</a> “Hold me now…”
My Spotify says my fave genres are Art pop and Alternative rock, and apparently I'm 32 🤣. My fave song is Hailey (premix) by Cassandra Jenkins, my fave album is Haim's "Days are gone", and my fave artist is Olivia Rodrigo. Would you guess I am a 45 year old Polish man from those stats? 🤪
TIL that ugli is a registered trademark. The fruit is actually a Jamaican tangelo. I wonder if the company that markets this fruit under the ugli name realizes they also hold a monopoly on Jamaican tangelo-related crossword clues…
Regarding 39D, TIL (from Google): In order to understand Mach speeds, we must first understand the speed of sound. Many people believe the speed of sound is a constant speed, but it actually changes based on several factors. In the air, the speed of sound is most affected by temperature, pressure, and humidity. At freezing (32° Fahrenheit/0° Celsius) the speed of sound is about 740 miles per hour. However, at room temperature (68° Fahrenheit/20° Celsius) the speed of sound is 767 miles per hour. Speed-read that, if you can.
@Strudel Dad, And in high school I learned that the speed of sound in a vacuum is exactly … Zero. 😄
Further to Tom Stoppard's recent death, there is an excellent appraisal of his love and use of words here: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/theater/tom-stoppard-arcadia-travesties.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/theater/tom-stoppard-arcadia-travesties.html</a> Reading it reminded me of why some of us keep choosing to be puzzled in this peculiar wordy way. I have loved Stoppard since Rosencrantz, etc. and my world feels a little emptier today.
@SBK Yeah, my world feels emptier, too. That's happened a few times before. I felt it very strongly when Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., died. Same with John Updike.
Occasionally I'll try to come up with another entry of my own for the puzzle. The best I could do for this one was Prohibit + Ditty BANJOINTUNE I guess I'll stick to solving puzzles not making them. 🙂 p.s. Nice one, Stephan and Jeff
As Snowball from Animal Farm might have said, Three letters - OPI; five letters - Essie. Congratulations on your debut, Stephan, and thanks for all your contributions to Crosslandia, Jeff. (Even though whether this should have run on a Thursday is debatable.)
I spent quite a long time missing that BEaT was actually BEST, which made it GIRLS instead of GIRL A (but I don’t know a thing about Elvis movies, so it missed me). I had fun in this “conversation” :) Fave entry: NTH for “Advanced degree?”
@KRB Yup, I scoured the whole puzzle several times at the end looking for the mistake. I was just starting to Google Girla Girla Girla, which to be sure made zero sense, when I realized of course for an Elvis movie it would have to be Girls.
WORDPLAY tells us: "13D. I love clues that trigger our senses. [Toy with a scent trademarked by Hasbro] is PLAYDOUGH, and I immediately recalled that wonderful vanilla-like smell." but the puzzle tells us: PLAYDOH. What's a person to do? We need some BINDing arbitration here.
@lucky13 The actual name of the product is the answer in the puzzle (with a hyphen after the Y).
lucky13, The puzzle has editors, the column does not. When they diverge, better to go with the puzzle.
For me the bafflement was the lack of befuddlement, although I was tripped up by the very cleverly clued HEN/INN. A fine debut nonetheless. Many thanks.
Nice puzzle, but I was a bit confused by any lack of reference to the theme in the clues. It only emerged after I completed it.
Tough for a Mon-Wed and occasionally Sunday doer! But I kept at it! I don’t love when the answers are particularly crossword-y do you know what I mean? I’m the same when I play trivia. Nature of it though. Commenting because I saw the games team on Instagram. Someone said that you guys really do read the comments and the feedback!! A wholesome group of people. Thanks for all you do!
I wanted “It’ll find a way” to be LIFE, per Jeff Goldblum.
This was a lot of fun. Was a little worried because I started off with nothing in the NW, and in fact that is the corner where I finished as well. I can't imagine the kind of mind that could come up with five fun phrases, each that begin and end with perfectly cromulent words and have a center that is a synonym for "join." The fact that the first and last words appeared to have nothing that "united" them and the five theme phrases did not appear related made the theme slightly slower to appear. Which added some needed crunch, as far as I was concerned. In the end, it was their pattern, their rhythm, that united them into a satisfying whole.
Great puzzle. I do want to argue about that green shade being considered "deep" but I supposed I have other hills to die on today.