The groom said "A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y." They were some of the most beautiful wedding vowels I ever heard. ("Haha. Marry funny.")
Mike, You are a source of consonant amusement.
@Mike Instant earworm, thank you! <a href="https://youtu.be/BTsPJeNPc-w?si=QnrmDDWF1en-cEWF" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/BTsPJeNPc-w?si=QnrmDDWF1en-cEWF</a>
@Mike I am going to disavowel any knowledge of having read this thread.
@Mike Well, Y not? (Now I'm tense I might have a spell.)
Mike, Was that the wedding where instead of exchanging rings, they exchanged “sings” - musical vows? “With diphthong I thee wed.”
As a Pole I can confirm we are indeed extremes of the Earth. That was a neat trick. Finding several entries with just one vowel? Even ever curmudgeonly me was impressed by this feat. I learned of AEIOU from these puzzles btw. I was stumped the first time I encountered it as a crossword entry - or was it a theme? Btw, in Polish Y is always a vowel - we generally pronounce every letter only one way, so they never suffer from audio-schizophrenia 😉. I had never thought about it before so I was surprised (in the discussion of that past puzzle) to learn that in English Y may be either a consonant or a vowel. The puzzle felt quite hard for me on the across pass - I had to rely mostly on the downs to solve it - yet I finished in Monday rather than Tuesday time. Go figure. I found yesterday's grid more challenging than today's. Wheel of Fortune (Koło Fortuny) was among the first "Western" gameshows licensed by a Polish broadcaster under our new democracy. We all watched it in the early 90s. The lady who turned the letters on the board - Magda Masny - became one of Poland's first post-1989 celebrities.
@Andrzej I've often thought that crosswords and Wheel of Fortune talents must overlap a great deal. Essentially every round of Wheel of Fortune is just a long crossword entry, complete with a clue and, if you're lucky, a few letters filled in with the crosses you know.
@Andrzej I can imagine you get less bang for your buck buying a vowel in the Polish Wheel of Fortune? It seems like the vowel/consonant ratio is a lot lower?
@Andrzej Yes, our vowels do double-duty. SHORT vowels (A as in ACT, E as in EDGE, i as in IF, O as in OCTOPUS, U as in US) are often taught first... and for the LONG sound (the vowel's name)--there is usually a signal or spelling arrangement to make the Short vowel Long: Final silent E--CON becomes CONE. Or two vowels together: "when two vowels go awalkin' the first one does the talkin' "....TWEAK!... that's the simplified introduction... English language spelling is complicated, but 80% is phonetically regular, so it can be mastered...
@Andrzej This reminds me of one day when I was working on a genealogical project with a woman from Tonga, where the language is almost entirely vowels. But, we were working on names from Poland, where the language seems to be almost entirely consonants. We muddled through....
Tuesday puzzles don’t get much better than this! The theme isn’t too gimmicky, and everything feels fresh and interesting. Beautiful fill. Kudos to Geoffrey and Will. Best Tuesday I’ve played in a long time.
I saw the vowel progression, and popped in the O and the U before getting to those entries, and with only the B in place I guessed BUY A VOWEL would be the revealer, but it didn't really register with me until after finishing that the five theme entries had only one vowel. The OREOS are forgiven. Nice one, Geoffrey and Will.
@Barry Ancona Hand up for the exact same experience!
@Barry Ancona Nice. I didn’t even know there were circles until I read Sam’s post. :-)
Tuesday morning I'll be in the hospital for a procedure, so I'm grateful to have this cleanly crafted puzzle to calm my jitters. Thank you Geoffrey and Will. Good job.
@dutchiris We'll be sending good thoughts and love your way!
@dutchiris We'll all be pulling for you. Best of luck!
@dutchiris hope all goes well and recovery is easy and manageable!
@dutchiris All the best wishes to you!
@dutchiris sending warm wishes your way for a speedy recovery!
@dutchiris, Hope all goes well for you today. Here’s wishing a quick recovery for you and a great 2026! 💙
@dutchiris Wishing you all the best and a happy and healthy 2026!
@dutchiris Getting it in just before the New Year ushers in the annual deductible! Good on ya! See you on the flip side....
@dutchiris echoing the others, sending good thoughts your way! hope all goes smoothly and unremarkably 💖
@dutchiris Good luck and good health, Ms Iris. Hoping you'll check back in with a clean bill of health.
@dutchiris I hope the procedure goes well (went well?) and that you have a rapid recovery.
@dutchiris Thinking of you and wishing you all the best during the procedure and recovery. Let us know how you're doing!
Very impressive. It’s tough to come up with 8 or 9 letters phrases that contain just one vowel. And the revealer comes so close to containing one of each vowel. Too bad it couldn’t have been the phrase often uttered by contestants, (I'LL) BUY A VOWEL. Congratulations, Geoffrey and Will. You created a puzzle with many strengths*. *the longest word containing just one vowel
@Anita Wonderful post! I'd never before realized that (I'LL) BUY A VOWEL has one of each vowel. Isn't that something? And TIL– or rather, today you taught me – that "strength" is the longest word containing just one vowel. Mind blown. Thank you!
@Anita I guess that why we don't see "strengths" very often in crosswords? Crossword afficionados? How often has "strength" or "strengths" appeared? Aside: You wouldn't believe how much trouble I went through to get "afficionados" above spelled correctly. The reason is the red-line underline guy thinks it only has one "f". That's a secondary spelling, according to MW.
Dżdżysty - one of the weirdest Polish words, meaning "characterized by persistent light rain" - contains no vowels by English standards, doesn't it? Also, "chrząszcz" (beetle), has just one vowel, and surely looks totally loco to non-Polish speakers 🤪
This is a tight theme. It’s hard enough to come up with phrases of eight letters or more that contain but one vowel. Then to find A-E-I-O-U answers, and to find letter counts to fit symmetry (four nines and two eights today) – well, high props on that! And then to sprinkle beauty throughout the grid, with PERUSED, GLITTER, SQUALL, AUSPICIOUS on top of that – wow! The reveal is clever; the whole idea is clever. This puzzle is so well made and well-conceived. Serendipity watch. Lovely theme echoes of longer words with just one vowel (NESTS, JOLTS, EMPTY). And then there's the vowel-only answer (OUIOUI) to bring balance to the vowel-shy theme. And I loved the PuzzPair© of EMPTY/NESTS. Geoffrey and Will, what a shiny jewel you made. Thank you for brightening my day!
When I SAW NBC SPORTS was airing BOSS BATTLE, I thought it was a PR STUNT, but when EDWIN and I PERUSED the LURES, we SMILEd and said SURE we’re ready for a RAP DUO doing BMX TRICKS. But then a SQUALL came up and OUR coverage WENT PFFT as did the GLITTER on our LGBTQ FLAG. “OH NO,” I said, but EDWIN said, “NAH, don’t ARGUE with fate. My ESP tells me it’s an AUSPICIOUS sign. Besides, there’s bound to be GAPS.” “OUI OUI” I said. Bored, I got thinking about my wardrobe and how I wear POLO when making BOGEYs, DKNY when PJS won’t do, FILA when AT BAT, and SUEDE when visiting the POLES, one of which is where we keep our pet ORCA, who we call ISOLA. She NESTS on the KAVA SEA BED. One day, she was DROOLing for some OREOS (something about the colors). “ARE you kidding,” I said, “the Spanish YETIs made ESOS cookie jars EMPTY, the CADS. Those ONES never BEHAVE! Would you settle for a ROMA tomato?” EDWIN APED a YETI eating OREOS to tease ISOLA and then said he’d lend her his DEBIT card to buy TEN OREOS, and SLIPped in “maybe you can even BUY A VOWEL.” YIKES, ISOLA was furious and BLAREd, f-you and the horse you RODIN on.” That caused some JOLTS and I said, SO TO bed I will go, which EDWIN thankfully ECHOed, before ISOLA threatened to SECEDE.
@Kathryn Love it! I visualized the whole thing.
@Kathryn "The horse you RODIN on!" Best in the bunch -- Brava!
I was a initially disappointed by the pretty obvious vowels in the circle and what I thought was too straightforward clueing for the LGBTQFLAG clue (even for a Tuesday); but gotta say became more impressed once I caught on to the fact that all those long answers had only one vowel; that was pretty spiffy, I must admit. Clever idea and well executed. Great collaboration!
@SP I swear, if I see somebody complaining about straightforward clues on *Tuesday* one more time, I'll pop a gasket 🤣.
Very nice Tuesday puzzle. Not only did Geoffrey and Will find 5 entries with only one vowel each, but all 5 were debuts. The revealer was also a debut. Add to that, they managed to put the 5 vowels in order. AUSPICIOUS is also a debut, and that seems appropriate for this DUO's future in construction.
And sometimes PMTRYSTS.
@sonnel Ok ok I have an idea Replace “LGBTQFLAG” with “LGBTFLAG” to make it 1 shorter. Then that would make it short enough to replace the “BUYAVOWEL” slot with “PMTRYSTS”. And the cool thing would be if that Y’s down clue was two clues, one including the Y and one not, so it would be “sometimes Y”. And then with no revealer the puzzle would be a Thursday.
Back in the early 1980's, I was an active participant in my college's Gay Union. At some point, there was a decision to amend the union's charter, and alter the name, to be more inclusive of lesbians--but whom to give priority? My friend Wendy advocated for the "Gay-Lesbian Union, " or GLU--"Gays and lesbians sticking together." But in the end, the vote was to make it LGU. Now, it has become a veritable alphanumeric soup of inclusion--looking on-line this morning, I found a reference to the "LGBTQIAPN+ community." Similarly, the Pride Flag--although, at its introduction (1978) the Rainbow Flag had eight colors, within a few years, this was reduced to the familiar six-color. Nowadays, the most common seen is the Progress Pride Flag, which includes the chevron, and introduces five--or in some designs six or seven--*additional* colors. Keep the message simple, folks!
@Bill When I learned the term "gay" in the early seventies, it simply meant "homosexual" and was thought to include both males and females. It would be interesting to see the transition of the term to being used exclusively(?) for men, and females feeling excluded by the term.
@Bill It IS hard to "keep current," and I agree--it is helpful to "keep it simple." The more we know, really, about beiing human, the more diversity we discover. 'Scientific American' had an issue devoted to karotypes--which are over-simplified as only XX or XY most of the time--and it was an astounding "tree" with an astounding number of different genetic arrangements.
@Bill I truly hate the alphabet soup. It's ugly to look at and impossible to pronounce. I just say "queer." If I want to tee people off, I'll call myself a genderfluid pansexual cat lady.
@Bill - I imagine when you were in your “LGU” there wasn’t as much knowledge about gender identity, despite these people existing outside of your singular existence. The acknowledgement and inclusion of these people within our community does nothing to harm you in any way. When there are powerful forces in governments around the world (including your country) trying to harm those most vulnerable peoples simply for living their lives authentically (something I would hope that you’d understand), to make an ignorant, sweeping statement of “keep it simple” only sides with oppressors and hurts not only those in the community, but you yourself. If you’re so inclined, you can still fly the traditional pride flag, you can still write out LGBT if you’re too intimidated by adding a few letters, or the umbrella letter Q. Language changes and evolves. We learn more about human experience as time goes on. These are good things. It doesn’t mean we should dig our heels into the ground and reject progress when things get a little difficult.
@Bill I remember when it was just GLAAD.
Had the hardest time trying to remember what that bike with three letters is called… All I could think of was BMW, which I knew was wrong. Sigh…
I finished the last two Tuesday puzzles in exactly 11:17. Fun coincidence.
It’s not a STRETCH to say that the constructors went to great LENGTHS, the puzzle had many STRENGTHS, with nary a SPLOTCH. They earned their SCRATCH and should celebrate, perhaps with SCHNAPPS, no STRINGS attached.
@Lewis But, what would happen if we broke up the puzzle into TWELFTHS? Would it lose its STRENGTH?
Nice Tuesday workout and a really enjoyable theme. Great moment to finally work out the reveal and then go back and review and catch on to the trick. Can't help but wonder about long words or terms with a minimum number of vowels. Best I could come up with so far is: FLIGHTLESSBIRD. Feel free to chip in. Oh, and puzzle find today. A Monday from May 8, 2017 by Zhouqin Burnikel, Theme answers: ELLEFANNING GEEYATHINK BEEBALM TEAKETTLES CUETHEMUSIC And then the 'reveal' with a clue that referenced all five of those answers: LGBTQ I'm done. ...
@Rich in Atlanta STRENGTHS is pretty good, at only 11.1% vowelage. I got that by looking up the longest single-syllable words, assuming there would be some crossover since vowels often create syllables. The others are 9- or 10-letter words ending -ED though, with 20-30% vowelage. FLIGHTLESS BIRD has 21.4% vowelage, but could be decreased to a mere 20% by pluralising it.
@RiA As so often with your puzzle finds--boy I wish I had solved that! Hopefully, by the time I work back through the archives, and come across it, I will have forgotten the spoiler:-)
YIpES! what a clever puzzle. Many thanks.
@John Carson I left that blank because if the P thing lol. I’m a K user, but I know in the puzzle it could go either way!
My old eyes are too dim to see the circles. Have I mentioned ever how much I dislike them and could they be made more visible? :-) Anyhoo, I read Sam’s blog entry and I am blown away by how they played out! Well done, my fellow “Geoff with a G”!
It's amusing to me that in a puzzle that's themed on the paucity of VOWELs that we get OUI OUI as an answer. "Nothing but VOWELs!" AUSPICIOUS also stands out in this regard. And TIL about the KARA Sea. I don't think I'd ever heard of it before, and I needed all the crosses to solve it. It's nice to get a complete unknown on a Tuesday.
@The X-Phile I was torn between K or P, because YIPES was a possibility. Happy to say I chose wisely...
VWLS R SPRFLS. Consonants carry most of the information in written words, and vowels can be so fluid that we had to invent the schwa. DHubby still twits me about my pronunciation of PIN/PEN...a possible cause of the Civil War?
@Mean Old Lady Which is why I don't think AUDIO is a good start for WORDLE, though it is the most popular.
@MOL "Consonants carry most of the information in written words, and vowels can be so fluid that we had to invent the schwa." You won't get any arguments from writers of Hebrew or Arabic. (The linguist G--with a G-eoffrey Sampson has an interesting theory about the development of vowels in the Greek alphabet, when it was borrowed from the Phoenician (Semitic) abjad: Phoenician trader to Greek merchant: "And this mark here is " 'Aleph"--no not "Aleph," " 'Aleph!" Can't you hear the difference?!?"
@Mean Old Lady My Kenyan students and some African-American ones always said "ink pen" to disambiguate. [Just discovered that autocomplete/autofill had not heard of "disambiguate" --but it has now]
Cute! A nicely original idea that's executed very well. I'm wondering if there's a computer program that enables you to find phrases with only one vowel and a given number of letters. If there isn't one, this is a much more impressive job of execution than if there is. I'm normally not a big fan of puzzles in which figuring out the theme is completely irrelevant to the solving process. But in this case my belated "Aha" when I saw the revealer was strong enough to make me SMILE. And getting in the chewy, vowel-laden Down answer AUSPICIOUS when, for heaven's sake, you're working with consonants is quite a coup.
Fun that in a puzzle with a theme about a dearth of vowels, there is one six-letter entry (20-A) that is all vowels!
Thank you, Geoffrey and Will, for such a cleverly-constructed Tuesday -- I hope we'll see more collaborations from you!
Here is today's word: SEICHE A seiche (pronounced "saysh") is a standing wave, or sloshing back and forth, in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water like a lake or harbor, often triggered by strong winds or atmospheric pressure changes that push water to one end, causing it to rebound and oscillate. These rhythmic waves can last minutes to hours, causing dramatic water level shifts, exposing lakebeds, and sometimes leading to flooding or damage, as seen recently on Lake Erie. Seiche has appeared only once, on Saturday, January 2nd, 1982 clued as [Oscillation of a lake's surface]. That was an interesting puzzle. Here's the (solved) xwordinfo link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/2/1982&g=29&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/2/1982&g=29&d=A</a>
@John Carson Interesting.It also could be clued as cuttlefish in the Camargue. Pronounced the same way.
Laid up with a cold so knocked out October ‘13 in the archive. Just November and December of ‘13 to go to complete the archive.
Given how many crossword puzzles rely on the familiar 'crosswordese' answers to wedge vowels in where needed, it's refreshing to see a puzzle built around a constraint. Breezy and fun!
@Kal You say that but wasn't it counterbalanced by the appearance of OREOS? 🤣
Really nice puzzle. For whatever reason, I found it easier than yesterday's puzzle but it made for a flowy solve which I appreciated. It's tight, it's simple, the clues don't stretch too much to make the theme work, and there were just enough tricky ones to keep a bit of tension. Well done.
I was amused to note that BUYAVOWEL includes the “sometimes” vowels Y and W. Nice. :-)
@CrispyShot, please explain "W" as a vowel. I'm truly curious. I teach third grade, which is a phonics-heavy year. In all my training and teaching, I've never heard "W" referenced as a vowel.
@Susan E I'm 68 years old. When I was learning phonics W was included. I believe it was because when you combined W with some vowels you got a different sound. For instance AW-Thaw , EW - Chew, OW - How. I don't know how long ago this changed or why.
@CrispyShot, I always heard about W sometimes being a vowel, too, while growing up and never understood why. That is, until browsing through my Random House Collegiate dictionary one night (I use to do that as a teen) and coming across this word: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crwth" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crwth</a> Not a word ending sound, not a vowel combination sound, just an honest-to-gosh VOWEL in the middle of a word. Thank you, Welsh people! Still waiting for an aspiring constructor to incorporate it into a puzzle. Just imagine how many comments that would generate! Art Heist, move over!
@CrispyShot I loved your comment because it led to such an interesting series of other comments about vowels in English. I used to teach, and at one point I was teaching ESL to immigrants, and saw how difficult English can be for folks from another language background.
@CrispyShot I absolutely agree! In fact, in the very word VOWEL I would argue that the W is acting pretty much as a U. In Italian to transliterate the English word "wow" we write "uau". Not to mention, of course, the Welsh vowel W. In sum, as far as I can see, W is every bit as much a vowel as Y (sometimes or not).
@CrispyShot It's a shame the constructors couldn't work in SYZYGY, as it would have made a pangram. Maybe a bit extreme for a Tuesday.
@CrispyShot I never heard that W is a vowel. However, one important lesson from my class in The History of the English Language is this: In 1066, William the Conqueror conquered England. French became the official language for 200 years. People in the king's court spoke French. The common people continued to speak but were not allowed to write the English language. Over two hundred years, a language changes. Normally, these changes would show up in the written language. However, in this case, since writing English was prohibited, the written language remained archaic, a dodo, let's say. With the old spellings. When English became spoken again, you had a new language with an out-of-date writing system. Voilà! All the dumb spellings in English.
In re the same words being uses over and over, I miss raree, jai alai (one or the other) and cesta. But then I'm old.
Really missed an opportunity here from a Minnesotan perspective. Minnesota Twins All-Time Great Kent Hrbek Chris Berman of ESPN, is known for making up clever players nicknames, ie Bert "Be home" Blyleven. He nicknamed Kent Hrbek, Kent "Can I buy a vowel?" Hrbek.
Five theme entries plus a revealer. I'm impressed. In my pile of incomplete puzzle grids are many in which I tried to fit too many theme entries. It makes the puzzle so hard to fill, even with the generous use of crosswordese. Like I said, I'm impressed.
I confess to having tried pARA Sea before finally entering the K.
@Dan I confess I tried pARA Sea, replacing the K when I was trying to find my mistake.
Dan, I thought pARA would more likely be an arm of the Med I'd somehow missed. KARA sounded more Arctic.
@Dan yup it could be yipes crossing that also. I guessed yikes VS Kara but cmon do better fill on a Tuesday
@Dan, you could parasail on the Para Sea if it weren't so cold up there!
@Dan Me, too! PARA and YIPES seemed as reasonable as KARA and YIKES.
My Diary of a Crossword Fiend Review: <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/12/29/tuesday-december-30-2025/#ny" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/12/29/tuesday-december-30-2025/#ny</a>
@Eric Hougland I always enjoy reading your reviews. I also enjoy your choices for musical accompaniment and know that they're always more of a subtle nod to something in the grid. Today I'm completely stumped trying to find the connection...and I'm dying to know!
@Eric Hougland Fantastic song. @sotto voce The song contains the phrase "at the other end of a telescope." See 50 Down.
I’m a fan of Wheel of Fortune, so I appreciated this nod to the game. Tight theme well done. Perfect Tuesday. My brother rode a BMX when we were kids and learned to do a front somersault on his by sticking his shoe into the spokes of the front tire as he rode down a shallow hill from our school on the way home. 😱 I don’t know how he avoided injury?! If I ever tried this, I’m certain I would have WENT PFFT 🤣 Broken bones at a minimum! My youngest was born in TX and the nurses at the hospital tried to convince me that I needed to order the special TX birth certificate in case they ever SECEDEd from the US. It’s the “heirloom” birth certificate 🙄
@Jacqui J “Oh, I get to meet Pat Sajak, like I suppose you can do better than that! No way. It just seems to me he would be a pretty decent guy, I must say." - Ed Grimley
@Jacqui J When I was pregnant with our second child, DHubby changed jobs, and we had to move from Dallas to Northern California. I'm convinced he took that job because he didn't want his son born in Texas!..
Thanks Geoffrey and Will. Such fun.
I guess I won the geography prize by knowing the KARA Sea, but I'm not sure how I knew it. Maybe from a Douglas Reeman book about escorting supply convoys to Russia? But I think those convoys were headed for Murmansk, and wouldn't have gone further than the Barents Sea. Anyway, I knew it. I dropped in ARGUE at 2D, and immediately removed it, because nothing starts with LG, except for Korean appliances. Then I read the across clue. Sneaky, but amusing.
I've only been crosswording for about 5 years, but I think this is my favorite Tuesday puzzle yet. Thanks, Geoffrey and Will.
This was lots of fun. Kudos to Geoffrey Schorkopf and Will Eisenberg 😊
Geoffrey, you could have created a special surname for yourself, to fit the theme of this fun puzzle: SCHORKPF
This was a lot of fun and well done. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
"___ Sea (arm of the Arctic Ocean)" seems an awfully tough clue to use on a Tuesday. YIKES/KARA might well have been YIPES/PARA, though KARA seems a bit more Arctic-sounding to me than PARA does. To me, this crossing was a true "natick", which could have been avoided simply by cluing KARA as a female name. I actually had to guess here, which seems like a rare event for a Tuesday. Perhaps YIPES is less used than YIKES, though that might be regional or generational in nature. Also, as I'm sure has been pointed out already, the word for "island" in the Sardinian language is "ISULA", not "ISOLA" from Italian. I suppose the clue is correct since Italian is officially spoken there, but I wonder if some Sardinians might object to this clue. Nits aside, I thought this was a very nice puzzle. Felt a bit Wednesdayish to me, but solved it in a Tusdayish time.
@Xword Junkie Amusing to note that we both commented on KARA at about the same time, but I was more appreciative of it than you apparently. Nice catch, though, on the YIKES/YIpES issue.
@Xword Junkie And now I'm amused to note that the P/K issue was the very first comment last night, generating a healthy discussion!
@Xword Junkie I deny the naticity of YIKES/YIpES + KARA/pARA. To me, if you can formulate a plan of attack beyond just trying every letter from A to Z, it's not a natick. Here, the possibilities are only two, not 26 or even 19 (consonants only).
Pulling out the lesser known definition of PERUSE again! (For those who were unaware and missed it a few weeks ago, PERUSE is a contronym.)
@Joe Yeah, I've just gotten so whenever I can't think of a word, I just say "peruse". As in, "Remind me I need to go to the...to the..to the peruse tomorrow." I figure a non-contronym gives me twice the chance of it being right by accident.
The puzzle was good; I was sitting for a while, wondering why I wasn't a "You did it!" message, until I realized that I put HOLES instead of POLES. Oops! Great collab puzzle, and creative theme! See ya! :)
OREOS, ORCA, ESP, APED... at what point can we just stop with the same words over and over and over?
@Name2 I think when we stop using the alphabet…switch to another language…or create crosswords with only words over 5 letters?
@Name2 Part of what makes the NYT Crossword the NYT Crossword is the repeated use of signature clues, especially OREO. The other examples listed are often used in construction because they are short and contain As and Es, which typically facilitate cross-answers better than the other vowels. If you want some variety, branch out and play puzzles from other publications — but don't be surprised when you see some overlap.
@Name2 I doubt there are many constructors who *like* using epêe, Oreo, aped, etc. Most of those words are vowel-heavy and simply work well in a crossword grid.
"...at what point can we just stop with the same words over and over and over?" At the same point that we no longer use some words more than others in our everyday speech and writing.
@Name2 Maybe try an acrostic: <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/premium/xword/acrostic/acrostic.html" target="_blank">https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/premium/xword/acrostic/acrostic.html</a>
@Name2 Something I've realised by hanging around here: old words can be freshened by new clues. How about conquerors of the Hydrox; Min or Maj completion; Mr. Zamenhof's invention, in short; what an athlete might admit using. Now these are admittedly late-week clues but I do think a clichéd solve can be revived.
No EPEE today, but our old friend ORCA made an appearance. Which one was used first? And which one more often? 🤔
@Molly in Wake Forest And APED. Ugh…whoever says that?
@Molly in Wake Forest Are you snubbing the OREOS or just blanking on them?
@Molly in Wake Forest All I can say is that we fortunate few in the Salish Sea region can routinely see orcas but the epee shows up on the Olympics only one every four years!
Wow, nice 5 letter acronym! I had the entire right side solved first, thanks to the cool theme!