My local baker would always deliver his bread through my window, but it's being repaired right now. No pane, no grain! (This one was sill-y, but I loaf it anyway.)
@Mike "Stained grass?" she asked rye-ly. But it was a casement not to be.
@Mike At yeast it made me chuckle
@Mike I'm not going to brioche this topic. I'll keep my reply to myself to ferment a little longer.
The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. - Albert Kamut
@Mike Sash a lot of options to choose from. I guess I'll just roll with saying if there were only two, it would be a boule-ean choice.
@Mike i ate my loaf of bread, and now I miss that late bloomer.
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Benefactor with a limited number of grants? (5) 2. Stealthy flier (3)(7) 3. Mars comes third in it (5) 4. Really involved (6) 5. Sound made by a toaster? (4) GENIE AIR MARSHAL ANNÉE ORNATE TING
My favorite encore clues from last week: [Patient watchers] [Poles can be found next to them] NURSES CZECHS
Our VHS renter had a sign that said DON'T rewind. When the tape has just been viewed it's hot and more vulnerable to damage, stretching. They rewound them when they had cooled off. Seemed like good advice. We still have a (weeded) library of VHS tapes, some we recorded and that aren't available anywhere else now. I know people who tossed all of theirs and started over with CDs, then moved on to Blu-ray. Offends my antecedent Scotch-Irish, Welsh genes. (That squeak you heard was the tightening of my purse strings.)
@dutchiris I never owned any VHS materials or machines. I just skipped that set of initials.
@dutchiris Cross-stich on my TV room wall: "Use it Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without!"
There is an art to Monday cluing that’s hard to nail. You want it easy but not embarrassingly easy overall. I think C&C nailed it. Look at the first two clues – [Intimidate, with “out”] for PSYCHE, and [Bird’s dramatic dive] for SWOOP. Your mileage may vary, but I had to think a moment before getting the latter, and I needed a cross or two for the former. There is enough of this type cluing -- requiring thought, but not end-of-week thought -- to make the fill-in involving. Add to that a theme with fun rhymes and fun answers to guess at with as few crosses as possible, and this puzzle felt like a paragon Monday. Oh, and extra credit for [Put in a good word, perhaps?] for EDIT. Here’s a word appearing more than 700 times in the NYT puzzle, and you’d think the well would have run dry on new clues. But this one is not only terrific, it’s a debut. Mwah! A lovely collab, Carolyn and Christina. Thank you both, and please consider doing more together – go with the flow!
@Lewis There have several Mondays in recent weeks where 1A was not an instant fill. Also, that SHISO has become sufficiently mainstream to appear on a Monday is a (welcome) sign of our changing world.
@Lewis If I were composing, I would clue EDIT as "La Piaf's first name, phonetically." See, this is why I don't submit to the NYT.
I found this too hard for Monday - my time says Tuesday. I didn't need any lookups in the end but there were more proper names than I like, especially on Monday. What on Earth is a NITRO cold brew? I was a bit lost there. Of course I know W_NONA Ryder, but I can never remember if her name is spelled with a Y or an I. The Y version would fit nicely with R*y*der, wouldn't it? NO PAIN NO GAIN annoyed me. I know it featuring in a crossword is not an endorsement of the sentiment but still... If you feel pain after exercising, you're doing things wrong - it was the first thing my physio told me when I finally went to see her after ignoring pain for too long. A personalized warmup and wind down routine takes care of such issues for me now. I was having breakfast as I read about spraying while talking... Thanks 😐
@Andrzej Hey you, I can't tell you what a nitro cold brew is because I have no idea, but I did want to come back to what I mentioned on the comments last night. The Netflix special produced in Poland that we watched. It was a limited six; episode series, thankfully it wasn't any longer. The first two that we watched were kind of iffy but okay, it was all just set up stuff for the most part and we could deal with it, but the last four episodes were like... I mean I would have to pause it so we could just laugh at how bad it was. The very last episode I kept thinking it was over, and then it would go on... And I would pause again and be like seriously, there's more!? Hehehe! We don't regret watching it, but you say you haven't watched any Polish productions in decades, we probably won't either!! But it was still fun!!
My husband said, tell Andrzej that I agree with him!! 🤣
@Andrzej I thought Nitro was just short for Nitroglycerine, meaning it was just super strong cold brew coffee, but it turns out that it's short for nitrogen, meaning that it's been infused with nitrogen, which changes it somehow, like being carbonated, but not. I guess it's a thing. I also have a theory that Monday and Tuesday puzzles are being toughened up to compensate for the late week puzzles being made easier.
@HeathieJ It's so sad what's become of Polish TV and movies. Of course we always made a lot of cr@p, but in the 1990s and 2000s it got so bad I just stopped watching anything Polish and I never looked back. The production value is usually that of a soap opera, and the acting and scripting is no better... Some artsy Polish films go big internationally from time to time but that's not my cup of tea, either. @Vaer Thanks! As a comfortably middle-aged person and an incorrigible European I don't get all those newfangled coffees... I just tell my Jura coffee machine to give me an espresso or a lungo, and that - or a latte macchiato - is what I order at cafes and restaurants, too. I can imagine the angry glare of an Italian bar owner at being asked for a nitro cold brew 🤣
@Andrzej Piping up with some NITRO information! Originally nitrogen was (and still is) used to get beer out of the keg and into your glass. Guinness pioneered that for stout. When you order a Guinness on tap, there's this cool cascading thing the bubbles do in the glass, I hope you've seen it. Reading up online, it was developed to mimic the head effect of a hand-pulled cask beer. The appearance and texture of both hand-pulled and nitro-driven beer is quite different from CO2-driven beer. Nitrogen, being an inert gas, as every cruciverbalist knows, doesn't react with the beer like CO2 does. Somehow that all results in a beer with tiny little bubbles, a creamy mouthfeel, and different taste. Guinness even figured out how to deliver that in a can. Geniuses. After all that, it was applied to coffee. And put in this puzzle.
@Andrzej Question from me (skier/runner) to you (climber): Gain without pain? You’re saying Sylvester Stallone was only acting with all that grimacing in Cliffhanger? (Yes, I know there are much better mountaineering movies out there but I can’t think offhand which actors were in them.) By the way, I think we probably have a real-life athlete in common whom we both admire: Killian Jornet. I was just watching yesterday the video of his skiing (with pitons) the Troll Wall.
@Sam Lyons Cliffhanger is one of my guilty pleasure movies. John Lithgow, as the villain is hilarious. You might be interested to know there is a reboot of Cliffhanger on the way starring Lily James as the main protagonist. Lily James not the first person one would think of for this role. Among her many credits, she was in a couple of seasons of Downton Abbey, a live action Cinderella, and the "girlfriend" in Baby Driver. But, hey, you go, girl.
@Nora You say that France is not beer country, but for the first time ever, beer consumption has overtaken wine consumption in France. This happened in the last couple of years. Overall alcohol consumption is down, and those who do drink are drinking craft beer.
A perfect Monday puzzle, in my opinion.
@Mango I normally only come to the comments to say how much I disliked a puzzle so trying something new here. Lol.
I can get ripe mangoes all year long at Lidl, at the price of a horrid carbon footprint though, I guess...
Nice Monday puzzle, had no problems with it. EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY!
@Wade H I was quite advanced in life before I realised that the washing-up liquid was actually "SQEZY". Until then I guess I hadn't really looked at any bottles closely and just assumed the correct spelling!
@Chris I don't think we have SQEZY in the US. Never heard of it!
A friend with weed, is a friend indeed.
@Grant A bit off topic, but that reminds me of a song we sang in Girl Scouts: Make new friends But keep the old One is silver And the other gold. New-made friends Like new wine Age will mellow And refine.
Cherry wood is scary good. When an onion you seek, don't take a leek. If a tree falls in the forest, the nearest person may soon be the sorest. (some people end this with "shortest") Nothing's as therapeutical as reveling in a musical. (Andrzej taught me that one.) Ice cream, you scream, we all scream because we're annoying little brats. (Andrzej again. Apparently that rhymes in Polish.) One should never dance afore removing one's pants. (Okay, that's enough wisdom from Andrzej for now.) Speak softly and reek awfully. There's nothing absurd about having a best friend who's a cheese curd.
@ad absurdum The last one made me LOL. So random and yet funny!
@ad absurdum What's the word? Thunderbird!
@ad absurdum You got that right! Ice cream, you scream, we all scream because we're annoying little brats: Jesteśmy irytującymi draniami i krzyczymy opychając się lodami! It does indeed rhyme! Also, one should do *nothing* without removing one's pants. Duh. To paraphrase Nelly Furtado: I'm like a bird and my pen pal is absurd (How did you know I was a cheese curd??)
@ad absurdum As always, emus won't let me reply, so I'll post in the description below the linked pic: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/ZncNP7C" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/ZncNP7C</a>
Crystal, welcome to the column, good summary—and what great advice to new solvers! Nice Monday grid with an appealing theme. TIL SHISO, nice word. For some reason it didn’t bother me that there was no qualifier “in the US” for ZEE, but the casual assumption that nouns generally precede verbs seemed very Anglocentric—it’s not the case in lots of other languages. This is hardly even a nit, since it’s obviously an English puzzle (just like it’s an American puzzle for ZEE)—but maybe it would have been a nice educational opportunity in any case. Also interesting to note that PAS means “step” in French and was originally always used with “ne”, but gradually had the meaning of “not” all by itself. Funny how Mary Poppins came up in the comments yesterday with PISH POSH and then in the puzzle today. Unlike Crystal it was the FIRST movie I Ever saw (I’m showing my age). Anyways a fun puzzle and congrats all you NINERS fans—you pulled it off when Carolina and Green Bay couldn’t.
@SP Same on SHISO. I was trying to complete the puzzle with only across clues, but the SE corner ended that. I've only ever seen what I assume is the plastic version of SHISO. Sushi isn't super popular in France, but at some point I hope I see some SHISO in person.
I’m familiar with SAY IT DON’T SPRAY IT from cartoons that I watched as a kid or that my kids watched. Like Bugs Bunny saying it to Daffy Duck PSYCH always makes me think of the TV show with James Roday and Dulé Hill. It was one of my favorite series. <a href="https://youtu.be/bOGXyzXbYNo?si=zecaBdLYgidY1iD7" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/bOGXyzXbYNo?si=zecaBdLYgidY1iD7</a> Fun Monday grid that brought back lots of childhood nostalgia. Thanks, Carolyn and Christina! Also wanted to thank Eric, John and Marshall for heading up the Griddies!
@Jacqui J You know that's right!! 🍍🍍🍍🍍
@Jacqui J I'm binge watching Psych right now. 😂 Just started season 5. 🍍 I watched the show when it first came out, but it feels almost new to me now, over a decade later.
I worked in a video store in the early ‘90s, and people who returned video tapes without rewinding them were definitely unkind. We had a rewind machine for the noncompliant cassettes, but it was a pain to use and slowed down the reshelving process. Eventually, management imposed a rewind fee that reduced the problem, but never eliminated it. Some people just couldn’t be bothered. I was out of the business by the time DVDs took over, but I suspect they made the employees much, much happier.
@Heidi I was remarking to my husband the other night while we perused Netflix, remember how fun it was to peruse blockbuster!? I mean, Netflix, other than the negligible drive, is no shorter than being at Blockbuster, but Blockbuster felt like more of an event. Sometimes we wouldn't even get to the movie that same night. Hahaha! Kind of miss those days!
@HeathieJ I remember from many years ago the riddle: "What takes longer the more people you have doing it?" Answer: Picking out a video to watch at Blockbuster!
Fun puzzle! I grew up in the 1950’s and SAYITDONTSPRAYIT brought back fond memories of other such phrases that were popular back then. We thought we were so cool and clever.
Good morning Valerie, When the "SAY IT ..." answer came to mind, I immediately thought that I hadn't heard that saying since grammar school in the 1970's. Then "BE KIND..." brought me back to the Blockbuster Store visits in the 1990's. Who knew the crossword could inspire a trip down memory lane!
First-round voting on the 2025 Griddy Awards is underway until 11:59 PM on January 16. You can find the ballot here: <a href="https://form.jotform.com/253465756808167" target="_blank">https://form.jotform.com/253465756808167</a> John Ezra, Marshall Walthew and I were pleased to see so many puzzles nominated. The ballot is lengthy — I think there are about 100 puzzles across four categories. The puzzle descriptions are meant to simply remind you of the puzzle. We’ve done our best to make sure that all the nominated puzzles are on the ballot. Our sincere apologies if you nominated a puzzle and it’s not on the ballot. If you vote, be sure you’ll have time to finish the ballot. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to save your choices if you start the ballot and don’t submit it. However, you’ll get an email with your votes and may be able to add votes if you’re under five in any category. You will get a somewhat generic error message if you try to select more than five puzzles in any category. The message pops up as soon as you choose a sixth puzzle, so it’s easily fixed by deselecting one of your choices. It’s actually a pretty good way of keeping you focused on the best of the best. And if you want to be sure you’ve selected five, try choosing one more. At the end of the relevant section of the ballot, it will say “The maximum number of selections allowed is 5.” We hope you’ll find the ballot user-friendly. If you have any trouble with it, comment here. One of us will see it. Thanks for voting!
@Eric Hougland It's very user friendly! The only difficulty was narrowing them down. Thanks so much to all three of you for your work on this! It was fun to relive some of the best of the best.
@Eric Hougland hard to narrow down, but my votes are in. So many good choices this year!!
@Eric Hougland Is that 11:59 PM MST?
Chewy Monday 😀 47A at least the clue didn’t refer to Betamax … I know there are trivia my brain refuses to retain. Names of American university sports teams are very close to the top of the list…
@Ιασων I can barely remember the names of sports, forget sports teams of a country I don’t live in.
Not much to complain about, but I managed to find some anyway. 😁 To my ear ORE and O'ER are not homophones, because O'ER has two syllables ('oh', followed by 'er'), whereas ORE only has one, the same as the actual homophones 'or' and 'oar'.
To my ear, "OER (the land of the free)" sounds just like ORE and OR and OAR.
@Grumpy Might as well jump in with a link: <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/o-er" target="_blank">https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/o-er</a> And I'll never stop thinking that the last letter of the alphabet is zed. I know that it's ZEE in these puzzles, but it still hurts a little every time I have to type it (as does leaving the 'u' out of colour, honour, etc).
I've never had a chance to actually pronounce "o'er" but I have always assumed it was pronounced [oh-ehr], and differently than "oar". TIL I can't recall if I've ever heard it said.
@Grumpy I'm with you. Old Scottish joke: Sgt Major: "On the second syllable of the word - turn (turn-in). You have to roll the 'r'. Like I say, "I'm going to ir-on my shirt".
Welcome, Crystal! That is one serious streak you’ve got going there. Talk about street cred!
@NYC Traveler In order to keep up with my streak, I have had to make sure that I never go on vacation anywhere without internet and I account for the time difference when I travel internationally. No camping or hiking in the wilderness for me.
Nice puzzle - I liked the clues and the fill was good. I only had the square in NI_RO and O_T left at the end since I'd never heard of either of the cold brew or the baseballer, but I got it in my first guess so I'll try to remember those. Thanks Carolyn & Christina! (And Crystal - great trio! Reminds me of a group of students I once had in my class called Adriana, Andrea & Ariadna, who always sat together I'm sure just to confuse me...!)
@Alex I wish my niece Andrina had been there too!
Welcome Crystal and congrats on your streak. And congrats and thanks to Carolyn and Christina for a fun puzzle.
This one was a lot of fun, but I was distracted by my cat who has been going to the litter box about every 5 minutes the past couple days. I took him to the vet but they couldn’t find anything wrong, so now we’re just waiting for lab tests. I was doing this puzzle not fully focused and ended up spending quintuple my average time. It did help relax me though.
@Charles Nelson Reilly I hope whatever is wrong is easily and cheaply corrected.
@Charles Nelson Reilly We still mourn our Charlie Parker... when he started frequent, copious pees, and he was acting unhappy. I knew something was wrong, and it was--diabetes, not uncommon in older cats. But the vet knew Charlie would never tolerate treatment, so we had to let him be put down. My heart still aches, but it was best to spare him.
I love a chewy Monday. Simple enough to finish without looking anything up; yet some answers that I had to think about or get via crosses. Very enjoyable; a great collaboration! Did you remember to do the midi today? Another reason to love Mondays! Three crosswords, Maxi, Midi, and Mini! Plus, Connections and Worldle went easily for me today. Here's hoping Monday at the ER will go easily for me as well. Usually, Monday and Friday are the busiest days in our ER, which makes them go fast. We are seeing so much flu, and this is a bad flu. It's not too late to get a flu shot!
Ouch, SAY IT, DON'T SPRAY IT gave me a bit of a wrench. I heard that in the 1950s! I know, I know, it's gross to be spat upon, but in defense of the spitters, I must say that they can't help it.
@Ms. Billie M. Spaight Yup, I don't think I've heard that one since John Glenn went into space.
Someone last week mentioned not having seen Suejean commenting for a while. Hope you’re still following the puzzles and Wordplay, Suejean.
@retired, with cat I wasn't the commenter, but I was thinking of Suejean, too! I realized recently that I hadn't seen her name in a while. Sending best wishes!
@retired, with cat - I’ve been wondering the same thing, and especially this week with the new season of All Creatures starting on PBS. I always love seeing her posts from Yorkshire and her positive comments.
Another plug for voting for your favorite crossword puzzles of 2025, The Griddies! You all have nominated about 100 puzzles, showing what a good year 2025 was (for xwords, anyway). Here's the schedule moving forward: 1/11 - 1/16: Voting on First Round 1/18 - 1/25: Voting for Second (Final) Round 2/1: Announcement of winners & runners-up Here is the ballot: <a href="https://form.jotform.com/253465756808167" target="_blank">https://form.jotform.com/253465756808167</a> The ballot is easy to use. Vote for as many as five in each category; at the end, click "Submit" and you're all done, until the next round! Anyone can participate; the ballot has descriptions of the puzzles, but all the puzzles are easily accessed in archives: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/archive" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/archive</a> You'll see other announcements from Eric Hougland about this; if you have any questions, you can reply to this post or one of Eric's and someone will get back to you!
USEITORLOSEIT, Christina. Bienvenue, Crystal--I can't imagine having a streak like that!
My first answer for 6A Bird's dramatic dive was StOOP. That's the "dramatic dive" of a Peregrine Falcon, but easily corrected with the answer to 7D. Thanks for a fun Monday puzzle.
@Jerry Me too for 6A. I was so proud of myself for knowing it that I was disappointed when the correct answer turned out to be the more mundane swoop.
@Jerry Stoop is the more precise for a dramatic dive than swoop
I loved this puzzle but didn’t get the happy music upon completion. I found my error at 71A: SEdTO… I can’t believe I entered ZEd instead of ZEE at 65D. I’m always careful on theatre and centre and favour and colour, etc… this one shouldn’t have tripped me up at all! And yet! :) Great puzzle! Thanks!
SAYITDONTSPRAYIT took me back about 60 years or so to the playgrounds of my childhood, where that and other such pithy utterances were the cornerstones of our daily interactions. So often I find the crossword functioning like Proust’s madeleine to involuntarily recapture my past.
@Marshall Walthew Same here. I don’t remember the last time I heard someone say that. But I expect it was when we still lived in Vermont and Richard Nixon still lived in the White House.
This was fun! Thank you, Carolyn & Christina! Enjoyed the Wordplay, too, Crystal! Welcome. Y’all stay warm and have a terrific Monday!
Despite a few just-slightly-trickier clues, it’s nice to see the constructors followed the rhyming pleas of Monday solvers: USE A WORD THAT WE’VE HEARD! fun one
@JWM TWO LETTERS, ONE SQUARE IS SO UNFAIR! (Some gobbledygook so the emus don't think I'm shouting.)
Nice Monday puzzle. A lot of things not coming to me just from the clues but had fun working it all out from the crosses. And.. a couple of odd puzzle finds today: A Wednesday from April 3, 1996 by Matt Gaffney. And.. a Tuesday from October 28, 2003 by Brendan Emmett Quigley. The Gaffney puzzle had 3 across theme answers all straightforwardly clued: VIDKUNQUISLING JUDASISCARIOT BENEDICTARNOLD And.. the Quigley puzzle had 3 down theme answers. Exactly the same ones that were in the Gaffney puzzle. Hmmm... can't help but wonder. Here are those links: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/3/1996&g=20&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/3/1996&g=20&d=A</a> <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/28/2003&g=14&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/28/2003&g=14&d=D</a> I'm done. .....
@RiA These both sound similar to the "double-crossing" puzzle we had recently. Did either have a revealer?
"Swoop" is the mascot of Eastern Michigan University, where you think the sports teams would be the Emus, but no, they're the Eagles. (Which is still better than their old name, the Normalites.) I hear Swoop has a brother in Philadelphia, and a cousin in Utah. Pish! I'm on my mid-winter getaway in Northern Lower Michigan, and this area is the unique breeding grounds of the federally protected Kirtland's warbler. It's a Big Deal up here: Mio, Michigan, has a statue of one in front of the Oscoda County courthouse (not life-sized, of course). (Presently, the Kirtland's warblers all in the Bahamas. They sent a postcard.) The local vocational college is Kirtland Community College, home of the Firebirds. I suppose "the Fighting Warblers" doesn't sound intimidating enough.
@Bill Hey, @MOL-- The Kirtland of Kirtland's warbler is the same Kirtland of Kirtland, Ohio--or his son, maybe. (I may have mentioned this before.)
@Bill Lots of unhappy Eagles fans around here today, as the NINERs knocked them out of the playoffs. As a 'skins fan, I was amused to see that in the puzzle.
@Bill The EMU Normalites?! Where did that nickname come from -- Discouraging-Names-R-Us? Who did they play against -- the Averageers? The Subpars? The Sortas? Was their team cheer 'Meh!"?
@Bill The EMU Normalites?! Where did that nickname come from -- Discouraging-Names-R-Us? Who did they play against -- the Averageers? The Subpars? The Sortas? Was their team cheer 'Meh!"?
@Bill The EMU Normalites?! Where did that nickname come from -- Discouraging-Names-R-Us? Who did they play against -- the Averageers? The Subpars? The Sortas? Was their team cheer 'Meh!'?
This is the second time I've been knocked out of the air by a clue like "a bird's dramatic dive". I always use "stoop" unstead of "swoop". To me, a swoop implies a dive...for sure...with a curved movement somewhere in the execution. I've seen lots of birds swoop...but I've only seen one bird stoop. It was a falcon...and dove on a pigeon in flight...starting high, high above it's target. The falcon folded its wings tight against its body and dropped like a stone...straight down....accelerating all the way and hit the pigeon in an explosion of feathers...and followed the prey's fall to the ground. That, my fellow crossworders was dramatic. Swoops are pretty. Stoops are breathtaking.
A number of earlier commenters wanted StOOP. I did too, but I came across Ms. Ryder, who was having none of it.
@David White I never even considered StOOP, but I like it. More dramatic, certainly, especially f you've ever seen an osprey catch a fish.
@David White I believe there was a clue recently in another puzzle about a corporation with a swoop in their logo and it was a NIKE swoop. Yes? No? Maybe?
Thank you for this crossword puzzle on a cold winter night. I enjoyed this puzzle.
I resumed my subscription last week, only to find Deb has left the column. My monday crosswords feel lonesome without her. That said, lovely crossword today; felt a bit tricky
@twistedvizier I miss her, too, but Deb did the columns for the Thursday and Friday puzzles.
@twistedvizier You know you’ve spent your working life well when people miss you when you’re gone…not that people didn’t appreciate Deb while she was writing the columns, only that it generally means you’ve done some good if people say, oh I remember her. I miss her.
Cute puzzle idea. Two of the rhyming phrases (PAIN and REWIND) were extremely familiar, whereas SNOOZE rang a vague bell and the SPRAY one was new to me. I like sushi and order it often. I've never heard of SHISO. No wonder Rex made it his word of the day. It looks like it's there to decorate the plate and not to be eaten. I'm only interested in sushi I can eat. A word about IODINE. I remember it from my childhood. It hurt horribly. Then they invented mercurochrome and merthiolate as substitutes and I was happy. Then they discovered that both substitutes were dangerous and I'm not quite sure what they're using now. Anyone who knows -- please tell me, but only if it doesn't hurt. Fair warning: if I see INSPO one more time, I'm going to scream.
@Nancy Thanks for the memories of mercurochrome. In my recollection, it hurt just as much as iodine, but was a prettier color. Nowadays there are much nicer topical antiseptics. We have a tube of Neosporin in the "medicine cabinet", and it causes nary a twinge. And I, too, learned about SHISO today, and although it may be placed decoratively, apparently it is edible, tasting like a kind of mint.
Nancy, 1. Don't eat the plastic SHISO in take-out sushi. 2. My podiatrist has me using IODINE between my toes (but not on wounds) as a drying agent. 3. Getting used to INSPO.
Hi Nancy, Tribiotic ointment works well and doesn't hurt. Fells good actually, like a moisturizer.
@Nancy Advice now for children is to just use water to clean scratches and grazes, We never had mercurochrome or merthiolate here. We used diluted Dettol.
@Nancy I can highly recommend umeshiso maki, a roll containing a dab of preserved plum and a (real, not plastic) shiso leaf.
Honestly, I usually look to a Monday puzzle without a lot of enthusiasm, as the challenge is generally a let down after the Thursday-Sunday workouts. This is not a criticism of Monday constructors…they have their assignment and do it well in the main…but Monday puzzles aren’t Sunday puzzles. I say all this as context for my appreciation of the puzzle, which was a relative workout for the day of the week.
Interesting: the 28A clue is different in the online version and the Newspaper PDF version on the NYT site. I'm guessing the editors decided to shorten it after our guest columnist saw it to write the column, and it was changed for "the paper" but not online. Weird. (I enjoyed the puzzle and the column.)
Get out of here with SHISO on a Monday
What's wrong with learning a new five-letter word on a Monday when it has five easy crosses?
@Pendant I'd say it was fair with the crosses, but I wonder why Crystal Arroyo didn't make it a tricky clue. I think I've done over 3000 puzzles (though by no means all perfectly!) and never seen it. TIL that's what the green plastic stuff in store-bought sushi is.
Welcome, Crystal. This is a lovely crowd until you make a mistake but once you’re in you’ll be defended to the end.
What a fun Monday puzzle and a fine themed collaboration from Carolyn and Christina! Welcome, Crystal, and thanks for the nice Wordplay column. You should definitely see the original MARY POPPINS sometime soon! Happy Monday, everyone!
Welcome, Crystal! 3060 is impressive. I think you will find this a lively and fun place to be. Please drop into the chat from time to time - it's always great to hear from Wordplay columnists and constructors!
methinks this one will be a tougher-than-usual monday for solvers not of the north american persuasion...
@Matt I didn't find it too bad. There have been worse. I got HOYA with crossers, but I've learnt others, like OTT, SNOCAP, RELO and NITRO. We have ESSO in the UK too.
I think this crossword was easier for Gen Z, because I managed to solve quicker than my average! I really enjoyed todays puzzle :)
@Sally I was thinkinig to myself that a lot of OtherLanders would have a hard time with these clues/entries/themers.
My survey of Songs Based on Yo-yo Tricks continues: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0HSD_i2DvA&list=RDK0HSD_i2DvA&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0HSD_i2DvA&list=RDK0HSD_i2DvA&start_radio=1</a> (Check out those costumes--they're scary good!) Overheard on the weight room floor of Planet Ctenophore: "Dude, No brain, no pain!" The word "pas" in French can have so many different meanings, some of them contranyms, all of them related etymologically. It's a cold, snowy morning up here in Lewistonia--the lake is iced over, the landscape has a sad and frozen character: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tVtd-16w2U&list=RD2tVtd-16w2U&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tVtd-16w2U&list=RD2tVtd-16w2U&start_radio=1</a>
@Bill Well, WE had a really hard frost here! (Last week it actually had an 80-degree day--a record--so it's been nutso.) I went out and walked...instead of dew, we had little ice crystals coating everything.
Hoo, boy. It's been a long while since somebody looked into a First Aid kit! Wound care (other than washing thoroughly) is quite different these days, whether due to injury or surgery. IODINE is a necessary element in diet (see "iodized salt") but not--repeat NOT--recommended on a boo-boo. And then there is the VERY suspect clue at 33D. The level of ignorance is a little scary. In the first place, AMNIOcentesis is not routinely done. For example, my OB was preparing to perform this to be sure the fetus had sufficiently developed lungs, because I had been hospitalized with pre-eclampsia; however, there was so little room for a needle that he backed off. The little rascal had also managed to turn completely and was in "frank breech position." (Yes, it was PhysDau, starting her brilliant career early with a c-sec.) The OTHER reason for AMNIOcentesis is to allow for genetic testing, which opens a controversial topic the EDITor may have been attempting to avoid with the "second trimester" business. AMNIO is done during the first trimester.
Miss Lady, The first thing I thought of with the antiseptic was mercurochrome, which I hadn't thought of since childhood. Similarly, "SAY IT DON'T ..." was another childhood relic. Then the "BE KIND ..." brought me back to visiting Blockbuster in the 90's. Yikes. Getting old... though "getting" is generous :o)
@Mean Old Lady I learned as a child that if you want a really nasty scar on even a minor wound, use hydrogen peroxide. My mom used iodine occasionally though.
@Mean Old Lady Good morning MOL. (I have such a hard time thinking of you as "mean")! I had an amnio (dear lord, the size of that needle!) to see if my baby had spina bifida, due to a misdirection from my mother-in-law, who described one of her babies as having an opening on his skull... you don't really need the details, but that child, and several others, didn't survive. She buried 4 before adopting, and then having my husband. She convinced herself that we were doing the AMNIO to find out if the baby was gay (seriously) because my husband's brother had just come out to us. That's how we found out he was adopted. Well, we all knew he was; it was quite obvious. But they never discussed it with him. Sad all around; he died without ever being told. All this to say, I agree, it is far from a routine test. Especially now... mine was 46 years ago. Today, you can tell so much from an ultrasound. For instance, my granddaughter had a kidney condition that would require surgery at the age of six months. But it was discovered a few weeks before birth, through routine ultrasound. So much safer than an amnio!
@Mean Old Lady I don’t understand. It didn’t say that amniocentesis is routinely done, it just says if it is done it is done by an OB and that it is usually done in the 2nd trimester. Seems accurate to me. I don’t think the clue is going to prompt anyone to get an unnecessary amino, at least I hope not.
Wow, that column photo is so great, it's unnerving. Yikes, an orca and an eyeball. Welcome, Crystal!
I still have a VHS rewinding machine. Next to boxes of VHS tapes in my garage. Miss those days.
@Laura You mentioned a rewinding machine and a box of tapes. Do you have an actual VCR though? I owned a VCR until about 2010. At that point, it was only used to watch old home movies.
Neat puzzle. Didn't really care much about the theme, but the puzzle wasn't bad. I put IDY instead of ILY; the reason why I realized my mistake was that I encountered articles explaining the difference between this and "Devil Horns." Whoops! Anyways, see ya'll tomorrow hopefully! :) (Today was also my first NYT puzzle done without Google, so that's nice! 🥳)
@Your Man-jesty Congrats on your first Google-free solve, and best wishes for many more! Everyone here has their own rules but for me, using any search engine is the abyss of failure. And in particular, I have abandoned Google ever since its infestation by Al.