The puzzles aren't getting easier, I'm getting smarter. Yes, that must be it.
I store my sweaters next to my dairy products. Where there's a wool, there's a whey. (Must be a curdigan sweater.)
@Mike Butter you going to milk it for all its worth?
@Mike Puns and puns and more puns! It’s about time you let someone else have a churn
@Mike Such cheesy puns. You're the creme de la creme.
Mike, Curdigan? Sounds more like sheep-skim to me.
This was not a puzzle made by someone trying to impress – it didn’t have a “Look at me!” frantic vibe. No, to me it felt like Kate worked to pepper the puzzle with feel-good answers, that is, this was made by a giver. Answers that recall contentment: BARISTAS, SHORE, sourdough loaves, SWEATER WEATHER, FRIEND MATERIAL, FINE LINENS (those last three, BTW, are NYT answer debuts). Beautiful words like SWAGGER and WIZENS. A puzzle AT EASE with itself. And, well into the winter, contentment – coziness – felt good to me. Also standing out was the quality of the grid-build, a low-count (68), low-black-square count (30) box so cleanly filled. A couple of serendipities added to the loveliness. The rhyming abuttees MALIGN and OPINE, and the almost identical STATIN and STAIN. Starting the day with a splash of beauty and excellence – with feel-good – well, that’s a gift. Thank you, Kate!
@Lewis At 47D I originally put in SATIN (IMHO a SATIN finish is more pleasing than a glossy one) because the STAIN is applied *before* the finish (if it's being used at all.) As the veteran of many refinishing projects, I protest!
@MOL SATIN is my preferred finish as well, and was my initial answer. STAIN is an intermediate step.
@Lewis yeah I liked it! I thought it was hard enough for a Friday when you realize Saturday might be hard.
I'm glad that so many found this one to be delightful, fun, whatever, but for me, the puzzles are starting to all look alike. Not the clues, but the difficulty. I miss being really challenged by strong cluing and clever fills. There were some in this puzzle, but the crosses drew their teeth, and the result was an easy puzzle. Obviously, the responsibility of choosing the day a puzzle will run doesn't rest with the constructor, and Kate gave us a really nice puzzle, just not Friday tough. So thank you, Kate, for a puzzle that was fun enough, just not mean enough.
@dutchiris I appreciate your thoughts, but I‘m beginning to find this flood of complaints about „too easiness“ pretty tiresome. I always used to look forward to the witty comments, like John Ezra’s reframing of the clues/solutions or Sam Lyons‘ erudition and quips or Andrej‘s Polish comparisons and curmudgeonliness. These easiness complaints are getting so boring!
Great puzzle. But . . . SHOED?
@kkseattle I was stopped by that one too. I kept circling it, thinking that maybe they were giving SHOd an extra D, so after the puzzle was done I asked Dr. Google. Shod is more common for horses etc., but SHOED is an acceptable alternative. (Red dots under it here, so the emus aren't keen on it either.)
@kkseattle Came here to moan about that too 🤣
@kkseattle And while we're at it, to OPINE is to express an opinion, aloud or otherwise, not to muse about it.
@kkseattle Yep, that felt clunky.
@kkseattle I don't ask for much in life, but all I want is for my horses to be shod, and my flies to be shoed. I refuse to shod a fly.
@kkseattle We SHOED have known.
I've never seen SHOED in any respectable (or disreputable) publication. I wish that such answers were clued with some mention of their being variant forms of a word.
Fun puzzle but I echo the comments from yesterday - late week puzzles have become far less challenging of late. I know NYT doesn't publish this data but GenAI estimates suggest the number of daily unique NYT crossword solvers has shot up from 150k to 2M in the last 15-20 years so I get the need to make the puzzles more 'mainstream'. While the focus on having fewer US-centric clues and making the Mon-Wed puzzles more accessible is great, will be nice to have early-mid 2010s difficulty levels at least for the end of week puzzles.
@Rahul "They have gotten so popular that we have to make them worse" doesn't really seem like a sound strategy.
@Rahul Whoa that's surprising! 2 million NYT crossworders a day!?!? Thanks for the fun fact
@Rahul I'm imagining having to cope with a million comments each day. Hope the emus are ready to handle them all.
It's no fun to whip through late-week puzzles. We come here (and pay money) to be challenged, to learn new information, to laugh and grind our teeth. The past few weeks (with only a couple of exceptions), I've experienced none of that. Please return us to our Thursday, Friday and Saturday travails! Signed, Your masochistic late-week puzzle fans
I love how I feel solving crossword puzzles and have been doing them for over 50 years. I started doing them in the daily paper with pencil. As my confidence grew, I did them in ink. Thrilled when they were available online. Whether they are challenging or breezy doesn’t matter. I’m always learning something: vocabulary, trivia, slang, people, geography, history. The eureka moment when I encounter a misdirect and eventually come up with the right answer. I am in awe of the talented and witty constructors here.
@inky, Well said. You’ve earned a BRAVA today!
@inky I agree with you completely. I'm getting close to 60 years of NYT Xwords and I've enjoyed every one of them.
Hopping in here with my two cents as a full-time contrarian (and part-time statistics nerd)… I’d love to see xwordinfo data over the aggregate (as well as the standard deviation of solve times of Fridays, or any day really) because us humans have a hell of a time reckoning with recency bias (as well as another dozen or so biases) when evaluating the difficulty of crosswords as of late. Anecdotes are great but overall I would to venture to say that a streak of easy-ish Fridays *has happened* in the past over the many decades of NYT and *will happen* again in the future. Let’s cut the editors some slack and appreciate their creativity and hard work in tandem with the constructors!
@Mishlev In other words: the editors are doing a bad job but let's praise them for it. I'm not even a native English speaker and I'm finding recent NYT puzzles, including most Fridays, way too easy. That's not OK.
@Mishlev In other words, shoddy work is cyclical and, therefore, okay.
@Mishlev I was reading the comments about the Thursday puzzle roughly 24 hours ago. It occurred to me that the people with the fastest solving times would be making comments sooner than those who struggle more. Also, those who are more serious about solving the puzzles are likely to start the puzzle earlier. Two hypotheses which, if correct, would cause there to be fewer complaints about the puzzle being too easy as it gets later in the day. I didn't get a chance to check this out but it should be easy to get an idea of the trend using a simple visual method. I'd be inclined to simply make a list of the attitudes of the commentors over time. Something like EENENNDENN, where E is a mention of the puzzle being Easy, D a mention of Difficult, and N indicates the comment was Neutral or made No mention of difficulty. Regardless, people who comment close together in time are likely to be more alike in ability and opinion of a puzzle than those making comments further apart. Another thought about the comments was about those who compared recent puzzles to ones published several years ago. There are a few reasons the old puzzles may seem harder including changes in how words are used and commonly known trivia, as well as a learning curve for those who have been solving for a number of years. But there are also good reasons why the Times may be trying to make the puzzle accessible to more people as they rely on puzzles to help maintain profitability. Just some thoughts.
@Marigold Try archived puzzles from 2021. They are much more difficult than at present, even though the trivia is still recent. Puzzles from the 90s are a trivia nightmare, of course, but you don't need to go that far back in the archives to see how overall difficulty has decreased.
@Mishlev You don't need xwordinfo data; you can literally just go to the archives and judge for yourself. A relative "streak of easy-ish Fridays" years ago looks nothing like the absolute cakewalks every weekend puzzle has been lately.
@Mishlev But we have direct comparison cohorts available. It's not that we're dragging up dim memories of long-ago vanished puzzles enhanced by sepia-toned photography. And yes, spontaneous deviations from random chance do occur every day. You might win the opening coin toss by choosing heads 5 games in a row but if it goes like that all season, don't you think the Commissioner should take a look at that coin? Sometimes, the fix is in.
@Andrzej I tried to take your advice. When I opened the archive, it was on March 2018. I figured that what you suggest would apply just as well to a puzzle from 4 years before your suggestion. I arbitrarily chose to work the one that was published on Friday, March 16. From my perspective, this Friday puzzle from 2018 was of very similar difficulty to today's. I may have happened to pick one that was easy for then. When I tried to check the comments from that puzzle, I only managed to get another copy of today's. I guess it could go either way.
A lot of fun clues—my favorite was the one for SNOWDAYS. POLEDANCERS somehow didn’t fit for ones who grind at work, and BARBERSHOPQUARTET didn’t work for social activity with a vest (although LASERTAG was my second guess). It was funny to see WIZENS as an entry in the same puzzle as “Gets wise to?” Still seeing what seems to be a lot of easier than usual clues for a Friday, but enough engaging clues and entries from a quality constructor that it still made for a satisfying solve.
I was hurtling through this puzzle until I got stuck in the lower right corner. I didn’t know the miracle, the Picts, or the bunny. I had “don’t move” instead of LIE STILL and couldn’t get past the idea that toddlers and (some) directors both create a lot of sh—. I worked my way through, but that section gave me enough trouble that I can’t complain about the overall difficulty. And yes, BRAVA is a real word, and one that should be said more often. Brava, Kate.
@Heidi The toddlers and directors clue cracked my wife and I up. Our 3-year-old grandson, my god, the handful he's become! So now, after one of his meltdowns over absolutely nothing, I'll try to remember to say, "Annnnnnnd... scene." The MRIs that I've had, I was told to lie still, which isn't easy for me. The "don't move" was used on me during a spinal tap procedure, which I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't been so tapped. The Dr. looked me in the eye and said, "you can curse, yell, or scream, and we won't mind. Just Do Not MOVE." Spoiler alert, it really wasn't that bad of a procedure.
@Heidi I appreciate hearing that someone else struggled on that corner! All of these comments saying how easy the puzzle was were stressing me out.
Zipped through this one, and choose to believe it is due to my improving skills, so please don't insist the puzzles are getting easier. Give me some time to glow with pride, and thank you. Definitely some answers I did not know (but I do now!), so I needed the crosses. I think I went through twice, completely, and that did it. But, it being Friday, it's ER volunteer day for me, so I shall get up, get dressed, and go off to "work." Many of the staff there do all the puzzles as well, so I will happily share that all my puzzles are done, and done well. (Nyah, Nyah) Okay, I'll think it quietly to myself. Have a lovely day, FRIEND MATERIALs!
Also appreciated that KAREN was in a positive context.
Horses are shod. No one says shoed. Even spellcheck agrees on this. Also, no one ever says "aped" except crossword puzzles.
@CarolinaJessamine "Horses are shod. No one says shoed" Well, per OED, John Fitzherbert (1530) and William Thornberry (1870) shoed theirs. (King Ælfred, on the other hand, sceogeað his.) (FWIW, The OED does describe "shoed" as "rare.")
@CarolinaJessamine I came here to say the same. When I saw the spaces, I couldn’t imagine that “shoed” was intended.
I build underwater bridges. Putting my Bachelor of Reverse Engineering(ERB) to good use. Doesn't a Reverse Engineer sound like a job title in Bizarro World? (For those unfamiliar with Bizarro World, it originated in Superman comic books, and was introduced to many people in Seinfeld. Bizarro World is a backward, absurd(woohoo) version of Earth. Their planet, Htrae, is cube-shaped, as opposed to flat like ours. In Bizarro World one might find bridges being built under water, difficult late-week puzzles, and national leaders who are capable, reasonable, and trustworthy.)
@ad absurdum What an ab5urd fantasy.
@ad absurdum Who woulda thunk the Bizarro World would become reality?
@ad absurdum, Love your last sentence.
@ad absurdum "... as opposed to flat like ours." 😂 Whenever I feel I'm not angry enough, I look up a flat earther you tube. It never fails.
(Continued from last post) Of course you would expect the critical reviews of those productions to reflect that, and for long-time patrons to complain to the theater. And, to be honest, you die a little bit every time you leave the theater and hear people who are not as passionate about opera as you say “I loved this—it’s so fun and easy to understand—I’m so glad they got rid of those stuffy, tedious shows they were putting on.” You don’t have anything against those folks—real opera isn’t for everyone—but you wonder why your experience needs to be diminished to cater to them. Perhaps all this is just inevitable as tastes and culture change. And eventually, I suppose, the old timers will find acceptance in the new state of events or stop buying tickets. But you wish the theatre at least would be up front when they sell subscriptions that they are deliberately changing the level of their productions to appeal to the general public so you can make an informed decision, and admit that they are no longer the most elite and discerning opera house. And you wish that there were another opera house you could go to that maintained the original standards (which so far as I know doesn’t exist in the crossword world—or if so please tell me). Does that make sense? And I don’t even really like opera. Not trying to be elitist but to explain the frustrations of many of us.
@SP Alternative theories: 1. Over time, you gained so much expertise in solving puzzles that what appears to be easy for you is challenging for those just beginning, like me. For example, I started about a year ago, and I decided to solve the Thursday puzzles backwards in time. As I'm gaining expertise in solving these puzzles, my time is improving for those older puzzles. From my perspective, the more recent puzzles were actually more difficult when I started, and the older ones are easier as I improved my solving skills. 2. I'm not a fan of opera, but I do enjoy musicals, so I'll use them in my analogy. I grew up with Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, and other legends, many of whom are now dead or not producing new material. Newer composers are producing material different from what I enjoyed in the past. Performances in the past did not use microphones or high definition screens instead of physical scenery. Things change. I still enjoy musicals, despite these changes.
@SP Seconded brava. I do see both sides - I'm not an opera fan and appreciate when Shakespeare is made relatable - although not by changing the words! But if the NYT becomes the new TVG (TV Guide) a lot of us current people won't be around. For alternatives I've noticed an opposite trend at the LA Times - often but not always fairly chewy and interesting puzzles, along with some gimmes.
@SP 100%. I really appreciate your taking the time to write out your thoughts on the ongoing dumbing-down of the phenomenon/institution that has been the Shortz-era NYT crossword puzzle, especially as a “regular” who is known to be a published constructor (in contrast to my own manner of engaging this forum, as reflected by my current handle). Furthermore, I think your analogy is very apt — though, as someone who also doesn’t really like opera, but loves classical music, I would have formulated it in terms of a symphony orchestra that gradually replaces the “masterworks” repertoire with “pops” concerts (e.g. Disney classics, broadway tunes, etc). To extend the analogy: lots of people who don’t particularly like classical music still enjoy getting dressed up and attending orchestra performances for date nights. They do this in large part because they perceive these events as carrying a certain cultural cachet, which fundamentally derives from the deeply held affection of symphony-goers who *do* appreciate the works. But, while a given symphony orchestra could potentially juice their revenues in the short term by going heavy on “pops”, this would inevitably erode the very cachet that attracts the date-night crowd to “the symphony” in the first place. And so it is with the idea of a “Saturday NYT puzzle”, or a “tricky Thursday”. Etc.
@SP I think the real takeaway here is that we're learning far more about @Andrzej 's personal life than (almost?) any of us want to know. ;)
@SP, I very much like your analogy. I think it illustrates perfectly the frustration that many long-time customers feel when puzzles that used to be a challenging endeavor, one that tested them to their very limits and made them better solvers, no longer do so. I get the complaints of other solvers who are understandably excited to be finally making it through the later week puzzles with no help or lookups, only to have their accomplishments denigrated by remarks that “the puzzles are easier now.” Who wouldn’t be disappointed by that? At the same time, I’ve come to believe that there really has been a change in cluing over time. I admit I was skeptical of that argument, made by commenters who urged people to try the Archives and see what they think. Well, I finally did, going into ones from before June 2014, when I started solving online. And they are devilish by comparison to today. Not with arcane trivia and obscure pop culture, but with non-obvious clues. And I found my solving experience for those to be more rewarding. It took longer, of course, but figuring out what was behind the meaning of the clues and seeing the puzzle slowly, slowly unfold before me, chipping away one square at a time until, lo and behold, it’s all filled in. And it all makes sense! There’s nothing like that moment of accomplishment and knowing that you wrestled with a seemingly unsolvable problem and figured it out. All by yourself. Now that’s a reward.
@SP, Sorry but this is so tiring. Just admit that you can’t use the NYT Crossword puzzle to brag about how smart you feel you are. That’s what it comes down to. You feel that you’ve lost something that you and others here could lord over people and feel superior. Just admit it. It’s okay. It’s better than these weird conspiracy theories and now daily complaints about these puzzles and their level of difficulty.
I came to say that anyone who found that easy is on another planet. Then I found that it’s just me who had to work at it. Never mind. I found it Friday worthy. It was work and was enjoyable Thanks.
@Ιασων Nope, me, too. Had a few really tricky areas. I guess I’m just a little beat at the end of this week. And I woke up realizing I left a dozen eggs in the car overnight. Ugh. So yeah, brain isn’t firing on all cylinders. Can anyone explain 54D?
@MB It didn't make much sense to me either, but maybe PLY a trade, CARRY ON a trade?
For those who don’t quite get yesterday’s and today’s complaints about challenge level, I’d like to respectfully submit an analogy, please indulge me: You are an opera aficionado. You have season tickets to the finest opera house in the world, which on weekends routinely provides the best performances with complex themes, bold staging of classics and the newest avante garde masterpieces. During the week they provide lighter, shorter productions for families or those new to opera—which you don’t mind, it can be a nice diversion and in any case you hope will create an even greater interest and market for something you love. Gradually, though, you notice the quality of the weekend operas goes down. Maybe they only show more mainstream operas that everyone is familiar with, with oversimplified staging, translated into English, cut so they are not as long, or start spending less on stars or production values. You suspect it’s because the demand for opera is going down and they are trying to sell more to the general public. (Continued in next post)
To be a commender You have to remember That after an aria "Well Done!" has gender.
@Mortiser And lest we not slumber And grammar encumber, 'Tis wise to remember That "Well Done!" has number: Bravi tutti! Well done, everyone!
This was more like a Tuesday or even Monday puzzle. What's up?
Has there ever been a perfect puzzle where no one complained? I personally find every day is a challenge. I feel victorious when I solve faster than my average.
I don't know about perfect puzzles, but there have been quite a few where there were no complaints in the comments. But that was a while ago.
@Hope M There have definitely been a lot more complaints lately. I've noticed a lot of negative but extremely lazy comments, such as "meh" or "yuck," which frankly I think should be emu-ed out of existence. I do complain sometimes, but I always give a reason. Mostly I go by the rule: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
@Hope M There have been a delightful few that received nearly unanimous praise. But it's pretty rare.
Personal best yesterday. Near PB today. What's with these easy late week puzzles?
@Jim am I getting better or are the puzzles too easy? I'm only at this 4 years now. Used to take 1 to 2 hours for a Friday. Average now 30 to 40 minutes. I did this in 13 minutes! That's how long it takes to fill in the squares for me. Didn't have to think at all. That might sound slow but I'm taking my sweet time.
The NYT editing time is ruining the puzzles. I have nothing against the constructor; this was a perfectly cromulent puzzle. However, I finished the combination of Friday and Thursday in the time that it took me to do Wednesday this week. Today's puzzle was half my Friday average; it belongs on a Wednesday. As to this specific puzzle, it was fun with some delightful cling and cute answers. Nothing wrong with it at all.
@DocP "Cromulent" -- thank you for adding to my 76-year-old vocabulary
@redweather That one should have been cluing. Stupid autocorrect.
@Pamela Here is the origin of the term: <a href="https://youtu.be/FcxsgZxqnEg" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/FcxsgZxqnEg</a>
@DocP *editing team I really need to proof these.
Fun clues and fresh entries made this breezy puzzle a joy. My biggest hiccup was having bravo instead of BRAVA, and not seeing the mistake right away because the crosses filled in sosses, and I failed to check. I liked all the long acrosses, especially SWEATERWEATHER.
Puzzles are easier, but the broken timer keeps trying to make the case that they really are hard. This never happened when Biden was president.
@LBG You may be on to something there. Since his leaving office, I've noticed a decline in grizzly attacks in Yellowstone, oak trees dropping more acorns and the categorization of orange juice pulp content has gotten out way of hand.
If they’re going to give an easy mode, can Friday (and Saturday and Sunday) puzzles at least be hard? Or if you have to make the weekend puzzles so easy, give us a hard mode!
@Timesnlatte oooo you are so smart
Sam says: 45D. Don’t fear the seeming brusqueness of the single letter [x]. It generally means one of two things as a clue: in uppercase, the Roman numeral for ten, or, in lowercase, the sign for multiplication — as in TIMES. _____ Not so, at least not recently. In the last 10 appearances, dating back to 2020, a capital X as a clue has been clued to TEN only twice; the other eight times, its answer was CHI. It has also been the clue for DELETE, CANCEL, MARK or ILLITERATE'S MARK, and some others, including DECEM. The use of the lower-case x for TIMES is more reliable, but it has also clued UNKNOWN NTT (i.e. entity) and DELETE.
@Steve L In careful typography, of course, the multiplication sign (Unicode U+00D7) is slightly different than the lower-case "X" (Unicode U+OO78). But who has time for that?
I always thought REVERSEENGINEERing meant you take a clock apart to see how it works and then put it back together. I tried it with my defunct shredder (but didn't get too far). For everyone's information (for what it's worth), in Italian there are four different ways to say "That's great"-- bravo--for one single male person, pronounced brav-oh brava--for one single female person, pronounced brav-ah bravi--for more than one male person, pronounced brav-ee brave--for more than one female person, pronounced brav-ay for males and females together, also bravi Example: one male and 800 females--bravi!! Italian is a great language: once you know a few rules, you can pronounce almost any word in the language.
@lucky13 It is indeed beautifully phonetic. I once worked for a business with a largely Italian client base. I learned three sentences in Italian: -- I'm calling from X Co. -- May I leave my name and telephone number? -- Please wait; I will get someone who will speak Italian with you. The last one was the one that really mattered. But they all sounded beautiful in Italian.
I'm recovering from minor surgery and feeling fairly woolly-headed so I for one was very glad for this gentle Friday with some lively cluing :)
Friday. Really?? Now I think they're just messing with us.
@Nancy J. So many here love it, though, that I think they’re going to continue getting easier. Once the archives have been wrung dry, I’m not sure a replacement even exists.
Brava Kate! Anyone who likes OVENWARE, FINE LINENS, and SWEATER WEATHER is definitely FRIEND MATERIAL! Jane Siberry opines: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDy1W9X5GDA&list=RDyDy1W9X5GDA&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDy1W9X5GDA&list=RDyDy1W9X5GDA&start_radio=1</a> (dig those 80's dos!)
I couldn't get PORNSTARS to quite fit for "ones always grinding at their jobs," though it worked well with my early attempts at the crosses.
As I finished this puzzle I assumed there were would be complaints about how "easy" it is. I didn't find it all that easy and, as a result, feel pretty darn good about my efforts this morning.
I’m a beginner who can only finish Monday and Tuesday puzzles thus far, but nevertheless I continue to chip away. Speaking of chips, I glanced down at the Xochitl chips I bought today and saw the word NAHUATL on the bag. I shouted to my husband and opened the crossword and sure enough, it’s part of 26A’s clue! “Did you know? Xochitl means flower in Nahuatl (pronounced “Na-watl”), the language of the AZTECs”. Now that’s a word that sure to stick with me! Thanks for the lesson!
I don’t think they are getting easier. We are getting smarter!
@Sandy Check the archives and do some of the Saturday puzzles from the 90’s. I did that and decided that, no, I really hadn’t gotten smarter.
@Sandy choosing to believe this and be proud of my streak of no hints needed this week (though I do think this week was easier than many, I also know my crossword solving skills are growing).
I took the grinding in the clue for BARISTAS to be a reference to the grinding of the beans, not the grueling hours Sam referred to. When I finished the puzzle this morning, I predicted to my wife that there would be many complaints regarding the low degree of difficulty. Everyone has their level, what is easy for some is challenging for others. I take them as they come, easy or hard, it is the experience that matters. This was a rare Friday that I did not have to resort to Easy Mode.
To those who say the puzzles are getting too easy, I understand. But not because I’m one of you. I started doing NYT crosswords during Covid and since then I’ve gotten much better, mostly by learning the likely tricks rather than because I got smarter. I can easily see how those of you who have larger funds of knowledge and have more experience are crying for harder puzzles. Maybe it is just that the crossword puzzle format itself limits what can be consistently achieved by constructors, and not the NYT or the constructors themselves. Constraints may create an upper limit of difficulty for human puzzle constructors, and if more AI created puzzles appear, I can only imagine the complaints! Fortunately for me, @NYT, you are right where I like you to be. But then again I usually crash and burn watching Jeopardy, and usually after the “Monday level cluing” of the $400 answers.
@Krad If you started doing the puzzles during Covid, you likely started doing them during the easy period. I'm sure you have learned many tricks and have gotten better, and I applaud you, but I think if pre-COVID era puzzle cluing was reintroduced, you might find yourself on a delightful new stretch of learning curve. My impression is that the puzzles from the 1940s through the 2010s had fewer direct clues, and misdirects of a kind that are more rare now. I don't think the recent changes are due to constrictions of the crossword puzzle format, although that is an interesting idea.
...and the "late-week" gaslighting campaign continues...
@Matt actually I think the late week puzzles are noticeably easier…it’s telling us our opinions are wrong that seems more like gaslighting to me.
@Matt Uh… wow. I will say it’s a perfect example of the common misusage of the term “gaslighting“ that has become popular.
In careful typography, of course, the multiplication sign "×" (Unicode U+00D7) is slightly different than the lower-case "x" (Unicode U+OO78). But who has time for that? Similarly, as a musician, I know that there is difference between a flat sign (♭) and a lower case "b," and a sharp sign (♯) and the hashtag "#." But, unless I need to mollify some obdurate musicological pedant, I have no problem with "C#" or "Db."
@Bill Have we in fact seen these in a puzzle? (I can't recall.)
@Bill Whew! I thought for a sec you were going to sell us B# or Cb. I still have your dissertation on that very subject, and bravissimo!
@Bill You probably know this already, but the flat symbol looks like a lower-case b because it comes from the Latin "B molle," which became the French "bémol," which means "soft (i.e. flat) B."
Morning, all. And especially @Ken S Well, good for you! Here's another perspective from a seasoned solver: I finished with wrong letter! ARRGH! I knew I had the error, but I could not figure my way past it... The clue had a question mark (clues like that mean 'tricky') and I was sure of all but the final letter. I lacked the wit to run the alphabet. (Here I insert the excuse that I had my eyeglasses off because the eyedrops make things annoyingly blurry, and my IQ drops precipitately when my vision is poor.) Puzzle: 1; MOL: 0 for the Friday. (I got the Wordle an Genius in the Spelling Bee, but it's not enough. Pouty Face!)
It’s disappointing and a little frustrating to see “shoed” for 40A. ‘Shod’ is basically crosswordese, and when I first saw the clue I thought, “Well it can’t be ‘shod’ since it’s a five-letter word…”
@MRR Shoe -- sing. noun, ALSO trans. vb. present tense Shoes -- pl. noun, ALSO trans. vb. present tense SHOED -- trans. vb. past perfect tense (The farrier SHOED the horse. Not 'shod' the horse.) Shod -- trans. vb., past partic. (The farrier had shod the horse.) Now, let's all have some shoo-fly pie and apple pan dowdy.
I loved things toddlers and directors make! I’ve seen both happen and it’s not always pretty.
@Karene No-o-o-o-o, it's not, as our 3-year-old grandson so often demonstrates!
It was great, but I did not like the SKU/KAREN/ELGIN group. I cannot guess the K and N over here. Elgin is not a guessable name. Same for Sku. These were bad entries. Ruined the end for me as I had to google/reveal.
Not bad entries in the least. None of these three are difficult if you are part of the regional target audience. US-centric, yes, but this IS the NEW YORK Times Crossword puzzle. This was a very good puzzle all around and a fun, quick solve for a Friday.
@Chris H it is part of the international New York Times. Published in London...so it wants an international audience. That said SKU is international retail term. Elgin should have been clued infamous marbles of the British museum
@Apurv ELGIN is as guessable a name for an English-language crossword as any other name used by English speakers. For most readers here, I suspect APURV would be entirely unguessable. As it happened, I didn't know the athlete and had to work it out via crosses.
@Apurv It's not a bad entry just because you don't know it. KAREN is a super common name and has also become a well-known slang term. Once you have ELGI, N is a more plausible choice than most other letters. It's also a town in three U.S. states (one is a major suburb of Chicago) and in Scotland.
@Apurv ELGIN fun fact: Elgin, Illinois (pronounced el-jin) and Elgin, Ontario (pronounced with a hard "g") are both home to very large mental health facilities. But try to pronounce them correctly, and it will drive you crazy.
Much better than last week, but still seems a bit easy to me for a Friday. A nice, moderately chewy puzzle that didn't take much time to complete. Basically no filler. A few things I didn't know. Safely back to normal I hope. The NYT has been messing with the web interface to games lately. It's not good. The music can play repeatedly when revisiting a solved puzzle, the fonts look off, there is sometimes but not reliably a new "you finished this" banner, and the "Admire" button no longer does anything. It's pretty much a mess.
@B I also notice lately that the quality and timeliness of responses from the tech team when reporting issues has been disappointing. Makes me wonder if they’ve downsized the team.
Given the fact that I had an almost 4-Hour drive . across Florida to get to Daytona tonight, I could say that I’m glad that it was an easy Friday puzzle. I’m not. Now I have to hope that Saturday is a good one. I may have to give up doing the puzzles entirely. They just aren’t as much fun if they’re this easy. It’s just getting worse.
@Jake G I had the same thought this evening! (Minus the drive to Daytona.) It's a sorry state of affairs when even I can come up with trickier cluing in the midst of solving-! Feeling a bit bored by it all, sadly.
Not immediately noticing the question mark in [Gets wise to?], SuSSES seemed perfectly fine but could not figure which gender BRAVu fit. On my way to completion I learned that soss is a type of door hinge (plus some other stuff). So, a hearty [Well done!] from me.
Always glad to see another Katie Hawkins day and wasn't disappointed. Typical tough Friday for me; a lot of pondering and working the crosses and a couple of completely unfamiliar phrases, but managed to get it all together. And... a rather remarkable puzzle find today. I'll put that in a reply. ....
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from January 11, 2009 by David J. Kahn with the title: "Making History." 28 two letter rebuses in that one, and I'll put those rebus squares in parentheses. The 'reveal' in that puzzle: 46a - "With 90 across what the 28 circled squares in this puzzle represent." STATESWONBYBARACKOBA(MA) 90a - "(IN)THEPRESI(DE)NT(IA)LELE(CT)ION" And some example theme answers with the circled rebus squares in parentheses, as in the above answer. HA(IL)TOTHEC(HI)EF (WA)R(WI)CK J(OH)(NJ)AY O(VA)LOFFICE S(MI)LED (VT)WO (CO)(NV)ENTIONGOER ALU(MN)AE And there were more, and.. of course all the down crossing answers used those rebus squares as well. Here's that link; <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/11/2009&g=46&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/11/2009&g=46&d=A</a> .....
Decent themeless Wednesday puzzle. Clued much too directly for a Friday puzzle. Done in 15 minutes, and I'm not a fast solver. This is becoming disappointing. SHOED should be SHOD.