It was very easy to solve this one without understanding the theme because there was little difficulty generating sufficient crosses to simply fill in the themed entries. I prefer puzzles like last Sunday’s where figuring out the theme makes a difference in how easy the puzzle is to solve.
@Marshall Walthew agreed, while it was fun, I was just a little bit off of my Thursday record. And that was only because I got confused in the SW corner.
Did the puzzle with just the fill; even at the end barely understood the theme, which makes it less fun.
@HCTabak I still don’t understand the theme. Is the theme “take the first word of each theme answer, subtract the letters ‘less’, and then plug the resulting word into the blank in each theme clue”? Or is there some more elegant part of the theme that I’m missing?
Usually there is an "aha" moment where I see the clever theme of the puzzle, but not this time. Even after solving it, I didn't really "get" it until reading the explanation.
@Jeff It felt like a joke that need an explanation--you get it after the explanation, and think: "Oh. Okay, I guess that's funny, but it didn't make me laugh."
Very funny, John and Jeff. LESS is more, I guess. No MISTAKE: a BEAUTY, but not much of a STRUGGLE this SEASON.
I first thought 58D was clued incorrectly but TIL even though there are 7 emirates in the UAE, there are only 6 ruling families and Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah are both ruled by branches of the same dynasty/family.
OK. Well, I solved it. On a whim I checked stats. Unbeknownst to me my streak of many years was apparently broken 3 weeks ago although I have not missed a day or a solve. My addiction may finally be over! Yes I know I can appeal to the staff, explain the issue, etc. I love the NYT, the puzzles, constructors, commenters, and columnists, but one shouldn’t have to work this hard to play and make sure the stats are right. Suddenly I feel so free!
@M. Biggen Right? My streak was much shorter but abandoning it felt great. Not having to flyspeck Sundays, feeling free to check and reveal entries, skipping puzzles I'm not enjoying - it's awsome. The streak is a joyless trap.
@M. Biggen I had an absurd Wordle streak until 2 years ago which was broken by a time zone glitch when I flew back to the UK from a visit to the US West Coast. It is liberating indeed. I’ve only played occasionally since when my daughter wants to have a go at the puzzle together. The whole solve time and streak thing is a bit silly when you think about it. I did crosswords the old fashioned way for years. I was just as satisfied when I finished them, in an unknown time, occasionally with errors I'm sure. All too often my satisfaction now depends on a desperate hunt for a keying error as the clock ticks up.
@M. Biggen To remind myself of the silliness of "streaks", I like to imagine a gravestone in a cemetery with the inscription, "Today he broke his 3,579 day streak."
@M. Biggen, my streak was recently broken as well, exactly 20 days ago. I thought I had forgotten to go back and fly speck or something similar. But now that you say yours broke 3 weeks ago, I’m pretty sure it was a NYT glitch. Oh well. You’re right, it’s quite freeing.
@M. Biggen I feel like I'm at a 12-step meeting. Hooray for all those who have found their serenity! A streak is a craving. A record time is self-harm. Be happy, joyous and free!
OK, folks, SAYIT! Did that itty-bitty three letter coffee klatch make a MUG outta you? Like me, did'ja make a CARELESSMISTAKE? CUP?** KEG? URN? POT? JAR? CAN? POD? TIN? BAG? **guess a Charger ain't a CUSTOMCAR, unless you paint it pink and call it Mary Kay 😉
@Whoa Nellie Well, when "Chryslers" was a letter too short, and "Dodge" wasn't to be considered, I definitely reconsidered my tentative answer of tin.
@Whoa Nellie I went from URN to CUP to MUG.
@Whoa Nellie Woohoo! All that and another pair of (blue) Jay's. A good omen for peaceiand frienship, y'all.
@Whoa Nellie Welp, I got it off the U from USSR and never considered another option. Guess it was Luck.
My CARELESS MISTAKEs: 1-Thinking of The Metamorphosis by Kafka (which obviously didn't fit) instead of Metamorphoses by OVID (which I wasn't familiar with.) 2-Reading [____bien] in French instead of Spanish and going for "très" before "Être" before the aha of ESTÁ when the crosses weren't working. Aside from the two mistakes, all went swimmingly (even MUG instead of urn by some stroke of luck) and devoid of ENDLESS STRUGGLEs. I would have preferred a tad more bite in the cluing of a Thursday puzzle, but I'm a very satisfied solver just the same because I loved the idea for the theme and the high of figuring it out. J&J together are twice the powerhouse that they are when they construct on their own. This puzzle, even without the added crunch, is proof of that. Thank you, gents. You're always brilliant!
@sotto voce I originally put the coffee answer as TIN, then went back and changed it when I saw another answer was TIN.
@sotto voce I’m guilty of your 1. Even Franz wouldn’t fit 😏
Whoopie! It wasn’t tough, but it was fun nonetheless. A lot of twists and turns and it was fun figuring out the spanners. Thank you.
Two incredibly experienced puzzle constructors produce a decent Wednesday-level puzzle. Something is not quite right in Crosslandia. Ah, Thursday puzzles! How I once looked forward to you all week. Where have you gone? When will you come back? I miss you. I'd hate to say that this puzzle was a SORRY SIGHT, but it was a bit of a disappointment.
@The X-Phile My thoughts exactly. That's two weeks in a row with double Wednesdays.
When our boys were little we rarely left them and I felt so very guilty when we did. Hubby booked a weekend getaway and the boys stayed with my mom. When we returned, I expected my poor, neglected babes to rush to the arms of their long-lost mamma. Instead, we found them in new, handmade aprons, rolling dough to make cookies with ARLO Guthrie children’s songs playing, and sipping fruit smoothies. She’d even taken the basement door off and laid it on crates so they had a “table” that was *just* the right height. CC’s wildly over-inflated sense of importance? Beautifully checked.
@CCNY This made my day - thanks.
@CCNY, I don't know who you are, but you always tell such wonderful stories. It seems like you may have found the secrets of life that so many of us miss.
I liked the concept of the theme but in terms of a Thursday puzzle this was a big disappointment. With the repeating LESS string, the simple "trick" and the Monday/Tuesday level cluing I can't see any reason to run this on a Thursday. Oh, NYT crossword, what have you become?
@Nancy J. I share your frustrations. Ever since COVID, it seems like the entire world is getting, well, lets’s say “less smart.” And everything, including the crossword puzzle, is being reshaped to accommodate these new standards.
I solved this puzzle in just over 12 minutes -- by far a personal Thursday record -- and it wasn't a whole lot of fun. The mildly interesting theme wasn't worth the pedestrian fill. Elks? Will there be mooses next week? I'm not really grumpy, I'm just disappointed.
@Ed everyone knows the plural of moose is meeses, c’mon!
@Ed et al How many of you checked a dictionary before registering your nit?
This is really getting old. This was a puzzle with a Wednesday-level theme and Monday-level cluing. I know for a fact that both these constructors can do better, so this is absolutely an editing issue. For inexperienced solvers who like an easier puzzle, look at it this way: The Times is basically saying you will never be good enough to solve a real Thursday puzzle, let alone a Saturday puzzle. They are saying you will never improve, so you should not even try. They throw you the easiest possible puzzles, because they think you are not intelligent enough to handle the tough ones. They are insulting you to your face. Are you going to stand for it?
@Katie The rest of you go ahead. I'm still in my bathrobe, and I'll have to go down into the basement for my pitchfork.
There is zero chance these two hall of fame constructors had a hand in the cluing. I know many yesterday felt that it was Monday level clueing. Today’s was even easier. If I’m being 100. The theme was pretty underwhelming (again, given the constructor names). I literally started to slow down because I was afraid I was going to set a personal best. And I didn’t want it to be on this puzzle. Fortunately I slowed down enough. I know this post sounds so arrogant to some. But even xwstats said this was easy. The hardest part of today’s puzzle was trying to figure out how to spell SINISE. Yikes bro. Just yikes.
@Weak Yep. I had enough beef with the theme to even start on the little-yellow-bus clueing. And you are so right that it can have nothing to do with Jeff Chen (my apologies as a newb who's bad with names for not being able to associate John Guzzetta with any of his previous and apparently prolific puzzles), whose clueing has been AP-level at a minimum in previous puzzles.
@Weak Just destroying this puzzle, aren’t they? It wasn’t a PB for me, mainly because of a recent even easier attempt at a Thursday.
@Weak I can't imagine not wanting to set a personal best because of which puzzle it was. I haven't set one in a long time, and I guarantee you I have no idea which puzzle it was. Also, I have a puzzle or two that I apparently did in 0:00, because that's what the NYT website says happened. The only way I'm going to beat that is to finish it before I start it.
@Weak They're all run through AI now and scored for difficulty. AI then tweaks the clues to adjust score to improve engagement.
SEN____NTAL JOURNEY TIMELESS CLASSIC I know, too easy, but it was the best I could come up with.
Got me thinking about my favorite Green films on coppers. 5. Serpico - A cop saves water by not shaving and uncovers the corruption of his fellow officers who throw dirty coffee cups/mugs/urns into the recycling bin. 4. The French Connection - Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider spend two hours chasing a car with a broken muffler. 3. The Departed - Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, two great-looking actors known for their environmentalism as well as their timely delivery play coppers doing copper stuff. 2. RoboCop - Detroit's new environmental policies lead to the police department to resurrect, rebuild and reuse dead officers. 1. Fargo - Fascinating documentary about creating mulch and compost with a wood chipper. 0. Speed - A copper struggles with his conscience when he must drive a bus faster than is ecologically beneficial.
@ad absurdum---Nice. Speed and The French Connection were my favorites but I would green light all of these. Now please---twenty five words or less... All the President's Men The Exorcist Capote Thanks!
The Downs were a blessing as I WINkled out the long themers... and wasn't THAT a dainty dish to set before...well, all of us!!? When I finished and looked at the Constructors' names, I did kind of go, "Oh, no wonder!" But still....I think this represents a New High. I don't recall anything like it in my decades of solving; in fact *this is worthy of the Charles M. Deber Prize for Unique Crossword Puzzles!* (Okay, I invented the prize, but Dr. Deber was one-of-a-kind--every puzzle unique, mind-bending, and admirable. Wow, John and Jeff. Thank you! And thanks for those who were patient with my little rant yesterday; (pfft to "Relax!") I cannot do anything about the economy, the Supreme Court conservatives, the gerrymandering, the dismantling of The Constitution, or the weather that razed places in MS last night...but I can correct what amounts to disrespect for a lovely tradition--the LEI. It is a decorative gesture of welcome, of farewell, of appreciation, and it is made of flowers (sometimes with leaves) that have two qualities: fragrance and a degree of staying power. There are other (accurate) ways to clue HIBISCUS, which lacks those characteristics, despite being ubiquitous. (We had a 50-ft hedge of red hibiscus beside our quarters at Schofield Barracks on Oahu.)
@Mean Old Lady, I didn’t see your post yesterday, having not come to the comments. But I, too, did not like that clue. I got it, but I bristled a bit at it. Leis are typically made from plumeria or orchids. I have not seen hibiscus leis before. I have all here in my back yard, and have made leis in the past from my two plumeria trees (one pink, one white). They are finally in full bloom again after their winter hibernation, and the pink plumeria flowers look beautiful when they drop and float in the pool!
I'd be interested to see if anyone else feels the crosswords are beginning to feel dumbed-down? I used to be a 4/7 each week, now I'm hard-pressed not to be able to finish one. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in particular have been excessively weak lately. Is there a large turnover of puzzle creators? Are puzzles published on merit, or some 'other' metric nowadays? The NYT crossword used to be at the pinnacle. The best way I can describe it recently is 'meh...'.
@Hitch It's not the creators, it's a decision by the NYT to make the puzzle accessible to everyone. Unfortunately, that has the side effect of making it less enjoyable once you have a little bit of experience, so I'm not sure if that's a sustainable business mode. It used to be assumed that when you first started solving there would be a steep climb. It might take several years to be able to successfully solve the end of week puzzles. Maybe the focus on streaks and gold stars is bringing an impatience to succeed.
@Hitch They are getting easier. Congratulations to the New York Times for doing their part to contribute to the dumbing down of everything.
@Hitch I recently read somewhere that the NYTimes used to be a news site with games, but is now a games site with news...
I got the theme after completing the second theme answer. Completely underwhelming puzzle. I expected more when I saw the names of the constructors. Lots of tired fill, such as KIR, EVEL, ARLO, ECO. I learned SKUA and ADZE from the puzzles many years ago. As for JAMIE, I was surprised that several commenters were unaware of him. Maybe I've become too much of a political junkie since 45 and 47, but Jamie Raskin is in the news a lot.
@Times Rita I agree! He's certainly on the national news often... As for the "tired fill," the long crosses are demanding, and I considered the fill "worth it" for the sake of the trick.
@Times Rita Regarding you having "become...a political junkie since 45 and 47... A long, long time ago I watched a movie, maybe Dr. Zhivago, about the new Soviet Russia. In it one of the characters responds to an accusation of "being political" by saying "*everything* is political". That phrase "everything is political" just stunned me with dread. I thought a society that thought of *everything* in political terms sounds like hell. And it kind of is.
@Times Rita I see him commenting on various news shows quite often, but when presented with just his last name, like here, I can't quickly come up with his first name. I've decided that it's because "Jamie" sounds like a child's nickname and lacks the gravitas that his well deserved status in the political hierarchy would seem to warrant.
Did I really just solve a Jeff Chen Thursday puzzle in Wednesday time? Apparently so, but it's just hard to believe. It took me a while to get the theme, but even that wasn't too hard, in the end.
The plural of elk is elk. That is all.
Usually. Not always. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elk" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elk</a>
@Cheyenne For game animals the 'sportsman's plural' has become conventional. One elk, two elk. One trout, two trout. One quail, two quail. But nobody says "I saw three sparrow" or "a pair of mole". I would venture that conventional use of the sportsman's plural does not make it 'wrong' to apply the usual pluralizing rules ('elks'). Just uncommon.
@Cheyenne Language changes. And you'll drive yourself crazy correcting common usage. That is all.
Never got thr gimmick. Even so I found this to be a pretty easy puzzle.
14 minutes of meh. Minimally contributory theme to the solve (which is common enough but never joyful) save for a suspicion of recurring LESSes which hit me halfway through but were not compelling enough to bother streamlining the solve with... and, worse, internally inconsistent theme fill. BAD CAREER MOVE is certainly and always a MISTAKE, say. WINTER is unarguably and ever a SEASON. PAGEANT QUEEN is by definition always a BEAUTY (for crossword purposes). But ENDEAVOR is hardly tautologous with STRUGGLE. As a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is only sometimes a square, a STRUGGLE is always an ENDEAVOR, but low-stress, artistic, worthy and simple ENDEAVORS are hardly STRUGGLES. This was not a frabjous Thursday for this solver.
@Matt Yeah, that bothered me, too.
@Matt Merriam-Webster is happy enough with them as synonyms. I had to think of it as a verb rather than a noun before it felt more right to me. To ENDEAVOR / To STRUGGLE both have a sense in common usage of trying harder, perhaps having to overcome something. I sometimes hear ENDEAVOR (noun) used colloquially with less hardship.
I found elks annoying, since the normal plural is elk.
This is a puzzle; don't expect normal.
I didn't get the gag until well after finishing the puzzle. I didn't like the gag. I didn't want the gag. I am not a fan of the gag. It's -- what's going on here? Some letters are missing? Some sort of all caps type situation? Some mysterious evasiveness, such that I'm supposed to guess, based only on "EAVOR" that I'm supposed to write "ENDLESSSTRUGGLE." Yeah, right. The odds of anyone guessing that without at least 9 down crosses are low. I have previously in this column had occasion to note that I don't like this kind of puzzle, the sort that in my view prioritizes a laborious gimmick over the commonplace and no doubt plebian approach of **just making a bunch of words that cross and clues about those words.** When I have so said, I have been met with explanations as to why I'm in the wrong, explanations of the puzzle, accusations of being an enemy of fun, and one or two up-thumbses. I can't wait to find out what today brings. Hit it.
@Asher B. let us freaks have our kinky crosswords where things don't make sense! we only ask for 1 day a week (and sometimes Sundays depending on the constructor)!
@Asher B. I, for one, having already figured out the theme, immediately got ENDLESS; and the theme also helped me get STRUGGLE with a few crosses, although I do think that STRUGGLE is a little bit of a stretch to mean endeavor, which certainly doesn’t have to be a struggle.
@Asher B. I agree with you. Even after finishing the puzzle it didn’t make sense. What’s with the capital letters? Etc? This puzzle’s gag was a failure IMHO.
@Asher B. I realize that it's not fun having an opinion that not everyone shares. That said, I hope you'll note that no disparagement or "explanation(s) of why you are wrong", no "accusations of [your] being an enemy of fun" are being offered here. Only honest attempt to explain why there is some value, to some, in these puzzles. Controversy is part of the fun of this forum.
I saw lots of SKUAS on holiday in Shetland, where they are called bonxies. They are very aggressive sea birds who will dive bomb you if you go too near their nests. I enjoyed this one, though I had to look up brands and names. It was very much at my level, which means rather easy for some here. I liked the POET clue and I learnt that my 'tut, tut' is 'tsk, tsk' but I think you make the same sort of sound - a dental click.
@Jane Wheelaghan I put in the initial T's and waited a bit, because we use either of those here...
@Jane Wheelaghan - I'm late to he game - I left nearly an identical message about skuas a few minutes ago!
Usually clues asking for the first name of a current member of congress is a gimme, but for some reason, I thought it was Jeremy Raskin, which was too many letters. Pretty easy puzzle otherwise, though I've never heard of a SKUA
@Steven M. For some reason, I drew a blank. on the name. Took me a while to fill that corner.
@Steven M.ive only heard of a skua in crossword puzzles, alas
@Steven M., Same here, on both counts.
@Steven M. I visited a penguin colony and the SKUAs were hard to forget; they hovered waiting for an opportunity to snatch a chick.
The standard of slipperiness ought to be the hagfish. <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-much-slime-can-a-hagfish-make.html" target="_blank">https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-much-slime-can-a-hagfish-make.html</a> Either that, or my granddaughter when she finds a piece of candy and doesn't want you to see her with it.
I don't want to pile on with 'the puzzles are getting easier' gang, but... the puzzles are getting easier. I am a long-time solver, and by that I mean it takes me a long time to solve Th, Fri, Sat puzzles. Over the years, I have enjoyed seeing my average solve times go down. But lately it hasn't been as much fun as part of the joy was being challenged and meeting that challenge. It almost feels like cheating these days.
@shaproff My solve times are getting faster on average too but how do you tell the difference between the puzzles getting easier and you getting better? You can't play new puzzles from the standpoint of your skill level before you gained experience.
@shaproff I’m am experienced Thursday solver. This was by no means easy for me. 45 minutes.
@shaproff I tend to agree. When I go back into the archives even 10 years I’m completely stymied, even on Mondays, on a regular basis. I don’t think this is all outdated trivia. But then, if I want a harder puzzle, I know where to go.
@shaproff set my Thursday record today @ 11:03
I didn't find this as easy as many of the commenters. Had no idea about SKUA, didn't tumble to SNAP and SPEW for quite a while, and somehow mentally misread BAD ___ER MOVE so much that despite figuring out the gimmick with ENDEAVOR, and ultimately solving the puzzle, I was *still* misreading it as CARE-ER and could make neither heads nor tails of it for what felt like ages.
Hmm. Even after reading the explanation, I'm a little unsteady re: the theme, but I solved in near record time, so I guess I'm still pretty smart...??
@Jeff Z If you take the word before less and insert it into where the blank is in the clue, you get a phrase that matches the answer. Aka replace — with the age from ageless beauty…
@Jeff Z There is no reason to suspect you are not. The problem is a Times Thursday puzzle is no longer an adequate gauge by which to judge.
This could have been a Tuesday. Definitely not worthy of a Thursday. Can we PLEASE get a rebus puzzle or something similar for Thursdays again? This ‘theme’ was so weak that I barely noticed that it was there.
@Alexandra I don't think that was the theme's fault. I had a PR, but still used the theme.
Curse you, ADSE/TASO for wasting about 2 minutes of my time spotting you! Also, I was also pretty confident in URN for too long. I got MUGged.
A lot of us got MUGged by URN. Right there with you.
I truly love a puzzle where I finish it without understanding the theme at all.
@Steve I’m the opposite. I feel like I was ‘robbed’ of some of the solving joy of I can’t decode the theme. But this puzzle, quite frankly, didn’t really satisfy the happy, even though I got the theme during the solve.
May I? The clue, once you have filled in the blanks, refers to the second part of the answer. It does not refer to the whole answer. The second part of the answer follows LESS. 27A. The clue is WINTER, after you have filled in the blanks. The answer is SEASON. The clue WINTER is NOT referring to WINLESS SEASON, only SEASON. The letters WIN that come before LESS are what are missing in the clues, you insert WIN in the blanks. Yes, the answers taken as a whole are common expressions, but the meaning of the expression is irrelevant to understanding the relationship of the clue, once you fill in the blanks, to the answer, which, again, is only the second part of the answer, after LESS. I hope this helps!
@Roberto But WINLESS SEASON is the only one that can’t be interpreted as a definition for the clue; ENDEAVOR is a bit weak for being an ENDLESS STRUGGLE, but it would be acceptable. AGELESS BEAUTY is absolutely brilliant, and CARELESS MISTAKE matches the full clue of BAD CAREER MOVE. In fact, these last two simply don’t fit your WINTER justification as I understand it. Perhaps the puzzle masters are referring to the bleakness of December, but to me it looks like a flaw in an otherwise brilliant puzzle.
@Roberto That's brilliant and makes perfect sense. The odd man out would be [BAD____ ER MOVE] which would need that BAD be included so that MISTAKE = BAD MOVE. You're so right – the resulting phrases have meaning on their own, but it has nothing to do with the right answer to the clue which is, in fact, just the end words. BAD MOVE = MISTAKE WINTER =SEASON PAGEANT QUEEN = BEAUTY ENDEAVOR = STRUGGLE Or maybe that's not what the constructors intended at all, but it works and I, for one, like it, so thank you for posting your understanding of it!
@Roberto Sorry. *which needs that MOVE be included...
@Roberto a WINLESS SEASON can indeed be a WINTER. It is also called a dry spell, a drought, or something else suggesting that nothing is growing, that no fruit appears in the orchard.
They're really pulling out all the cliche fill today huh.
@Park. I saw no OREOs nor EPEEs. No ACAIs nor ARIAs. But yeah, a few.
Hard Tuesday, fine Wednesday, weak Thursday...
Guess the supply of Thursday-esque puzzles is depleted again. A very solid Wednesday puzzle, with a clever theme. There were six Ks in the grid.
@Xword Junkie Six Ks? Does that give it a high ICK factor?
I figured out the theme, but couldn't complete the puzzle without some slight assistance. One day!!
Poem made from words in the clues and answers of today's puzzle <br> <br> a/ who can speak to the story of the mountain <br> a pageant of dinosaurs? <br> the pioneering ladybug? <br> the earthquake? <br> d/ in the journey of the seabird <br> the seabird carried the families of the nation <br> and the breeze carried the seabird <br> and something spoken carried the breeze <br> that something that the <br> a/ poet lost<br>
WINLESS SEASON "Now is the winter of our discontent..."
Yesterday, my personal crossword drinking game was based on hibiscus. Today was elks.... At this rate, gonna need a bigger bottle of Excedrin!! 🤕😏 Heaven forbid some form of octopus shows up tomorrow. Har! Fun puzzle!
Now *that’s* some clever word play. Impressive!
I was nearly undone by misreading “garish” instead of garnish, which mean two very different things in terms of amount.
@Meg I did the same…and it was only after I’d filled enough crossing answers that I went back and re-read the clue.
This was nearly an ENDLESS STRUGGLE for me. I got tripped up in the SW corner. Had ADZE and TAZO, but just couldn’t come up with the rest until SPEW finally came to me. This one was just right for me, though I’m sorry it’s frustrating so many of you.
@Cherry I was so pleased to finish a Thursday puzzle without cheats, but all those complaining that this puzzle is too easy would rob me of my pleased pride, if I let them. I found this a pleasingly sufficient challenge.