Happy 1000 day streak to my mom & me - we decided to do the NYT crossword every day in Jan 2024… and never stopped! Love you mom!
@aslev Congratulations! Don't believe the people who downplay streaks. They are fun to achieve and maintain, and they reward consistency and discipline. Doing the crossword together with your mom also sounds really fun. (Mine taught me how to cook, appreciate books, treat pets as family, and treat people nicer than they deserved, but crosswording was not her thing!)
@aslev Congrats! I know I’m often a streak poo-pooer for myself but it know it means a lot to a lot of people and I can think of no better reason than to share it with family. Congrats, this is an amazing accomplishment.
@aslev My adult daughter has been solving for about six years. After the first year, she gave me a subscription for my birthday. Now she and I solve separately, and afterward we compare cluing crevasses, misdirectional mudholes, and quirky quicksand. But we never give each other answers!
@aslev, Wow -- congratulations!! I'm closing in on my 500th, but can't imagine being able to double it!! Well done to you & your mom!👏🏼🏆🏆👏🏼
"Your goats and sheep know macramé?" "I kid ewe knot!" (It just struck a cord with them.)
@Mike You're stringing us along again, with a lively stock of woolly thinking. If you're keeping them in a pasture by the sea, be careful to round them up soon or they'll wind up in a sea meadow. As you know thyme and tied wait for no man.
@Mike I think you've got some wool in sheep's clothing.
"Hope you enjoyed — I’ll be back soon!" I did, Rafa! Thank you. Nice one. Fun Friday clues. Looking forward to more.
Worth the wait, Rafael. Wonder what held it up so long? About a perfect Friday to me. A good challenge where I had to use all the grid and finally get back the NW, where DINNERDATES stumped me for a bit. Nothing held me up for too long but there were few gimmes. Fun clues all around and no sour notes. Definitely Weintraubian. I like the loophole connection. Gotta learn that skosh means a BIT and not to scotch something (cancel it). And ants live in a NEST not just a farm or hill. And that not just ASIA is distorted on a Mercator projection. Thanks for helping me remember my grandmother’s kitchen. Knife, fork, plate, spoon, dish—no no no. Glass-doesn’t fit and anyway those could be used for either (depends on your practice). Oven? No of course not. SINK—finally! Although to be honest I think she had to make do with one in her small apartment. Never owned their own place, everything went to make sure the children and grandchildren had whatever they needed. May her memory be a blessing. THAT REMINDS ME, and I KIDYOUNOT— Cincinnatians all know this but here in the Queen City “Please?” means “I didn’t hear you, can you repeat that?” I remember moving here and wondering why all these people were so polite all the time. They were just hard of hearing. Anyway lots of fond memories and lovely connections in this puzzle. Thanks!
@SP We agree again! "Proszę?" ("Please?") means "Could you repeat that" in Polish, too, but I've always found it an awkward way of expressing the sentiment, so I never use it myself.
@SP Is skosh Yiddish? BTW, yes, I am a very polite hard-of-hearing person.
"Is skosh Yiddish?" No. It is English, from Japanese. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skosh" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skosh</a>
@SP Do you not remember the old jeans ad aimed at older men which said they contained a SKOSH more room (in the seat, if I recall correctly)?
@SP I think you have to be ultra-ultra-ultra to have two sinks and two dishwashers. I grew up in the two-family house that was owned by my grandfather. He was so religious that he even tore off pieces of toilet paper before the Sabbath. But yet both apartments only had one sink each. Same with my rabbi uncles. In all those places, the kitchens were way too small to accommodate two sinks.
@SP and did she stick spoons in flower pots to re-kosher them? A couple of our Jewish friends had grandparents who did that. May so many people's memories be a blessing.
@SP I had the same 'double-take' when I heard "Please?" The background--heavy Germanic presence in Cincinnati when it was settled and then growing--meant that even when folks used English, they just translated what a proper German would say: "Bitte?" Is still in use in Germany; in Cincinnati, it's "Please?" It's used for more than "Say it again, Sam." Honest!
Having done NYT crossword puzzles for most of my long adult life, I am still amazed by two things. One, they just keep coming, each a challenging and unique creation, with or without a theme. How lucky we are to have this infinite scroll to enjoy each day! Two, when unable to get the last few letters or a large section of the puzzle, when really stuck, if I leave it for a few hours or overnight, 99% of the time I can complete it quickly when I return. It's amazing what a fresh mind and outlook can do!
@Alex Agreed on both points! And that second one is excellent solving advice.
Interestingly, the butler doing it isn’t actually very common. It’s what’s known as a dead unicorn trope: a cliche that was never really used much.
@Aaron I took a shallow dive in and found some interesting stuff. At least as early as 1921 by Jenkins (for some reason the later author Rinehart gets more credit), but the first link below has even more detail about previous film appearances... <a href="https://aboutmurdershewrote.substack.com/p/s01e04-did-the-butler-really-do-it" target="_blank">https://aboutmurdershewrote.substack.com/p/s01e04-did-the-butler-really-do-it</a> <a href="https://www.grunge.com/793825/where-did-the-phrase-the-butler-did-it-come-from" target="_blank">https://www.grunge.com/793825/where-did-the-phrase-the-butler-did-it-come-from</a>/
Mr. Rafael Musa, when you say "I'll be back soon," I hope you are making a promise! And so, need I say again how much I adore Rafa's puzzles? I love the dichotomy between the smartly convoluted clues and the amazing simplicity of the entries. It always makes me start out thinking "I'm never going to solve this grid" and end up saying "Hah! That was pretty obvious after all." (But no, it really wasn't until it was.) There's also much that's conversational in Rafa's puzzles, so it always inspires me to talk to myself – and sometimes to him – out loud. "How do you expect me to know that?" "Oh, wow, NANTES, how did I get that from just the middle N?" "Huh? Ptolemeic royal? Are you joking? Oh, okay, CLEO, my good friend..." In other words, I have tons of fun with Musa grids, and this one was no different. Thank you, Rafa! P.S. I couldn't see LET BE in the puzzle and not think of these four blokes (who I doubt were ever just a GARAGE BAND in Liverpool...) – <a href="https://youtu.be/CGj85pVzRJs?is=vBUvWNXbDQGrzELM" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/CGj85pVzRJs?is=vBUvWNXbDQGrzELM</a>
"What?," he said, "You mean Greenland isn't really that big?"
Having PCP as the solution for "go to doc" made no sense to this non-American. We have GPs. We also have PCP which may well send you to a GP, or a hospital emergency room.
@Max Nicks Primary Care Physician, no?
@Max Nicks I'm an American, and I didn't get it at first - it's a relatively recent term.
@Max Nicks We have the bad PCP and GPs here too, but insurance companies came up with the term Primary Care Physician a while ago and now GP sounds a bit dated. Most people don't abbreviate it to PCP for the reason you mentioned.
As a non USA solver, I loved this puzzle! It relied so much on clever wordplay, such fun answers, almost every entry is a pun or a twist of some kind on words in a simple and elegant way. Even though its a Friday puzzle and it wasnt at all trivial, its so refreshing to see interesting and odd words instead of obscure baseball trivia or NBA/NFL/MLB player names. Loved this, really hope we see more of you Rafa!!
@Sergio and Taylor Swift lyrics. Crinnnggggeee
IKIDYOUNOT, this was a wonderful Friday puzzle, chock full of twisty clues and fun entries. I always felt challenged, but never panicked throughout the solve. Favorite clues were those for GARAGEBANDS, MEDITATION, and ENEMYSPIES. Does anybody still call marijuana MARYJANE? The last time I heard that term was back in the 70s when my mother, of all people, told me that James Taylor’s reference to Mary Jane (in Suite for 20 G) was a reference to pot.
@Marshall Walthew Thank you for the nudge to revisit Suite for 20 G (and really all of Sweet Baby James). Just won a trivia prize that included identifying the artist who recorded Mary Jane's Last Dance. Coincidence?
@Marshall Walthew Or in 1930's novels! Bulldog Drummond, et al.
@Marshall Walthew I’ve never heard "Mary Jane" used like that in the wild, and apparently neither had George Carlin: "Nobody ever said it! Ever hear that? 'Got any Mary Jane?' 'What does it do, man, get you high?'" -Toledo Window Box
@Marshall Walthew not much more recent, but yes, still used. RIP Tom. <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aowSGxim_O8" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aowSGxim_O8</a>
Nice Friday. Definitely more in line with what I assume are most folks’ expectations for the day of the week.
Oral health crossing Tinder date? Swipes right for that one worthy crossing! Also enjoyed stewing on the spoon (cuddle) / ladle combo. And this reminds me, I kid you not, that a nice cold bottle of Gremona (vino cava) will put a little PEP in your vena cava. And I don't know why I find this worth sharing, but if I were to meet Ms. Shawkat on a Tinder date in Nantes, it would be reported in the society pages as John Ezra et Alia. When I was a kid (I kid you not) I mispronounced banal to rhyme with αnαl until in third grade Ms. Dines kindly told me to think of a canal when I wanted to say banal. But now when I say or write banal, I think of Ms. Dines. Freud would say I'm stuck at the oral stage and need some oral health. What's an eight year old going around pronouncing some things banal? Hey, I'm among cruciverbalists here, and I'm sure a goodly number of you were slingin' around polysyllabics while still in the cradle!
@john ezra Wait a minute: BANAL is not BAY-NAL? It's BAN-NAL? TIL. Good grief! This is very disheartening to me. I'm 77, gimme a break!
@john ezra She was quite wrong and your 2nd grade self was perfectly correct. Merriam says: "There are several pronunciations of banal, but the three most common are \BAY-nul\, \buh-NAHL\, and \buh-NAL\ (which rhymes with canal). The earliest pronunciation given in our dictionaries is the now-unused \BAN-ul\ (rhymes with flannel); it is attested to in our dictionaries back to the 1800s, but has dropped out of use. \BAY-nul\ is the next oldest pronunciation. The more recent \buh-NAL\ and \buh-NAHL\ came about through French influence, since banal was borrowed into English from French, and those two pronunciations are closer to the French pronunciation of banal. All three pronunciations are acceptable in educated speech; \buh-NAL\ is currently the most common, followed by \BAY-nul\ and then \buh-NAHL\. There is no reason to condemn any of them as incorrect."
@john ezra I'm impressed you were using words like BANAL in the third grade.
@John ezra And it's BAH-zil not BAY-zil for the Herb not 'erb
@john ezra, Ms. Dines undoubtedly had an issue teaching the solar system as well?
@john ezra, Love your observation of the society page reportage. Brilliant!! 👏🏻
I found this an enjoyable puzzle with more misdirection than one can expect of NYT puzzles these days. I thought "Invasive plants" was a very cool clue, even if it unpleasantly reminded me of Russian acts of sabotage on Polish and European soil. My solve time between Wednesday and Thursday indicates experienced solvers probably found this a Tuesday though 🤣 I found the SE section especially challenging and I was close to throwing in the towel there. I managed to resolve everything on my own in the end, of which I am somewhat proud. PCP was completely alien to me - I only know it as the name of a psychoactive drug. What is it short for? I suppose it's the American equivalent of the Polish "lekarz POZ", which translates as "basic healthcare doctor". I hate initialisms because if you haven't learned what they stand for, most of the time they are impossible to understand. Polish has very few of them, and when they do become common, like POZ, they always annoy me. Language should make communication easier, not harder, and brevity should never be more important than making things clear even to those not in the know. I didn't know AMMAN was called Philadelphia millennia ago but I liked the clue. It made me think. Obviously the Hellenistic name pointed to a city in Alexander the Great's and his successors' domain that is a current capital, which narrowed things down. The first cross or two made it obvious it would be Amman.
@Andrzej A PCP is a Primary Care Provider, a main point-of-contact for medical care. Mine happens to be a Nurse Practitioner rather than a physician.
@Andrzej PCP (as used in this puzzle) also new to me.
@Andrzej I was intrigued by your assertion that Polish has very few of them, so i went looking. I found a list and quickly backed away like Homer in the hedge. First one i looked up was KM, which apparently means horsepower in Polish! Very confusing for foreigners renting a car in Warsaw! <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Polish_initialisms" target="_blank">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Polish_initialisms</a>
PLEASE GET RID OF THE BLACK BOX SURROUNDING THE HIGHLIGHTED SQUARE!! Yes, yelling in frustration. It partly obscures the adjacent letters! It totally detracts from the flow of doing the puzzle. It is senseless; the highlight is *plenty*. I've sent multiple comments. The box is still there. Please please make it go away!
@Smith YES! NYT, why even make that change? And then, after realizing it was a mistake, why don't you just revert to the previous version? Is everyone just total asleep at the wheel?
@Smith Everyone having this issue should contact NYTgames@nytimes com (tech support) and cc <a href="mailto:Crosswordeditors@nytimes.com">Crosswordeditors@nytimes.com</a> for good measure. And tell them what platform you use. Posting here will not necessarily bring it to the attention of those that might have the ability to solve the problem.
@Smith Mine disappears if I tap in the white space around the grid. Every. Time.
Nice puzzle, but to me stew goes *in* a ladle.
@Elbridge Gerry Yes, and "Stew in it!" would have worked just as well.
@Elbridge Gerry Agreed. Not a good clue.
Elbridge Gerry, Agreed! But then I figured it was referring to the “Acme Toppling Ladel” that I own, which always falls into the pot, and gets stew all over it. So fair clue, I guess…
@Elbridge Gerry When you ladle a bowlful of stew you set the ladle aside. Its still got some stew on it. I guess...
If you want to display your digital maps using a different projection, there is always the Amercator Projection. It preserves area, but occasionally distorts names… A very enjoyable Friday puzzle! Only exploded when it was supposed to!
The Door – that answer you get that breaks things open, where your brow is knit in struggle to find an opening anywhere, then you suddenly flash on an answer that was eluding you, and from there, new answers spread, sometimes pop-pop-pop, and soon after, you’re looking at a completed grid, and you’re thinking, “What just happened?” From still to thrill. As usual for Rafael, this puzzle was top flight: I KID YOU NOT, GAME THE SYSTEM, THAT REMINDS ME, BE RIGHT BACK, BANAL, AVERSE, CATCHY, GAPE, CUDDLE. [National company known for its duds], for ACME. [Focus for the foul-mouthed?] for ORAL HEALTH. Hardly a hint of junk despite the full house of excellent answers. An uber-flowy grid design. Humor and variety. I saw that bell on the desk. I was fooled into thinking “skiing” for [Olympic slalom equipment]. I pictured Wile E. Coyote pressing down the TNT plunge detonator. Some constructors are simply top flight every. Single. Time. Thank you for a splendid outing, Rafael.
@Lewis. I had “gates “ in for the slalom clue for the longest time, thinking of the skiing slalom course…
I bet Philadelphia Phillies baseball cards from nearly two millennia ago are extremely rare and valuable. Back when the World Series really was worldwide.
@ad absurdum Well, but they were called the Amm9nites back then. Cool tentacled mascot.
Here's an analogy. "This puzzle is to words as CATCHY is to melody." Enjoyable enough, chatty and playful enough, that I was sorry when it was over. The first thing it did was incite curiosity -- one of my favorite occurrences. As a one-time Editor of The Mystery Guild, I had no idea what word the whodunit where the butler did it would be. Looked at it one way, it could be predictable, a snooze, a cliche. OTOH, it could be ironic, jokey, even a double twist. (The movie "Murder By Death" makes it an inside joke; Agatha would have made it a double twist ending.) I would have seen BANAL earlier, but I was stymied by initially having BASE instead of GEAR at 10A. Two questions: Don't slalom races take place on snow, whereas CANOE events take place on water? I don't really get 1A. And I sort of don't get the ORAL HEALTH wordplay (15D). The ORAL, yes, but the HEALTH, no. Doesn't matter. The fill is colorful and the cluing is playful and imaginative and I had a very good time.
Nancy, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoe_slalom" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoe_slalom</a>
@Nancy If your mouth is fouled up, like if you have bad breath or rotting teeth, you need to focus on your ORAL HEALTH.
@Nancy "Murder by Death" was such a good movie, but probably not so much for those unfamiliar with the detectives being parodied. I was actually thinking of "A Shot in the Dark," where the butler gets murdered, until I remembered that it was the chauffeur. I can't recall a single mystery where the butler actually did it.
Reading Elena Ferrante’s third Neapolitan book as we speak. Nino turning into his dad.
@Bill I couldn't make myself read the rest after the first novel. A lot of what was implied (and obvious, I guess, to an Italian reader) was lost to me, and it was difficult to understand what emotions were being described/ascribed/felt. Ultimately, it was just opaque and boring for me as a reader.
Rafael, you know how to a-Musa recalcitrant batch of solvers (at least, for the most part) avec les catchy clues. CAVA rings a welcome bell that reminds me of happy times in Madrid. An alternate clue for 57A could have been "A humbling dessert" = ENEMYS' PIES, but the one you used was just fine. Thank you, and come back soon. We'll be waiting
@dutchiris Be careful where you stick that apostrophe, pilgrim!
@dutchiris Point taken. Now had I spelled it in the plural it would have been just fine, but alas, I did not.
I hardly ever finish a Friday but I got this one in 27m, which is good for me! I feel like I’m finally getting a grip on the longer answers like ENEMYSPIES and THATREMINDSME. They’re certainly tougher than the shorter ones, but that makes it all the more satisfying to get them. Had lots of fun with this!
@Alex Doesn't ENEMYS PIES sound like things you get hit with in a fight with a clown?
Nice speedy puzzle and amazingly not outdated by the publishing delay! lol GARAGEBAND and TINDERDATE. And everyone playing Spelling Bee knows CELLI, so no worries there.
At one time, I was convinced that the only way to do a crossword was to know every minor river on every continent. Now, it seems the way to do a crossword is to know absolutely everything there is to know about Taylor Swift...lyrics, nicknames, tour names... I thought this was a pretty demanding puzzle. Almost nothing came cheaply, and I bounced around the various sections of the puzzle several times before I got any of them completed. In fact, I'm still not sure what [Stew on it!] has to do with LADLE, other than the easiest way to get stew from one place to another is with a ladle. Nor can I fathom how the hull one maneuvers a CANOE on a ski slope. I had to backpaddle on 1A several times before I finally fathomed it.
@Francis My wife and I enjoy watching sports together. Our favorites are climbing, track and field, and figure skating. However, we occasionally discover something new. During the Paris Olympics we chanced upon canoe slalom. It was absolutely amazing! The races are over quickly, so one is never bored, and the agility and strength of the athletes are impressive. Sadly, it's almost impossible to watch it on a regular basis in Poland, as no outlet we have access to seems to show the canoe slalom world cup 😢
@Francis I hear you about the stew clue. Maybe we're missing something but it seems the weakest in the batch. Stew IN it, maybe, and even that's not very good...
@Francis You don't really have to know the Taylor Swift lyric. I probably know more Taylor Swift songs than most people my age, but I didn't know the lyric. You can figure it out easily by context. And certainly by the crosses. (Also, at one time, what you said about the minor rivers was absolutely true. Newer solvers have no idea how obscure things were in the time of Maleska.)
ANTHILL and BEEHIVE both fit in there perfectly well... ASK POLITELrats Invasive plants? Hoo, boy! How long have you got? I carried a "start" from my Ohio neighbor's Obedient Plant (a mannerly 12-18") to my Arkansas flowerbeds...where it became a six-foot juggernaut, ruthlessly spreading vigorously. The ultimate remedy was moving away.... The tricky clues were fun. Great Saturday puzzle... although "Ganja" sounds like an adjective meaning "Really big." Tsk
@Mean Old Lady LOLed at the ultimate remedy.
Awesome themeless Wednesday puzzle
@Captain Quahog never gets old, hey?
One of my most satisfying solves! 3 Fridays in a row which is probably a first for me. I’ve been doing these on and off for years, but only really started getting the hang of it lately. I love the feeling of staring at a mostly blank grid and having the confidence that I can figure it out rather than just surrendering too quickly.
IMO pitched just right for a Friday. No gimmes - well OK a long dead neuron twitched for Mary Jane; and Saigon of course but little apart from that.
Very fine Friday challenge, especially that NW quadrant. There's slalom CANOE now? I thought it was called whitewater. I can usually judge a puzzle's difficulty by whether I can get 1A right off the jump, and that one was a doozy. Then the Spanish sparkling wine. Ay caramba! But here's my CATCHY earworm, courtesy of The Clash: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpapNzYkxNE" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpapNzYkxNE</a>
I may need to credit Taylor Swift for today’s poem… ‘cause it loves me a/ like a cat speaking to a cat in “cat” that is d/ what’s known as “that” the way you say a/ yes yes you nest… me lap yes yes be right back
I think this was a PERFECT Friday puzzle. Took several passes through, gaining squares slowly and methodically. Clever cluing and answers, not getting "too" cute. 1A threw me early (thought POLES for sure)...
Struggled just enough. Lower right had me stumped for a while. I kept thinking PDF for go-to doc.
This was a nicely seasoned easened.
I found this pretty simple but not obviously burdened by the fickle finger of easening. (Though it seems even Musa is not immune to meddling). XWStats users say Average at the moment, so yeah. As is often with longer answers/spanners, those came almost too quickly but were interesting. I admit that both the upper left and lower right gave me pause and crunch, with the upper left more frightening. I will say that "enemy spies" feels just a little forced to me. In all I enjoyed this puzzle and look forward to more.
I kid you not, the NW corner was tough!
@Jeff P. Embarrassed to say, it was the second Freudian stage that… unconstricted it for me. That was the avalanche starter that cracked the NW for me.
Weird. I went from stumped to solved in pretty short order; I've never had such a bad first pass fall into place so quickly. A sign of skillful authorship, I would say.
dINnERDATE got me confused for far too long.
@Sebastian Agree. Surely the app doesn't set up the date for you. Don't the matched pair have to communicate with each other? BTW isn't the recommended first date something lower key than dinner? Used to be? Am I out of touch? Not that I've ever used a dating app and don't expect to even if i were ever widowed. Firm believer in meet at some activity so you know you have that in common.
It's interesting to see that this is a puzzle that seems to be universally liked by the commenters. There is more unanimity than I think I've seen before. There seem to be a very few people who feel that the puzzle was a little too easy. But as much as a unanimous winner as I've ever noticed in my about-a-year doing puzzles. I like the cleverness of the answers and the AHA nature of it. As a newbie, I have to admit that I did need some lookups, (especially as I worked on it n the middle of he night).
@lucky13 I liked it AND it was too easy, certainly too easy for a Friday...
"Cava" seemed to bedevil some folks, but most happily a number of us have imbibed it. It's a fine, economical choice (as are many Spanish wines) if your local liquor store carries it.
Still doing this puzzle, but came here to complain that when I click on a square, its border is boldened -- and this was appropriate for the Scrabble themed puzzle yesterday but was clearly not turned off for today's puzzle by whatever genius the Games people hire to do those things. Techies, I hear Doge is looking for people like you! OK, back to the puzzle. Maybe I can turn off overlays or toggle something that'll take care of the problem. Or have they been emboldened all along and I just became aware of this? Is this all a dream?
@john ezra I've been getting a different weird visual effect since yesterday. I see a vertical blue line starting with the right edge of the active square and going all the way up to the top. It's extremely distracting because of course it moves as one moves to a different square.
@john ezra I don’t think it was just for the Scrabble puzzle people have been complaining about it for a few days. Hasn’t happened to me on my IPhone.
@john ezra It's a coincidence that this started the day of a Scrabble-themed puzzle. I encourage anyone who dislikes this new feature to e-mail <a href="mailto:nytgames@nytimes.com">nytgames@nytimes.com</a>
@john ezra Yeah not keen on the last six months of programming. So many changes that were for the worse, plus every week or so my iPad gets super hot when the crossword is active. I'm sure there are things going on behind the scenes that warrant some of this, but I wish they would just stop monkeying with it. "They" might be the OS programmers, though, which is out of the hands of NYT staff.
@john ezra I haven't encountered either the bold box you're talking about or the blue line others mention, but I've noticed a different little annoyance. The puzzles appear to drop at 10:00, as usual, on the main Games page, but when I click on the Mini, which I normally do first, the old puzzle is still there. Ditto when I click on the Midi. If I click on the main puzzle, the new puzzle is there. The other two drop at 10:01, so if I want to go in y usual order, I just have to twiddle my thumbs for a minute. This has been happening for a week or two. For so long, they had fixed the problem of puzzles not dropping when they were supposed to, which was common a few years ago. Now, someone wrote some bad code, and we have this. I know, first world problems.
@john ezra For me (on an Android phone, no app) it appears as a yellow/orange highlight box around the (already yellow) selected square. Very annoying because it obscures the letter entered in the box above. PROTIP!: I found I can make it disappear by tapping any white space surrounding the puzzle grid. I have to this every time, but it's a good temporary workaround until the bugfeature is eventually 86ed.
rock solid puzzle pun intended - reference to ACME is so timely as well. the film about poor Wiley Coyete's failed purchases is in theaters. thanks Rafael this is why we love to solve crosswords!
Perfect Friday. Very little on the first pass. Got a handful of gimmes and it fell like a house of cards.
I don't like the new yellow square. It blocks parts of the other letters, making it hard to see the entire word. Please get rid of it.
@Margo We're just a bunch of solvers. Address your complaint to the address at the top of the comments. (Not all of us are seeing what you're seeing.)
@Margo the ring around each square is called a focus state and helpful for digital accessibility reasons. I’m sure in time it will grow on you! If not, it’s probably not going away, as I’d hazard it was added to better meet accessibility standards. <a href="https://www.a11y-collective.com/blog/focus-indicator" target="_blank">https://www.a11y-collective.com/blog/focus-indicator</a>/
@Margo Try tapping in the white space surrounding the grid. Makes my annoying highlight box disappear. But I have to do it every time.
A proper crossword, hooray! Apart from the supermodel - I don't know any models, super or not, some great clues, like BANAL, the plants, loopholes. the bands. Very nice.
Nice Friday puzzle. Good workout, but... just got stuck in a couple of places and couldn't quite work it all out. Apparently that's just me. No big deal. Anyway... puzzle find today. A Sunday from April 18, 2010 by Randolph Ross with the title: "Whats-its." Some theme clue and answer examples (and the clues all had an asterisk at the beginning): "Uncle" - SAYIT "Your tongue" - BITEIT "An idea" - COMETOTHINKOFIT "The picture" - GETIT "Crow" - EATIT "The light" - SEEIT "Face" - LOSEIT "The point" - STICKTOIT "A deck of cards" - DEALWITHIT "The aisles" - ROLLINGINIT "Lunch" - BROWNBAGIT "An abacus" - COUNTONIT "Snuff" - NOTUPTOIT And there were more. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/18/2010&h=23a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/18/2010&h=23a</a> ...
Thank you, Rafa, for a fun, fine Friday grid!! I hope we won't need to wait too long for your next one!😊
Fun puzzle, fun column, thanks again for both!