Hardroch
Low Country
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Low Country
Most readers here may be aware of this, but for the few who may not, an interesting factoid. MIT traditionally sends out its undergrad admission letters on Pi Day. Often, the letters are released at 6:28 PM, known as “Tau Time” (Pi x 2). An exception was made on March 14, 2015 (“Super Pi Day”) as that date reflected the value to five decimal places (3.1415). The letters were sent out at 9:26 AM, the next three digits. I’ll see myself out….
Hopefully,,I’ll be the first to comment on the Tuesday puzzle, almost 12 hours before the puzzle is set to drop. Seems this is a tough week for the wordplay column, but that seems to be a pretty regular occurrence in these parts. I can’t really comment on the puzzle yet, but will just add my thoughts in support of Lewis and his Asheville friends and neighbors, we all have you in our prayers.
@Nancy Thank you, thank you Nancy, for passing this on….so many of us are so relieved. Hang in there Lewis! — — — — — — — — — —
Okay, okay this may be a little stupid. I still get a chuckle out of this solar eclipse Oreo demonstration. Look, you can only post this so often. Today’s the day… I’ll see myself out… <a href="https://tinyurl.com/4rsn9u3k" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/4rsn9u3k</a> — — — — — — — —
@Fact Boy I just have to say, I’m continually amazed at the information that you share with us. No opinions, no snark, just the facts without added commentary. When I see your handle, I just perk up, as I know my day will be elevated. I am just amazed at the depth and breadth of your knowledge. Thank you for your service! — — — — — — — —
@Steve L I very much appreciate the concept you have identified and given a name to, the TCS. I have several times used the expression in my comments. In this case I don’t think the OP was being hyper-critical of the clue/answer, but rather pointing out a technicality that is likely new to many of our readers—it certainly was unknown to me. I learn a lot from experts who write in like this and I hope no one discourages them from doing so in the future. I think all those Reader’s Picks reflect that many of us learned something today from the OP, not that we enjoy being critical of the puzzle.
@David Connell I’m sure I’m not alone in much appreciating you being able to share your profound memory from some 22 years ago. The Seven Blessings will not ever be the same for me , and I suspect for others in our family here. Thank you for sharing this story….
@Eva H. I don’t in any way intend to be hypercritical, but with the crowd you know you are dealing with here, I don’t understand why you would make a post like that without doing 30 seconds of research. If you didn’t see Steve L’s post from hours ago on this, ok, not everyone has the time to read all the posts. But if I were to challenge a clue/answer in the NYT highly edited xword, I would spend the effort to make sure that I was correct on my personal opinion of any entries. Just say’in. (Excuse me BA.)
@HeathieJ I think that’s actually a pretty funny story, thanks for sharing it. I’m sure you and I are not alone here as those who let xwords really permeate our lives. How often do my daily conversations with my partner begin with, “Well, in the puzzle today”….more often than not…
@Fact Boy I was a neuroscience major in college back in the seventies and I”ll never forget the neurobiology lab where we performed measurements of action potentials in the tails of lobsters. To the shock of many (and to some, delight), at the end of the lab the professor steamed our subjects and served them up with melted butter. 🦞
I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen more discussion of 57A DSHARP. When I see these musical note entries they usually are clued in the form of “Note equivalent to E flat” or “The key of Haydn’s Symphony No. 46”. Even a non musician would recognize that with six spaces, unless some symbol or multi letter rebus is involved, it has to be __SHARP. The beauty of this clue is that the key of B major has 5 sharps to choose from. (To be honest, I didn’t know this off the top of my head like many of our readers I’m sure do. But I took piano lessons and I know how to play that scale, so I just did it in my head.) The options are F C G D A (remember Fast Cars Go Dangerously Around Every Bend). For this same answer the constructor could have made it easier by cluing E Major(4 sharps) or harder (F# with 6 or C# with 7). FWIW, DSHARP has only been clued to a major key twice before, both times in 2017, once to the key of B Major and once to E Major. For completeness, when B Major has appeared in the clue ( like today) , twice the answer was DSHARP and 4 times ASHARP. Very nice clue!
I hardly ever do the puzzles at night, but I made an exception today and did it early. I really enjoyed the puzzle and for me it was the right balance of “I’m never gonna figure out this one” to “hey, I actually did it”. I must say that Deb’s comments were really exceptional, especially her ponzu recipe. Also, to get a constructor about to attend Harvey Mudd just a day after having that entry in the puzzle is pretty special. Finally, I wanted to touch base early as there was a very late comment yesterday from Alena from California. She commented that yesterday was the first time she had been able to complete a rebus puzzle and she was so thrilled. EH from Austin welcomed her to the “dark side”. I had previously commented that yesterday could have been the perfect chance for Joel to offer a Wednesday rebus to help attract newer solvers to warm up to the idea. I offer the example of the rebus puzzle of Wednesday 3/4/2009, which was remarkably similar to yesterdays’. Please take a look at the thread Alena started, including a response from Deb: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/3vc318?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/3vc318?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
When I opened the puzzle this morning, the first thing when I saw all the circles was to think, oh boy, Nancy from NY is gonna really hate this puzzle. I’ll bet that thought entered a few other peoples’ minds…. — — — — — — — — — — — —
I don’t think anyone has pointed this out yet, I apologize if it has. The clue for BARMENU is really nice although it is essentially the same as a clue used 8/19/2022 (The drinks are on me !) The beauty of it is that there are no quotation marks used in the clue. On numerous occasions when quotation marks have been used it indicates the answer will be another phrase that means the same thing. Like “I’ve got this”, “It’s on me!”, or “I’ll get this one” which have all been used to clue for MYTREAT. The absence of quotes is key here. I know this is obvious to any experienced solver, but I was a little surprised that Caitlin didn’t take advantage of a teaching moment for novices.
I recently did a puzzle from the archives that clued APU as, “‘The Simpsons’ character who claims he can recite pi to 40,000 places.” (9/29/2017 by Damon Gulczynski.) Apu is a naturalized U.S. citizen who holds a Ph.D. in computer science. He graduated first in his class of seven million from “Caltech” (Calcutta Technical Institute) before going on to get his doctorate at Springfield Heights Institute of Technology. In the May 6, 1993 episode”Marge in Chains”, Marge is arrested for shoplifting some liquor from the Kwik-E-Mart. During the trial, Marge’s lawyer questions the reliability of the store’s proprietor (Apu). On the stand, he says he has perfect memory and that the 40,000th digit of pi is “1”. Check out this link for the back story of “Pi in the Simpsons”: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/4r67bj53" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/4r67bj53</a>
@RDB Ok, to save Steve L from having once again to explain the Tamale Trap, let me try a different approach. The name for this “dish” does not come from a Spanish term. “ The tamale, for those who don't know, is a dish of steamed corn dough, which has been popular in the Americas for thousands of years (and still is today). In Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) it is called tamalli, pronounced almost exactly the same as in English. (tamalli means "something wrapped", as the dish is usually steamed wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaves, depending on the region). The Spanish borrowed it into their own language slightly mutated as tamal, which by normal Spanish pluralization rules is tamales. It is still known by this name by Spanish-speakers today. English-speakers used their own pluralization rules, different from those of Spanish, to assume that since the plural is tamales, the singular must be tamale, mutating the word again. By doing so, they recovered the original pronunciation, purely by accident.” There, tamale is closer to the original Aztec term than that in modern Spanish. See: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/kupx4tbf" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/kupx4tbf</a>
@ESB Ok, I get it. I’m impressed you figured that out. I’m hardly ever negative, but IMHO that is a very stupid clue. — — — — — — —
@Cat Lady Margaret FYI, I had to look into this ice cream truck jingle one. There is a company called Nichol’s Electronics which claims to be the “leading manufacturer of electronic music boxes for ice cream trucks since 1957”. That covers my ice cream truck experience. They list the (playable!) top 8 songs and guess what is number one? (Other sources cite “Turkey in the Straw”. I challenge anyone not to follow this link. The company is just going to freak out Monday morning when they see their visits! <a href="https://tinyurl.com/2wj4vru7" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/2wj4vru7</a>
I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed that just two days after we had the debut entry, the “Harvard of the Midwest” ( at least that’s what one comment alleged) we have, a constructor starting college there. I visited the place when my youngest was making the rounds, it’s a very impressive school. I hope Rena has a great experience there!
Well, I’ll certainly be interested to see what comments appear in re 88A. This was a gimme for me only because in the mid 70’s, when I was in college in Amherst, MA, the local movie theater had an early screening of “Supervixens” in which Russ Meyer personally attended and gave a brief speech. Mind you, I was in my early 20’s and walked to the theater with some fraternity brothers from our house two blocks away (this was before the school admitted 25A and later banned fraternities). Hey, the film was a bit of a classic and was referred to in Springsteen’s “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love”. Not proud of all this, but just honest…
A digression for sure, but I think worth sharing. I had a 62A experience yesterday. Early in the day I was reading about the Five Nations hockey final that is to be played tonight between Canada and the U.S. (see what I did there?). There was an article about this fellow Matthew Tkachuk which pointed out that he had achieved a “ Gordie Howe hat trick” in the past. Being unfamiliar with this expression, I looked it up….cute. Last night on Jeopardy it appeared as a clue! Pretty funny….
@dk “Sorry, we don’t serve string here.” He walks out, messes up his hair, ties himself in a loop. Goes back in bar. “Hey, aren’t you a string?” “Nope, I’m a frayed not!”
@Boaz Moser I really don’t get why the editors felt it necessary to change your cute clue there. It would have brought a slight smile to many, I think, and the new clue not at all. — — — — — — — —
Loved the constructor’s video Valentines greeting. As Deb mentioned, Sarah has previously sent some great photos to liven up her constructor’s notes. It’s worth going back to remind yourself of some of these…..pizza chef, Halloween theme. And her spelling bee knit hats and crossword top in today’s video. Class act!
@Darren I understand that not everybody has the interest, nor the free time, to read all the previous comments. But how do you think it looks to many of us (who do pay some attention to this forum) for someone to show up so late and seemingly not read ANY of the previous comments, including that from Mike from McMurdo just a couple of hours ago. Just say’n. Dumb.
@john ezra Excellent, JE. Thanks for this post. Your Lewis observation is spot on. I always knew there was something very unusual and special going on there, but until your post I had’t quite put my finger on it. You described it to a T. — — — —
@HeathieJ I’ m glad you brought up the emu non-believer comments which we see from time to time. A couple of weeks ago I posted about the appearance of a decent length comment of mine which eventually appeared four days later. Please let us know if your original comment posts. As I’ve said before, those who cannot tolerate a few extra lines on a crossword forum post should get it that they are suffering with a real first world problem (unlike today’s theme which is a real whole world problem).
Ii just started the puzzle, but I have to stop and regroup. I’m not looking for anything by posting this early except to say that anyone not familiar with the history and family background of 2D should take a moment to look her up. Storrs was my childhood hometown, so I have long been moved by her incredible story. If anyone doesn’t know what I’m referring to, just spend a moment and look it up. Back to the puzzle….
@Alan Young With all due respect to Steve L, it seems you may have fallen into the Tamale Trap. This is an English language puzzle, not in แบบไทย. We run across this all the time. — — — — — — — — — — — —
I’m a little surprised I didn’t see more comments today about 38A, UMA. This entry has appeared more than 180 times in N.Y. T. xwords, virtually always in reference to the actress. I believe the last time it was clued otherwise was on 2/15/2009, when the clue was, “Fox News anchor Pemmaraju”. Prior to that you have to go back to 3/21/1993 when the clue was, “Fringefoot”, a type of lizard (also clued like that 10 times previously throughout the 70’s and as far back as 1967). Between 1942 and 1953 it was clued 5 times as today to the Hindu goddess. The first time the actress was the clue was 5/2/1990, “Actress Thurman of ‘Dangerous Liasons’”. a movie made in 1988 when she was just 18 years old. Of note, she appeared on the covers of British “Vogue” when even younger in 1985 and 1986. It anyone wonders about the connection between the actress’s name and today’s clue I suspect it has to do with her father Robert, who was a former Tibetan Buddhist monk and my professor of Eastern Religions at Amherst when I was a Freshman there in the 70’s. (Her mother was Timothy Leary’s ex-wife). I long time ago I linked this article from the NYT about their family, but if anyone missed it last time, it’s worth a quick peek… <a href="https://tinyurl.com/4f2aejbe" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/4f2aejbe</a>
@Greg Mills As soon as I got to comment #2 from AussieBird I realized that I have little faith in this quiz. Many regular commenters “pad” their entries to avoid delay in publication and IMHO it works. More than that, however, I’ve not personally experienced, nor have I heard anyone complain, that a comment was rejected because of such padding. I understand that this situation may represent a bit of an embarrassment, but I do not believe posting quiz example #2 is an effective way to approach the issue.
@Min Great story! It reminds me of a short film I saw years ago. It depicts a crude looking woman with her hair in curlers, cocktail glass in hand, cigarette dangling from lips. She is in her small trailer park home watching Jeopardy on a small B&W TV. She continually yells out the correct answers to the most difficult questions (actually answers, I guess). This continues for some time and you (the audience) is just amazed at her depth and breadth of knowledge. Then suddenly she reaches forward and hits “ Rewind” on the VCR and starts yelling out the answers to the same questions again. Priceless. I’ve never been able to find that short film again no matter what I Google. Maybe someone else can….
Thanks for sharing that thoughtful piece with us , Deb. I echo the support from our community here in expressing sorrow for your loss. I’m so pleased to see you back in the saddle here, it’s been awhile and I missed you. As for today, I struggled a bit with BRUH vs. BRaH vs. BRoH , but first went with the ‘a’ , figuring baCKS might be seeking goals, as in football running backs. Guess not…
@Stephen I completely agree with you here. Being a Sunday, they might have been able to go either way on the circles for the rebus squares. The fact that they didn’t made it so much more fun for me to solve.
@Katie Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.
@Alan Parker I hate to repost, but if you have ever been a golfer you need a better appreciation of the historically very significant one iron: “A few people have brought up the one iron and Lee Traveno’s humorous quote about how hard that club is to hit. I feel obligated to bring up the iconic photo of Ben Hogan hitting a one iron on the 18th hole to win the 1950 US Open at Marion (Ardmore, PA). I link the photo below, as well as a fascinating article about the back story which I’ll bet a lot of even die-hard golfers are not aware of. The famous photograph: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/mv6daf2m" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/mv6daf2m</a> Some backstory: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2p9javy6" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/2p9javy6</a> @Hardroch For those who may not be interested in following the link, let me point out that you are only allowed to carry 14 clubs (inclusive of the putter) in your bag. When I played golf, probably my most used club was the seven iron. When Hogan opted to carry a one iron and was asked why he chose not to carry a seven iron, his (Berra-like comment) was, “Because there are no 7-iron shots at Marion.” For me, priceless.
@Cathy Parrish I’m not a PCP, but rather I spent my whole career practicing anesthesiology. If you take the clue word “shot” to be synonymous with “injection” (it is listed as a primary synonym in M-W when you look up the latter) the clue is valid. I know there have been multiple complaints from nurses about this clue today, but as someone who very rarely gave intramuscular injections, it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m not saying that using “shot” instead of “dose” was the most common thing in the wild, but if it was said I would certainly know what they meant.
A quick comment related to yesterday’s forum, but I thought as a PSA it would get more views posting today. Yesterday PuzzleDog made a recommendation of a Saturday themed puzzle from 6/6/2015 that resulted in 9 replies, all quite favorable. I started it late yesterday, worked on it on and off. After an hour I turned on Autocheck and finally finished 20 minutes over my Sat average. It’s a pretty remarkable puzzle, worth taking a look if anyone has some free time today.
Hey CQ: “What would you get if you genetically crossed a rabbit and an oyster?”"……… “Your funding taken away and a call from the ethics committee.” I’ll show myself out….
@Alex To add to BL’s response, this is a puzzle appearing in a U.S. newspaper. I would venture to say that, if questioned, the vast majority of people here would be hard pressed to mention the name of any Ecuadorian city OTHER than Quito. The clue was not, I think, meant to be generalizable to South Americans. — — — — — — — —
@Mean Old Lady Ah yes, the Sunday “funny papers” in color, I would fight with my two brothers over those every week. We also had on Sunday “Parade Magazine” , in color as well. Now I see that Parade was once the most widely read magazine in the U.S. I guess it is no longer around, except as some kind of website with a newsletter. Thanks for the memory!
@Hannah We’ve been through this EPI thing before, and I think we can all agree (as BA has already pointed out) that while it is quite unlikely for medical professionals to use this term to refer to epidural anesthetics, there certainly are some (or at least one) lay person(s) who do(es) use it this way. The last appearance in the NYT xword was 7/29/2023 , by none other than Sam Ezersky , 33A [Delivery room offering, informally]. At the time a couple of people wrote in to say they thought it was shorthand for EPIsiotomy…..
Garett’s story really made me shudder a bit as I have spent a lot of time at meetings over the years at the Hilton Midtown. Also, yesterday, I made a brief post in response to Steve L’s comments about “Coney”, regarding the Dutch spelling of a street in a neighborhood in which I used to reside in Wassenaar, South Holland. Andrzej posted a reply which really hit home hard. I think very few of us here in the U.S. can imagine what his people have gone through over the past many, many decades. I used to look at that local plaque at the intersection of Koekoeslaan-Konijnenlaan just about every day. On the other side of the event is a plaque standing at Staveley Road in Chiswick, London. It has its own a wiki page. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/2w983a6h" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/2w983a6h</a>
@Lewis The editors really missed out on a great one-two punch after yesterday’s 14A [Common motifs in high art?] for MARIJUANALEAVES….
I think it was yesterday that Vaer posted about the Ladies and Gentlemen 50 years of SNL Music special. Not sure why I hadn’t heard of this, but I happen to have Peacock and gave it a look. It is really quite remarkable. Not suggesting that people run out to subscribe to this, Vaer mentioned a free trial perhaps. You can see the trailer here. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/3ztsfhah" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/3ztsfhah</a>
@HEK I get it that the older Wade-Giles romanization spelling system has largely been replaced in most of the world with (Hanyu) Pinyin (it seems in Taiwan the former is still widely used, though not officially). However, NYT xworders should be aware that TAO is still much more often the answer to some kind of eastern/Chinese way clue( 297 appearances). DAO has appeared only 31 times, usually clued as a large Philippine tree. Today is the debut use of DAO in reference a “way”, and it was specifically signaled by the reference to Pinyin.
Today marks the 287th appearance of IBIS. The first bird Noah released after the deluge was supposedly an IBIS. It has also been said that the last sign of wildlife before a hurricane, and the first to reappear after, is the IBIS. As I scanned the variety of clues used over the years, I was surprised to see that only once has it been clued to the “University of Miami Mascot” (4/1/2012). The Miami Hurricanes’ mascot is a giant IBIS named Sebastian.(In)famously, Sebastian was tackled and handcuffed by police in 1989 when he attempted to use a fire extinguisher to put out the flaming spearof FSU’s chief Osceola. See: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/pk3m6zrt" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/pk3m6zrt</a>
@Jim I believe you have set a new high bar for emu-deflecting verbosity or space-occupying-“lesions” in wordplay commentary. I hope others will also attempt some limerick-styled add- on lines. Much more entertaining than the usual fare and I’m sure equally as effective. Bravo! — — — — — (That’s an example of a space-occupying lesion.)
@Yogi While TAURINE is not something that most people run across in the wild, those who have studied any biochemistry will recognize it as an amino acid (actually an amino sulfonic acid) that is not a component of proteins. It was first isolated in the early 19th century from ox bile, hence the name.
Not to beat a clay pigeon to death, but once again we’ve got SKEETS being clued as the plural of the targets used in the trap shooting sport of skeet. I guess we all just have to realize that by adding “informally” to the clue, just about any answer is acceptable as long as someone has uttered it once. In the singular, only 3 times out of 117 appearances has it referred to anything but the shooting sport itself (last was 5/7/2002, “Trapshooter’s target”). In the plural (if this is a correct plural) it has appeared 9 times in the pre-Shortz era, never clued to the clay targets themselves. In the Shortz era this has appeared 7 times clued to the clay pigeons, with 5 of these adding the word “informally”. We last beat this clay pigeon to death 12/11/2023.