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@Francisco “panini” is the loan word in English. We use the plural as a singular, and often as a plural too, but it is common to pluralize it as “paninis” as well.
I don’t want to say this was a bad puzzle, just not a Tuesday puzzle (in my opinion!) Many of us (myself included) only stick to Mondays and Tuesdays, sometimes Wednesdays, because we do not enjoy filling a grid of clues that have either multiple levels of abstraction or require very specific knowledge (author/artist names, foreign language, etc) that you cannot figure out without explicitly knowing them. I think whoever approved this for a Tuesday did this debut dirty! If this was Wednesday or Thursday, a lot less people would be complaining!
@O. Sharp I’ve always felt like it depends on context. Using HOT MINUTE in a future tense means a short time, but past tense it means a long time (probably because of sarcasm/irony). So saying “I’ll be there in a hot minute” means “arriving soon”, but saying “I haven’t done that in a hot minute” means “it’s been a long time”. That’s how I’ve always used it
As someone who sticks to Mondays and Tuesdays mainly, this was a solid puzzle! Right on par and fun to solve. Only difficult point for me is that there are two prominent Stephen’s with 3-letter last names in “V for Vendetta”! I had the wrong one and it left me confused for quite a bit!
@alan as someone who has come to terms with rebus puzzles, your comment here is so disrespectful. I will tolerate rebuses as long as they make sense for both crossings, but bi-directional rebuses simply defeat the main conceit of a CROSS word puzzle. If the letters inside the rebus don’t have to match both words, then the constructor doesn’t even need to try with where the two words/phrases line up. It’s not only lazy to do, it’s also disingenuous to the whole point of crosswords. So, no, it’s not “bruised little egos”, it’s genuine and valid frustration that the constructor and publisher have put out a puzzle that doesn’t even follow its own main mechanic. Also, in the future, be more respectful of those who are still learning or who have different opinions about these games. These comment sections are supposed to be respectful and supportive. Belittling people who are venting and/or inexperienced with this frustrating advanced aspect of the game is both a terrible way to treat people and a showcase of your own inflated ego. Please do better when interacting with fellow players.
@John I threw myself for a loop because I immediately put “milk” and was so stubborn about changing it lol
@KK as a high school teacher of almost 10 years in the US, grade inflation is terrible. Pressure from school districts, post-secondary admissions, and parents have the kids stressed out more than ever if they don’t have A’s in everything
@Andrzej even as an American, I can tell you that baseball terminology always messes me up when reading it as well! As for ERG, that’s definitely because it’s a grid-friendly word with an E in it. Very few people find ways to force it into a somewhat regular use in their lives, but it’s easily a word you can go an entire lifetime never hearing or using
@Bill emo is a music genre, goth is not. They have similar aesthetics and some overlap, but emo is more about embracing dark/raw/somber emotions while being goth has to do more with the occult and/or wiccan/pagan ideologies. All of those things can look similar to people who didn’t grow up rebellious to normal societal views! But trust me, as an emo kid from the 90’s, I can tell you I’ve definitely never been goth.
**SPOILERS** proceed with caution: ________________________________ A bit peeved by the identity of some of these clues. 1) VAMP is not, itself, improvisation. It’s supposed to be the consistent piece that allows improvising to happen around it. 2) I had to Google search “glitterati” and literally the top result is the Word Tips page for today’s crossword using it as a clue. This clue word does not seem like a rather common or popular word, so it just feels very out of place to me for a Monday puzzle.
The plurals of Japanese loan words are the same as their singular form. You do not add an “s” to sushi, kimono, obi, torii, tatami, etc. when pluralizing them. Japanese nouns are all innately uncountable, and you have to add context. We already do this in English with words like “fish” or “them”, saying “I saw thems” is not really understandable without context, so we say “I saw all of them” or “I saw many of them”. I understand it’s hard to use those words as plurals when the crossword clues demand (on Mondays, at least) that the plural is obvious, but it’s not right to just make up pluralizations that do not exist
Completing a Saturday puzzle is usually daunting for me, so I was happy that the clues seemed to click more than usual with this one! However, I’ve got two gripes about some clues: 1) Isn’t “Frog Sticks” an offensive term? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but even despite my general dislike of the French language and how often French words and clues appear in the NYT crosswords, derogatory terms never have a place in these puzzles. 2) For the life of me, I do not understand how “Save Me!” solves to LAST DANCE. Can someone please be kind enough to explain that to me?
@Neil horrifyingly long?? I got 38:38 today and was 9min faster than average. Not sure what you’re comparing your time to, but seems like you might be being too harsh on yourself! I think you’re right on your first point, was easier for a Sunday; for that second point, if you were faster than your own average then there’s nothing “horrifying” about that time!
@V “Gaia” is the much more common (and closer to Greek) spelling. Personally, I have only ever encountered GAEA in British literature because they just love retaining Romanized spellings of words
@Matt thank you! Can’t believe I had forgotten all about this song, it’s been years!
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