Divs
UAE
Surprised by the hate for this puzzle! I thought it was a delight Utter confusion at first and then the moment it clicks and then the fun of solving the down entries once you know the trick. I was smiling as it all fell into place and that to me is good puzzle!
That was a lovely Wednesday puzzle! The fact that 'shampoo' comes from Hindi and has Sanskrit roots was a fun lil bit of trivia for me as a desi :) I hadn't made the connection until today!
@Adina I've learnt in these past few months of solving that when there's a LOTR reference in the clues it almost always solves to ORCS so I just put it in blindly 😁
Looks like I'm in the extreme minority today! I'm got Chelsea PERETTI easily once I had the I from ITTY because of being a huge Brooklyn 99 fan (Nine nine!!)-- a proper noun clue i knew for once! And i actually found the theme intuitive as clued... didn't feel backwards to me. I guess it was just a case of being on the same wavelength as the constructor!
Agree that it was harder than usual for a Tuesday but entertaining as well! Loved the clue for OMAN :)
Clearly I watch too much TV, because I had HANNIBAL instead of CANNIBAL for the longest time, and it was only the fact that ACHRA was not an African capital that finally clued me in. Also, good to see WADI on here! I usually struggle with the US-centric geographical trivia, but this was a nice bit closer to home :)
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 :)
That was quite a 'punny' Sunday... the themed answers made me chuckle! TAJ and AGRA stacked one over the other was a nice touch :)
Fun fact for the day! Koreans say 'Amma' and 'Appa' for mother and father, which is the same as in the South Indian language of Tamil (my mother tongue). There are some other surprising parallels between the two languages... I'm not quite sure how that came about! Anyway, that stacking of APPA over DESI in the SW corner felt like a nice little nod to that connection... I don't know if it was deliberate, but it made me smile! :)
Oh thank God everyone found this one challenging. I was quite defeated by it, couldn't get a foothold at all. Like Caitlin said, it was a throwback to when I first started doing Saturday puzzles. Haven't struggled this much in a while. Finally folded and looked up the tough clues in the column. Then clicked on comments thinking that if everyone here was talking about how easy it was, I would just cry 😂😂
As a DESI I wasn't phased by YAMA :) Loved that neat lil GITA and SITAR crossing, not far from WHYOMING! It took me a while to get the theme, and when I did I groaned so loud at some of the puns my husband asked if I was alright 😂😂 Such a fab debut!!
@Barry Ancona Filthy, mucky, soiled, dusty, grimy, slimy, gross, icky, messy, stained, unwashed, grubby DIRTY DOZEN
Today I realised that 3 of the 4 main Seinfeld characters have 6 letter names 😁 Confidently put in Kramer and muddled that corner initially lol. Also very confidently put in Dr. Suess for 62A and stuck with him for an unnecessarily long time 🙄. A bit of a brain fart morning for me with what was a fun, straightforward puzzle overall!!
This was the perfect Friday! Had next to nothing on the first pass and then somehow it all fell into place beautifully. Loved the clueing... As a c-section mama the one for CESAREAN had me laughing out loud! The kid in me did not want to leave. I was in the hospital for two days (I was past due and fluid levels low) while they tried to induce labor. But no, we needed that CESAREAN to bring her out! 😂
@Greg Anderson I agree! I had the rebus too, D/C for the first for instance, so that both down and across answers made sense and the 'inflation' was the D->C indicated in the rebus. Made the most sense to me, rather than having across answers that didn't fit the theme clues. Had to come and read the column before I could get the happy music. Oh well, wouldn't be a Thursday if it wasn't tricky, I guess!
@Andrzej Yes I agree! One of those reveals that had me smiling and shaking my head in wonder at the constructor's ingenuity. And same - as someone who knows nothing about American football, my heart sank when I first saw the clue for the revealer. But I love the fact that I was able to solve it anyway, and that it helped me figure out the themed entries 👏 Finally, also agree on the trivia! Just a wonderful puzzle all around.
I guess I'm in the minority in that I knew the song well. My kid loved it as a toddler... she used to sing it as "24 magic carrots' and I found it so cute that I never corrected her 😊 But i am in the majority in that I struggled mightily with all the proper nouns and naticks in the fill... needed a ridiculous number of look ups to complete that NE corner. So even though the theme revealer made me smile, the fill itself was a bit too much of a slog to be enjoyable for me.
@Laura Yes, it was so funny!! Such a cute puzzle overall
Fell a couple of minutes behind my Tuesday average purely because I spent so long staring at XAXES and wondering what the heck it could mean 😂. I'm with you Sam, don't wanna see it again any time soon! Excellent puzzle... a bit challenging for a Tuesday perhaps? I actually thought it was a Wednesday puzzle while solving. Maybe that was just the XAXES effect though 😂
@AuLaitCru Thank you!! Your comment helped finally finally figure out my error and get the happy music! Kept checking and never looked at that answer somehow.
@Allison Yes, it really was! I had nothing but LAH after the first pass and I was like, uh oh 😂. But then it all somehow fell into place!
@Marshall Walthew Skeleton Costume was my favourite of the long crosses too! Made me smile :)
Absolutely loved this puzzle! Some of the clues made me smile ( DIAPER was a funny one!) And I thought the theme very clever. I picked up on it pretty quick with PELICAN (which was my favourite of the lot!) I did confuse myself for a bit by putting REEVEs instead of REEVE and AUM (as it's often spelt in India) instead of OM, but eventually figured it out.
Struggled a bit with this one. Quite a few proper nouns I wasn't familiar with, and I finally needed a look up to complete it. Tough for a Wednesday! The theme was cute, and the revealer made me smile, but it bothers me that JIGGETY JIG doesn't really fit the pattern. Am I missing something? I mean, 'JIGGETY' isn't a superlative the way BOSS or MODEL or even QUITE A is.
@The Whip Me! One of my very confident early entries... until the CRO Magnon man tipped me off that something was wrong XD Such a fun puzzle! Just the right level of crunch for a Tuesday!
I think I had the most number of corrections ever for a Monday! I managed to make every silly error others have mentioned - pOODLE instead of DOODLE, SNOb for SNOT (yet again!), AND i put in NOvat instead of NOTAX because Eve Paison seemed quite a reasonable name for an athlete and I'd never heard of the SXSW festival so STSW seemed equally weird 😂
@Patti absolutely agree! It was hard to figure out some of the answers while keeping the hidden letters in my head, so I started entering them as a rebus. For the rebus to NOT be accepted as a possible valid answer is, imo, unfair.
@Jamie yes agree! Too many proper nouns that made it more frustrating than it needed to be!
@Spmm Agree! The themed entries made me smile, but the fill was just frustrating. Needed several look ups and finally just gave in and checked the puzzle.
Such a tough but satisfying puzzle. Absolutely loved when the long entries finally fell into place. OPEN MARRIAGES made me chuckle 😊 Can someone explain ALAI for me? Got it from the crosses but I've never heard of this rhyming game!
@Heidi I overthought the revealer and kept looking at SCA and HAI and trying to figure out where the hidden u could fit (IVE GOT YOU COVERED, see?). Then i finished the puzzle and realized, duh, there was no phonetic trick involved! Brain's not braining this morning 😂
Oh that's where this week's Tuesday puzzle went :) No complaints here! Any puzzle featuring cat lady HELLO KITTY is fine with me <3 Also happy to see AYO again, and glad I didn't have to struggle with the spelling her last name this time lol
@Lpr Oh very nice catch! I missed that.
@Rahul Same here! Tamil Nadu was fun to see too for a Chennai-born girl like me :)
@WMY Oh I SEE :) Thank you for the explanation!! Never come across this usage before somehow
@Paul Rickter Yes, I agree! I figured out the theme once I got SPEECH TO TEXT but only PARTY SUB made any kind of sense to me when i re-read the clues. One of the most unsatisfying reveals in ages.
Loved the puzzle! A quick and sweet treat just like KITKATMINIS :) Filling in KABUKI THEATER and TONKATSU after figuring out the theme reminded me of the bag of matcha-flavoured Kitkat minis I picked up during my visit to Japan... I was so sure I'd love them, but somehow they didn't work for me!
That was tough! The trick was cute and i managed to get a few of the themed entries but even having gotten CEDAR from DANCE AROUND didn't help me since I didnt know CLARENCE DARROW. Didn't know ARNOLD PALMERS either. I wish so many of the themed answers weren't proper nouns/trivia related. Gave up at some point and just revealed the final bits. Not my favourite Sunday.
An absolute delight of a puzzle! Has to be one of my favourite Sunday puzzles ever <3
I didn't have a problem with the STUPA - PUTTEES crossing since I was sort of familiar with Stupas and managed to figure out Puttees. The fact that it's derived from the Hindi word for bandages was an interesting bit of trivia I learned today! But i did have trouble with the KAEL - SOLANGE crossing... that was my personal natick! Needed to look both up. That whole section was a mess for me. Didn't help that I'd entered EL dorado confidently lol Overall a tough but fun Saturday! Loved the cluing for TOE SCISSORS and GOOD SPELLERS... made me smile :)
@Jurga Yes ELHI stumped me as well!! Never heard of it before.
@Steve L Oh, I missed that additional layer of meaning too! Makes it much more satisfying. Thank you for that!
I caught on to the rebus right away, with JO(H/A)N CUSACK, having just rewatched Say Anything recently:) But it wasn't until PORE that the P OR E thing clicked. Such a neat, fun theme! But the puzzle was just too quick a solve for a Thursday. It took me longer to finish this week's Monday puzzle, which is crazy!!
Did not know SCABS and had NSa instead of NSC, so was left wondering what SaABS could possibly have with picket lines 😂 Needed to check the column to figure it out finally! But a fairly breezy, fun puzzle otherwise.
@Michael Weiland Hahaha seriously! I couldn't believe i got it wrong yet again. Always get those Es and I swapped
@Jon Same! That corner was tough. Fry had me stuck for a while!
@Diva63 My brain hurt too!! I spent the longest time struggling to get a foothold. Kept suspecting rebuses too 😂 But so satisfying once it clicked! The perfect Thursday.
@Eric I tripped over a hump and a lump before hitting that bump 😆
@B I didn't have trouble with the waves and curls, but I thought the last one was shading too, for the longest time. Couldn't see the lines on my Android phone app. But I thought it was acute theme overall! It made me smile :)