Laura
Upstate NY
31
Comments
0.229
Avg Sentiment
10
Positive
16
Neutral
5
Negative
Upstate NY
In a brief scroll of the comments, I see folks mentioning a lack of Memorial Day-esque answers — other than LEST (as in, lest we forget, perhaps) in the grid. Having come here after seeing some very meaningful posts on Facebook, I think multiple answers could be seen to connect with this day of remembrance. They BLED (1A) at the COST (9A) of their lives, many in ASIA (14A). My husband’s grandmother never forgot the sound of the train whistle taking her only son AWAY (45A) (thankfully, he was not one of the fallen.) Let us never forget those who took up ARMS (60A) serving our country whom we honor today. 🇺🇸
@Sam, all I can do is ask if you’re a friend or anemone. 😜😜😜 This was a delightful puzzle. I wish I could get to the point where I’m routinely solving Thursday-Sunday puzzles, but for now, Monday-Wednesday puzzles are the sweet spot.
It’s fascinating to me, as I move beyond my Monday & Tuesday solving comfort zone, how different my performance can be from one Wednesday to the next. Last week I only filled 25% of the grids before giving up. (In fairness, sometimes my time to persevere is limited.) Today was much more successful. I managed all but the northeast corner. REHEAR did not come to me, I’m not weirdly conversant with Nissan’s models (although it sounded familiar in retrospect), ERG on its own was new to me, and the wording of 21A wasn’t transparent enough — the word “instrument” made me erroneously think of an inert object. I didn’t love 54A, primarily because there are some subtly different definitions of the word, but, hey, I’ve got to think outside the box. But I really enjoyed the theme clues and answers— clever, funny, and satisfying to solve.
My trickiest spot was SEPIA crossing with ROI, primarily because I don't put in answers I'm not sure of on my first pass through the across clues. I tend to find the down clues easier than the across (is it just me, or is that a known thing? I don't know.) I found this a bit more challenging than a normal Tuesday puzzle. Part of my difficulty was that 58A only became clear once I got enough crosses, so I didn't get a boost to the theme entries. Now that the entertainment world is so vast, there are bound to be big gaps in pop culture knowledge and this was one of mine.
This took me a bit longer to solve than is my NORM. (Anyone else have terrible getting past the book title when solving that one?) I had a bit of difficulty with the southwest corner — SALMONBERRY is new to me, PREORDERED was not coming to mind, and ASYMMETRY was one of the last words I filled in. How nice that today’s constructor’s wife is tomorrow’s constructor!
@Michele Probably figuring common usage in the US is to use PANINI to mean one sandwich, even though it's not correct.
@Rachel Are Aaron Judge and Roger Maris really Naticks in a NYC-based newspaper? (I acknowledge that it serves as a national/international paper.)
Today took me much longer than recent Monday puzzles have done. I enjoyed the theme. 72 across baffled me. I think it was the exclamation point. I filled 10A with MDS my first time through. DRS is certainly valid, but RN is the degree nurses have, so MD made more sense.
Well, suffering’ succotash, that was a fun puzzle. Very Monday friendly. I enjoy childhood nostalgia and those characters have a permanent space in my brain.
@Helen Wright I just read an interesting NYT article talking about how Halloween came to the US via Scottish and Irish immigrants in the 1840s, a combination of All Hallow’s Eve and Samhain.
@Andrzej I thought it was fun. In a world where so many things are less than ideal, getting upset about the content of one’s crossword puzzle du jour seems, to me, out of proportion to the offense.
It’s faster to solve in the app, but sometimes I like to print out the puzzle and do it on paper, which I did today. I’ve decided that it’s only enjoyable to note my time on Mondays. The rest of the week I’ll play in the app for the convenience, but don’t care about the time.
@Rick I did the exact same thing, somehow thinking MULES would be more likely.
@Laura OK, my last revision, really. I was reminded below that this phrase belongs to Sylvester the Cat. In my defense, it’s been a while!
@Laura Have “trouble” not “terrible” — autocorrect thought it knew better.
To my mind, a cheese dog isn’t that different from a ham and cheese sandwich. 🥪 Pork product + cheese + condiments = lunch, no?
@Dan Collins Sometimes I'll open it on my phone after completing it on the computer . . . but not for the reward ditty. Fun idea if you're having a blah day. :-)
@Laura Autocorrect misplaced the apostrophe — Daffy drops his Gs. Sufferin’ not suffering. Well, and of course the TH sound in place of the S. 🦆
@KStandiford Yes — I thought the same thing — it had the right number of letters!
@Laura Forgive the autocorrect errors! Grid (singular), wildly (not weirdly).
@Andrzej I, too, kept thinking of Moonstruck (and Cher), but knew it couldn't be her because I have seen Hidden Figures and knew she wasn't in that movie.
@Beth Etui and Skat were new to me, too. I'm sure we'll see them again and they'll be in our wheelhouse from now on.
@John That was my trouble spot, too.
@max Thank you. For anyone who, like me, wanted to try the new toy, you can delete your token in your profile on that site.
@ST I often encounter words from other languages when reading (or completing a crossword) and unless I take the time to look up the pronunciation, I mentally make a guess. Then when I actually need to order bruschetta, gyro, etc. it's a coin flip!
@Dave Yes, for me yesterday’s puzzle was more challenging than today’s. It was a fun solving day. 🙂
@NYC Traveler Ooh, I misattributed that phrase to Daffy in a comment. Oops.
@Stephen D I'm American and it confused me, too. I guess I would expect it to be two words instead of one and I honestly thought it was referring to some sort of software someone might put on a family computer to block things from young children (e.g. Netnanny.)
@David S That was my experience, too!
@Rich in Atlanta HarryPotter.com —and various other sites — has the name as Scabbers.
All 31 comments loaded