Heg
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Didn’t enjoy. Too many vague clues 16a, 52a, 33d etc
This shows the mixture of banality, obscurity, and lack of rigour that we’ve come to expect from Ezersky as he tries to destroy the “Spelling Bee” — please stop encouraging him. Atrocious puzzle.
Decent enough, but did the cow eat the sheep?
@Shrike right, not just mid-tier notoriety, vague attribution. Enough with the proper nouns at all.
Stupid number of proper nouns. Over and above the ones for the italic clues. Mixed in with obscure 122A, poor clues 21A and tedious repetitive non-words, 75A, 89A, v poor.
Difficult to enjoy a puzzle with so many proper nouns. Even without the use of obscure ones, every single proper is an admission of defeat by the constructor that they don’t know a dictionary word that they can make fit. So, poor.
Seems like another clever clever puzzle that has to jettison actual good clues to make everything fit. Which spoils the puzzle and the editors’ already fading reputation.
Very poor. Random obscure proper nouns (horse, doctor, drink, hair), poorly clued words (streets, Sur, Le Mans, surf) and cluers most vanilla pap (Skye, for my money). That the dek hed had to protest this was “excellent” was a clue that they should have waited for a more skilled version before debuting.
Poor. 1A, 22A, 28A 45D 46D 47D Just for starters. At best it veers between obscure and banal.
Two excellent puzzles in a row. Maybe somebody got a memo.
@Garoky @Yes, it was another terrible puzzle from a team that has been phoning it in for months.
@Nancy J. Totally with you. They are, at best, a snack. At worst, a crossword clue.
“Alternative title” to this puzzle?? Nice if the team could work out how to give us one title to the puzzle. Actually a disgrace.
I loved the cryptic. Though probably there was a clue to this in the name of the puzzle that app users still don’t see… because why can’t you put the puzzle name in the app? But quibbles on details: 15D Is, at best, non-idiomatic 123A is not a word, is two words that either — but not both — work 45A is not the right plural
Not bad despite 22a (no such word) and 32a (wrong part of speech, at least) being v poor
No. A dollop is not a dab it’s much larger, a dither is not a tizzy which is far more anxious, a knish is not a potato turnover do not get me started about knishes. Spoilers deliberate because the clues are just plain wrong.
Lots of very average to poor clues. Few good clues, maybe 13d
Stop with the proper nouns. Just tedious.
@Jennene Yes, I thought this was a poor puzzle too because of too many vague, non-idiomatic, over-particular or alternate clues.
Proper nouns are cluers failures. Obscure proper nouns are rude failure. Intersecting obscure proper nouns is just a hostile act.
Nice crossword. Surely 116A should be Up the _____ 81D the answer describes a problem the clue has And 7D just an odd clue.
@Barry Ancona larrup is. I don't post spoilers but you have posted the answer which says it's a less common variant spelling of a rare word. Shouldn't be used.
@Artemis exactly, skidding is not downhill. Skiiing is downhill. Same difference, it’s a bad clue.
No clues that this was a trick puzzle or any flags in the trick clues? Otherwise very satisfying.
Don’t clues (hosts) have to identify abbreviations any more?
Some good clues like 56A but some poor like 55A or 20A, plus we don’t flag abbreviations anymore? 35A, 25A?
Many poor clues. 31D factually wrong, 40D grammatically wrong, 17A not at any airport I’ve ever been to, so deeply misleading, and maybe there’s a theme for the long answers, but they dont pay the tech workers enough to put any titles on the app so wthk.
Another substandard puzzle. I think maybe 2 good clues in the whole lot (7A, 55A) but mostly extremely weak. Maybe 4/10. Too many vague clues like 35A and 42A or willfully obscure like the spelling of 45D. Many just poorly clued for the actual idiomatic meaning like 48A, 28A, 14D, 17D. And 15A, 53A, and 54A all include words that are not part of the answer if the clue is as written. Plus proper nouns are just lazy chaff.
I solved it very quickly but it felt like there were a lot of very soft, not quite right clues.
Weak again. And are we giving up on flagging abbrs ?
Decent puzzle with one terrible clue. 11D should disqualify anyone who worked on this puzzle from ever setting a puzzle again.
48d is nonsense. It’s in Urban Dictionary not the actual dictionary.
@Heg Shame, because it's a good crossword otherwise.
@Rich fully agree. 15A also not right.
@Penny Hope the folks above explain the answer, if not how such a bad clue got into the xword.
Why is there no title in the app? Still.
Still too many weak clues. Bad spellings, inconsistency. NYT putting out high school crosswords. 8d 35a for glaring examples but just generally unsatisfactory. I’d give it a B+ if it were an 11th grade assignment.
44a and d badly clued. “Name” and “piece” are just the wrong clue words.
Why is 9d not “Goes downhill fast, say.”?
44d is an abbreviation. Why not noted?
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