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LAHR x ARABY was a bit of a Natick for me. There were honestly a few clues here that I had to Google, which feels like cheating for me. Not really a satisfying solve!
Come on now, NYT. The singular is Inuk. The plural is Inuit. "Inuits" is no more a word than "Maoris" was the last time we had this conversation.
@Bill in Yokohama an excellent reminder that "illegal" and "immoral" are not SYNS.
I spent way too long agonising over what I had wrong in the centre of the puzzle before finally googling and discovering that ELHI is indeed a word, and that my mistake was actually putting CFa/WaNG in the northeast corner instead of CFO/WONG. There's what I get for not learning my Hollywood history.
My jaw dropped when I saw the constructor's age. Well done, Mr Matz. Well done. I will admit there were a couple clues here that I solved by crosses and still didn't get - I assume TDPASS is something from either American slang or sports? (Or both?) - and some factoids that I had to Google to check, which made the solve just a little bit less satisfying, but overall this was a nice Friday. I did love those long spanners. And "needle on a thread" made me chuckle.
@Antonia I came here to say this. Clue should have been "Alaskan nativeS" - if you want the answer to be plural, then the clue needs to be plural too, NYT. The fact that Inuit are native to more than just Alaska is a separate point, but also worth thinking about. "Nunavut natives" is so satisfyingly alliterative!
I really made this one hard for myself by misremembering the quote as "... an obvious fake". Made the whole northwest corner much more of a headscratcher than it needed to be! I do love the clueing of ELLIOT PAGE with reference to the Umbrella Academy. That show was probably the best project he could have been involved with at such a crucial moment in his life.
@Kristin thank you for such a helpful illustration of the clue! One of my favourite things about the NYT crossword is that you never know quite what you're going to get – some entries reference 1950s television, others are internet neologisms, and yet others draw from French, Russian, or Chinese. Some are serious staples of crossword history; some are tongue-in-cheek, irreverent debuts. In a puzzle whose catalogue includes BOOBOOs and ORGYs, I have to ask: what do you believe to be the standard of worthiness for inclusion here?
A really nice balance of some obvious answers and others solvable with crosses. But what on this fresh earth is GORP??
@kkseattle think more akin to "a feathered flock" solving to "geeses". The word is already plural. If you wouldn't say "mices" or "childrens", then don't say "Inuits".
40D made me do a double take when I solved it. I was not familiar with the German usage of this word - in Danish it's what you say when someone sneezes!
@Jennifer I wouldn't call fight nights domestic violence, unless of course the competitors are brothers. Or if you're broadcasting illicit MMA/boxing matches from your living room... Hey, I guess weirder stuff happened during lockdown.
Solved in 6:13. Barely even had to think about the answers - the ones I didn't get the first run through the list I got as soon as I had a cross or two. This Friday felt more like a Tuesday.
@David I was chuffed to see that too. I See Red and Message To My Girl are always in my regular rotation.
The crossing of MELLON and ROHE was a Natick for me. Having never heard of either of them, it took me a solid five minutes of flyspecking before, having tried every vowel in that spot and still not gotten a solve, I took to googling every single answer in the puzzle to make extra sure I had my basic trivia right and discovered his name was not Andrew rELLON. Oh well. I did my DArNDEST.
I must protest the wording of 39A. Moa were never found Down Under. They were endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, which is down under Down Under.
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