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Copenhagen
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Copenhagen
Here I am entering answers as quick as I can on my Danish laptop, and so of course without even thinking I enter the gimme at 80-across as SØREN... :-P I know it's common to turn Øs into Os in English spelling, but it truly is wrong. Ø isn't an O with an accented variant, like É in French; it's it's own letter entirely, the last of the Danish alphabet, after Å and Æ. Usually in Danish or German it's transliterated as OE in the absence of the Ø letter, so SOEREN would be more correct. Our foreign minister has been in the news lately, and seeing his name spelled as Lars Lokke Rasmussen instead of Lars Løkke is...strange. Especially since we're long past the excuse of 'not having those letters on our typewriters'.... As you were! (Just needed to get that off my chest...)
I too found this one took longer than my average... but GUYS! It's a PUZZLE!!! It's *supposed* to be a challenge! I pity the editors... there's no pleasing everyone. But as a proper addict (though I'm sure my current streak approaching 800 wouldn't impress many in this comments section) I delight in the variety, and the offbeat, and the quirky. I'm sure there are comforting, easy-to-complete puzzles out there if you just need to check a box every morning. But I come here to be challenged. Keep it up, New York Times! <3
@John Steed I was so excited that SHTETL fit, and really dubious as it became clear that RUSSIA was the desired answer…!
@Bill in Yokohama Another NET/NIT person here… gah. If I had been filling out analog in the old days, I’d have been delighted with myself and moved on with my evening… 🙄
@Jamestown Ararat I have observed when looking for clothes for my nonbinary kiddo that men aren’t offered size XS. XL, yes, and any number of Xs before L. But I deduce from this that clothing companies have learned that no man wants to think of himself as EXTRA-small.
@Nancy Kealoa!!! I love it! Thanks for the new bit of Crossword lingo to add to ”Natick”. That one (on brand!) I had to look up. But kealoa made sense immediately! 😂
@SP I also had ADE right til the end... and though I knew that my resulting 14A had to be wrong, it was such a weird looking word I couldn't figure out HOW it was wrong!
Just realized my epic mistake… Ø is *not* the last letter of the Danish alphabet! Å is… (kind of fun, it goes A-Å). Wanted to correct myself before a native Dane slapped me down!
@Amy H. Except “congress” would need to be in lowercase, no?
I KNEW someone had to have made this point before me! Thank you!
@Kerem WELL DONE! So admire non-mother tongue folks wrestling this stuff down... especially end-of-week, and puzzles with a high volume of culturally specific references. Bravo!
@Francis I mean, historically it’s more Danish than American (and I’m both, for the record), but this was a squeamish solve. Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, as the Danish PM said to her credit back in 47’s first term, earning herself a “nasty woman” badge for her trouble.
@sotto voce It is a very sweet portrayal. But it also is a key source of a widespread mispronunciation of the capital city's name, CopenHAHgen, instead of CopenHAYgen, which Danes prefer. (The relevant accented syllable in Danish – København, ker-bin-HOW-en, very roughly – sounds like neither! So it's just a preference of how it's used in English.) But all these years later, it still sends enough visitors our way that the city's tourism agency is called "Wonderful Copenhagen"!
@Grant Came to the comments to see if anyone else had applauded this! Very pleasing.
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