fionatimes

@Rahul I learned a night time prayer as a 5 year old with the phrase "lead us not into eggs aisle." Being very visual, I imagined an open air market with vegetables, fruits, and eggs. Not sure why I wasn't supposed to go there.

@Mike Pip pip hooray to you!

@lucky13 In music, no, but in general, yes. A person can orchestrate something other than music.

@Andrzej Weeping willows can be very wide trees, both above ground and in the root zone. There are not extremely tall. They are not recommended for yard planting because of their wide growth pattern.

@Francis Canola refers to "Canadian oil", but it is a marketing term not usually capitalized. BTW, it is IIRC mostly or fully an oil sometimes called rapeseed oil, "rape" or "rabe" being old words for turnip. So you can see why they had to rename this oil. O, Canada, we love you!.

@Andrzej "Danish" is a type of pastry dough that has heavy cream in it, making it messy to work with but giving it flaky. Bear claws can use danish dough, so they are a specific type of danish with almonds.

@Eric Hougland I love Oxford commas. If your mother is Mary I would have no commas in that sentence, or leave her name out. I think too many put a comma in before a name. "I had dinner with my mother Mary" is clear.

@Alex Barry I'm happier when I see an arachnid/spider like the Daddy because I can identify it easily. It is the possible recluses and widows that make me wish I could memorize the differences. This thread reminds me of a great commercial, possibly only aired on streaming channels, featuring someone using slow Internet to look up the spider in the room with them, then trying desperately to connect to Poison Control.

@CCed I never thought of pluralizing the word hegira, but it makes sense as there are different ones. Two interesting ones are the Ethiopian Hegira and Joni Mitchell's album.

@JM Agreed. The time is ripe just means it is a great time to do something. Ripe doesn't necessarily have anything to do with odor.

@Francis This ROYGBIV does describe the color spectrum. As one trained in graphics and cartography, I cannot see leaving any out. Indigo is navy blue with very little red in it (though indigo dyes can make other colors). "Violet" here is not just the red-purple color, it can mean invisible ultraviolet. "Red" is not just the primary color, it can mean invisible infrared. So OYGBI is the visible spectrum.

@Francis "catholic" is also a word in itself that means universal or broad.

@Striker Though a cat fan, I just found out about this breed this year on the interwebs. There is a doctor who has what she calls Balinese cats because her husband is somewhat allergic to cats. The cats are fluffy but apparently selected for a lower production of the main cat-made allergen.

@Cat Lady Margaret I miss the NYT novelty puzzles that did this, sort of. I think it was called Spiral. I also like vowel-less puzzles and the clueless puzzle. Those went away for us merely digital subscribers.

@CCed I am fostering a cat who happens to be a sweet little dude. I seem to only have female pet cats. So now I get to say this a lot, probably a few times times a day.

@Dave H As a former map expert, I concur. Pan around, zoom in. You can sort of do both in some software, but they are different actions.

@Robco AC units condense moisture from inside air and have to drip that somewhere else. Some of the moisture dries inside the unit. The water dripping on the ground might end up back in the air outside your apartment. Dehumidifcation is an endless battle.

@MWC Using a tool such as ChatGPT is barely AI. There are many ways to select word patterns, all using selects and general expressions. Some people can do this with special software, some with Web sites (such as Litscape), and some with programming languages and word lists. ChatGPT is just helping those who want to save some time. Real AI can learn, guess, and almost think like a human. It might be trained to create a mediocre crossword from just a theme and a grid. IMHO, that would be cheating using AI.

@Valerie That sounds like a recipe I made called Rooster's Beak (Pico de Gallo). Lots of salsas get called Pico de Gallo, but this one really does look beak-like (the chile or paprika tints the white jicama pieces).

@Lewis [Lot's wife] I'm Still Standing

@sue Squee is also what some softer eagle sounds are called. I would not be surprised if this arose from viewers of nest Webcams. Squeeing is pretty cute.

@Ιασων ATRA, from Gillette.

@Jess Or you could take a trip to Mauna ??a.

@Tom I don't think so. I think of a porch as a sitting area that has a house door opening into it. My only porch has a trellis, not a real roof. Only rainy places need porch roofs.

@Barry Ancona There are also doges galore in Ann Rice's book "Cry to Heaven".

@B Also, the article itself always includes spoilers, so why would anyone go to the comments not expecting them?

@Grumpy That's how I feel about the one-word sentence. Every. Time.

@Ned S But it is still a great and accurate clue. I went first for Biked because lots of wheeled things can do doughnuts. As an occasional baker of doughnuts, they are truly doughnuts, usually prettier and healthier than the fried ones. Bonus: they are also toric.

@Bonnie Ann Aqui is here in Spanish.

@Asher You know after you start getting a couple or pairs that the down word starts with a letter sound, literally, e.g. "U" for "unit" and "R" for "arcane. It also helps to understand that the unclued answer is clued by the rebus/picture word.

@Pani Korunova Walmart standards are not really standards. In many Walmart stores, people dress badly on purpose or they shop to take pictures of badly dressed or strange people (kind of like a treasure hunt). Maybe this is not a thing any more. In other stores, Walmart shoppers tend to dress better than those running to the corner or hardware store. In my only-one-in-town, also-a-grocery Walmart, I see extended familes together shopping so they may be dressing for dinner or for a BBQ.

@Mike I like mine with grid marks.

@Nancy Sculerati MD Many word games are not "on the nose." Cryptic and variety word puzzles are worse, I think, than the NYT puzzle. It helps to solve with a partner some times because they may figure out how the clue works. It also helps just to have fun. That sometimes means resisting the urge to go back and look at the confusing clues (coming here helps). But it can be fun to come back years later to a puzzle. Personally, my mind has been rewired by crosswords a bit (like always looking for the uncommon definition/usage of a word). Much is now obvious to me that was not so in the past.

@Dave Munger Yes, as a former card-carrying Art Deco Society member, I concur on DECO. The term was made up near or after the end of the Art Deco era. I believe it was just called "modern" when it was happening. I assume that is true of Mid Century Modern too, although I want to giggle about that. Duh?

@Andrzej Augers are usually big drills for drilling down. They are for breaking through rough stuff like concrete or gravel to, for example, take a core sample or put in a pole. Some corkscrews look like augers. Drills have more finesse.

@Francis At one time in Chicago, according to a friend, there was a guy named IIRC Refrigerator Freddy. Fridges work faster than ACs, and they are reliable. But ACs could work too. Freddy had to be a patient man to, for a price, push an appliance just when someone was walking on the sidewalk or parking lot below.

@Lpr I guess I missed this controversy at the time. Now I miss 2015 politics too.

@Grumpy Trump heads to Davos...

@Joe Journalism vs. books. Journalism is often simpler, shorter sentences. But we used Oxford commas in creating technical abstracts because abstracts can be very dense and the abstract needs to be short. But I am rarely bothered by the lack of any punctuation mark in news content.

@Francis Even some of us who remember the last 50 years of U.S. language use only know some of these crossword-ese answers from watching old movies and TV. (I never knew my grandparents.) I am now watching the occasional Twilight Zone episode from the year of my birth. The language was odd then.

@Murrie Redman If you can see there are more than 2 possible words to enter and you are almost out of guesses, note the letters in those words and guess a word with those letters not in your current guess. E.g., so if SUITE, SPITE, and TRITE could be right, make up a word with U, S, and T in it. If that is a four-letter word, you can usually make it plural so Wordle will accept it. When you think there are only 2 possibilities, just guess one. I get about 40% right that way although it should be 50%, you would think.