Alexis

@Tom Yes, because it’s fun to figure it out. And isn’t that why we’re here, for fun? None of us is getting paid to do the crossword (except Deb and co., lucky sods 😉)

@MBM There are often “gimmicks” like this on Sundays (and especially Thursdays). Sometimes the trick is to enter more than one letter in a square (we call that a rebus, and instructions are here: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html</a> ), sometimes it’s something else. Stick around a while and you’ll get the hang of it, and hopefully begin to look forward to the extra little aha you get from figuring it out! Welcome!

@Heidi All of the _OR_ entries’ clues included the words “and a clue to the circled square in this row”, which was a pretty big indicator to me that I needed to stop and think hard about what that meant. Just because you _can_ solve a puzzle without understanding the theme doesn’t mean you should! For those who solved without understanding: Did you ignore that part of the clues or did you give it a go and still not get it? (Genuinely curious; not trying to be inflammatory!!)

@marty Surely it being published on a Thursday _is_ a proviso for its weirdness?

@Charles Why? They were all gimmes for me

If your grade has been inflated, you receive the higher grade. Not somehow two grades at once. Also, a rebus would have made the down answers gobbledegook. Thus, no rebus required

@Phil I don’t speak Spanish but grew up on looney toons cartoons, including Speedy Gonzales and his catch phrase of “Andale, andale, arriba!” (And ILK is a good one to file away in the memory bank; it’s common crosswordese)

@Andrzej I’ve enjoyed reading your snippets of Poland. Maybe we’ll see you around again someday

@Tony Sorry, but if you thought there needed to be any form of YES in the boxes then you _didn’t_ have the puzzle “completely worked”.

@Andrzej I’m not sure Ms. _is_ an abbreviation. If so, of what? It might be written with a full stop (er, period in US English) to match the abbreviation Mrs., as it is in the clue here, but I think I see it more often just as plain Ms (like how Miss doesn’t have a full stop as it’s not an abbreviation)

@Andrzej @HeathieJ How cool that something as seemingly superficial as a crossword comments forum can lead to something like that from across the globe

@Tzvee Just because you didn’t have fun, doesn’t mean the puzzle was inherently unfun. I had a lot of fun, and really enjoyed solving the extra clues for the key. You may find this comments section more fun if you frame your opinion as an opinion rather than as an absolute

@Francis Absolutely!! She’s a CLASS ACT

Hmm, so “oner” (pronounced “1-er”?) means unusual, like a one-off I guess? And “lulu” means crazy (unless there’s some other meaning I’m missing) which I guess could also mean unusual, but not really in the same sense Maybe I’m overthinking it. Clues aren’t definitions — that oft repeated refrain in these comments! Just crossing ONER with LENDL seemed a bit of a stretch

@Andy G Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you _have_ to solve it quickly. You can linger, if you choose

@Ernest That exact pair of clue and answer have been seen 17 times in the “Modern” era. Another few for the reverse (ie [Elate]=SEND) and another few for Elates=Sends and vice versa. Not to be too Ancona-y about it 😅 Stick around and you’ll eventually build up a bank of this kind of crosswordese — they’ll become gimmes

@Greg Anderson But a rebus would have made the down entries gobbledegook. You weren’t finagling the app, you were searching for the right answer, and just like in every other square, you don’t get the happy music until you enter the right letter..

@DW Have you considered that you might just be becoming a better solver?

And nor have I heard of a soft drink called Mug, for that matter!

@Cat Lady Margaret “OOPSIE, just gonna do a little UTURNITO here”

@Andrzej Came to the comments just to see what you had to say about this one 😂 FWIW my experience was much the same

@Francis Like the theme of the puzzle, pretty sure he means it went from “ILLEGIBLE” to “GIGGLES” :)

@Dave S “This puzzle could have been fun, but I specifically opted out of having fun. Now I’m annoyed that it wasn’t fun.” SMH indeed

@Zézito Wasn’t it? I came in under my average Thursday time

@Vincent and Janet Welcome!

@Tom S. I think there’s a part-of-speech problem there. You can’t say something “is rotted” like you would say it “is rancid” (in my idiolect anyway). So for the answer to be ROTTED the clue would need to be [_Went_ rancid].

@Avi OMG they are too. I started trying to read the extra letters before I’d got all the way through or figured out the theme properly. At that point my understanding was “rebuses with a U for some reason”, and I was trying to figure out why MAYTHEFOrceBEWITHYOU wouldn’t fit in the reveal (and with too _few_ letters of all things, so a problem unlikely to be resolved by a rebus in that entry at least). I hadn’t thought about today’s date yet either, obviously 😅 Thought they might spell out a physical force or something (strong, weak, electromagnetic??), but didn’t have enough solved to make head nor tail of it Once I figured the theme out and finished the puzzle I didn’t think to go back and try to read them again!

@Striker My mind went immediately to pi 🤓 Guessed the O of LOSS crossing PECOS but needed the column to tell me what 3-1-4 might be

@Andrzej I think chinwag for gossip is to do with the fact that when gossiping you are achieving nothing _but_ wagging your chin. Whereas when talking about non-gossipy things, yes your chin still wags, but with purpose. See also to flap one’s gums 😁 I’ve never heard chinwag shortened to chin though

@Chris ‘Not worth a sou’ is one of those expressions which has become idiomatic, even though it’s rare to hear anyone say SOU in other contexts anymore. For what it’s worth, google informs me that a sou was a ‘low value French coin’.

@fionatimes The rule, ostensibly, is if the name isn’t required you put the commas, but if the name is needed to specify exactly who you mean then no commas. So, if you have only one mother her name is bonus information as it were, so commas: “My mother, Mary, …” But if you have two brothers, a name is needed to specify which, so no commas: “My brother John…”