JayTee
Kissimmee
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Kissimmee
I would have liked to see a clue like: I'm a little peeved. I'm angry. I'm mad.'' CROSS WORDS
@Jeremy The only ones I have not personally heard used are LUSAKA—I don't know my African geography, and EARLAPS, but it is a word, and the crosses were fair. EARTHA Kitt may be before your time, but her name shows up in crosswords every year or three. I'll use an ICE BAG or ice pack or even a package of frozen veggies if a muscle ACHES. And you can also HAUL UP an anchor if you're through using it. Prefixes are also allowable, and ALTI and API are both common enough for a Tuesday. Joel's been doing a good, if not great, job of editing the puzzle, and I doubt that he'd been given the byline if the Times didn't have confidence in his ability.
While TRASH PANDA has been a relatively common term for a raccoon due to their frequent forays into dumpsters and other garbage receptacles, there was one that worked its way into a liquor store in VA, and was found drunk and passed out in the store's bathroom. It was promptly called TRASHED PANDA, and its photo, emblazoned on some tees and sweatshirts, has raised over $170K for the VA animal rescue organization that took him in. <a href="https://washingtonian.com/2025/12/09/viral-trashed-panda-raccoon-raises-over-170k-for-virginia-animal-shelter" target="_blank">https://washingtonian.com/2025/12/09/viral-trashed-panda-raccoon-raises-over-170k-for-virginia-animal-shelter</a>/
@Kevin Sunday is probably the second- or third-most gimmicky puzzle day, fighting it out with Wednesday. It's just bigger. The difficulty level is usually less than Thursdays. There are a lot of us who like the tricks, no matter which day they show up—they break up the routine, and liven things up a bit.
@Gareth The reason you see ETSY, OREO, ARIA, ONO, ENO, ETTA and other words on repeat is because they enable other answers because of the letter patterns or vowels they contain. There are times when the answers that constructor needs/wants to include can only appear by including crosses with some of these "helper" words. The style of crosswords that appear in most US publications contains many answers that have to interlock, so a constructor must use actual names, words, or phrases. ETSY has been used 10 times this year, twice in two months. It's been used 103 times since 2014, so its use this year is only slightly higher than usual.
I'm a little more inclined to raise an issue with the tech guys on this one, as it would have been very helpful to highlight both the "painting" and the "stolen from" when working on either, instead of just when working on the "painting". It got to be more of a problem of remembering what went where than trying to get the answers correct. The concept was great, the construction was great, the complexity made the solving experience more exasperating than difficult. Overall, I liked it, but it was a little too convoluted to be really enjoyable.
A nice, seasonal puzzle that I wasn't expecting! A good one to remind folks that while one holiday may dominate the season, there are people who celebrate others as well. Fun, and educational. Thanks, Seth and Jeff!
A gentle Thursday on a Monday, courtesy of it being April 1st. Found myself skipping the italicized clues for the horizontal crosses until I cottoned onto the tricks. This was quite a fun solve, and I liked the fact that each themer had to be finished with a different modifier, from 'rising' to 'north' to 'turn over' and more. Quite clever, Alan, and thanks!
A bit of a toughie, but DEF doable. Spent 4 minutes flyspecking to find my error and just decided to try a C and change MAn to MAC, which did the trick. Well, it's been decades since I've eaten any of those except CHEX, but I still see them whenever I go down the CEREAL AISLES, so they're familiar names. And there was part of an old favorite—GRAPE Nuts—included. I'm kinda surprised that we didn't have the crossword's favorite cereal: Oreo-Os. Well, that's Life, and I'd better say Cheerio! Thanks, Kathy, it was delicious.
@Mango I think you mean, "lots of clues I didn't decipher correctly". I didn't read any "bad" clues. I read some that I didn't know the answers to, and at least one that I didn't know the meaning of, but the crosses that I did know started filling those in and I learned a thing or two. As for trivia, there are lots of answers in all crosswords that aren't particularly important to us. But what's trivia to one person might be something that someone else has a need to know, and who am I to say that something that's trivia to me doesn't belong in a crossword because _I_ couldn't be bothered to learn about it. This was a fairly average Wednesday puzzle, a little on the easy side according to the time I spent on it and the amount of common crossword fill present.
Not a trekkie, but I had no tribbles with this one… wife and kids were more into it, and I worked a lot of evenings, so I missed the missions, mostly. Didn't phase me. Anyway, it's an impressive construction, and with a lot of themery included, and I reluctantly (just kidding) enjoyed it. Thanks, Jeremy!
@John Peil <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peruse" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peruse</a> First definition is to examine thoroughly. Second definition is to read cursorily or skim. So it's one of those words that is its own POLAR OPPOSITE.
@Deb Amlen Thanks for all the pointers that helped me get started solving the NYT Crosswords, and for your entertaining columns and explanations. Your comments and encouragements to the newbies, which we all were at some point, has made many of us more comfortable at attempting to figure out the tricky ones and to conquer the weekend puzzles. Best wishes for your future endeavors, and hope you take the time to relax and enjoy the absence of deadlines (except for ones you set for yourself).
@JayTee Oh, and a big thank you to: The constructors The editors The Wordplay crew The NYT tech guys And all you folks that comment, argue, correct, help, and even criticize and make this an enjoyable and stimulating place to engage. May all who celebrate have a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday. For those who don't, I hope your days go well.
Solved on the web, so no issues with the theme clues. However, I don't see any excuse for why something wasn't done to clue in the iOS app solvers. Either include the proper clues in a note under the Info icon, or do what they did for the PDF print-it-yourself puzzle: CarOL brAdy, etc. Nice thinking by the constructors; not so good thinking by the NYT staff. Anyway, it was a pleasant puzzle and a nice evening's distraction. Thanks Chase and Christina!
Really liked this one, especially the last themer: I nearly died laughing. "Number of the Beast" is one of my favorite Heinlein titles, so it was nice to see it here. I don't mind the Harry Potter answers… I read the books when my youngest was into them and found them to be fairly quick reads and entertaining. So AUROR was a gimme, and the WAND-ER around town was clever as well. There was a lot to like here, and my only regret is that I got finished too quickly. Thanks, John!
@Kate P Numbers can be considered rebuses in crosswords, and since we are dealing with roman numerals and not alphabetic characters in each theme entry, it is fair to call them rebuses. And I don't believe Sam was being disdainful—she has mentioned in previous columns her dislike of math, and it's somewhat of a running joke when math comes in to play in a puzzle and she's writing a column. I took it as humorous self-criticism rather than bashing the puzzle.
@Mike Just a note that it's fairly common for Sunday puzzles to have some sort of a gimmick, but not to the level of Thursday trickery. I disagree that there were missing letters. They were there, just in the form of the color bars that were the same length in squares as there were letters in the color names. It's a trick that we don't see too often, but we've seen similar in the past, with letters under black squares or indicated by shapes of black squares, or even placed outside the puzzle. Also, as noted, the entries without the color name letters are also valid crossword entries—we've seen them all at one time or another.
Very nice NYT debut, Patrick. You included quite a range of clues from women's soccer to Japanese golfers, synthesizers to DJs; old things, new terms, sports, jazz, hip-hop… a nice variety with something for everyone. I had fun with this one. No problems, and a fairly quick solve. Hope to see more from you, and thanks!
@Jim Thursdays are generally not easy puzzles. Along with trickier clues, there is usually a twist of some sort, anything from rebuses to hidden letters to spelling backwards to letters or words outside the grid. Many of us look forward to the challenge of a Thursday puzzle, to figure out the trick as well as fill in the grid. It's good exercise for the brain. Many of the words you're complaining about are common in crosswords. STENO(grapher), 122 previous uses, 'ELIhu' (Yale) was used on June 9th and in April, ELI's been used over 50 times for this type clue Monk (10) and Roger (>200) are more common as answers, but Roger as a clue has been used 18 previous times with similar answers. On the less used side were 'mens rea' and 'Dallas' as clued, but crosses were fair and weren't terribly difficult to fill in. 'Wild yeast' was explained in Deb's column. If you know what a pentagon is, 'pentad' is not hard to come up with, even if not that commonly used. Today's trick was a mild one, and fairly easy to figure out, since the names to be exchanged were simple, and circled at that. Many of us "got it" before seeing the revealer. I'm impressed that it only took Ella a day to construct this.
@Jonathan Baldwin There's a difference between correct and common usage, and between Danish and American English. I don't believe that the average American parent is going to tell their child to pick up their lego—the kid will pick up _one_ and the floor will still be a hazard. They're going to say "pick up your legos", especially when the child is learning that most plural have an "s" appended or the plural word is different (e.g., mouse vs. mice). Yes, the company prefers Lego as both singular and plural, but crosswords often present common use terms over the technically correct.
@George As mentioned earlier, it is correct as clued; LAY is the past tense of LIE, but LAID LOW is also a common version, and is what my answer would have been if the space allowed, which it didn't.
Another fun one from a master constructor. The theme songs were all familiar, so no problems putting them in. Another song title to use? "Ain't No Sunshine": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CICIOJqEb5c" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CICIOJqEb5c</a> Thanks for an eclipse puzzle, Peter!
Thanks, Kelly, for a smooth-solving sophomore effort. I had a little trouble getting started, but once I had a toehold, it was like opening the floodgates, and answers flowed quickly thereafter. Ended up finishing in ⅔ my Friday average. It surprises me when I can pull up words that I haven't used or thought of in over five decades, and how with just a few letters an eight- or more-letter word or phrase gets entered and is correct. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it's almost magical.
A comment on T-MINUS ZERO; it really isn't used that much these days—the launch folks just count down to one and then say "ignition" and "lift-off", but it's still an accurate phrase. When the weather is clear, I can walk to the back of my apartment building and watch the flame from rockets launched at Cape Canaveral ascending over the Margaritaville Orlando Resort, which I did last night and which I could do again if I wanted to stay up another hour and go outside in our 44°F Florida weather. I'm a bit over 60 miles WSW from the launch site, but still get a fairly good view. For anyone that's interested, there are phone apps that alert you to launches, and many are shown on YouTube, so can be watched from anywhere there's reception. Learned from experience that there's about a 10-second delay with the video feed. More trivia: when they were assigning overlay area codes, they were thinking about assigning this one to Chicago, but people insisted that the 3-2-1 code be assigned to the Cape Canaveral area for obvious reasons, and it was.
I appreciate the fact that TIME AFTER TIME we keep getting puzzles with excellent theming. Nice one Jeffrey!
@Sebastian Amnesiac is the person, AMNESIC describes his condition.
First thoughts: What the heck is going on? It can't be a rebus, as nothing makes sense. What other tricks have I seen… Hmm, letters off the grid? Maybe, but that doesn't work for the downs lower in the puzzle. (Later…) Wait a minute… what's this clue for 52A? And what's the answer—AHA! Neat trick, and I haven't seen it before, so definitely Thursday worthy for me. I don't care that the down answers in the grid aren't complete words. It was a good head-scratcher for a while, and then it was pretty easy to finish after after seeing the revealer. Nice one, Jesse, you got me good for a while!
@Andrzej I, for one, have enjoyed your posts and our occasional interactions. Thank you for your presence, we have both learned things from our experiences.
You could call this a crunchy puzzle—better get crackin' Fun one, thanks Sarah!
@Steven M. State troopers in many states wore hats that looked like park ranger uniform hats, and specifically the ranger hat worn in the Prevent Forest Fires posters starring SMOKEY Bear (NOT Smokey the Bear). Smokey was an orphaned cub that survived a nasty forest fire in Capitan, New Mexico. His survival and treatment made him famous. He was given to the National Park Service to be used as a mascot for the prevention of forest fires program. He spent the majority of his life at the National Zoo in Washington DC, but when he died in 1976 he was returned and buried in a park dedicated to him. Another orphaned bear from a fire, Smokey II, took over in 1975 through 1990. The Smokey Bear Fire Prevention Program advertising campaign is the oldest continuing ad program and is over 80 years old.
@Wayne Harrison It depends on the hospital. Some hospitals have code teams, and at least one of the members is an ER RN. When a Code Blue is called, members of the team stop what they're doing and head to the scene. How do I know? I've been one of those ER RNs more than a few times. Most floor nurses aren't familiar with the drugs used in codes, or have Advanced Cardiac Life Support training, so it's very helpful to have someone on the team who does (it's usually required for ER RNs). Some units handle the codes on their own. ICUs, PACUs, or ORs (and, of course, ERs) are among those that might. There are exceptions, though.
Could we call this a "picture perfect" puzzle? It was nice to explore a little of the art world this evening, and I appreciated the sassy revealer, more so because I'm currently on a liquid/soft diet while going through the process of getting dentures. There were some very slight delays in my solve, but never very long, as it ended up being one of my faster Tuesdays. I'd heard of all the artists, and seen original works or representations thereof by all three of them. Thanks, Killian!
Some eggcelent puns in both the comments and the column so far, since we're talking birds and dairy. I'm havin' a pinion about this… and I'm trying to get by as cheep-ly as I can without creating too much of a squawk. Oh, I'm supposed to say something about the puzzle? A good Wednesday exercise, a bit of a crunch, and I liked the theme and twist; and that RUBBER appeared as a SPECIES of duck. Some not-too-common entries and good cluing made this a fun one. Thanks, David.
Enough with the fowl humor! I'm tired of heron it!
@wendy We don't know… and that's part of the challenge and fun of a Thursday. Constructors are always coming up with new ideas and tricks, but the editors are probably keeping them from making them impossible to solve. I look forward to figuring out the tricks and twists as much or more than solving the puzzles.
The theme went over my head as a history with the Magic 8-Ball was woefully lacking in my life. I remember seeing/playing with one maybe five times in total, and those were at least 60 years ago. Not something I'd remember on my own, I'd need a revealer naming it. Nevertheless, it was a nice Tuesday exercise that was readily solvable, with crosses that indicated errant entries that were quickly corrected. Growing up in NJ helped me to remember LENAPE, and I'm a Béla Fleck fan. Thanks, Josh! Béla Fleck & the Flecktones: Sinister Minister: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Q4CBDFaEc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Q4CBDFaEc</a>
@Joanne The movie was released in 2020, the Oscar (for the 2020 movies) was awarded in 2021. There is always some confusion between the release date and the award date, but the clue is correct.
A very entertaining Friday that solved a bit faster than I thought it might. I think the idea of emulating Robyn Weintraub worked extremely well for you, as this was great for a first timer! The triple stacks were impressive, and I was fortunate enough to find enough crosses both top and bottom to figure them out fairly readily. I do have to admit that having a rival school in the Little Apple made that last spanner a gimme. The "school" association likewise made SADD the best option there. I liked the misdirects with URSA and TORT. I did have to depend on crosses a few other spots, but I finally got it all filled in correctly. Thanks, Caroline, and again, great debut!
This was a BUNCH of fun. Liked the misdirection—almost got caught a time or two, but managed to suss out the answers and finished in a fairly respectable time for me. Very nice debut and I certainly hope to see some more from you coming our way. Thanks, Jake, and from my angle it was certainly jake.
@James Vait You might just want to avoid Thursdays, then, as they tend to involve trickery and brain strain. Most of us look forward to the challenges (and strangeness) presented.
Skated through this one relatively quickly, and glad I didn't have to worry about thin ice. Some interesting cluing, but I didn't notice any dekes sending me offsides, or penalties for icing. Glad you finally scored the Sunday and the cycle! Thanks, John.
@Cowgirl Not on, IN instAGRAm
@Jon & Arielle Maybe you've forgotten that Thursdays are the days where there's more to the puzzle than just the puzzle. That there are added layers, and things that have to be deciphered or mechanisms that have to be uncovered. This is definitely not a "bad" puzzle, but it is one with a trick that hasn't been seen for a while, which made it a little tougher to figure out. That's a normal occurrence for a Thursday puzzle. I enjoy having my brain challenged by something besides simply filling letters in blank squares. It engages some different brain cells that keeps the thought process energized, and that keeps this 77 year-old entertained, but also makes me do some cognitive exercise that I hope will keep me sharper as I age. I, and a lot of the other folk that comment here, anticipate the Thursday challenges, and appreciate the constructors that prepare these fiendish exercises for us.
Well, that was a stretch. 😁 A gentle-enough Wednesday with a simple trick is always welcome in my house. Also liked the clue variety and all the double letters. Thanks, John-Clark
My surgeon is a comedian—he LEFT ME IN STITCHES. And don't forget the nurses—they CALL THE SHOTS.
@Constance Updike-Chilcoat It's not two words. it's an alternate spelling AEON and EON are both valid words. Please check your dictionary.
They call Lynn Lempel the queen of the Mondays for some very good reasons. This is her 74th Monday, and the quality, as always, is very high. We haven't seen her work for a while, it's been almost two years since her last Monday, and about a year and a half since her last Times puzzle (a Tuesday), so it's very nice to see one from her again. Excellent as usual, and thanks!
When I lived in Kenosha, I'd take occasional trips out to places in northern Illinois, like the IL RR Museum, and often those routes took me through Woodstock, IL, where GHD was partially filmed. I had heard that there was a plaque placed on the sidewalk on the town square, and one time I stopped to take a look. It's on the north side of the square, on the north side of the street, and has a "shoe print" and the words "Bill Murray stepped here". Nice puzzle, and very appropriate for the date, and a nice reminder of past adventures. Thanks, gents.
Quite a clever puzzle—I'd have to say it left quite an impression on me. I was almost ready to put HOLE in every rebus spot, but decided to wait on the clues and surrounding letters, and that turned out to be the right move. I had seen the 11,111 vs. 123,454,321 relationship before and remembered that the former was the square root of the latter; but that obviously was incorrect. Having idolIZE before HEROIZE gummed up the works for a while, but I finally got it FACTORed out. Lots of misdirection in this one, but I finally nailed it. Glad you hammered this one out, Nathan, it's a smash hit!