Joe
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The Oxford comma adds clarity with no downside. Baffling that the NYT style guide doesn’t use it, but then it also prefers “millenniums” to “millennia.” Fun puzzle with a cute theme. Found it to be a little easier than yesterday, I think.
I feel bad for any future solvers delving into the archive and encountering a “Tik-Tok” star clue, long after the “star’s” fifteen minutes are up.
In another life, I was a cast member at Spaceship Earth, so 1A brought a nostalgic smile to my face. Made some good memories slaving away for the mouse.
@D Just skip Thursdays if you’re not a fan thinking outside the box. No need to leave this comment every week.
@D It’s a sad day when basic musical knowledge is considered “niche.”
For future solvers delving the archive: 17a refers to what was known as a “government agency.” This one, before being abolished the Great Purge of 2025, protected Americans from various types of pollution. Happily, corporations were able to govern themselves and now often offer complementary breathable air to their loyal serfs. Now back to work, citizen!
@Jim Casey This gripe doesn’t make any sense to me. You didn’t like the puzzle because you didn’t know some of the answers? But you also didn’t like the puzzle because you did know some answers? I wonder if you just don’t like crossword puzzles.
Not bad, but way too much sports trivia. The ideal amount being, of course, zero.
@Sheila This was the Monday puzzle. Each day’s puzzle releases the night before. You can still go back and do the Sunday.
@Mean Old Lady The name of the country is Ukraine. It is Soviet propaganda to call it “the Ukraine” as if it is just a region, not a nation. You don’t say “the France” or “the Russia,” do you?
For “Rely on audience support during a show,” I was so proud to immediately come up with CROWD SURF. Too bad it was wrong…
I don’t know much about Wicked and don’t really care to, but knowing that Witches fly on broomsticks was enough to tease out the theme. People should remember that these are crossword puzzles, not crossword trivia contests. One of the best parts is figuring out the answer when you don’t know the trivia. My other favorite part is figuring out the “trick” on Thursdays, so this was a winner for me.
@Kristopher “We can do better”? Can you, though? Really?
Cute puzzle. With so many rebuses, though, it’s annoying to constantly have to tap the square, then tap More, then tap Rebus, then tap the letters, then tap the next square, then tap More, then tap Rebus, ad nauseam. Any chance of moving the Rebus button so it’s not buried in the alternate keyboard?
@John Depends on your vocabulary, I’d say. “Ennead” is not a proper noun and could easily be deduced from the crosses, even if you somehow have no knowledge of The Brady Bunch.
@Dan Luckily for you, then, the answer was TAPIN, not TiPIN. Think golf, not basketball.
@Andrzej Yes, you’ve discovered that it helps to know things when you’re trying to solve a crossword puzzle. Shocking, I know.
@Richard Never heard of ELSTON, but I guessed it from the crosses, so definitely not “absolutely unguessable.” Names tend to follow certain patterns, so if you get some crosses, you can pencil in some likely letters. Like, if we have E_ST__, we can probably guess it’s not EwSTgh, and that gives us more information for the missing crosses. It’s a puzzle, not a trivia quiz. For people who struggled, it might help to consider your strategy and try thinking a little more laterally.
Oof, I finally got the update where the comments open in the Games app and I can now understand all the complaints. Blinding white that doesn’t respect my Dark Mode setting. Inability to easily swap between the puzzle and comments to make sense of someone’s “25D” comment. Who thought this was a good idea?
I recommend checking out the Wikipedia page for Middle English. It predates Shakespeare and is probably a lot different from what you’d imagine if you’ve never studied it. Then check out examples of Old English. It’s amazing how much our language has evolved.
Finished in about a third of my average time AND spelled “onomatopoeia” right on the first try with no crosses! Feels like a pretty good start to the day!
8:04 without really even trying. Theme was obvious from the first clue. Please, please can we go back to clever, tricky puzzles?
@Tim “Avail” literally means “to be of use or advantage,” according to M-W. What do you think it means?
@Marilyn It wasn’t always like this. If you check out the comments to puzzles pre-2020 or so, it’s mostly people analyzing the puzzle, discussing the wordplay, etc. Sometime during the pandemic, the editors decided to make the puzzles much more straightforward and easy, presumably to attract new subscribers. Previously, the NYT crossword was generally regarded as the most creative and challenging one around. This led to the friction we see today, where some people pine for the quality of the old days, while others just want to get their gold star.
@Lewis This comment really increased my appreciation for the puzzle. And just to save anyone else a lookup, a “semordnilap” is a word that spells another word when read in reverse. It’s actually “palindromes” backwards.
@Joe Looks like I was wrong about chortle. The modern definition doesn’t have anything to do with snorting, but the word was actually coined by Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass.” He may have been combining snort + chuckle after all.
@SP It’s used in online spaces frequently, at this point probably by people who have never seen Community. It was one of a few answers that felt “very online” to me.
Quick correction: 23A’s clue should be [Li’l], not [L’il].
@SP I’ve definitely encountered ARCH with that definition in books. Imagine hundreds of pieces of paper, all bound together, that contained many different words, some less common than others. These “book” were how we used to improve our vocabularies back in the day.
Brutal for a Wednesday. I was pleasantly surprised when I filled in the last letter and didn’t have to hunt down any errors. Ended up finishing almost 5 minutes over my average. Really enjoyed the puzzle, though, except maybe for “jiggety jig.”
@Jack McCullough What a strange coincidence your comment is! I was just at the “Lost in New Haven” museum last night, where they had a US Rubber Company display, complete with and authentic stuffed Nauga! For those not in the know, Naugahyde is a synthetic fabric invented in Naugatuck, CT.
@Suzanne Sorry, but “snip” is an onomatopoeia. See here <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/snip" target="_blank">https://www.etymonline.com/word/snip</a> and here <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia</a>.
Kind of meh on this one. The theme didn’t add anything to the solve, since the clues were so straightforward, and many of the “names” barely qualify as such.
Finally beat my record with a 3:31! I think I’d have to be on a keyboard to do any better than that, since my thumbs could barely keep up.
Very happy to see Chuck MANGIONE, who just recently passed, in this puzzle. Check out Feels So Good if you haven’t. Fun song for a Saturday morning.
@Nick I solved it without any lookups. Definitely not “totally impossible.” It’s supposed to be difficult.
@James Which also happens to be a much more fitting answer than the very iffy LON.
@Prose Agreed. At least a note telling us that it’s broken on iOS.
@Beldegraded Nah, you’re misunderstanding both phrases, at least how they’re used here. Both are said when encountering a frustrating or annoying situation.
@Charles These are all terms routinely encountered in English. Not sure what [Shakespeare lol] is supposed to mean. Macbeth is one of his post popular plays. Lacking education and vocabulary will of course make the puzzle harder to solve.
I feel like the puzzles have been notably trickier for the past week or so and I’m loving it!
@Francis You made me curious, so I had to look it up. Pretty interesting: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye,_Felicia" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye,_Felicia</a>
@Joe Just realized I should have said “this was a *treat* for me.” Can’t believe I squandered that opportunity.
@Phil Nah, you’re conflating two common phrases: “golden oldie” and “an oldie but a goodie.”
Didn’t even need the downs. I think this might have been the easiest Tuesday I’ve encountered.
@Conscious Human Even as a cold, emotionless man, I found it difficult not to be annoyed by that one.
A fun, fresh challenge. Of course, that means I can guess exactly what the opinions of the Wordplay commentariat are. I think I’ll skip reading today’s comments to avoid all that unnecessary negativity.
Pretty fun one. Got stuck on DISs, though. How is DISH… oh, right, the theme. It was surprisingly difficult to keep track of all those horses.
@Nancy J. I share your frustrations. Ever since COVID, it seems like the entire world is getting, well, lets’s say “less smart.” And everything, including the crossword puzzle, is being reshaped to accommodate these new standards.
Lucky guess at IONE/ROUE. Always nice to learn something new. I’ve noticed a few of these trickier Mondays lately. Wonder if they’re trying to flatten the weekly difficulty curve. Mondays were beginning to feel like a test of how fast I could type on my phone, so I think I like the change (although that race was a fun transition from the end-of-week puzzles). Crosses like the above might put off new solvers, though.