A Pedant
Caribbean Sea
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Caribbean Sea
A lot of comments that this felt like a Tuesday. Not really. It was an easy Friday that I solved in Tuesday time but the grid, the average answer length, the themelessness, the fresh fill are all Friday hallmarks. I like the fact that the NYT does not treat the relatively difficulty level of the days of the week as a hard and fast rule, although I notice this is a favorite topic for kvetching on here. There are only two themeless puzzles a week. It’s nice that some are easy and some are hard. Part of the fun for me is not knowing the exact difficulty level and therefore having to consider a wider range of possible answers. Tomorrow may take me 20 minutes or an hour and a half. That’s POG. (?).
TIL anti-AI-ers are (1) passionate and (2) humorless. This was pretty clearly (I thought, but guess not!) a joke at AI’s expense about how AI is hapless at poetry. Maybe the clue was and maybe it wasn’t actually AI generated but the joke works either way. This was actually a great clue
Very well-executed theme as many have commented, but I thought a shout-out for the clueing (especially the non-theme clueing) was in order. Almost no gimmes, tons of word play, everything ultimately gettable and satisfying once gotten. I like a puzzle that requires thinking outside the box. This puzzle is a good exhibit for those arguing for more from veteran constructors.
@B Not sure how the theme could have been deployed better. I guess you’re saying you wanted the truncated words to be theme related above and beyond the truncated letters forming butt synonyms and being arrayed symmetrically and forming real words in their truncated forms? I think that would have made the puzzle unworkable. And I liked the initial challenge of figuring out which words were the ones extending outside the box although the symmetry meant it was not actually arbitrary.
@Geo C. Not really, why do you think it’s a stretch? Heats take place at meets. Good misdirection but not a stretch in my opinion.
@Andrzej Thanks for clarifying.
Surely @Andrzej found this theme delightful?
@Casey. A common complaint but totally wrong.
TIL anti-AI-ers are (1) passionate and (2) humorless. This was pretty clearly (I thought, but guess not!) a joke at AI’s expense about how AI is hapless at poetry. Maybe the clue was and maybe it wasn’t actually AI generated but the joke works either way. This was actually a great clue
Nice puzzle, though the correct answer to [Like American bacon but not Canadian] is Delicious.
@MExpat isn’t snarfing what happens when you involuntarily laugh with a mouth full of food resulting in nasal expectoration?
@SBK Frying pan - not green paint Brown pan - green paint Cast Iron Pan - not green paint Metal pan - green paint.
@Kevin. I thought lamb steak early on but decided it was too lame.
Interesting that there are several small countries ending in u, two of which I tried to make fit (Vanuatu and Nauru) with creative spellings.
@Dcomplaining about being de-platformed? Ah well.
@Andrzej Yes, BRAND NAME (often hyphenated) is used an adjective here, meaning well known (and possibly reputable or high quality). “Andrej only smokes brand-name cigarettes…”.
@Steve L I didn’t know either but didn’t have much doubt when I plopped in the U. Likely heard the terms before at some point and a neuron fired when I needed it.
@Andrzej Sara Lee provides paid vacation and maternity leave like most American corporations. And their pound cake at least does not use high fructose corn syrup, does contain butter, and the ingredients list is pretty limited for a mass produced product. And pretty sure no orangutans were harmed in its production.
@MB this is the correct definition of SNARF.
@Captain Quahog what about “opera” standing in for “up” in the clue? Part of the joke here is that the puns are stretchy.
@Barry Ancona I liked ministrY for a while.
Good puzzle but I thought the northwest corner was weak. SSW? Always lame. TWI? Very lame. (Though cluing could have been spiced up with “Light Entree?” ) MEGYN? I’m not a trivia hater but that’s pretty useless. Nothing so wonderful in that corner to justify those duds. Sacrifices made for the low word count and the shape but were they worth it?
@Matthew in WeHo. These are both common.
@Matt what a great thread. I think I’m team Matt and am tempted to weigh in more verbosely…but this is better than the puzzle which was pretty good.
@CNB The only things I knew for sure in the lower third were BAATH and ACDC (I was pretty sure though I did flirt periodically with ASIA as I tried to make something work). From there I figured BILL was likely, but not certain. Same for ETHOS. And I eventually plugged in HERO though I had not heard the quote. After some more mucking around, I got INTHEAIR, SHORTS and BLOSSOM and TAB in place. Then the real work began. I eventually plugged in AFOUL and FAIR seemed likely. I finally figured out PIN but even then I was stymied, trying desperately to come up with a woman’s name for 38 Down, and hoping a dog breed would occur to me. I densely did not recognize CALLITINTHEAIR or DIGITALSHORTS as correct even when I had them in. OLGA seemed likely based on the likely ethnicity of the last name, but that was a guess. Finally LILITH showed me the light. So, to answer your question, by spending far too long on a crossword puzzle, my brain somehow finds a way.
@D wasn’t there only one revealer?
@Barry Ancona L and D.
@Nancy I had FOULBALL for quite a while.
@Times Rita I just tried it with Claude. First try: 1. To tell the truth 2. Too tired to think 3. Time to turn tail 4. Tie the two together Getting better for better or for worse!
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