A Pedant
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.
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.
@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.
@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.
@Barry Ancona L and D.
@Nancy I had FOULBALL for quite a while.
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