John

@Francis Area is the Oreo of math fills.

@Weak Yeah, run of notes, I think. Doesn’t strike me as a great clue.

@Ιασων Sorry and sari are perfect homophones in my Brooklyn accent. Lon and lawn aren’t even close.

@Barry Ancona Wednesday is even pushing it. How long are we going to have to put up with this trend of dumbing down the puzzle?

@Francis Yep, Wednesday level. Enjoyable, but still.

@LarryF Nope. In English we don’t say the p at the start of words when it’s in a cluster (ph excluded since thats just the way we write Greek phi). But medially we pronounce it. So psychology starts with an /s/ and Ptolemy with a /t/, but optical and epsilon have a /p/.

@Weak Just destroying this puzzle, aren’t they? It wasn’t a PB for me, mainly because of a recent even easier attempt at a Thursday.

@Nicholas awful clue. It’s an archaic pronoun nobody ever uses.

@Andrzej Same problem with the SE corner. I’ll content though that mats don’t get stretched, so I have no idea why this is the clue.

@Lucas Had the same thought. That was a very bad clue. Also “suits to a tee” is not exactly a thing. I guess people say it, but it should at minimum be “T”. We’re not talking about a shirt.

@Andrzej A solid Friday…finally.

@Barry Ancona Wednesday

@Weak Yes, a real Friday today. Let’s hope it continues!

@Matt Embarrassingly easy. A PR for me, slightly slower than my Monday average. If the editors want us to go elsewhere for a satisfying challenge, please just say so. Let’s not pretend they’re not dumbing the puzzle down dramatically and really just destroying a decades-long legacy.

@Sheila Fee Also an amphitheatrum is completely enclosed, a stadium. Hence the “amphi”, so it’s a theater on both sides. Why we misuse it now, I have no idea.

@Prithwiraj Sorry, but this is absurdly incorrect. The English slur is indeed a “corruption” of the formerly proper term for African Americans, but it doesn’t appear in other languages simply as an ordinary word. To my knowledge the American slur is uniquely pronounced.

@Matt No. What they’re doing is creating an opening for someone else to enter the market with challenging puzzles.

@Andrzej it’s an expression to describe someone who sits around doing nothing: like a bump on a log.

@Weak Clearly, but the point stands. In the present, it’s not PST, it’s PDT. Personally, a lot of the clueing felt…off.

@Jake G Yes, those were just hard crosses.

@Sara W Well, it was in 1A, so it wasn’t like they were trying to hide it. But still, meh.

@Andrzej Nests in is totally unfamiliar to me, though gettable in context. No idea about Saki. That said, another easy Saturday for me, sadly.

@Hugh 8 here. Super disappointing…again. They’re bound and determined to drive away serious crossword puzzlers.

@Matt It’s not a matter of offense, but accuracy. It’s just incorrectly clued. Use all the Trumpisms you like, but get them right.

@JayTee They’re still not necessarily central. Nodes, from the Latin for knots, are just intersections. They could be anywhere. Think of a net (which is the metaphor in play). There are nodes all over it.

@DocP Another disappointing Thursday. PS Your pedantry for today: rebus is Latin, but it’s not in the nominative, so it forms a plural is the regular English way.

@Vaer Yep. Third Wednesday this week for me. Times for the last three days were within 30 seconds of each other. Can we blame the orange one for this, or do we have to keep to the news side for that?

@SP I had the opposite reaction to “Honey boo-boo”. I get it, but honey isn’t a good metonymy. Lots of meh for me. I got several of the long answers right off the bat.

@HeathieJ Same. Worse is that Spelling Bee will take the plural, but not the singular. It does that for many Italian food words (penne, ravioli).

@Ged Yeah, the Natick at 13D is inexcusable.

@SBS The later days of the week have gotten much easier in, I’d say, the past year or so. I’ve been doing these for decades, and it’s only recently that my Friday and Saturdays times have gotten so fast.

@Andrzej This native speaker didn’t get the theme at all…and didn’t bother to think about it, as often. Once again, in a NY accent “plan it” and “planet” aren’t homophonic. Close enough for this purpose, but just so we’re clear. :-)

@dutchiris Good question, because both i’s are long, so it should be tinn-EYE-tus. Could be a recent change in that pronunciation. PS a related pet peeve of mine is the shift in law circles to “A-micus” from the correct “a-MY-cus”.

@SBK in TO It’s also a popular coffee alternative in Italian bars. It only coincidentally looks like arroz.

@Barry Ancona What would have made it a Natick would be a cross with another proper name. In this case, it had to be A or I. You can’t know without the reveal, but Lehane is a more likely option whereas Lehine really isn’t. But still.

@Weak Sorry, I already Wednesday’ed it. :-) Xwords say: 45% solved much faster (>20%) than their Saturday average.

@Andrzej An Olympiad is also the period of time marked by one set of Olympic Games, used for dating in antiquity. so the first Olympiad is the four year period beginning in 776 BC, and so on.

@Matt I suspect these clues often fall to the editor, but for regular puzzlers it’s very hard to come up with one that doesn’t scream its answer.

@Heidi As I noted elsewhere, you’re right and this means it’s not peeled at all. Fun clue, but not one that made sense for the answer. Maybe it should have been for spa facials or the like.

@Matt Exactly. But the fun part is that “here goes nothing!” Is an expression used when you’re about to try something you don’t expect to accomplish.

@Sara W I was thinking Tuesday. They really are working hard to kill off the end of week challenges.

@el I don’t find that it happens too often, fortunately. I blame the editors for it. Gyno is what my wife says. We’re past the ob stage, so maybe that’s why.

@Jeb Yeah, a fine example, but way too easy and also, as often, the revealer clue was unnecessary to solving. PS in the midi “chide out”?

@B xwstats agrees, finding today’s puzzle has an average solve time two minutes faster than yesterday’s.