Darcy V
USA
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USA
I read the instructions three times before starting but still didn’t understand what I was supposed to do. I decided to try anyway and see how far I got. I ending up solving the puzzle (enjoyably!), but I didn’t really solve it, it seems, and I still don’t understand even after reading the column. Rotate the locks?
I almost never comment here but just had to say I loved this puzzle.
@Nancy J. BARLEYWATER instantly brought to mind, to my astonishment, a line from a song in “Mary Poppins,” when the children sing about their requirements for a nanny: “Love us as a son and daughter/And never smell of barley water” As a child I listened to the album over and over, always wondering what in the world barley water was.
A YOGINI is a female practitioner of yoga (Hindu or Buddhist), not necessarily a teacher.
I seem to be gathering from people’s comments here that Vertex is being discontinued? If so, I am very very sad. Vertex is a uniquely relaxing puzzle and both fun and fascinating to solve. It’s my favorite reward at the end of a long day (and my daily puzzles also include, in no particular order, Wordle, Sudoku, both crosswords, and Connections). PLEASE at least make the archive available?
@Kathy I think of birthstones as relating to months, not zodiac signs. The birthstone for the month of October is opal.
I really wanted 17 across to be WHOSESARINOW
I’m surprised by all the complaints about the difficulty. I guess it was a bit challenging for a Tuesday, but I ended up finishing within 10 seconds of my average. The theme was the kind that only makes sense at the end rather than helps with the solve, but that’s fine with me. Thank you for a clever and enjoyable puzzle!
Another language in which the word “computer” is literally “electric brain” is Tibetan (same number of letters)…..
Came here to say I loved this puzzle, especially JAKE and JAPE, both of which made me feel old in a deeply satisfied way. Thank you!
@Nancy J. Great song! Music by Phil Lesh Lyrics by Robert Hunter
Did anyone else stumble on SENDITBACK clued as [Line from an unhappy diner]? Isn’t this what a diner would *do* rather than say?
This is just to note, re Caitlyn’s column, that “re” is not an abbreviation. It is a full-fledged English preposition, derived from the Latin. And (my pet peeve) it does not need to be followed by a colon in the middle of a sentence, as almost everybody seems to think.
@Teresa I had a puzzle map like that too! It was a gift from my mother, who was terrible at geography. I loved playing with it and learned the US states very young as a result.
My own alma mater got around the alumnae/alumni problem decades ago by dropping the Latin ending and referring to everyone as an alumn, adding an s to make it plural. This always struck me as a sensible solution, and I’m so used to it that the argument in this column strikes me as touchingly old-fashioned.
@Janet That’s where I learned that word, too! It was one of the “All of a Kind Family” books, either the second or the third, by Sydney Taylor. I loved those books and read them over and over.
@Rachel Merriam-Webster’s second definition of SLAY: “to delight or amuse immensely.”
@Sam Lyons I can recall segue being used broadly to mean “transition” as far back as the late 1970s when I was in college, a good 20 years before the scooter.
Why are bracket contents TEAMS? I was thinking of sets, in math, or income levels—?
@Rebecca Yes! Absolutely stuck on MTA for CTA (having grown up with the L at 14th and 1st as my closest subway stop). Had to reveal the answer.
@Margaret Yes, but unfortunately “Give it to me straight” would not pass muster because the answer would include a word in the clue [it].
@Mergatroyd Look again—it’s TAOISEACH (no R), and that is his name. I had to run the alphabet, and the I was the very last letter I filled in.
Can someone enlighten me about the ODES of Solomon?
Can someone please help me understand DEALERSSHOE?
@Pat Look up “meet”in the dictionary. It is an adjective that means “appropriate to the circumstances.”
I enjoyed the puzzle and finished in a reasonable time but didn’t notice the theme at all until I read the column, and I still don’t understand how CRASH COURSE reveals anything. Can someone please explain? Thank you!
@Barry Ancona A teacher in Hinduism or Buddhism could be a yogini (or not), and a yogini could be a teacher (or not). A yogini could also be a goddess. The association of the words feels a little too loose to make for a satisfactory clue, I think—maybe something akin to juxtaposing “recognized expert” and “college professor.”
@Sonja I must beg to differ. I studied at the School of American Ballet and performed as a child with the New York City Ballet Company. We called them both toeshoes and pointe shoes, with equal frequency.
@Jake Roberts It’s pronounced “share”
@Francis Agreed. I’d suggest [“Is it just me?”]
Did anyone else flinch at “waxed on about” in 4D? This phrase is a pet peeve of mine. Wax, in this context, is intransitive and means “grow” (like the moon, right?), or more broadly, “become,” as in “wax poetic.” That phrase somehow got picked up and twisted in people’s minds so that wax turned into a synonym for “talk,” and ended up modified by an adverb and stretched out into “wax on,” which is somehow supposed to mean “ramble on at length.” Am I really the only person in the world who gets annoyed by this?
@Bill I understand the spork to be a modern coinage, but not a modern invention. I remember my grandmother’s silver had small spoons with tines at the edge. We used them for pie ala mode. I was taught that they were called runcible spoons, a word I believe was made up by Edward Lear, used in his poem “The Owl and the Pussycat,” a childhood favorite of mine. This was in the early 1960s.
@Jersey Girl Sounds like we went to the same camp.
@NYTXWorderSince2020 Thank you. I came here to say just that.
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