rajeevfromca
California
66
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-0.086
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California
What is the point of misspelt monster names embedded in the theme answers? Yes, they sound similar but since they aren’t real words, they aren’t homonyms either. Would’ve been more interesting to embed the correctly spelled names.
Impressive construction! Clues were on the easy side. Finished well below average, with no lookups. I started with COW and PAW, but WASHBOARDS and WITHER made less sense to me than DASHBOARDS and DITHER. So switched to D, and thought the theme (on a Thursday?) required a D in every circle. That sped up my solve considerably. Though I had LONGEST for Femur, and only switched to LARGEST when NENEWAL didn’t make sense. Then SAHIB clicked as well. ODD before OFF. RUNS AMOK before RUNS RIOT. But all very gettable. Didn’t get the theme till the end, and had to read the revealer clue a few times to understand how to parse WORD as W OR D. That was a very clever twist!! Went over all theme answers to see how they worked with W and that felt quite satisfactory. Well done, Grant!
@Mr Dave I did, but not because I memorized it! I figured it wouldn’t be an actual number (one, two, six) since the clue started with “like”. So it is some property of digits, hence odd or even are likely choices and only ODD fit.
@Bill Aney My first thought as well, but apparently there is a connection there: “ The word ‘ecology’ did not exist until 1867, and was not used in an English publication until 1876; Darwin himself never used it, yet it was his work on the complex interactions of organisms and habitats that inspired the word’s creation and he is often cited as the ‘father of ecology’.” <a href="https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/about/research-initiatives/darwin-and-ecological-science" target="_blank">https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/about/research-initiatives/darwin-and-ecological-science</a>
This was very cleverly constructed. I got the theme midway through the puzzle so the rest of the theme entries were straightforward. But the center block rebus tripped me up as I didn’t expect yet another gimmick and with no rebuses anywhere else. The clue with a “/“ representing two answers with a shared “block” was yet another gimmick. In the end, this felt a bit too gimmicky to me. And all those constraints made the fill tedious (looking at you, OHO, OH WOW, DIF, LILOLME, HIHO, GRR, EHH, TSKED, EWS). Not enjoyable for me. Oh well, there is always tomorrow…
@Andrzej Didn't love this puzzle at all. Never heard of SMOKEYS. Misspelt EMERY as EMORY, which did not help with FIDDLER, which was missing 3 words from the title. Don't understand why 38A is not TEENAGER - how can "many a Swiftie" be TEENAGE? Never seen G6 spelled out. ASCH and BAYONNE were beyond me. Didn't know PEU ("petit" is as far as I go) in French. XEDOUT seemed slangy without indication. INES / INEZ caused some confusion, as did ANEG / ONEG. I know rock music (as much other music) can be performed in an arena, but did not know ARENA rock is an actual genre! POINT A seemed rather pointless. While every clue / entry can be justified, many felt forced / awkward to me and the entire puzzle did not come together in any satisfactory way. No joy today...
@B Steve’s comment relates to the column, not the clue / answer in the puzzle.
I was not on the constructor’s wavelength at all today - finished in above average time. Did not enjoy the plethora of slangs like EDGE LORD, SIN BIN, BOO BIRDS, ATTED — so many were sports related that I felt a pang of sympathy for Andrzej!! Many clues felt strained: YES means [Consent] so the [cue] feels out of place; [Shells for dinner] fits both the answer and the wordplay, but [out] does not make as much sense for the answer; [All ____] should’ve been clued as an expression, as it does not stand by itself. Then there’s crosswordese like VINY and some tough (for me) trivia like OUTKAST and BROOM. I could not find much sparkle in the clues or answers. All in all, it made the solve more tedious than enjoyable. Hope others had more fun!
UPS before USS, RAISE before I PASS, SPA DAYS before SITTERS, LOADS before SCADS, LAO before TAI, SEC (Ops) before SYS (ops) - just too many vague clues. Did not enjoy some of the fill - like STL (someone explained this relates to St. Louis Cardinals, but that still doesn’t satisfy), TAI (obscure for me), STETS (“leave” is not the same as “leave in” or “leave as is”), LTR (it’s the page size, not a layout option) and RES (said no one ever). Spoken colloquialisms like SO THERE are always a crapshoot for me. There was much less trivia / proper nouns than usual, but many of them (NIGEL, ROSEN, FLA) were not readily known to me. So felt more of a grind than I’d want in a fun puzzle. But there were a few bright spots like I’M NOT A ROBOT, SPY and AISLE SEAT. Keep ‘em coming!
@Steve L I’m not so sure. The left side theme answers can be said to take NE from the answer next to them, to make sense for their clue. But the right side theme answers do not take NE and don’t make sense for their clues with the NE. If anything, they must give up their NE, and that is not hinted at by the revealer (unless you argue that mathematically, if one side takes, the other side must give, but that seems forced to me!). As some have suggested, if the clues were modified to also suggest the actual answers in the puzzle (with or without NE, respectively) then the solve would’ve been more satisfying (though perhaps less puzzling than some like to see on a Thursday).
@Lisa Marshall [Sorry, responded to the wrong post below.] I had to look this up. O+ 37% A+ 32% B+ 9% O- 7% A- 6% AB+ 4% B- 2% AB- 1% A-neg is not the rarest blood type but it can considered one of the rarer types.
@Evan But it is valid for a “tween”-agent, typically age 10-12 (pre-teen years).
Interesting solve. Got most of the fill without getting the theme. Some theme entries had both ends make recognizable words while others were gibberish, and none solved to the clue. Waited for the theme to emerge. Filled all squares except the colored ones. Stared at them, thought about “wormholes” and then noticed the connection between the paired entries. Filled the colored squares quickly. Corrected a couple of entries to line up with the correct theme answers. And voila! Quite the feat of construction. Needed the column to get the bonus of “-worm” connection for each theme entry. Marvelous!!
I was mostly on the constructor’s wavelength and solved this rather quickly. Needed one look up for NICOLA. Got LUCHADORA through crosses. AMSCRAY and SKI CAP popped into my head after getting a few crossing letters. ONE instead of INA and ACER instead of ASUS caused some confusion before crosses cleared them up. Loves the clues for AWL, REINDEER and HAND!! As for theme, I had no idea early on. I did figure FLAT EARTHER and DEATH AND TAXES and saw that I could fill in only the first 3 letters. So waited for theme to emerge. Luckily the other entries on those lines filled easily. As I eyeballed the theme entries, I could see the missing Ts. But had to read the column to notice they are the only ones sitting on the lines above! Quite the feat of construction, bravo!! Enjoyed the puzzle even though it was over rather quickly…
@Andrzej “Comparatively low” was one of the clunkier clues, but it resolves to the meaning you guessed. One might say, “I was as sad as my friend to see the 49ers blow yet another game,” but one would never say “I was comparatively low as my friend…”.
What a slog!! A clear testament to a puzzle that has bragging rights for the constructor but no joy for the solvers. Too many proper nouns and obsure clues for a Sunday sized gird making it a total grind…
@Montse Some NAPA Valley Cabernet Sauvignon wines are pricey. USO provides entertainment services to US military (GIs) around the world. VISINE is a brand of eye drops. To INK is to sign (and close) a deal. To emote is to ham it up (in acting), hence a ham (in acting) is an EMOTER.
@Francis A variation of Zeno’s Paradox - the sum of an infinite series is finite.
@Chet I agree 1A is not valid but for a different reason. All MacOs, Windows, ChromeOS devices are PCs (Personal Computers), but only Windows devices would be referred to as IBM PCs in the old days.
Very enjoyable puzzle with delicious clueing, yet surprisingly easy to crack. Close to a personal best at 13:31. Didn’t know DABO, PAWNEE, AMYS and SKOR, but deduced them easily from crosses. Loved: Gold meddlers, Husky hellos, Portable retirement options, List of qualifications, Skirt with leaves, Where spirits are high, Bath seat, Won land, A zero is one. More like this please…
@Eric Ditto! Couldn’t find the error even after fly specking (on a Monday!)…
AND YET before EVEN SO; MIND? before MAY I? Clue for 10A could have an article qualifier, as I was puzzled what word could represent the entire US immigration policy? Wasn’t familiar with HENNY or ASTOR but crosses were friendly. SHADY for [Suspect] seems, well, a bit shady! CAV was easy but clue did not suggest an abbreviation. Cute theme. Was waiting for SPANGLISH to be the revealer…
Column says: “ When acronyms or initialisms are used in clues with question marks — such as in [V.I.P. section?] — that clue is often calling for the phonetic spelling of a letter.” Not sure that’s the case. The key word here is [section] which, along with [?], suggests one of the letters is to be spelled out. If it was just [V.I.P.?], that would not suggest the phonetic spelling of a letter at all!
The white spaces looked daunting at first, but the clueing was pretty gentle and crosses were friendly, almost Wednesday level, so flew through the puzzle in the end. BATTERY before CHARGER, NOW before PAT. Had to look up the spelling for TATOOINE (as TATTOOINE didn’t fit). Not a fan of NOT DO, BOO AT and POKE AT. Had only heard of PAINT BY NUMBER as a plural (isn’t there always more than one number in the painting?). Hope the editors fix their radar for puzzle difficulty for each day…
@Andrzej Political expression is certainly restricted but art is much more than politics. This video tour will give you an idea of the art on display at M50. <a href="https://youtu.be/QtOYyudoCt0?si=qyTxahh4RgnYiC4v" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/QtOYyudoCt0?si=qyTxahh4RgnYiC4v</a>
@Steve L Urdu is written in a variant of Arabic script. Hindi is written in Devnagri script. Both can be transliterated using Roman letters when only an English keyboard is available.
@Petrol Short for Zinfandel, a grape used to make red wine
Is SCAD meant to be singular for SCADS? I could not find any such definition, nor am I familiar with such usage (“he asked me a slew (scad?) of questions”).
Completed below my average but did not enjoy it - 20+ trivia / proper noun references, slangs like LIT, TUDE and PEC without any indication, oddball clues like for SUBWAY ADS (“Eats Shoots and Leaves” anyone?) and TRY — felt like the constructor was trying too hard to twist things up. Oh well, there is always tomorrow…
@Andrzej In the sense that a registry is a wish list of things the couple desires, one can say that the registry contains WISHES. It is weak, as even the constructor admits, but plausible. I had more difficulty with WASHBOARDS as I did not know them as musical instruments until today!
@Andrzej When something rankles, it is said to “stick in one’s craw” or so the saying goes. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stick" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stick</a>%20in%20one%27s%20craw
@Andrzej AFAIK, “Ms.” is a neutral term to address a woman regardless of marital status while “Mrs.” implies a married status (“Miss” is not very extant either).
@Abe As we’ve been lectured many times, the clue has to fit one situation, not all i.e. it is sufficient that *some* hallways are long…
@Andrzej I don’t think of RETREAT as meaning “period”, but I can think of SILENT RETREAT as a “period for self-reflection.”
@Heidi That was my first guess, seemingly confirmed by LYNX. But CARE TO ELABORATE had me correcting it to CAREY.
@Andrzej This felt tough to me too. Many answers were slang / casual expressions that weren’t my first thought e.g. UP AND AT ‘EM (vs AT IT), PDQ, A MIL, ORDS [I really don’t like missing punctuations in answers - maybe I should go back to cryptics which even give word counts!] To your point, HALT WHO GOES THERE had a tenuous connection with the clue. And YOU CANT WIN THEM ALL makes more sense with word play, than as a correction. Still, most were quite clever!
@Frennzy Good then that one can solve this puzzle as a themeless - no rebus required, just fill out the answers as clued and not worry about the circles or revealer. No trick at all, in fact!!
@kilaueabart The pronunciation (hence transliteration) of numbers is the same in Hindi and Urdu, though they are written differently in their native scripts.
@Andrew Kennelly The word was familiar to me but I always thought it to mean “frozen” (like a dessert) and not icy cold (like weather), but I had enough crosses that it came easily to me anyway.
@Andrzej Yep, NW was the last to fall. Not familiar with INCOGMEATO or STAR SEARCH. OG stands for Original Gods, a generic term for pioneers that I did not connect specifically with rap. BART didn’t come easy as I wasn’t sure which Embarcadero is being referenced and the clue wording was deliberately awkward. NO HITTER is indeed a baseball term when a team does not score a hit.
@Tristan Understandable, given this is actually a Wednesday puzzle. As for symmetry, the column explains it well — each letter of the theme answers had mirror symmetry i.e. can be folded in half to align with the other half. And the puzzle as a whole has mirror symmetry as well.
@Andrzej I got the ANY => NE phonetic association fairly quickly, but the random placement of NE in the theme answers was unhelpful, as was the fact that theme answers (with NE included) had no connection to the clues. Top that with unknown words (to me) like BETTA and TASSE, along with an unfortunate typo at RTE, led me to a somewhat unenjoyable solving experience.
@Jacqui J RACES feels like a valid answer to 3D - common trap that I fell into as well, and didn’t find till the puzzle wouldn’t complete.
@Vaer Another computer error “alert” reference, in keeping with the puzzle’s theme: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_panic" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_panic</a>
@P. Campbell You can always look at the answers: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/10/2024" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/10/2024</a>
This was no Thursday!! And why are we getting themes on Thursday, which make the clueing so much easier? This was Tuesday level difficulty at best. The punny theme entries were cute but I did not find much punny about the revealer itself (would’ve been punnier if ALTERATION ALTERCATION were to be answer somehow).
@ED Not an expert but this Wikipedia article suggests a similar pattern worldwide, with A-neg at 8%. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_distribution_by_country" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_distribution_by_country</a>
@Puzzled If you take the OP’s comment as a tongue-in-cheek remark about our current President’s penchant for theatrics, then it makes a lot more sense…
@Andrzej “Finding words the English translations of which were anagrams of the name of the original language” - I figure the process was the opposite: find language names that have anagrams (programmatically), then translate those anagrams into those languages (straightforward)…