Elly Zee
Baltimore, MD
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Baltimore, MD
Periodic reminder that almost no one is an expert in every facet of culture touched by a diverse crossword puzzle. Sports, entertainment, literature, and language—from Latin to slang to Spanish to Hawaiian—are all fair game. The *whole thing* about crosswords is that the things you do know help you figure out the things you don’t know. Three Spanish-language clues from a Latinx constructor and people are losing their minds! 17% of Americans speak Spanish, which is not too far from how many follow professional tennis. Y’all. Embrace the learning. Embrace the new and diverse. If you can’t, I’m pretty sure you can find an archive from 75 years ago.
@AllieW Rent is used as the past particle of “rend,” as in to “rend one’s garments,” which is to tear or RIP them. Extremely devious clue!!
@Eric 17% of Americans speak Spanish (50x as many as speak German, and infinitely more than speak Latin, which makes frequent appearances without comment). About 4% of this puzzle had Spanish language answers. That seems like a fair ratio.
@tom I don’t think this is a fair criticism. The revealer says that trading names will fix four pairs of answers, not every answer they touched. Making the downs work with ways would be almost impossible, if not completely impossible, and likely would have made the grid a lot less clean for minimal extra benefit. I thought this puzzle was admirably conceived and constructed.
@CRO you seem to be missing the rebuses.
Oh this was SO GOOD. i hated it for about 5 minutes until I figured out the trick, then I was mad at how good it was. Finished 25% below my average time for a Thursday. It was a perfect balance of straightforward and tricky clues to enable the recognition of a rebus without sacrificing the challenge. *chef’s kiss!*
@John it’s a term in the Black community for a condition fairly unique to their skin.
@Mike Musical score terms are a longtime mainstay of crosswords, and maybe we should be questioning why OGLALAS is considered trivia instead of complaining about it. With the variety of answers you have issue with, I wonder what you *do* expect to see in a puzzle?
Half my solve time was flyspecking for a mistake and finally had to look at Wordplay to finish: CLEF/LAYOFF vs CDEF/DAYOFF was just unfair. But otherwise, very smooth puzzle, cute theme, and some colorful fill. Thank you, Sam!
I love love LOVED this. The theme was so perfectly dorky, and so many laugh-out-loud clues. Some of my favorite NYT clueing ever. A delightful debut, and on a Sunday! This girl is going places (and probably hiking there!).
Absolutely devious! Ella, you are an evil genius. I’ve never put in and taken back out and put back in so many letters. I saw the circles and thought “oh I’ll read the message when I’m done,” forgetting it was Thursday. Then the revealer told me why I was struggling so much. This was a worthy non-rebus challenge. And as an aspiring constructor, I’m awed by the work that went into building this theme and grid!
@Sam I don’t want this to become a thread about “Latinx.” I’ll do my research on that. I did not know the constructor’s gender or pronouns and used the placeholder I had mentally at hand. For now, people should just pretend I used whatever word they think is most appropriate and focus on the content of my message.
I just found myself staring at the puzzle, still, seconds ticking away on my timer, because I had just input the revealer and was suddenly plain caught up in the delightful cleverness of the theme and elegance of execution. I haven’t even finished the puzzle. Just came here to say this. Loved it.
I snorted when I got the theme. Absolutely hilarious situations to picture! Extremely smooth solve too. Loved [PC hook up spot], fresh take on EPI, and learning where spectacled bears live. Thank you, Rebecca!
@Jeff P. There’s nothing about this that isn’t a crossword. All the rebuses still make words in both directions. Without the rebuses, it would be the same puzzle with an extra perimeter of squares. It is 16x16, not 15x15, and has a relatively high ratio of black squares. But it has rotational symmetry and the same number of words as any themed puzzle. It may not be to your taste, but it’s absolutely a crossword puzzle, by even the strictest definitions.
I’ve never commented on a puzzle before, but I found this one very frustrating! Is it a generational thing? BADONES, TEC, and MIXSET are not things people say. GOREN, HAIFA and AIX are pieces of trivia impossible to infer. The “cue” clue was…not the best choice. And the DONEE crossing ALENE almost made me lose my streak. I liked the theme, but three edibles and a rogue fourth felt unbalanced. Maybe I just need to finish my coffee.
This was so good! 👏👏👏
Great Saturday! Challenging and took me many passes but I didn’t have to look anything up because the crossings were fair and new terms were quite inferable. Particularly liked the proximity of Mendel’s SWEETPEAS with PLANTSITTER!
Very original idea for a theme and good execution. I understand the difficulty of balancing such specific theme entries and placement against finding good fill. I tried to remember this as I groaned through entries like ALOP, SCH, ODIUMS, and RISHI. I did really enjoy the cluster of PEETA, PITT, PITAS in the middle. Really nice debut—congratulations, Mat!
Loved loved loved the misdirects in the clues. “Minor change” and “not in English” will go down as all-time faves. This puzzle was the epitome of tough-but-fair.
Glad to put my art minor to use with the paintings and my years-long D&D hobby for GREAVES. There were some tough answers that I only go through the crossings or inference, but honestly I think, because I entered the paintings early, I had the most trouble figuring out which articles are actually in the title of the Vermeer lol.
Fun fact I learned yesterday while constructing a puzzle of my own: Hatchling ECHIDNAs are called “puggles.” ☺️
@Remy A nickname is an additional or familiar name for something. Since the city is now known as Hanoi, Soaring Dragon (which is an English phrase) can correctly be called a nickname. (Cheshire cat voice: “We’re all pedants here…”) . . . Emu
@Bonnie Ann I’m delighted whenever there is an emu in the grid.
@Elaine Wilson They gave her a statuette, which means she is “with” one, even if she didn’t “win” it.
@Mr T Agreed. And there are very compelling reasons to either remove that word from lists or clue it completely differently. Recommended reading: <a href="https://www.orangutanssp.org/orang-vs-orang-utan.html" target="_blank">https://www.orangutanssp.org/orang-vs-orang-utan.html</a>
@Steve L A scale goes on a staff. With no sharps or flats, C Major is one of the most common scales, and CDEF is the “leader” of that scale. Yes, it is incorrect and not a perfect fit to the clue. But to say that those of us who were misled don’t know the difference between a staff and scale is not a fair criticism. And for some of us, a DAYOFF *would* be considered extended inactivity. Those were both viable answers, even if not precisely correct. I think that makes it an unfair crossing.
@Evan I was so mad and happy at the same time when I finally entered SLEIGH!
Really enjoying this puzzle. Paused to come here and say that I don’t know it says about me that I input 5-down and immediately saw a name. Nice clueing there to pass the “breakfast test.” I for sure would have used “Psycho influencer.” 😅
@ImmodestyBlaise This isn’t a homonym gag, so it doesn’t matter how you pronounce the state. No one says “floor it duh.” There aren’t any states that sound nearly alike, no matter how you pronounce them, so you only need a tiny bit of context to guess which one belongs. It’s much more about figuring out how to answer the riddle of the clue using real words. I think that’s a huge part of why this was actually so successful. True homonymic puns are much rarer and harder to pull off.
@CV these are two paintings (among many) that are so much smaller than I expected them to be!
@Wendy ahahahaha, I loved that! … AAAAAAA
@Lawillibug I think the term “stim” is coming into more favor because it is a clinical behavior for some neurodivergent people, while “fidget” has negative connotations of misbehavior. Perhaps the term “toy” will be the next to fall. As someone with strong ADHD myself, I get extremely anxious without, say, a paperclip to mangle or a pen cap to bend to pieces. I even had a “fidget” wedding ring, which has proven a sanity saver.
Absolutely brutal, in the best way. Just when I’m getting a little cocky, a puzzle like this one steps in to put me in my place. [“Hold please”?] is now possibly my favorite clueing of all time.
@festy I think they’re all the same format. Clue words first; answer words follow. Though I do agree that PREMIERS felt slightly askew. I put it in and took it back out then put it back in too.
@Gregory Akin to saying “ish” or “more or less” with a gesture. “I’ve completed 200 or so puzzles.”
@Steve L I’m a horror movie buff, and sometimes I forget that most people are decidedly not. EDGEIN was the inspiration for many iconic cinema villains, including Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill of The Silence of the Lambs.
@Bill in Yokohama et al What is Sabadi? I don’t think that’s the word for Saturday (singular) in any language, so I’m not sure how it would be confusing.
@Steve I think there should not be an intersection where one letter change can result in two viable pairs of answers. I’m not saying CDEF/DAYOFF were perfect answers, but when looking for mistakes, I’m looking for obvious typos or one viable answer that makes its cross gibberish. I had no reasonable way of self-checking to figure out where my mistake was, which is why I said “unfair.”
@Rich in Atlanta Interesting artifact you’ve found in this old puzzle. It wouldn’t have a place today. In 2024, it’s now generally known that chromosomes and pronouns are not necessarily related.
@Dan I’ve been working my way through late 2019 and enjoying it. Just don’t do Nov 7, which is the worst NYT puzzle I’ve ever encountered. Fun to read the comments though!
Absolutely delightful puzzle. I loved the novel theme and clever execution. It didn’t ADDUP for me till the wonderfully nostalgic reference to Pinky and the Brain, and then it all fell quickly into place and helped me solve a lot of the clues that had flummoxed me. Lots of good misdirects, too. I very confidently entered mica for TALC, Uber for LYFT, alsoI for SODOI, and cue for TIE, and put an L in LETSDIE. (I was perhaps *over*confident this morning….) Major bonus points for the thematic crossing of TYPOS with SIC!! Two TTHHUUMMBBS up!
@Wayne C I think even if you are “completing” something, you may not complete it. A thing isn’t complete until the doing stops. (As someone with serious ADHD, I spend a lot of time “completing” things that never get done lol)
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