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Can't put my finger on why, but I found it not particularly enjoyable. Clever, but not fun.
Not gonna lie. This was perhaps the roughest one in recent memory. There was way too much trivia for me. I haven't done any lookups so far this week and I needed to do half a dozen today. Never heard of "Under the Volcano", never watched "The Office", never heard of GORP, had no idea where the Daugava River was or where some LOTR character was buried, did not know the word MOIL and stuck with TOIL for too long, etc. But there were some really nice and amusingly clued entries, such as ADOUT, ASTRONOMY, and TRI. An hour and 10 minutes.
1A has nothing to do with canal locks. The C-shaped swiveling fixtures on the gunwales of a rowboat, which hold the oars in position, are called "oar locks".
It would have been more fun if Whiskey, Tango, and Foxtrot had somehow been incorporated! IYKYK.
@Bradley It's fairly well-known, especially on TV shows such as The Simpsons. This is the best explanation I've found: "It's a purposely humorous version of educate. It is used in a joking way to pretend you're educated but by using a word that's not a real word." I suppose it's similar to "embiggen".
I'll go against the grain here. I loved this puzzle! It did take me almost 2 hours with no lookups, which is double my average time. But it was very satisfying to get the six trick clues. I enjoyed the whole puzzle and did not find it a slog at all.
Fun puzzle! I found it just right for a Sunday.
@Pat If you got two of the five letters, it was pretty obvious from some of the crossing entries that it had to be Sheng, Cheng, or a variant thereof.
Fun but way too easy for a Saturday!
@DawnW Yep. You know that a 5-letter male French name starting with EM pretty much has to be EMILE. If you had the OO and a couple of other letters, OOHAAH POINT was quite deducible from the clue. I didn't know SLOANE or AHMAD but I did know KUROSAWA and RYANCOOGLER, which helped. What's the fun if everything is easy?
I'm in awe of the solvers who found this easy. It gave me quite a workout. I eventually caved and had to look up LUCA and BIGAL. I stuck too long with SPACEOPERAS which messed up the SW quadrant for me.
This was the hardest Saturday puzzle I've ever solved. It took nearly 2 hours (I had to look up the last name of the Andor actor). In the SE corner I was stuck on TONGS for "Grabber" and it took me a while to untangle. The NW corner was almost impossible. I had a lot of incorrect words initially: INRE instead of ASTO and KANJI instead of EMOJI. That took a half-hour to figure out. A real challenge but satisfying to finish.
Now this was the perfect level of difficulty for a Friday!
I wasted a lot of time on the north central section, not knowing AKON or BOHO and not believing that OHDAMN could be equivalent to "Wowza". A lot of trial and error. So a bit annoyed. I assume BOHO comes from Bohemian? Never come across it before.
@Allan I was very upset when Pluto was demoted. In its honor, I've named my new company 9th Planet.
I rarely complain about puzzles but this was not my favorite. The clues were very Monday/Tuesday and not a single one made me smile or frown. I found it a mechanical exercise. Still, I appreciate the constructors' efforts. I know I couldn't do what they do.
I usually allow an hour for Saturdays; this one took 46 minutes. I'm sure that's much slower than many of you out there. I found it quite challenging but was lucky with my guesses on a few of the long ones.
I'm not getting the "Monday puzzle" complaints. I've only been doing the NYT crosswords for a few decades but can barely discern the difference between the Monday and Tuesday levels of difficulty. Wednesdays are a definite and perceptible step up.
@Artie The three separate words have noting to do with the clues but are actual words. I found that very confusing until I figured out the theme.
@Michael B. New to me as well, but apparently a thing. "Count noses" is an idiom that means to find out how many people are in a place or how many people support a plan or vote.
Very easy without ever getting the theme, which was a little too cute.
Early on I was ready to throw in the towel, having filled out only 3-4 entries in 15 minutes. I made a couple of wild but educated guesses and little by little things fell into place. I didn't know most of the references but once I got a few letters I was able to guess at the rest. I didn't need any lookups although I was sorely tempted a few times. Anyway I finished in 35 minutes which was one of my better times for a Saturday. It was a fun puzzle, though; and tougher than my time would indicate. I just got lucky with some of my guesses.
Fun theme but a bit too easy for a Wednesday.
@Petrol I thought ROADWIN was one of the best clues. Perhaps it's not obvious for non-Americans. Team games played away from home are called road games and a win on the road is success in/on a different playing field. Apologies if you already knew this.
Not too difficult for a Saturday puzzle.
Fun but very easy! A personal best of 23 minutes for a Friday.
@Jim I found it very hard. If I may ask, was your 9:45 time achieved without a single lookup? If so, that's doubly impressive.
Fun puzzle. I thought I'd have to give in because I was stuck on AHMED and FRESH instead of AHMAD and BRASH. I spent 15 minutes flyspecking and finally figured it out. I had 3 quadrants done in 20 minutes but the SW quadrant almost defeated me.
Way, way, way too easy and the clues were, for the most part, not particularly challenging or interesting. I don't keep track but finished in less than half my normal Sunday time.
@Chris I would not consider SILENTA, MAVEN, and COVEY to be proper noun/trivia answers. NLRB is borderline. I was also led astray initially by LEYDEN but then assumed it was an alternate spelling.
@Joe Horton Speaking of lookups, I've never figured out what's considered "fair". I try not to do lookups at all, unless I'm stuck for a long time right near the end. The most I ever do is one or two; rarely three. But most days I try to finish with no lookups. I guess my question is, is your streak considered tainted if you look something up? I know there's no right answer!
I finished the puzzle in about an hour (no lookups) without ever understanding the theme. Overall it was OK. If I had figured out the theme it would have gone a lot faster.
I liked it. Wasted a few minutes on DEWDROPS and its crossing words (I had DEWFROST which didn't seem quite right). Good tune-up for tomorrow.
Extremely challenging one today. Considering I didn't know most of the trivia, a 45-minute time with no lookups wasn't bad for me. I got the theme about two-thirds of the way through. I was sorely tempted to look up some of the doozies (Chrono Trigger? 2007 horror sequel? hogao?) but resisted the temptation. It was fun after yesterday's ultra-easy puzzle.
Well, this was quite the humbling experience. My streak was broken at 30. Very clever puzzle but a lot of trivia that I had to figure out letter by letter. For 59A, I tried CREEP, CRAWL, STEAL, SKULK, SLIDE, and finally SLINK. There were quite a few more where there were multiple possible options. I was finally defeated by SCREWIT (I had SCRAPIT) and SMILEY (I had SMILER). Enjoyable puzzle, though! I was never going to get my streak to 100 anyway.
@B My thoughts exactly. This was rough!
Great submission from a 16-year-old! But it was more suited to a Monday in terms of difficulty level.
Took me forever but it was a lot of fun. I did have to look up a couple of things. But the long entries and their clues sere fiendishly clever!
That was a VERY rough one. But while it made me stretch very hard, it was very satisfying to solve. I don't know who did the cluing, but many of the short entries, when I finally figured them out, made me laugh. I'm dreading tomorrow!
Wow. Awesome puzzle. Not easy at all and made me work. Took a while with no lookups but well worth it. The cluing was really Saturday-level (I never know how it's split between the creator and the editors).
I really enjoyed the puzzle. I use the NATO alphabet frequently on the phone, to spell out my name, address, etc. So once I figured out the theme it was plain sailing.
@Ed You take the first letter of the clue and substitute the NATO alphabet equivalent, then add in a word that's equivalent to the remainder of the clue. So: G ambit = GOLF RANGE
Somewhere between a Monday and Tuesday in difficulty. I still don't understand the theme but will go read the Wordplay column. I didn't come across a single challenging clue.
@heironymous I just voluntarily broke my Connections streak at 100. I was getting much too obsessed with it. Now I have my no-lookup NYT crossword streak at 30. No one cares about any of this but me.
@Emily I guessed FETLOCKS immediately upon looking at the clue without looking at the grid for any confirmatory evidence. It's a very common term among horse people.
The theme was fresh and fun. The non-theme answers were a bit of a slog, especially the SE corner which took a lot of trial and error; not being familiar with SKEE, INSTA (never knew it was called "the 'gram"), LORIS, MATER, or IONIA. But I was finally able to work it out with no lookups.