Ms. Billie M. Spaight
Richmond Hill, NY
289
Comments
0.034
Avg Sentiment
71
Positive
141
Neutral
77
Negative
Richmond Hill, NY
Mail order bries would have been DE-LIGHT-FUL.
"AM I RITE"? OMG! Looks like an ad for RITE AID. Totally unacceptable, IMHO. AGREED? Am I RIGHT?
HI FIVE to the constructor. It's been said that puns are the highest intelligent form of humor. I hope so, because I just love them. I enjoyed today's puzzle. HI HI HI!!!
Sorry Deb. In MANDARIN, AR is the abbreviation for Arkansas, not Arizona. Arizona is AZ.
I have to challenge this. Obeli were used in ANCIENT manuscripts to call out something that was considered spurious. In modern usage the † is part of a footnoting system that starts with * and goes on to # and other symbols before doubling the **, †† etc. And that symbol is referred to as a cross among editors, authors, printers, and typsetters.
@B Oh, we've been saying "have a cow" since time out of mind. Before the Simpsons were even born. It's a very old expression.
@Steve L I even like the puzzles I can't solve completely.
This was a good one. I didn't understand what was going on with the starred clues and their answers, although I did solve the whole puzzle. But, when I read the explanation, I just had to laugh out loud. Great one. Lots of fun.
Delightful! Who ever would have imagined that a teenager could make such a puzzle? I enjoyed solving it. Did the constructor originally come from India? I ask because of the British spellings of theater and spiraled. Neuroscience. I love it! Despite the fact that the puzzle was made by a teenager, there is nothing childish or teenage about it. It's sophisticated.
Much too hard to enjoy.
Woal Joodford is the game of the nent who is responsible.
My mail-in absentee ballot came with the "I VOTED" sticker.
@Andrzej This is a puzzle in a USA-based newspaper. It's going to have things that are more likely to resonate with a US audience. While it's great to have solvers from other countries, please stop being a grump. If you want something to complain about, try Connections. It's terrible! I'm thinking of stopping it. And I'm from New York City. I'm only 1/4 Polish. Eat some pierogi and relax--it's just a game.
Ah but this constructor's Rough and Rowdy ways ARE cool. I was breezing along until I hit the southwest corner and BAM! I got snagged. Here I was thinking that this felt like a Monday puzzle. Delighted that I was wrong!
@Vy Well gee whiz, what else can one do with rebuses except put them in crossword puzzles? I like them very much. Gee whiz. OMG!
This puzzle is an AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENT!
@Doug Because we don't all play CHESS. OK?
Would Soylent Green have been a harder revealer clue?
@Barry Ancona I didn't figure out the theme but I solved the whole puzzle with the crosses. After I finished I still didn't get it. Then I read the explanation in the column and I LOLed because this puzzle was so funny. I enjoyed it--not just because I solved it but for the humor in it. I would love to see more puzzles like this one.
Delightful puzzle. Favorite movie line: "Oh my G-d, I'm surrounded by Assholes." (Spaceballs)
IDK what's with this week, but the puzzles get easier and easier each day! This was even easier than yesterday, which was easier than Monday. I wonder if Thursday will continue this delightful cycle.
@Andrzej I am absolutely LOVING your good mood today. It's so nice that this puzzle brought out sweet memories for solvers. We used to get strawberries from the supermarket. They came in small green plastic "baskets" that were shrink wrapped. They looked great. PROBLEMONE was that the ones unseen usually were not ripe or had gone bad. But the TOPEARNERS were great.
@Ms. Billie M. Spaight O MEA CULPA. MRE was Meals Ready-to-Eat. And somewhere in the Pinocchio story, he did grow DONKEYEARS. I did read Pinocchio as a child but I don't think that chapter was included. And MRE is really esoteric. We always called it MESS. Congratulations to the constructors for making a truly esoteric puzzle.
Absolutely delightful! For a beginning constructor to come up with these clever clues and the oo-soo-viaual element was impressive! I enjoyed solving this because I had a crush on Sean Connery as .007 when I was finishing high school. Gave me a nice warm nostalgic feeling. Well done, Mr. Rooney (you gotta love the Irish--I do!).
I didn't like being graded on this....
@Rich WHAAAAAT? Both expressions have been used since time out of mind by my relatives (white) and friends (various). No-one ever even HINTED that any thing racial was involved. Since when has this become racist? And why?
TBH, I got the whole thing solved and I still didn't "get" the theme. Your column shed light on that for me. I'll do a DIDDLE DIDDLE for that.
@SP I must have handled, proofed, and edited thousands of manuscripts in my career and nobody ever called a † anything but a cross. No authors, no other editors, no supervisors, no typesetters, and no printers! I called it a "fancy cross." We were all veteran publishing professionals, so that terminology in the puzzle must be obsolete. It's not modern publishing usage.
So ended "easy street." Perfectly appropriate for a tricky Thursday puzzle. I loved the fruit extraction trick. I was trying to fit ORANGE where MANGO belonged. What no Etsy? No Oreos for me?
@Anita SUB LIME. I love it!
@DB I would say one of the worst! If I wanted to return to high school, then I would go there. The note was just the constructor showing off that he is a mathematician. Welp, "some are mathemeticians/Some are carpenters' wives/I don't know how it all got started/Don't know what they do with their lives...." (Bob Dylan). If I were the editors I would have rejected that note. It is BORING and egotistical. We are interested in words, not math. Sorry, but that note was not mathing for me.
How does ALL TIME AU LAIT get to be All Time Low? AU LAY? Low?
At last, constructors from my generation! Easy breezy solve, bringing back the sounds and images of my childhood toons. I loved working on this puzzle. Re 17A--there is an expression "there's been a birth in my family." So, YES, new parents can celebrate a birth that happened already.
@SBK to me a pretzel log is about 12 inches long and as fat as my thumb. A pretzel stick is about 2 inches long as as thin as a refiller for a pen.
@Eric Hougland Actually, it's a good thing because it shows the progress that's occurred. I think it's great that a person born in the late '80s with HIV is alive and thriving today because of the Fauci trials on infants with HIV. Google Joseph A. Kibler.
Absolutely IMPRESSIVE. Many full-grown adults could not compete with young Bryan. KUDOS.
Delightful romp. A lot of good wordplay, I loved WINEFRAUD. It was fun to see which wedding-related phrases would emerge--albeit somewhat altered. More puzzles like this one, please.
@Francis For starters, do our dear readers know the difference between Communism and Democratic Socialism? This is a critical distinction if we want to stop the red tide that threatens to engulf us all. Protect, restore, mourn...all appropriate words to use.
@Mr Dave Nit picker. Even I as an editor would have accepted "of" because that's what the eclipse was doing.
For the tech bros, I picture a red Ban-Lon shirt with the company logo and name on the left breast. The pants are tan Dockers. That's very vivid in my mind, likely from telly ads. Or am I channeling Jake from State Farm?
@B You and ME both!
Not my favorite, but perfect for a Saturday. Just too hard for me.
@Andrzej Thanks for sharing the memory. I enjoyed this a lot. It was a very good puzzle. I love it when puzzles make me nostalgic.
Imagine that! ME feeling that a MATH professor had a lot in common with me? Well, this puzzle felt that way. It was very much on my wavelength. The warehouse boss put the DOLLY PARTon the storeroom floor.
This puzzle was a joy to solve! I got the trick right away. It was an easy puzzle for a Thursday, but I'm not complaining. More, more more BOSCO (oops, BOSKO the constructor not the chocolate for milk).
@Andrzej I was in school starting in the 50s and through the 60s and no teacher ever even mentioned the kinds of dashes. I learned about them on the job as a sci-tech copywriter. The number of things we learn on the job is amazing. If you didn't work in publishing, it's not surprising that these kinds of dashes would not occur to you. The em dash—the longest one—is used to set off something that is not-quite parenthetical but the en dash signifies some kind of opposing relationship or a range (e.g., red–green or 3–8).
Happy Birthday Joe Marquez. I enjoyed your puzzle. The most creative thing your frends and family can do would be to take the puzzle page and wrap your gifts in it--solved or unsolved. Thanks for sharing your creative construction with us.
@john ezra They were own right good.
@Heidi I swear before the crosses made it more obvious that this was a camel, I thought it should be WEDNESDAY but that didn't fit. You know calling Wednesday Hump Day I figured that it was in the middle of the week, so two humps.
@Andrzej We usually write it KERBLOOEY so I had to rely on the crosses, but I did like the word. I just went ahead and used the autocheck whenever I got stuck. I like the KOOPA meaning poop. My mom never called it that. She called it BEBA. Over here it is the goose that lays golden eggs. Meanwhile, I was struggling with GILD or GILDED but neither of them fit.