Petrol

Lots of commenters are arguing about whether this is a good or bad puzzle. Please let me offer an answer. My standard is this: WHEN YOU GET THE RIGHT ANSWER YOU SHOULD KNOW YOU GOT THE RIGHT ANSWER. When I look at BADTHING, all I can think is “really? Surely that can’t be right?” The clue might as well be “Death in the family “ or “Syphilis” or “An itch you can’t scratch”. All of these are bad things, just as much as a demerit, or more so. So I’m left wondering “If the answer is BADTHING” why is “Demerit” the clue?” Therefore, this is a bad puzzle.

If you smuggle jelly do you traffic jam?

Hmmm…. How to put this? I had _A_INAS and i misread the clue as “Birth places” instead of “Berth places”. Aha, I thought! The NYT has overcome its prudishness! I smugly added a V_G… Turns out i was not in the right ballpark!

I’m not inconsonant, just having regular vowel movements

Little known fact: At the Droid factory, ARTOO was the second model off the conveyor belt. The first one was called “Amnot”

I reckon the NYT crossword is an under-appreciated trivia educational aid. It enables Brits to learn American culture (i now know more about SSNs than I’d ever care to imagine), old fogeys to keep up with the youth speak (what on earth is NOCAP? This is the only way we’d ever hear about it) and everyone can argue about etymology (OCTOPI…. There, I said it!) P.s. my favourite etymological nitpick: “helicopter” is not heli+copter but helico (screw) + pter (wing). I hope that was uplifting for y’all!

After almost 50 years, I just got the joke in “Asterix and Obelix”.

KAMASUTRA twice in a row? I’m not sure of the correct position to take on today’s teaser. It got hard straightaway and was ticklish all the way to the bottom. There were a couple of bits where i needed a leg up and a helping hand to really get the thrust of it, but overall i embraced it and after some thrilling filling, I’m inclined to say I’m satisfied. Phew!

MANEUVER sent me down a rabbit hole into a linguistic wonderland. In British English I would spell this manoeuvre, from the French. But the French squidge the O and E together, to make manœuvre. This œ is called a ligature, also known amusingly as an "ethel" or "œthel". Perhaps Ethel doesn't get much love in America*, but in British (and I dare say Canadian, not to mention Australian) English, she pops up much more often than I had realised, in words like foetus, diarrhoea, oesophagus, oestrogen, subpoena, phoenix and Oedipus, not to mention onomatopoeia (if you'll permit me a plop, thud, clank and parp). In French Ethel is even more common, in words like boeuf, soeur, coeur, oeil -- so much so that French school kids learn it as "e dans l'o" (which sounds like oeufs dans l'eau -- "eggs in water"), and the French have to add accents to words like poète in order to signal that Ethel is not at home! Of course this all comes from the Greek, in words that had an omicron-iota diphthong, like oikos, from which we get oikonomics -- oops, I mean economics. Who knew? Not I! *Which is, incidentally, a fœderation!

Well, after Saturday’s misery, I’m going to stick my neck out and say i quite liked this one. As a Brit i say “pudding” for dessert but i concede that many of my compatriots would say AFTERS. Not my first choice, but I’ll take it. What’s more, I don’t know about “words” like GATECH, and I’m not familiar with THE NEA or SHASTA or KSU or ANGI. But… i finished it in 33:20! I even guessed ATBATS without a moment’s hesitation! So yay!

Sam Corbin says she doesn’t like puns At least, only high-quality ones Her work must be painful If she’s disdainful For in the comments there are (usually) tons

FLEA is a respectable fill but I must register my shock at the clue which describes it as a “canine”pest. As an ardent cat lover this gave me paws and I am itching to set the record straight. In fact I am jumping up and down in indignation, ticked off and seeing red (well, small red welts in a few areas of my skin, anyway). The New York Times has a long record of bias on this issue. Clearly the theme of today’s puzzle was extremely dog-focused, with a mention of PEANUTS (an overt reference to the comic strip featuring a dog), another clue that was literally “molars and CANINES” (ugh!) and one that was about “PUPPY sounds”! (Bleeuch - have you actually met any puppies?) and a whole slew of clues that only make sense if you’re a mailman or someone putting things in boxes — a “boxer”?? oh yes, we all noticed that one! It is very important to recognize that Fleas (or by their proper name “Siphonaptera”) do not only affect dogs but also cats, lobsters, llamas, Eagles and probably succulent stars like Erma Bombeck and Stephen Rea. I demand that the NYT remove this offensive clue, if not the whole puzzle, and we start again from scratch! Meow! Yours parasitically, Claude

Only city dwellers eat chervil or chives. On the outskirts of town they eat sub-herbs. (This is a joke i made up to appease our American comrades, in case they’re feeling trampled on today. It doesn’t work in English English. Not sure about Canadian!)

Here’s something you know but you probably don’t know you know. I was reminded of this by the mention of irreversible binomials in the Wordplay column. The thing is, adjectives come in a particular order. Don’t believe me? Just ask a little old lady or a sober Californian linguist. If you still don’t believe me, how would it feel to ask an old little lady or a Californian sober linguist? Just feels wrong, right? We don’t realise it, but we naturally put adjectives in the “right” order. With thanks to Wikipedia for the handy list, that order is: opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. So Eeyore might be clutching a sad little wrinkled blue plastic birthday balloon. It would be all wrong if he had a plastic blue wrinkled birthday little sad balloon, wouldn’t it? My god, I salute English learners! You are amazing. (For more on this see the section on “Order” on the Wikipedia adjectives page: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective</a>)

This one’s groan on me.

For those who are getting wound up in TV TAPE, please remember the creator of this puzzle is at high school! I’m not saying that to let him off the hook for a vote you disapprove of, but because at his age, a VCR looks like a Stone Age hand axe, so it’s not surprising if something has got lost in the sands of time. I think TV TAPE is actually pretty accurate. Great puzzle, kudos, keep em coming.

Lovely puzzle, especially in my loved up state ❤️(nobody knows about it apart from you) French note: Les petits morts = dead children (no VITALSIGNS!) Les morts petits = small corpses (OH CRUD!) Les petites morts = small deaths aka ORGASMS (Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!) Kudos for YOYOSTRING and ANNEE! SONES were new to me.

I loved it. But I feel quite beaten up. Like I just had a really exhausting fight and emerged victorious… just! That southeast corner… A gripe about gripes: I’m afraid I have no sympathy for the complaints about names: as Brit I am constantly flying blind for at least two or three clues, because of holes in my Americana. What on earth is AP lit? Whoever heard of the AME? Who ever said “is so”, “am too”, “are not”? Can anyone name a single ice hockey player apart from Wayne Gretsky? (sp.?) What is IRA if not the Irish Republican Army? Deal with it!

The most amazing thing in this crossword is the notion that a dessert could be topped with Gummy Bears and chocolate chips. Oh, America!

THIC (Too Hard I Cheated) I did not like the northwest corner at all. Sorry. No no no. I was sure of CHURROS and HAREMS, while SUBPAR and AVAILED and ROSINED were difficult but fair enough. Not so RAGGED EDGE. This is about tenth down the list of metaphors for what people close to failure are on (starting with thin ice, last roll of the dice, last chance, razor’s edge, knife’s edge, slippery slope, etc.) UHAULVAN and ELSTON and BURN SAGE were ungettable for us foreigners. But SCHMEARS? MUNSHI? SNEES? I don’t mean to be rude but… Are these even words?

THERESNOTWOWAYSABOUTIT: Wordplay was offline… should someone be sent to there SINBIN?

ARIL? ANGI? I’m not a fan, too obscure, especially on a Monday. (Not to mention AARONJUDGE (who he?) lying across ROGER ( who he?))

This is a niche nit, but this comment crowd is full of niche nit nuts so i feel I’m in the right place to vent: ETON is *not* a prep school! It might be what the Americans call a prep school but it’s a British school, and in Britain a “prep school” is a private primary school, while Eton is a private secondary school. So if you went to Eton and asked the pupils how they liked their prep school, they would tell you about place they studied before Eton. Because Eton is not a prep school. (In fact, in Britain a private secondary school is known as a “public school”, but that’s another level of complication… let’s not get started!)

Sticking my neck out here, but perhaps the occasion could be marked by a Gospel choir singing “Oh Kappy Day” 🎶

Extra fun for us foreigners today, trying to guess what Americans eat. AFAIK the diet includes: Oreos Rolos Oreos General Tso’s chicken Eggo Rye Aioli Eel Ahi tuna Various -ades Oreos again What did I miss?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who started with Napoleon’s big HAT, and went marching off in the wrong direction.

The porcine theme reminds me of possibly the greatest newspaper correction of all time… <a href="https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2951" target="_blank">https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2951</a>

Brag time: I finished it in 32:41 without looking at any of the Down clues. I only used the Acrosses. First time I’ve managed this on a Friday. AT LAST! RARITY! Great puzzle!

Happy Fourth of July to all you American solvers! Wishing you a great CCL! I must say, i sometimes joke about the seniority of the NYT solvers, and i can’t help but notice that many of these clues would have stumped our children’s generation: What’s a fax? What’s a PDA? What’s a beatnik? Dear Mr Ayas, you are spoiling us! Medieval Latin hymns, PresidentTruman, Maureen O’Hara and Oscar Wilde hit us right in the demographic sweet spot. But ending on STONE TOOL? Steady on, Mr Ayas, sir! Senior, elderly, geriatric, that’s us! Now, you want to go Paleolithic? Noli me tangere! Get thee to the Bridge club!

I’m afraid this fails my test, formulated when I was doing cryptic puzzles: you should know when you’ve got the answer right. APPLYTO? PLOYS? This puzzle had some tenuous linkages between clues and answer, in my view.

Adding my voice to the many many comments from people who are unhappy with this and the recent run of crosswords. A hard crossword is not necessarily a good crossword. I got BADTHING and a bunch of other clues and I repeatedly thought “surely that can’t be the right answer!?” After a while I gave up and checked. I had them correctly, but they didn’t seem right. There’s no joy in solving a bad crossword. I hope Will Shortz will be back very soon!

UNDIERUN?? More of a mis-sprint than a mara-thong?

Brit here. Struggled in SE corner. NEVER EVER heard of PANLOAF. Not a thing. Sorry.

Message for the “it’s all getting easier” club: This was not easy, in my view! Nice puzzle though.

I may be in the minority but this puzzle fell into place beautifully for me, so I loved it! This, despite my betting everything on Quantum of Solace being the 23rd movie in the series (it is 22nd, if you discount Never Say Never Again) because it has the same number of letters as AVENGERSENDGAME. TIL that TARE is derived from the same root as “tarot” and that TURBAN is etymologically then fraternal twin of “tulip” - they both spring from Turkish tülbent "turban, gauze, muslin," and from the Persian dulband "turban" which got its name because the hat looked like the flower. Tulips were introduced to Europe from Central Asia and were the symbol of the later Ottomans. Who knew?

I quote: “Features of deerstalker hats” are EARLAPS. And what’s an earlap? It’s an earflap, with the F gone who knows where. Sam Corbin, a great journalist anticipates the reader’s question and answers it. You delivered. And made me laugh. Thank you!

I shall return later to the comments to φnd out who won the φght between “it was horriφc” and “it was magniφcent”…

Okay, who’s coming here to say it was too easy?! As Bart Simpson might say while making an online comment, you can eat my DIGITALSHORTS

Where is the punster Mike?? I hope he’s just on holiday and hasn’t been scared away by that meanie who asked him why he bothers with his almost daily puns… Come back Mike!! I miss you!