Weak
Sauce
436
Comments
0.010
Avg Sentiment
122
Positive
174
Neutral
140
Negative
Sauce
Easiest ezersky puzzle ever. I couldn’t believe the constructor name when I solved it. It’s a Christmas miracle.
This was a fun puzzle. But because I’m a dope, I made all 15 theme cells, a 2 letter rebus. (xT). When I finished the grid, I didn’t get a gold. I reviewed, and didn’t think there were any errors. I removed all the 2 letter rebus, removing the Ts. Gold Star. I came to say this was bad programming. I now realize the Ts were proved by the grid. I’m an IDIO.
Everything about this puzzle was top class. The earth day appropriate theme. The Easter eggs for each part of reuse, reduce, recycle. The constructor notes. Everything that I expect and treasure about a NYT xword. Thank you Hoang-Kim vu
@Andrzej What “is getting tiresome”? You complaining whenever you don’t know something? I don’t know Hebrew. So I guess I should complain two Hebrew clues crossing? Amuse-Bouche is a French term. Aren’t you in Europe? Sound I complain because the America puzzle used a ‘foreign’ word? We get it. We get it. English isn’t your native tongue. Yes. It’s amazing you can do late week puzzles. Sincerely. But your incessant complaining, if you don’t know something it must be arcana. Pump the brakes dude. Midori Ito was a worldwide figure (skater) back in the day. She literally apologized to her home country for not winning the gold in the Olympics. I’ve never heard of Rene Claire. Or is it Claire Rene. I honestly don’t know. But it didn’t make or break the puzzle for me. I kinda enjoyed that two words I never heard of. Will never be able to spell. Where symmetrically placed in the grid. ACROPHOBIC (I think it should have been aero…) and PERI…. I don’t know the words. I’m not even inclined to look them up after the fact. But the other long entries were fun phrases. I guess it must be because I’ve heard of these… I can’t wait for Robert Lewandowski to be in the crossword one day. So I can call foul. Arcana!
@Francis All i know is that I’ll go back to e-school if it means I get to take classes at WINEBARS.
My time doesn’t reflect this. But this was the hardest puzzle for me in 2024. By far. I was ‘annoyed’ I struggled so much for a ‘Wednesday’. But I loved it. Nothing came easy. And what came easy was wrong every time. When I finally cracked the revealer, it all clicked. I can’t even remember or list everything I did wrong. But isn’t CASE a good answer for “making or breaking?’ Thought the mountain range was URAL. But no, it’s a river. But I guess I’ll nitpick and say GESTS doesn’t seem like tales of daring. But maybe I don’t know what daring means. I BONE in stock? Or bones? TYPEO was just a great “those letters don’t make sense together” answer. Anyway. The theme was clever. I enjoyed the phrases and the clues and the fill. Thanks constructors!
@Jody “Trained musicians?” “Read music”? It was two symbols # and b. I would argue if you could ‘read music,’ it would be harder because it are fixated on Aflat is Gsharp. Come on. It not like you were asked to sight read some sheet music. I think ‘exclusive’ is overreaching. I ain’t no patent attorney, but I know what TM means. My take.
@George Whut? The corresponding down answers are non sensical if you don’t use both letters. WASH/DAY NEW/T BAR/D T/WEED
Yikes. I’m a dummy that takes like 25-35 minutes to do an average Friday. Today was 12? The comments are gonna be brutal. I read Thursdays comments less than 15 minutes ago. If @Lewis is unhappy with the cluing / editors, then you know we have jumped the shark (shout out Fonzie). Editors be like “GO EASY ON ME”
Was looking for a quick Thursday. This wasn’t it. But it was clever. I really struggled with it, more than I should have, given I figured out the theme pretty early. I was really hamstrung by fill that I thought were gimmies. Like paver for MASON. Match for AGREE. Bland for ICIER. that said. If I was more relaxed and not trying to power solve. I think I would have enjoyed it more. But that’s on me. But gold, at least. I’m not a fan at all of IBEENHAD. It’s the expression, “I’ve been had?” And DVRs aren’t really features of smart TVs, are they? I don’t think like a Samsung, has a built in DVR. It’s more like a service than a feature. Methinks. But I think some clever non themer cluing. It was definitely “Thursday worthy.” Thanks Simeon.
I don’t know if the mob will say this was easy or hard, but it was such a delight. I’ll read commentary later, but the entries were so refreshing and fun (to me). Coupled with really fun, thoughtful cluing. THE MUNCHIES? PUNSTERS? SPOILER ALERT? COLD TAKES? LOCK AND LOAD? this is was inspired. I feel fortunate to have been given this puzzle. Thank you Rena. This was an OPUS.
Very smooth. Very approachable. Weintraubian. This puzzle filled itself in. I kinda wished someone who was new to xwords was watching me, so I could impress them with my incredible solving skills. I'm conditioned to enter DoH over DUH. And first put HoHOS (shoutout Santa), over HIHOS. END.OF.RANT and STAYCATION were the highlights for me. This puzzle was so nice, I have nothing else to say. I'm satisfied. Thank you, Jacob.
Was it too easy? Maybe. Was it brilliant. 100%. To come up with that solution set. Just [chef’s kiss]. Daniel. If you made the clues harder. I think this woulda been POY candidate. I really really appreciated the work it took for your come to with this.
Harder than Friday or Saturday, methinks. Never heard of a pip outside of Gladys knight or dice. Noisome and espial are new to me. And my phone autocorrect, as well. But great puzzle. I enjoyed this Wednesday. Thank you
The constructor notes are the gold star. What a great back story! Really really fun to read. I’m always gonna celebrate a crossword with sports. But the LARRY Bird clue seemed a bit off.
@dutchiris You live in Berkeley. And you never heard of Seitan. I’m pretty surprised, given how crunchy that college town is. No shade. Just surprised. Also. A veteran like you should have memorized ANI DeFranco. And as popular as our boy Brian ENO. Or our girl Yoko ONO. I know this could read as an ‘attack.’ But it is again, just more surprise. Go Valkeries?
@BPO How do you unrecommend a comment? Asking for a friend…
@Brendan Please don’t conflate not knowing how to spell someone’s name with thinking they aren’t “worth remembering.” Giannis Antetokounmpo Is arguably the most talented player in the NBA. Mike Krzyzewski Is the greatest coaches of all time. Doesn’t mean I know how to or need to know how to spell their names. 12 years a slave was amazing. But your last sentence was textbook virtue signaling. And is not “remembering” names that is the hard part. It’s spelling them. For you know, say, a crossword puzzle spanner. I hope Mahershala Ali can forgive me. Although that one is at least phonetically? Easy to figure out.
@Mike I hope you aren’t confusing clues ending with ? With “far reaching.” Because the ? Clues were brilliant, specifically the across ones. I’m sincerely sorry that it wasn’t fun for you. But ‘respectfully,’ “awful puzzle”. ?!?!?!
I need to be more observant. Last week? It was the Ts blacked out on the grid. This week. I never realized the starred clues were in the same column. I got the ‘revealer’ early. But the trick fell very very late for me. Always a bonus when the themers spell actual words. Constructor level of difficulty goes up a lot, I would imagine. Fun, creative, and just enough Thursday to make my brain tingle, but not hurt. Thanks constructors!
@Brian Android users always trying to flex on us poor Apple sheep. If only Apple products were more popular so the tech crew could test on these obscure devices. They are tough to get a hold of, I’ll admit. Probably renders perfectly on a Nokia clamshell.
Outstanding long entries. I mean so many fun entries in one puzzle. It could have been epic, but… yes, editors, you made it Wednesday level. It’s a shame. I want to DRINK this grid ALL IN. Editors. What’s up? Please explain?!? NO REPLY?Why you giving us the SILENT TREATMENT? It’s NOT OK. It’s fun to watch my average go down when doing 2026 puzzles, then skyrocket doing 2014 archives. I finished a Saturday Feb 22,2014 over a couple days. Granted I wasn’t “locked in”. But it took 1:09. Today’s took 25% of that. I know it is a Friday, but still. Amazing grid Erica.
@SC There may be no greater skill known to man than getting your marshmallow toasty enough to have an outer crunch, while still keeping it from catching fire. I think there is 0.3 seconds of play from Maillard perfection to charcoal disaster.
I honestly haven’t done a themed early week puzzle in private a year. I thought today was Thursday. But obviously Wednesday. Glad I was mistaken. This was ‘hard’. Okay, not hard. But when you have DRopLET locked in. 4 squares are absolutely confounding. Fun theme.
@Xword Junkie Everyone has their right to express their opinion. But man, you probably picked the wrong one to hate on. If you get more than 3 recs, I’ll be shocked. Even with this being a Sunday. So many more visitors
Great Friday. Great misdirects. Seemed like a Friday from OLDEN days. Plus our boy, Brian ENO, made an appearance. But this is not your father’s NYT. 46A. LOL. I entered it, but was sure I would have to erase. I miss these kind of late week puzzles. After 20 minutes, I’m staring at a bunch of blind guesses. thinking, I’m toast. 10 more minutes, and I’m done. Also. I’m gonna have to look this up. But do we say DESERT ISLAND, because it’s all sand like a desert? Or because of deserted, like left behind / uninhabited. But if the latter, why do we say it like the former. And why is deserted pronounced like dessert-ed. Man, I was born here, and I don’t get American English half the time. Cue the gilligans island theme song.
Not a fan of Sundays. Such a big grid. Too much time. Too hard to do on phones. But a harder Sunday. I am sure many appreciate, but not me. That said. A solid puzzle. Appreciated the double clues. More than the shaded trick. Made me work. Thank you. Maybe create something like this for a 15x15? But gotta say. Petrichor. What a great word. Very relatable for Californians. Some people I know really like the smell of gasoline. Is there a word for that. Other than weird?
There is zero chance these two hall of fame constructors had a hand in the cluing. I know many yesterday felt that it was Monday level clueing. Today’s was even easier. If I’m being 100. The theme was pretty underwhelming (again, given the constructor names). I literally started to slow down because I was afraid I was going to set a personal best. And I didn’t want it to be on this puzzle. Fortunately I slowed down enough. I know this post sounds so arrogant to some. But even xwstats said this was easy. The hardest part of today’s puzzle was trying to figure out how to spell SINISE. Yikes bro. Just yikes.
Oh man. I’m bummed. But relieved Solved in 20 minutes. Spent next 30 or so minutes thinking about how the themers made sense. Punted, and decided to read the column. I can’t imagine trying to “sleep on it” to figure out the trick, only to see this was a “technical issue.” Woulda been a lot more frustrated than I am now. But the ultimate troll job was having additional ones in the constructor notes and not underlining those! Pretty sure, the column could handle underscoring. So sadly. Too easy for a Thursday. And not fun because of the glitch. Regrettable for the constructors. Just my opinion.
@Jonathan I just wrote the word EQUALS using the rebus button. Since my app keyboard didn’t have an equal sign. It worked fine. Maybe not intuitive though
Really great concept. Very well executed. The best part is that there is very little chance of getting the long entries from knowing a couple letters. It makes you work a bit harder to get ask the jokes. SOISIT. “They don’t want me to stand” HIMAIMUP. “Greetings, feel free to injure each other” Too bad no constructor notes.
That was an incredibly tough puzzle. If I was live streaming the solve. The video would be 1 hour, 19 minutes long. And there would be a lot of time with no action. There was a lot of faith required in this puzzle. Putting in unsure long crosses just to connect to other parts of this “5 grids in one”. But I’m a better man for golding this bad boy. Very proud of myself tbh. Ryan McCarty. You’ve made me a better solver. Later bro.
I came here expecting to read every comment saying this was too easy. Pleasantly surprised to see that is not the case. (Didn’t expect the crossword nerds would be so up in arms about the singularity of NFL ownership). In any case. I must have really really been on the same wavelength. Because I had all six long entries figured out almost immediately. (Versus sussing out the long entry from the crosses). Though. Using.Your.noggin. Was my initial guess for 11down. TIL jethro Tull is not just a music band. Thanks for the breezy Friday.
I’m not a big fan of proper names being used in crosswords, in general. But a theme of proper nouns. Plus fill that also required (in my opinion) hard to spell proper nouns. Not a recipe for fun (for me). If you gave me $100. I could not spell EBSEN, LAOTSE, SAUTERNE all correctly in one try. Unfortunately. I only knew three of the theme names. So that didn’t help. Not ‘mad’. Got through it. But just to get through it. So hopefully. I’m the only one that didn’t find this ‘fun’. But in two hours. NFLredzone. And I will be properly entertained!!!
Hopefully. We’ll get some good ones that take people back to meaningful times Always Love You, I Will Through The Grapevine, I Heard It Around, I Get You Babe, I Got Candy, I Want For Loving You, I Hate Myself
@Matt “I’m curious, for those who regularly solve Thursdays: Would you have been able to identify the gimmick without the shaded squares?” I don’t think many would have needed the revealer. But no shaded squares, I think would have folks screaming bloody murder. You know how it is. It’s too easy until it’s too hard. But I’m glad the revealer was there. No because we need it to solve. But because it is such a brilliant punchline.
@Edward Is only been 1:40 since puzzle drop. But I’m surprised this is the top comment. I guess the entries could be considered “green paint”. But they are legitimate things. Though I’ve never heard of tax exile. Tax haven. Yes. Tax exile, I assume means leaving the country and never coming back. But I guess the point for me is that the cluing was actually fun. I mean wordplay fun. And gave the puzzle a level of difficulty that I think many solvers here long for. But of course, YMMV. and that’s cool. It’s great that you were so thoughtful in stating your dissatisfaction.
@Henry Su Sometimes? There are so many archaic features of this commenting system. The inability to distinguish between previously read (old) and unread (new) is by far the worst. But I guess that how compelling this place is. Us 'regulars' are hooked no matter how bad the conditions are.
This was a great Wednesday for me. Interesting theme. Kinda a safe entry to Thursday. Many fill clues were misdirects, but not diabolical. I learned stuff -interesting but sad fact about concrete -never heard the word MEEMAW, and I guess I know how to spell it now. And of course, am saying it with sober country fried scent in my head -UTE is plural Homage to crossword stalwarts. OREO. And EMU. Alex touched all the bases on this one.
@john ezra Ar_ti_, North Atlanti_, South Atlanti_, North Pa_ifi_, South Pa_ifi_, Indian, and Southern The seven seas How I wish there were only seven _ (underscores). …
@Nick Wow. Wasn’t expecting to see this kind of comment. I’m not Jewish. But I guess I’m just used to a paper based in new York, with Jewish editors and mostly? Jewish constructors serving a huge Jewish diaspora is gonna have over representation of their own culture. To your point, how many times do we Yiddish clues. I’m also struck that if you didn’t qualify yourself as a New York Jew, this comment would be removed as some sort of hate crime. Maybe it will. Who knows. Also To your point. Many times EMIR or HADJ or EID or TET or AGRA is thrown in because it is a convenient letter pattern. (Like OREO or ANI or OBOE). The ELI clue definitely seemed like overkill. Given how many options the editors had. But I do recall there being long crosses in past puzzles with Islam holidays. A hard to pronounce African capital. The one I recall that created a lot of consternation. A clue was “site of conflict” or something like that for GAZA. This was pretty early in the beginning of that occupation. That seemed crazy tone deaf and there was a lot of debate over that in the comments. Anyway. I’m not mad about it as you are. And honestly, I’m not even ‘allowed’ to be, or I will be labeled anti-semetic. I sincerely hope this thread generates some thoughtful discussion. And doesn’t get removed for arbitrary reasons.
The fill was maybe a bit too easy for a Wednesday. But MY GOODNESS, the reveal was inspired. I can't believe HOKEYPOKEY was your starter. And you came up with the other two. Great way to make an entrance. Congrats on the debut Greg! I was an amateur to think McFlurry might be mint. Of course, it was OREO. Actually, I think the current mashup flavor is OREO Mint McFlurry. Nothing signals the coming of Spring more than a Mickey D's Shamrock Shake? amirite! (side note, that new Manga dipping sauce is pretty meh) So far this week, for me, each day's solve time has been faster than the previous day. By Sat, I may be sub 5 minutes! haha
Sorry. I’m spoiled I know. But that was just too common a Thursday trick. And if the puzzle is going be based on something like that, then you gotta ratchet up the clues. I mean “second most populous city in the US”. That’s a Monday-level clue. But in this case, it just gives away the trick immediately. On the editors. Not the constructor. It might have been a Thursday grid. But the clueing turned it into a Monday. It would have next level to have the themed across entries be real words. TAO. Nice. BRAINA. Close LOSAES. yuk. Anyway. I appreciate the puzzle for what it is.
Very Friday worthy, methinks? I plodded along making slow progress, like I should expect for a Friday. “25 minutes. Okay a couple more cells to go” But that NW corner. I couldn’t not decipher 1D. I had THERENOW. So I need a word that is _T_P “I am sure it’s HATESON. but there is no word that starts with ht_” 10 minutes of filling in and erasing the same four cells. It finally dawns on me. I loved it. Thank you constructor AND EDITORS! for this nice Friday. (Now I will go to read the comments, which will all say “too easy!”)
@Andrew I'm not British. But I viewed SHAG like "hooking up." Though, you never really know what hooking up means when someone says it. It could be just heaving petting, all the way to the dirty deed. But shag to me never seemed as crass as the F bomb. I mean Brits are always dropping the F bomb. Anyway, let's just focus on the funniness of the quote. It rhymes. It's cute.
Haven’t done the crosswords in a while. Actually still solving today’s. But had to stop and write “companionship” is the the greatest clue I’ve seen in a long long time. Didn’t read article or comments yet. But I hope my sentiment was repeated over and over in the comments. Back to solving. Btw. I figured out the revealer on the first starred clue I came across. [pats self on back]
Yes. Yes. Yes!!!! If anyone pans this puzzle. I will throat punch them. Amazing. Fun. Saturday. Cluing. Chefs kiss! Thank you Katie.
This is the hardest puzzle I’ve done in a while. Actually I gave up. I couldn’t crack the SW. I just couldn’t give up swish (cry before a shot) for SMILE. ShEDS for SEEDS was at least a real word. Like I sad. I just couldn’t give up swish. That said. I thought the puzzle was a little too heavy on proper nouns. But now realizing the intricacy of the grid design. (Not sure why I didn’t notice it before). I think I would have been much for forgiving about anything, even a bunch of trash fill, given the ‘uniqueness?’ Of this grid design. I like Saturdays that humble me. The joy is in the struggle.
@koty I assume it is referring to locks of hair. So hairDO. At least. That’s what I thought
@Jeff Homie. You think NYT is the only place to get access crossword puzzles? There is a standard that people expect out of the gray lady, crosswords and more importantly, tal real news. Perhaps we should lower the standards for military training so more people can join navy seals. How about lowering the the basketball rim to 8 feet so more of the “hoi pilloi” can dunk. That 10 foot rim be keeping 99% of us from dunking. Unacceptable! You honestly think people here don’t want others to enjoy solving xwords? Like we’re gate keeping? Come on bro.