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I can finish Fri/Sat puzzles about 1 out of 3 times without any lookups. I did a pass on this one and got 2 probablys and 5 maybes. Second pass got one more maybe. At this point I asked myself "Is this a Sam E puzzle?" And yes, it was. I have never been on the same wavelength as Sam. I do the Spelling Bee every day and am often annoyed at the words he excludes and the "words" he includes. So knowing I would not have much of a chance, I pulled all the hints from Wordplay, and still got next to nothing. Then I did a reveal, saw the answers, and moved on. Glad I did. A few clever bits, but mostly too clever by half. This is why I never get too attached to my streaks. Sam is a clever guy but his mind is wired differently from mine.
ESPIEL? Methinks on a Wednesday puzzle when thou useth archaic English, thou shalt indicate so in thy clue.
When Nathan Hale was in middle school, his teacher asked if he could use an asterisk in a sentence. He said "I regret that I have but one * for my country".
@Dave K. If it's always referred to with "The" in front of it, then it makes sense as an answer. Imagine being at a wedding on the dance floor and saying "Hey Stan! Do worm!"
In a different world (or multiverse, as the kids would say) 36A would have been ITSNOTYOURFAULT and we would be talking about Good Will Hunting and I would have completed this Saturday. In this world, it was not, and I hit Reveal to expose a sea of red. Well such is life. Glad I didn't agonize over this one too much. Me and the constructor are obviously from different multiverses.
@MC Oops ESPIAL is correct. So... espy is not used in everyday conversation. Espial is not used in everycentury conversation.
@Stewkak I like writing palindromes, but I always get halfway done, then I get stuck.
Isn't REOIL something you would do when you RESEASON a pan?
@LarryF False. Kirk said Beam me up a few times in TOS and in STIV. The true version of this factiod is that no one ever said "Beam me up Scotty."
Woof! I usually come into Mondays thinking "can I get a PB?"... unless the cat is sitting on my lap forcing me to type one-handed. In this case I was typing two handed and things were looking great on the across pass. But started getting majorly bogged down on the - uh - downs. And to top it off, I had some ugly little nits in the end. Turned out to be probably close to a personal worst. But, a fair, fun puzzle even if tough for a Monday.
Somebody once quipped, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." After I heard that, it occurred to me that that is what BEEs are doing in their waggle DANCE.
Decent puzzle but... "I'm too old for this now" is not a thing. And G-Rated reconstructions of well known PG-13 rated phrases are also not a thing.
I've never heard of PADIDDLE, which is kind of a bummer since its the germ for the puzzle. I thought of I SPY and PUNCH BUGGY but that didn't help. I got NARWHAL right away but spelled it wrong (NARWALL). I probably would have given up on this normally but I happen to be visiting my dad who is a pretty good solver and between us we managed to plow through it eventually.
Was anyone else reminded of... So when you're happy (Hurray!) or sad (Aw!) Or frightened (Eeeeeek!) or mad (Rats!) Or excited (Wooooooooooooow!) or glad (Hey!) An interjection starts a sentence right.
Biggie Smalls is the name I gave my 1/2 inch to 3/8 inch socket adapter. You can probably guess what Smallie Biggs is.
Caitlin, I have an ASK. Please don't put any more CORPSPEAK into the WORDPLAY. I come here to get away from that. Mmmm-kay? Thaaaankkkssss.
@Trish Shouldn't that be "alsou Canadian"?
@Kj Reminds me of Kirk trying to explain Spock's bizarre behavior in Star Trek IV: "He did too much LDS in the 60's".
This was a spot-on Wednesday. And with a nice twist (get it)? Did the YOKO ONO sounds remind anyone else of the Barenaked Ladies Song? You know the part I'm talking about. Got ERSATZ right away thanks to the pilot of Remington Steele (It's on Amazon currently). Rewatch shows writing was excellent on that show (that episode at least)!
@jp inframan Are any of them, really? Besides that, is there anything you didn't like about it?
@Alex It's a puzzle... a game... light entertainment. What is your grievance?
@Heidi Crossing OHTANI (I knew the answer but not how to spell first and last name) with ENE is two foreign language clues (basing off of New York) crossing, which equal a Natick. Other than that, a fine puzzle.
I was on pace for a PB. Filled in the last box and... no joy. With the wind out of my sails, I started a recheck. Turns out I married "Gummi BEAR" on the first pass and assumed the rest would work out. It didn't. Fun puzzle and a nice Monday theme.
@R.J. Smith I agree. There wasn't anything in particular I didn't like about it, but coming up with answers felt like pulling teeth. But 8D reminded me of a funny line from The Simpsons... somehow everyone dies, and since Homer is apparently going to heaven, Flanders says going to heaven must be easier than getting into Arizona State.
Pedantic editor: "Are there any news?" Sassy reporter: "Not one new."
If I remember my classic literature, PANZA was Donkey-xote's sidekick.
@Barry Ancona My favorite example is air brakes which are used on semis and school buses. On typical vehicles, hydraulic brakes are used. On these, if the hydraulic fluid leaks out, you will suddenly find you have no brakes (fail UNSAFE). With air brakes, heavy springs push the brake pads onto the rotors, keeping the vehicle from moving. The powered air system constantly builds pressure to push against the springs and allow the rotors (and wheels) to move. If anything goes wrong with the air system, the springs will win out and the wheels will stop (fail SAFE).
Woo-hoo I successfully solved it with just the across clues for the first time. The across pass was getting me pretty much everything, at least on the top 3/4. So I decided to go for it. I think I've seriously attempted this feat about 15 times before.
@Mike Not just tennis. I occasionally pick a Wordle word with a yellow in the same place as in my last try - a blatant unforced error.
@Beth I totally agree. I had never heard of a "mixed signal" and when you think about it, you really have to have more than one signal for them to become mixed. The creator might think he's justified since you can for example have one "mixed metaphor"; but a single metaphor has multiple parts, which can get mixed with parts from other (individual) metaphors.
@Matt Without checking, I think at some point in Star Wars, Obi Won mentions The Force, and Luke says "The Force?". The conversation after that is Obi Won "teaching" Luke what The Force is. I give it a pass.
@AnnieM Stars do align, just on a much longer time scale than planets. Also, from an earth-centric point of view, the gradual precession of our rotational axis causes apparent changes in star alignment. For instance back when the Egyptian pyramids were built, the north star wasn't Polaris, it was Thuban. Since then, we have moved from the age of Pisces to the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
I suspect Mr. Blair brought up the irony definition controversy just to guarantee an extra busy comments section for his first Word Play. Wouldn't it be ironic if turned out people were tired of the debate and skipped comments today? (Answer: yes.) PS I really liked Pete's first Word Play.
@Bonnie You just helped prove his point - his IQ is already dropping due to the easiness of the current puzzles. ;)
@Marshall Walthew I'm pretty sure we had it spelled write and the puzzle spelled it wrong. That's my storey and I'm sticking too it.
Today I managed to finish using only the Down clues. That's my first time accomplishing that feat!
@Sadie You might not, but people do. First google hit has this example: "Are you busy?" "Ish"
Ack I was sailing through this, well on my way to a personal best. But I put UMNO for 55D and never gave it second thought. Then 56A looked like I_SAMATCM. Hmm what's this about Turner Classic Movies? I never used Tinder so no help there. Is this some acronym for Instagram? Then finally - Duh! But 2 precious minutes were lost.
The third and fourth row make a complete sentence. It reminds me of the crossword that supposedly revealed a bunch of details right before D-Day. Maybe this puzzle was assembled by the French Resistance.
@Cat Lady Margaret Now that is a brilliant evasion technique if I ever saw one! (This was only the third funniest reply I had to your post. I hope the other ones get past the Emus. :)
@Mary An extra ten minutes of puzzle solving beyond average seems like about the tiniest tragedy I've ever heard of. Don't you come here for a bit of a challenge? FWIW I thought it seemed pretty tough, but came in well under average (although average is skewed by a couple of "left it running all night" snafus.)
@Kevin D Very true. That image reminded me of the famous Far Side "Washington Crossing the Street".
I found this pretty tough, with a solid theme. That said, I always feel a little ambivalent about themes that feel like they were obviously generated by a python script. I bow to the creator's coding skills, but it just feels a little fake. It makes me think that soon, we'll be able to tell our AI tools: "Make me a crossword with a theme where several letters can be pushed to the back of the word to make a new word." And AI will do it. Before we know it, our AI masters will be requiring us to solve their puzzles every day to demonstrate humanity's value to them.
A. Aaronson is one of the biggest gossips in town. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3uZ41CoEY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3uZ41CoEY</a>
@Kevin Agreed. If anything, I think STEEL TIP boots would be cowboy boots with decorative shiny metal on the toe.
@CB And similarly the bunny slope being ridden by CHINCHILLAS.
Oof! Toughest puzzle I've seen in a while. Lately I get the Fri and Sat with no lookups, but the best I could do here is 2/3 complete before using several Wordplay hints and a few Comments hints. I hope the "too easy" camp is happy today. Not complaining though - I see lots of people got it no problem so it's a me problem.
@Joe Ipswich is one of my favorite words - from long before I knew it was a place. Why? It's a long story. So here it is. There was a Saturday Night Live (or maybe Not Necessarily the News, or both) gag in the early eighties called Sniglets. Sniglets are new made-up words that fulfill modern requirements. One "real" Sniglet I remember is "Aspirfection". That was the art of popping exactly two aspirin tablets from a bottle onto your hand, instead of clumsily digging or over pouring. I was around 12 at this time and invented two Sniglets of my own. One was "gleek" - which is when you accidentallly (or intentionally for some lucky people) squirt saliva directly from your salivary glands out of your mouth as tiny jets. This Sniglet seems to have made it into the modern vocabulary somehow. My other Sniglet was "Ipswitch", which is any place on the leg seam on your Levis where the dominant or higher fabric piece changes from the lower leg piece to the upper piece. This usually happens once or twice on most Levis. I've always wanted to visit Ipswich.
I quiet-quit this pretty quickly, and was glad I did. This builder's mind works on a completely different frequency from mine. I'll try for a do-over on Saturday.