J.P.
Paris, France
Last day of my Trying Every Puzzle This Week challenge. Total solve time: about 6 hours, but I forgot to pause it while I went for a long afternoon walk... I estimate the actual solve time to be over an hour. No Autocheck this time, but some Googling, although what I love about crosswords is how they can pull out buried knowledge from the depths of the brain... Many times did I think to myself, filling out squares, "I didn't know that I knew this, but I do!" Saw a lot of my native language in this week's crosswords: Tuesday's ÎLE de la Cité, Wednesday's FLAN, Thursday's ÉTOILE, Friday's NOTRE and ÉTÉ, and Saturday's FRÈRE and TRÈS. We wrap up the week with two French culinary specialties, CRÊPEs and SOUFFLÉs. Bon appétit, everyone.
Fantastic puzzle! I've been doing these for a while but this is my first time completing a Thursday without peeking at the help column. The theme doesn't feel gimmicky and was really satisfying to figure out. Not too many US-specific references, which definitely helped this non-native English speaker (although it took me an embarrassingly long time to get ETOILE, so I really shouldn't use that as an excuse). I usually skip Fridays and Saturdays, but with this newfound (inflated, no doubt) sense of confidence, I might give them a go this week!
@Xword Junkie Hi! New commenter here, can help with your etymology question : "When/how did ETOILE lose any hint of the S that must have been there in the original Latin?" The correct spelling is "étoile" (the accented capital E is a pain to achieve on most keyboards!) That accent is a typographical reminder of the "s" that sloughed off over the years, which can still be found in words that share the Latin root (e.g. "stellaire", stellar). The Old French spelling (up until 15th-16th century) was "estoille" or "esteille". Similar phenomena happened with the words "hôpital", "forêt", etc.
Bolstered by a successful Thursday, I tried the Friday and Saturday puzzles this week, which I usually skip. School holidays = more time to stare quizzically at enigmatic clues! Really liked this one. Clean, clever cluing. "Madame's family member" (a lot of French this week!) crossing with "Suomi speaker" got the ball rolling for me, then it was all about remembering: from American history lessons in university (10D, 20D) to yesterday's Wordle (6D). Now that I know I can hack late-week puzzles, I'm hooked! Just need to figure out how to solve them under 50 minutes now...
I'm confused about the wording in today's Wordplay: "Ginny Too's debut puzzle". As @Lewis noted, this constructor's puzzles have already been featured in the games column (her clue for "LIMO" was brilliant!). Is "debut" used here because this is her first Thursday puzzle? Anyway, I liked this. A not overly tricky theme, a gaggle of beautiful words (MOCHI, OBELI, MELISMA, CAESAREAN...) and an occasion to have Que SERA, SERA stuck in my head for the day (I grew up with the French version sung by Line Renaud but I think I prefer the Doris Day original!)
@Barry Ancona Gotcha, I thought it was a convention that I didn't know about. Looks like plain old human error, then. I find that reassuring, somehow.
@Eric Hougland Thank you! I tried my hand at a Saturday puzzle once and it took me over two hours of googling and checking the comments, but I might have gotten better at it since then. I'll give it a try again!
@Mean Old Lady I will! Thanks for the encouragement :)
@Marshall Walthew Thank you! It's hard to find high-quality, NYT-style crossword puzzles in French. I don't know about German though. Solving a puzzle in another language definitely scratches a satisfying brain itch. I do struggle with references to US baseball/TV/brands etc but the wordplay clues are so fun!
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