Roberta
NJ
How many times in one month can “ATTA” appear in the NYT Crossword?
Kind of Scandinavian: Finnish-ish.
Very apropos puzzle at a time when half the country is incapable of critical thinking.
@Paul I do remember watching the show way back when and some of the other characters would call him “Fonz” for short. So I think the answer is legitimate.
@Kroobey While I agree with you in principle, this particular puzzle did not seem overly youth-focused to me. No rappers or TV shows from the last ten years. Instead we had Segovia, the Pied Piper, Leggs, and a major rock group from the 1970s(!) Right up my Gen X alley.
@G O Not sure why you consider yesterday's puzzle a debacle. I thought it was very clever and finished it in only slightly more than my average time.
I am very impressed with the meatiness of the fill, given the constructor’s age. I hope he will continue to eschew OREO, EMU, ENO, and LILNAS.
A lot of people in the comments seem to have trouble with the concept of mapping one thing to another. Map OC to PI. To me it makes perfect sense.
I just heard on the radio that Georgio Armani passed away today. I will have to rethink my lifelong ambition to be mentioned in a New York Times crossword puzzle.
Really enjoyed this puzzle: No obscure rappers, just clever cluing. Congrats!
I finished the puzzle without quite understanding the theme. I knew the words were reversed but I didn’t get the connection between the different answers on the same line. Very clever puzzle!
@Rachel R. I didn’t know this even though I used to do legal proofreading. I guess there aren’t too many exclamation points in legal documents. 😆
@D P Uh, it wasn’t sums. It was multiplication. Maybe that’s where things went wrong.
I got “Bop“ for Charles Mingus‘s specialty because jazz, soul jazz, and bass didn’t fit. But anyone who knows jazz knows this is a poor clue and frankly disrespectful to Mingus. Bop is a subgenre of jazz, and it is not the subgenre that Mingus “specialized“ in.
I had the archaic ENCITE and ENACT instead of excite/exact. Could not find my error.
Since there’s no such thing as a “no tar” cigarette, I initially went with LOTAR and LORA. If someone can explain NOTAR and not GET SMART about it, I’m all ears.
This puzzle made me wish the app supported copy and paste.
@Mariavictoria C Go There is a setting to lock the orientation on your iPad.
@Lauren Americans say “bathroom” all the time to mean a room with a toilet (and not necessarily a bath).
What a clever puzzle. Congrats to the constructor.
@Bob What’s going on is that a lot of us cancelled our NYT subscriptions due to 1) normalizing of authoritarianism and 2) sane-washing. Some of us moved to a Games subscription. To make up for the lost revenue, the cost of the Games has to go up.
Two Xwords in one week where we learned about the age limit for Little League. Isn’t there a different way to clue this?
I enjoyed this puzzle a lot but that upper right corner was pretty tough for a Tuesday!
@sotto voce That’s exactly the trick I use to remember AGORA.
Crossing RAIDERS and TIE is quite a natick for those of use who are not seriously into sports.
Fwiw, I liked the theme. It was clever and fun. Good puzzle!
@Patrick i figured it out pretty quickly. I’m sure many others did too.
@Dave I am literally doing this puzzle in what the NYT calls the “GAMES” app. 😂
@Kroobey I’m genuinely curious about which references in this puzzle you felt were too recent for you.
I had STL for “Cards’ home” until the crosses made me give up on it.
Very clever. More from this constructor, please!
Sometimes I skip Monday puzzles because I find them easy to the point of tedium. This was an entertaining one and I’m glad I didn’t skip it.
I always thought the lyric was “HERE ARE Chuck and Dave.” Learned something new today.
The numbers part was the easiest aspect of the puzzle. I found some of the clues very challenging for a Sunday.
@D Bean It does. Tap the little “i” in the upper right of the puzzle.
@Barry Ancona Do YOU have a comment on the puzzle? Or are you just here to comment on the comments?
Got a late start today but so far… THIS PUZZLE IS TOO HARD FOR ME. There. I said it. That wasn’t so hard.
I had ARTLOVER and SOSAD. I let the puzzle sit for an hour or so and when I came back, I deleted those entries and the correct answers just clicked for me.
That was hard! This is the kind of puzzle I would have had to do some googling to finish a year ago. I’m glad I sweated it out today and finished with no lookups.
Lots of puzzles lately with few or no proper nouns. Thank you! Keep up the good work.
Unusually challenging for a Tuesday but a nice meaty puzzle. Love the clever theme.
This is type of puzzle that I never get without googling, but somehow I got this one without any lookups. Maybe I’m improving?
I really enjoyed this. Took a while to get the trick, but it was a very happy “aha” moment.
It was a fun puzzle but two OHs and two THEs seems like lazy construction.
That was the easiest Friday in a while!
@Eva H. Gorp is a very common word for certain kinds of trail mix.
I had frenchfry before onionring and drumroll before drumsolo. This puzzle still went very quickly. Did not feel like a Friday. As a personal preference, I could have done without the vulgarity of KICKEDASS. I don’t mind hearing it in real life, but in a puzzle, it always feels like a copout used when the constructor can’t come up with anything else. RUNAT, ILOST, CELEB, FOES and FELTOK (among others) were rather pedestrian for a Friday. This puzzle did not feel particularly inspired. Oh well. On to Saturday .
This was an elegant puzzle. It’s remarkable that this was a debut. Well done.
Tough but fair. I admit to googling a couple of things but I’m glad I finished it. It was worth the effort.
@Juanita You’re right. It’s a typo in the article that the (possibly nonexistent) copy editor missed.