Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (maybe the coded theme clues make it slightly harder than a typical Monday theme, but the rest of it felt easier than typical, actually)
THEME: take the punctuation (and symbols) literally — clues for theme answers are two-word phrases where the second word is clued normally but the first word is clued symbolically. So
Theme answers:
16A: Q.U.E.U.E.S. = a word meaning LINES that has been DOTTED, thusDOTTED LINES
27A: E+X+T+R+A+S = a word meaning BONUSES that has had "+" signs added to it, so I guess it's been "ADDED" (?), thus ADDED BONUSES
44A: W/H/E/E/L/S = a word meaning TIRES that has been SLASHED, thusSLASHED TIRES
58A: D-R-E-A-M-S = a word meaning HOPES that has been "DASHED", thusDASHED HOPES
Word of the Day: BHUTAN (42A: Himalayan country that's home to the world's highest unclimbed mountain) —
The subalpine Himalayan mountains in the north rise from the country's lush subtropical plains in the south. In the Bhutanese Himalayas, there are peaks higher than 7,000 meters (23,000 ft) above sea level. Gangkhar Puensum is Bhutan's highest peak and was until recently the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. The wildlife of Bhutan is notable for its diversity, including the Himalayan takin. The capital and largest city is Thimphu. (wikipedia)
• • •
This theme is very cute, although if you are forced to describe it concisely, you realized ... it's not so easy. Also, you realize that among the four themers, ADDED BONUSES is a real outlier. Add a dot, it's dotted; add a dash, it's dashed; add a slash, it's slashed; add a ... a ... plus sign? ... it's added. There's something so on-the-nose about dots and dashes and slashes, and thus so off about the "added" answer. You also can't say the clue word has been "added"—its letters appear to be "added" together, yes, but ... well, I guess you can say the letters in EXTRAS have been added ... I dunno. It just doesn't land like the others, even though the concept felt pretty transparent to me as I was solving. What bothered me about ADDED BONUSES had nothing to do with the theme concept and everything to do with the horridness of the phrase itself. Bonuses are, by definition, added, so ADDED BONUSES has an inherent redundancy that makes me wince as one might wince were one to hear fingernails scraped across a board of chalk (ask your parents). So ADDED BONUSES (ironically) had nothing to offer, but I still really like the core concept here. You don't usually see this kind of conceptual complexity in a Monday theme. And yet it still managed to be Monday-easy. Maybe more-than-Monday-easy. I see people already bragging like crazy on Twitter about their new Monday PRs (personal records). So, despite my balking at nearly everything about ADDED BONUSES, I found this one delightful and perfectly Monday-appropriate.
The grid is also mercifully clean and surprisingly colorful. Big thumbs up for BENTO BOX and SAD TO SAY ... I really want CUSS WORD to be CURSE WORD, so I'm not loving that one as much as maybe I should, but it's at least trying to be interesting. I redid the whole middle of the grid just so I wouldn't have to look at DLIST, which is an answer I don't like and a concept I don't really believe in (what happened to the CLIST? Where is it? No one talks about this!?). But my grid redo was mostly a lateral move, so without digging in for longer than I care to, I can't fault this DLIST version of the grid too much.
Can we talk for a second about "as" in crossword clues. When "as" follows a comma in a clue, it's most often introducing a qualifying phrase, and seems to be offering an example of an appropriate context for the pre-comma part of the clue—often an appropriate object for a verb. [Inflate, as a tire] could be PUMP UP, say. But in that case, it's at least possible to imagine that other things might also be "pumped up"—an ego, say. The "tire" is offered as a helpful, narrowing example, but not the only example. Cut to—22A: Share, as a Twitter post (RETWEET). There is literally no, none, zero other context in which "Share" = RETWEET. The "as" has a "for example" quality that is belied by the answer. There is only one context where [Share] = RETWEET—on Twitter. [Share on Twitter] is an honest clue. [Share, as a Twitter post] implies there is *any* other context in which [Share] can mean RETWEET. But there is no such context. Why does this bug me when there's no difficulty in getting the answer? I Don't Know, It Just Does. I hate the phoniness of the clue, kind of casually implying that "as a Twitter post" is just an offhand example when in fact it is the *only* example. Seems disingenuous and mildly fraudulent. Also, do you really think St. Nick calls his clothes a SANTA SUIT!? They're probably just ... clothes, to him. "OK, elves, Rudolph, just hang on, I gotta go get my Me Suit from the cleaners," what the hell? [Costume for a mall St. Nick], yes. But for St. Nick himself ... I just don't think that's what he'd call it. Good day.
My favorite wood style is definitely CEDAR ALLA BOARD.
After serving as Chancellor, von Bismarck secretly moved to Canada where he became known as OTTO the OTTAWAN.
My mantra, which I BLEAT NONSTOP, is the bottommost row of today’s puzzle: END DAYS ODDLY.
This was actually a fantastically conceived and executed theme, surrounded by clean fill. Although it was super fast for me, I thought it was one of the best Mondays I can remember. Thank you so much, Leslie Rogers.
Monday/Funday! A nice romp, and an unexpected pleasure so early in the week.
My only nit: It’s a stretch of Joaquin’s Dictum to clue TIRES as wheels, particularly on a Monday. I think a better Monday clue for 44A would be [G/O/O/D/Y/E/A/R/S].
Easy-medium. It took a couple of blinks to get CANON and BHUTAN did not readily leap to mind. Very smooth with some fine long downs. It’s great to have a little something different on a Monday. Liked it a bunch and it got POW at Xwordinfo.
@bocamp - Croce’s Freestyle #695 is a return to vintage “hours to solve” Croce. I got it but I made a “lucky” guess in SE on “The Office” answer. Good luck!
Thx Leslie, for a smooth puz to start the week! :)
Easy-med.
Loved the theme; it was actually helpful!
Needed the crosses to get CANON.
Once out of the NW, it was smooth sailing all the way.
Enjoyable solve. :)
@Eniale (3:20 PM yd)
Thx, I need them after two disastrous SB days in a row! 😢
@BLS (5:18 PM yd)
Dan Ruby (8:25 AM yd) & Beezer (10:30 AM yd) also had 3's. The one letter I had after two tries pretty much narrowed it down to two possibilities (afaik). I guessed the right one, otherwise I'd've had a 4.
Btw, since your comment could have been intended for any of the three of us, you may want to take a look at @RooMonster's (12:08 PM) post from yesterday, wrt placing a "@" in front of your intended commenter's moniker. :) I had to go the blog on my iPhone to see who your comment was meant for. Precious nanoseconds, as some on the blog are wont to say. lol
@thefogman (4:31 PM yd)
I highly endorse @kitshef's (5:28 PM yd) Octordle rec. It's my fave of all the Wordle variations. There's a word which I often employ on Octordle, that was instrumental in helping me get a 3 on yd's reg. Wordle.
@stephanie (6:48 PM yd)
Thx for the two new Wordle puzzes! Just what I needed. lol. 😊 ___
Fun, uncomplicated Monday which I enjoyed solving. All the themers were clever but my favorite was SLASHED TIRES. Nice touches having all the theme clues be six letters and the ADDED BONUSES of the long downs, an unexpected treat.
Interesting fact about the world’s highest unclimbed mountain, Gangkhar Puensum which - according to Wikipedia - has been off limits to climbers since 1994 when BHUTAN prohibited all mountaineering above 6,000 m (20,000 ft) due to spiritual/religious beliefs.
Solving by only looking at the down clues, I loved this! I don't think I've ever loved a Monday. (Remember that Boomtown Rats song?) When I saw this is Jeff's Puzzle of the Week on xwordinfo, I actually wasn't surprised.
OTTAWANS!! Weird the variety of those city-to-inhabitant suffixes. Toronto(nian), Montreal(er, or ais en Francais), Vancouver(ite), Winnipeg(ger). And: [Los] Angele(no)! In BC we have the towns of Chase and Trail. Do Chasers and Trailers live there?
[Spelling Bee: Sat. pg-1, missed this. Sun. 15 min to pg, but stalled at -2 right now.]
Other suits of Santa: Santa swim suit, Santa three-piece suit, Santa suit of armor, Santa breaking-and-entering law suit, Santa suit of cards when he's playing with the Kardashians which he does when it suits him.
The bottom line of the puzzle reads "end days oddly." Doesn't seem so odd these days does it. I've decided the word "ridiculous" can be removed from the dictionary, because nothing is surprising anymore...like violence on stage live at the Oscars. 😕
From yesterday: Trivia vs. knowledge: Stuff I know and have committed to memory despite the existence of Google (a far better place to keep things I'm supposed to remember) is knowledge like BENTOBOX and UDON (so important) everything else is trivia.
Of course it’s a SANTA SUIT, you think he wears that every day? Special occasions only. He’s probably decked out in jeans and a tee shirt the rest of the year. Standard garb for toy making.
Found the puzzle to be a cute and fun Monday. Loved it.
I thought the theme was very weak. @Rex didn't like the redundant ADDEDBONUSES but the problem with that entry is that it would be the same without the +++++. Exras/ADDEDBONUSES. Joaquin is right about the TIRE wheel conflation. It's nowhere near being close enough. The other two work okay but 2 out of 4 is not good.
I prefer this type of theme, where it is “self-contained” in the sense that it hold together on a stand alone basis - I.e once you groke the “gimmick” you can ascertain the other theme entries without having to have most of the crosses in place, which is not always the case with a quote, trivia or PPP-related theme.
I actually thought for a moment that they might be trying to sneak in a misdirection with “Direction of the morning light” as the light could possibly be traveling WEST, since the sun first appears to the EAST, however a quick check of the cross dispelled with such nonsense.
Not sure about the “numbers on a die” clue - it seems as though by far the vast majority have pips on them, but I guess it’s possible to find some with numbers.
Ok, after I just finished over-analyzing two clues, I’ll refrain from picking on Rex for over analyzing the clue for ADDED BONUS - which to me was fine (I did enjoy OFL’s comment re the cluing on RETWEET). I wasn’t sure about the TIRES/Wheels false equivalency that @Joaquin picked up on - I suspect that may be a discussion point throughout the day as well.
New Yorker to have daily puzzles instead of 3x/week! And what a great lineup of constructors … themeless except for Friday puzzle, which will be themed.
Second fun puzzle in a row. Here, after getting one theme answer, it was fun to guess the others with as few crosses as possible. Meanwhile, the puzzle has 23 three-letter answers, which is quite high, but they are all so unforced that they pretty much disappear – it’s a real skill to pull that off.
Many lovely crosses: OBEY / YES SOD / DEWY BENTO BOX / EAST SLASHED TIRES / CUSSWORD DASHED HOPES / SAD TO SAY EVE / STEVE
And five palindromes!
All adding up to a most lovely start to the week, a mucho Monday. This was made by a pro. We need to see more from you, Leslie – please! And thank you!
Nice early week puzzle. Cute theme and clean fill. Liked the length consistency of the themers and their clues. The long downs like OTTAWANS and ALL ABOARD are solid. Short stuff was marginal - DEWY is fine but the SW corner was pretty rough.
A puzzle that feels like a Monday puzzle for experienced solvers, but probably not to new solvers. Things like AVA DuVernay, UDON and BENTO BOX were automatic because I've seen them enough times in crosswords, but never outside of crosswords so I would have needed all the crosses for all of those a couple of years ago.
I'm pretty sure Santa dresses normally when he's not on official business. I can certainly see him asking "Hey, Hermey, can you pick up my SANTA SUIT from the cleaners? I have to appear in a shopping mall in Toledo tomorrow morning".
I *loved* this puzzle. Solved in well under my average time (but still far from my fastest Monday ever), yet it didn’t feel *too* easy because there was, in fact, just a tiny bit of resistance here and there (just a little!) and the theme was so clever.
I feel like it’s exactly what a Monday puzzle should be, the paragon and ideal of a Monday NYTXW, which is: a perfect puzzle to hand someone who thinks they can’t to crosswords. They will be able to conquer it without wanting to quit, and they will really enjoy the theme. It *might* just hook them and change their relationship to puzzles for a lifetime.
As @Joaquin says: WHEELS are not TIRES. The average solver probably won't notice or care, but that's... no. Wheels are any round rolly things on a spindle, whether they include rubber or not. Tires are specifically the rubber outer layer. It's like saying people wear clothes so PERSON = CLOTHES. Like... no.
Smooth as silk, no speed bumps, lovely Monday. Rex can BLEAT NONSTOP about ADDED BONUSES and “as” — and I get his point — but it takes nothing away from my enjoyment and appreciation of this excellent puzzle. (Insert standard “I don’t time myself but if I did this would probably have been a PR.” Who cares?)
Technically, the "dashes" in D-R-E-A-M-S are hyphens, at least as they appear in the NYT app. As crossword solvers know, dashes come in en and em sizes, both longer than a hyphen.
For once I found myself in nearly total agreement with OFL. ADDEDBONUS has always bothered me no end and he saved me the trouble of writing my own rant. RETWEET, to a somewhat lesser degree, so there was that too. This type of concordance is rare enough to be memorable.
The "queues" clue gave the game away right off the bat and I thought, here we go, rebuses for beginners, and I was not disappointed. I guess I've just seen this kind of thing many times. They're still fun, and absolutely appropriate on a Monday.
Only slight slowdown today was at "spy's gathering", which I wanted to be a word for a group of spies, like "nest" or something. Easily resolved.
Someday I would love to see UTE clued as "defendant in My Cousin Vinny".
Totally excellent Mondecito, LR. "Loved" Rating for this one, and thanks for all the fun.
Not that Wordle results should be posted here in the first place, but the postings in the last few days (especially today) sure do give away a lot of information.
A charming start to the week! It’s a simple theme but one I don’t recall seeing before and one that requires no specialized or arcane knowledge. I agree that it’s an excellent Monday offering for new solvers while not annoying the old.
@OffTheGrid - Disagree, in a way that elucidates my disagreement with @Rex ‘s complaint. [Extras] would clue BONUSES. [E+X+T+R+A+S] clues ADDED BONUSES. Contra @Rex , “added bonuses” is a legit idiom with its own distinctive usage, as in, “You all get to clock out early today, and as an added bonus, we’ll be serving pizza in the break room.”
My first quibble with a constructor as a newbie to this blog. RE the SANTA SUIT clue, I agree with many here who note its almost-but-not-quite quality. My fix would be [Duds for St. Nick]. Maybe that’s too word-play based for a Monday?
The puzzle must have been easier than usual. I didn't waste time trying to figure out the theme. And the crosses solved them all in my usually time. Only after I was done did I see the theme.
Wheels and TIREs (to me) are interchangeable to mean either one. Granted, they are completely different, as you couldn't use one to do the job of the other, but in slang vernacular, you might accidentally say wheels for tires and vice versa. "Hey, nice wheels!" can mean either, "Nice rims", or "Nice tires", or "Nice car". Just sayin'.
38D could've been clued @!$#?*. Har. 37A for a later-in-the-week clue: Pack content.
Had a 8'x4' pool table once with three piece SLATE. Heavy. Weighed 704 lbs. My pool table now is not slate, still on the heavy side (200 lbs?-ish?), and not sure what the base is. But it relatively flat. (Two of the corners have a slight uphill to them, causing the ball to roll away from them at slow speeds. Tends to make the game more interesting.)
Nice puz. Jeff's POW for today's puz doesn't bode well for the rest of the week. Complaints will be forthcoming. 😁
Give this puzzle a MOTY!! (Monday of the Year). It's playful and imaginative and clever -- and yet it's also easy enough to give to a novice solver. But there's easy/entertaining and there's easy/boring and this is easy/entertaining -- the kind of puzzle you give to people if you want them coming back for more puzzles in the future.
But there is one real toughie and it's at 1A. I needed lots of crosses to get CANON, which never occurred to me from the clue. In fact, absolutely nothing at all occurred to me from the clue. I was completely stumped before I had crosses.
Other than the delightful themers, my favorite clue/answer was DLIST. If that's where you end up when you're "barely famous", wouldn't you much rather be "not at all famous"? I know I would.
Funny how I figured out SLASHEDTIRES without crosses even though I also knew tires aren’t wheels and that tires are mounted on wheels. Let’s see how long this nit can be picked!
I thought that this was a fun Monday with a cute theme and very little “junk.”
So grateful finally to have started reading this blog after years of just wondering what it was all about. Starting in 2012, my hubby and I did the Sunday puzzle on Saturday morning (ADDED BONUS of home delivery, you might say) at our favorite Bed-Stuy breakfast spot (variously Urban Vintage, Bedford Hill, and Brown Butter, and we also did it at Home/Made in Red Hook until the restaurateur moved to the Hudson Valley). Since our marriage collapsed last fall, I've started doing the NYT puzzle every day. And in the past couple of weeks I started reading this blog. And for several days I rolled my eyes a lot at the never ending onslaught of quibbles with clues, entries, constructors, editors, newspapers, software platforms, and even with bloggers themselves. But then I realized — I actually LOVE this..."stuff" (I don't think I can use CUSS WORDS on this blog, even with asterisks substituting for some of the letters, right?). I'm that guy who used to post on Facebook every time an article in the NYT had a split infinitive, until I realized that every media outlet now seems to embrace the split infinitive. I'm that guy who cannot help exclaiming "Lie!" every time somebody on radio or television (or should I say audio or video) uses "lay" when they shouldn't of oughta done that. I guess grammar Nazi is not quite the same as crossword gestapo, but I think they are close, and I feel right at home here. Thanks, y'all.
I know I am more a part of the problem than part of the solution as far as the exploding size of this comment site ... but how about trimming the volume of the comments here by eliminating the "wordy" stuff? I'm sure the wordy crowd has some web sites of their own. And maybe an "every-other-day" policy on commenting in general? My family has to put up with me on a daily basis but you guys shouldn't have to. (And yes I posted something yesterday - but I promise to skip at least the next two days!)
The puzzle is a reminder that Shortz once worked at Games magazine. It’s nice to see a little pushing of the theme element/clue form envelope on a Monday.
I see the wheel purists are having a moment. Unfortunately, language users are willfully oblivious to purists. @Ted - Just this past week with the Cleveland Browns signing I’ve been hearing a lot of “fans cheer for the uniform more than the man.” Or, my favorite, “they cheer for the laundry.” Or, similarly, there’s a whole movie franchise that’s apt today, The Santa Clause. Any way, it is not at all unusual to use the person=clothes concept. We even have a fancy word for the language phenomenon, metonymy.
@SouthsideJohnny - Those pips are numbers, just represented without Arabic Numerals. There is a different problem with that clue that caused every D & D player and board game player generally (and their fathers in this case) eyebrows to arch. The 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20 sided die are no longer all over my house, but the only SIX-sided die we had were in the backgammon game nobody played because they were busy slaying monsters.
@Zed you idiot - it's synecdoche, just because we need a point of contention to counter the universal praise for this puzzle. Also, as I am nothing more than your sock-puppet, my calling you an idiot doesn't count as an insult.
@Zed - If the clue were "highest number on ANY die", I would agree with you (and as an old D&Der, it was my first thought). But "a die" makes it OK for me. "Many dice" would have been fine, too.
Similarly, if we had a clue of "Aria from an Italian opera" for CASTA DIVA, I would not object on the grounds that "there are many Italian operas don't have that aria".
@Pete - 😂🤣😂 - Did I use the wrong one? I’m constantly double checking because its easy to mix them up. Merriam-Webster has an explainer so clearly I’m not the only one. And since you’re my sock pocket and I’m Rex’s sock pocket by the transitive property of trollery you are Rex.
**Wordle Alert** No spoilers but I suppose an astute solver might use this info. After epoxy and nymph today’s puzzle causes a different issue. I got lucky. I count 8 possible first letters for those last four, possibly a ninth but I think it needs a terminal s. Anyway, this is why I don’t use the adieu strategy, although my first word wasn’t much help today. Wordle 282 6/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛ ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
@bigsteve46 - Wordle comments mostly disappeared because there was a stretch where they weren’t especially interesting puzzles. Having both an X and a Y made the solve a little more unusual Saturday, but then having a single vowel that wasn’t AEIOU yesterday made it especially noteworthy. My guess is that Wordle comments will ebb and flow. I still do it every day but generally only share my results on Twitter. But misery loves company and today’s word is likely to break lots of streaks.
@Zed - good reality check on PIPS. I really need to be more aware of my own narrow weltanschauung (yes. I tossed in a dreaded foreign word or phrase - and I would look aside if Mr. Chen squeezed that one into a Saturday, when the troops have pretty much A-LIST solving chops).
Well shucky darns...Potty mouth didn't fit? Will Will Smith be forever on the DLIST? Or will it be Chris? Oh, wait...we have a Monday Oscar...And the award for outstanding Monday goes to: .....+++++/////----- (Get ready to clap!): Leslie Rogers....presented by non other than CANON BHUTAN. His DASHED HOPE finally came to fruition and everyone got up and sang an ARIA about AMORE. What's not to like? I particularly liked that PEA was clued as soup and not as the legume that made the princess toss and turn all night. I will now fill my BENTO BOX with UDON. As ADDED BONUSES, SANTA will arrive in this birthday SUIT.
Breezy solve and didn't really look at the theme until the puzzle was over (as per usual for an early week puzzle for me. Figuring out the theme just slows me down in those cases.)
I see I'm not the only one nitpicking wheels =/= TIRES and I actually agree with Rex on the "Share, as a Twitter post" clue for the same reasons he did. I would have preferred "Share a Twitter post" as the "as" there does imply to me that there are other contexts in which "retweet" would be valid, but it's specifically tied to Twitter (or at least so far as I know. I've never heard about anyone "retweeting" a Facebook post, but it would not necessarily surprise me if the word is sliding into a generic term for sharing social media posts, much in the way you "Google" something, regardless of the search engine you actually use. That said, I have no evidence that this is the case -- just allowing for the possibility.)
Zed - Synechdoche is a type of metonymy. Your use of the word there was not incorrect (a phrase which is an example of "litotes," as a bonus word for y'all.) Synechdoche is just more specific.
@Zed is right about Metonymy: it replaces a word with an object or name that stands for it (Uncle Sam=U.S.A; uniform=the person who wears it, whether athlete or police) @pete is right about syndecdoche: uses a part-of-the-whole to stand for the whole (counting heads/noses = counting people). Ergo, wheels for car is metonymy; TIRES for wheels is synecdoche. Such nit-picking is fun (for me, a retired Latin teacher) but I doubt the clues led anyone astray…what a fun Monday!
FH SPOILER ALERT!!! Santa Claus isn't real. There is no Santa; no elves; no reindeer. Human beings just pretend there is a Santa Claus to amuse their children. When they pretend, they dress up like Santa is supposed to; to do this they put on what they refer to as a SANTA SUIT.
I greatly enjoy "Rex Parker does the NY Times Crossword." And here I thought that reading the blog and on-going comments - some informative, some snarky - is simply an added bonus.
Today's Wordle calls for the application of Wordler's rule. When you get to the point of needing one letter(you have 4 greens)and there are multiple possibilities, one is as good as another because it's pure guesswork.
For example, here's mine.
Wordle 282 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 🟨🟩🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I claim a par 4. Wordle would give me a five. It could have been a 6 or a fail. I play one day at a time. Cumulative stats mean nothing to me. I guess I'm not ANAL enough but I have fun.
@Zed - According to Mary McCarty, you used the wrong one. According to me, they are interchangeable as two words that I know neither what they really mean, nor how to spell them and I never really cared, I was just assuming that since I didn't know the difference I might as well troll myself, since I am he and you are he and you are me Goo goo g'joob.
@Peter P - As @Larry noted, @Rex regularly shares tweets he receives on his blog, i.e. he pastes a snapshot of the tweet. That's not RETWEETing. So, RETWEETing is but one way of sharing a Twitter post.
@FH - There are so reindeer. Plain, ordinary reindeer, but reindeer nonetheless.
Not only are reindeer real, they're delicious with cheese onion, lettuce on a bun. Had me a reindeer cheeseburger in Iceland at the most idyllic spot you could imagine.
BENTO BOX & UDON were gimmes from past Japanese dining faves.
@jae (12:08 AM)
Thx, not sure I'll have time for xwords anymore with all these new Wordles! (just kidding; will look forward to getting on Croce's 695). Right now am working to finish a beastly BEQ.
@Conrad (8:30 AM)
Another near disaster on today's reg. Wordle:
Wordle 282 6/6*
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛ ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
@okanaganer (12:40 AM)
Yeah, both Sat. & Sun. were outliers for me wrt meeting my pg goal within a 30 min. time limit. Only consolation is that I got the word you missed. lol ___ td pg: 5:32 / W: 6*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I’m not getting the plaints about Rex’s plaints. ADDED BONUSES is redundant. The “as” does imply that RETWEET occurs somewhere other than Twitter and it doesn’t. Neither much bothered me, ADDED BONUSES is in the language like lots of redundant phrases are and “as” can also mean “specifically” as it does here, but that’s not what anyone seems to be saying. OTOH “board of chalk” is a pretty humorous faux pas. No screeching there, just a crumbling mess.
@JC66 - Of course.
@Pete - It seems your post has led us all to come together right now.
Any truth to the rumor that synecdoche is banned in Schenectady? Similar to the ban on being wry in Rye? Someone should make a movie.
Added-bonus-cool MonPuz theme. Makes yah wanna come up with more themers … * A#W#A#Y. * A?U?T?H?O?R?I?T?Y. * P"R"I"C"E"S. * C^A^K^E. * B@O@N@U@S. [har] * L%O#U$D*Y. * R*O*C*K. [Chris in pain, after an Oscars slap]
staff weeject picks: EMU & EDU. Or, as M&A now looks at em, MD in the EU.
fave added bonuses, as puz fillins: BHUTAN. ALLABOARD [M&A's Pa-In-Law was a train conductor]. BENTOBOX [had enjoyed these, until that there Japanese restaurant shut down]. SADTOSAY. CUSSWORD. URANUS.
Easy-ish puz, as a solvequest. Got the last 2 themers, without any crossers.
@RP: Primo mini-tantrums, on SANTASUIT & RETWEET. Thanx for the laffs.
And thanx for the fun, Ms. Rogers darlin. Very good job.
Masked & aUnUoUnUyUmoUs [really needed one more U in the puz, to get that to work right]
p.s. @Zed - yep. I tried that Wordle word out today, upon yer high recommendation. Par for that word oughta be 5 or 6.
@mathgent: Here's M&A's humble attempt to rate a "fave comment" … **gruntz**
Rex is so desperate to find something to pick on that his reaches into not understanding themes is comical: . = dot / = slash - = dash + = plus or ADDition sign, which you then add to the extras (bonuses)
"ADDED BONUS" is a very common phrase in late night TV commercials: "Buy this knife set, and as an added bonus, we'll throw in a garlic mincer".
I hope to make it up to the DLIST someday. Kathy Griffin's memoir is titled, "My life on the D-List". Probably not enough ego on a D lister to punch someone onstage.
[Share, as a Twitter post] implies there is *any* other context in which [Share] can mean RETWEET. - It implies to me that there are other meanings of "share" that don't end up as RETWEET. I do like his fix, though.
Today would definitely be a day to start with the downs.
@Mike in Bed-Stuy (9:42) The entertainment factor of this crowd seems to fluctuate depending on the puzzle of course and some days, politics and/or current events. But I know what you mean … after a while you begin to realize how much you love it. I look forward to reading comments each day and think of many people here as friends. And it always fascinates me how the most trivial component of a clue, answer or comment will often trigger the most interesting debates. Glad you decided to dive into the fray.
BENTO BOX and BHUTAN are not answers that roll easily off the tongue on a Monday morning, so the puzzle did offer a little welcome resistance here and there. Loved the theme and the grid overall. So, no UGGS from me while solving. Also liked the idea of a CUSSWORD in a CROSSWORD. And, as others have pointed out, what better way to conclude this little gem than with the mantra END DAYS ODDLY.
Pretty much in complete agreement with everything @Rex wrote today. Really liked the puzzle, especially the theme. Close to PR time (over 6 minutes for me). Had exactly the same reaction to ADDED BONUSES and “as a Twitter post”. Also agree with @Joaquin's early comment re the clue for SLASHED TIRES.
I was, however, struck by the fact that our criticisms are quite “persnickety”, to use a term describing her boss favored by Natalie, totally devoted but long-suffering assistant to the eponymous detective in the long-running earlly 2000s TV series Monk. Since I recently discovered it (thanks to my daughter Maya) this has become hands down my favorite show of all time, a perfect successor to my long-time faves Perry Mason, Columbo, and Murder She Wrote. I share in less disabling form many of Monk’s quirks and OCD tendencies (which I love being made to LOL at), and only today realized, so do OFL and a fair number of fellow bloggers! As Monk himself says, it’s a gift—and a curse.
The series streams with Amazon Prime—8 seasons, 128 (2 to the 7th power!) episodes. Very clever and engaging individual show stories and numerous longer narrative arcs. Main characters besides Tony Shalhoub’s iconic Adrian Monk are all wonderfully scripted and acted. Fine and fun recurring roles include Monk’s shrink and Monk’s even nuttier brother Ambrose (John Turturro). Single episode guest stars include an Emmy-winning Season 5 performance by Stanley Tucci (Shalhoub’s long-time pal and collaborator) as a “method” actor who impersonates Monk to a degree both frightening and hilarious.
By all means watch if you can. Start with season 1 (2004), in which original assistant Sharona, quite different from Natalie (interesting story regarding the switch in the middle of Season 3) but equally engaging, is featured.
What a super-sweet, clever Monday puzzle! AWEsome.
I noted the redundancy of ADDED BONUSES for the first time today but it's a phrase "in the language" so I shrugged. And tried to decide, if you had a bunch of bonus items in a given situation and then one occurs to you that wasn't obvious, can you then call it an added bonus without being redundant? That's the kind of day I'm having...
My objection to 10D's clue was calling Santa's suit a "costume" as if he were just dressing up as Santa and not, actually, Santa. :-)
Leslie Rogers, thanks for a fun (very easy) Monday!
And I got a Wordle birdie today because my original word, taken from today's NYT puzzle, gave me not a single correct or near-correct letter but it eliminated two of the possible kealoas from the final word.
@Pete (11:12) - I don't see what Larry's post has to do with it. Nobody is saying RETWEETing is the only way to share Twitter posts. My small nit is the clue, as written, makes it sound like there's ways to RETWEET outside of Twitter.
@Wordler 11:07 – that's not necessarily true, and it's not true today. Using an example (this is NOT today's puzzle):
Suppose on Guess 2 you have: W-A-T-C-H
The last four letters are correctly situated, but W is not in the word. So the word could be BATCH, CATCH, HATCH, LATCH, MATCH, PATCH. Six possibilities, four guesses left.
The word you should play on Guess 3 is BLIMP*. That will tell you if any one of B, L, M, or P is in the word. Hopefully one of them is, and you play the solution on Guess 4.
If BLIMP did not reveal the missing letter you are unfortunately stuck with CATCH or HATCH, both of which have duplicate letters, and all you can do is guess one or the other. But you will still be assured of having the solution by Guess 6.
*Obviously you could vary this word according to what's already been eliminated. E.g. if you needed the disposition of the W instead of the B, you could play PLOWS. Best is if you can find a word that contains four of your possibilities, but usually you'll have to settle for three.
I was in this situation today at Guess 3, and had the the solution by Guess 5. I can think of two words that, between them, include all 8 possibilities for the first letter today.
p.s. Also obviously, this depends on getting to the one-letter-left point early enough in your guesses. And as an added bonus obviously, it won't work if you use Hard Mode.
Joe D, Yep. That is the correct strategy. Now if you could only get my wife on board. I have given up trying to explain that in fact the puzzle is logic based. She seems to understand elimination prints in police procedurals so I'm not sure where she's losing the thread.
@Peter P Suppose for a second you're @Rex, you solve the puzzle, then you log into twitter and see a post about today's puzzle that you think is a particularly interesting take, and you RETWEET it to all your followers. Then you make a copy to paste into your morning write up so that all your readers can see it also. Is that not an instance of sharing a Twitter post? No where in "Share, as a Twitter post" does it presuppose that you are going to share on Twitter. RETWEET is the (most obvious) example of a way to share a Twitter post, but not the only way, hence the .. , as ..
Thx for the 'Monk' shoutout! Got it cued on Prime. :)
@Joe Dipinto (1:23 PM)
That's a great technique! As you say it can't be used on hard mode, but it sure comes in handy on other versions of Wordle where hard mode is not a factor. ___ Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
2 pm and no one to my knowledge has commented on the phrase “I found this one perfectly delightful…”. Truly the highest compliment Rex can pay. I happen to agree. On the other hand wasting a full paragraph on failing to edit out the word “as” in a clue seemed overkill. “Share a Twitter post” would have been just fine for a Monday.
@Joe Dipinto is totally right on the technique for getting a missing single Wordle letter. While the opportunity does not often present itself, the approach is effective.
@kitshef 7:46 AM. Not sure where you live but on the US west coast — San Francisco at any rate — a BENTO BOX and/ or UDON noodles are standard lunch fare.
@Joe D -- I've come up with the two words that, between them, contain all eight 1st letter possibilities. I've just sent them to you in an email.
Tomorrow, let's reveal them to the commentariat. (I wonder if our solutions are the same? There may be more than one solution.)
For me, there was a certain amount of trial and error involved. I thought I'd come up with a solution in well under two minutes but it took longer than that. It's an interesting exercise in problem-solving that I recommend to Wordle devotees. You'll have fun with it.
I have arrived at the point in my life where I used (without knowing it) Joe Dipinto's method for life in general. I have replaced the "B" in my bucket list with an "F". Shoot par every day!
I checked in early and then came back late but stopped at @Joe D coupled with @anonymous 1:44. Does Wordle require logic? Yes. However, for some reason I do very well on Wordle (got it in three yesterday and today). I am NOT a special person, nor am I particularly good at “logic” problems. (Caveat: yesterday @thefogman inspired me to pick a Y word, so that was a bit of a spoiler) Why would I care to pick BLIMP? Oh, I know you will tell me… Anonymous 1:44, there are different types of strengths in logic…it’s not a one trick pony. I suspect your wife (like me with boring Sudoku) just doesn’t care enough. Some logic strengths are immediate and undeniable. Others MIGHT depend on the persons interest to figure it out. I applaud folks who have ALL logic emerge as immediate and undeniable. I am not one of those people.
@GILL I, my guess is that Chris will apologize. Uncertain that he knew that alopecia is involved, but we will see. I missed IRL, but caught the whole thing this morning on video.
Easiest NYT puzzle I've ever done. I just had to wonder for a second about TIRES because in off-moments I still want to write "tyres."
@Mike in Bed-Sty, yes, I know just how you feel about "lay" where "lie" is the way we learned it. I taught English grammar for 20 years, heaven help me, to ESL students, not to mention high-school and college English too. BUT I suppose we have to come to terms with this also becoming accepted usage. I used to rail against "hopefully" being substituted for "I hope," yet now use it the way everyone else does. The language moves on.
Someone should have told Chris Rock it was the Oscars, not a roast. Even if a medical condition were not involved, it was a horrible, crude, and rude attempt at humor. I can't be upset over Will Smith's response.
Monday record for me. I think people are reaching records because the non-theme part of the puzzle is straightforward.
To me, Twitter in the clue for TWEET is a bit close for comfort, since they share so many letters and I believe have the same etymology. But it's Monday so I guess it's okay.
As far as Wordle goes, someone said that since the NYT took over, the right answer is the most common word of the possible choices. Seems to be true in general.
@Beezer....I thought the whole thing was staged until Will let out the CUSS WORDs a la mode. Yikes! I m betting Chris didn't know Jada had alopecia; his comment wasn't mean spirited - at least not enough to get SLASHED TIRES in front of the entire world. Will apologized to everyone at the Oscars and everyone watching but he should've, at least, offered a BENTO BOX as a token of some sort of AMORE. No? Should I try to get my head out of the sand now? Or are my HOPES DASHED?
The Amazon river runs for thousands of miles. At some points, it runs through areas of the rain forest that are almost untouched and have been barely explored. Because of the porous limestone in these areas, the river water leaks through the stone and travels deep into the earth, and forms underground pools almost a mile below the surface. Over thousands of years, small blind transparent fish have lived and evolved in these pools. These fish have never seen the sun or surface and have never been seen by the human eye, these fish care more about this than I do.
I don't really have a dog in the hunt as I don't watch the Oscar telecast. I do wonder why there was no security (before and after the assault). Imagine if one of us walked up on stage and slapped the host. Just anther self-entitled celeb getting special treatment.
@Beezer – I think I explained it well enough earlier. We were talking about a specific situation in Wordle, where you have only one letter to narrow down to from many possibilities. Rather than throwing random guesses at the grid, some strategy can help. Clearly, other posters have also figured this out.
I never did comment on today's puzzle. I liked it, it feels different from a usual Monday puzzle, though not necessarily harder or easier. I have no problem with ADDED BONUSES; @Mike in Bed-Stuy 9:00 (yay another Brooklynite) gives a perfect example for it. I also have no problem with the SANTA SUIT clue. I agree with @Rex about RETWEET, but it seems to me the Times often uses that construction when the supposed "example" is in fact the *only* situation that the thing would apply to.
@Beezer - I did say ADDED BONUS is a thing. I also said it is redundant. Lots of redundancies are in the language. It seems like people were saying it isn’t a redundancy, which is what I didn’t get.
@Anonymous 4:22 - Every “since the NYT took over” claim is either an excuse or idle speculation.
@Joe Dipinto - That strategy isn't allowed if you play in “hard mode.” This is why the adieu strategy is suboptimal in hard mode. Nymph is actually a better first word in hard mode than adieu. It is better to eliminate consonants than to identify the vowels. In fact, I’d say the past two words support consonant elimination with early guesses as optimal strategy in hard mode.
@M&A - Caret Cake is my fave.
Re: The Slap Apparently Rock and the Smiths are friends so it’s unlikely Rock didn’t know about the condition. Nevertheless, there’s a huge difference between a bad joke and actual battery. Nevertheless, Rock reportedly declined to file a complaint. As to whether or not it was staged, the most telling argument against is that Rock isn’t that good of an actor.
@Gill I…I don’t know! I’m getting shade on other things! @Joe D. I take it back! I guess I don’t get why peeps care if there are multiple possibilities. To me, it just shows the weakness of the game! @Anonymous 4:30…I really can not explain it. I can explain ME. Can I just say I have a lazy brain. There are certain types of logic that I just don’t grasp and maybe it’s because I just don’t care. Since @Frantic has SLOTH in the moniker…I would invite other comment. Am I the only here that admits to an (occasionally) lazy brain?
@Anony 4:40. I know...That's why I thought Smith should've offered Rock a BENTO BOX. You know...shake hands, eat a little UDON, then go tip toeing through some tulips. @Anony 4:41. Is that why we sing "Three Blind Mice?" WE ARE THE WORLD....WE ARE THE CHILDREN...(insert little music thingies).....
You are certainly entitled to make your observations and relate your experiences, even and especially when others glibly reject them.
I note that all of your statements have qualifiers, indicating that your observations are your own, and that you acknowledge that there may be different perspectives.
You resist any temptation to speak authoritatively, definitively and self-importantly, and you do not treat the comments of others dismissively and contemptuously. You respect others, are open to learning from them, and welcome conversation.
FYI, here's the last paragraph of @Joe Ds 1:12 post:
"p.s. Also obviously, this depends on getting to the one-letter-left point early enough in your guesses. And as an added bonus obviously, it won't work if you use Hard Mode."
Also, FWIW, CNN has been reporting all day that for about 3 yrs there's been a running feud between the Smiths & Chris Rock and that most people believe Rock knew about Jada's condition.
IMHO both parties were in the wrong but Will Smith's reaction was over the top.
Curiously, one twin bed is one bed. Curiously, one twin child is one child. Curiously one set of twins is 2 beds or 2 children. Oddly two is an even number even though it is only one number.
Pips on a die are a system of counting 1 to 6. Ergo numbers. Maybe even on a Monday "Number on a die" would suffice. Then we would enjoy the serta-sealyness of onetwosix. A little extra pause wouldn't hurt on an easy Monday.
Each theme answer had plurals totalling 5 extra letters. LINE BONUS and maybe TIRE hold up well in the singular. HOPE seems to almost want an "all" in front of it. Then you also have the 9 extra letters from the EDs. But DOT LINE fails completely and the others are awkward or their meanings change or the common-ness of the phrase fades. So those extra letters also seem to be needed for the theme to work.
One strange thing about wheels (and I liked the Goodyear(s?) suggestion) is it might almost be a stand-in for TIRES but it is more often a stand-in for the whole car. I need some new wheels, man.
I get Rex's nit about + being plus and plus not being filled in like slash etc. But + also means add as in +4. That did mean I had to wait until I got to another theme answer to see what was happening. It did nothing to decrease the fun of the chase.
D/O/M/I/C/I/L/E
DOMICILE÷
What did chris do at the Oscars?
Saw stars. Got Rocked.
@zed I've only seen the movie Synecdode New York once. The play or stage or warehouse in the movie does seem to encompass the world. Terry Gilliam like? There is a song too with lyrics but only a bit of the intro in the movie. See the soundtrack. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the play director in the movie. Checking the director of the movie I see he did Detroit Evolution. Maybe you know that one. I don't. Maybe Rye has a movie theater to show both of them.
I took as as being specific to twitter. And I agree you should not complain about grammar or logic if you want downhome answers in your puzzle. On the other hand if you can subtract bonuses I guess you can add them too. You get added bonuses or bonuses added when you order 5. Then again you just get more bonuses when you order 5.
The most interesting thing I’ve read regarding the Smith/Rock fisticuff was in The Atlantic. The author posed the question (I’m paraphrasing) What would have happened if the on stage presenter was white, but made the exact same joke? I squirm at the answer and its implications.
I think the joke was fairly low on the horrible and crude scales but up there on the rude scale. I had no idea what the joke was about. I thought Smith might have taken it to mean something about his wife being raped as in GI Jane. At least that might have explained his reaction. Then it turned out to be a hair joke. To a sick woman or a woman with a condition yes. And if you're making celebrity jokes best to stay away from wives and children. Smith lost his cool. Rock kept his composure. Very professional. My guess is Smith or his wife had some reason to be more upset than one would expect or maybe being the favorite for Best Actor was a bit too much pressure. I wonder how many people knew what jokes were coming. It is a scripted program for the most part.
@Eniale at least "hopefully" can be labeled a "sentence adverb." We need a term for when a traditionally erroneous usage of a form, like a verb, becomes acceptable, or even preferred. There prolly is one and I just don't know it.
After step 2, find all the letters that might fit and place an unrelated word to narrow range. Eh I had ?arts so I put in macaw to eliminate marts, warts, and carts. Maybe this is obvious
The notion that Mr. Claus would ask for his "me suit" reminds me that I recently listened to a Peter Frampton concert during which he made a couple of mentions of a classic album he referred to as "Me Comes Alive".
Toughest part of the solution was 1-across! I was thinking "Uh-oh" but then the rest of the cheese slid smoothly off the cracker and my DAYS ENDed quickly, if not ODDLY.
A bit unusual, in that the theme "revealer" was contained in the clues themselves. Unusual = good...usually. I am simply not a nitpicker in the vein of OFF, although I do have my "rake on the sidewalk" moments. Example, though nothing to do with today: CRISPY. There should be no such word, since CRISP means exactly the same thing; no need for the Y. Ads just add it to make it more singsong. Ugh!
My point is that I can see +++++ and appreciate the transition to "ADDED" without dissecting it like some lab frog. I get it, and that's enough. Thus, despite a ton of short fill in a choppy grid, I can give this one a birdie.
Not so with the Wordle. I appreciate @Joe's approach, but I just can't help trying to nail it on the very next guess. I must force myself to do it his way when faced with a word like today's. Went DNF for the first time, ruining my round. Can I get a mulligan?
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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116 comments:
My favorite wood style is definitely CEDAR ALLA BOARD.
After serving as Chancellor, von Bismarck secretly moved to Canada where he became known as OTTO the OTTAWAN.
My mantra, which I BLEAT NONSTOP, is the bottommost row of today’s puzzle: END DAYS ODDLY.
This was actually a fantastically conceived and executed theme, surrounded by clean fill. Although it was super fast for me, I thought it was one of the best Mondays I can remember. Thank you so much, Leslie Rogers.
Monday/Funday! A nice romp, and an unexpected pleasure so early in the week.
My only nit: It’s a stretch of Joaquin’s Dictum to clue TIRES as wheels, particularly on a Monday. I think a better Monday clue for 44A would be [G/O/O/D/Y/E/A/R/S].
Easy-medium. It took a couple of blinks to get CANON and BHUTAN did not readily leap to mind. Very smooth with some fine long downs. It’s great to have a little something different on a Monday. Liked it a bunch and it got POW at Xwordinfo.
@bocamp - Croce’s Freestyle #695 is a return to vintage “hours to solve” Croce. I got it but I made a “lucky” guess in SE on “The Office” answer. Good luck!
Thx Leslie, for a smooth puz to start the week! :)
Easy-med.
Loved the theme; it was actually helpful!
Needed the crosses to get CANON.
Once out of the NW, it was smooth sailing all the way.
Enjoyable solve. :)
@Eniale (3:20 PM yd)
Thx, I need them after two disastrous SB days in a row! 😢
@BLS (5:18 PM yd)
Dan Ruby (8:25 AM yd) & Beezer (10:30 AM yd) also had 3's. The one letter I had after two tries pretty much narrowed it down to two possibilities (afaik). I guessed the right one, otherwise I'd've had a 4.
Btw, since your comment could have been intended for any of the three of us, you may want to take a look at @RooMonster's (12:08 PM) post from yesterday, wrt placing a "@" in front of your intended commenter's moniker. :) I had to go the blog on my iPhone to see who your comment was meant for. Precious nanoseconds, as some on the blog are wont to say. lol
@thefogman (4:31 PM yd)
I highly endorse @kitshef's (5:28 PM yd) Octordle rec. It's my fave of all the Wordle variations. There's a word which I often employ on Octordle, that was instrumental in helping me get a 3 on yd's reg. Wordle.
@stephanie (6:48 PM yd)
Thx for the two new Wordle puzzes! Just what I needed. lol. 😊
___
Wordle 78 X/6 (2nd dnf from the archives)
🟨🟩⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
There were other possibilities, as well.
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Fun, uncomplicated Monday which I enjoyed solving. All the themers were clever but my favorite was SLASHED TIRES. Nice touches having all the theme clues be six letters and the ADDED BONUSES of the long downs, an unexpected treat.
Interesting fact about the world’s highest unclimbed mountain, Gangkhar Puensum which - according to Wikipedia - has been off limits to climbers since 1994 when BHUTAN prohibited all mountaineering above 6,000 m (20,000 ft) due to spiritual/religious beliefs.
Solving by only looking at the down clues, I loved this! I don't think I've ever loved a Monday. (Remember that Boomtown Rats song?) When I saw this is Jeff's Puzzle of the Week on xwordinfo, I actually wasn't surprised.
OTTAWANS!! Weird the variety of those city-to-inhabitant suffixes. Toronto(nian), Montreal(er, or ais en Francais), Vancouver(ite), Winnipeg(ger). And: [Los] Angele(no)! In BC we have the towns of Chase and Trail. Do Chasers and Trailers live there?
[Spelling Bee: Sat. pg-1, missed this.
Sun. 15 min to pg, but stalled at -2 right now.]
Other suits of Santa: Santa swim suit, Santa three-piece suit, Santa suit of armor, Santa breaking-and-entering law suit, Santa suit of cards when he's playing with the Kardashians which he does when it suits him.
The bottom line of the puzzle reads "end days oddly." Doesn't seem so odd these days does it. I've decided the word "ridiculous" can be removed from the dictionary, because nothing is surprising anymore...like violence on stage live at the Oscars. 😕
From yesterday: Trivia vs. knowledge: Stuff I know and have committed to memory despite the existence of Google (a far better place to keep things I'm supposed to remember) is knowledge like BENTOBOX and UDON (so important) everything else is trivia.
Of course it’s a SANTA SUIT, you think he wears that every day? Special occasions only. He’s probably decked out in jeans and a tee shirt the rest of the year. Standard garb for toy making.
Found the puzzle to be a cute and fun Monday. Loved it.
I heard Santa got his own washer/dryer after his frustration with the North Pole's only professional laundry, "In by Light, Out by Dark".
I thought the theme was very weak. @Rex didn't like the redundant ADDEDBONUSES but the problem with that entry is that it would be the same without the +++++. Exras/ADDEDBONUSES. Joaquin is right about the TIRE wheel conflation. It's nowhere near being close enough. The other two work okay but 2 out of 4 is not good.
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Single bed, curiously (4)
2. Crown topper (6)
3. Something that's thrown out while using it (6)
4. Fan belt (3)
5. Lacking zip? (6)
TWIN
ENAMEL
ANCHOR
OLE
ENTIRE
I prefer this type of theme, where it is “self-contained” in the sense that it hold together on a stand alone basis - I.e once you groke the “gimmick” you can ascertain the other theme entries without having to have most of the crosses in place, which is not always the case with a quote, trivia or PPP-related theme.
I actually thought for a moment that they might be trying to sneak in a misdirection with “Direction of the morning light” as the light could possibly be traveling WEST, since the sun first appears to the EAST, however a quick check of the cross dispelled with such nonsense.
Not sure about the “numbers on a die” clue - it seems as though by far the vast majority have pips on them, but I guess it’s possible to find some with numbers.
Ok, after I just finished over-analyzing two clues, I’ll refrain from picking on Rex for over analyzing the clue for ADDED BONUS - which to me was fine (I did enjoy OFL’s comment re the cluing on RETWEET). I wasn’t sure about the TIRES/Wheels false equivalency that @Joaquin picked up on - I suspect that may be a discussion point throughout the day as well.
New Yorker to have daily puzzles instead of 3x/week! And what a great lineup of constructors … themeless except for Friday puzzle, which will be themed.
C’mon, Rex, your chalkboard wasn’t a “board of chalk.” Most likely, it was SLATE.
Second fun puzzle in a row. Here, after getting one theme answer, it was fun to guess the others with as few crosses as possible. Meanwhile, the puzzle has 23 three-letter answers, which is quite high, but they are all so unforced that they pretty much disappear – it’s a real skill to pull that off.
Many lovely crosses:
OBEY / YES
SOD / DEWY
BENTO BOX / EAST
SLASHED TIRES / CUSSWORD
DASHED HOPES / SAD TO SAY
EVE / STEVE
And five palindromes!
All adding up to a most lovely start to the week, a mucho Monday. This was made by a pro. We need to see more from you, Leslie – please! And thank you!
Nice early week puzzle. Cute theme and clean fill. Liked the length consistency of the themers and their clues. The long downs like OTTAWANS and ALL ABOARD are solid. Short stuff was marginal - DEWY is fine but the SW corner was pretty rough.
Enjoyable solve to start the week.
A puzzle that feels like a Monday puzzle for experienced solvers, but probably not to new solvers. Things like AVA DuVernay, UDON and BENTO BOX were automatic because I've seen them enough times in crosswords, but never outside of crosswords so I would have needed all the crosses for all of those a couple of years ago.
I'm pretty sure Santa dresses normally when he's not on official business. I can certainly see him asking "Hey, Hermey, can you pick up my SANTA SUIT from the cleaners? I have to appear in a shopping mall in Toledo tomorrow morning".
I *loved* this puzzle. Solved in well under my average time (but still far from my fastest Monday ever), yet it didn’t feel *too* easy because there was, in fact, just a tiny bit of resistance here and there (just a little!) and the theme was so clever.
I feel like it’s exactly what a Monday puzzle should be, the paragon and ideal of a Monday NYTXW, which is: a perfect puzzle to hand someone who thinks they can’t to crosswords. They will be able to conquer it without wanting to quit, and they will really enjoy the theme. It *might* just hook them and change their relationship to puzzles for a lifetime.
As @Joaquin says: WHEELS are not TIRES. The average solver probably won't notice or care, but that's... no. Wheels are any round rolly things on a spindle, whether they include rubber or not. Tires are specifically the rubber outer layer. It's like saying people wear clothes so PERSON = CLOTHES. Like... no.
I'm not sure what the birds passing on information to one another outside my window are doing if not retweeting.
Smooth as silk, no speed bumps, lovely Monday. Rex can BLEAT NONSTOP about ADDED BONUSES and “as” — and I get his point — but it takes nothing away from my enjoyment and appreciation of this excellent puzzle. (Insert standard “I don’t time myself but if I did this would probably have been a PR.” Who cares?)
Nifty! Usually don't love puzzles that solve this fast. Delightful theme and sparkly fill. Now I want a Bento Box for lunch.
Technically, the "dashes" in D-R-E-A-M-S are hyphens, at least as they appear in the NYT app. As crossword solvers know, dashes come in en and em sizes, both longer than a hyphen.
By definition, isn't anything St. Nicholas wears a SANTA SUIT?
For once I found myself in nearly total agreement with OFL. ADDEDBONUS has always bothered me no end and he saved me the trouble of writing my own rant. RETWEET, to a somewhat lesser degree, so there was that too. This type of concordance is rare enough to be memorable.
The "queues" clue gave the game away right off the bat and I thought, here we go, rebuses for beginners, and I was not disappointed. I guess I've just seen this kind of thing many times. They're still fun, and absolutely appropriate on a Monday.
Only slight slowdown today was at "spy's gathering", which I wanted to be a word for a group of spies, like "nest" or something. Easily resolved.
Someday I would love to see UTE clued as "defendant in My Cousin Vinny".
Totally excellent Mondecito, LR. "Loved" Rating for this one, and thanks for all the fun.
@bocamp re Wordle: Same problem here. It was an arbitrary choice among a sea of possibiliteis.
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
the Twitter/RETWEET clue gives too much away. The clue is a variation of the answer.
For someone who frequently pastes copies of tweets into his blog, @Rex is oddly specific about the only way to share tweets today.
Not that Wordle results should be posted here in the first place, but the postings in the last few days (especially today) sure do give away a lot of information.
@Sioux Falls, Thanks for the heads up on the New Yorker puzzle frequency!
Medium? Really? I breezed right through it and I’m nowhere in the league of many on here. I found it fun — but super easy.
And I know it’s a Monday, but isn’t 18A “‘N’ in NYC” just a great big giveaway? I know its supposed to be easy, but wow.
A charming start to the week! It’s a simple theme but one I don’t recall seeing before and one that requires no specialized or arcane knowledge. I agree that it’s an excellent Monday offering for new solvers while not annoying the old.
@OffTheGrid - Disagree, in a way that elucidates my disagreement with @Rex ‘s complaint. [Extras] would clue BONUSES. [E+X+T+R+A+S] clues ADDED BONUSES. Contra @Rex , “added bonuses” is a legit idiom with its own distinctive usage, as in, “You all get to clock out early today, and as an added bonus, we’ll be serving pizza in the break room.”
My first quibble with a constructor as a newbie to this blog. RE the SANTA SUIT clue, I agree with many here who note its almost-but-not-quite quality. My fix would be [Duds for St. Nick]. Maybe that’s too word-play based for a Monday?
It was the easiest puzzle in decades. I just ignored the themed clues.
WHEELS and TIRES are not the same thing
The puzzle must have been easier than usual. I didn't waste time trying to figure out the theme. And the crosses solved them all in my usually time. Only after I was done did I see the theme.
Hey All !
Nice MonPuz. Neat theme concept.
Wheels and TIREs (to me) are interchangeable to mean either one. Granted, they are completely different, as you couldn't use one to do the job of the other, but in slang vernacular, you might accidentally say wheels for tires and vice versa. "Hey, nice wheels!" can mean either, "Nice rims", or "Nice tires", or "Nice car". Just sayin'.
38D could've been clued @!$#?*. Har.
37A for a later-in-the-week clue: Pack content.
Had a 8'x4' pool table once with three piece SLATE. Heavy. Weighed 704 lbs. My pool table now is not slate, still on the heavy side (200 lbs?-ish?), and not sure what the base is. But it relatively flat. (Two of the corners have a slight uphill to them, causing the ball to roll away from them at slow speeds. Tends to make the game more interesting.)
Nice puz. Jeff's POW for today's puz doesn't bode well for the rest of the week. Complaints will be forthcoming. 😁
yd -2, should'ves 1
No F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Give this puzzle a MOTY!! (Monday of the Year). It's playful and imaginative and clever -- and yet it's also easy enough to give to a novice solver. But there's easy/entertaining and there's easy/boring and this is easy/entertaining -- the kind of puzzle you give to people if you want them coming back for more puzzles in the future.
But there is one real toughie and it's at 1A. I needed lots of crosses to get CANON, which never occurred to me from the clue. In fact, absolutely nothing at all occurred to me from the clue. I was completely stumped before I had crosses.
Other than the delightful themers, my favorite clue/answer was DLIST. If that's where you end up when you're "barely famous", wouldn't you much rather be "not at all famous"? I know I would.
Fun puzzle. More Mondays like this, please.
Oh God, the dreaded Monday POW.
Funny how I figured out SLASHEDTIRES without crosses even though I also knew tires aren’t wheels and that tires are mounted on wheels. Let’s see how long this nit can be picked!
I thought that this was a fun Monday with a cute theme and very little “junk.”
So grateful finally to have started reading this blog after years of just wondering what it was all about. Starting in 2012, my hubby and I did the Sunday puzzle on Saturday morning (ADDED BONUS of home delivery, you might say) at our favorite Bed-Stuy breakfast spot (variously Urban Vintage, Bedford Hill, and Brown Butter, and we also did it at Home/Made in Red Hook until the restaurateur moved to the Hudson Valley). Since our marriage collapsed last fall, I've started doing the NYT puzzle every day. And in the past couple of weeks I started reading this blog. And for several days I rolled my eyes a lot at the never ending onslaught of quibbles with clues, entries, constructors, editors, newspapers, software platforms, and even with bloggers themselves. But then I realized — I actually LOVE this..."stuff" (I don't think I can use CUSS WORDS on this blog, even with asterisks substituting for some of the letters, right?). I'm that guy who used to post on Facebook every time an article in the NYT had a split infinitive, until I realized that every media outlet now seems to embrace the split infinitive. I'm that guy who cannot help exclaiming "Lie!" every time somebody on radio or television (or should I say audio or video) uses "lay" when they shouldn't of oughta done that. I guess grammar Nazi is not quite the same as crossword gestapo, but I think they are close, and I feel right at home here. Thanks, y'all.
I know I am more a part of the problem than part of the solution as far as the exploding size of this comment site ... but how about trimming the volume of the comments here by eliminating the "wordy" stuff? I'm sure the wordy crowd has some web sites of their own. And maybe an "every-other-day" policy on commenting in general? My family has to put up with me on a daily basis but you guys shouldn't have to. (And yes I posted something yesterday - but I promise to skip at least the next two days!)
The puzzle is a reminder that Shortz once worked at Games magazine. It’s nice to see a little pushing of the theme element/clue form envelope on a Monday.
I see the wheel purists are having a moment. Unfortunately, language users are willfully oblivious to purists. @Ted - Just this past week with the Cleveland Browns signing I’ve been hearing a lot of “fans cheer for the uniform more than the man.” Or, my favorite, “they cheer for the laundry.” Or, similarly, there’s a whole movie franchise that’s apt today, The Santa Clause. Any way, it is not at all unusual to use the person=clothes concept. We even have a fancy word for the language phenomenon, metonymy.
@SouthsideJohnny - Those pips are numbers, just represented without Arabic Numerals. There is a different problem with that clue that caused every D & D player and board game player generally (and their fathers in this case) eyebrows to arch. The 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20 sided die are no longer all over my house, but the only SIX-sided die we had were in the backgammon game nobody played because they were busy slaying monsters.
There are actually 22 threes (still too many) but there are ten longs, very good for early in the week.
I'm calling the intersection of ANN and OBAMA an anti-Natick.
Conrad (8:30): Me, too.
@Zed you idiot - it's synecdoche, just because we need a point of contention to counter the universal praise for this puzzle. Also, as I am nothing more than your sock-puppet, my calling you an idiot doesn't count as an insult.
@Zed - If the clue were "highest number on ANY die", I would agree with you (and as an old D&Der, it was my first thought). But "a die" makes it OK for me. "Many dice" would have been fine, too.
Similarly, if we had a clue of "Aria from an Italian opera" for CASTA DIVA, I would not object on the grounds that "there are many Italian operas don't have that aria".
@Pete - 😂🤣😂 - Did I use the wrong one? I’m constantly double checking because its easy to mix them up. Merriam-Webster has an explainer so clearly I’m not the only one. And since you’re my sock pocket and I’m Rex’s sock pocket by the transitive property of trollery you are Rex.
**Wordle Alert**
No spoilers but I suppose an astute solver might use this info.
After epoxy and nymph today’s puzzle causes a different issue. I got lucky. I count 8 possible first letters for those last four, possibly a ninth but I think it needs a terminal s. Anyway, this is why I don’t use the adieu strategy, although my first word wasn’t much help today.
Wordle 282 6/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
@bigsteve46 - Wordle comments mostly disappeared because there was a stretch where they weren’t especially interesting puzzles. Having both an X and a Y made the solve a little more unusual Saturday, but then having a single vowel that wasn’t AEIOU yesterday made it especially noteworthy. My guess is that Wordle comments will ebb and flow. I still do it every day but generally only share my results on Twitter. But misery loves company and today’s word is likely to break lots of streaks.
@Zed - good reality check on PIPS. I really need to be more aware of my own narrow weltanschauung (yes. I tossed in a dreaded foreign word or phrase - and I would look aside if Mr. Chen squeezed that one into a Saturday, when the troops have pretty much A-LIST solving chops).
Well shucky darns...Potty mouth didn't fit? Will Will Smith be forever on the DLIST? Or will it be Chris?
Oh, wait...we have a Monday Oscar...And the award for outstanding Monday goes to: .....+++++/////----- (Get ready to clap!): Leslie Rogers....presented by non other than CANON BHUTAN. His DASHED HOPE finally came to fruition and everyone got up and sang an ARIA about AMORE. What's not to like?
I particularly liked that PEA was clued as soup and not as the legume that made the princess toss and turn all night.
I will now fill my BENTO BOX with UDON. As ADDED BONUSES, SANTA will arrive in this birthday SUIT.
Breezy solve and didn't really look at the theme until the puzzle was over (as per usual for an early week puzzle for me. Figuring out the theme just slows me down in those cases.)
I see I'm not the only one nitpicking wheels =/= TIRES and I actually agree with Rex on the "Share, as a Twitter post" clue for the same reasons he did. I would have preferred "Share a Twitter post" as the "as" there does imply to me that there are other contexts in which "retweet" would be valid, but it's specifically tied to Twitter (or at least so far as I know. I've never heard about anyone "retweeting" a Facebook post, but it would not necessarily surprise me if the word is sliding into a generic term for sharing social media posts, much in the way you "Google" something, regardless of the search engine you actually use. That said, I have no evidence that this is the case -- just allowing for the possibility.)
Zed - Synechdoche is a type of metonymy. Your use of the word there was not incorrect (a phrase which is an example of "litotes," as a bonus word for y'all.) Synechdoche is just more specific.
@Zed is right about Metonymy: it replaces a word with an object or name that stands for it (Uncle Sam=U.S.A; uniform=the person who wears it, whether athlete or police)
@pete is right about syndecdoche: uses a part-of-the-whole to stand for the whole (counting heads/noses = counting people). Ergo, wheels for car is metonymy; TIRES for wheels is synecdoche.
Such nit-picking is fun (for me, a retired Latin teacher) but I doubt the clues led anyone astray…what a fun Monday!
FH
SPOILER ALERT!!!
Santa Claus isn't real. There is no Santa; no elves; no reindeer. Human beings just pretend there is a Santa Claus to amuse their children. When they pretend, they dress up like Santa is supposed to; to do this they put on what they refer to as a SANTA SUIT.
I greatly enjoy "Rex Parker does the NY Times Crossword." And here I thought that reading the blog and on-going comments - some informative, some snarky - is simply an added bonus.
Today's Wordle calls for the application of Wordler's rule. When you get to the point of needing one letter(you have 4 greens)and there are multiple possibilities, one is as good as another because it's pure guesswork.
For example, here's mine.
Wordle 282 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟩🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I claim a par 4. Wordle would give me a five. It could have been a 6 or a fail. I play one day at a time. Cumulative stats mean nothing to me. I guess I'm not ANAL enough but I have fun.
@Zed - According to Mary McCarty, you used the wrong one. According to me, they are interchangeable as two words that I know neither what they really mean, nor how to spell them and I never really cared, I was just assuming that since I didn't know the difference I might as well troll myself, since I am he and you are he and you are me Goo goo g'joob.
@Peter P - As @Larry noted, @Rex regularly shares tweets he receives on his blog, i.e. he pastes a snapshot of the tweet. That's not RETWEETing. So, RETWEETing is but one way of sharing a Twitter post.
@FH - There are so reindeer. Plain, ordinary reindeer, but reindeer nonetheless.
But there is a Saint Nicholas, AKA Santa.
I'm smart, not lucky
Wordle 282 3/6
⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Not only are reindeer real, they're delicious with cheese onion, lettuce on a bun. Had me a reindeer cheeseburger in Iceland at the most idyllic spot you could imagine.
BENTO BOX & UDON were gimmes from past Japanese dining faves.
@jae (12:08 AM)
Thx, not sure I'll have time for xwords anymore with all these new Wordles! (just kidding; will look forward to getting on Croce's 695). Right now am working to finish a beastly BEQ.
@Conrad (8:30 AM)
Another near disaster on today's reg. Wordle:
Wordle 282 6/6*
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
@okanaganer (12:40 AM)
Yeah, both Sat. & Sun. were outliers for me wrt meeting my pg goal within a 30 min. time limit. Only consolation is that I got the word you missed. lol
___
td pg: 5:32 / W: 6*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I’m not getting the plaints about Rex’s plaints. ADDED BONUSES is redundant. The “as” does imply that RETWEET occurs somewhere other than Twitter and it doesn’t. Neither much bothered me, ADDED BONUSES is in the language like lots of redundant phrases are and “as” can also mean “specifically” as it does here, but that’s not what anyone seems to be saying. OTOH “board of chalk” is a pretty humorous faux pas. No screeching there, just a crumbling mess.
@JC66 - Of course.
@Pete - It seems your post has led us all to come together right now.
Any truth to the rumor that synecdoche is banned in Schenectady? Similar to the ban on being wry in Rye? Someone should make a movie.
Added-bonus-cool MonPuz theme. Makes yah wanna come up with more themers …
* A#W#A#Y.
* A?U?T?H?O?R?I?T?Y.
* P"R"I"C"E"S.
* C^A^K^E.
* B@O@N@U@S. [har]
* L%O#U$D*Y.
* R*O*C*K. [Chris in pain, after an Oscars slap]
staff weeject picks: EMU & EDU. Or, as M&A now looks at em, MD in the EU.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Barack, Michelle, Sasha, or Malia} = OBAMA.
fave added bonuses, as puz fillins: BHUTAN. ALLABOARD [M&A's Pa-In-Law was a train conductor]. BENTOBOX [had enjoyed these, until that there Japanese restaurant shut down]. SADTOSAY. CUSSWORD. URANUS.
Easy-ish puz, as a solvequest. Got the last 2 themers, without any crossers.
@RP: Primo mini-tantrums, on SANTASUIT & RETWEET. Thanx for the laffs.
And thanx for the fun, Ms. Rogers darlin. Very good job.
Masked & aUnUoUnUyUmoUs [really needed one more U in the puz, to get that to work right]
p.s. @Zed - yep. I tried that Wordle word out today, upon yer high recommendation. Par for that word oughta be 5 or 6.
@mathgent: Here's M&A's humble attempt to rate a "fave comment" …
**gruntz**
Rex is so desperate to find something to pick on that his reaches into not understanding themes is comical:
. = dot
/ = slash
- = dash
+ = plus or ADDition sign, which you then add to the extras (bonuses)
"ADDED BONUS" is a very common phrase in late night TV commercials: "Buy this knife set, and as an added bonus, we'll throw in a garlic mincer".
I hope to make it up to the DLIST someday. Kathy Griffin's memoir is titled, "My life on the D-List". Probably not enough ego on a D lister to punch someone onstage.
[Share, as a Twitter post] implies there is *any* other context in which [Share] can mean RETWEET.
- It implies to me that there are other meanings of "share" that don't end up as RETWEET. I do like his fix, though.
Today would definitely be a day to start with the downs.
@Mike in Bed-Stuy (9:42) The entertainment factor of this crowd seems to fluctuate depending on the puzzle of course and some days, politics and/or current events. But I know what you mean … after a while you begin to realize how much you love it. I look forward to reading comments each day and think of many people here as friends. And it always fascinates me how the most trivial component of a clue, answer or comment will often trigger the most interesting debates. Glad you decided to dive into the fray.
BENTO BOX and BHUTAN are not answers that roll easily off the tongue on a Monday morning, so the puzzle did offer a little welcome resistance here and there. Loved the theme and the grid overall. So, no UGGS from me while solving. Also liked the idea of a CUSSWORD in a CROSSWORD. And, as others have pointed out, what better way to conclude this little gem than with the mantra END DAYS ODDLY.
D?O? I? S?M?E?L?L? S?M?O?K?E?
p.s.
Whoa, that shoulda been L%O#U$D*L@Y, in my first message post. (I blame Otto-cuss-correct.)
M&Also
MFCTM.
Whatsername (12:21)
chefwen (2:39)
Lewis (7:09)
Mike ... (9:00)
Pretty much in complete agreement with everything @Rex wrote today. Really liked the puzzle, especially the theme. Close to PR time (over 6 minutes for me). Had exactly the same reaction to ADDED BONUSES and “as a Twitter post”. Also agree with @Joaquin's early comment re the clue for SLASHED TIRES.
I was, however, struck by the fact that our criticisms are quite “persnickety”, to use a term describing her boss favored by Natalie, totally devoted but long-suffering assistant to the eponymous detective in the long-running earlly 2000s TV series Monk. Since I recently discovered it (thanks to my daughter Maya) this has become hands down my favorite show of all time, a perfect successor to my long-time faves Perry Mason, Columbo, and Murder She Wrote. I share in less disabling form many of Monk’s quirks and OCD tendencies (which I love being made to LOL at), and only today realized, so do OFL and a fair number of fellow bloggers! As Monk himself says, it’s a gift—and a curse.
The series streams with Amazon Prime—8 seasons, 128 (2 to the 7th power!) episodes. Very clever and engaging individual show stories and numerous longer narrative arcs. Main characters besides Tony Shalhoub’s iconic Adrian Monk are all wonderfully scripted and acted. Fine and fun recurring roles include Monk’s shrink and Monk’s even nuttier brother Ambrose (John Turturro). Single episode guest stars include an Emmy-winning Season 5 performance by Stanley Tucci (Shalhoub’s long-time pal and collaborator) as a “method” actor who impersonates Monk to a degree both frightening and hilarious.
By all means watch if you can. Start with season 1 (2004), in which original assistant Sharona, quite different from Natalie (interesting story regarding the switch in the middle of Season 3) but equally engaging, is featured.
What a super-sweet, clever Monday puzzle! AWEsome.
I noted the redundancy of ADDED BONUSES for the first time today but it's a phrase "in the language" so I shrugged. And tried to decide, if you had a bunch of bonus items in a given situation and then one occurs to you that wasn't obvious, can you then call it an added bonus without being redundant? That's the kind of day I'm having...
My objection to 10D's clue was calling Santa's suit a "costume" as if he were just dressing up as Santa and not, actually, Santa. :-)
Leslie Rogers, thanks for a fun (very easy) Monday!
And I got a Wordle birdie today because my original word, taken from today's NYT puzzle, gave me not a single correct or near-correct letter but it eliminated two of the possible kealoas from the final word.
@Pete (11:12) - I don't see what Larry's post has to do with it. Nobody is saying RETWEETing is the only way to share Twitter posts. My small nit is the clue, as written, makes it sound like there's ways to RETWEET outside of Twitter.
******WORDLE POST******
@Wordler 11:07 – that's not necessarily true, and it's not true today. Using an example (this is NOT today's puzzle):
Suppose on Guess 2 you have:
W-A-T-C-H
The last four letters are correctly situated, but W is not in the word. So the word could be BATCH, CATCH, HATCH, LATCH, MATCH, PATCH. Six possibilities, four guesses left.
The word you should play on Guess 3 is BLIMP*. That will tell you if any one of B, L, M, or P is in the word. Hopefully one of them is, and you play the solution on Guess 4.
If BLIMP did not reveal the missing letter you are unfortunately stuck with CATCH or HATCH, both of which have duplicate letters, and all you can do is guess one or the other. But you will still be assured of having the solution by Guess 6.
*Obviously you could vary this word according to what's already been eliminated. E.g. if you needed the disposition of the W instead of the B, you could play PLOWS. Best is if you can find a word that contains four of your possibilities, but usually you'll have to settle for three.
I was in this situation today at Guess 3, and had the the solution by Guess 5. I can think of two words that, between them, include all 8 possibilities for the first letter today.
p.s. Also obviously, this depends on getting to the one-letter-left point early enough in your guesses. And as an added bonus obviously, it won't work if you use Hard Mode.
Cute, yes. 🥰
Enjoyed. 👍🏽
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
Joe D,
Yep. That is the correct strategy. Now if you could only get my wife on board.
I have given up trying to explain that in fact the puzzle is logic based. She seems to understand elimination prints in police procedurals so I'm not sure where she's losing the thread.
@Peter P Suppose for a second you're @Rex, you solve the puzzle, then you log into twitter and see a post about today's puzzle that you think is a particularly interesting take, and you RETWEET it to all your followers. Then you make a copy to paste into your morning write up so that all your readers can see it also. Is that not an instance of sharing a Twitter post? No where in "Share, as a Twitter post" does it presuppose that you are going to share on Twitter. RETWEET is the (most obvious) example of a way to share a Twitter post, but not the only way, hence the .. , as ..
@webwinger (1:14 PM)
Thx for the 'Monk' shoutout! Got it cued on Prime. :)
@Joe Dipinto (1:23 PM)
That's a great technique! As you say it can't be used on hard mode, but it sure comes in handy on other versions of Wordle where hard mode is not a factor.
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
The rare QB today, and the hoot is back on for tonight, as the heat has been fixed.
Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay.
2 pm and no one to my knowledge has commented on the phrase “I found this one perfectly delightful…”. Truly the highest compliment Rex can pay. I happen to agree. On the other hand wasting a full paragraph on failing to edit out the word “as” in a clue seemed overkill. “Share a Twitter post” would have been just fine for a Monday.
@Joe Dipinto is totally right on the technique for getting a missing single Wordle letter. While the opportunity does not often present itself, the approach is effective.
@kitshef 7:46 AM. Not sure where you live but on the US west coast — San Francisco at any rate — a BENTO BOX and/ or UDON noodles are standard lunch fare.
@Joe D -- I've come up with the two words that, between them, contain all eight 1st letter possibilities. I've just sent them to you in an email.
Tomorrow, let's reveal them to the commentariat. (I wonder if our solutions are the same? There may be more than one solution.)
For me, there was a certain amount of trial and error involved. I thought I'd come up with a solution in well under two minutes but it took longer than that. It's an interesting exercise in problem-solving that I recommend to Wordle devotees. You'll have fun with it.
🙂
I have arrived at the point in my life where I used (without knowing it) Joe Dipinto's method for life in general. I have replaced the "B" in my bucket list with an "F". Shoot par every day!
I checked in early and then came back late but stopped at @Joe D coupled with @anonymous 1:44. Does Wordle require logic? Yes. However, for some reason I do very well on Wordle (got it in three yesterday and today). I am NOT a special person, nor am I particularly good at “logic” problems. (Caveat: yesterday @thefogman inspired me to pick a Y word, so that was a bit of a spoiler)
Why would I care to pick BLIMP? Oh, I know you will tell me…
Anonymous 1:44, there are different types of strengths in logic…it’s not a one trick pony. I suspect your wife (like me with boring Sudoku) just doesn’t care enough. Some logic strengths are immediate and undeniable. Others MIGHT depend on the persons interest to figure it out. I applaud folks who have ALL logic emerge as immediate and undeniable. I am not one of those people.
And @Zed, I disagree with you disagreeing with @Pete with respect to added bonuses. I think “it’s a thing.” Nuff said, but with love…
@GILL I, my guess is that Chris will apologize. Uncertain that he knew that alopecia is involved, but we will see. I missed IRL, but caught the whole thing this morning on video.
Easiest NYT puzzle I've ever done. I just had to wonder for a second about TIRES because in off-moments I still want to write "tyres."
@Mike in Bed-Sty, yes, I know just how you feel about "lay" where "lie" is the way we learned it. I taught English grammar for 20 years, heaven help me, to ESL students, not to mention high-school and college English too. BUT I suppose we have to come to terms with this also becoming accepted usage. I used to rail against "hopefully" being substituted for "I hope," yet now use it the way everyone else does. The language moves on.
pg-1
Someone should have told Chris Rock it was the Oscars, not a roast. Even if a medical condition were not involved, it was a horrible, crude, and rude attempt at humor. I can't be upset over Will Smith's response.
Monday record for me. I think people are reaching records because the non-theme part of the puzzle is straightforward.
To me, Twitter in the clue for TWEET is a bit close for comfort, since they share so many letters and I believe have the same etymology. But it's Monday so I guess it's okay.
As far as Wordle goes, someone said that since the NYT took over, the right answer is the most common word of the possible choices. Seems to be true in general.
What else could you slash on a wheel? The theme helped the solve. Most enjoyable.
@Beezer....I thought the whole thing was staged until Will let out the CUSS WORDs a la mode. Yikes!
I
m betting Chris didn't know Jada had alopecia; his comment wasn't mean spirited - at least not enough to get SLASHED TIRES in front of the entire world. Will apologized to everyone at the Oscars and everyone watching but he should've, at least, offered a BENTO BOX as a token of some sort of AMORE. No?
Should I try to get my head out of the sand now? Or are my HOPES DASHED?
Beezer,
Please expound on different logic strengths.
Thanks
Gill,
Smith didn't apologize to Rock.
Re: Will Smith fake slap
The Amazon river runs for thousands of miles. At some points, it runs through areas of the rain forest that are almost untouched and have been barely explored. Because of the porous limestone in these areas, the river water leaks through the stone and travels deep into the earth, and forms underground pools almost a mile below the surface. Over thousands of years, small blind transparent fish have lived and evolved in these pools. These fish have never seen the sun or surface and have never been seen by the human eye, these fish care more about this than I do.
I don't really have a dog in the hunt as I don't watch the Oscar telecast. I do wonder why there was no security (before and after the assault). Imagine if one of us walked up on stage and slapped the host. Just anther self-entitled celeb getting special treatment.
@Beezer – I think I explained it well enough earlier. We were talking about a specific situation in Wordle, where you have only one letter to narrow down to from many possibilities. Rather than throwing random guesses at the grid, some strategy can help. Clearly, other posters have also figured this out.
I never did comment on today's puzzle. I liked it, it feels different from a usual Monday puzzle, though not necessarily harder or easier. I have no problem with ADDED BONUSES; @Mike in Bed-Stuy 9:00 (yay another Brooklynite) gives a perfect example for it. I also have no problem with the SANTA SUIT clue. I agree with @Rex about RETWEET, but it seems to me the Times often uses that construction when the supposed "example" is in fact the *only* situation that the thing would apply to.
I'm playing this because the last two words.
@Beezer - I did say ADDED BONUS is a thing. I also said it is redundant. Lots of redundancies are in the language. It seems like people were saying it isn’t a redundancy, which is what I didn’t get.
@Anonymous 4:22 - Every “since the NYT took over” claim is either an excuse or idle speculation.
@Joe Dipinto - That strategy isn't allowed if you play in “hard mode.” This is why the adieu strategy is suboptimal in hard mode. Nymph is actually a better first word in hard mode than adieu. It is better to eliminate consonants than to identify the vowels. In fact, I’d say the past two words support consonant elimination with early guesses as optimal strategy in hard mode.
@M&A - Caret Cake is my fave.
Re: The Slap
Apparently Rock and the Smiths are friends so it’s unlikely Rock didn’t know about the condition. Nevertheless, there’s a huge difference between a bad joke and actual battery. Nevertheless, Rock reportedly declined to file a complaint. As to whether or not it was staged, the most telling argument against is that Rock isn’t that good of an actor.
@Gill I…I don’t know! I’m getting shade on other things! @Joe D. I take it back! I guess I don’t get why peeps care if there are multiple possibilities. To me, it just shows the weakness of the game! @Anonymous 4:30…I really can not explain it. I can explain ME. Can I just say I have a lazy brain. There are certain types of logic that I just don’t grasp and maybe it’s because I just don’t care. Since @Frantic has SLOTH in the moniker…I would invite other comment. Am I the only here that admits to an (occasionally) lazy brain?
@Anony 4:40. I know...That's why I thought Smith should've offered Rock a BENTO BOX. You know...shake hands, eat a little UDON, then go tip toeing through some tulips.
@Anony 4:41. Is that why we sing "Three Blind Mice?"
WE ARE THE WORLD....WE ARE THE CHILDREN...(insert little music thingies).....
@Anonymous (4:22)
You are certainly entitled to make your observations and relate your experiences, even and especially when others glibly reject them.
I note that all of your statements have qualifiers, indicating that your observations are your own, and that you acknowledge that there may be different perspectives.
You resist any temptation to speak authoritatively, definitively and self-importantly, and you do not treat the comments of others dismissively and contemptuously. You respect others, are open to learning from them, and welcome conversation.
Thank you.
@Zed
FYI, here's the last paragraph of @Joe Ds 1:12 post:
"p.s. Also obviously, this depends on getting to the one-letter-left point early enough in your guesses. And as an added bonus obviously, it won't work if you use Hard Mode."
Also, FWIW, CNN has been reporting all day that for about 3 yrs there's been a running feud between the Smiths & Chris Rock and that most people believe Rock knew about Jada's condition.
IMHO both parties were in the wrong but Will Smith's reaction was over the top.
Curiously, one twin bed is one bed. Curiously, one twin child is one child. Curiously one set of twins is 2 beds or 2 children. Oddly two is an even number even though it is only one number.
Pips on a die are a system of counting 1 to 6. Ergo numbers.
Maybe even on a Monday "Number on a die" would suffice. Then we would enjoy the serta-sealyness of onetwosix. A little extra pause wouldn't hurt on an easy Monday.
Each theme answer had plurals totalling 5 extra letters. LINE BONUS and maybe TIRE hold up well in the singular. HOPE seems to almost want an "all" in front of it. Then you also have the 9 extra letters from the EDs. But DOT LINE fails completely and the others are awkward or their meanings change or the common-ness of the phrase fades. So those extra letters also seem to be needed for the theme to work.
One strange thing about wheels (and I liked the Goodyear(s?) suggestion) is it might almost be a stand-in for TIRES but it is more often a stand-in for the whole car. I need some new wheels, man.
I get Rex's nit about + being plus and plus not being filled in like slash etc. But + also means add as in +4. That did mean I had to wait until I got to another theme answer to see what was happening. It did nothing to decrease the fun of the chase.
D/O/M/I/C/I/L/E
DOMICILE÷
What did chris do at the Oscars?
Saw stars. Got Rocked.
@zed
I've only seen the movie Synecdode New York once. The play or stage or warehouse in the movie does seem to encompass the world. Terry Gilliam like? There is a song too with lyrics but only a bit of the intro in the movie. See the soundtrack. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the play director in the movie. Checking the director of the movie I see he did Detroit Evolution. Maybe you know that one. I don't. Maybe Rye has a movie theater to show both of them.
I took as as being specific to twitter. And I agree you should not complain about grammar or logic if you want downhome answers in your puzzle. On the other hand if you can subtract bonuses I guess you can add them too. You get added bonuses or bonuses added when you order 5. Then again you just get more bonuses when you order 5.
@4:05
it was a horrible, crude, and rude attempt at humor.
for those of us with a few miles on the odometer, the analog variety, Don Rickles might well have said about the same thing. anyone care to comment?
The most interesting thing I’ve read regarding the Smith/Rock fisticuff was in The Atlantic. The author posed the question (I’m paraphrasing) What would have happened if the on stage presenter was white, but made the exact same joke? I squirm at the answer and its implications.
@egs....9:42. Either Moe or Curly would have tossed him a key lime pie. I'm pretty sure it would've hit the mark....
I think the joke was fairly low on the horrible and crude scales but up there on the rude scale. I had no idea what the joke was about. I thought Smith might have taken it to mean something about his wife being raped as in GI Jane. At least that might have explained his reaction. Then it turned out to be a hair joke. To a sick woman or a woman with a condition yes. And if you're making celebrity jokes best to stay away from wives and children. Smith lost his cool. Rock kept his composure. Very professional. My guess is Smith or his wife had some reason to be more upset than one would expect or maybe being the favorite for Best Actor was a bit too much pressure. I wonder how many people knew what jokes were coming. It is a scripted program for the most part.
P.F. Flyer, this is Anonymous@4:22. Thank you for your words of support. The comments here can be kind of rough. I really appreciate what you said.
@Eniale at least "hopefully" can be labeled a "sentence adverb." We need a term for when a traditionally erroneous usage of a form, like a verb, becomes acceptable, or even preferred. There prolly is one and I just don't know it.
After step 2, find all the letters that might fit and place an unrelated word to narrow range. Eh I had ?arts so I put in macaw to eliminate marts, warts, and carts. Maybe this is obvious
The notion that Mr. Claus would ask for his "me suit" reminds me that I recently listened to a Peter Frampton concert during which he made a couple of mentions of a classic album he referred to as "Me Comes Alive".
Very good puzzle.
I thought this one was very easy, even for a Monday. Here’s hoping many new solvers get their first taste of the NYTXW solving experience today.
Toughest part of the solution was 1-across! I was thinking "Uh-oh" but then the rest of the cheese slid smoothly off the cracker and my DAYS ENDed quickly, if not ODDLY.
A bit unusual, in that the theme "revealer" was contained in the clues themselves. Unusual = good...usually. I am simply not a nitpicker in the vein of OFF, although I do have my "rake on the sidewalk" moments. Example, though nothing to do with today: CRISPY. There should be no such word, since CRISP means exactly the same thing; no need for the Y. Ads just add it to make it more singsong. Ugh!
My point is that I can see +++++ and appreciate the transition to "ADDED" without dissecting it like some lab frog. I get it, and that's enough. Thus, despite a ton of short fill in a choppy grid, I can give this one a birdie.
Not so with the Wordle. I appreciate @Joe's approach, but I just can't help trying to nail it on the very next guess. I must force myself to do it his way when faced with a word like today's. Went DNF for the first time, ruining my round. Can I get a mulligan?
DAY'S END CUSSWORD
ADDEDBONUSES are SLASHED,
NONSTOP LOANs just do NOT gain us.
I'll RETWEET our HOPE is DASHED,
SADTOSAY, IT's up URANUS.
--- ANN & STEVE CANON
As some above have said wheels are not tires.
More than 20 threes.
Kinda falls flat for me.
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