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Pandora releases / FRI 3-25-22 / Adage first attributed to Virgil's "Eclogue X" / Alternative to an autocamp / Maude's widower on The Simpsons / Canadian band with the 1999 top 10 hit "Steal My Sunshine"
Friday, March 25, 2022
Constructor: Evans Clinchy
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: Pandora (1D: Pandora releases (SINS)) —
In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: Πανδώρα, derived from πᾶν, pān, i.e. "all" and δῶρον, dōron, i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god cooperated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum—is Anesidora (Ancient Greek: Ἀνησιδώρα), "she who sends up gifts" (up implying "from below" within the earth).The Pandora myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world, according to which, Pandora opened a jar (pithos) (commonly referred to as "Pandora's box") releasing all the evils of humanity. It has been argued that Hesiod's interpretation of Pandora's story went on to influence both Jewish and Christian theology and so perpetuated her bad reputation into the Renaissance. Later poets, dramatists, painters and sculptors made her their subject. (wikipedia)
• • •
At this point I was substantially into the grid and had only boring stuff + Biblical crosswordese + legal Latin (ugh) to amuse me. And ZODIAC. That's a pretty good answer, but the rest was heralding Bad Times Ahead. But then ... zip zip whoosh, things picked up considerably:
Three long and strong answers went into the grid in quick succession, bam bam bam. This is the rush I live for on Fridays—colorful, puzzle-opening answers slashing across the grid. The puzzle peaked with this flurry, but the rest of it was not a chore to fill in. It was fine. I remember enjoying it reasonably well. But then I was done. And yet ... I was not getting the "You're Done!" sign. The "Congratulations, you have solved this puzzle correctly" message, or whatever the message says, I forget. Anyway, I get a little message, and today the message didn't show. So I figure I have a typo, and I scan. And I scan. All the answers. And I am 100% certain there are no errors. And you want to know why I'm certain: because There Are No Errors. Every Answer I Have In The Grid Works Just Fine. Every Square Works In Both Directions. So I go to his "Reveal -> Entire Puzzle" so I can see what the problem is, and I find that UHS / HOTEL is apparently "wrong"—that I was supposed to write in UMS / MOTEL. But a HOTEL is *absolutely* an [Alternative to an autocamp] and UHS are *absolutely* [Speakers' hesitations] so ... no, I not only completely reject this puzzle's rejection of my answer, I can't believe (sincerely, even at this late date in the evolution of my cynicism, Can Not Believe) that the editor let *this* cross go out with *these* clues. This should've been a giant RED FLAG to a good editor, or a good test-solver.
It is possible to clue MOTEL in a much more specifically MOTEL (as opposed to HOTEL) way, and with UMS / UHS both working perfectly in the cross, you *have* to clue MOTEL in a much more specifically MOTEL way. I see, in retrospect, how the "autocamp" part of the MOTEL clue was trying to steer solvers toward cars, and thus MOTEL ("motor + hotel") is a slightly better fit than HOTEL for this clue. But HOTEL is simply not wrong. It's a perfectly reasonable answer. And if you've got a perfectly reasonable answer that is "wrong," then at least one of the crosses should tell you so—and none of them did. The End. What a massive editing fail. I am happy to pin the blame for my various failures on my own ignorance / bad judgment when that is what's called for, as anyone who has read this blog for any length of time is well aware. But I will admit no "fault" today. The editing (specifically the clue-writing) is the problem.
The USA Today crossword got a (great) new editor a few years ago (Erik Agard). The L.A. Times crossword just got a (great) new editor (Patti Varol! The only woman editor of a major daily! Her puzzles start appearing in April!). Why am I mentioning this? Who can say? I hope you enjoyed your stay in The UMS MOTEL. I ... did not. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S.
 |
| [27D: Speakers' hesitations] from xwordinfo |
P.P.S.
HOW DID I KNOW!?
— Rex Parker 🐈🐾☕️🐾🐈 (@rexparker) March 25, 2022
:/#Friday #NYTXW pic.twitter.com/H1ZgwxLso8
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152 comments:
Regarding UMS, I had ERS.
@Rex admits that "MOTEL ("motor + hotel") is a slightly better fit than HOTEL for this clue". His complaint is noted but.....well, TS. I suspect others did this too and we will hear from them. If I had made the same error I really wouldn't take it so hard.
Check out the constructor photo and comments at xwordinfo.com.
A very odd experience for me. I struggled mightily to get a foothold; then I noticed the UTAH/THEMED crossing and it was off to the races. Wheelhouse city from there to the finish as everything just flowed from there.
Some really great clues made this a most enjoyable brain-teaser of a crossword.
UM UH, WTF?
RED FLAG? I'm embracing blue and yellow these days.
Thx Evans, for this nifty Fri. xword! :)
Easy+
Pretty smooth going until LEN / MOTEL / UMS. Didn't know the Canadian band, nor autocamp; wanted MOTEL, but then thot maybe 'r'OTEL, as in some kind of special 'r'oad motel. Also, the UMS could just as well have be UrS. So, dnf on that gaff. :(
Otherwise, a happy, fun solve. :)
@mathgent (1:01 PM yd)
I'd guess par for WordHurdle is somewhere around 4, give or take.
WordHurdle 129 3/6 #wordhurdle #peace from yd: (hi @Whatsername (12:09 PM ))
💛💛🖤🖤🖤🖤
🖤💛💛💛🖤🖤
💙💙💙💙💙💙
https://www.wordhurdle.in
@Eniale (6:03 PM yd)
You beat me to pg! I got the 'p' and its companion right off the bat, tho. I'm guessing our friend @okanaganer got it in under 5.
___
yd pg: 13:14 / W: 4*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I did the same thing that Rex did, except I found the problem pretty quickly without using Check Puzzle.
But I agree with him, that was rotten. UHS and UMS he needs to add to his KEALOA list.
Hear hear Rex, or do I say mear mear…. Uh Um what a terrible cross
I wasn’t crazy about 23 “Fiddlesticks!” being CRUD. I hesitated for quite a while there, thinking that a person who said the former would never have the latter in their vernacular.
Really well made grid. Lots of interesting stuff in here. My only nit is that Fiddlesticks ≠ CRUD.
4.92892 mL is actually just shy of a teaspoon. Be sure to correct for that if following a recipe.
My favorite answer, QUICK QUESTION, turns out to be a NYT answer debut, and a marvelous addition to the canon. I, like Evans (according to his notes in XwordInfo and WordPlay), use it a lot.
I also liked the PuzzPair© of ENAMEL and PAINTS and the mini-theme involving ATE (42D), showing up in EVALUATE, EXCAVATE, HATERS GONNA HATE, and EXCAVATED.
FYI, regarding the ASANA crane pose, it’s where you squat, then put your hands on the mat and balance on them with your legs bent and knees against the upper arms. With the easier crow pose, the arms are bent, and with crane pose, they’re straight.
Seeing EL FISH made me think: Lamprey?
And speaking of LOVE CONQUERS ALL, my dog Chester.
Your puzzle took my mind in all directions, Evans, in addition to happily exercising it, and I’m most grateful!
Thank you for confirming my reaction that the motel/hotel and uhs/ums was the oddest editing choice I’ve seen in over forty years of doing the NYT crossword.
In the word of the day section above, the answer for “Pandora releases” is incorrectly listed as SINS, not ILLS.
I mostly enjoyed what was (for mr) a challenging Friday puzzle, but got very stuck in the SW corner. I’m so sick of Simpsons clues, never really watched it and don’t know the characters past Homer and his fam. The first parts of HATERSGONNA,,, and OVEROPIN… just wouldn’t come to me, same with ANCHOR, although they were fine answers.
Really liked QUICKQUESTION but think ELFISH as clued should have been impISH.
Did anyone else find the clue for 34D to be in poor taste? “Boomer that went bust, in brief” for SST.
Um… er… uh… where was I? Oh, yeah….
I can’t wait until Marvel makes the movie “Rex Parker vs. Will Shortz.” An action-packed movie featuring a true battle of wits. Go Rex go, save us from the “Evil Editor.”
Kidding aside, Rex is not wrong, but my first inclination was MOTEL because the clue uses autocamp. That indicates a tilt towards Motel vs Hotel.
Rex makes a valid argument for Uh/hOTEL.
But here's what I say about that: I didn't even know what an "autocamp" was, but its meaning seemed obvious even to me. MOTEL went right in. Considered hOTEL for half a blip afterwards, then didn't give it another thought.
UMS was collateral knowledge.
I liked the puzzle despite a rocky start. Performed a wavelength adjustment and I was off to the races.
🧠🧠.5
🎉🎉🎉
I did not have Rex's difficulty with HOTEL/MOTEL. I'd never heard of an autocamp but the word very strongly suggested the cheaper, roadside MOTEL.
I had trouble, dear friends, with ATOMIZE for "Break down fully." Because boy, that word WORKS for the clue. That left me with A__S for Pandora release which I just assumed was APPS from the Pandora music service... aaaaaand that made a heap of trouble for the long Acrosses.
Back to back swing and misses from the big guy. Yes Rex the connection is between auto and MOTEL as you highlighted - check the inanity of your beloved Wiki - there’s no logical reference between hotel and auto use.
As much as I liked a lot of the long fill - the short stuff was rough. Liked all of the spanners - but ABED, VEG, GEDS etc glom up the grid. Had to look up LEN.
I’m not going to shit on it based on a single cross - but with all of the nice longs this should have been more enjoyable than it was.
@Lewis (7:19) - Love your aside regarding your dog Chester. As it is said: Everyone says their dog is the world's best dog. And everyone is right.
Sorry, Rex, “autocamp” makes it absolutely clear that it’s MOTEL. At least to someone who remembers when motor hotels were emerging as a cool new thing.
I had justaQUESTION for a long time, which held me up, until a little bell finally went off.
I’ve never been a fan of the HATERS GONNA HATE line, but I thought this was a yummy Friday.
Thought this is a solid Friday; hard until it wasn't. Finally got moving in the middle, with IQTEST providing some sunlight. Liked SLEEPY in the NE balanced by ABED in the SW.
Exactly the same issue as Rex. DDF on uh/hotel.
Good Friday. Hotel is wrong. Sins (that I also had at first) also wrong.
Hotels are for people flying in and taking a shuttle bus or cab to the city. Motels are for people driving on vacation.
@Evans Clinchy (if you read these comments and that is your real name) : Don’t listen to Rex. He’s conceitedly dogmatic. MOTEL was the obvious answer. Thanks for a fine puzzle.
"Something that's thrown out while using it" --- My brain would not let go of BACK. Fortunately it didn't fit.
MOTEL is closer to an auto camp than a hOTEL is - which is more upscale. I hesitated at LEN, never heard of them and I was sure rEm was from Athens Georgia or someplace similar. Finished no errors but had to undo a big error . I know Fur Elise is in A minor, I've played it so I confidently penned it in with no crosses, but I put it in at 46D, where EDITED should have gone, not at 48D. That messes things up especially when you don't realize it for awhile. Thats what I get for solving hard copy in pen from the newspaper at 4am because I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it’s time to in crease my readers from 2.0 to 2.25.
Hotel is wrong. Simply wrong. Not just less good. Wrong. There is no way an auto-camp alternative is a hotel.
This is like arguing that a McDonald's alternative is a sit-down restaurant with menu, table service and cocktails.
How does Michael get himself so tangled up in such nonsense?
I think the S in the ENOS/NISI cross is unforgivably difficult trivia.
Part of the reason I put in HOTEL instead of MOTEL was because I really didn’t know what an autocamp was, but it sounded like another term for MOTEL. So that made HOTEL seem like the better alternative. I figured it out after wondering if maybe the S cross at ENOS/NISI was wrong, but Rex is right. The UMS/MOTEL cross is unfair as clued. The should have fixed the clue, or accept UHS/HOTEL as well.
@Anne (8:38 am)
Hotels are for weekend flings. Motels are for nooners.
I had to laugh when I filled in "haters gonna hate" because I immediately thought of this blog. Or rather, its reputation (correct only for some people). I wonder how many comment here who "lead a double life" (that is, seem forgiving in the flesh but write with great vehemence). It might be that some here appear "over opinionated" but in the end "love conquers all." Does anyone want to answer a "quick question" regarding my seriousness?
More on the serious side, I think it took me a nanosecond to associate auto with motel, not hotel and stopped thinking right there. Thanks to all who pointed out the M/H problem. Got me wondering which is found more (uhs or ums). But not so much as to prod me into researching the answer.
I greatly enjoyed solving the puzzle. I enjoyed the grid, which is an unusual comment from me. (I usually ignore the grid layout.) Except for the unfortunate issue with the cluing, I would count this as one of the best puzzle I have solved.
Yep. Alternative to an autocamp points only to places to stay while traveling. So AirBnB, Bed and Breakfasts, Inns, hOTELS, and MOTELS are all plausible answers. In 2022 MOTEL is almost always preceded by “seedy” so my alternative is never going to be a MOTEL. That’s CRUDdy editing. Normally I’d buy the “auto points to the M” argument, but not when the crossing letter is the exact same coin flip. Personally, I’d have gone with URS/RO-TEL.
BTW - No app to tell me I’m wrong when solving on paper so I’m not even going to take the DNF this time.
LOVE CONQUERS ALL vis-à-vis HATERS GONNA HATE, LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE, and OVER-OPINIONATED. Feels like a Lifetime movie. Or, given the order, possibly a film noir.
Why is it that when a simple three letter name like NED needs a cluing update from Beatty and Rorem the go to is The Simpsons? I guess I like it better than NED Stark or the insurance guy from Groundhog Day, but we need a new non-Simpsons NED. Maybe some hit show could be set at The NED Den and give us crossword solvers a less animated clue.
✋🏽 for wondering what’s up with “sins.” I never put it past Rex to slip in some sort of sly wry joke, but I think it was just an early morning whoopsie.
I’m not understanding the fiddlesticks —> CRUD plaints. CRUD is what the fiddlesticker says when the kids aren’t around.
@Mr. Grumpypants so late yesterday that it was today - So iconic that they went with a NYC Park clue. 😉 I’ll accept crossword worthy, but I reject that any of the presidential moms are “iconic.” Heck, even the iconic First Ladies probably number less than ten, maybe even less that five. Martha, Abigail, Dolly, Mary, Eleanor, Michelle,… so six. I suppose some would say Barbara but that might just be proximity. I don’t know that she’ll have any cultural cachet 50 years from now. Still, even if you add her and Nancy we still don’t get to ten. And that’s First Ladies. First Moms just don’t reach “iconic” status to me.
I felt so smart when 1D and then 1A came to me so quickly. The "I" of Pandora's ILLS leading to IMPLODE for "break down completely". IMPLODE: what a nifty word.
Only it was the wrong word. "Break down completely" was being used in a whole different way and the answer was "ITEMIZE". But before I realized that, I was looking for a "confrontation" beginning with "M" and a "judge" beginning with "P"...Well, you get the idea. My whole NW corner IMPLODEd. (For example, I had LAW school before MED school. That stupid "L" from IMPLODE.)
You fall into one trap, you fall into many traps, that's what I say.
Sorting this out took longer than the entire rest of the puzzle, but finally I was OUTTA there.
I enjoyed this puzzle. My favorite clue was for RECIPES (8A) which continued to baffle me even after I had the IPES. Thought it would be some sort of WIPES, to tell the truth.
A lot of discussion about UM versus UH. My advice is to download the Calm app and go with the flow, folks. Then the solution is “ommm”.
This was my kind of Friday. I loved the long colloquials and there were stacks at top and bottom. Granted they were short stacks, but I’ll take three rows when I can get them.
I find grumbling about HOTEL and MOTEL far less amusing than grumbling about KHLOE KARDASHIAN (for no reason whatsoever except her first name is spelled with a K). I miss the old day.
This puzzle was hard for me! I think "toe to toe" is a weird phrase. I saw that toe to toe would work there, but kept thinking it must be some other T__ TO T__ phrase because who says "toe to toe"? Finally I gave in and it was that.
Also, I guess I'm still learning the Latin crosswordese, but I'm a lawyer and have never ever in my life heard of "nisi," and I know a bunch of Latin words that are used more and less frequently in legal writing and documents. Which kind of lawyers use "nisi"? I'd guess a very small fraction of them. I think words like that should be clued differently--just say it's unless in Latin or something--because the lawyer part was really throwing me off.
For the UMS clue, at first I thought it was either ERS or UMS, and went with UMS because ERS seems more British. UHS didn't even occur to me.
How could we have gone this long without Rex or someone else invoking the "kealoa" label for that MOTEL/hOTEL, UMS/UhS cross. Is this one of the first "kealoa Naticks" we've hgad since Rex introduced the kealoa term?
But I agree that the clue suggests that MOTEL is the better answer. That M was the final letter I entered followed by ... happy music.
Running the diagonals (as is my wont), I came across a 9 letter diagonal string (beginning with the E in 65A, RED FLAG, and moving NE that featured 8 E's (and an A). Which led me to notice what seemed like a ton of E's in this grid. So, of course, I counted them. 33 E's in 197 total squares (16.75%), which I'd guess is a high count.
Second Friday in a row that I solved in close to record time. Only significant holdup was putting analyZE for !A (Break down fully) instead of ITEMIZE. That took some undoing!
I don’t think I’ll be part of the pitchforks and torches crew that Rex will be leading to the Will Shortz castle gates. After all, Rex is wrong about hOTEL and MOTEL being equally plausible. I do agree, though, that it is a near keakea/loaloa until you read the clue carefully and think about carcamps.
Hard choice between chili con carne and LOVE CON QUERSALL. But I do salivate at a heaping helping of QUERSALL.
I once got AMINOR in possession in UTAH.
Does anyone ever put their finger up and say “lengthy QUESTION?”
Very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Evans Clinchy.
@Z- Lou, Mamie, Jackie, and Melania are all iconic. I would add Julia and Bess.
A) Pandora also brought hope in her box, but hope declined to leave, so while she brought ILLS, that's not all she brought.
B.i) No one has stopped in an auto-camp since Clarke Gable and Claudette Colbert in 1934.
B.ii) Change LEN (WTF) to TEN & you have MOTET crossing UMS and you didn't have what was either an egregious oversite or pure dickishness on the UM[H]S x M[H]OTEL cross, you have UMS x MOTET and all is well.
C) Lewis is wrong about dogs. My younger dog and I frequently encounter another man and his dog at a local school I've decreed is a at-large dog park as long as the kids aren't there. And it's no leash for my dog, even if there are kids around. This guy so obviously likes my dog better than his that it's embarrassing. He's right feel that way, his dog is a lunatic terrier who doesn't like people, doesn't know how to play, just wants to run in circles. My dog likes this guy better than this guy's dog likes him. If you asked this guy who's the best dog, he would say that it's the dog this old guy brings to the school all the time, the black and white one. BECAUSE MY DOG IS THE BEST DOG. MY SECOND BEST DOG IS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER DOG THAN MY BEST DOG.
I fell into so many traps:
1A ANALYZE
4D LAW
10D TENET
13D IMPISH
33A APTEST
30D NEARBY
Consequently, the bottom half worked itself out first, and it took a total of 20 minutes to undo the self-inflicted damage and finish the puzzle.
Had no hesitation with the H/M controversy in the 31 square. Seemed pretty obvious to me.
I wonder if there's been a true MOTEL built in the US in the last 30 years? Most highway properties now have interior hallways. Direct access from the room to the outdoors was a distinguishing feature of MOTELs.
The last one I stayed in was in Los Alamos, NM, where, at the time (2001), there were 3 choices in overnight lodging: a newish Holiday Inn Express, an older 1970s-era Best Western motel that had converted its exterior balconies to interiors, and a 1950s-era mom-and-pop place. There was also a newer Hampton Inn in Los Alamos's "suburb" of White Rock, which was halfway down the mesa. Otherwise, it was a drive to hotels attached to nearby Indian casinos, a drive into Espanola (which looked like Breaking Bad territory to me before there was a Breaking Bad), or a 45 minute commute to Santa Fe.
I really enjoyed this one. Friday is my favorite crossword day and this puzzle is a prime example of why that is. Rex's sour grapes, hissy fit was kind of sad and pathetic.
For the first time for me I’m going to comment AFTER reading @Rex, but BEFORE the comments.
This puzzle was SADISTIC and I loved it! I loved it in spite of ONE nit which I think is more defensible as a problem than @Rex’s:
ELFISH!? What elves are mischievous? Santa’s elves and the Keebler elves are industrious. Tolkien’s elves are noble. IMPS are mischievous…which leads me to the fact I spent a great deal of time trying to make IMPISH work even though it didn’t gibe with SLEEPY or anything else for that matter.
As an attorney I guess I should be ashamed to say that I have never written or said NISI nor can I remember seeing it in briefs, pleadings, contracts, or otherwise. Any NISI lawyers out there?
According to @Rex I did not DNF today because I had HOTEL. UM, UH…I totally disagree. While UM/UH is a bona fide kealoa, MOTEL/HOTEL is not. I admit I had to go to “check puzzle” to see my mistake at which time D’OH popped into my mind.
Now to see what everyone else said. Ooh. @Nancy does this every day…
I’m OK with the Motel/Ums cross.
As an alternative to Autocamp, the next logical step up is a motel vs a hotel. Motels have external access to rooms - i.e., drive up to your room and walk in, whereas hotel rooms require walking inside to access your room. They are a bit fancier, you might say. So, it makes sense to me.
Had the exact same problem with "uh" and "um." I really do expect better and agree with Rex that this is an editing issue that needs some attention.
Hey All !
Hit the wrong thing on my phone, and Whoosh! Post gone. And I had already finished. Any idea how much that sucks?
Anyway, had to Goog for CHINA, as just plum stuck, and that was one I was never going to get. After that, seemingly zoomed through to the finish. Error free! Even the H/M dilemma. Had UMS in first, then saw it could've been either hOTEL or MOTEL, but having "autocamp" in the clue, steered me over to MOTEL because it seemed less formal.
NW was a tough corner for me, ITEMIZE/ILLS clued roughly, then I see Rex's screenshot, and he zipped through there with no problem. Dang. Pandora without the 's box makes one think of the internet thing, which was the obvious misdirect.
The lower stack, HATERSGONNAHATE and OVEROPINIONATED, is that Will taking a shot at Rex? 😁
Some sorta kinda words today, OUTTA, GONNA, EENIE.
But a nice FriPuz overall.
yd -4, should'ves 4 (eesh)
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Not at all. And I say that as a boomer who went bust. I feel seen! And it’s a refreshingly original clue for a crosswordese entry.
I love how people are only concerned about the “fairness” of trivia when it’s trivia they don’t know. I’m Jewish and have a doctorate in classics, so I found ENOS/NISI to be a pleasant surprise, amusing, and quite charming.
When a student comes up to me after class and starts by saying "Quick question," I brace myself for what is invariably anything but. "Quick question: What's the meaning of life?" Sometimes I say, "That's a quick question by you?"
*******
Thank you, @kitchef, for pointing out that 4.92892 ml is not exactly a teaspoon. Many years ago I was at Radio City Music Hall when my companion was hit by an intense need to use the restroom. She darted up the aisle and through a door, but the signs for the restrooms were misleading. She took several wrong turns and eventually wound up on stage where she was kicked to death by the Rockettes. Ever since then I haven't felt the same towards precision.
FH
Fastest Friday ever, by 1 second. So, yes, it was easy.
"Alternative to an autocamp", well, I went with MOTEL. I don't know what an autocamp is but I figured it related to.....autos. Hence MOTEL over just HOTEL. If the constructor wanted HOTEL he might have clued "Alternative to a campsite" or "Alternative to an AirBNB".
Meanwhile: RIP Wordle. The bloom is off that rose apparently. And since, after many rounds played by me and my family members, scores of either 3 or 4 make up 77% of all solutions, it turns out that Wordle just isn't as challenging as it seems at first, even if you get zero letters on try #1, the power of what you're eliminating quickly makes itself felt. Back to the crossword.....
I spent a few minutes dissecting Rex's nits before begrudgingly admitting he had a point. "Alternative" broadly opens the door.
It's hardly the first time that there was a second valid fill for a clue and I don't think this merits using 3/4 of his column to take the editor to task.
Speaking for myself, without added prompting I gravitated immediately to MOTEL, focused on the connection of driving up to one's accommodation. The suitability of hOTEL paled beside that.
Geez folks. It’s a crossword puzzle, not a death row appeal. I’m down with the idea of satisfying or unsatisfying, but judging clues as fair or unfair seems, well, I’ll just leave it at that lest any simile I come up with might offend.
@L ewis, the lamprey is a motif in the terrific Oscar nominee Drive My Car.
H. Johnson - agreed, Hotel is not an autocamp alternative unless you consider camping in a tent an alternative to staying at the Four Seasons (and not in the NJ garden center/press conference parking lot).
While I see Rex's point, but don't agree, I love the Motel Hell poster visual!
LOVE/HATE as marquee answers! On the easy side for Friday, only slowdown was SW.
No RED FLAG but a red letter day when I can say for two days in a row how much I LOVE the puzzle. Smooth flowing and practically filled itself, very Weintraub-esque.
I admire the LOVE/HATE relationship of the two long crosses, not only the natural dichotomy but also their placement in opposite sections. Some good up/down combos in the grid: Does LOVE CONQUER ALL even if you discover your lover LIVES A DOUBLE LIFE? Aren’t those HATERS who HATE often OVER OPINIONATED? Would you add an EENIE TSP to your CRUD CAKES? Some folks might RUE taking an IQ TEST and a what if your teacher says SEE ME at a MOTEL? Eeww!
Lots of fun Evans. Thank you for this sweet start to the weekend.
Easy. Only major hang up was tenet/drat before CREED/CRUD. Pretty smooth with delightful 15s and a great center down, liked it a bunch!
Fortunately, I never considered hOTEL.
Evans Clinchy is now my favorite constructor. Among the crop of NYT constructor noobs, he's batting a thousand.
Rex is kinda obtuse, and I say that as president of the National Society for the Obtuse. The puzzle didn't have a rough start, Rex had a rough start. The puzzle had a challenging start that provided for a really rewarding finish. Holy Dado of Econ Batman, it was a head scratcher.
And of course it was Motel:
"Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau of "motor hotel", originates from the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California (now called the Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo), which was built in 1925."
I like how they classed it up with the redundant Inn in San Lui later on.
I certainly had my Sisyphean moments. My easy pebbles became rocks and then a heavy boulder.
Without a pound on my shoulder to weigh me down, GO KAPUT at 1A sent me down a little abyss. Then....I saw ZODIAC waving at me..he led the way up my hill. He yelled LOVE CONQUERS ALL. So I did the ITEMIZE rock dance. I can do this... I will get to the top somehow. I did. It was a fun adventure.
Boulders came with an EENIE Miney Mo rock/scissor/paper moments. Where did that happen? you might ask...Well, I did a few slip and slides. I left the top because it was scaring me and so I went back to the bottom hoping I had a better chance. I just sat and stared for a while and decided to try to make my way back up again without falling. QUICK QUESTION made the push easier. Then I gathered momentum. I came to a sudden halt with 44A ABED and 44D ANCHOR. I had to call for some help. CRUD...was hoping for a breeze to the top. Nope...Boulders kept raining on my head.
I ATE 5 pieces of CAKE but it was delicious. I said a few PRAYERS and they were answered.
By the way...I reached the top but no one was there to sing and dance with. Bueller? Anyone?
I’m with you. I swear it’s age related. The millennials and zoomed get vexed over anything that instantiates their own limitations. Such as the cultural knowledge that renders a given clue unambiguous. As my late mother used to say, There are no written guarantees on life.”
Slight hesitation, then "auto"=MOTEL, and there you have it. Solving on paper means no happy music to worry about. If I had filled in with H's, and looked at the solution after, I think I would just shrug and say "mine was just as good", and go on my merry way, unlike OFL, who seems to have had some sort of breakdown. And this after just having had a vacation.
I really liked this one, solved counter-clockwise in a medium to speedy fashion, and enjoyed seeing all the long answers and tricky clues go in. My biggest hangup was again misreading a clue number and wondering for the longest time how "somnolent" turned out to be QUICKQUESTION. Someday I will put on my high-powered reading glasses before I begin and not during, but today was not that day.
Also someday I will distinguish between ESAU and ENOS, which will be helpful.
Very nice Friday indeed, EC. Extra Credit for the EEL clue, which was a gimme if you know some Spanish. Thanks for all the fun.
Bravo, Tom T (9:59). Our first kealoa natick.
I haven't read or heard "fiddlesticks" in decades. People would say, "Oh, fiddlesticks." I took it to mean "Oh, darn."
I liked it. Very smooth and professional.
HATERS GONNA HATE is the perfect lead-in to Rex’s review of the puzzle and his outrage at having guessed wrong in one of the puzzle’s 225 boxes. Thank God it was only one box. Any more and the blog might have exploded.
I love this puzzle with QUiCK QUESTION running down the spine and four choice grid spanners intersecting it. Like yesterday’s puzzle, it is not only an impressive feat of construction but also an engaging and enjoyable solve with some great clues along the way. Especially liked the clues for RECIPES, IQ TEST, ANCHOR, and EXCAVATE. Plus 9D gives us yet another entry for the Oxford Eel Dictionary (O.E.D.)
Also like how each pair of grid spanners tells a story, with LOVE CONQUERS ALL leading to a solution for those who LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE and HATERS GONNA HATE owing their cynicism to being OVER-OPINIONATED.
UM, the answer for 31A may be MOTEL, but this is the Waldorf Astoria of puzzles.
Here is a good statement of the development of autocamps -- Motels and Autocamps
I totally agree with Rex. And for those of you who think hotel is wrong, I offer my trip across the country as an example. I was backpacking in Yosemite then drove through Death Valley. It was so beautiful I considered car camping there. Instead I continued on to Las Vegas and stayed at Caesar’s Palace, which is definitely a hotel. Vegas was boring as all get out, though. I should have camped.
another citation - Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel
Imagine that the clue was the same but the cross was “she,” making the desired answer hOTEL. Would the clue be wrong or just a misdirection? Yes, MOTEL is a better answer, but hOTEL and UhS are both defensible.
FWIW - This is the second appearance of “autocamp” in a NYTX MOTEL clue. The other time? December 11, 1949. (Hi @Pete)
@Beezer - Yep. Same arched eyebrow but then I learned I didn’t DNFed and forgot all about having impISH there first. I’m thinking Irish ELves might be impish. Maybe?
@Mike in Bed-Stuy - ENOS has appeared 856 times in the NYTX, 553 more times than Brian ENO and 405 times more than our favorite vegan crème filled cookie hat now comes in multiple flavors solely to aid cluing. So if I ever complain about ENOS it will not be because I do not know ENOS.
@Anon10:07 - No argument on Jackie. I can’t help but notice that a philandering husband seems to help become iconic in your list. But Lou - which?- no to either possibility. Mamie - maybe but probably not, and infamous disdain and nude photo shoots are not generally qualifications for being considered an iconic First Lady.
@Roo and other wrong button hitters - Try hitting the back button. That has worked for me on occasion. Not always, but sometimes.
Growing up out West all our traveling was by car or pickup and there were only MOTELs and camping. Hotels were for when you fly.
Flying was a big deal then. When my dad flew on a rare business trip we'd meet him at the LA airport and I'd run up the jetway to find him. So exciting!
I was guessing with ENOS/NISI. And I was pretty sure of SSA but not NCAA. I briefly had SSs and NCAs.
For me the puzzle went too quickly for a Friday. It was fun to get the long answers, but I don’t really like the HATERS vibe.
@N.Bates 9:20 😀😀
@Pete 10:09 Gable and Colbert at the autocamp!
By the grace of ISIS, I guessed the approved answers on UM, MOTEL.
But I see Rex’s point. “Autocamp” is a new word to me. Is it a word? It sounds very retro. My first thought was, if these ever existed, they went out of style ca. 1959, along with motels. After all, what roadside inn calls itself a motel these days? Drive up and park at the door of any Sheraton, Hilton, Hyatt HOTEL along the interstate these days. Oh, wait, there is MOTEL 6, so, yeah, motels still exist. Maybe you go to Motel 6 if you can’t afford the autocamp.
“Autocamps” clearly exist, too, and appear to be brand new, with emphasis on the “brand”: Google turns up mostly tradename versions of this. Interestingly, there are autocamps on Instagram that call themselves hotels, and Google regards “Airstream hotel” as a synonym for “autocamp.”
So, UH, HOTEL apparently is the better pairing.
Fie on the editor for not catching this. It is a serious flaw, and Rex is right not to MINCE WORDS about it.
In the UK a decree nisi is a document that says that the court does not see any reason why you cannot divorce. If you have ever been divorced in the UK, you got one.
Really nice puzzle. As for Rex's motel complaint, only a doofus would not see that autocamp requires motel. Since Rex is not a doofus, the explanation for his rant is that he wished to stir up some controversy. Which he did. Bravo.
I had the same problem as Rex.
@Robt…did you think the clue for SST was in poor taste because it referred to a crash? I believe the bust part meant that the SST was retired from service…(went bust) for many reasons…mainly due to economic infeasibility. The SST HAD had at least one crash, but I’m pretty sure the jets safety record was very good and a crash had nothing to do with it. So I don’t think the clue was in poor taste.
@Nancy, I ALSO kept thinking that the help for dishes must be some kind of WIPES. This was after my IMPISH problem was grudgingly resolved to ELFISH.
@Frantic, I had also never heard the term autocamp and my first thought was…is this a device of some kind, like an autoclave? Then when cars came to mind I thought it might be a British term for a parking lot but remembered that is carpark. At any rate, since I unfortunately tend to UH when I hesitate I plunked in H and never looked back.
Hotel/motel. Apparently the definition of MOTEL varies. Some definitions do include the fact that the door faces to parking lot. Some tend to indicate it is “roadside” places that have free parking. I think MOTEL architecture has evolved and I tend to think of all the establishments off interstate exits as MOTELS. On the other hand, I think of a HOTEL as a place that will charge me at LEAST an additional $35 per night for the privilege of parking a car.
@burtonkd - unless you consider camping in a tent an alternative to staying at the Four Seasons - Well…Sometimes we would camp on the way. Sometimes we would stay at hOTELs. Sometimes we would alternate. Never would we stay at a MOTEL except that one time when we were taking a leisurely trip around Lake Michigan and a confluence of events meant all the campgrounds were full up and all the hOTELs were all booked up. That MOTEL had a vacancy for a reason. I think it was in Fond du Lac. That was the summer of 1991 and I think it was some music festival in Milwaukee that we failed to realize would be an issue.
PS to @ Mike in Bed-Stuy… I hope you don’t think I thought NISI was unfair because I didn’t know it…I love learning new things but I guess I was just pointing out that the reference to lawyers was lost to me (as a lawyer).
I am in a a rut and Rex won't let me out. So let me get it out of the way even if it is already a dead horse.
1. Disagree with Rex.
Autocamp definition: a camping ground often provided with cabins or tents and designed for the accommodation of automobile tourists.
Did I know that? No. Just assumed something along those lines. Uh UM hOTEL MOTEL? Rural? Urban? Four to fifty stories? Near ground level? Real tough choice (unless (NISI?) you know something about rOTELs that I don't) NOT!
2. Make fun of his new favorite word.
The kealoa King couldn't recognize motel-hotel as a classic example of what he created a word to mean and put in a couple of extra micro- seconds to decide which is a more likely alternative. So what wins the the serta-sealyness award today? Hotel-motel or umuherehohaheeem? Now that's a tough choice.
But give Rex credit. The rest of what he says is quite accurate. Excellent Friday. I needed to get down to the SW to break through and get a spanner and then the botton half flew in by my friday standards. Then bogged down until a northern spanner was found. And then steadily filled in the top.
A lot of fair misdirection in a lot of those clues. Well done.
I got the Hate first in south And later got Love first in north.
The hate you get is equal to the hate you make. The Stones said that.
@HJOhnson. You are confusing alternative" with "equivalent". A car traveler can stay in a hotel. It's an alternative. If you want to eat out, McDonald's and a fancy restaurant are alternatives, though not equivalent.
I had no idea what an "autocamp" was and had to wait for 4 out of 5 crosses. Because I guessed correctly, I never had to Google "autocamp" which could have been many things -- none of them resembling either a MOTEL or a HOTEL.
Let's see: what, oh what could "autocamp" be???
* A fancy-shmancy garage for Porsches and Alfa Romeos.
* An ultra-modern camp with "smart" tents -- where there are lights that come on automatically and beds that pull back their own covers automatically as soon as you poke your head through the flaps.
* Stale jokes from gay performers who have been performing their routine for too long.
These were a few of my original thoughts.
@Z, I was wondering how you would carry the water for OFLs idiotic rant and you came through like a champ. And even JFK said "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris" for chrissake.
Excellent puzzle, maybe not Friday difficult but great fill, IMO.
There have only been two men named Enos in all of history, the guy in the Bible and the Yankee.
@Robt, No.
I'm not as fussed by this as Rex, but that may simply be a consequence of having not known LEN so finding myself staring hard at U_S, _OTE_, and _EN at the end of the grid actually stopped to think about "autocamp".
With that said, this is trivially easy to regrid if you give up on the overly cute and self-referential THEMED, whose H is forcing a ton of grid constraints. In five minutes without looking at a word list:
Replace UTAH with STAR (which is a pretty good upgrade in short fill)
Replace MOTEL with IOTAS (downgrade, but balanced by above)
Replace THEMED with either TRADED or TRACED (neutral)
Take your pick of SIR/REECE/SEN oe SIN/NEEDS/SSN
With 15 minutes and a wordlist this could likely be improved further.
So it seems to me that attachment to THEMED and possibly (reading between the lines from the Constructor's notes) a personal desire by the constructor to hold on to LEN may have been the culprit here.
Hotel/Motel UH/UM ditto.
Wow, this looked like a woe to me! The kind of puzzle I doubt I'll finish but am game to try. Finally I got a TOEhold all the way down in the SE (MADAM/DIAMETER) and worked up in zigzagging fashion, getting small clusters of AHA bursts of light that kept creeping along, kinda like slime mold, if anyone saw that PBS NOVA program a couple of nights ago. Unlike Rex, finished in the NW with TOE TO TOE.
Thought of right off but not entered till it turned out to be the answer as I'm always hesitant to commit to Z's and Q's with not even one cross: ZODIAC.
And those Q's! QUICK QUESTION, just lovely. Crossing the U-less IQ TEST too.
Interesting pairing of LOVE CONQUERS ALL above LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE.
Finished cleanly in under an hour, candlelight turning into full-on light bulb when the power came on. Well, 3 minutes under an hour but happy for all the satisfying EXCAVATions along the way. Thanks, Evans!
@Kitshef. Don't leave us hanging. Share your expertise and tell us exactly how shy of a TSP is 4.92892 ml?
BTW kids, in the '50s, parents put their baby boom kids into their shiny new cars and headed out on the new interstate highways for vacations. The Motor Hotels (Motels) that were built in the '20s were pretty shabby by then (@Z's Seedy Motels) and a guy named Kemmons Wilson was so disgusted by it that he decided to build an affordable chain of inns that didn't charge extra for children. He picked the name Holiday Inn from a Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire movie.
There's a great book by David Halberstam called The Fifties that tells the story, along with a lot of other things that sprung from that decade and haunt the puzzle still.
Pretty easy for a Friday. The long Across answers weren't all gimmes but they were easily parsed from the abundance of gettable Down answers. My one nit is from 60 Across (Mantra in the face of criticism). The answer is HATERSGONNAHATE and I can't tell you how much I loathe this expression. The recent trend of labeling anyone who disagrees with you, or who criticizes you, as a "hater" is such a cop out. If I disagree with someone, or if I criticize someone, that's a far cry from hating someone. Can we please stop using this expression?
MFCTM.
N. Bates (9:20)
Tom T (9:59)
Anonymous (10:11)
JD (12:11)
Not at all; infact, my thought was, “Huh, that’s used in legal writing? Learn suppm’ new….”
Thanks
Thanks Evans for our morning delight…after last night’s NCAA games, we in the West needed a bright spot!
Today LOVE took a backseat to DOG TRAINER perseverance to CONQUER ALL the grid’s squares. Not impossible in any corner, but certainly more than a QUICK QUESTION in several spots.
Nice long responses provided an appropriate IQ TEST for a Friday and several clues that took a second look like 44d, 51d and my favorite “Man is one.” All w/o the telltale question mark that stole much joy from yesterday’s grid. Today’s ? for the missing Church of Rome implication at 66a seems a reasonable EDITED option. It’s been a stretch since I read the criteria for puzzle submission by day, so I may be OVER OPINIONATED.
UH/UM don’t let Rex’ s rant cloud your shine Mr. Clinchy! Just follow @Hartley70’s suggestion.
what??? no one's made mention of that staple of American adultery: The No Tell Motel. "There's one in every town, Glen."
@Zed & others. Defend all you want. The right answer is the one the constructor uses.
Thought I'd share this. I may have missed the first Wordle 2 today, though. I think the new one goes up at noon???
WordHurdle 132 3/6 #wordhurdle #peace
💛🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
💙💛🤍🤍🤍🤍
💙💙💙💙💙💙
https://www.wordhurdle.in
I enjoyed this most excellent Friday puzzle. I was, however, a tad disappointed at the clueing which I thought was a little too easy and straightforward. I'm the anthesis of a speed solver but this one just flew by.
In Japan a "Love Hotel" (ruh boo ho tay roo) is one of the few places where they have off-street parking so that trysters cars won't be seen by those driving by. (They also provide covers to go over the license plates!) I guess it really should be "Love Motel".
I like seeing the occasional Classic Latin or Greek word or phrase---today NISI---in a grid. Rebus, for example, has appeared 23 times in the Shortz era, most frequently clued as "picture puzzle" or some variation of that. Never, not once, has it been clued as a crossword puzzle with multiple letters squashed into single grid squares. Sigh.
We’ve discussed the preponderance of nuanced cluing in late week puzzles before and in fact Rex is usually all in. For Monday or Tuesday generalities - I see no issue with thinking hotel is valid - but when your clue is obviously focused on “auto” on a Friday there’s more at play.
Welcome to Wordleland, where lots of good answers are wrong!
Am I wrong to wish some of these long themeless crosses ought to at least have more clever clues?
Give me “Swiftian tautology” instead of just “Mantra in the face of criticism” for HATERSGONNAHATE.
@Nancy: Wordle 2 changes at noon CENTRAL time so you should be okay.
@Nancy 9:38 am – Hand up here! I had IPES and also thought it would be some sort of wIPES but the only thing I came up with for 10D was “world,” which sure didn’t fit with the had-to-be-correct EENIE as three of its crosses worked.
@JJK 7:34 am, Beezer 10:16 am, Zed 11:16 am - Yep. Had impISH at 13D for way too long, till I got 15A, but still didn’t think ELFISH was it. Are leprechauns a kind of Irish elf? And now it just looks like Spanglish EL FISH to me! OH! I see @Lewis 7:19 am thought so too! :)
@JD 12:11 pm – Enjoyed learning about how Holiday Inn came to be named. I guess Howard Johnson was less creative, and I was never a fan of the restaurant fare. My family had a Rambler station wagon and we visited lots of motels on our summer-vacation road trips. My parents said not to watch, but I heard much of the movie Psycho while ostensibly asleep in the bed of that Rambler. When the screaming started my head popped up and that ruined showers for a time. Still, I remember drive-ins fondly and believe they’re making a comeback.
Very easy to sniff at Howard Johnson’s of course, but the fact is the aqua and orange chain was immensely important and influential in American culinary history. And for good reason, their 28 flavors of ice cream WERE better than other places’. (Thank you buttermilk:
They effectively introduced fried clams to the country (save their native home in New England). Fun fact: Jacques Pepin, who turned down the Kennedy White House’s offer to be its chef, cut his teeth at Howard Johnson’s.
Anyway HoJo was the king of American restaurants for a long time. The world would no doubt be be better if they still reigned.
OMG! This was one tough puzzle, though I CONQUERed it in the end. Not exactly up on my Eclogues, though the Latin phrase (Omnia vincet amor) is familiar to me. The key phrases, HATERS GONNA HATE and LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE just did not leap to mind. But they showed up at last.
OFL has the most bizarre complaint I have seen in a long time. I am old enough to remember auto camps -- places where you might pitch a tent next to your car, but more likely crowd into an old cabin. A highlight of my Freshman spring break tour to the Redwoods in 1963. What an auto camp was was CHEAP! And so I immediately wrote in MOTEL as an alternative. A cheap hotel is not a place for respectable Stanford students, but a MOTEL was, and actually we enjoyed that cabin a lot.
Turns out there is now a chain of AutoCamps, especially near Northern California national parks. Not so cheap, and in fact what they offer is glamping. Didn't exist when we took our kids to Yellowstone and the Tetons, so we stayed in tent cabins or actual cabins at Teton, and had a lot of fun. Not sure I would actually like an AutoCamp, but it is worth considering. To tell you the truth, I would rather spend two nights at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite rather than four or five nights outside the Park.
Here’s this Canadian to say he has never heard of the band LEN, guess I missed the 90s although I know other music names of the era. And when I saw the clue for MOTEL, like others of my generation at least, it was MOTEL that I knew belonged there. Sometimes Michael is just too full of himself. I imagine that he spends time in his fast moving mind to find a hate-on for Mr. Schwartz during every puzzle. And this time he spent far too much time pointing out his own superiority while, in my opinion, being totally wrong in his argument. Yes a hotel is an option if you are doing a trip by car, but in the 50s and 60s summer trips by car and stays at campgrounds and MOTELS were a totally common experience for the whole family, not just those looking for some quick fun.
Once a got a toehold in the puzzle it seemed to take off, but getting the toehold was the reason I finished the puzzle in Average time.
@Anonymoose 11:55. It's off by 0.00000159375.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, simply due to the great long answers. I stopped and chuckled "nice!" after QUICK QUESTION.
Like @Ted:
1. I didn't even consider HOTEL. But I think if I already had UHS I might have.
2. Hands up for ATOMIZE. It fits the clue perfectly, as "atom" = indivisible.
3. Also hands up for APPS.
[Spelling Bee: yd 4:50 to pg (beat ya bocamp!), then 0 later. No goofy words!]
@Robt 7:39: Maybe you misunderstood the clue and answer. Why in the world would that be in bad taste? SST is the boomer (supersonic plane) that has since gone out of service. Did you think it was relating to the "boomer" generation? Are we really that focused on being offended that we're now just making things up?
@RP: Yer stay in The UMS MOTEL. har. M&A musta lucked out … he saw "auto" in the clue and (without a clue) went with MOTEL. Moved on, without a precious nanosecond incident.
staff weeject pick: TSP. This was where the no-know nanoseconds really burned a hole in M&A's solvequest. Pitifully, I mis-read the clue as {4.92892 mi}. "What is 4.9-yada-yada miles long?" became my question. Ahar! … 7.8-yada-yada kilometers! … 10350 steps! … sooo … what's a three letter word for a long hike, M&A brain? M&A had nuthin. Decided to screw the excessive exercise, just relax, and stay at (prefer "at" to "in", btw) the UMS MOTEL.
Fun stuff: QUICKQUESTION. LOVECONQUERSALL. EXCAVATE & EVALUATE. RECIPES clue. ZODIAC. OVERUMPINIONATED.
Oooo … Q's. Z's X's. -- pangrammer? … nope. No J & W. Sorta missin the JaWs of pangrammerness.
Can VEG also be VEJ? Just askin, for a nerd pangrammer fan friend.
Thanx for the neat themeless puz with a THEMED answer [rarity!], Mr. Clinchy dude. Better MOTEL clue, for @RP's sake: {Bates business??}. … But, I RETELL.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
@CT2Napa (11:02 & 11:16 AM)
Thx for the links; very informative! :) I probably still would have gone with rOTEL (associating it with some type of 'glamping' alternative (hi @old timer (1:44 PM)). I was clearly overthinking the clue and imagining something trickier than MOTEL. The more critical mistake, tho, was conflating UM with er/erm, hence Ur. So, I now know 'autocamp' and UM, Uh, er, erm; so, I hereby give Ur back to ancient Mesopotamia. lol
___
Oh, also learned this: Steal My Sunshine ~ LEN
@Nancy (12:36 PM)
From today's first one (looking forward to #132 in one hr.):
WordHurdle 131 3/6 #wordhurdle #peace
🖤💛🖤🖤💙💙
🖤🖤💛💙💙💙
💙💙💙💙💙💙
https://www.wordhurdle.in
___
td g: 11:50 (pg: 15:58) / W: 3*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I checked my work so many times I nearly threw my phone across the room!!!! ‘Twas the same M/HOTEL issue identified by @Rex. At the beginning, I had serious wavelength issues and couldnt get any flow until I hit IQTEST and from there SST, SHEDS, TAXIS, NCAA and on down to the base of the SE and across the bottom of the grid very quickly. From there I wended my way north to complete the puzzle at the NW through the top without issue (or so I thought).
We seem to have had the KEALOA problem on a near daily basis lately. This one hid from me for the longest time. At the very moment I was about to come here to figure out what the heck I’d done, it hit me that our constructor wanted me in a MOTEL. UM, really? UH, really? Poor, poor or just lazy editing.
Rant over, I enjoyed the puzzle overall especially many of the clues. “Help with the dishes,” “thrown out while using,” and “minced words” being my favorites today. Other than the tragic M/HOTEL snafu that should have been EDITED to correct, I found this easy but fun. See you tomorrow.
Here is my dad's picture of an "auto-camp" he stayed at in 1930. Looks pleasant!
[@bocamp: td about 4 min to p, then g at 11:15. Close!]
Shall we take our respite at the hotel, motel, or autocamp? Gee I dunno. Let us ponder this first world problem at length.
@JD 12:11. Don’t forget Howard Johnson’s! They had the best chocolate malts. Clear i to the late ‘70s in the few remaining HoJos.
Worst Natick ever. Totally correct answers with either M or H. Should never have been published.
@Anonymous 2:35 🤣🤣🤣. Yeah, I think most of us find pondering things like the use of clues and words in an xword a pleasant respite from REAL world problems. But never assume we don’t try to DO some of the things that really matter!
Fantastic picture! Thanks!
For 27d, I was wavering between "er" and "uh." Then when I filled in "Utah," I thought, "Oh, it's uh and then hotel." Didn't even think of "um," which of course is a hesitation. I agree with Rex; when a fill is obviously right, you might not think of alternatives.
@TJS 1147am
St. Louis Cardinal
@Aelurus and @CDilly52, When I quit my newspaper reporter job at a small town in Pennsylvania, I wrote a farewell column and thanked the morning waitress at HoJo's. She'd see me come through the door, and put my breakfast order in before I even sat down. That's how much I loved the place! Fried clams on a bun were called a Clamburger. Fine dining!
@mathgent, Humbled and honored, thank you!
@okanaganer (2:35 PM) 👍 for 0 yd
Great pic; thx for sharing! :)
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
A beautiful Friday puzzle, lots of fun to solve. Thanks to those who've made me appreciate it even more by pointing out the grid correspondences and complements. Challenging for me at the start, partly because of my going wrong, like others, at aToMIZE, tenEt, and impISH. After straightening out the top rows, the way became easier at a just-right-for-Friday level. QUICK QUESTION is such a great ANCHOR for the center.
In the "I agree" department:
- with commenters arguing that MOTEL is obviously the better choice over hOTEL but with @Rex that the editor ill-served the constructor with that Uh - UM cross; it felt to me (who got it wrong) too much like, ha ha, gotcha.
- with @Robt 7:34 on the SST going "bust." I understand the figure of speech, of course, but for me, reading the news of the 2000 Paris catastrophe is one of those "I remember where I was when..." moments. The clue felt too playful and tone deaf to me.
Just one more lawyer who has been practicing for a long time and has never seen or heard any lawyer use the term “NISI,” ever. You know how real lawyers say/write “Unless?” “UNLESS.”
Thank you for listening to me TED Talk.
Rex is such a baby, whining because he got beat - fair and square - by the ums/motel cross. Nothing wrong with the cluing (and, indeed, autocamp gives the nod to motel over hotel). Alternate possible answers are legitimate, and it's his failure not to figure it out, not the editor's. Fact is, this puzzle was full of great, whimsical clues (see recipes, cent, prayers, snip, anchor, for example). Fun puzzle, Evans!
I agree that UhS and hOTEL arguably work — but a solver should be aware of the ambiguity and wait out the answer. That was actually the last letter I filled in, and I saw that the clue was pointing towards cars. Might I have entered H? I could have, but when I saw that it wasn’t complete that would have been the first place I looked.
I would also agree that the editor could have improved the clue, but I would say even more strongly that the solver/blogger should have picked that up.
@Zed - you have a point. We frequently do a pattern of hammock camping in the wild for several days followed by the most fantastic shower ever in a 4 star hotel.
If you're going to complain, make sure you're righgt. Hotel is NOT a substitute for Autocamp. Motel is. One is a place you stay WITHOUT a car; the other two are places you stay WITH YOUR CAR. Look it up in the dictionary. Learn your general knoweldge.
I KNOW I am well over my responses today but…
@Ghkozen…THANKS for the fellow (long time) attorney confirmation on NISI! There WAS a UK blogger (sorry, I didn’t name you) who mentioned it is a “thing” for certain divorces there.
@okanaganer 2:35.
Might that have been taken in Yosemite?
We'd go often and tried to steer clear of the tourist season. Although we had been invited to stay at the Ahwahnee, we chose a nice, warm, rustic little log(ish) cabin. I think they didn't survive the myriad of fires that have swept the area because now all you get are transformed tents that probably have a little hot tub/spa. in the spare room!!!!!
MOTEL clue for @Rex and his minions today: A place to spend the night when traveling that is a one story row of rooms with a place to park your car near the entrance to your room. A famous one was named Bates and the first three letters are the same as the first three letters of the machine that makes your car move.
Am I the only one who has heard of a court of nisi prius?
Many times here there are complaints that the answer to the clue was a third-best answer or something like that. The response has been that the answer doesn't have to be the best answer, it just has to be a legitimate answer.
So let's presume that an autocamp is some kind of drive-in campground. Well in that case, HOTEL is a perfectly valid answer, if not the BEST answer.
So you can't have it both ways. If the NYT is allowed to have the correct answer be the 3rd-beat answer to the clue in prior cases, then it has to allow it this time too. Therefore, this puzzle does not have a unique solution.
Villager
@JD 3:22 pm – What a lovely Howard Johnson’s to have nearby! And a wonderful appreciation for the waitress.
@CDilly52 2:36 pm - I guess I missed HoJo’s chocolate malts. I’m sure I would have loved them.
@Wise Ass:
well... not all MOTELs are single story. quite a few I've used are two story. but except for height, they have nothing to do with hOTELs. both have ice machines. lots MOTELs, that advert on the teeVee, elide the fact that they don't have real restaurants, by showing a 'breakfast buffet' of re-heated frozen pastries. yum.
there are hOTELs which are sited off the exits of Interstates, about where you'd expect to find a MOTEL; they differ from MOTELs in that they often, if not always, have large conference rooms. to run conferences. UM?
@anon 607pm
Do not follow your reasoning why HOTEL could be the best answer. MOTEL you can often drive up to your room. Motor-hotel contraction it has been said. And the Hilton looks just like a campground? Huh? Oh it must be the gas fire in the marble fireplace. Maybe you forgot to cite Poe's Law?
To the rest I would agree with Rex that it is a 3rd rate editing job. But without overthinking or underthinking or no thinking I see no way one would call HOTEL the better answer. If you want to claim there is a less good solution go ahead and there shouldn't be I'll say it is an ok nitted pick.
@Gill I.: the photo was taken somewhere in the Fraser Canyon, between Kamloops and Vancouver, BC. What is now a 3 hour drive, back in the 1930s was a two day trip on a twisty dirt road, so evidently there were quite a few humble "motels" on the way. No more!
It happened one night famous for Gable in underwear at the autocamp is on TCM 745am Sunday. And the hitchhiking scene.
Bottom line:
Not only is Mike (Rex) dead wrong on the UMS/MOTEL crossing, he lacks the character to admit his mistake.
No, I have. And in the days past when Short Calender in Connecticut courts was held in person, xases could be marked "ready nisi" for another attorney who would be delayed in arriving.
CPG
Ain’t no one who has been admitted to the bar who hasn’t seen nisi.
Dude who claimed otherwise cannot be an attorney.
albatross shell
Nah. IHON is famous for lots of things—- being the first film to win best pic, best actor, best actress, and best director. And doing it all from Poverty Row no less. But Gable in his underwear? No. In fact, quite the opposite. The film is famous for Gable not wearing underwear— an undershirt in this case. There are plenty of apocryphal stories about the sale of men’s undershirts tanking as a result.
The hitchhiking scene is often shown in clip shows, but it’s not even Colbert’s best scene, let alone one of the best scenes in the film.
The piggyback scene is world’s better for starters.
@anonanass
Nice personal attack. Rex has never made one on you. You are so classy w/o the first 2 letters.
Albatross shell,
I’m anon 8:05 ( not anon 7:20 who I’m assuming your calling Annonass).
But Rex has made a personal attack on me. On his Twitter feed.
He may have done as much to anon 7:20. How on Earth do you know he hasn’t?
Did anybody else have BRIS for 57 down (short cut)?
I remember auto courts back in the 40's and 50's and even in some podunk little towns these days. They were a row of little one-room units separated by a car port between each unit. Okanaganer's dad's photo is a wonderful example of them. BTW, my family may have stayed in that one while traveling in my dad's 38 Buick coup with me and my sister in the rumble seat up the Fraser canyon.
Loved the puzz except for the odd definition for CRUD.
Alice
I only read Rex here nisi someone refers to something on twitter that I want to see. If that is where you folks started your feud why not keep it there and spare us. So maybe I can assume one or both of you anons are trolling Rex here. What delightful folk you be. Congrats on your contribution to humanity and thanks for your sacrificial service. Jesus will be proud.
By the way I consider an undershirt underwear. I was mentioning one famous scene and one connected to the puzzle. As kid my favorite scene may have been the singing on the bus. I have not noticed any anon being insulted by Rex here. Maybe neither of you are asses. But accusations of lack of character because of what Rex said today are asinine. That was my point.
I made the same mistake. And because I was solving it while I was in my cardiologist’s waiting room, I had to hit the reveal button. No biggie.
Bad kea/loa at 27D: UMS/MOTEL vs. uhs/hotel.
UMS vs UHS? Consider it another kealoa.
Rex should relax. I thought "MOTEL" was right, and "UMS" was acceptable. But "HOTEL" and "UHS" also fit. So what's the big deal here? Just because Rex's solution didn't match the printed one doesn't mean he was WRONG. This isn't a scientific experiment.
I had eMS before UMS. Then eTAH begat UTAH. So I dodged the trap Rex speaks of in a slightly OVEROPINIONATED way. The bottom line is (and even Rex admits it) a MOTEL is a motor hotel and thus is more closely related to an autocamp than a hotel. I expected him to criticize the Natick at the crossing of 7D and 19A (ENOS-NISI). The S was the letter I guessed (correctly). But a D, N or M etc. were equally plausible given my limited knowledge of Latin legalese and biblical nephews. Aside from all that, I found it to be a most enjoyable solve.
I'm in @M&A's (auto)camp. I saw "auto," assumed "car," and went with the M. However, OFF's wail is valid: that clue should've pointed directly to the correct answer, such as "_____ 6."
I agree this was easy* for a Friday, once things got started. The old RMK can sometimes be a solving aid, as it was today. Once MADAM was in, I knew the key was either something MAJOR or something MINOR, hence the -OR ending could be filled in. This helped with 64a. BTW, that and 60a make an amusing set:
HATERSGONNAHATE because they are OVEROPINIONATED.
One writeover: I had onHAND, not ATHAND. A QUICK fix. Amusing cross: QUICKQUESTION on an IQTEST. Never heard of LEN. No DOD except the non-PPP-clued CAROL, who could be Dyan Cannon, of "Bob, CAROL, Ted and Alice."
I enjoyed the solve. This is not the first from Clinchy, and I hope it won't be the last. Birdie.
*Speaking of easy:
YBBBB
BGBBY
GGGGG
Approaching the turn, I am at 433 26(!)3, 43- for a 28 for 8 holes despite that horrendous double.
MOTEL USE
A QUICKQUESTION, MADAM CAROL,
of your LOVE LIFE with NED:
RETELL how you BEHAVE feral
when TOETOTOE in ABED.
--- ENOS TESLA
If I had been able to do this puzzle uninterrupted, it might have been my fastest Friday NYT Xword puz ever. I'm a pen and paper solver, and don't keep track of my times, but things just kept clicking. I actually said to a friend who was with me, this puzzle has just been in my wheelhouse today!
The hang-up is fixating on motel or hotel. Instead, analyze um or uh, and think of which would pop out during a presentation. "Uh" is much more readily used, so the correct answer is "hotel". QED
Motel, hotel, anything beats car camping in my book. Been there, done with that.
Altho I admit that @Rondo's adventures with his Mrs. sounds like quite the fun time. Again - no zip lines or jumping for me, thanks. I'll just watch.
Uh. Um. what else could one say?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
WRONG!
Rex even admits that motel is the better answer. But, since for him, hotel is a possible correct answer, he's going to say he was right, even though he knows he was wrong.
Never once considered anything but MOTEL. Autocamps and MOTELs tend to be rural to suburban and found while you are driving. Hotels are more urban and at least by MN statutes are required to provide a restaurant on-site among other things. Not so with a MOTEL (or autocamp).
Fun puz.
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