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Baked Scottish snack / THU 8-11-2022 / Like some church matters / 6 + 6
Thursday, August 11, 2022
Constructor: David Tuffs
Relative difficulty: Medium, with an oversized grid (31:23)
THEME: TRANSLATED — Two word phrases, where the first word's translation is the second word
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: CABIN (The Ingalls' family's little house on the prairie, e.g.) —
Hey beautiful commenters, I'm back for Malaika MWednesday Part 2. (Known to fans as "Thursday.") People seemed to like my "zings" and "dings" yesterday and I liked them too!! So I'll keep that jargon. If you'd like to read this while listening to what I listened to as I wrote it, here is Renee Rapp singing with the voice of an absolute angel.
- [Faultless, biblically]-- WITHOUT SIN ("Sin" means "without" in Spanish)
- [Substitute on TV]-- GUEST HOST ("Host" means "guest" in Czech)
- [What's fatefully "cast" in a quote attributed to Julius Caesar]-- THE DIE ("Die" means "the" in German)
- [Bakery container]-- BREAD PAN ("Pan" means "bread" in Spanish)
- [Outspoken agitator]-- FIRE BRAND ("Brand" means "fire" in Dutch)
Word of the Day: CABIN (The Ingalls' family's little house on the prairie, e.g.) —
Rose Wilder Lane (December 5, 1886 – October 30, 1968) was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is noted as one of the most influential advocates of the American libertarian movement.
• • •
 |
| Renee, I would die for you |
My first ding is ARTOO. Upon filling this in, I audibly screeched. I know it was audible because my younger sister was hanging out with me and she said "Is everything okay?" I hate this fill. I hate this fill so much that I feel the need to put in capital letters that I HATE THIS FILL. It is worse than APSE and OLIO which are at least words. It might even be worse than NFLERS. Are you there, Will Shortz? It's me, Malaika. Please stop using this entry.
Zing time: This theme!! Wow!!!!! I once played around with a theme where one word of an all-English phrase could be translated to a different (e.g. PAINSTAKING --> Stabbing someone with a baguette) but I quickly gave up. This is soooo much more impressive than that, because there's no randomness. Is this a well-known phenomenon, like Kangaroo Words? Does a list of these exist that everyone except me has heard of? Or did the constructor have to just.... think of them? I don't even know where I'd start.
Did y'all mind that there were several across answers (ENLISTEE, MATHLETE, WET NOSES, ADORABLE) that seemed long enough to be theme material? That didn't bother me at all because of how the NYT site will highlight the theme answers. (In fact, it was a zing.) But I know some people solve on paper or with other programs, and it can be hard to keep track of them.
My last ding was the sheer amount of things I don't know. But that's not a ding on whether the puzzle was good, that's just about whether the puzzle was a fun solve for me personally. Things like LAIC [[*steels self for the four commenters that will say "If you are going to solve crosswords, young lady, then you had better get used to the word LAIC!!!!"*]] and REDD and THEO and ODOWD and even BUGBEAR were totally new to me. Plus a tonnnn of words that I learned from puzzles, like ATARI and SOLI and MOT and ADES and ALITO. (And the aforementioned ARTOO.) It would have felt like a slog had I not been having so much fun with the theme.
Bullets:
- [High ball?] for ORB — Does "orb" mean space? Isn't orb just any sphere?
- [The Congressional Black Caucus, for one] for BLOC — I am not a podcast person, but I did really enjoy this podcast that was about (among many things) how the politician Mia Love initially joined the CBC to "infiltrate" it, but ultimately found friends and allies there.
- A TAWA is a cast iron skillet used to cook flatbreads like roti or paratha. I'd never heard this word-- even though my family is Indian, we call this a comal, which is the Spanish word for a similar type of pan.
- I would have loved for a block to be added at square 69 so we could get a BOXCAR Children clue. I must have read fifty of these books when I was younger.
P.S. Here is more free constructing rambling from me: When I lay out a grid, I try really, really hard to never have a patch of white that's 5x5 because it's surprisingly difficult to fill elegantly. Ryan McCarty makes grids with wide-open centers that he calls "chasms"-- I don't know that he has any type of quantitative criteria for what counts, but for me, when the center 5x5 section of a grid is all white, that's A Chasm™. It was so wild to see those sections in the corners of today's puzzle-- that means you have to fill that chunky space twice! (Those corners were the last two sections that I solved.)
P.P.S. [[ DON'T read this if you are going to be mean!! ]] This puzzle named seventeen males and three women. That's 15% women, which is on par with the percentage of NYT Thursday puzzles that have been published by women. These are numbers, please do not be mean to me for typing out some numbers.
Males: MATT Damon, MATT Bomer, Frankenstein, Threepio, ARTOO D2, Julius Caesar, BERT, Chris REDD, OTTO, H.P. Lovecraft, ALITO, Romeo, THEO Huxtable, Chris ODOWD, OPIE, Bernie Sanders, ROBIN
Women: Frida Kahlo, Juliet, Elizabeth Warren
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154 comments:
R2D2's nickname (if you are unable to use numbers) should be spelled RTwo, or even ArTwo. Not Artoo. This crossword fill has never made sense to me. Two is a number. 2 is a number. Too is not a number, and does not stand in for the number 2.
No comments yet? Thought it was pretty easy. Not a bad concept I suppose, but I would expect a bit more push back on a Thursday.
Well, you *do* have to get used to LAIC. You definitely *do not* have to like it. Ugh.
But please let us Gen-Xers and elder Millennials have our ATARIs and THEO Huxtables (his show’s namesake notwithstanding).
Is ARTOO male?
I have nothing particular to comment other than I thought this was a really nice write up
Tough. Too many missteps, some self inflicted...BUGaboo before BEAR, Dei before DIO, misspelled SCOURGE, didn’t know REDD or OATCAKE...tough.
Very clever theme, liked it a bunch! A fine debut!
ALITO bit of politics here. This BUGBEAR, this SCOURGE OTTO DIE ASAP. Sorry, but after my comments of yesterday you all know I’m non compos mentis anyhoo.
Interviewer: Coach, how’d you think your reliever performed?
Coach: AAHS of the opinion that MATHLETE done well.
Interviewer: Not MEDIUMRARE?
COACH: WELLACTUALLY, WITHOUTSIN key spots in the eighth and ninth innings, I think he was SPOT on.
I thought the concept here was stunning. I just couldn’t believe it when I saw and grasped WITHOUTSIN. BREADPAN was almost as good, and THE DIE made it incredible. GUESTHOST and FIREBRAND were a bit too taxing for my Czech and Dutch skills, and had to wait for crosses. But, nonetheless, this was an incredible find and a NYTXW debut to boot. I hope to see many more from David Tuffs.
Okay folks, get a grip: ARTOO is fair game. I am not a Star Wars fan, but he was an original and unique character. And that is most definitely a common way to spell his name. Movie nickname from 45 years ago, sure.
The theme is quite novel and interesting. I had a complete and correct solution before I figured out what it is. Only knew DIE and SIN; HOST is like a translation antonym (that would be a great theme!) as the opposite of GUEST.
Just back from a few days at the cabin with some great-nieces/nephews who I have not seen since pre-Covid. Then: they were solo teens sharing their parents' room. Now: they are young adults sharing tents & blowup beds with their boy/girlfriends. My 20 yo great niece's boyfriend says he is 22 but he looks like a 35 year old beer belly guy. Help!!!!
Absolutely agree!
I also enjoyed this write up, but I have to agree with the commenter above who asks if Artoo is male. Artoo is a droid, and thus sexless and genderless. Threepio could <‘em>I suppose be male, given that he’s voiced by a man and clearly portrayed as having a certain gender. But Artoo is pretty nondescript in terms of sex or gender, no?
Great writeup. Thanks for always telling us what ya really think. And I always really agree with what you think!! ps what is a CTHULHU it’s maybe the ugliest word I’ve ever seen
I think the nickname has always been stylized as ARTOO in the books (and probably also the scripts/subtitles if I had to guess, though I have not checked this). While that may be orthogonal to the thrust of Paul's complaint, it's enough of a justification for me to accept the term as crossword fill.
I liked the theme a lot, and THE/DIE reminds me of the courtroom scene from the Simpsons where Sideshow Bob explains his 'Die Bart, Die' tattoo means 'The Bart, The' in German.
Are Threepio, ARTOO or Bert the muppet really male? What about the entries for BRIDE and SIS? Aren't those female? What about the reference to "Huxtable kids"? Weren't some of those kids female? I think there were two girls.
Why were so many of the works of literature referred to in the puzzle written by women? "Little House" and "Frankenstein".
But the main point is that I'm sure the constructor didn't purposely avoid using female names. He probably used software that happened to come up with some male names, and I'm pretty sure the software didn't weigh the male names more heavily than the female names it didn't use.
The reason I'm "typing out" this comment is to point out how silly I feel the complaint in the blog is. Not to be mean. Maybe Malaika can give a more honest reason for what she typed out. Does she mean to imply that there is some kind of anti-female conspiracy in Thursday puzzles?
I got BREAD PAN early on and saw that BREAD meant PAN in Spanish, but at that point, I had no idea what the theme was and just marveled at the linguistic serendipity. Then WITHOUT SIN fell, and I whooped. I was stunned (Hi, @egsforbreakfast). I’m with Malaika – this theme is terrific. Seems they’re called false friends. Who knew?
Oh, and @egsforbreakfast – I agree that THE DIE elevated everything into incredibleness.
I wanted “deus” for DIO, but I got too caught up in poking around google for false friends to look into/care about the difference. Same reason I can’t join in the anger about ARTOO. When I figured out the conceit, everything just faded into background noise.
The clue for EGO will annoy some I imagine, but imo it’s pure gold. I loved considering the letters until I found EGO.
I was today years old when I learned that “analogue” could be used as a noun meaning duplicate. I only know the word as one I never can get straight –analog clock feels so fancy that I always think at first it’s the digital kind. FWIW, I guess kids aren’t being taught to read analog clocks; my students always have to ask me the time, and even then I can’t answer Twenty ‘til two. I have to say One forty. This doesn’t bother me overmuch. Centuries ago parents probably fretted that their kids couldn’t read a sundial. Times, they are a-changin’.
AfterMATHLETEs– triage nurses and politicians sending thoughts, prayers and assault weapons to schools. In this spirit, I had “No one” before STOIC just kidding.
For the life of me, I couldn’t find any in-the-language phrases that are false friends. Cat chat, octopus taco, speed fart (pearl-clutchers, don’t watch this and ruin your breakfast). . . even my avatar doesn’t work ‘cause it’s not a real phrase.
David – I’m grateful to have been exposed to this delightful phenomenon. I’ma remember this one for a long time. Bravo!
@Loren Muse Smith - false friends are part of what's happening here, but not the whole thing. That's when, say, "die" looks like a word in one language (in this case English), but means something different in another language (in this case German). The other part, the coincidental-same-meaning-in-another-language, combined with going together in an English phrase or compound word, is something else entirely. If there's a name for it, I don't know what it is.
I loved this puzzle, exceptionally clever
I think the hate on ARTOO is misplaced. It is not some invention for crosswords, or a weird term like “NLer” that has little currency outside puzzles. The spelling “Artoo-Detoo” is entrenched and completely standard in Star Wars land for the droid’s name (or nickname, if you like). You see it on the vintage action figure boxes with “R2-D2” in parentheses. You might also compare it to “deejay” or “emcee” which are valid English words derived from initialisms, though in this case it is a rendering of a character’s nickname derived from a model number.
I learned about ATARI from video arcades and playing the marvelous Pong in my living room(!). Malaika learned it from crosswords. Thanks for making me feel old.
Malaika thinks Alito is crosswordese. Of course "they" is obsessed with identity.
Interesting and fun, although I do think there should be a limit of one comedian named “Chris” per puzzle.
I still have my Tensor Geometry book won as a prize in MATHLETEs in 1979. Your 1979 math fact is that it is prime, as is the reverse, 9791. The next such number is 3011.
Artoo is actually how R2-D2 is canonically spelled when the nickname is spelled out phonetically (with C-3PO being Threepio). So take it up with George Lucas or whatever Star Wars author came up with that. It’s not something crossword constructors came up with.
R2-D2 is referred to as 'he' in the movies. Whether that reflects an actual gender, or implicit bias among the other characters, I have no idea.
Where is my Thursday puzzle??? This was more like an extremely difficult Tuesday. I look forward to the Thursday all week. This was not it.
Kudos to you, Malaika, for pointing out the male/female gap in this one. And just too many names overall. One of which was CTHULHU. Anyone familiar with that guy? And LEERING for "rude looks?" This is a Shortzism--different parts of speech.
I liked WET NOSES AND BIG BANKS. Now I have to wait another whole week for a Thursday puzzle.
Once again I gawk in amazement after completing a David Tuffs puzzle. This is his fourth, and in each of his previous three, like today, he made remarkable word finds. I shouldn’t be surprised. David is a fourth-year linguistic student, and has proven to be a wordplay geek in the very best sense.
Two examples of quirks in our language that he’s made themes out of:
• Words and phrases that become other phrases when you cut the end letters, like ZEN GARDEN becoming EN GARDE.
• Two-word phrases that become other two-word phrases when you anagram the second word, like ROCK IDOLS becoming ROCK SOLID.
And today this.
Then there’s the wordplay rife in his cluing, such as in the clues for LSD, ADIEU, MATHLETE, and the lovely [Bat boy?] for ROBIN. I also found ADORABLE his playful clue for NATL – [Part of N.A.A.C.P.: Abbr.] – An abbreviation from an abbreviation!
Playful. Wordplay-full, with a heaping helping of amazing finds. That’s the lovely niche you’ve carved in your four NYT puzzles, David, and every puzzle of yours has pushed my happy button, I, who love wordplay. You are a gift and a talent, and I’m so glad you found crosswords. Thank you!
Not as perturbed by ARTOO. Thought ORB was a stretch or perhaps the clue was. Trying to recall the number of times I have actually used the word BREADPAN - (never) seemed like it was forced by the theme. Loaf pan seems to be the convention unless this is some sort of regional vernacular that I am unaware of. What is with NYTs obsession with BMWs this week?
Only think lef to say is that Malaike, you have masterfully channeled your inner Rex today. Well done!
This was just horrid in so many ways. I'll let others cover the details.
It was on the other side of the universe from ADORABLE.
It was, in FACT, a SCOURGE.
Nice write-up! I think it’s legitimate to point out the disparity between number of males referenced in the puzzle vs the number of females, as well as the overall low percentage of NYTXW female constructors. The Times xword is clearly male-dominated and biased (note the constant barrage of sports clues, especially football - I know, I know, women like sports, including football, too, but I still see this as male bias). Don’t get me wrong, I do this puzzle every day and I love doing it. And I liked this theme a lot, although I agree it was easy for a Thursday.
Very clever and enjoyable.
Malaika, it’s forgivable that you’re not familiar with the word LAIC. But knowing ALITO only through crosswords? Where have you been hiding? The guy’s been in the news for months, ever since he authored one of the most impactful SCOTUS decisions in years.
Interesting male/female note. Which - maybe only to me! - brings up the question - do Robots/androids have gender? Is R2 - a male? or female? Or simply a mechanical being? And Cthulhu would be shocked to learn that an ancient demon from the dark side (or whatever) has a gender at all - or that the concept even means anything. to a monster from beyond time.
And anyhow - if you are going to mention Lovecraft then you should add Rose Wilder to the l female ledger too
Soli can be male or female; so too are cute little dogs with wet noses. (I liked that clue).
Fun write-up. Thanks!
Delightful! Absolutely precious word play! This is the kind of thing my bilingual family and, later, university housemates would LOVE to do back in the day when we were playing out ATARI, hanging out at the TEASHOP! (Actually, at university, it was indeed an all-night coffee shop, but I digress). I felt like this puzzle was made for me, like a birthday present or some sort of precious gift! Just about everything in my wheelhouse. I was a MATHLETE, competing in several AT-PACs. I have WETNOSES greeting me every morning since the days of playing ATARI's Pong in my living room (Hi @Conrad). I remember seeing the original Star Wars, where a mother of a rather young child was trying to narrate for the boy and continuously called C3PO "CP3P"! Of course I watched Cosby, so knew THEO. Loved Dr. Huxtable's sweaters!!!! I was given a copy of Little House on the Prairie as my first English book in 1975. I think the sequel/prequel may have been called Little CABIN in the Big Woods (but am too lazy to Google it now, since my device that I'm typing on does not multi-task well). And on and on it went in my solving experience. The rest of the fill was standard xwordese. No problem. Thank you, constructor!! Got the theme at THE DIE. Went back to my other wide open themers and, click! Aha moment and pure joy at filling in from there on. Knowing nothing about Chech language, I eagerly looked forward to learning what the word would be since I knew the themers were all solid phrases and that it would become clear with just a few cross entries, as it did. I agree that any ugliness (such as the already-mentioned CTHULHU) faded to nothingness in the shining brilliance and execution of this theme. Very enjoyable!
I think ARTOO is an idiotic spelling, but as others have said, that spelling comes from those affiliated with the Star Wars franchise, not from crosswords
This is mean. Stop being mean.
CTHULHU is right up there with the weirdest thing I have ever seen in a crossword puzzle. Talk about solving on blind faith.
Saw that we had a theme involving other languages and was poised for a letdown, however it played reasonably well as a themeless, so I managed to work my way through it. Another of the NYT "quasi-plurals" in SOLI - it must be a useful tool/convention for constructors as apparently Shortz doesn't hesitate to allow/encourage it.
We sure could do without the names of SNL cast members pretty much every other day.
RUDE LOOKS is LEERING? That didn’t match up to me grammatically. Took me a while to fill it due to my dislike of the answer and I had to get all the crosses to believe it. Am I alone in this pet peeve? It has to match!!! Rude looks should be LEERS. Idk. Thanks for the write up! Appreciate you filling in for Rex!
A bit of pedantry:
Julius Caesar wrote "Jacta est!"
DIE in German is pronounced "D"
Really enjoyed the theme, seemed very original
Fantastic theme - WITHOUT SIN is as good as it gets. Overall fill felt early week - but clean. Hand up for a side eye to the longs not playing nice with the theme. MATHLETE, WET NOSES and ADORABLE are all top notch. No issue with ARTOO.
CTHULHU morphed into the D&D world. No idea on REDD. I would have went here with 29a
And the boys at the RR say she's a flat FIREBRAND
Enjoyable Thursday solve.
I'm surprised no one has already posted this. An orb is also a medieval symbol of authority. There is one among the british crown jewels. It sort of looks like a bottle of Chambord. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globus_cruciger
Great theme fun puzzle blah blah blah … Let’s talk about the really important thing, ARTOO. I’m on Team Malaika. I do not care if the spelling is “canonical,” it grates every time I right it in. First, what @Paul said. But then, It’s Not A Freaking Abbreviation!!!!!. Why oh Why oh Why would any sane person lengthen R2 to ARTOO. That’s an unholy bastardization of the First Commandment Of Language Use - Be Shorter (not the same as the NYTX Rule of editing - “Be Shortz”). Let’s give Tom, a nickname. From now on let’s call him TeeOhEm! Unnatural I say. Going longer is practically satanic in how it goes against nature. Please, for all that is good and wholesome in Crossworld, remove ARTOO from your word lists.
I was pleasantly surprised by the gimme at 4D, and once I had CTHULHU in place, the rest of that corner fell quickly. But even as I wrote it in, my next thought was that the crosses had better all be solid, or this would be one hell of a Natick for people. The crosses were all solid, so I think it’s reasonably fair.
Now I have in my head the idea to make a puzzle around well-known phrases in made up languages from speculative fiction. Cthulhu fhtagn, Klaatu barada nikto, and so on. The audience for this puzzle would definitely be a small subset of NYTXW solvers.
BTW - Saw the homophone and decided it worked so left it in intentionally.
I'm OK with ARTOO but not as clued. "Threepio" is a last name (ish), so the answer should have been "Detoo."
I think it is legitimate to notice the number of men verses women creators of the puzzles. But counting male verses female clues or answers in the puzzle is beyond inane.
I had the novelizations of Star Wars ad a kid, which is how they used to monetize blockbuster movies before the advent of home media sales. In those books from the 70s the names were always spelled out “Artoo” and “threepio”
English speakers have no business criticizing spelling choices. Our language is one of the most illogical w.r.t. matching phonemes to symbols. We have anywhere from 14 to 20 vowel sounds (phonemes), depending on your accent, and only 6 symbols to represent them. Couple that with inherited spellings from Latin, Greek, French, German, and a few other languages, and it makes for a mostly nonsensical writing system.
For me, this one was the opposite of what Rex says he likes in a puzzle - a smooth flow through the grid. I felt like I stutter-stepped around it, filling in words here and there but never getting any real traction until I got the theme - which I liked a lot even though I had no idea about the Czech or Dutch words. They were easily gettable from the clue.
I got it at WITHOUT SIN, and I smiled at that one. “Sin” is one of the very few words in Spanish that has fewer syllables than its English counterpart. (This only counts when the comparison is a single word to a single word - doesn’t apply to infinitives like ser/to be.)
I think of “false friends” as something different - when a word in Spanish sounds like a word in English but means something different. Such as “falta,” which sounds like “fault” but means “lack.” (“Me falta coraje” - I lack courage.) When I was learning Spanish, I might say “Es mi falta” for “it’s my fault.” But the word is “culpa,” not “falta.” One of my favorite Spanish pairs is “sensible” and “sensitivo,” which mean the opposite of what you would think. The first means “sensitive” and the second means “sensible.” Another: if you say in Spanish that you prefer food without “preservativos,” you are saying you like it without condoms.
Nice clue for TRES (preceder of cuatro or chic) along with some mentioned by others. Side-eye to the clue for BRIDE. When would a bride reach across the aisle? There’s no aisle in front of the altar, where she might reach across to keep the groom from bolting. She’s IN the aisle when she’s walking up or down it. She’s one person who is never on one side of the aisle so how could she reach across it?
Anyway, nice and definitely original puzzle. Malaika, I hope you can shrug off comments from anyone who criticizes you for pointing out gender disparity. Of course it matters.
Magnificent! (Agree that to match Threepio, the entry should be Detoo. )
Thx, David, for this excellent workout; well done! :)
Med++
Very clever theme; took forever to suss out. I finally twigged at PAN, which got me TRANSLATED and facilitated the crosses in the SE.
The entire bottom half was tricky for me.
My kind of Thurs. puz; loved it! :)
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
What an incredible theme idea to 1) come up with in the first place and 2) be able to execute so smoothly. So smoothly that I had no idea what those "language words" were doing in the clues in the first place. Without them, the answers to the theme clues were quite straightforward and therefore I didn't need the "language words" to solve.
But, oh, how much more fun I would have had if I spoke more languages and had known what was going on. Even knowing Spanish, the first themer, would have done the trick for me. I have studied only two languages -- French and Latin -- and neither are in the puzzle. Bummer! So while the Pablos and GILLs on the blog were having a grand old time from the get-go I imagine, I was thrashing around in the dark. But what an inspired idea!
I should have guessed from my French (such as it is) what was going on. SIN is SANS in French. PAN is PAIN in French. Even though I still wouldn't have known HOST and BRAND from either French or Latin, I would have understood the trick and reaped all the pleasure therein as I was solving.
This is brilliantly done, David. How Jeff Chen could have picked yesterday's puzzle over yours for his POW is beyond me.
I appreciated putting in the count of male versus female names. While the inequality in a single puzzle by itself would not be significant, the fact that it is a trend is. I do think Artoo is a non-gendered name. I would enjoy reading the statistic for each puzzle.
I liked that the reviewer talked about her biases. Your age, interests, and education affect what you would consider a good puzzle.
Granted, the "Little House" books may not have been published without Rose Wilder's assistance, but their author is Laura Ingalls Wilder, well-known to many generations of children.
Team R2.
ARTOO is absurd and I only know the spelling from doing xwords (had no idea there were Star Wars books) and prior to xwords would’ve assumed it would be abbreviated as R2 because its R2D2 not artoodeetoo.
What you are describing is a false cognate. Not sure if that is synonymous with false friend.
Hey All !
I thought CTHULHU would be well known amongst the well read commentariat here. Seems a bunch never heard of it. Heck, even I've heard of it (which is amazing, not being well read, plus a terrible memory 😁), although I never know how to spell it!
Saw the 16 wide grid right off. Brain still ticking. Although, don't understand OPAL as clued. Oh wait, just reread clue, it's peNdant, I thought it said pedant. Har.
Neat theme. Nice finding phrases that are like these. I'll call them Englislations. I'm sure there's probably already a word for them.
BREADfAN is a Metallica song. If you care.
An ENLISTEE can be female. ARTOO is not male. WET NOSES are on female dogs.... Just sayin'.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Fun puzzle for me. First few passes looked grim, but letter by letter I kept the faith and I finished without help. Took awhile, but what else did I have to do? Get a job?
I am meeting with my guitar professor today and I am unprepared because I spent all summer reading this blog. I am sure he'll understand.
PPP-palooza:
Activision, Damon, Lost, R2, Ingalls, Tawa, Chris, BMWS, Huxtables, CTHULHU, Sanders/Warren, Kahlo, the other Chris, OPIE, NAT'L, ALITO, Keto (17)
Our last small-puzzle with 16 PPP caused an outbreak of ire so I'm guessing chorus of boos may be heard today.
However, there's a clunky Star Wars reference, so it'll likely take the spotlight and we'll be diving into the minutiae of that unwatchable franchise, while successfully avoiding the Frozen / Harry Potter angst. Us Gen-X types can't imagine thinking any other way.
Phew-ee those foreign words: DIO, DIE, ROTI, MOT, ARTE, TRES, ADIEU, LIRE.
Failing the smell test:
SOLI, AAHS, CTHU... , LEERING (clue is the wrong tense).
OUTTA TIME FOR RHYMES
I'd write an ode
about FIREBRAND MATHLETES
with their ADORABLE
TEA SHOP AMBITIONs
I'd write an ode
about CTHULHU's BUG BEARS
and the LEERING BIG BANKS
that eat at your MELON
I'd write an ode
for DIO for R2 for REDD
and for the lone STOIC
singing her SOLI
but alas it wouldn't rhyme
so who's got the time?
Uniclues:
1 You know, what you do.
2 The lady who works on bones behind a glass window and stops to explain the bone when tour groups come through.
3 Your next best option after you've been ousted from office and all social media channels.
4 Why I'm married.
5 "Le hut" and "una casita" probably.
6 Comment from one needing a quick trip.
1 SCOURGE ENLISTEE
2 LAB GUEST-HOST
3 FIRE BRAND FAX
4 ADORABLE OAT CAKE
5 CABIN TRANSLATED
6 "LSD, ACT FAST"
@Zed - Yes, ARTOO is not an abbreviation. It's a nickname. I figure it's spelled that way because "Artoo" is much more personalizing than a written-out name like "Ar-two" or something like that. It comes across as more familiar and humanized than a normally spelled-out name and number. Whoever decided on that spelling did a great job with language choices. And, yes, it's a canonical spelling. I'm not a big Star Wars fan (though I have seen the first four movies at points in my life -- mostly decades after their initial release) and I've come across it several times in print.
"Threepio" is a nickname. Nicknames don't have to come from the first, last, or frankly any part of a full name, and where they come from need not be analogous for the clue. The clue is fine, IMHO.
Main writeover was REDD for Rock. Never heard of the former, and the latter was in my SNL sweet spot (and, of course, relatively recently in the news.)
CTHULHU I know from cultural osmosis. I'm not entirely sure what it is other than an evil god-like entity of some sort in some science fiction work. I can just never remember how to spell its name other than remembering the funky consonant cluster CTH to start. The name also appears (in a different spelling) on Metallica's album "Ride the Lightning" as "The Call of Ktulu."
The puzzle felt easy to me, but ran average time, probably on account of the oversized grid and being a bit baked at the time.
"The Die" (is cast) gave me flashbacks of the classic Simpsons episode with Sideshow Bob standing trial for trying to kill Bart and the prosecution is examining him: "Well, what about that tatoo on your chest? Doesn't it say "Die Bart, die"? "No, that's German for "The Bart, the."
What is the strange reference to the “oversized grid 31 x 23”?
Perhaps you meant “it would’ve been a Medium difficulty puzzle if it had been an oversized grid”? I’ll go pour myself another cup of coffee…
What @Todd said at 8:35 a.m. Thank you, Todd!
You set up a straw man, Malaika, and then you caution anyone who might want to knock it down not to be "mean."
I'm a woman, Malaika. No one who's ever known me would accuse me of being illiberal...or anti-feminist...or even (gasp) mildly Republican -- but the day I have nothing better to do with my time than to glue a big chip to my shoulder and count the number of men vs women in a crossword grid, God help us all is the day I'll stop doing crossword puzzles. Or else take myself to the nearest shrink.
I've been solving puzzles for about 40 years and I've been constructing them for abouut 3 or 4 and I have never once thought to count the number of men vs women in a crossword grid. I don't want to ever think that way. I don't ever want to live that way.
I have two assignments for you, Malaika:
Assignnment #1: Make us a list, by name please, of all the women in this country and around the world whose lives would have been improved in any practical or measurable way if only women and no men at all had been embedded in the grid of this puzzle. And don't tell me that they "would feel better about themselves." Practical improvements, Malaika, please. Measurable improvements.
Assignment #2 -- Re-do David's beautiful theme idea and execution -- only you'll need to substitute a woman's name every time you see a man's name. Any woman in any field of endeavor. I'm easy that way: I wouldn't want to box you in with any too-specific requirements.
Maybe you'll realize when you're deep in the weeds of Assignment @2 that David might have had other things to worry about in the making of this puzzle than how many women were in it.
As for me -- I had many other and much better things to think about in my solving of it.
Caught on instantly at WITHOUTSIN and couldn't wait to see what was coming next! I wish. Actually I had to get all the way to TRANSLATED to catch on, even with BREADPAN staring me in the face. When I saw Spanish in the clue, I started thinking of things that Spanish is WUTHOUT, like K's and W's. Doh! and double Doh! There's nothing as annoying as an obvious truth.
@LMS re. "false friends" and "who knew?". Well, I did. It's a pretty common term in language teaching. One of my favorites is "the sopa (soup) isn't soap, and the ropa (clothing) isn't rope and the butter is meant to kill ya (mantequilla). Also had some trouble the first time IN Spain I had a very stuffy nose and was asked if I was "constipado". Learned something that time.
I knew CTHULHU from Lovecraft but how to spell it is always guesswork. Yay for crosses.
Still have our good old cat THEO, but he is unrelated to the Cosby show.
Pretty much zipped through this one with ACTSOON slowing be down in the SE, once ACTFAST showed up it was game over.
Thought this concept was just brilliant and very neatly executed. Well done you DT. I did a real Double Take when the theme hit me, and thanks for all the fun.
@8:54
We need An Academy!!! And we want it NOW!!!
It was very smooth and I enjoyed a seamless run through without a single stumble but when I finished had no idea what I had just done. And for the second day in a row, the constructor notes only confused me more. Thanks to Malaika I get it now. Words that mean the same in different languages and form a commonly known expression. A bit of a post solve letdown but impressive theme idea and construction.
My household consists of several ADORABLE WET NOSES and one occasional FIREBRAND, not too far from an Ingalls family CABIN in the general vicinity, but not a single BUG BEAR.
BLOC Lives Matter! If I wasnt so sure of this answer, would never have kept in the start of CTHULHU (never heard of it and sure looked like there had to be some rebus involved).
That aside, this seemed too easy for a Thursday. Was able to breeze through it and was surprised the theme was so simple. Dont think it merits the gushing from Jeff Chen but i guess its one of those that constructors appreciate for theme’s degree of difficulty to create.
I enjoy Malaika’s youthful take on what is hard - I’m so old that I attended the premiere of Star Wars in grad school and HATED it -couldnt follow the plot (granted I was quite drunk and high at the time)…
I agree. Clue could have just as well been singular. In fact “rude look” would have been better.
Says a reader of the Rex Parker blogspot.
Too easy redeemed by really clever. Not knowing either Spanish or Czech, I caught on at THE DIE, then looked back to appreciate WITHOUT SIN and GUEST HOST (that one probably should have clued me in, as the interesting pairing is the one example my memory retained from a long-ago Germanic linguistics seminar to which my brain was otherwise resistant). I still had to rely on crosses for BREAD PAN and the wonderful FIREBRAND. Fun to work out, terrific wordplay.
Re getting texts TRANSLATED: A student in one of my German lit classes ran his in-German essay through some sort of language-checking software that mistakenly read the article DIE as the English verb "to die" and thus TRANSLATED every instance of DIE into the German verb for "to die," which is "sterben." This resulted in sentences like "The family went to church" = "Sterben Familie ging in sterben Kirche." In brief: busted.
Enjoyed the puzzle today, though it was over too fast. BREADPAN was my revealer. Glad to see a bit of wordplay Yay!
CTHULHU is very popular in monster-y boardgames, but I still couldn't remember how to spell it/him? Battle games aren’t my cup of TEA(SHOP).
I guess young folks have lots of grim things to worry about. Maybe ALITO is just too much to bear.
What a fascinating discovery to build a theme around. Quite impressive. Nothing too interesting in the fill, but I don't care. It's all about the theme today.
Classic theme and puzzle of the week. Kudos to David Tuffs.
However, I count only two dog references and one of them (SPOT) is clued in a derogatory way.
Not to be mean, but as a recovering MATHLETE I find the gender issues awokened (sic) by David’s brilliant effort beyond the blog’s average mode of expression.
I’m inclined to see the puzzle as skewing old for us octogenarians, but David is a pretty young fellow so maybe he has just paid attention to Lovecraft, Bush appointees and archaeologist uncovered popular culture fads like Star Wars & ATARI? I’m sure that any comedian named REDD has to be Fox, so there must be an error in that clue for 68A (and what in heavens name is an S.N.L?). In spite of any rough spots, I really enjoyed both the solve & critique.
From the book "100 Things Star Wars Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
They first appear in a 132-page rough draft of “The Star Wars,” from 1974 as ARTWO DETWO and See Threepio. In the draft, ARTWO is an antiquated, battered, old tripod whose face is an array of computerized lights surrounding a radar eye, ...
@Newboy:
Snot
Nosed
Loser
Is that Mean?
6+6 = boxcars in craps imho
I found Nancy’s response to Malaika’s blog condescending at best. She seems baffled by the time Malaika spent counting male vs. female identities but takes considerable time herself to lecture Malaika on how to be a better constructor? How to make better use of her time? What???
Hi again. Finally got onto the good device for interacting in the blogosphere, and therefore did look up the Little House series of books. So, I was totally wrong. No CABIN in the titles that I could find. Mea culpa.
There are three _?_s in English: to, two and too.
How do you write _?_
I learned about the "false friends/faux amis" concept many years ago from a native French speaker. At least in France, according to her, faux amis are words that are similar in French and English but mean different things. Like "genial" (with an acute accent over the e in French), which does NOT mean "genial" in English.
I thought the theme for the puzzle was brilliant and I very much enjoyed it. I agree with @kitshef that in this case any failures in the fill (really I’m not sure I saw any) were made for by the theme.
Well, I did some Starwars research after I read the comments and when I returned I see that @Peter P quite eloquently conveyed my sentiment, more particularly the fact the nicknames lended some humanity to the Droids. BUT what I then was reminded is that young Anakin Skywalker built Threepio to help out his mother. The whole Anakin backstory just showed that ANYONE could fall prey to the Dark Side. Anyway, just count me as someone who doesn’t think ARTOO is at the top of the list for puzzle banishment.
Not intending to get into “the count” on male v female but I think of ARTOO as non-binary.
@CT2Napa 11:32a -yes. If you’re a nerd and MATHLETE like me you’ve read Lucas’ books and original scripts in which he uses both R2-D2 in reference but ARTOO in conversation. Some assume the phonetic use attempted to humanize - I always thought since Asimov was god-like to Lucas he was just expanding on the Dave (DV-5) etc convention.
If you’ve never seen the movie - would one pronounce C-3PO as “see three poh”?
Inane write-up. Intriguing puzzle. I think "Cthulhu" should have been the word of the day. More arcane than the clue and answer for 61A, "cabin". And the author of the book is female, as is the main character, a little girl. You mention the daughter of the writer of "The Little House on the Prairie", as if she were more important than her mother.
I'll bore you (just like you're boring me with the ARTOO discussion) and say that Lovecraft gave me the heebie jeebies. You give someone a name like CTHULHU and you just might understand.
Why oh why didn't you fit in BUGABOO for 15D? I once got bitten by BED BUGS but the BEAR has never been a BUG to me. Shall we have a discussion?
This was tres clever. Other than an unpronounceable name, A SCOURGE was not to be found. I like MELON BAILS. Hah!
WITHOUT SIN was my fandango tango. Oh goodie...Spanish. SIN and PAN will be a new name for my bar. ARTOO, OPIE and BERT are invited at all times and OPAL will serve up some PENNE OATCAKE with a dribble of ROTI. Yum.
I enjoyed this and It didn't make me constipado (Hi @pablito). It was cojonudo..just ask El Viti.
I did the puzzle earlier this morning but just got to the blog a while ago. Malaika's write up was fine but some commenters were "mean" so I do not think she should be criticized for anticipating that. She is within the scope of puzzle analysis to point out anything she notices in the grid, including counts of gender references. This isn't an issue for me because I don't know if it is relevant to anything.
Puzzle: OK, I guess, for multi-language speakers. Big points off, though, for using Spanish twice.
I don't understand why the pedants and the woke were all over robot nicknames and genders while a celebrity rapist went unmentioned. Bill Cosby, in case you didn't know. Yeah, it wasn't overt but did anyone read "Huxtable" and not think of BC? (BTW I had ruby before THEO)
Bottom line: Just another crappy Thurs. puzz.
@Beezer. If ARTOO is non-binary, what code is used?
It takes like fifteen seconds to search Artoo and realize that is the canonical spelling used by Lucas and since. It's not some crossword bastardization. school yourself before you fool yourself
Leaving my first comment to thank you for the PPS. It's good to be reminded.
Of course, the point isn't to attack the crossword author or anyone else, but I was reminded how our history is mostly just the history of what men did. Historians and authors have been mostly men as women were kept out of many careers for centuries. Most CEOs and politicians are still men. Even if things became perfectly equal now we would still see historical effects like a bias towards crossword clues referencing men.
As inequalities go, in the grand scheme, not a big deal. But, our media, including crosswords, are shaped by our society and shapes our society. As a crossword blog, I hope that is appreciated here.
Thank you for leaving it in, even though you knew there would be meanies.
Did anyone else catch the hilarious emordnilap of CTHULHU?
Fun to see people responding to the sex count with bizarre nitpicks, none of which get us anywhere near parity in representation anywhere. (Apparently Artoo canonically has "masculine programming", as well as the pronouns to match.) But some comments here suggest a misunderstanding of the type of complaint implicit in such a count. The claim isn't usually one of anti-woman conspiracy or explicit bias. Nor is it that poor representation harms people in some kind of immediately calculable way, as though sexism was a series of fines levied against particular women.
A more common worry about lopsided representation is that sexism is a system fueled by a cultural and material complex, and "as a system it can be fueled by chance as much as by hostility or by the best of intentions". Whatever the reason for systematically lopsided sex counts, they reinforce the idea that men are the default public actors, the people who star in movies, write books or sit on benches. We might not be troubled by lopsided cultural representation where it reflects lopsided actual representation, eg that only about a third of USA federal judges are women, if it weren't the case that this representation supports the sexist view that women are not apt for such roles. The constructor presumably does not share this view, but they (carelessly) set a puzzle that reinforces it. You can argue about how this works and what responsibility any given person has to challenge it.
The quotation above is from Samuel R Delany's excellent essay "Racism and Science Fiction", which I would recommend to anyone, lays out how you don't need conspiracies to reproduce a system. And here I'll note the irony that we are not even talking about race, let alone the many other axes of representation. If you want to see better diversity among the people represented in crossword puzzles, The New Yorker is one place with a team of constructors who care about this sort of thing.
Caesar wrote “alea iacta est” where alea is the die, if we really want to be pedantic…
I actually read The Call of Cthulhu as a book beautifully illustrated by Gary Gianni. What a dark gothic tale!
The "false friends" translation thing can have major repercussions. The ski resort near where I grew up was called Tod Mountain, cuz the name of the mountain is Mount Tod. Perfectly fine, except the area was becoming increasingly popular with Germans, and Tod is German for "death". Let's go skiing on Death Mountain! So they changed it to Sun Peaks (blah).
Horrible commenter!
As many other commenters have pointed out, Artoo is the canonical spelling, and is perfectly analogous to emcee or deejay. Find another hill to die on.
@12:40
prolog, of course. Mr. Spock tells me.
I loved loved loved this theme, even if I didn't like some of the shorter fill. I love languages, so any theme involving words in other languages I'd like.
Thank you for typing out those numbers, Malaika. Data is useful. It's a shame you'd need to include such a huge caveat to try to keep people from pouncing on you for doing so, but people are idiots.
Okay, my other problem with 'dings' and 'zings' is that 'ding' sounds like a favorable thing.
'Ding' is the sound you get on a game show when you get the answer right. And you get a buzzer when you get the answer wrong.
So when Malaika starts off with 'My first ding is ARTOO. Upon filling this in, I audibly screeched. I know it was audible because my younger sister was hanging out with me and she said "Is everything okay?"', up to that point I'm thinking she really likes ARTOO as fill.
As a former casino craps dealer I really appreciated BOXCARS in such close proximity to the cast DIE (although you can't roll a twelve with just one, still I think it plays well)
Also really enjoyed learning that HOST is the Czech word for GUEST
Thank you Jay for the comment you posted at 1:08 PM. And thanks for the reference to Delaney's essay.
A fun false friend in Italian is the verb eccitare. It sounds like excited and it does mean excited but not in the way we use it to mean happy with anticipation, as in I'm so excited about my upcoming trip. In Italian it means horny or sexually excited, so watch that one!
In Spanish a well-known false friend is saying that you are embarrassed using the verb embarazada. It actually means that you've been impregnated!
Incredibly sexist of you to imply that sports are male biased.
I know this inconsequential comment will get buried here and go unread, but I’m adding my surprise at people not having known CTHULHU. They’re super cool/scary monsters; google some pictures! I was happy to see it in the grid as a horror-fantasy fanboy.
-Brandon
THIS^^^
Really enjoyed this puzzle. Loved the theme! Would have smoked it if I hadn’t put Areto and deo down the first go around.
I am surprised to see CTHULHU being considered general knowledge enough to make the crossword (at least on a day other than a Saturday). I wonder how many daily solvers had trouble spelling it!!
Ia, ia, Cthulhu fhtagn!!
"Throughout his adult life, Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as an author and editor. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime and was almost exclusively published in pulp magazines before his death. A scholarly revival of Lovecraft's work began in the 1970s, and he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of supernatural horror fiction."
-- the wiki
So, we're supposed to buy that he's as important as Poe or Shelley or King or Asimov??? Go read his page. He was a nothingburger until some LSD addicts made him notorious in the 70s. The one thing in his favour: born, lived (mostly), and died in Rhode Island.
FWIW I first heard "faux amis" in highschool French class over 50 years ago. I hadn't realized it was used in English till LMS told us. False friend is a warning to students of another language not to get tripped up by the similarity.. They are like in the puzzle spelled exactly the same or more generally almost exactly the same. If memory serves, fslse cognate is a related but somewhat different concept.
The clue for ORB might be suggesting that ORG is a highfalutin way of saying "ball."
While this was average time for a Thursday it felt easy. The northern half filled in quickly but then I had a bit a pause before restarting the southern half.
When CTHULHU appeared in a late week puzzle awhile back it was a completely unknown(to me) and difficult entry to smoke out. While I certainly couldn't remember how to spell it the clue for it explained the odd CTH start and I knew the rest would be whatever the crosses said it was. With today's user friendly material it was mere speed bump.
I had no problem with ARTOO. It was the first spelling I thought of and any way you spell it it's still Star Wars nonsense.
yd -0
I despise the word, MATHLETE, but even that can’t bring me down on this historic day.
After reading all the commentary, I pondered whether Artoo and Threepio were gendered. Well, they’re ‘droids, so they must be binary
I played Pong at Sears. At the time it was AMAZING!
The actor that played R2D2 was/is male, but I don’t think there’s any specific mention of the R2 unit being so.
@Jay - Well said.
Yes i winced at THEO through no fault of Malcolm-Jamal Warner. But the real arched eyebrow was CTHULHU. Lovecraft is the racist uncle everyone tries to explain away at Thanksgiving.
Here’s today’s essay topic: Does being “canonical” make it right?
Extra Credit: Use ARTOO and Threepio to explain “crosswordese” (hint: 54 appearances versus a single appearance 12 years ago). Bonus extra credit for fitting ALITO into you explanation (7 times as many appearances as Roberts since 2006, even counting the Barbie Roberts appearance).
Artoo is the general spelling, and also reflects the culture, the thoughts of many young fans of star wars who did not hear letters and numbers, but just a singular name. Artoo. Same with Threepio. That said, for the same reason I would say they are generally assumed to be males.
Finished in average time for a Thursday (which isn't blistering). The 'revealer' was more of an 'explainer.' You could have told me a priori that the theme answers were two words with the second the same meaning but in the foreign language indicated and it wouldn't have helped me a bit!
"She thought to herself, 'This is now."
-- Laura Ingalls Wilder, "Little House in the Big Woods"
Six-year-old Laura is drifting off to sleep in the closing moments of a story that begins "A long time ago, sixty years to be exact...". She's asked Pa, playing his fiddle, what "Auld Lang Syne" means.
The last chapter of "Little House in the Big Woods" is among the best I've read across the whole spectrum of literature, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Charlotte Bronte and Pynchon included.
The cabin was in the Big Woods. The sod house was on the prairie.
A tough enough Thursday and the quality of the theme and fill made me want to finish with no cheats and I did.
For a while I was thinking the split themer might change the pattern with the identical answers: DIE DIE. Just for the howls it would produce here it would be worth it.
BUGBEAR SCOURGE CTHULHU STOIC OATCAKE and ADORABLE WETNOSES plus some fun Thursday playful cluing. Plus the unique theme with a fine collection of theme answers.
If you do not love this one I do not know why you do crosswords.
Well... now we know how The Orange Sh!tgibbon (not my coinage, but I cleave) intended to get approval for Trump Tower Moscow.
ARTOO was voiced by 2 male actors. That may make him male but not really. Threepo is more obviously male no matter how neatly neutered. But best to make no assumptions with gods robots and aliens. I do remember that Data had fully functional male-like organs. Or was that some dream I had?
Official LGBT member here, so I understand the sensitivity around gender, celebrating diversity, and uplifting the marginalized. However, hasn't the effort been to move towards a *more* gender-fluid/gender-neutral era? I appreciate the efforts of Malaika to recognize any group that is under-represented, but tallying up how many times the "M vs. F" box gets checked seems a step backwards. Maybe spend less time obsessing which category someone "fits" in and instead consider the content of one's achievement or character? Seems we'll all be a little happier if we spend less time on our differences and more on our common humanity.
Awww man — if they’re called “false friends” that seems like a GREAT fill to end the theme at the bottom of the puzzle… it’s long, but would’ve been cool if the author could’ve made it work. Or, would’ve been cool to have that somewhere in the clue. Either way, fantastic theme today.
Wait, what? ARTOO and THREEPIO are male?
Ditto. In my view, the problem presented here is not about substituting males for females, it’s about making an effort to REPRESENT both in a more equal manner, hence we can all see ourselves more in these grids and feel the world is actually evolving towards balance and equity (igualdad).
👏🏽👏🏼👏🏻
Why?
Oh my god. *face palm*
I’m curious, have you ever solved any of Malaika’s puzzles? I have, and I am confident that she would pass your second “assignment” with flying colors. (Obviously your first “assignment” is, to use your words, a straw man)
And, as a younger female solver, having clues and fills that feel fresh, resonant, and familiar to me - much in the way that Nancy, who says she’s been doing crosswords since she was (my age?), seems to be familiar with the old timey male dominated fill that has dominated the puzzle for the last 30 years.
Yes. And also, because women have been so underrepresented historically (in puzzles and in the world), clues and fill that center around women are inherently going to be more fresh, fun, and interesting - for everyone and particularly for your female solving audience - in a way that [name your favorite male] is probably not.
I don’t understand tres cuatro. I understand it means three four in Spanish but why is that a thing?
And that is the Dem way! Wanted everything both ways.
I couldn't agree more. This was a delight to solve. THANK YOU DT!!
Feel very old learning that someone learned "Atari" from a puzzle. Also, that seems impossible.
This comment is not mean at all. It is a measured response to Malaika’s disingenuous bit about “just sharing some numbers,” which was clearly intended to 1) present a tacit argument that the constructor is engaged in sexism and 2) shut down any dialog that is counter to that viewpoint.
Agree with Nancy 100 percent.
The real question is whether this comment ever sees the light of day.
Nancy’s intent was to point out the absurdity of Malaika’s obsession with identity by suggesting something equally as absurd.
Pretty simple stuff.
Agreed. The write up was terrible.
Google Lovecraft
Why is it absurd or “obsessive” to gather data about the types of words that are being used as crossword fill? For many of us, including Malaika, crosswords are a big part of our life. I constantly seeing commenters reporting data on the # of PPP in a puzzle, or the # of times a word has been seen before, or the # of times a constructor has been published previously. Why is it an “absurd obsession” to do the exact same thing with gender-related data?
@Anonymous 12:45 I think you have misinterpreted Nancy's comment. You can illustrate a degree of absurdity by describing another absurdity, but this does nothing to demonstrate or "point out" the initial absurdity. This rhetorical technique only works if the audience already accepts that something is absurd; then you can fire their imagination by illustrating it with comparisons and other rhetorical techniques. What Nancy did rather, was attempt various rhetorical techniques designed to position herself as an authority, and then to buttress two unsupported claims with sarcasm. But as I will explain, she did this ineffectively.
Assignment 1 is written to imply that nobody would be on such a list. The argument is not a reductio, because being able to make such a list is not an implication of the claim Nancy aims to reject. Rather, Assignment 1 is just the dressed up, but unsupported claim, that no women would be "practically" or "measurably" improved through better crossword representation. Whether this is true or false, Nancy gives no reason one way or the other. This is quite an ineffective bit of rhetoric, because Nancy means to suggest something like "look all over the whole world and you won't find a single person for this list", but anybody who already thinks that women's lives would be improved by better crossword representation will think that such a list would include the names of many women, making the task seem like a tedious waste of time. As such, this bit is unlikely to convince anybody who disagreed with Nancy's claim. On the other hand, it could still be quite effective (and apparently was) at riling up the passions of people who already agreed with Nancy--which presumably includes people like what Nancy referred to as "(gasp)" Republicans. Not a great move!
Assignment 2 on the other hand is meant as a reductio. Nancy means to suggest that taking the problem of gender representation in crosswords seriously would lead to intractable difficulty in constructing the puzzles. The first part of the reductio is correct: taking Malaika's implicit point might indeed lead us to trying to make crosswords with better gender balance. However the second part is unsupported, that is the claim that doing so is very difficult. Again, Nancy offers no evidence in support of this claim, but merely sarcastically strengthens it by making the task "easy" in various ways. Because she offers no evidence, Nancy's claim here is again unlikely to convince anybody who does not already agree with her. There is an irony here, because we know it is quite possible to construct good crosswords with better gender representation than this one. Presumably Nancy did not know that Malaika does this herself!
Assigning "assignments" at all is meant to be patronizing, because it assumes the role of teacher over student. This is ad hominem: Nancy supports her claims not with evidence but by suggesting that she has the authority and expertise appropriate to a teacher, while Malaika is in the position of student, so that she rather than Malaika is likely to be correct where they disagree. Patronizing someone, particularly when your assumed authority is unearned and illegitimate, is not going to convince them or people sympathetic to them.
All in all, Nancy made several unsupported claims, rhetorically buttressed with sarcasm and ad hominem, but without evidence. Some of her rhetorical techniques were misapplied even if her aim was only to rile up people who already agreed with her. It seems clear from some responses that Nancy achieved that at least. But Nancy's rhetorical choices make her comment unconvincing to the rest of us.
Shouldn't 45 Down BOXCARS be something like "6 + 6, slang"? After all, we're not talking about actual train cars here.
Very creative and fun-to-solve theme. David Tuffs had his debut NYT crossword published about a year ago and already has four to his credit. Not too shabby. Nothing to EDIT or ALTER here because it’s virtually WITHOUTSIN. I don’t like MATHLETE and CTHULHU was a WOE for me but those are both real things, so no foul there. Those are the FACTS. TRES bien Mr. Tuffs.
PS: Chris ODOWD was hilarious as Roy Trenneman in the British comedy series The IT Crowd.
ALTER? EGO
STOIC AMBITION aside,
"She's ADORABLE", MATT said,
"If I ACTFAST ON THE BRIDE,
I THINK ASAP I'll GET BREAD."
--- THEO "KETO" ALITO
You read my post yesterday, didn't you, David? Yeah you did. Why else bleed over ADES, yet be careful to clue them as prefixes? Let's be clear, ADES however clued is poor fill, but you GET a pass today for the clue. M'man.
WITHOUT pointing to specific examples, I found this puzzle hard to do because of, for want of a better word, sideways clues. Once I have a few letters and can scope it out, I see no problem. But this guy has the knack of coming at me from another direction. Hard to explain. In any event, Monday is definitely OVER. Good, tough one--and who doesn't love a puppy's ADORABLE WETNOSE? Birdie.
Wordle par.
How do you say f*** in Urdu? Sanskrit anyone? I mean...ok, ok, we're supposed to know something about everything. I guess.
But for a Thursday, this was a fine, fine puzzle. In other words (and in English) no rebus.
I have my standards.
Diana, LIW
C3PO and R2D2 are robots. They're correctly referred to as "it" not "he". Not that I'm for a disparity in the ratio of male/female references, but these two shouldn't be included.
Maybe they are from earth
Fubar @5:36
BRILLIANT comment! Thank you -- "binary" indeed!!!!
C3P0 and R2D2 use the pronouns "he/him" in the movies. Who is anyone else to decide that for them?
Coming to you from the future, January 2024, to chime in on the original thread of ARTOO controversy (let sleeping gender conversations lie, I say). Anders is correct about the OG 1970's Kenner toy packaging from back in the day (click the images to magnify):
Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2)
See-Threepio (C-3PO)
Though not every droid was afforded this phonetic honor, to wit:
R5-D5
Poor R5-D5.
Some of the rationales that folks come up with to denigrate or de-legitimize this or that crossword answer almost never fail to entertain me, this being no exception.
These complaints also possess the power to make my eyes roll hard, especially when it's in reference to something like R2-D2, arguably the most well-known robot of cinema EVER and -- without a doubt -- one of the most ubiquitous toys in kids' toy chests in the late 70's and most of the 80's.
And it case you think I'm biased, I just proved to reCAPTCHA that I am not a robot.
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