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Accept defeat in modern parlance / THU 2-16-23 / Sketchy stranger in slang / Turkish city that lends its name to a species of rabbit cat and goat / Cousin Succession character / Nonbasic characteristic
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Constructor: Kevin Patterson
Relative difficulty: Challenging / Easy (before you see the gimmick / after you see the gimmick)
Theme answers:
- GRAMMAR PO(L)ICE (4D: Ones who don't want to hear that you're laying down on the job?) (the "L" come from the black-square configuration at the end of "GRAMMAR PO" and the "ICE" comes from 53A: It might give you the chills)
- FOOD CO(L)ORING (5D: Easter egg-making supply)
- NAI(L)ED IT (7D: Cry of triumph after a good performance)
- POT DEA(L)ERS (31D: Joint stockholders?)
- NUC(L)EAR (46D: Alternative to wind or solar)
Tim Bergling (Swedish: [ˈtɪmː ˈbæ̂rjlɪŋ] (listen); 8 September 1989 – 20 April 2018), known professionally as Avicii (/əˈviːtʃi/, Swedish: [aˈvɪ̌tːɕɪ]), was a Swedish DJ, remixer and music producer. At the age of 16, Bergling began posting his remixes on electronic music forums, which led to his first record deal. He rose to prominence in 2011 with his single "Levels". His debut studio album, True (2013), blended electronic music with elements of multiple genres and received generally positive reviews. It peaked in the top 10 in more than 15 countries and topped international charts; the lead single, "Wake Me Up", topped most music markets in Europe and reached number four in the United States. [...] Bergling retired from touring in 2016, after several years of stress and poor mental health. On 20 April 2018, he [died of] suicide while on holiday in Muscat, Oman. In 2019, his third and final album, Tim, was released posthumously.
• • •
After that, whoosh, this puzzle was over fast. I still had a lot of grid to fill in, but in retrospect it feels like it took no effort at all. I had to change POT SEL(L)ERS to POT DEA(L)ERS, but otherwise, once you figure out what's going on with the "L"s, you have a superpower that makes a formerly fearsome grid just roll over on its back so you can scratch its belly. It helped that I knew BOW WOW WOW ... but I will say that this puzzle's one not-so-great characteristic is its over-reliance on proper nouns. In a puzzle with a gimmick this tough, it seems cruel to throw so many no-universally-famous proper nouns at people. BOW WOW WOW was a gimme for me, but I was the perfect age to know about them. I can imagine many, many older and possibly younger solvers were without a clue. AVICII also seems generationally exclusionary. And Cousin GREG, don't get me started on the puzzle's assumption that all its solvers are familiar with so-called "prestige TV" (specifically HBO) down to the secondary and tertiary characters. To be clear, I don't have a problem with any of these answers per se, but throwing them *all* into an already tough-to-grab-hold-of grid feels ... well, not great. Also, giving two of your five theme answers "?" clues felt particularly cruel. But thematic cruelty is kind of Thursday's job, so I can't actually fault the puzzle there.
I'm burying the lede here a bit, but I think the theme is ingenious. I feel like we had a TAKE THE L puzzle very recently ... I know I put the Motels song up recently, and it must have been a theme that occasioned it. Hmm, looks like it was actually a "TAKE AN L" puzzle (back on Sep. 21, 2022). I complained then that "TAKE AN L" is not nearly as tight and common a phrase as "TAKE THE L" and this puzzle apparently heard me and six months later came to vindicate me. My missteps today were too many to count, since I was basically misstepping constantly until I figured out the theme. The "D" from MEDI- was particularly devastating (20A: Lead-in to care), since it made 5D: Easter egg-making supply really really really look like it was going to be something + DYE. I would never consider a hot towel before a meal a NICETY—that word suggests something fussy and unnecessary. It has a prissy vibe. I hear it mostly in relation to language or social behavior, not towels, and usually in the plural, referring to matters of etiquette. But it's the fussiness that is paramount, and there's nothing particularly fussy (I don't think) about the hot towel before a meal. The connotation of the word is negative, and I don't mind a restaurant providing me a hot towel before a meal, so there. And there are ANKARA cats and rabbits now, what? (16A: Turkish city that lends its name to a species of rabbit, cat and goat). I had ANGORA there for ... well, too long. I really gotta run now. My bus comes at 7:15am regardless of whether the Thursday puzzle was tough or not. See you tomorrow.
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144 comments:
Hall of fame puzzle
Lots of stuff I didn't know, including @Rex AVICI, GREG and BOWWOWWOW (thought maybe thepOWWOW for 28D). Not a bad name for a group, IMO.
But my real trouble spot was the NW. I assume that TING at 1A is the sound of clinking glasses? But don't you make the toast first ("Here's to Harvey and Sheila") and then comes the TING, not before? Then my speck at 24A was MiTE and my 27A contentment sound was AhH. Defensible perhaps, but they conspired to make INROAD very hard to see.
I was about 15 seconds from giving up. I mean, man, was I flummoxed. Had every letter filled in except the P in LOW PH, and at that point since LOW PH was invisible to me, I just assumed I had some cleaning up to do in that area. Went back and erased DEPORT so “grammando” would fit. Nah. Once I realized it was LOW PH, I saw GRAMMAR POLICE and was writing in the LICE in the black area when I noticed the L. And then the ICE. That had to be the greatest aha moment ever in the history of the universe. It was so fun to go back and see all the L RTEs to take from the mystifying downs (NAI, NUC) to the real-words (EDIT, EAR). This is genius.
And. There. Are. No. Extraneous. L’s. Anywhere.
Several mistakes along the way:
“émigré” before DEPORT
“Angora” before ANKARA
ONE SKI then “uniski” then back to ONE SKI
Loved the clue for ANNEE.
But the clue for WORE made me sit up. “Put on” feels like an action that is bam, bam done. WORE feels a little bit different. Like you could say to your kid, Listen just put on the shirt Bigmama sent for the picture. You don’t have to wear it.
Before I had the P in LOW PH, I kept seeing Lowth, as in Bishop Robert. He’s the man GRAMMAR POLICE can thank for his made-up rules like no double negatives, no split infinitives, no sentence-final prepositions. I think in grad school some professor said he was imposing Latinsome rules onto English, an exercise akin to trying to fit a map of South America into Africa. Close, but not exact. Didn’t matter. His 1762 book paved the way for people lucky enough to be educated and speak the “correct” dialect to begin to proudly separate themselves from the unwashed.
Kevin – this is a terrific puzzle. I agree with @Rich Glauber - a hall-of-famer. Man oh man is my brain tired. I need to find a couch to briefly lay down on. Then I guess I should bathe.
Feel asleep with about 70% of the grid filled in, hadn't figured out the theme. Woke up an hour before my alarm this morning and as soon as I opened the puzzle I saw the L's and it was thrilling. Quickly filled in almost everything but didn't see LOWPH, and I somehow missed the last L so instead of POTDEALERS I was completely flummoxed by POTDEA. "Are we recognizing different DEAs for different drugs now?" Had a good chuckle when I finally realized that was the 5th L. Proper nouns were all educated guesses for me, so it was pretty tough going until I saw the theme
You do the “ting” with a fork on the glass to get everyone’s attention before the toast.
This puzzle was challenging to the end for me, because I never saw the gimmick until I came here. It seemed like the theme answers were taking away a syllable starting with L. I didn’t realize the black square Ls led to a continuation of the work.
I was also challenged because I had TINK for 1-across for a while. I think of the sound that glasses make as CLINK.
Very clever theme! I appreciate it now, and I still did finish the puzzle even only partially getting the theme.
I finished the puzzle was still completely lost on the theme — FOODCO?? NUC??? POTDEA???? Came here to get the explanation and now I see it. If the theme is so obscure you can solve the puzzle and still not understand the theme, how good is the theme really?
Absolutely brutal. Had to ask my partner in order to get BOW WOW WOW and Cousin GREG and literally never got the revealer. I just decided that it must be that the words truncated before the L’s. I need to train myself to look at the black spaces and make inferences from them on trickier puzzles.
I can definitely acknowledge this puzzle’s brilliant conceit and feat of construction while also just not loving it. I think largely because of the fill, especially its over-reliance on niche PPP and attempts at clever cluing that sometimes succeeded but often fell a bit flat for me. Definitely challenging all the way through for me.
Wait, it’s TING -Toast - Clink?
NICETY to know there’s an upscale version of Tic Tac Toe.
Hated the puzzle till I noticed the huge L’s staring at me, taunting me, hiding in plain sight. Then I enjoyed taking the W!
(Pardon any typos - have had cataract surgery in the last two weeks and can’t read quite as well!)
Add MIAMOR to the BOWWOWWOW and AVICII “if you say so list” for me. No clue what a TWOD or an ANNEE means or is - don’t even think I have enough energy to google them and then forget. Another quasi-slang (RANDO) - the NYT considers something to be “slang” if somebody said it once and it was never heard from again.
Like Rex and others, I was in full flummox for a looong time, both as a result of the hidden (right before my eyes!) theme conceit and the difficult cluing. Had lots of white space! Gradually filled in here and there and eventually, like Rex, saw the gimmick at NUC L EAR and realized all those giant L's were staring me in the face.
Brilliant puzzle.
Couple of uniclues:
1. Shake hands at the net, for some
2. Narc radar?
Answers:
1. TAKE THE L NICETY
2. POT DEALER'S EAR
Ah, NOW I see how it works! I had never heard the expression 'take the L'.
My favorite clue/answer in forever:
4D - [Ones who don't want to hear that you're laying down on the job?] >> GRAMMAR POLICE.
Really fun puzzle - actually filled the early revealer in right away - saw the big Ls and it was off to the races. Agree with Rex that there is some side eye fill but with these restrictions you have to expect some glue. That ROTUND - AVICII block was fantastic. Learned ANKARA.
Another one to add to @Joe D’s list of syrupy 70s
Hmm - ANNIE+ANNEE. The LOW PH - TWO D stack is a bit much. Did not know GREG - did not like RANDO. RAMROD should have been clued as the Dead roadie.
FANG killing it
TING will be in the discourse today. EBIKES are becoming the bane of downtown Manhattan - unlicensed at 30mph carrying chow fun. Wonderful AMBIENCE all throughout this one.
BOW WOW who?
Highly enjoyable Thursday solve.
Sister BEAMS
Clueing for TWOD, if that means Apartment 2D, is shameful.
I too fell into the ANGORA and UNISKI abyss.
Ugh. My performance was embarrassing.
Impossible.
Fun puzzle.
I think if you don't have enough energy to google something you probably shouldn't make claims about whether that thing is or is not "real" slang. I learned RANDO a year or three ago from doing crosswords, and my initial reaction was similar to @SouthsideJohnny's, i.e. WTF+groan+are-you-kidding? But since then I've heard it and seen it in other contexts. It's actual current slang that people say with their mouths.
To those who considered UNISKI: for a while I considered MONOSKI, which is an actual unsafe thing, thinking that would be my key to the theme.
TwoD - 2-dimensional (flat, for short). Annee is French for year; Juillet is French for July, so Juillet to juillet is July to July, or a year
What a delightful way to discover how the L's fit in: the great clue for GRAMMARPOLICE. I had most of the squares filled in when I noticed that what I didn't have were sitting on top of the black L's. Much staring at GRAMMARPO and then ... the big AHA!
The L's are like waterslides. The entries enter at the top, zip down, take a hard left, and splash into another word.
Superb puzzle!
good way to put it, Rex. Challenging/easy once you get the drift. For some frigging reason, I had OingoBoingo in my head before BOWWOWWOW dawned on me, and I remember that video so well. She was a striking woman, I forget her name something like Anabelle Lewan?? I had oneD before TWOD and Wear before WORE (duh). AVICII I never heard of, got from the crosses. But yeah, once you see the trick it fell like a house of cards. Nice puzzle Kevin Patterson! Really enjoyed this one.
I am very proud that I saw Bow Wow Wow at The Mud Club in I think 1981. Fantastic show, terrific vibe.
Fantastic puzzle, loved it.
TWOD as in two-dimensional.
Took me a while because I thought it was something like face the music or facts but finally got it.
Not sure why Rex thinks NICETY suggests something fussy and unnecessary and has a negative connotation, when this isn't the case (if you look up the definition).
Great puzzle even though I needed Rex to explain it. Thanks Rex! Could someone explain the Julliet to julliet clue? TIA.
Hah! And may I repeat: Hah! When I saw it, I actually clapped my hands. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before upon cracking a trick theme. I think there was actually a flash of light as well. Really.
Until that moment it was a random flounder-fest, filling in blobs here and there, but gliding emptily over significant areas due to vague cluing and the theme. Oh, I had uncovered the reveal, and wondered if taking the L meant words had that letter left out. But nothing was clicking. There I was, for instance, trying to figure out what could be done with NAI to make it a cry of triumph.
But that OMG moment of discovery brought in the “Whee!” and whoosh, and brought me to a glorious conclusion. Triumph indeed. Then add a jawdrop after seeing that the only actual “L” in the grid, aside from the grid art, is in the reveal.
Which underscores the skill it took to make this grid, as answers that turn 90 degrees greatly constrict a constructor’s options.
I couldn’t help but notice the nonet of long-O sounds: OMAR / OVA / MOTE / ORING / RANDO / INROAD / ROE / OBOE. Which is most appropriate, as this puzzle deserves, IMO, a standing O. And a NAILED-IT bravo! Thank you, Kevin, for an exquisite experience!
I loved the trickiness here. It wasn’t till very late in the solve that I finally realized what was going on. I just filled ‘em in to the best of my ability, seeing truncated answers but not knowing the whys and wherefores. Plod, plod, plod. Had to look up AVICII because otherwise the NE was uncrackable. I had three-quarters of the puzzle done – all but the NW quadrant, so all the themers in place (!) – when I finally saw the continuation of FOOD CO(L)ORING. I was delighted, and just hoped I could finish up the NW to put the icing on the cake.
And I did! I knew cousin GREG, who’s not exactly a secondary character, and certainly not tertiary – he’s pretty important, and that actor (Nicholas Braun) is a total scene-stealer. I also inferred ANKARA because of its resemblance to angora, so I had those two answers and nothing else. But then I got MAGMA and all the rest followed. Knowing those two bits of PPP in the NW allowed me to get it, and not knowing the [“Levels” D.J., 2011] in the NE drove me to cheat. That’s the double-edged sword of PPP*: big help/big hindrance. And there’s a third possibility. I didn’t know BOW WOW WOW, but at one point I had the final four letters, WWOW, and decided it couldn’t be anything else. So, a name that was inferable once you’d secured a few crosses. BOW WOW WOW inferable; AVICII not inferable. Again, the dual nature of PPP.
* PPP = Popular culture, product names and other proper nouns.
[SB: Tues & yd, 0: a two-day streak! I loved seeing this on Valentine’s Day. I was a bit startled at first, but there is an uncapitalized meaning. Yesterday I had one word to go and nearly went mad wracking my brains for this little imp.]
Never saw the theme. Battered my way to the happy music with crossed and the occasional google (even those were rare) and didn’t get the theme until I read x word info. So no aha and a very distinct sour taste left by this one.
You mentioned being the right age to know Bow Wow Wow. I'm old enough to not only know that but before "nicety" began being utilized as it is today, there was a 1990 song with that title by a one-hit wonder named Michel'le, and it was her explaining how she was a bit nice but also a bit nasty. Hence, "nicety". This was NOT the one hit...lol
Challenging, tough, frustrating...., but so, so clever and well constructed.
Next up, how about a Billy Strayhorn tribute puzzle: "Take the A Train"
Amy: UNCLE! No, not Cousin Greg, just me admitting defeat. Very cool puzzle. Okay, Kevin, here's to a rematch in the near future. I'll be looking forward to it.
@Alice Pollard: I got BOWWOWWOW quickly and easily, but not until I saw your comment did I realize that I was mentally picturing Oingo Boingo. Misremembering the eighties.
For us non-HBO folks, a better clue for GREG might be [The other Allman brother].
@SouthsideJohnny: TWOD as in Two D as in Two Dimensional. Année is French for year and juillet is French for July, so July to July is a year. They don't capitalize month names
Decades of doing crosswords and I still don’t get the AAH vs AHH…
To me AAH, has that sharper ‘short A’ sound, as in “AAH I screwed up,” and AHH is the softer ‘short A’ sound as in “AHH that feels good.” The latter is more the sound of contentment.
Ugh.
UNICLUES:
1. Expel those raping, drug-dealing bovines who stray across the Rio Grande!
2. Possible answers to the party post-mortem question, “Who was that jerk, what French word did he keep mispronouncing, and how much caviar did he end up scarfing?”
3. Ailment suffered by those who spend excessive amounts of time having their hair done.
4. “Fido, quiet! I don’t want to hear another arf-arf-arf ______!”
5. “It’s April 22nd and it’s 0 degrees. I guess this is the other side of climate chaos.”
6. The general feeling around The Rumble in the Jungle.
7. Hotdogging fish.
8. My buddy Norm.
1. DEPORT COWS
2. "RANDO. ANNÉE. GOB."
3. DRYER’S EAR
4. NOR BOWWOWWOW
5. "EARTH DAY – BRR."
6. AMBIENCE NUCLEAR
7. ONE-SKI TETRA
8. ROTUND ENGINEER
@Tom T (6:58)
Narc radar? -- LOL!
Hell of a puzzle that completely flummoxed me. Never saw the Ls. Know now that I should have. DOH!
I’m sorry. There’s nothing “fussy” about a hot towel before a meal? That would be the definition of fussy, my friend.
It’s nice to have but not necessary—i.e., a NICETY.
Great puzzle. But tough to figure out the gimmick until you step back and look at the forest and see those L-shaped trees.
Annee is French for year. Juillet is July. So July to July is a year. One-D is one dimensional.
Thought this puzzle was great. Like others I almost gave up. Then realized that there were Ls. Then almost gave up again. Then realized that NAI made no sense, found the L and the EDIT. Bam.
Totally filled in except for the T in POT before I found the L's, and then, whoosh. Also D'oh! Someday I'll look at the layout of a puzzle before I start. Not today though.
I was actually feeling proud for seeing LOWPH and TWOD, which with the letters I had were making no sense.
Thursdazo! KP. You're the King Puzzlemaker of the week, and thanks for all the fun.
In more sad cat news, we lost 18 year-old Fenway yesterday. Long gray hair, white feet and face, white chest and totally photogenic. He was at once the softest (fur) and loudest (voice) of our many cats. Big hole in the family, and his brother is getting extra pats for some time to come.
@Rex: oneski is not a thing; it’s “one ski” I.e.skiing with only one ski on.
I actually finished the puzzle without fully getting the gimmick, and came here to have it explained. I got "take the l" but just thought all the words ended after the letter L. I feel I should have points deducted.
A note on ANKARA: Angora is just an older version of that city's name.
Also, ONE SKI was a stretch - does anyone actually ski on one ski? Rather than a snowboard?
This wasn't very elegant, but it was hard; and I did like the gimmick - once you explained it.
8:00AM anon:
"Juillet to juillet, e.g." -- Juillet is French for July so July to July is a year. ANNÉE is year in French.
I like being challenged, but this was ridiculous. When cheating on some of the pop culture -- AVICII and BOWWOWWOW -- proved to be no help in figuring out the gimmick, I bailed.
With no help from having any crosses in the fiendish NW, I nevertheless guessed that the revealer might be either TAKE THE L (loss) or TAKE THE D (defeat). But I didn't write it in. And, anyway, neither gimmick seemed to be helpful in coming up with answers I wasn't getting.
I came here, I read Rex and I'm not sure I understand the gimmick even now. Puzzles like this are why you'll never find me at a puzzle tournament.
Holy COW. Having never in my life heard the expression TAKE THE L I was completely baffled by this puzzle for the longest time - obviously I knew something was afoot, and I had TAKETHE in the grid, but couldn't find a letter that made any sense with the mystifying part-answers peppered throughout the grid. I nearly let my impatience get the better of me and give up for a DNF to come here and find out what the hell was going on but decided to return later just in case - and I'm glad I did! Opening the puzzle on my phone just a moment ago instead of on the iPad I usually solve on the black Ls in the grid *immediately* stuck out to me whereas I simply hadn't noticed them before (something to be said for solving in a smaller format like the original printed one).
I too had ANgorA for quite some time, but figured it must be an old name for ANKARA (Google confirms this to be true) so the clue stands up. Personally I'd call it a dING not a TING and AhH not AAH but, to each their own.
A super challenging but rewarding puzzle.
Very similar experience to many here, including Rex. Crunchy with few good toeholds–until it wasn't. Loved this one.
I remember first encountering RANDO about 8 years ago when I was still wading in the cesspool that is Twitter. In those days it was almost always preceded by the adjective (pardon my French, but I am quoting directly) "dry dick". Usually it'd be in the context of some guy saying or doing something kinda incel-ish, and everyone would ratio him, like "get a load of this dry dick rando."
The subculture that was once known as "Weird Twitter" is responsible for much more of how we talk about things online than people realize.
If you lose, you take the L.
If you commute in Chicago, you take the EL.
At a sushi joint, you take the EEL.
If you're Robert Kennedy, you take ETHEL.
If you're a chemist, you'll take ETHYL.
Yesterday I wrote about a BOVVVVOVV POVVVVOVV, and today BOVVVVOVVVVOVV makes the grid. Tomorrow there will be a VVASCALY VVABBIT.
I've always wanted a gold tooth -- one of those where a sparkle comes off when I say something coy and amusing, you know, a TING FANG.
I'm betting Sharif never got dumped by a señorita saying, "MI AMOR, OMAR, it's OVA."
MOTE is a speck? Who knew?
I broke a ski at the top of Loveland ski area above the Eisenhower Tunnel once and had to make it all the way down (under a lift for some of the way) on ONE SKI. It's way more difficult than you'd imagine, especially with people hooting at you.
Uniclues:
1 Create moo-ing expatriate.
2 Detergent atop the basket of laundry.
3 Item Pompeii residents needed real bad.
4 Shaking hands after the game.
5 A green plus sign.
6 Neither meow meow meow...
7 The nostalgic feeling of having your face fried off.
8 The guy behind Pringles.
1 DEPORT COWS
2 YOUR TIDE AVIEW (~)
3 MAGMA RAMROD
4 TAKE THE L NICETY
5 POT DEALER'S IMAGE (~)
6 NOR BOWWOWWOW
7 NUCLEAR AMBIENCE (~)
8 ROTUND ENGINEER
July to July is one year (annee) in French
TWOD is 2D as in flat and not in 3D. Took my a minute to figure it out and not read as t-wah-d
Hey All !
Dang, took a sec to figure out what was happening. Didn't help that there were odd clues everywhere. Had to Goog for the iPod TOUCH, as I had FAce for FANG, eREnA for GRETA, and uNiSKI for ONESKI, giving me the start of NUU__ for the iPod. Who knows, companies name their products weirdly sometimes. Once I saw it was TOUCH, was able to correct everything up in that corner.
LOWPH on top of TWOD, WOWsers. TWO D (@Southside Johnny 6:57 - It's TWO Dimensional) wasn't too tough to figure out, but LOWPH was being pronounced as one word. What the hell? Then, AHA, LOW PH.
Figured out the theme at FOOD COLORING. Knew we had to use the L Blockers, but thought at first the answers would terminate with the L. Nice surprise to see the answer continue through the L to the Acrosses, which were real words. Cool.
Nice brain racking ThursPuz. Now I need a nap.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Similar experience here: a lot of white space left after going through it the first time. Then at NAI realizing that I needed to borrow something, similarly at NUC.”well, lookie there! There’s a big ol’ “L” just sittin there waiting for me” and so off to the races
Minor problem for me is that TAKETHEL was both an unfamiliar slang term and doesn’t really describe what you do; you USE THE L to make the word. Chicago commuters TAKE THE L every morning to work. And by the way: Sauvignon blanc isn’t always DRY. That’s not a defining characteristic of it; maybe “CAT PEE” would be better. And what about ANNIE. and “ANNEE” in the same puzzle, and another one; OBIE and OBOE?
@Tom T 6:58 AM
Welcome to the uniclue universe. #2 is delightful, fits the "L" shaped theme, and spans the grid diagonally as the crow flies. Brilliant.
Angora kept me from putting in TAKETHEL and when I had AVICII (from crosses) I wondered if this was a Roman numeral trick.
Once I accepted it had to be TAKETHEL (knowing it only from the other puzzle Rex mentioned) I realized Angora was probably an Anglicized version. So, take out the L? It didn’t work. Take out all syllables containing an L sound? Finally - GRAMMARPOLICE! What a great confounding clue! NAILEDIT!
@LMS — Thanks for the info on Bishop Robert Lowth! Latin rules? Jeesh.
TWOD = 2 dimensional
Juillet is French for July - ANNEE is year.
@Barbara S. 8:48 AM
I completely missed DRYER'S EAR! Great find and great clue. I also love #7.
Holy moly. Just got QB in SB!!
Apparently an easy one today.
But still gonna Whoop-Whoop it up! 😁
RooMonster Queen Me! Guy
Rex doesn't think HBO is prestige TV? What other TV is he watching....?
AVICII caused a bit of a stir here a while back, so I remember that, especially because my 20+ kids laughed at me for not knowing him. Still haven't seen IRL that I know of. Is BOWWOWWOW a sly reference to the Double V from yesterday? Theme week goes from shaped foods to the letter W. Any W shaped foods to bring it all together for the Friday puzzle tomorrow?
TWOD is more familiarly written as 2D (flat), as opposed to 3D (adding the third dimension). ANNEE is French for YEAR. The clue Julliet to julliet translates to "July to July", or literally one year.
RANDO is a perfectly cromulent piece of contemporary slang. (And it's already probably at least two decades old, so not even that contemporary.) I see an entry for RANDO in Urban Dictionary all the way back to 2003. I first learned it before doing crosswords, and I've heard it at least three times in the last week, including using it once myself. (One was from a caller into a morning radio program; another was in a conversation with my brother; and the third was from my kids.)
Despite that, AVICII and BOWWOWWOW being gimmes, I lost patience and could not crack this week's gimmick. I couldn't figure out what "TAKE THE L" meant and kept trying to do something with just the letter L in the clues that seemed sus to me. Oh well.
Good puzzle; ragged non-solve for me.
TWOD = TWO-D = Two Dimensional. I have no idea about ANNEE though.
Like I always say: "Halph a lowph is better than naan."
Like I never say: "esteem" when I mean "treasure". Not synonyms in my book.
This was fun. I tried solving all the Fibonacci Sequence-numbered answers first. I saw the giant L at FOOD COLORING and said "oh yeah I get it." So it was pretty much a breeze after that. Though I forgot all about Bow Wow Wow's existence. I was thinking Bananarama had done that cover.
A very nice puzzle, full of niceties. Ideal for rebus-haters. Tomorrow I plan to solve all the square exponentials first.
I've played this before. But it's pretty, so... (@Son Volt, I can assure you it never would have occurred to me to play that thing you played.)
"Halph a lowph is better than naan."
Joe Dipinto...FTW!
One hundred % with @ Nancy on this one. Just got to a point where I didn't want to give this any more effort. Glad so many others enjoyed it.
Finished it without even figuring out the theme. TWOD is one of the worst looking answers of all time
Thx, Kevin, for a terrific Thurs. workout! :)
Very hard (nearly 3x avg).
Serves me right for not paying attention to the grid design. Of course, I knew 'L' would come into play somewhere somehow, but failed to see the five black 'L's in the grid until the end. A good reminder to take a few seconds at the beginning of each solve to have a look at the black squares.
Nevertheless, a great feeling of relief in ultimately getting this one right! :)
A fine puz, and hopefully, lesson learned! :)
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@pabloinnh (9:06 AM)
Condolences for the passing of Fenway. 🙏
@RooMonster (10:03 AM) 👍 for QB
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@Acrosticers: some excellent ones here.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I really loved this puzzle! It was challenging, but the biggest smile crossed my face when I saw the L-shapes and realized what was going on. Great work!
+1
Loved this!
Anon@8:33 - that would be a good clue except for the fact that Duane’s brother is Gregg. I was thinking “diver Louganis”.
There is actually one extraneous L - low ph
I had filled in every box but one, and finally thought I would "take the L". Ah, the "L" with it, I thought. And then I saw it!! Wonderful! Pleased to have solved it. But....just too much pop culture trivia, decreased the joy. Cousin Greg, Bow wow wow, Rando, (???) Enya ( my first choice for a one-named female singer, but I don't know who the heck she is...) Avicii, Greta Gerwig, for me reduced an A+ to an A-.....
Nevertheless, a brilliant puzzle.
As teenagers, my friends and I would occasionally ski on one ski, with the other foot just hanging out. We skied a crap-ton (still do) so it was just a fun change of pace. Turns out that on ONESKI, turning one direction is completely normal and easy, and the other direction is very awkward.
For a while I was close to convincing myself that I could imagine crying “NAI” after a triumph. Couldn’t quite get there with FOODCO as an Easter egg-making necessity. NUCLEAR was my Aha moment, but surely wouldn’t have worked well for W43, who at least managed to keep us out of nukular war.
@Pablo. Very sorry for your loss of Fenway.
I’m definitely for inducting this puzzle into the Hall of Fame. Thanks, Kevin Patterson.
This is one of those days where I took the time to read comments before posting my own. Sometimes I end up disliking a puzzle and then realize it was just because there was something I missed. Such was not the case today and I have to echo @Weezie and @Nancy. I found it difficult and frustrating, not because I didn’t see the conceit but it was frustration with the proper names and trivia that killed the joy. Great theme idea though and brilliant construction.
This puzgrid is a real mess. Asymmetric(al) fillins. 48 black squares. Jaws of Themelessness but with a theme. Luv it. M&A's kind of puz-makin.
Theme is also real different. Luv it even more.
A few tough spots: EBIKE (kinda inferable, tho -- online bike, right?). ANNEE (French clue and answer-- ANNIE in French, right?). cousin GREG. GRETA (do now vaguely recall this person, tho). AVICII.
funny spot: ONESKI. debut green paint phraseology.
staff weeject pick: NAI. This is where M&A caught on to the puztheme mcguffin. And this was without even havin figured out yet what the 1-Down revealer said. honrable mention to NUC, of course.
fave things: ROTUND clue. ANNIE & ANNEE. BOWWOWWOW [would look really great, as: BOVVVVOVVVVOVV]. ONESKI & TWOD [would make a great comic strip title].
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Patterson dude. 'EL of a ThursPuz.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. Relieved to see that M&A's dreamcatcher-enabled chantin has purged the Italican scourge from yesterday's blog comments. [Suspected it would work, after havin purged PEWITs from the puz, in the past.]
**gruntz**
Yep, tough! I got most of it filled in with out figuring out the trick. So, like pretty much everybody, I needed to stop and stare for a while to make sense of what didn’t make sense. I finally had my “a ha” moment and finished. The V in OVA was my last entry because AVICII was a major WOE!
Fiendishly clever, liked it a bunch, a well deserved POW from Xwordinfo.
Proudly DNF on the AVICII/OVA crossing. Maybe OVA would have come to me if I'd run the alphabet, but I was fixated on Star Trek, partly because there was a story about it on the facing page of the NYT.
Despite that, the theme was fun. I had FOODC and figured there must be a rebus, either olor or oloring, but held off until I could find more of them. I just shrugged off NAI, and was willing to accept NUC as another way of spelling nuke. And then I got O RING, said, 'hey, that's a lot like oloring!' and noticed, at last, the big Ls. Wow! After that I just had to change RAMmer to RAMROD, Angora to ANKARA, and parse TWOD incorrectly as someone's flat number. (Sincere question: how is either two-dimensional or two-D 'short' for flat?)
My favorite thing about the whole puzzle, however, was the question mark i the clue for 12-D, "Underground rock?" -- used to indicate that the puzzle is referring to actual rock which is actually underground, rather than some metaphor or other. It's the other side of saying 'literally' to mean 'figuratively.'
Like many others, I am now wondering how I could have taken so long to notice the Ls.
And does anyone know what the French word for July is?
Loren at 6.12AM. "And. There. Are. No. Extraneous. Ls. Anywhere". I think "LowPh" qualifies as extraneous, don't you? No biggie, but for the sake of accuracy ... May I call you "Oren" in future? And to those who disagreed with OFL on "nicety", check that definition again. Rex "Nailed it"!
To borrow a syllable from the puzzle:
WOW
Those of you who think you know all about Will Shortz and his level of interest in diversity and inclusion and modernity (this includes you, Rex) should read his interview in The New Yorker. He's interviewed by Liz Maynes-Aminzade, puzzles-and-games editor at The New Yorker, so the questions are well-informed. There's even some interesting news about his personal life (which I won't spoil for you).
I had ANKARA, crossing IMAGE, got flummoxed by other stuff, gave up, threw Ankara cat into Google and only got ANgoRA answers back, verified ANgoRA rabbits and goats are a thing (wasn't sure about either) so I deleted both IMAGE and swapped to ANgoRA. Which of course stopped me from getting the NW until the very end.
Sometimes cheating costs, folks.
I really struggled until I figured out the theme -- then it was easy. The gimmick is very cool. Having the down portions also be standalone answers would have been perfect, but I imagine it was impossible.
Favorite entries: GRAMMARPOLICE, AVICII (RIP) and BOWWOWWOW (which would have been a head-spinner in yesterday's grid!). Least favorite: ONESKI, which is really bad.
Costly error: iNveNtoR as a descriptor for Ford and Tesla.
"Prestige TV" -- what does that even mean? Is there nothing that Rex can't spin as elitist or whatever fits into his class warfare narrative? To me, "Succession" is simply fun television, and GREG is a hilarious character. I get that many people may not like the show, care about it or even know it exists, but that doesn't mean they are somehow being excluded from some sort of snooty club.
GRAMMARPOLICE had the best clue ever!!!
Because I happen to be a pesky grammarian myself, I immediately focused on either “hens laying” or “card layers laying down,” figuring that is where the wordplay lay. Flummoxed, I finally had to move on. Further in I did decide that the answer had to be GRAMMARPOLICE or GRAMMARian, and I would just have to figure out the trick to make one of them fit.
I almost finished the puzzle but was still completely stumped by the themer. At close to the two hour mark I finally raised the white flag so my husband read Rex’s blog and told me about the five L-shaped black squares. It was then that I noticed ICE, and was on my way. I don’t know if I ever would have figured it out myself. And even then I still had a Natick remaining and had to run the vowel alphabet before I got TIC. Never once thought of tic tac toe.
So I must TAKE THE L on this one! Lesson learned; pay attention to the shapes on the grid, just in case.
Call me Team Nancy today. Did not see the Ls. Had NUC and NAI and still couldn't get it. Got BOWWOWWOW from crosses altho I'm old enough. Also AVICII, new to me. Never heard "take the L", must be sports stuff. Was thinking "take the hit", rebus maybe, but no go.
Rare day when I do not finish 🤔.
If (in English) July to July is a year shouldn’t (in French) the second “juillet” start with a capital letter? Another “off” clue to compound an already challenging puzzle. IMO.
But why, then, in the clue, isn’t the second “juillet” capitalized???
Oh, and @Nancy -- TAKE THE D has a very, very different meaning.
RIP Fenway ♥️
Sorry Pablo
Whooooo!!! 🎉
@Upstate George
The L in LOWPH is not extraneous.
It's key to the reveal: TAKE THE L.
@Lodsf@aol 12:11. Clue isn’t off. You are. Months aren’t capitalized in French except at the start of a sentence. This is a nice subtlety of the clue (and also a Nice subtlety).
Same as it did for Rex, today’s puzzle vindicated me by confirming it’s called FOOD COLORING and not FOOD DYE as some other less worthy puz weakly attempted to assert some days ago.
Unfortunately, it also tried to convince my brain that T.W.O.D. was an ultrahip or perhaps obsolete acronym for a flat tire……
Observation: the grid is symmetrical if the last black square of each L-shape is replaced with a white square.
I don't think "nicety" is necessarily pejorative or that all niceties are by definition fussy or prissy. Neither does M-W. I would consider a hot towel before a meal
2: an elegant, delicate, or civilized feature
I agree that the New Yorker interview with Will Shortz is well worth your time.
It was a relief finding the gimmick, at last, and the puzzle almost won me over at that point, but still I find some parts disagreeable.
To boil it down, the puzzle struck me as "cooler than thou". Yeah, TAKE THE L, that's what the cool kids say, and we're supposed to know that. Bah.
I've heard of neither an ANKARA rabbit, nor an ANKARA cat, nor an ANKARA goat. I mean, WTH. Of course the constructor knew we might try "ANgoRA" first. (Apparently the same thing! But different spelling.)
Another near miss: wanting iOTa before MOTE.
Had "carina" before MI AMOR. Seems odd to call "my love" (in translation) a "term of endearment". I think of a term of endearment as something like "honey bunny" or "bunnykins" or "pookie". Not "my love"; that sounds more formal and stilted.
"TING". Oh, is that the verb then. Who knew. I knew it was in the vein of "rapping the side of your glass with a spoon", but as echoic words go, it seems no better than "tink" or "dink". Or "ding" might be the best of all.
Cousin GREG. I've seen a few episodes, and I basically find every character in it, and their annoying hip corporate-speak, loathsome, so no wonder I had trouble. I thought fREd at first. Looking him up, I remember, oh yes, that pusillanimous twit. (And now I feel bad for the actor.)
TWOD -- yick. I would think 2D would be universal, but not this rendering. The way the letters are jammed together like that is unattractive, all the more as it comes directly below LOWPH. ("Louf?" No, LOW PH.)
Before the theme forced me to accept EDIT, I wanted I DOS. I knew the name and spelling AVICII, not because I'm "cool" by any stretch*, but simply by having kids in the car with XM radio on in times past. But that didn't jibe with the O in IDOS. I was thinking then that the theme wanted me to interchange vowels in some tricky way, and so like Rex, I tried working with "uNiSKI" for a while.
I'm pausing over IMAGE for "GIF, e.g.". Hmmm. In the first place, I usually think of a GIF as a brief repeating clip that consists not in a single (static) IMAGE, but several seconds' worth of moving images in sequence. In the second place, both "GIF" and "e.g." are abbreviations but IMAGE is not, so there is some annoying misdirection and foul play afoot.
ANNEE was tough to see -- I focused too much on upper case J versus lower case j. Duh.
OMAR Sharif. Well, if that isn't a crossword blast from the past.
*Similarly, I knew BOW WOW WOW not because I'm "cool", but because MTV was just coming out in that era and I watched all that shit ad infinitum. ("I'm on-a Mexican, radio.") Plus, who could forget the young bra-less hottie who did lead vocals on "I Want Candy"? Her IMAGE, anyway.
SB: I think 0 the last three days, but I don't keep records. I probably should. BTW: we had RANDO the other day -- I think enough time has elapsed where I can say it aloud. Is that a recent addition? I thought I had tried RANDO in the past and it didn't work.
New Yorker?Shortz Interview
(Password may be required).
I actually found it medium difficulty for a Thursday, and was quite pleased to take the Ls. Even the asymmetry seemed right somehow. And, you silly L objectors, the L in LOW PH does not count as "extraneous" because it is also the revealer!!
Agree with Rex about the names; a few too many, especially AVICII.
I always have to stop and think whether it's MACAW or MACAU.
[Spelling Bee: yd... well it's complicated. Last night I got to -1, finally getting that last 4er of @Barbara S 8:13 am. Then this morning had one last shot and got this 6er (that definition is not what I expected!). I'm going to count it as successful because it extends my QB streak to 6!]
TWOD? DEPORT yourself.
I liked so much of this but hated Avicii. Oh well! Memorizing that for the future
If you don’t get 1 D (never heard of it), then it’s hopeless. D minus.
To L with it!
Loved this puzzle. My favorite of the year so far... by far. I was very confused for a long time until GRAMMARPO... then it clicked. Loved that aha moment!
To me, this was the perfect Thursday puzzle. A classic, IMO.
Chip
I would love to read the New Yorker piece on Will Shortz, but, alas, they've put up their online Firewall. Maybe my library branch has a copy? I'll try. This Firewall thing is always so frustrating. Do people actually take out a subscription every time they want to read an article and can't? (I'm looking at you, too, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" WaPo.)
On another topic: Remember our AI blog discussion a few days ago? This long and eye-opening piece hasn't appeared in the paper edition of the NYT yet, but my brother just forwarded me the online article. All I can say is that I GUARANTEE this will be the creepiest and most alarming real-life article about AI that you will ever read -- at least at this stage of its development! (I hope the NYT doesn't shut you out of reading the piece the way The New Yorker has shut me out of reading about Will Shortz.)
Interesting solve.
(Open) Gee, that's a weird-looking grid- looks like "L"s
And then, yes, forgot all about it... even when
(early on) I get TAKE THE L from hearing my 18-year-old talk.
So now I'm looking for individual answers missing an L.
I solve and put POT DEN for "Joint stockholders" Realize it's MACAW and think "OK, I guess that was supposed to be POT DEAL" and think I've found my first L-less answer.
Then I get to NUC and think "That might be the worst abbreviation in crossword history".
And the light comes on.
I too was berating myself for taking too long to suss the big L gimmick, then relieved to learn that so many others including OFL had similar experience.
These observations may have already been made (I have to admit just skimming most other commons at this point in the day), but—
Names of months (and days of the week) are not routinely capitalized in French.
The one “extraneous” L in the grid completes the 1-Down (cool position!) revealer, and incidentally begins 35-Across low pH (excellent clue and answer IMO).
The grid becomes symmetrical if the black square that creates the short horizontal leg of each big L is replaced by a white square containing L—another legitimate way to parse the theme, I’d say.
Overall a fantastic Thursday puzzle! Thanks, Kevin Patterson.
Well, nuc, for example is not a thing, so I guess you get credit for finishing the puzzle while discovering a new form of alternative energy.
Hey @Roo
I just got QB, too, so it must be an easy one today.
TWOD was the last thing I put, as I had “trod” previously but when I finished the puzzle it said keep trying. I thought grass might become flat after being Trod on..
because of that I pronounced “twod” as trod with a lisp and was quite confused.
Année i originally had as “Un Ans” which would have been more correct. You don’t usually use “année” to refer to a 12 month increment. That’s an ans. Année is for saying you had a good year, “une bonne année”
Well, we now know who to thank for the spate of recent ass sightings in the NYTXW! Thanks for that link, @JC66.
I'm sorry to learn of your loss of Fenway, @pabloinnh.
I agree with @Joe Dipinto that NICETY doesn't imply fussiness. And that hot towels can be delightful without being prissy.
Definitely TOOK THE L today. I never guessed, never would have guessed, that you literally ride on the L to complete your answer. I figured the letter L had somehow been taken away from either a clue or an answer.
Pretty clever! And it is Thursday, but I don't remember seeing that particular gimmick before.
A hot-dogger may land off a jump on a single SKI. But the other will follow. You can't expect him or her to stay on a single SKI all the way down.
Hands up for confidently writing in Angora instead of ANKARA. I had no idea until today that critters are named after the Turkish capital.
That's the revealer
Great “slap my forehead” moment when FOODCO fell. As Rex said, it was breezy after that. Wonderfully clever puzzle. I’m not sure how I got ‘em all - AVICII especially dependent on crosses. But fall they did and I loved it. Yay, Thursdays!
@JC66 (3:31 PM) 👍 for QB! :)
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Tough tough tough. But so cool when it FINALLY becomes clear!
@Gary Jugert (9:49)
Loved your feline-related clues of today and yesterday. Really chuckled over that ride into the Grand Canyon.
@Roo Monster (10:03)
YEE-HAW!
@okanaganer (1:20 PM)
Your 6er was my second last word. [Cue the scary music...] But I never looked up the definition, assuming I knew what it meant!
@webwinger (2:57 PM)
Good to SEE you here!
@pabloinnh (9:06)
I feel for you and your wife. Big electronic hug.
Agree that the Shortz interview was interesting. Last Q & A:
Q:You’re sticking it out until at least the fortieth anniversary.
A:I’m sticking it out until I come out horizontally.
Another excerpt from the Will Shortz interview:
The second biggest change that happened is that constructors now receive copies of their edited and typeset puzzles before they appear in print, so they have a chance to comment and ask for changes if they want. In the old days, I always knew that was a nice thing to do, but we simply didn't have the time.
I wonder if the constructors here (@Nancy, @Lewis, anyone else?) could comment on how responsive the NYTXW editors have been to changes you've asked for, since this new policy came in.
The French do not capitalize the names of months. The first juillet is capitalized simply because first word of a crossword clue is always capitalized.
Sauvignon Blanc is a grape. It can be made into wine. That wine can be sweet, dry, or anywhere in between. Sauternes, a famous sweet wine, often has Sauvignon blanc in the blend. Just a terrible, awful clue. Really frustrating to find that was the answer after refusing to enter it earlier in my solve and ending up finishing in the SW with that.
Because you don't capitalize month names in French
I wavered over “TWOD” for “Flat, for short” and guessed correctly, but have no idea what it means? I’m still a newbie, so anytime I solve Thursday it’s a Major Triumph 😎
@Nancy 2:34 pm, re Will Shortz article at New Yorker: in my Firefox browser, even though I'm not a subscriber I am not blocked by a paywall (a big box comes up, mostly blocking my view, but it has a little arrow that makes it slide away). Maybe there is a limit on number of free articles? If so, you could try using a different browser than your normal one.
What a slog. Thursdays are usually my favorite. This one was a dud.
no caps, whispered.
i think a trolling anon told several people, including moi, to take the l. if you skipped his posts or have managed to erase his memory from your head, congrats.
shh, do not want to woke wake or poke him. shh.
Regarding a discussion from last week with T Trimble et al, there is a thoughtful oped in today’s Times called In Defense of JK Rowling. I recommend it to anyone who has an open mind.
Do the GRAMMAR POLICE object to the superfluous "that" in the clue for 4 Down (Ones who don't want to hear that you're laying down on the job)? There's no need for "that" in between the words 'hear' and 'you're.'
Those extra "thats" drive me crazy whenever I read them. Reading books on my Kindle app, I always highlight the unnecessary "that" throughout the book. My last book had over 150 of them!
@Barbara S. -- It's never come up since the change came about; I've been pleased with the final edit. But I have read in notes from constructors where their requests were certainly listened to and sometimes honored, other times not.
@Elena Rodriguez
Thanks for the JK Rowling heads-up.
For those interested, Here's the link.
@Barbara -- I don't remember ever asking them to make a change. They're pros at what they do and the final version has always looked perfectly good to me. It also helps not to have any idea if your original clues have been changed or not. And I never do. Usually a full year has passed since I wrote them; I have clued several other puzzles in the interim; and I have the world's worst memory -- so all I tend to remember are the themer and revealer clues. Everything else is a blur. And since I don't know how to get two different windows up on my screen at the same time, I can't place our version and the final version side by side to compare them. So I end up not comparing them.
Everyone who has communicated with us has been very pleasant. They seem to want us to be happy with the final product. Since neither Will Nediger nor I are divas, I imagine that if some sort of objection on our part were to arise, they would try to accommodate us.
The JK Rowling piece did not appear in today's print edition. But sometimes things show up a day or two earlier online. Perhaps it's slated for tomorrow.
To be fair to the inclusion of Avicii, he was probably the most popular non pop-star (Gaga and Sheeran) artist of the 2010's. Not knowing him is like not knowing Radiohead, Daft Punk or Brian Eno.
Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Lost my 414 day streak on this one. Just couldn't fill in the last few squares, never saw the revealer. Ah, well! Now that I know, great puzzle. :)
Rex, you outdid yourself today! Was outfoxed. I grew up in NY in the shadow of the (e)L. I shoulda known better.
Anonymous @ 3:38 PM: une année and un an (no 's' in the singular) both mean "year" but they have different usages.
"An” is usually used with a number: when saying your age, or counting years with cardinal numbers (one, two, three..). It’s also use with frequency: saying how many times per year you do something.
Année” is used to describe the whole year span, and is mostly used with ordinal numbers (first, second, third…), in expressions introducing indefinite quantities (several years, thousands of years…), and other expressions such as your example " bonne année”
Passez une bonne journée! 😉
A hot towel is a "necessity" on an international flight, not just a NICETY! But you have to be sitting up front to get one these days! 😕
😿
Juillet to juillet made me focus on the meaning of the lower case j. I didn’t realize months are not capitalized in French unless they are at the beginning of a sentence!
I think they take issue with “laying down” instead of “lying down.”
Grammar police: Mudd Club
2D as in two-dimensional / flat.
Loved the theme, although the revealer didn't really land for me. Still, a really fun puzzle.
Awful puzzle. Too many arcane terms. Wtf is “take the L” ( unless you’re going from Williamsburg to Manhattan)
I got this done, but please don't ask me how. Even after discovering what the L it was all about, I was still being challenged. LOWPH right on top of TWOD, that patch was a loooong time surfacing.
With those obvious black-square Ls (five of them, to coincide with the revealer clue) it wasn't hard to get TAKETHEL. Great, reveal at 1-down. This'll be a snap. Yeah right. Now: how or where do we "take" them? That also came soon enough, but a couple of the longer entries proved really troublesome. A ton of never-heard-ofs: RANDO, AVICII, GREG as clued, and the improbable BOWWOWWOW. Talk about a challenge to fit into a grid!
Triumph points go off the scale. Glad it's behind me? GODYES! Birdie.
Near-eagle birdie on Wordle, just a stain away.
WOW, GODYES
GRETA don't care for AMBIENCE much,
TAKETHE RANDO DURESS she WORE -
THE LOW-cut TING was meant to TOUCH,
not just AVIEW of MIAMOR.
--- BARON OMAR L. ROE
I "got it" about 1.3 seconds after putting in the last letter. What the L???
A good joke on me.
And I had plenty of "cheats" to help me. I'll just grin and FANG it.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords, A Fool for Thursdays
@D,LIW - exactly. What the L? I didn't notice them for a long time. Then aha. Made it easier to finish it for sure.
Lucky wordle eagle with TRAIN for a start that eliminated a couple potential wrong options.
I never noticed them. I came here to figure out why some answers were soooooo wrong.
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