Word of the Day: Ralph Nader (39D: One with an "If You Choose the Lesser of Two Evils—You Are Still Choosing Evil" bumper sticker, perhaps => NADERITE) —
Ralph Nader (/ˈneɪdər/; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.
The son of Lebanese immigrants to the United States, Nader attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He first came to prominence in 1965 with the publication of the bestselling book Unsafe at Any Speed, a highly influential critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers. Following the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader led a group of volunteer law students—dubbed "Nader's Raiders"—in an investigation of the Federal Trade Commission, leading directly to that agency's overhaul and reform. In the 1970s, Nader leveraged his growing popularity to establish a number of advocacy and watchdog groups including the Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen. Two of Nader's most notable targets were the Chevy Corvair and the Ford Pinto.
Nader made four bids to become President of the United States, running with the Green Party in 1996 and 2000, the Reform Party in 2004, and as an independent in 2008. In each campaign, Nader said he sought to highlight under-reported issues and a perceived need for electoral reform. He received nearly three million votes during his 2000 candidacy, but also stirred controversy over allegations that his campaign helped Republican candidate George W. Bush win a close election against Democratic candidate Al Gore. (wikipedia)
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OK, some of these answers are insane, but some of them are *so* insane that I actually kinda like them. NIXIE, LOL, what?! (61A: Dead letter, in a mail sorter's vernacular). Postal worker slang! I'm here for it! What other kinds of crazy terms do those folks have, I need to know. And NADERITE, wow, talk about someone who had completely dropped from my consciousness. The political landscape has, let's say, changed since 2000, which is the last time I remember Nader being truly newsworthy, and I can't imagine anyone actually identifying as a NADERITE, but they must have, right? Think "Bernie Bros" avant la lettre. Mostly guys, really disparaging of the two-party system. I think "Bernie Bros" is largely pejorative in a way NADERITE is (was) largely not, but there's a similar vibe (to be clear, I am officially neutral on this whole "spoiler candidate" topic—talk amongst yourselves, or, you know, don't). NADERITE made me go "whaaaaat?" and then "ok yeah sure, that was a thing ... and certainly an original answer." I was retroactively mad at NADERITE, though, because it kinda spoiled JUNEAUITE for me. That is, I like JUNEAUITE better—it definitely looks more insane—but I couldn't give it all the love it deserved because of the previous -ITE, which made me think "OH HELL NO, not another roll-your-own -ITE word!" But again, the sheer weirdness of both terms, coupled with the puzzle's audacity at including *both* of them in one grid, kinda sorta won me over. The only answers I actually didn't like today were NONPUBLIC (mostly because the clue was so boringly straightforward it felt like a joke (59A: Private)), and WARBLOGS, but in that case, I just don't know what those are. What are those? Blogs about war? Blogs where people just randomly fight? This is my first time seeing the term. Looks like they are what they say the are: blogs covering an ongoing war. Oof, looks like they're also called MILBLOGS, please don't cruciverbially perpetrate that term on me any time soon. The term was coined post-9/11. "Most warblogs supported the US-led War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War from a hawkish perspective" (wikipedia). Barf. But overall, I didn't think the puzzle was barf at all. Hard, yes, mostly, but properly so for a Saturday. And ... if not exactly zippy, at least thorny and strange enough to be interesting.
Took a very weird path into this one, after having totally struck out in the NW corner to start things off (that would end up being the hardest corner by far). I actually put my first answer down right at one of the two biggest sticking points in the grid for me. I dropped DUOS and TORUS and then slid downward from there. I *tried* to slide upward toward the NW, but could *not* get a handle on the nearby short answers (these ended up being POST and SLOP, but at the time, they could've been anything—SLOP, really?). So this was the beginning:
I love the sad, lonely (and ultimately wrong) AT SEA just floating up there in the NW corner, perfectly reflecting my experience of that same corner. From here, I went VELLUM / QUEER LIT very quickly (both terms being very familiar from my day job), and the SW corner ended up being a total pussycat (the nice kind, not the scratchy/hissy kind). After that, I could see from -UPQU- that 35A: They have everyone buzzing (TOSS-UP QUESTIONS) was going to be something-UP QUESTIONS, but absolutely positively could not figure out what those first four letters might be. The word "buzzing" in the clue had me completely distracted. Was the answer about bees, or some other literally buzzing? I could think of only one -UP QUESTION, and that was a FOLLOW-UP QUESTION, so I was still completely locked out of the NW. No path in. I went instead down to the SE, where I hit my second most significant snag: YADA crossing NADERITE and SWANKEST. I had YUCK and then YAWN at 49A: "Blah" alternative, and I really Really liked "YAWN," so ... that hurt. But eventually it was clear that YAWN was the problem, so I pulled it and YADA went in and I "got it"—you'd say "blah blah blah" when representing someone's yammering, or when you just wanted to pass over unimportant talk, and YADA YADA YADA is basically the same. YADA / NADERITE ... rough spot no. 2. After that, I made steady Saturday-style progress through the rest of the grid, no real problems. Being able (eventually) to throw JUJUBE up into the NE corner really Really helped a lot (easy to bring down longer answers when you start with "J"s in the first positions).
Notes:
19A: School co-founded by Albert Einstein in 1918, informally (HEBREW U.) — I've honestly never heard of this place. Needed almost every cross, and even with HEBREW- in place I was inclined to write in HEBREWS. It's in Jerusalem, in case you (like me) didn't know.
15A: Clear one's head? (SHAVE) — the absurdity of this clue made me laugh. I was like "oh god a question-mark clue on 'head' this could go ten thousand directions." Turns out it was just a literal, actual human head being "cleared" of hair.
28A: Round bits (ZEROES) — because they are literally round. I had CAROLS in here for a few seconds ... something something music something about songs something something I don't know, it made sense at the time ...
1D: "Perhaps I have what you're looking for?" ("IS THIS IT?") — Love this, and especially love it next to the equally colloquial (and potentially responsive?) "OH HELL NO!"
See you tomorrow, or whenever.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mike Piazza used to play for the New York Mets, thus 65A: Piazza, for one = EX-MET
Once again, super-challenging for me in the NW. The rest played like a Medium Saturday but the NW remained a sea of white. Finally guessed IOWAS at 1A. Consulted with Sergey and Larry for HEBREW U at 19A and eventually got the long downs after changing not to ILL at 22A.
My only other major overwrite was CAN'T fail before miSs before LOSE at 8D.
A puzzle billed as RIBALD and STEAMY, but it didn’t quite live up to the promise. Instead we got JACKASSES and an IM A JERK, so a missed opportunity there.
OSRIC and VELLUM sound like something left over from vaudeville.
I’m definitely drawing a blank on the click that gets doubled. I’ve heard of TSK, TSK obviously, but how does click enter into the equation. Maybe a computer icon? Help!
Difficult - but approachable and satisfying in the end. Misdirects everywhere - wanted “flush” for clear ones head. Lots of scrabbly letters added to the quirkiness. I liked JUJUBE - that U backed me into HEBREW U. Best friend is an ex postal employee so knew the term NIXIE cold.
OSRIC was a gimme but there was some oddball trivia - TABITHA, WAR BLOGS, JUNEAUITE?? Like the digitalness of the ZEROES clue. KERNAL, AROUSAL, STEAMY are all top notch. Biggest YADA for me was KNEADERS.
Enjoyable Saturday solve. As tricky as this was - Stella’s Stumper today brings the heat.
Third week in a row with a Saturday puzzle worthy of the day. Not as tough as the last two, but certainly put up a fight.
It’s nice when the marquee answer – in today’s case the only grid-spanner – has the best clue.
My start was eerily similar to Rexes, including the incorrect AT SEA 'confirmed' by AVER. I didn't have TORUS, and I had three answers in the far NE, but otherwise identical.
I do not work nor have I ever worked for the postal service, but somehow NIXIE was in the old noggin.
Wow. Here we have a third Saturday in a row with a constructor whose puzzles are not simply fill-in-the-grid, but events (Hi, @kitshef!). Puzzles stamped with personality and that je-ne-sais-quoi that gets the heart and brain shivering with anticipation, followed at the end by pure confirmation and “Can’t wait for their next one!”
(Previous two Saturdays: Kameron Austin Collins and Sid Sivakumar.)
Byron’s puzzles are marked with freshness, no-junk-ness, clue ingenuity, and constructing acumen: • Freshness. His puzzles are always rich with NYT answer debuts, today 11, including I’M A JERK, IS THIS IT, QUEER LIT, SO EASY, TOSS UP QUESTIONS, and UP AND QUIT. • Lack of junk. No explanation needed, just a scan of this spotless grid. As always with Byron. • Clue-genuity. Overall excellence from start to finish, but I especially liked [“Blah” alternative] for YADA and [Piazza, for one] for EX-MET. • Constructing acumen. Four stacks, a high-count 17 long answers (eight letters or more), and did I mention, no junk?
Lotso’ Scrabbliness (just an F short of a pangram) to buzz up an already buzzy puzzle, and even a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap: STRAW. All colored by the so-pleasing quirkiness that Byron’s puzzles exude.
Crosslandia is privileged to have you, Byron. You set the bar high, and you meet it time and time again with your never-stale creations. Thank you for that, and for such a sweet and satisfying outing today!
I thought Rex’s word of the day would be TABITHA Babbitt, given the unusualness of a woman inventing the circular saw. (Instead we got the execrable NADERITE, reminding me of the reason we got W, the Iraq War, and the financial meltdown- yes, I took Rex’s bait!)
Anyway, I looked her up and learned that she came up with the idea for the circular saw after watching men use a two-man whipsaw, with half their effort wasted. She also invented false teeth! She was a Shaker and did not patent any of her inventions.
Oh yes, the puzzle. This was very hard and very satisfying to finish. I agree that the NW was brutal, but all of it was pretty hard. Once I finally gave up on “pork” (belly and barrel), the SW fell quickly. TOSS UP QUESTIONS led me into the SE. I hesitated on SWANKEST because I thought it needed an I. In the NE, I had put in JUJUBE early on but pulled it because the letter combo just didn’t look like it could be right (especially an answer ending in U). I adore JUJUBEs and any chewy candies - Dots, gummy worms, Swedish fish. I bought Swedish fish in Sweden once, and I’m sorry, they don’t taste right there. And did you know they have Ikeas in Sweden too? Man, they are everywhere!
Like others, I stuck way too long with “not” suited in the NW instead of ILL. That led me to I found IT instead of IS THIS IT and some ILL-SUITED grumbling about how the clue was tentative but the answer was definitive. Ah, me.
Also in the NW, IN GOD took me ridiculously long, and the Jaques Cousteau answer was the opposite of where I thought the clue was taking me. I imagined Cousteau rhapsodizing about how the sea was the universal mother or the universal womb or something like that with five letters. Universal SEWER? Eww. But sadly accurate.
So the puzzle was not SO EASY, and I admit there were times I wanted to UP AND QUIT. But did I? OH, HELL NO.
I am completely missing why TOSSUP QUESTIONS have everyone buzzing. Probably because I've never seen TOSSUP QUESTION(s) as a phrase. Does it have some special meaning other than something that could go either way?
Also, another hand up for "flush" before SHAVE. Didn't want to let go of it.
Such pleasures abound in a puzzle of this caliber. To make a wild guess that turns out to be not wild but “right on”. A QU here leading to SQUID and QUIT, leading to UPANDQUIT with its lilting sounds; ADAB dredged up from memories of Brylcreme’s “A little dab’ll do you”; remember when listening to commercials was FUN? A few lucky encounters with “right up my alley words, like VELLUM (having taught medieval manuscripts for twelve years before abandoning the groves of academe (for the vineyards of California). Wanted YORIC before OSRIC, even though an actor playing a skull would be quite a stretch. Wanted a Jeopardy question for tossup, because if the buzzing, but that wouldn’t fit. Finished up with E__MET and stared at that for a couple of eons, finally capitulated and wrote in the “X”, getting my “Congratulations!” With no idea of what “exmet “ meant until reading Rex. (Even just now the software tried again and again to autocorrect that word.
Funny, I wanted ISTHISIT for 1D right away, started in the NE instead and forgot all about it until I eventually ended in the NW again and I had to think of it all over again. Took me fore ver to see THREW and SEWER but in they went and done and happy I was.
The "Babbit" clue involving a saw had me thinking of Ashley Babbit, another famous saw wielder, and I was very happy that it was not she.
Exactly what I want in a Saturday BW. Beautiful Work, as usual, and thanks for all the fun.
And now the Stumper will have to wait as we're off to do grandchildren things.
I really surprised myself by getting this one done with zero googling. It was painful but also fun and there were some really good “oh ok!” Answers. Loved RIBALD and TOSSUPQUESTIONS and for some reason KNEADERS. I kept thinking “bread” would refer to money so the fact that it actually referred to “bread” was sorta brilliant? Really was looking for Trader or banker or something thereabouts. Thanks as usual. I thought word of the day would be Tabitha Babbit!
This thing was a super challenge. Tons of vagueness, and then the trivia that is supposed to give you a solid handle is WAY too trivial. A NADER bumper sticker????? No way. No way at all.
ISTHISIT and UPANDQUIT and CANTLOSE and PROVABLE and even TOSSUPQUESTIONS are all fine enough long answers, but ALL are vague and vaguely clued. "They have everyone buzzing..." My dudes, that could be ANYTHING.
Having IM Awful before IM A JERK really fouled up the SE corner. Loved the answers DREAMLIKE and JUJUBE! Favorite clues were for ZEROES, DRY (causing an audible “whaaat” from me), and SITS. Found this puzzle to be easy and smooth until the very end where I had NW and SE corners holding me up. Had to look up OSRIC but that was it. Good times! -Brando
ZEROES is a little more nuanced than ‘because they are literally round.’ When you see it as computer bits, it’s actually a nicely clever clue.
Really enjoyed the walkthrough on OFL’s solve though. Made me feel better for having to get to the middle or bottom of the puzzle before I could finally find a toe hold.
Hand up for both. “Pork” and “beer” remind me of a friend who works in the US Foreign Service and was assigned once to Saudi Arabia. Because pork and alcohol are forbidden there, embassy workers got coupons allowing them to get a limited supply of each. People who just had to have bacon would trade their alcohol coupons for the pork coupons of people who couldn’t manage without beer. Craving both, I’d have been in trouble.
And until I ran the alphabet to get the Z, I was trying to figure out how hEROES were round bits. The sandwiches are kinda round?
Hey All ! Phew! Toughie today, but battled on, rereading the same clues 163 times, trying to get the ole brain to play nice with me. Read clue, frown, move to another clue, read clue, frown, move to another clue, repeat. Until something finally clicks.
What works for me sometimes is just writing in what could possibly be the answer, seeing if I can get an answer by pattern recognition. Sometimes I erase what I already put in, to see if I can twist said brain into seeing something else. I had to employ both strategies today to finish this puz.
But, Alas! "Almost There!" when I threw my last letter in. Argh! Too much for me to go back to try to find the error of my ways, I hit Check Puzzle and it crossed out the B I had at PRObABLE/bELLUM. Wha? Said I. "What else could that be?" Absolutely nothing was coming to mind, so did an alphabet run of physically typing each letter (minus the vowels) into that space until the V hit. PROVABLE. Ouch. VELLUM, bELLUM, let's call the whole thing off
A pretty cool SatPuz for this non-WIZ. I'm guessing it's a Pangram without checking. I see the Q,Z,J,X. Better be an F in here (said before looking.) 😁
Have a great weekend!
Har ... No F's - TSK TSK - CANT LOS... er, Win. RooMonster DarrinV
My finish was like CWT’s, a real head-scratcher for us non-sportball types. In my personal dictionary “swank” is a noun; the adjective is “swanky.” So “swankiest” would be a word, I suppose, but SWANKEST is a non-word spoken by no one ever. Today’s joys: Learning about Tabitha Babbitt (thanks, Wanderlust) and listening to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, those masters of Piedmont blues.
For some reason IOWAS was the first thing to pop into my head at 1A, and IS THIS IT at 1D, so I got off to a better start than Rex, but there was still plenty of fight in this one, and I too loved its crazy energy. NADERITE!
Happy accident wrong answer: sPeeD QUIT. I knew there was no way it could be right, but that led to APU and confirmed A DAB, and those led me to JUNEAUITE. I really wanted 6A to be dumb ASSES, but I figured that would be a little too vulgar for the Gray Lady. (At least it feels more vulgar than JACK ASSES for some reason, right?)
TBillS then TnOtes before TBONDS. tADA before YADA
@Anonymous 8:01: In some game shows, contestants “buzz” in to answer TOSS UP QUESTIONS, questions that can be answered by anyone.
Medium, with a couple of tougher spots. I made my way in through DEEM x SQUID, which opened up the NE for me and prepared the way for a clockwise slow-but-steady traversal of the grid. I thought Byron Walden threw us a few more sops than usual, for example the neighboring ORAL EXAM, JINX, and MANGE that took care of the SE. Going clockwise meant I had to back into the SW, using the crosses from QUEER LIT and SLICER; fortunately I knew SALT PETER, which had that helpful P for DUMP. The the hardest part: ascending into the NW. A lucky guess at POST x SLOP got me TOSS, and with IN GOD, I was set. Last in: HEBREW U x WIZ.
Do-overs: YAwn, STall before STRAW, by RADAR. Help from previous puzzles: OH HELL NO. No idea: NIXIE - I seriously considered NIXon. Hardest for me to parse: ?ER?EL (KERNEL) and ?EROES - fatal solving flaw: running out of steam and giving up in discouragement before really finishing an alphabet run.
A real "keep the faith" puzzle for me -- and when I asked myself if I was likely to finish it, my answer to self was "OH HELL NO!"
Except I didn't have that answer yet. I didn't have anything in the wretched NW corner.
The joy in this puzzle for me was being able to finish it. I was sure I wouldn't. Being in the "battle site" itself was less of a joy as I felt like a JACKASS most of the way. ORAL TEST instead of ORAL EXAM led to all sorts of confusion in the SE: WASPS, not GNATS was what seemed to fit. I'M NOT OK, rather than I'M A JERK was what seemed to fit. (And I so wanted to get to JINX.)
My SE was a hot mess. My NW was as white as snow.
Don't ask. And what the UP QUESTIONS that had everyone buzzing were, I had absolutely no idea. Great clue, btw.
I must say that I'm not at all pleased with WIZ. A WIZ is an Oz-ish or Potter-ish figure. An "ace" is a WHIZ.
But I finally prevailed. And now I finally feel like a bit less of a JACKASS. This puzzle THREW me for a loop on many occasions, but I never wanted to UP AND QUIT. A very worthy Saturday challenge.
I had ACE instead of WIZ, so nothing in the NW worked. I never thought of JACKASSES, but tried to make DUMBASSES work. The lower half of the puzzle was easier, if one accepts SWANKEST as "most chic" (the dictionary does not equate "swank with "chic."
50-Across threw me, messed up the SW corner for quite some time. The clue - word with belly or beer - was so obvious, I instantly typed in PORK. We've all heard of pork belly and pork barrel. But beer? No. Beer belly, yes, of course; beer barrel, no. Those are called kegs.
Can someone explain why toss up questions have everyone buzzing?
This puzzle felt “off” to me. So many answers that just aren’t part of normal English usage. Storms are tracked BYRADAR, not ONRADAR. I would have said NONPUBLIC was a nonstarter. WARBLOGS might be a thing in a very select circle, but it’s ugly and jargony. SWANKEST is very rarely seen compared to SWANKIEST. And KNEADERS seems as forced as saying the sailors with mops are swabbers.
I think it was one of Byron's puzzle that lured me to the @Rex blog. It was one of those: I CAN'T EVEN things and I needed help. AHA! there is a blog who will explain away my nincompoopness. Byron would always scare the pants off me...but then I got bold and looked him square in the eye. I was able to pull up my big girl pants and forge ahead. I did. This was thoroughly enjoyable for me. Why? you ask...Because I was able to flow into some of his wheelhouse mischievousness. I'll start with: JACKASSES. There's a K for KNEADERS and I knew APU so what else could it be....Move on and hope you are right! Two devils staring at me... Is 1A really IOWAS? IS THIS IT had to be correct so it starts with an I. Then O HELL NO also had to be right so I got my O. That's how this got solved by me. Move on to JUNEAUITE. Can it be a word? JUJUBE and APU gave me the first JU and so I penned in JUNEAU and let it sit. Little by little words popping in, mistakes erased, words like RIBALD and AROUSAL and VELLUM and STEAMY just flowing in like they've always belonged. Yes. I got you done - pants intact!. However, after all this joyful work I ended up with a DNF. It was at the end. Maybe because I was exhausted but my error was with NADER. I had NADER ERA. My dead letter was a NIXEE and that Pizza became a EXMAT. Sob. And I was doing so well. I doesn't matter. I am so proud of myself for getting so many correct answers and wondering: Is GNARS a word?
SO EASY! I THREW in downs only but still beat my record Saturday time. Just kidding of course. This thing kicked my TORUS and left me lying in the SEWER. Not surprising since my puzzling capabilities are often ILL SUITED for more difficult Saturdays but at least I didn’t UP AND QUIT.
Thanks, various folks, for the TOSSUP QUESTIONS explainers (I'm the guy who asked). If there's one area further from my personal wheelhouse than sports, I guess it's game shows.
@Photomatte, the existence of "BEER barrel polka" (performed by approximately one jillion different groups) is enough to justify the clue for BEER.
Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun Roll out the barrel, we've got the blues on the run
I was NOT messed up twice in this puzzle. NW white field had only flush & "not" waiting for the eventual "suited". Looking over at suited, ILL eventually replaced it. Also had to check puzzle to find the "NOt"PUBLIC error. It is fun when a Saturday clue is made tough by being blindingly obvious, but initially unbelievable.
Proper tough Saturday. ace>WIZ. dumb>JACK. Sexism toward earlier eras made only name I could form out of __BITHA seem unplausible.
Favorite wrong answer "airtight" for strongest cases, even better than PROVABLE
I’d like to call to order this meeting of the JUNEAUITE NADERITEs, also known as the Order of the NONPUBLIC JACKASSES. In truth, I still detest Nader mightily for handing Bush the election. I really wonder how different this country would be today had Nader stayed out . Of course there’s no guarantee that things would be better, but they’d definitely be different.
Like Rex and everyone else so far, I couldn’t get a real food hold until the SW, so when I got to 37D (Genre for “Fun Home” and “Stone Butch Blues”), I had ______RLIT. I was surprised that there is such a thing as eldeRLIT. Since there’s Young Adult Lit, why didn’t they just call it Old Adult Lit? And what would be in this category? You start looking around and you find a lot of book sites with lists like “50 Best Books About Death and Dying”. I guess I’ll add them to my bucket list.
Would queries that make you puke be called TOSSUPQUESTIONS?
I think I’ll start telling people that I’ve got a thesis defense (ORALEXAM) scheduled when I go for a dental checkup.
Pretty darn tough puzzle, but I got ‘er done and had fun doing so. Thanks, Byron Walden.
I don’t agree with most of this BUT it sounds so much like something I would say that I cannot help but respect it 🫡 ~RP ps I think the “buzzing” question is answered above, in some helpful person’s comment
Funny how a simple crossword clue/answer DUO can create a scenario in your head. IS THIS IT? did that for me today. I pictured a room full of people searching through piles of paperwork, looking for some vital piece of evidence to make the case PROVABLE and occasionally holding one up, “IS THIS IT?”
This was a medium Saturday for me. I got my start, after being unable to capitalize on my SHAVE/AV?? guess in the NW, at YUM crossing VELLUM (though VELLUM had me worried because I could make a case for “ironclad” at 36D). The SW was SO EASY but NIXIE and EXMET were no-goes in the SE. The NE fell due to JUJUBE and then it was back to the SE and NW for clean-up.
NIXIE: my Dad was the postmaster in our small town and I never heard this term before. With NI__E in place, I thought of NIchE, perhaps named for where the dead letter was stored? Or NIne-E for the form filled out to account for a dead letter? Funniest dead letter situation I've seen just happened a couple of months ago. I had spent about six weeks reassuring a vendor that a $10,000+ check really was in the mail. I finally had to re-issue the check. Then I got a letter in the mail from the USPS explaining they had been unable to deliver my original check and were also unable to return it to me. People, they included a COPY of my check with both the vendor's and my address clearly visible. If they couldn’t return the check, HOW DID THEY KNOW WHERE TO SEND THE LETTER? So weird.
Medium-tough. The SW was pretty easy, but the rest took some work. Even with IOWAS in place the NW was a struggle. SoaP before SLOP didn’t help.
TABITHA was a WOE.
Me too for YAwn before YADA.
Solid and crunchy, liked it.
@M&A - I’ve been working my way through the archives and am currently doing the Thursday puzzles. I recently ran across our old friend the PEWIT. It was nice to have a gimme as some of the older Thursday’s are pretty tough!
My husband asked me for help on an archival puzzle this morning and mentioned he’d figured out the name OSRIC from crosses since he didn’t know it. Hold on a minute, said I! And I went and filled it in on today’s puzzle. Not quite an encounter in the wild, but it was a lucky break for me. Funnily, yesterday a friend posted on Facebook about RUR (that one I did actually know).
This one was like eating a biscuit with honey. The whole time you're knowing a waffle would be way better and in the end you have sticky fingers you can't get washed quickly enough.
Six months back we had a VELLUM catastrophe when 🦖 said something about it. Can't remember what the issue was, maybe something about animal skins, but VELLUM feels like an old friend.
Now, let's fire up the grumble bunny:
A crazy day of obscurity. Painful. So many new concepts I've never encountered. And my personal reminder Joaquin's dictum says clues aren't synonyms and boy howdy these clues are just barely even clues. Mostly an epic "they'll never get this one" day.
Juneau-ians, -ites, -ers. Fought it until the end because everything in Alaska is wrong. Of course it's an easy and excellent answer compared to whatever NADERITE is.
TABITHA did not do what the clue says, so why NYTXW? WHY?
YADA -- no. NIXIE -- puhleeze. EXMET -- gawd. WARBLOGS -- wha? RAP AT -- said no one ever. JUJUBE -- yeeshk. That's the IKE you pick?
Tee-Hee: Really proud of the editors and author agreeing JACK ASSES should headline this one. It's like they signed the puzzle. Add HELL and QUEER and gosh I am certain they were patting themselves on their backs for being so edgy.
NKs: HEBREW U.
Uniclues:
1 Tossed Alaskan. 2 Dude telling the cop he doesn't know why he's been pulled over. (He knows.) 3 Midges bringing you sips of whiskey. 4 Latina against everything. 5 Where less popular singing groups end up. 6 Genius who tests well. 7 Table saw with the hand guard in place. 8 Bread. 9 When a penguin moves into the neighborhood.
1 THREW JUNEAUITE 2 I'M A JERK ON RADAR (~) 3 DREAMLIKE GNATS 4 "OH HELL NO" SENORA 5 SEWER DUOS DUMP 6 PROVABLE WIZ (~) 7 CAN'T LOSE SLICER 8 KNEADER'S YUM 9 SQUID CITY JINX
NADERITEs didn’t cost Al Bore the election, any more than STEINites cost Killary in 2016. Two incredibly awful D candidates did (along with Supreme Court chicanery in the 2000 debacle.
Fortunately, we now have honest Joe who pulled off the amazing Wednesday morning miracle! He’s been SUCH a leader: in Afghanistan, helping the poor Nazis of Ukraine and leading us to the brink of WWIII. All as he made a tidy profit for the non-grifting Bidens!
Btw, NADERITE is so not a term - NADERSRAIDERS was a term, but this is no more valid than Trumpite, Bidenite or Samsonite (well, maybe that’s some kind of luggage, but I’d vote for anyone named Samson because he/she/they would project POWER!)
Former letter carrier here; I was saved by NIXIE and JUNEAUITE (I know my way around a ZIP code). Some fun letter carrier slang from where I worked: Pumpkin: any cart used to transport packages, named for the old orange carts with ribbed sides. Most pumpkins are now blue and look a lot less like pumpkins. Hot mail: mail that the system messed up sorting and which the letter carrier must manually sort. UBBM: Undeliverable Bulk Business Mail, pronounced phonetically (ubbim). UBBM is nixie and so-called third class mail, generally cheap advertisements being sent to a vacant or nonexistent address which the sender doesn't want returned. It's recycled and turned into Priority mailboxes. Interestingly, in 2020, when there was a lot of scrutiny on the post office during the election, we had a special procedure for sorting undeliverable election ads, which were almost always UBBM, but all political mail was affected by the "extraordinary measures." Postal inspectors (mail cops) were sent to stations to supervise from time to time. Ballots, mind you, are first-class and get returned to sender if undeliverable. LLV and FFV: long-life vehicle and flex-fuel vehicle; these are the old right-hand side drive vehicles. Loops: called "relays" on the East Coast. Mail routes are separated into loops, which will contain a block or two of addresses, or perhaps an apartment building. Loops are designed by the carrier. Everything else I remember right now are mostly unsexy acronyms, but the post office has a Melvillean glossary of terms.
Well-suited for a Saturday. Had AIRTIGHT (which I like better) before PROVABLE, MUSH before SLOP, and also PORK before BEER. Forgot about the character of OSRIC at first and wondered if Robin Williams played the skull of dead court jester Yoric (sic). Hey, it's not that outlandish an idea:
Pianist André Tchaikowsky donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in theatrical productions, hoping that it would be used as the skull of Yorick. Tchaikowsky died in 1982. His skull was used during rehearsals for a 1989 RSC production of Hamlet starring Mark Rylance, but the company eventually decided to use a replica skull in the performance.
I thought this was going to be a pangram but there's no F. That could be fixed by making 1d IS SHE FIT, 17a SHREW and 26a FLOP. Apparently "Is she fit?" can mean "Is she sexy?" in Britain. Too obscure a reference for here, probably. Not like NIXIE.
Just an F short of a pangrammerfest. Our deepest sympathies, @Roo. M&A thankfully cannot recall an occasion when the only letter NIXIE-d from a puzgrid was a U. Do recall the dreaded PEWIT, tho (yo, @jae).
Nice, feisty 68-worder from an old xword master, Byron Walden. We get to see fewer and fewer old masters here anymore [Berry, Gorski, Kahn, Quigley, Collins(PEWIT guy), Silk, Piscop, Merrell, Burnikel, Longo, Diehl, etc.] Sure get a lotta debuts, tho. And collabs. Maybe the enlarged NYTPuz editorial staff has different priorities.
staff weeject pick: IKE. Crossin the LIKE in DREAMLIKE. Twas deja vu-like.
Whenever U get a themeless puz, U about gotta ask "What where the seed entries?" Tough one to predict, today. M&A has ruled out a few candidates: * NIXIE. Even tho you'd think somethin this weird would be there to help preserve a seed entry. But NADERITE and IMAJERK probably weren't that crucial. * WARBLOGS. This and other POC entries surely cannot be seed entries (yo, @AnoaBob). * JUNEAUITE, HEBREWU, ISTHISIT, NONPUBLIC, QUEERLIT, SOEASY, UPANDQUIT are the other (non-POC) debut entries. But they are more just weird than seed-worthy. [M&A was kinda partial to UPANDQUIT, tho.] * The puzgrid-centered entries are AROUSAL and TOSSUPQUESTIONS. Since the latter is the only puzgrid-spanner, and a debut entry, maybe it was a rare-ish POC seed entry? These crossin central entries do allow the letter U to post up dead center in the puzgrid, sooo … THISISIT! QED.
Thanx for the challenge, Mr. Walden dude. Good to see yah, again.
Actually, both Gore and Hillary were far more qualified than their republican opponents. And both received more votes. It was the electoral college that went against the will of the majority of American voters and put those disastrous fools in office.
And yeah, actually Biden is doing a helluva job, despite your laughable description of his performance.
And I'm sure you're joking about voting for someone named Samson because it projects power. But I'm afraid far too many do think that way about the former president, who probably would never have been elected if his family had kept the name Drumpf.
@Andrew Come on a crossword blog to troll about politics if that’s what floats your boat but try not to be so confidently wrong about matters of language.
Lorena Bobbit is working as a mohel now. She has a big sign out front that says CIRCUMCISIONS PERFORMED WHILE YOU WAIT.
I was at my grandson's bris a year and a half ago. It was during the pandemic, so very few folks were invited and it was broadcast via zoom. A friend who was zooming, told me he noticed I was wearing both a belt and suspenders. I said, that's one ceremony where I really don't want my pants falling down.
@Wanderlust -- I also wanted the ocean to be the "universal" something-absolutely-wonderful-in-five-letters -- certainly, like you, not a SEWER, for heaven's sake!!! -- but the only two 5-letter words that came to mind at all were LOVER and BOSOM. Needless to say, I didn't write either one in.
@pablo 9:06-What are you, some kind of idiot? "Ashley Babbit?" I assume you were thinking of Lorena Bobbit, and trying to be funny. Remind yourself to stop posting before sufficient coffee, OK?
I knew the answer to 30A "Like the county where Jack Daniels is manufactured" would be DRY right away. How's that for irony? You can't legally buy Jack Daniels in the Tennessee County (Moore) where it's distilled.
There's a side story here. Jack Daniels is so successful that they have increased the number of buildings where the whisky is aged in oak barrels to the point where it is causing environmental problems. The whisky that is lost due to evaporation of ethanol during aging (called the Angel's share) has stimulated the growth of a nasty black fungus that covers almost everything in the CITY of Lynchburg. Some street signs are so heavily coated with the black fungus that they are difficult to read. The locals say the the Angel's share has caused the Devil's fungus.
I didn't know what a TOSS UP QUESTION was until reading the comments. I do know it is one letter short of being a grid spanner. But that little inconvenience is SO EASY to fix---plural of convenience (POC) to the rescue. See also IOWA, JACK ASS, WAR BLOG, ZERO, SIT, T BOND and GNAT.
A hard one, but managed to finish without help. Learned a few things, including the demonym for a person from Alaska’s capital, and that Albert Einstein was a cofounder of Hebrew University. I also like the fact that two of the four answers using the letter Q, UPANDQUIT and QUEERLIT, rhyme.
Pretty easy-medium; harder than yesterday but not Saturday hard for me. Only a couple of typeovers: CAN'T MISS before CAN'T LOSE, and NOT PUBLIC before NON PUBLIC.
For JUNEAUITE I had the --ITE in place for ages with no idea where it would be. Not being too familiar with US postal codes I thought it would be some town in Maine, but I guess high numbers = west? There are many different suffixes, you have to just take the one that sounds right. JUNEAUIAN would be a lotta vowels in a row!
Speaking of postal codes, in Canada the pattern is 6 characters, letter-vowel alternating. My friend lived at Buffalo Point in the very farthest southeast corner of Manitoba, literally yards from the US border, and his code was R1A 1A1 (Manitoba starts with R).
Happy that so many of you liked it, but I didn't. Too much bad stuff: JUNEAUITE, YADA, ISTHISIT, WARBLOGS, NADERITE. With very little wit or charm to compensate.
A very enjoyable Saturday level solve. The west side played easier than the east. Impressive that there's this level of resistance with so many high value letters and colorful entries.
I found this to be mid-level of the last three Saturday's.
NYT has to be “with it”these days. I’m sure I am not using the right teen talk slang/ jargon that is taking over the NYT xword, Got a kick outta( oops! That is oldtimey speech) the blogger trying to seem cool. ( You don’t really like all this jazz, doya?) Puzzle was actually very easy for this generation-it- makes- no- difference member.
Yes! How DARE Andrew bring politics into this, when Rex is merely pointing out the obvious reason for our never-ending wars is people voting third party.
Certainly not the vile Republicans and reluctant, far superior Democrats who vote for them. Blue no matter who!
I had the whole puzzle except WI?/?EROES cross. Did an alphabet run, got to n, knew it was wrong and turned to Rex for the solution. I hate when I do that! I thought the puzzle was challenging.
Interesting you didn't mention they both got more votes than their opponents. The Florida vote was all of 500 apart and Nader was on the ballot. Pretty good argument for him handing the election to W. Gore and H. Clinton would have been decent presidents. They were poor campaigners.
As to arguing about the previous incumbent, now candidate, it is clearly useless. So I won't go there.
I cannot say this enough. Our motto is NOTNOTNOT "in god we trust," it is "E Pluribus Unum" and nothing else.
From many, one. A god does not figure into the founding of the United States or our Constitution. But, of course, if you're counting ALL gods, or none, it might read, "In Gods many of us Trust." But it's not our motto. Never has been and never should be.
Voluntary dnf. Got ‘naderite’, and then ‘swankest’, and both were so absurd, I gave up on the NW and moved on with my day. Nothing I’ve read here makes me regret that decision.
To be more specific, the sound that you make that's spelled out as "tsk" is linguistically a click (specifically a dental click). Other clicks include the kissing sound (bilabial click) and the click you might make when throwing finger guns (lateral click).
@other David. In God We Trust was established as the US National Motto in 1956. It was the era of the Red Menace, and US officials were keen to establish ourselves as different from the godless commmies. It was around that same time that the words "under god" were added to the pledge of allegiance.
See the US Code, Title 36, Subtitle 1. It's an interesting section of the Code, establishing such things as National Forest Products Week and Pan American Aviation Day. And down in Chapter 3, section 302: "In God we trust" is the national motto.
On the old quiz show COLLEGE BOWL there were "toss up questions". The team which buzzed in first and answered correctly then got "bonus questions. Haven't heard that term since 1966.
There are times when I am just baffled by the disparaging and discouraging comments by fellow-solvers who are striving for perfection in an imperfect world. The endless carping and sniping are just depressing for me to read -- and yet I still do. I think there is a great misunderstanding of the reality of "de gustibus, etc." that should all give us some slack. Waking up this particularly briliantly sunny Sunday morning, after spending Saturday watching football (or 'soccer' if you like) on a cold and blustery day filled with a combination of rain/snow/hail, and then hearing the great Baroque ensemble Solomon's Knot sing a dazzling performance of Bach's motet "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied" has just put me in a wonderful state of mind, and even though I had some struggles with and questions about this morning's puzzle, I just cannot rise to the level of vitriol and passion that I read in many of today's comments. Perhaps it's because I found the theme clever and not thin or weak, or perhaps I was laughing at the misdirection of the clues instead of getting angry at them. I sometimes find the Sunday Puzzle weak or not up to the levels it could reach but, my God, it's only a puzzle. It's not poverty, or violence, or political malfeasance or the plague. It is just a puzzle. Only a puzzle. And I feel sorry for those who seem to feel it is the end-all and be-all of their existence.
I can't believe people actually enjoyed this. This constructor thinks 'Candy Ass' is a clever clue for pinata that breaks the breakfast test. I'll be happy to see his puzzles less often, thanks very much.
I'd call this one medium-challenging. Couple of disappointing entries: _____QUIT bothered me, since RAGEQUIT is a letter short. Turns out it was just UPANDQUIT. And private simply NONPUBLIC? Yawn. (Yeah, I had that before YADA; clue really should've been "Blah blah blah alternative.")
Mostly though, there was good, original stuff here. Agree that there are one too many "-ITE"s in the grid. Replete with double-digit U's it must be a @M&A favorite. Loved OHHELLNO beside ISTHISIT. Birdie.
You're entitled to your opinions, but unfamiliar to you != 'not part of normal English usage'. Storms *are* tracked on radar, even if you can track them by (means of) radar. Swankest is certainly odd but legit. You not liking warblogs or their readership != select, ugly, or jargony as a word. As moppers, ofc they're swabbers & that's formatting is basic to xwords.
So they were at least good at marketing, you're saying. And there wouldn't be a United States without the electoral college & other compromises to protect smaller communities from the cities and powerhouse states.
Anyway, both ends of the uniparty do suck: Biden may be better but is still obj bad, Hillary might have been better but was obj behind Libya & ending any hope of nuclear proliferation (the idea that won Obama his Nobel) and would've prolonged or started additional wars , & Gore would have kept Clinton's triangulation, meaning most of what you dislike with Bush wd've still happened. Naderites weren't wrong that neither party leadership deserves any praise for the last few decades.
Thank you for that. Never knew & another reason to hate Jack Dan, even though it helps subsidize actual bourbon made by its Ky-based parent company. I know it's Tennessee, but they shd still go ahead and add those air filters if it's gotten that bad.
Bizarre to me everyone else accepted yada for the actual yadda, but guess the wrong version shows in xwords more often & it's just something to adapt to, like pretending roe & eli are things instead of caviar and Harvard waitlist.
Are you and I the only people who saw that "wiz"? Everybody else ignoring it? It was the worst thing in the entire puzzle. It's "whiz", and that clue could not have been more wrong. I can't believe it made it through editing.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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106 comments:
Once again, super-challenging for me in the NW. The rest played like a Medium Saturday but the NW remained a sea of white. Finally guessed IOWAS at 1A. Consulted with Sergey and Larry for HEBREW U at 19A and eventually got the long downs after changing not to ILL at 22A.
My only other major overwrite was CAN'T fail before miSs before LOSE at 8D.
One of those puzzles where I thought I could never solve it, but slowly/surely all the answers fell into place.
A puzzle billed as RIBALD and STEAMY, but it didn’t quite live up to the promise. Instead we got JACKASSES and an IM A JERK, so a missed opportunity there.
OSRIC and VELLUM sound like something left over from vaudeville.
I’m definitely drawing a blank on the click that gets doubled. I’ve heard of TSK, TSK obviously, but how does click enter into the equation. Maybe a computer icon? Help!
NIXIE? C’mon, man. DIXIE with plenty of ways to clue MADGE.
Difficult - but approachable and satisfying in the end. Misdirects everywhere - wanted “flush” for clear ones head. Lots of scrabbly letters added to the quirkiness. I liked JUJUBE - that U backed me into HEBREW U. Best friend is an ex postal employee so knew the term NIXIE cold.
BEER Run
OSRIC was a gimme but there was some oddball trivia - TABITHA, WAR BLOGS, JUNEAUITE?? Like the digitalness of the ZEROES clue. KERNAL, AROUSAL, STEAMY are all top notch. Biggest YADA for me was KNEADERS.
Enjoyable Saturday solve. As tricky as this was - Stella’s Stumper today brings the heat.
the Berkshires seemed DREAMLIKE
For the longest time I had FLUSH as the answer to “Clear one’s head?” and I couldn’t give it up for SHAVE. Still think my answer was better!
Third week in a row with a Saturday puzzle worthy of the day. Not as tough as the last two, but certainly put up a fight.
It’s nice when the marquee answer – in today’s case the only grid-spanner – has the best clue.
My start was eerily similar to Rexes, including the incorrect AT SEA 'confirmed' by AVER. I didn't have TORUS, and I had three answers in the far NE, but otherwise identical.
I do not work nor have I ever worked for the postal service, but somehow NIXIE was in the old noggin.
Wow. Here we have a third Saturday in a row with a constructor whose puzzles are not simply fill-in-the-grid, but events (Hi, @kitshef!). Puzzles stamped with personality and that je-ne-sais-quoi that gets the heart and brain shivering with anticipation, followed at the end by pure confirmation and “Can’t wait for their next one!”
(Previous two Saturdays: Kameron Austin Collins and Sid Sivakumar.)
Byron’s puzzles are marked with freshness, no-junk-ness, clue ingenuity, and constructing acumen:
• Freshness. His puzzles are always rich with NYT answer debuts, today 11, including I’M A JERK, IS THIS IT, QUEER LIT, SO EASY, TOSS UP QUESTIONS, and UP AND QUIT.
• Lack of junk. No explanation needed, just a scan of this spotless grid. As always with Byron.
• Clue-genuity. Overall excellence from start to finish, but I especially liked [“Blah” alternative] for YADA and [Piazza, for one] for EX-MET.
• Constructing acumen. Four stacks, a high-count 17 long answers (eight letters or more), and did I mention, no junk?
Lotso’ Scrabbliness (just an F short of a pangram) to buzz up an already buzzy puzzle, and even a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap: STRAW. All colored by the so-pleasing quirkiness that Byron’s puzzles exude.
Crosslandia is privileged to have you, Byron. You set the bar high, and you meet it time and time again with your never-stale creations. Thank you for that, and for such a sweet and satisfying outing today!
Exactly my experience.
I thought Rex’s word of the day would be TABITHA Babbitt, given the unusualness of a woman inventing the circular saw. (Instead we got the execrable NADERITE, reminding me of the reason we got W, the Iraq War, and the financial meltdown- yes, I took Rex’s bait!)
Anyway, I looked her up and learned that she came up with the idea for the circular saw after watching men use a two-man whipsaw, with half their effort wasted. She also invented false teeth! She was a Shaker and did not patent any of her inventions.
Oh yes, the puzzle. This was very hard and very satisfying to finish. I agree that the NW was brutal, but all of it was pretty hard. Once I finally gave up on “pork” (belly and barrel), the SW fell quickly. TOSS UP QUESTIONS led me into the SE. I hesitated on SWANKEST because I thought it needed an I. In the NE, I had put in JUJUBE early on but pulled it because the letter combo just didn’t look like it could be right (especially an answer ending in U). I adore JUJUBEs and any chewy candies - Dots, gummy worms, Swedish fish. I bought Swedish fish in Sweden once, and I’m sorry, they don’t taste right there. And did you know they have Ikeas in Sweden too? Man, they are everywhere!
Like others, I stuck way too long with “not” suited in the NW instead of ILL. That led me to I found IT instead of IS THIS IT and some ILL-SUITED grumbling about how the clue was tentative but the answer was definitive. Ah, me.
Also in the NW, IN GOD took me ridiculously long, and the Jaques Cousteau answer was the opposite of where I thought the clue was taking me. I imagined Cousteau rhapsodizing about how the sea was the universal mother or the universal womb or something like that with five letters. Universal SEWER? Eww. But sadly accurate.
So the puzzle was not SO EASY, and I admit there were times I wanted to UP AND QUIT. But did I? OH, HELL NO.
I am completely missing why TOSSUP QUESTIONS have everyone buzzing. Probably because I've never seen TOSSUP QUESTION(s) as a phrase. Does it have some special meaning other than something that could go either way?
Also, another hand up for "flush" before SHAVE. Didn't want to let go of it.
You click your tongue when say tsk
Funny how "word with belly or barrel" could have been PORK or BEER.
Always fun when you have to run all the letters to get an answer that finishes the puzzle and it turns out to be the Z (for ZEROES).
Such pleasures abound in a puzzle of this caliber. To make a wild guess that turns out to be not wild but “right on”. A QU here leading to SQUID and QUIT, leading to UPANDQUIT with its lilting sounds; ADAB dredged up from memories of Brylcreme’s “A little dab’ll do you”; remember when listening to commercials was FUN? A few lucky encounters with “right up my alley words, like VELLUM (having taught medieval manuscripts for twelve years before abandoning the groves of academe (for the vineyards of California).
Wanted YORIC before OSRIC, even though an actor playing a skull would be quite a stretch. Wanted a Jeopardy question for tossup, because if the buzzing, but that wouldn’t fit. Finished up with E__MET and stared at that for a couple of eons, finally capitulated and wrote in the “X”, getting my “Congratulations!” With no idea of what “exmet “ meant until reading Rex. (Even just now the software tried again and again to autocorrect that word.
My first thought on reading the clue for 21A was "Lorena" for Lorena Bobbit, best known for a different kind of cutting implement.
Simply gave up on the NW.
I suspect TOSSUP QUESTIONS refers to quiz shows or quiz games in which the first person to buss in gets to answer the question.
Funny, I wanted ISTHISIT for 1D right away, started in the NE instead and forgot all about it until I eventually ended in the NW again and I had to think of it all over again. Took me fore ver to see THREW and SEWER but in they went and done and happy I was.
The "Babbit" clue involving a saw had me thinking of Ashley Babbit, another famous saw wielder, and I was very happy that it was not she.
Exactly what I want in a Saturday BW. Beautiful Work, as usual, and thanks for all the fun.
And now the Stumper will have to wait as we're off to do grandchildren things.
I really surprised myself by getting this one done with zero googling. It was painful but also fun and there were some really good “oh ok!” Answers. Loved RIBALD and TOSSUPQUESTIONS and for some reason KNEADERS. I kept thinking “bread” would refer to money so the fact that it actually referred to “bread” was sorta brilliant? Really was looking for Trader or banker or something thereabouts. Thanks as usual. I thought word of the day would be Tabitha Babbit!
Toss up questions were from “College Bowl” hosted by Alle Ludden (of Password fame!). Contestant were told to “buzz in….
MEDIUM??
Are you high?
This thing was a super challenge. Tons of vagueness, and then the trivia that is supposed to give you a solid handle is WAY too trivial. A NADER bumper sticker????? No way. No way at all.
ISTHISIT and UPANDQUIT and CANTLOSE and PROVABLE and even TOSSUPQUESTIONS are all fine enough long answers, but ALL are vague and vaguely clued. "They have everyone buzzing..." My dudes, that could be ANYTHING.
This was a challenge, period.
Having IM Awful before IM A JERK really fouled up the SE corner. Loved the answers DREAMLIKE and JUJUBE! Favorite clues were for ZEROES, DRY (causing an audible “whaaat” from me), and SITS. Found this puzzle to be easy and smooth until the very end where I had NW and SE corners holding me up. Had to look up OSRIC but that was it. Good times!
-Brando
ZEROES is a little more nuanced than ‘because they are literally round.’ When you see it as computer bits, it’s actually a nicely clever clue.
Really enjoyed the walkthrough on OFL’s solve though. Made me feel better for having to get to the middle or bottom of the puzzle before I could finally find a toe hold.
Hand up for both. “Pork” and “beer” remind me of a friend who works in the US Foreign Service and was assigned once to Saudi Arabia. Because pork and alcohol are forbidden there, embassy workers got coupons allowing them to get a limited supply of each. People who just had to have bacon would trade their alcohol coupons for the pork coupons of people who couldn’t manage without beer. Craving both, I’d have been in trouble.
And until I ran the alphabet to get the Z, I was trying to figure out how hEROES were round bits. The sandwiches are kinda round?
Tossup questions are for either side or all teams to try to answer first, instead of questions directed at one player or team. So everyone is buzzing.
Hey All !
Phew! Toughie today, but battled on, rereading the same clues 163 times, trying to get the ole brain to play nice with me. Read clue, frown, move to another clue, read clue, frown, move to another clue, repeat. Until something finally clicks.
What works for me sometimes is just writing in what could possibly be the answer, seeing if I can get an answer by pattern recognition. Sometimes I erase what I already put in, to see if I can twist said brain into seeing something else. I had to employ both strategies today to finish this puz.
But, Alas! "Almost There!" when I threw my last letter in. Argh! Too much for me to go back to try to find the error of my ways, I hit Check Puzzle and it crossed out the B I had at PRObABLE/bELLUM. Wha? Said I. "What else could that be?" Absolutely nothing was coming to mind, so did an alphabet run of physically typing each letter (minus the vowels) into that space until the V hit. PROVABLE. Ouch. VELLUM, bELLUM, let's call the whole thing off
A pretty cool SatPuz for this non-WIZ. I'm guessing it's a Pangram without checking. I see the Q,Z,J,X. Better be an F in here (said before looking.) 😁
Have a great weekend!
Har ... No F's - TSK TSK - CANT LOS... er, Win.
RooMonster
DarrinV
Ahhh, Saturdaze! (Found that word using BARD 🙃) Wonderful puzzle 👍👍
My finish was like CWT’s, a real head-scratcher for us non-sportball types.
In my personal dictionary “swank” is a noun; the adjective is “swanky.” So “swankiest” would be a word, I suppose, but SWANKEST is a non-word spoken by no one ever.
Today’s joys: Learning about Tabitha Babbitt (thanks, Wanderlust) and listening to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, those masters of Piedmont blues.
For some reason IOWAS was the first thing to pop into my head at 1A, and IS THIS IT at 1D, so I got off to a better start than Rex, but there was still plenty of fight in this one, and I too loved its crazy energy. NADERITE!
Happy accident wrong answer: sPeeD QUIT. I knew there was no way it could be right, but that led to APU and confirmed A DAB, and those led me to JUNEAUITE. I really wanted 6A to be dumb ASSES, but I figured that would be a little too vulgar for the Gray Lady. (At least it feels more vulgar than JACK ASSES for some reason, right?)
TBillS then TnOtes before TBONDS. tADA before YADA
@Anonymous 8:01: In some game shows, contestants “buzz” in to answer TOSS UP QUESTIONS, questions that can be answered by anyone.
Rarely do I succeed on Saturday because the puzzles have become so crazy, but today was a tough, straightforward exercise. More, please!
Medium, with a couple of tougher spots. I made my way in through DEEM x SQUID, which opened up the NE for me and prepared the way for a clockwise slow-but-steady traversal of the grid. I thought Byron Walden threw us a few more sops than usual, for example the neighboring ORAL EXAM, JINX, and MANGE that took care of the SE. Going clockwise meant I had to back into the SW, using the crosses from QUEER LIT and SLICER; fortunately I knew SALT PETER, which had that helpful P for DUMP. The the hardest part: ascending into the NW. A lucky guess at POST x SLOP got me TOSS, and with IN GOD, I was set. Last in: HEBREW U x WIZ.
Do-overs: YAwn, STall before STRAW, by RADAR. Help from previous puzzles: OH HELL NO. No idea: NIXIE - I seriously considered NIXon. Hardest for me to parse: ?ER?EL (KERNEL) and ?EROES - fatal solving flaw: running out of steam and giving up in discouragement before really finishing an alphabet run.
A real "keep the faith" puzzle for me -- and when I asked myself if I was likely to finish it, my answer to self was "OH HELL NO!"
Except I didn't have that answer yet. I didn't have anything in the wretched NW corner.
The joy in this puzzle for me was being able to finish it. I was sure I wouldn't. Being in the "battle site" itself was less of a joy as I felt like a JACKASS most of the way. ORAL TEST instead of ORAL EXAM led to all sorts of confusion in the SE: WASPS, not GNATS was what seemed to fit. I'M NOT OK, rather than I'M A JERK was what seemed to fit. (And I so wanted to get to JINX.)
My SE was a hot mess. My NW was as white as snow.
Don't ask. And what the UP QUESTIONS that had everyone buzzing were, I had absolutely no idea. Great clue, btw.
I must say that I'm not at all pleased with WIZ. A WIZ is an Oz-ish or Potter-ish figure. An "ace" is a WHIZ.
But I finally prevailed. And now I finally feel like a bit less of a JACKASS. This puzzle THREW me for a loop on many occasions, but I never wanted to UP AND QUIT. A very worthy Saturday challenge.
Don't ask.
I had ACE instead of WIZ, so nothing in the NW worked. I never thought of JACKASSES, but tried to make DUMBASSES work. The lower half of the puzzle was easier, if one accepts SWANKEST as "most chic" (the dictionary does not equate "swank with "chic."
50-Across threw me, messed up the SW corner for quite some time. The clue - word with belly or beer - was so obvious, I instantly typed in PORK. We've all heard of pork belly and pork barrel. But beer? No. Beer belly, yes, of course; beer barrel, no. Those are called kegs.
Can someone explain why toss up questions have everyone buzzing?
This puzzle felt “off” to me. So many answers that just aren’t part of normal English usage. Storms are tracked BYRADAR, not ONRADAR. I would have said NONPUBLIC was a nonstarter. WARBLOGS might be a thing in a very select circle, but it’s ugly and jargony. SWANKEST is very rarely seen compared to SWANKIEST. And KNEADERS seems as forced as saying the sailors with mops are swabbers.
I think it was one of Byron's puzzle that lured me to the @Rex blog. It was one of those: I CAN'T EVEN things and I needed help. AHA! there is a blog who will explain away my nincompoopness.
Byron would always scare the pants off me...but then I got bold and looked him square in the eye. I was able to pull up my big girl pants and forge ahead. I did.
This was thoroughly enjoyable for me. Why? you ask...Because I was able to flow into some of his wheelhouse mischievousness. I'll start with: JACKASSES. There's a K for KNEADERS and I knew APU so what else could it be....Move on and hope you are right!
Two devils staring at me... Is 1A really IOWAS? IS THIS IT had to be correct so it starts with an I. Then O HELL NO also had to be right so I got my O. That's how this got solved by me.
Move on to JUNEAUITE. Can it be a word? JUJUBE and APU gave me the first JU and so I penned in JUNEAU and let it sit. Little by little words popping in, mistakes erased, words like RIBALD and AROUSAL and VELLUM and STEAMY just flowing in like they've always belonged. Yes. I got you done - pants intact!. However, after all this joyful work I ended up with a DNF.
It was at the end. Maybe because I was exhausted but my error was with NADER. I had NADER ERA. My dead letter was a NIXEE and that Pizza became a EXMAT. Sob. And I was doing so well.
I doesn't matter. I am so proud of myself for getting so many correct answers and wondering: Is GNARS a word?
SO EASY! I THREW in downs only but still beat my record Saturday time. Just kidding of course. This thing kicked my TORUS and left me lying in the SEWER. Not surprising since my puzzling capabilities are often ILL SUITED for more difficult Saturdays but at least I didn’t UP AND QUIT.
Thanks, various folks, for the TOSSUP QUESTIONS explainers (I'm the guy who asked). If there's one area further from my personal wheelhouse than sports, I guess it's game shows.
@Photomatte, the existence of "BEER barrel polka" (performed by approximately one jillion different groups) is enough to justify the clue for BEER.
Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we've got the blues on the run
I was NOT messed up twice in this puzzle. NW white field had only flush & "not" waiting for the eventual "suited". Looking over at suited, ILL eventually replaced it. Also had to check puzzle to find the "NOt"PUBLIC error. It is fun when a Saturday clue is made tough by being blindingly obvious, but initially unbelievable.
Proper tough Saturday. ace>WIZ. dumb>JACK. Sexism toward earlier eras made only name I could form out of __BITHA seem unplausible.
Favorite wrong answer "airtight" for strongest cases, even better than PROVABLE
Same. Probably added 5 minutes to my time.
I’d like to call to order this meeting of the JUNEAUITE NADERITEs, also known as the Order of the NONPUBLIC JACKASSES. In truth, I still detest Nader mightily for handing Bush the election. I really wonder how different this country would be today had Nader stayed out . Of course there’s no guarantee that things would be better, but they’d definitely be different.
Like Rex and everyone else so far, I couldn’t get a real food hold until the SW, so when I got to 37D (Genre for “Fun Home” and “Stone Butch Blues”), I had ______RLIT. I was surprised that there is such a thing as eldeRLIT. Since there’s Young Adult Lit, why didn’t they just call it Old Adult Lit? And what would be in this category? You start looking around and you find a lot of book sites with lists like “50 Best Books About Death and Dying”. I guess I’ll add them to my bucket list.
Would queries that make you puke be called TOSSUPQUESTIONS?
I think I’ll start telling people that I’ve got a thesis defense (ORALEXAM) scheduled when I go for a dental checkup.
Pretty darn tough puzzle, but I got ‘er done and had fun doing so. Thanks, Byron Walden.
I don’t agree with most of this BUT it sounds so much like something I would say that I cannot help but respect it 🫡 ~RP ps I think the “buzzing” question is answered above, in some helpful person’s comment
What’s an exmet?
Funny how a simple crossword clue/answer DUO can create a scenario in your head. IS THIS IT? did that for me today. I pictured a room full of people searching through piles of paperwork, looking for some vital piece of evidence to make the case PROVABLE and occasionally holding one up, “IS THIS IT?”
This was a medium Saturday for me. I got my start, after being unable to capitalize on my SHAVE/AV?? guess in the NW, at YUM crossing VELLUM (though VELLUM had me worried because I could make a case for “ironclad” at 36D). The SW was SO EASY but NIXIE and EXMET were no-goes in the SE. The NE fell due to JUJUBE and then it was back to the SE and NW for clean-up.
NIXIE: my Dad was the postmaster in our small town and I never heard this term before. With NI__E in place, I thought of NIchE, perhaps named for where the dead letter was stored? Or NIne-E for the form filled out to account for a dead letter? Funniest dead letter situation I've seen just happened a couple of months ago. I had spent about six weeks reassuring a vendor that a $10,000+ check really was in the mail. I finally had to re-issue the check. Then I got a letter in the mail from the USPS explaining they had been unable to deliver my original check and were also unable to return it to me. People, they included a COPY of my check with both the vendor's and my address clearly visible. If they couldn’t return the check, HOW DID THEY KNOW WHERE TO SEND THE LETTER? So weird.
Byron, thanks for this lovely Saturday puzzle!
Medium-tough. The SW was pretty easy, but the rest took some work. Even with IOWAS in place the NW was a struggle. SoaP before SLOP didn’t help.
TABITHA was a WOE.
Me too for YAwn before YADA.
Solid and crunchy, liked it.
@M&A - I’ve been working my way through the archives and am currently doing the Thursday puzzles. I recently ran across our old friend the PEWIT. It was nice to have a gimme as some of the older Thursday’s are pretty tough!
Rex is spot on today. NIXIE JUNEAUITE NADERITE YADA!
Put in FLUSH for 15A (“Clear one’s head?”), knowing full well it wasn’t suitable for the breakfast table.
My husband asked me for help on an archival puzzle this morning and mentioned he’d figured out the name OSRIC from crosses since he didn’t know it. Hold on a minute, said I! And I went and filled it in on today’s puzzle. Not quite an encounter in the wild, but it was a lucky break for me. Funnily, yesterday a friend posted on Facebook about RUR (that one I did actually know).
Same here and I would have loved it if flush would have been right. I think it would have made Luis’ top 5 clues for the week…
The NW was simply terrible. Cryptic fill meets terrible fill.
Thx, Bryon; excellent Sat. workout! :)
Med+
No 'piece of cake'; no EASY sections today. Got IOWAS, AVER, WAR… right off, but that was it for the NW.
Hands up for miSs before LOSE.
Wanted RuBbeD before RIBALD.
Ace before WIZ.
Kept chipping away; a little here, a little there.
Toughest task was at the end, trying to suss out NADERITE. Eventually twigged on Ralph, and Bob was my uncle! :)
Fun adventure! :)
___
Joining @Son Volt on S.Z.'s Sat. Stumper. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
This one was like eating a biscuit with honey. The whole time you're knowing a waffle would be way better and in the end you have sticky fingers you can't get washed quickly enough.
The good:
[Clear one's head?] = SHAVE.
[Ear lobe?] = KERNEL.
Six months back we had a VELLUM catastrophe when 🦖 said something about it. Can't remember what the issue was, maybe something about animal skins, but VELLUM feels like an old friend.
Now, let's fire up the grumble bunny:
A crazy day of obscurity. Painful. So many new concepts I've never encountered. And my personal reminder Joaquin's dictum says clues aren't synonyms and boy howdy these clues are just barely even clues. Mostly an epic "they'll never get this one" day.
Juneau-ians, -ites, -ers. Fought it until the end because everything in Alaska is wrong. Of course it's an easy and excellent answer compared to whatever NADERITE is.
TABITHA did not do what the clue says, so why NYTXW? WHY?
YADA -- no. NIXIE -- puhleeze. EXMET -- gawd. WARBLOGS -- wha? RAP AT -- said no one ever. JUJUBE -- yeeshk. That's the IKE you pick?
Tee-Hee: Really proud of the editors and author agreeing JACK ASSES should headline this one. It's like they signed the puzzle. Add HELL and QUEER and gosh I am certain they were patting themselves on their backs for being so edgy.
NKs: HEBREW U.
Uniclues:
1 Tossed Alaskan.
2 Dude telling the cop he doesn't know why he's been pulled over. (He knows.)
3 Midges bringing you sips of whiskey.
4 Latina against everything.
5 Where less popular singing groups end up.
6 Genius who tests well.
7 Table saw with the hand guard in place.
8 Bread.
9 When a penguin moves into the neighborhood.
1 THREW JUNEAUITE
2 I'M A JERK ON RADAR (~)
3 DREAMLIKE GNATS
4 "OH HELL NO" SENORA
5 SEWER DUOS DUMP
6 PROVABLE WIZ (~)
7 CAN'T LOSE SLICER
8 KNEADER'S YUM
9 SQUID CITY JINX
NADERITEs didn’t cost Al Bore the election, any more than STEINites cost Killary in 2016. Two incredibly awful D candidates did (along with Supreme Court chicanery in the 2000 debacle.
Fortunately, we now have honest Joe who pulled off the amazing Wednesday morning miracle! He’s been SUCH a leader: in Afghanistan, helping the poor Nazis of Ukraine and leading us to the brink of WWIII. All as he made a tidy profit for the non-grifting Bidens!
Btw, NADERITE is so not a term - NADERSRAIDERS was a term, but this is no more valid than Trumpite, Bidenite or Samsonite (well, maybe that’s some kind of luggage, but I’d vote for anyone named Samson because he/she/they would project POWER!)
Former letter carrier here; I was saved by NIXIE and JUNEAUITE (I know my way around a ZIP code). Some fun letter carrier slang from where I worked:
Pumpkin: any cart used to transport packages, named for the old orange carts with ribbed sides. Most pumpkins are now blue and look a lot less like pumpkins.
Hot mail: mail that the system messed up sorting and which the letter carrier must manually sort.
UBBM: Undeliverable Bulk Business Mail, pronounced phonetically (ubbim). UBBM is nixie and so-called third class mail, generally cheap advertisements being sent to a vacant or nonexistent address which the sender doesn't want returned. It's recycled and turned into Priority mailboxes. Interestingly, in 2020, when there was a lot of scrutiny on the post office during the election, we had a special procedure for sorting undeliverable election ads, which were almost always UBBM, but all political mail was affected by the "extraordinary measures." Postal inspectors (mail cops) were sent to stations to supervise from time to time. Ballots, mind you, are first-class and get returned to sender if undeliverable.
LLV and FFV: long-life vehicle and flex-fuel vehicle; these are the old right-hand side drive vehicles.
Loops: called "relays" on the East Coast. Mail routes are separated into loops, which will contain a block or two of addresses, or perhaps an apartment building. Loops are designed by the carrier.
Everything else I remember right now are mostly unsexy acronyms, but the post office has a Melvillean glossary of terms.
Well-suited for a Saturday. Had AIRTIGHT (which I like better) before PROVABLE, MUSH before SLOP, and also PORK before BEER. Forgot about the character of OSRIC at first and wondered if Robin Williams played the skull of dead court jester Yoric (sic). Hey, it's not that outlandish an idea:
Pianist André Tchaikowsky donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in theatrical productions, hoping that it would be used as the skull of Yorick. Tchaikowsky died in 1982. His skull was used during rehearsals for a 1989 RSC production of Hamlet starring Mark Rylance, but the company eventually decided to use a replica skull in the performance.
I thought this was going to be a pangram but there's no F. That could be fixed by making 1d IS SHE FIT, 17a SHREW and 26a FLOP. Apparently "Is she fit?" can mean "Is she sexy?" in Britain. Too obscure a reference for here, probably. Not like NIXIE.
Answer to the real answer at 1 down
Just an F short of a pangrammerfest. Our deepest sympathies, @Roo. M&A thankfully cannot recall an occasion when the only letter NIXIE-d from a puzgrid was a U.
Do recall the dreaded PEWIT, tho (yo, @jae).
Nice, feisty 68-worder from an old xword master, Byron Walden. We get to see fewer and fewer old masters here anymore [Berry, Gorski, Kahn, Quigley, Collins(PEWIT guy), Silk, Piscop, Merrell, Burnikel, Longo, Diehl, etc.]
Sure get a lotta debuts, tho. And collabs. Maybe the enlarged NYTPuz editorial staff has different priorities.
staff weeject pick: IKE. Crossin the LIKE in DREAMLIKE. Twas deja vu-like.
Whenever U get a themeless puz, U about gotta ask "What where the seed entries?" Tough one to predict, today. M&A has ruled out a few candidates:
* NIXIE. Even tho you'd think somethin this weird would be there to help preserve a seed entry. But NADERITE and IMAJERK probably weren't that crucial.
* WARBLOGS. This and other POC entries surely cannot be seed entries (yo, @AnoaBob).
* JUNEAUITE, HEBREWU, ISTHISIT, NONPUBLIC, QUEERLIT, SOEASY, UPANDQUIT are the other (non-POC) debut entries. But they are more just weird than seed-worthy. [M&A was kinda partial to UPANDQUIT, tho.]
* The puzgrid-centered entries are AROUSAL and TOSSUPQUESTIONS. Since the latter is the only puzgrid-spanner, and a debut entry, maybe it was a rare-ish POC seed entry? These crossin central entries do allow the letter U to post up dead center in the puzgrid, sooo … THISISIT! QED.
Thanx for the challenge, Mr. Walden dude. Good to see yah, again.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
**gruntz**
Wow, Andrew...
Actually, both Gore and Hillary were far more qualified than their republican opponents. And both received more votes. It was the electoral college that went against the will of the majority of American voters and put those disastrous fools in office.
And yeah, actually Biden is doing a helluva job, despite your laughable description of his performance.
And I'm sure you're joking about voting for someone named Samson because it projects power. But I'm afraid far too many do think that way about the former president, who probably would never have been elected if his family had kept the name Drumpf.
I had FLUSH for "Clear one's head (?)," and it stayed there, confounding me, for a long time.
@Andrew Come on a crossword blog to troll about politics if that’s what floats your boat but try not to be so confidently wrong about matters of language.
NY Times, 1974, The Naderites of the Other Side
Observer, 2001, Attention, All Naderites: Are You Sleeping Well?
AEI, 2004, Naderites of Convenience
New Republic, 2010, The Rise of Naderite Conservatives
Never have I ever heard of Hebrew University in Jerusalem referred to as Hebrew U, and willing to bet no one else has either.
Lorena Bobbit is working as a mohel now. She has a big sign out front that says CIRCUMCISIONS PERFORMED WHILE YOU WAIT.
I was at my grandson's bris a year and a half ago. It was during the pandemic, so very few folks were invited and it was broadcast via zoom. A friend who was zooming, told me he noticed I was wearing both a belt and suspenders. I said, that's one ceremony where I really don't want my pants falling down.
@Wanderlust -- I also wanted the ocean to be the "universal" something-absolutely-wonderful-in-five-letters -- certainly, like you, not a SEWER, for heaven's sake!!! -- but the only two 5-letter words that came to mind at all were LOVER and BOSOM. Needless to say, I didn't write either one in.
@pablo 9:06-What are you, some kind of idiot? "Ashley Babbit?" I assume you were thinking of Lorena Bobbit, and trying to be funny. Remind yourself to stop posting before sufficient coffee, OK?
OK.
I knew the answer to 30A "Like the county where Jack Daniels is manufactured" would be DRY right away. How's that for irony? You can't legally buy Jack Daniels in the Tennessee County (Moore) where it's distilled.
There's a side story here. Jack Daniels is so successful that they have increased the number of buildings where the whisky is aged in oak barrels to the point where it is causing environmental problems. The whisky that is lost due to evaporation of ethanol during aging (called the Angel's share) has stimulated the growth of a nasty black fungus that covers almost everything in the CITY of Lynchburg. Some street signs are so heavily coated with the black fungus that they are difficult to read. The locals say the the Angel's share has caused the Devil's fungus.
I didn't know what a TOSS UP QUESTION was until reading the comments. I do know it is one letter short of being a grid spanner. But that little inconvenience is SO EASY to fix---plural of convenience (POC) to the rescue. See also IOWA, JACK ASS, WAR BLOG, ZERO, SIT, T BOND and GNAT.
You could read the blog and find out
A hard one, but managed to finish without help. Learned a few things, including the demonym for a person from Alaska’s capital, and that Albert Einstein was a cofounder of Hebrew University. I also like the fact that two of the four answers using the letter Q, UPANDQUIT and QUEERLIT, rhyme.
@me ‐ Oh and 22a would become ELL (building addition)
The motto of the United States is not “In God We Trust” but “E Pluribus Unum.”
@Kent – You forgot "Nattering Naderites Of Negativity". (Or was it "Negative Nabobs Of Naderism"? Oh, never mind...)
Pretty easy-medium; harder than yesterday but not Saturday hard for me. Only a couple of typeovers: CAN'T MISS before CAN'T LOSE, and NOT PUBLIC before NON PUBLIC.
For JUNEAUITE I had the --ITE in place for ages with no idea where it would be. Not being too familiar with US postal codes I thought it would be some town in Maine, but I guess high numbers = west? There are many different suffixes, you have to just take the one that sounds right. JUNEAUIAN would be a lotta vowels in a row!
Speaking of postal codes, in Canada the pattern is 6 characters, letter-vowel alternating. My friend lived at Buffalo Point in the very farthest southeast corner of Manitoba, literally yards from the US border, and his code was R1A 1A1 (Manitoba starts with R).
[Spelling Bee: yd 0, last word this classic SB 5er.]
Happy that so many of you liked it, but I didn't. Too much bad stuff: JUNEAUITE, YADA, ISTHISIT, WARBLOGS, NADERITE. With very little wit or charm to compensate.
A very enjoyable Saturday level solve. The west side played easier than the east. Impressive that there's this level of resistance with so many high value letters and colorful entries.
I found this to be mid-level of the last three Saturday's.
yd pg -1
NYT has to be “with it”these days. I’m sure I am not using the right teen talk slang/ jargon that is taking over the NYT xword, Got a kick outta( oops! That is oldtimey speech) the blogger trying to seem cool. ( You don’t really like all this jazz, doya?)
Puzzle was actually very easy for this generation-it- makes- no- difference member.
I hope the comment of @Andrew 11:48 is not the harbinger of things to come on this blog.
We come here to find some relief from the HATE, no?
As for the puzzle, I couldn’t finish it but thought it was excellent and enjoyable.
Yes! How DARE Andrew bring politics into this, when Rex is merely pointing out the obvious reason for our never-ending wars is people voting third party.
Certainly not the vile Republicans and reluctant, far superior Democrats who vote for them. Blue no matter who!
Shouldn’t 40D be “swankiest” instead of “swankest”?
I had the whole puzzle except WI?/?EROES cross. Did an alphabet run, got to n, knew it was wrong and turned to Rex for the solution. I hate when I do that!
I thought the puzzle was challenging.
Interesting you didn't mention they both got more votes than their opponents. The Florida vote was all of 500 apart and Nader was on the ballot. Pretty good argument for him handing the election to W.
Gore and H. Clinton would have been decent presidents. They were poor campaigners.
As to arguing about the previous incumbent, now candidate, it is clearly useless. So I won't go there.
Luckily I’m a fan of Erasure bc I was having a lot of trouble getting started. Wasn’t too bad after that, but what a weird word list…
I cannot say this enough. Our motto is NOTNOTNOT "in god we trust,"
it is "E Pluribus Unum" and nothing else.
From many, one. A god does not figure into the founding of the United States or our Constitution. But, of course, if you're counting ALL gods, or none, it might read, "In Gods many of us Trust." But it's not our motto. Never has been and never should be.
Voluntary dnf. Got ‘naderite’, and then ‘swankest’, and both were so absurd, I gave up on the NW and moved on with my day. Nothing I’ve read here makes me regret that decision.
To be more specific, the sound that you make that's spelled out as "tsk" is linguistically a click (specifically a dental click). Other clicks include the kissing sound (bilabial click) and the click you might make when throwing finger guns (lateral click).
Hallelujah!
Trolls find a way to inserting themselves where they are not welcome and ruin the fun for everyone else!
One with an accordion might play the Beer Barrel Polka.
@other David. In God We Trust was established as the US National Motto in 1956. It was the era of the Red Menace, and US officials were keen to establish ourselves as different from the godless commmies. It was around that same time that the words "under god" were added to the pledge of allegiance.
See the US Code, Title 36, Subtitle 1. It's an interesting section of the Code, establishing such things as National Forest Products Week and Pan American Aviation Day. And down in Chapter 3, section 302:
"In God we trust" is the national motto.
On the old quiz show COLLEGE BOWL there were "toss up questions". The team which buzzed in first and answered correctly then got "bonus questions. Haven't heard that term since 1966.
There are times when I am just baffled by the disparaging and discouraging comments by fellow-solvers who are striving for perfection in an imperfect world. The endless carping and sniping are just depressing for me to read -- and yet I still do.
I think there is a great misunderstanding of the reality of "de gustibus, etc." that should all give us some slack. Waking up this particularly briliantly sunny Sunday morning, after spending Saturday watching football (or 'soccer' if you like) on a cold and blustery day filled with a combination of rain/snow/hail, and then hearing the great Baroque ensemble Solomon's Knot sing a dazzling performance of Bach's motet "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied" has just put me in a wonderful state of mind, and even though I had some struggles with and questions about this morning's puzzle, I just cannot rise to the level of vitriol and passion that I read in many of today's comments. Perhaps it's because I found the theme clever and not thin or weak, or perhaps I was
laughing at the misdirection of the clues instead of getting angry at them. I sometimes find the Sunday Puzzle weak or not up to the levels it could reach but, my God, it's only a puzzle. It's not poverty, or violence, or political malfeasance or the plague.
It is just a puzzle. Only a puzzle. And I feel sorry for those who seem to feel it is the end-all and be-all of their existence.
I can't believe people actually enjoyed this. This constructor thinks 'Candy Ass' is a clever clue for pinata that breaks the breakfast test. I'll be happy to see his puzzles less often, thanks very much.
This one defeated me NW. I got stuck on “out of” (E pluribus) instead of “in God” for “US motto”. I actually think that’s a bad clue.
31 y.o female here.
NIXIE??? obscure postal service jargon????????
NADERITE?? what ever happened to timeliness and relevancy?? y'all are showing your age.
IOWAS?? JUNEAUITE?
inventor of the circular saw?? a former basemball player? SALTPETER?
OSRIC?
give me a break. xword should be fun, not a homework assignment.
gahhhh!
Only in the English language
CAN'TLOSE AROUSAL
I'MAJERK AND I know IT,
A JACKASS I'M called,
ILL-SUITED AND unfit,
but SOEASY RIBALD.
--- IKE OSRIC
Medium my butt, not SOEASY at all. Overwrote dumbASSES, CANTmiSs, JUJUBy, and 'not' before ILL. Noticed: TOSSUP . . . UPAND . . .
Wordle par.
I'd call this one medium-challenging. Couple of disappointing entries: _____QUIT bothered me, since RAGEQUIT is a letter short. Turns out it was just UPANDQUIT. And private simply NONPUBLIC? Yawn. (Yeah, I had that before YADA; clue really should've been "Blah blah blah alternative.")
Mostly though, there was good, original stuff here. Agree that there are one too many "-ITE"s in the grid. Replete with double-digit U's it must be a @M&A favorite. Loved OHHELLNO beside ISTHISIT. Birdie.
Wordle eagle!
@Canon Chausable 11:37
Rite on!
OK
I'll admit I missed a few. But at first...crickets! So I'm happy with what I've got. And all was fair, tho TABITHA was a WOE. Of course.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
PS I learned that NIXERS work at the deal letter post office many years ago - maybe in a crossword.
Lady Di
You're entitled to your opinions, but unfamiliar to you != 'not part of normal English usage'. Storms *are* tracked on radar, even if you can track them by (means of) radar. Swankest is certainly odd but legit. You not liking warblogs or their readership != select, ugly, or jargony as a word. As moppers, ofc they're swabbers & that's formatting is basic to xwords.
'Rap at' as in knocking at the door. It's dated as Dickins and a POE but legit.
thanks for all this!
So they were at least good at marketing, you're saying. And there wouldn't be a United States without the electoral college & other compromises to protect smaller communities from the cities and powerhouse states.
Anyway, both ends of the uniparty do suck: Biden may be better but is still obj bad, Hillary might have been better but was obj behind Libya & ending any hope of nuclear proliferation (the idea that won Obama his Nobel) and would've prolonged or started additional wars , & Gore would have kept Clinton's triangulation, meaning most of what you dislike with Bush wd've still happened. Naderites weren't wrong that neither party leadership deserves any praise for the last few decades.
Thank you for that. Never knew & another reason to hate Jack Dan, even though it helps subsidize actual bourbon made by its Ky-based parent company. I know it's Tennessee, but they shd still go ahead and add those air filters if it's gotten that bad.
It's a motto, not The Motto.
Bizarre to me everyone else accepted yada for the actual yadda, but guess the wrong version shows in xwords more often & it's just something to adapt to, like pretending roe & eli are things instead of caviar and Harvard waitlist.
It's not The Motto, but it is a motto used by the United States on its currency &c. You can dislike it but the xword wasn't wrong.
Are you and I the only people who saw that "wiz"? Everybody else ignoring it? It was the worst thing in the entire puzzle. It's "whiz", and that clue could not have been more wrong. I can't believe it made it through editing.
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