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Obsolescent two-in-one device / FRI 4-21-23 / Drink company with a wave in its logo / Former NBA All-Star Boozer / al Haytham medieval mathematician called the father of modern optics
Friday, April 21, 2023
Constructor: Erica Hsiung Wojcik and Matthew Stock
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: "R.U.R." (29D: 1920 play from which the word "robot" comes) —
R.U.R. is a 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. "R.U.R." stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots, a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English versions). The play had its world premiere on 2 January 1921 in Hradec Králové; it introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole. R.U.R. soon became influential after its publication. By 1923, it had been translated into thirty languages. R.U.R. was successful in its time in Europe and North America. Čapek later took a different approach to the same theme in his 1936 novel War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant-class in human society. (wikipedia)
• • •
I had a similar struggle-to-revelation experience with 63A: "OK, there's something puzzling me ..."—I had the "ASK" part and tried to write in "I GOTTA ASK" and "I'VE GOT TO ASK," neither of which fit, so instead I went to ... "I HATE TO ASK." And then I "confirmed" HATE by writing in STN at 60D: One of 17 spaces on a Monopoly board: Abbr. (AVE.). Yes yes *of course* I know there are not *17* railroads in Monopoly, and that the railroads in that game aren't even technically stations, but I had "I HATE TO ASK" and TORN TO BITS at 65A: Shredded, which meant -TN for the Monopoly answer, so my brain just went "Monopoly, railroads, stations, yep, keep moving." Anyway, "I HAVE TO ASK" is good. It's got a nice colloquial pop. So, another "nice!" But it's just hard to get excited by much of the rest of it, solid though it (mostly) is—very very very hard to ever get excited about something like DATA CENTER. I did like turning the middle of the grid into a hypothetical rhyming cafe conversation ("ESPRESSO?" "I GUESS SO"), but overall there just wasn't that Friday zing that I (now) miss so much.
Had trouble getting started with this one until I found ANNA Gunn, followed by ATE NEST and PSA, and then I think I was finally able to put CARNE ASADA in there (I might be more excited by this answers if I didn't see both CARNE and ASADA in grids fairly regularly, especially ASADA ... I actually thought 13D: Mexican marinade (ADOBO) was ASADA at first). Found TRANSLATOR very hard to pick up (18A: Jorge Luis Borges vis-à-vis William Faulkner or Franz Kafka), and not only wasn't 100% sure about ADOBO, but also had RATES :( before RATIO at 12D: Two to one, e.g., and no idea what the MOOS clue wanted (25A: Low notes?), so I really had to work for that first corner (note: cows "low," that's the verb, that's what they do when they moo). Things got much easier after that. Names weren't too much of a problem today. I actually knew CARLOS Boozer —if you don't follow the NBA, he must've seemed pretty obscure. None of the other names seem too tough, although I did have some trouble with AKBAR and really that whole NW corner, which is a bit YUCK, with its intersecting NYSE / NCAA abbrevs. Totally guess on the CUTS part of CUTS A DEAL, which I absolutely needed to make sense of things up there.
A few more things:
- 51A: Was out of one's league, so to speak (DATED UP) — this is original, but something about the phrase rubs me wrong, since it's inherently either classist or ... I don't know, making a comment about someone's relative ugliness or boorishness or I don't know what. It's mean-spirited.
- 45D: They've got bills for their newborns (STORKS) — I liked this one even less. The "their" in this clue is doing some weird work. Are we really propagating the "STORKS bring (human!?) babies" myth in 2023, without even a ... question mark or anything? Is this even an active myth any more? The "wordplay" doesn't even really work here, on any level. Is this supposed to look like a ... hospital bill reference? I know yes yes STORKS have "bills" ha ha got it, but what was the misdirection supposed to be? Huge miss, this clue.
- 26A: Power ender (-ADE) — an ad for PowerADE. Great.
- 7D: Period of one's life, in TikTok talk (ERA) — yes, TikTok invented this :/
- 61D: Half a cocktail (TAI) — well there's a kealoa* for you? Why not [Part of a cocktail (in two ways)?]? Because it's part of the cocktail name (Mai TAI) and it's actually found in the word "cocktail". Anyway, guessing between MAI and TAI, not anyone's idea of a good time.
- 53A: Landmark 1990 antidiscrimination legislation, for short (ADA) — the Americans with Disabilities Act
- 52D: "No more than passing from one room into another," per Helen Keller (DEATH) — Helen Keller has DEATH quotes? Weird. I had DREAM here, which I really, really liked. I still like it. Not mad at DEATH, just like DREAM better. It's a cool way to think about dreams. Plus, unlike DEATH, a DREAM is a room you can actually come out of.
*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
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120 comments:
Newborn storks have bills (I guess).
I got stuck in the NW right off the bat so I started to look elsewhere. OCEAN SPRAY went in with no crosses and led to an Easy-Medium clockwise trip through the grid before returning to the NW. 4D made me think, "Wait, they want us to know random words in Arabic?!? Oh. Right. 'Allahu Akbar.' Got it." Then with ACAPELLA in place at 3D the rest of the NW fell.
I do have a question, though: Does the NCAA (1A) really offer scholarships? I thought those came from the member colleges.
I think of ADOBO as being a Spanish derived Filipino flavoring. I suppose any Spanish influenced culture has a claim here but I thought this a poor clue. Especially crossed with IBN. Otherwise mostly agree with Rex, fair solve.
I’m surprised Rex didn’t pick up on the error in 5 down. Octopus is a Greek word, not Latin. The correct plural is octopuses, not octopi.
I thought this blog had decided long ago that the correct plural was "octopodes"???
AKBAR, AQUI? ESPANOL, TATAR? CARNE ASADADA, ADOBO?
Boy, you know you are an extra old old-timer when you used to own something but forgot that it was actually a real thing (CALCULATOR WATCH).
I was kind of hoping that Rex would start complaining about the black squares being in the wrong places again. I enjoyed that one. It was a Rex classic.
I don't know if it is an error. The NYT Crossword tends to reflect language as it is used, e. g. the clue for ERA. If you polled a bunch of NYT readers, I bet at least half would say octopi was the plural. Heck, I may say that if I am not thinking, since it is more drilled into more that words ending in -us follow the first declension in Latin. It would take me a moment to remember that it is the same -pus as in Oedipus, and so is Greek. And then I would probably suggest octopodes. Lol.
One of those puzzles that is perfectly competent, but brought no joy. If I counted right, 15 answers of eight or more letters, only one of which was brought a smile (SLAM POET), and that had a pretty dull clue.
May as well have continued on the ADOBO CARNEASADA TIO ESPANOL theme and clued CARLOS as Spanish for ‘Charles’ and ERA as Spanish for ‘was’.
@Conrad - yes, the NCAA does grant scholarships directly, most famously the Walter Byers Scholar award.
I thought this puzzle was better than Rex did, but that’s often the case.
https://youtu.be/umlBrQoG6xk
Seems appropriate in the discussion of octopi…
Can't tell if you're kidding or serious, but storks carry about-to-be newborn humans with their bills. Or so goes the cute story we tell children rather than go into the anatomical/physiological details.
Lovely Friday resistance, which, at this point in my long-solving experience, shifts my brain into a gear it loves, where with delicious effort, it earns grid property. At least it did through three quarters of the puzzle, until the SW, where that gear was insufficient, and had to shift into Saturday mode – slower, more sweat, and even deeper satisfaction, delicious-er.
All in all, a sweet wake-up and pick-up.
Sparked by the beauty of APROPOS, A CAPELLA, and SLAM POET. Not to mention the lovely rhymes of IGUESSO and ESPRESSO. And a long train of long-O enders: APROPOS, I GUESS SO, ESPRESSO, TIO, IDAHO, LETO, EGO, RATIO, STATUS QUO, ADOBO, OHIO.
Plus, a loving look at an entry in my mind’s photo album that I haven’t viewed in many an age – that CALCULATOR WATCH, which was so geeky-cool to me when it came out, even as it was a pain to use, and which flamed out in the smartphone era. Oh, how things come and go. Though I’m hoping SLAM POETS stay with us a long time.
A beauty-enriched, got-me-wired Friday gift. This was most lovely to unwrap, Erica and Matthew. Thank you!
@jberg, on my phone. I liked it more than Rex. I think the “bills” misdirect was to ob/gyns. Strong Spanish flavor, though it’s weird to clue 19-A as having a tilde that you can’t put in. (We’ll I could, solving on paper, but then the cross doesn’t work.).
What is PowerADE?
Medium, with a pleasant edge of "challenging." I felt quite the TRANSLATOR starting out, as my first two entries were CARNE ASADA and ESPANOL. But I sabotaged myself by crossing ASADA with tAles, leaving me with a drink company ending in -RAT, along with a blank stare. Abandoned that ship and went on - and have to disagree with @Rex about the entertainment value: I thought SCRIPTURE, I HAVE TO ASK, TORE TO BITS, and CUTS A DEAL were very good; and to @Rex's rhymingI GUESS SO and ESPRESSO we can add APROPOS and STATUS QUO, perhaps usable by the SLAM POET. (Back to the NE: I finally got OCTUPI and NESTS, enough to show me OCEAN SPRAY and YARNS.)
Do-over: Dying before DEATH. No idea: ANNA, CARLOS.
Started to enter ACAPELLA (I’m a choral singer so I know this word well), came up a letter short and took it out… that double P threw me off.
I figured the stork bill clue was unrelated to delivering human babies and referred to delivering food to their own babies. Wikipedia confirms, "Older chicks reach into the mouths of parents to obtain food."
Good puzzle never heard of slam poet before. My company is involved in litigation with Reading International and they havent been a railroad for four decades so I got AVE. Tried GMC and REO before UPS
This was *exactly* the puzzle I was hoping for when I said I hoped there was something solid, cleanly filled, and rule-abiding on the near horizon to make up for the renegades we’ve had this week. I really enjoyed it. Lots of fresh fill, lots of interesting cluing and good new facts.
I was a big fan of ESPANOL, and not just for the potential misdirection with the double meaning of lengua. Mainly I cringe whenever we’re asked to put in a Spanish word that uses an eñe (ñ) as an ene, as if that isn’t literally substituting one letter of the Spanish alphabet for another, so finally they found a way to clue ESPANOL that doesn’t make me want to rant into the wind.
And yes, while it’s absolutely correct that the scientific community now uses OCTOPUSES, they used OCTOPI first, and lots of laypeople still do. That didn’t keep me from stubbornly not filling it out until I got the cross, but it’s fair game.
Re: @Adam12’s comment on ADOBO, I know a few Puerto Rican and Mexican folks that would consider those fighting words. Adobos are a rich part of Filipinx, Puerto Rican, and Mexican food culture, and they’re different in each place: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-adobo (emailing you today for those hyperlink instructions @whatsername!).
And @SouthsideJohnny, Latine folks make up at least 15% of the US population, and an additional massive chunk of the US population lives in places where their cultures are very much a part of the mainstream. My life has been so much richer for getting to be a guest in those cultures, including with my Cuban family members. All of this to say, the Spanish clues, along with AKBAR and TATAR, are very obviously Friday fair game (and a couple are delicious).
Finally, I got the job!!! Many thanks for the well wishes. I’m going to spend my day outside doing spring cleanup and gardening as a prize, a beautiful day on the mountaintop.
Thank you, ANNA Gunn, for the starting toehold. Stared at —-OPI for the longest time. Also sat with -AI for a while, waiting for the penny to drop. A satisfying Friday, more crunchy than swoosh.
“Confirms?” Lots of birds feed their chicks from their “bills,” don’t they?
I liked this one a lot more than Rex, and really loved the long answers. Hade to go to Google afterwards to find out why 26across was ADE after PEWTER .
Well I liked it. Calculator watches were a fun memory. Server room was a slap on the head aha. Not too hard, not too easy. Just a happy Friday.
Meant power
Actually found this one pretty easy--almost all my risky guesses panned out, so yay!
And yeah, "octopuses." I get that the XW rules allow for common usage, so fine. But I worked in communications for a major public aquarium for 20 years, so we had very strict copyediting rules around any kind of species nomenclature so I'm going to flinch every time I see the "I" plural.
I liked this puzzle a lot. Fewer only-in-crosswords answers, some fun facts. I got the whoosh-whoosh going on.
Sparkly or not, this one fell like dominoes. And I eschewed my usual technique of bopping all over the grid and solved it in order from 1A to 66A (with a bunch of downs along the way), which made me feel like a grown-up. Only momentary hesitations, like when I saw the clue [Drink company with a wave in its logo] I exulted, “Cranapple!” (My mother lived on the stuff.) Immediately realized that was the flavor, not the company, but only a couple of downs reminded me of OCEAN SPRAY. And thank you, crossword puzzles, for teaching me CARNE ASADA and Spelling Bee for ADOBO – no problems there. I smiled when I saw the clue for 31A: I’m assuming there won’t be any BELA angst today with Lugosi, as there was last week with a couple of musicians.
For some reason, I loved the concision of the clue [Lost all patience] for HAD IT. And I was amazed that someone’s last name is Boozer. Yikes, did little CARLOS get teased in school or what? (But I guess he got his revenge when he grew to a height of 6’9” and became a pro basketball star.) Loved ANNA Gunn in Breaking Bad: she performed the arc from innocent to horror-stricken to corrupted to disillusioned brilliantly.
I found [Red-eye ingredient] an odd clue for ESPRESSO. I get that when many people drink strong coffee near bedtime, they are less likely to sleep. Is that what the clue is getting at? But “ingredient”? I would think “cause” would make more sense. Or is the premise that you want to stay up and so you're deliberately drinking ESPRESSO? OK, I acknowledge that I'm over-thinking it. But unless I’m missing something, the clue doesn’t land for me.
[SB: Haven’t posted for a week, so here are my recent scores (all over the map): 0,0,-4,-1,-2,0,-2. Yesterday I missed this goofy pair.]
On first scan, I thought I was going to struggle with this one. But I found that there was enough sporadic easy fill (including a lot of 3-letter gimmees) that I sped through this in half my usual Friday solve time. Simply too breezy a solve to have time to contemplate on how tedious some of it might have proven to be otherwise (mind you, that's relative to expectations for a Friday; fill was fully acceptable for a tough Wednesday).
Places where I stalled out briefly include:
- acapella before "A CAPPELLA"
- CALCULATOR_____; front portion filled quickly in solving outward from NE corner. Just a lot of tech in and out of my life since a "calculator watch" last saw my wrist.
- Mount before MESAS
DATACENTER truly thudded in place.
"Number ones, e.g."/HITS didn't fare much better
Pleased with "the Word"/SCRIPTURE; "Best-kept"/SAFEST.
Not keen on "Number one spots"/ACMES
I liked DATACENTER, even if I rejected it initially (having DATAC__) parsing the clue as requiring a plural.
And understandable that DATEDUP could rub someone the wrong way. When we were in our 20's we were chatting in a group and someone asked the hypothetical of who in our group of friends, who weren't present, had dated up. I think we were discussing our first couple and very quickly realized what a bitter cup we were drinking from and very quickly moved on to other topics. I blame the booze for even letting that conversation get started.
As others have pointed out, this is a good day for hispanohablantes. We could throw in MESAS with a different clue.
OFL wanted "dream", but I threw in DEATH off the D. I think this is a clear indication of the difference in our ages.
Guessed wrong on MAI, learned there's ESPRESSO in a red-eye, and can never see ICET as an actor until I have all the letters.
Huzzah for ACAPPELLA, which I have sung for years, most memorably with my doo-wop group. A big advantage of singing with no instruments is no roadies and no set up and no instruments needed other than a pitch pipe. Good times.
I really like this Friday which had just the right amount of crunch. Nicely done, EHW and MS. Entirely Heart Warming and Many Smiles involved in this one, and thanks for all the fun.
PS Just before I finished reading All the Light We Cannot See last night, I ran into our friend SCUD, which made me like the book even more, which I didn't think was possible.
UNICLUES
(Sorry for the excess, but all week during my posting hiatus I’ve had pent-up uniclue urges and they’re finally getting an outlet.)
1. What you want to do when reading this in a set of product assembly instructions: “Afix apart Tab A onto Fold C with no some hole among.”
2. Soothing sounds in the back-forty.
3. What kids do in the summer at those makeshift sales booths.
4. The ambush predator’s reckoning before the pounce.
5. What your spouse gives you when saying, ”We have no secrets – go ahead and query me.”
6. How the frustrated wannabe stockbroker felt after failing to learn the basics of The Big Board.
7. Actor Jared attacked by a gang of knife-wielding, eight-limbed molluscs.
8. TV spots warning of lethal tablelands.
9. Mexican-Spanish cookbook.
1. STAB TRANSLATOR
2. APROPOS MOOS
3. ADE DISPERSE
4. CALCULATOR WATCH
5. I-HAVE-TO-ASK TURN
6. NYSE ABCS, HAD IT
7. OCTOPI LOP LETO
8. PSA MESAS DEATH
9. ADOBO SCRIPTURE
@Weezie 8:04
Congratulations on the job!
Significant clueing error today, I think? AKBAR means "greatest" or "greater" in Arabic (simply "great" would be KABIR).
Nice - challenging Friday puzzle. STATUS QUO, SCRIPTURE, TORE TO BITS - plenty of well clues long entries for everyone. What’s not to like about CARNE ASADA? The letter strings in I GUESS SO and APROPOS lend some teeth - limited trivia.
TRANSLATOR
Agree with Rex that the opening corner was awkward. Don’t agree on the STORKS clue - it didn’t feel like a true misdirect to me - just a playful reference. Lots of 3s - but other than IBN and RUR nothing unfortunate. ESPRESSO filled itself in - but I really don’t know what a red eye is.
BELA Lugosi’s Dead
This was an enjoyable Friday solve for me.
The Nutmegs
Easy peasy for a Friday and enjoyable 😊 Nice to see CALCULATORWATCH crossing STATUSQUO and now looking forward to a puzzle with SLIDERULE or CURSIVESCRIPT crossing some other type of PARADIGM or TRADITION. OCTOPI clue needed to add ‘common misspelling of …’
@Pablo "hispanohablantes"! Is that a real word? It's a very German language construction.
Weirdly my first entry was AKBAR, and it gave me all I needed to whoosh through the rest.
Didn't know they were called SLAM POETS. Are they different from gently-shut-the-door poets? I GUESS I thought *any* POET could participate in a SLAM. Or is it a particular style of poetry, written by a particular type if poet?
@Rex put TORn because of a previous puzz where w/he incorrectly put TORe first and the memory stuck.
I, too, put in DEATH off the D. Now I'm worried!
@BarbaraS A red-eye in Starbucks lingo is coffee with a shot of espresso
Hey All !
Relatively quick FriPuz here. One thing that held me up was STATiStic in SE. Ended up with DAT_DiP, knowing something was amiss. Decided to change the I to a U, which got me to see the QUO, and Bam, puz done.
OCTOPI, har. Where's the OCTOPODES? (Hi @Z, if you're reading.) Reminiscent of the Great Octopus Plural Kerfuffle we had here.
Worked at OCEAN SPRAY when I first moved out here. So I got that one pretty quick. The plant is in Henderson, one town over from Las Vegas.
Not too much else to say. I GUESS SO looks neat with the triple S. Clean fill, APROPOS of nothing. 😁
Who doesn't like seeing a SLAM POET TORE TO BITS? Har.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Fantastic. I got the whoosh-whoosh that Rex is always talking about, with scripture, acappella, carne asada and data center.
First time I remember thinking the puzzle was easy and then reading that Rex thought it was medium.
His reviews are like a box of chocolates. You never...
Of course Rex is offended by DATEDUP. In the sports world the idiom is "out kick your coverage". When I was married, I was the one of whom everybody said "What in the world is SHE doing with HIM?
I have to say that my experience with the puzzle pretty much mirrored what @Barbara S said. For some reason I was on the constructors’ wavelength and I didn’t have to puzzle hop to get a toehold. It may not have been as “sparkly” as some Fridays but I wasn’t disappointed.
I’m glad to see that I wasn’t the only one that spelling challenged with respect to ACAPPELLA. In fact, since @Conrad and @Lewis misspelled it in their comments I’m thinking I’m gonna look to see if there is an alternate spelling. One P just looks RIGHT to me!
Hah! I am certainly old enough but have absolutely NO recollection of CALCULATORWATCHes. Maybe because as a woman it is offensive fashion-wise, but the other part thinks…WHY would you need to constantly need to resort to a calculator? I mean, I pretty much only use the one on my phone when I’m at home.
This was an above average Friday for me. Maybe I SOLVED UP. There was a SANS/SALE and an ERIE/OHIO write over. I misread the 43A clue as "Red-dye ingredient. " That last one made little difference as I have no idea what a "Red-eye" is anyway. Basic Spanish helped out in the SE.
Outside of the initial R I couldn't remember RUR for a long time. That didn't cause too much harm as it still confirmed DISPERSE.
Sun pg -2, Tu-Thu -0 (skipped Mon busy day)
You observe that two trains are headed directly toward each other on the same track. You instantly recognize that you could do some computations which would reveal their time until impact, which would let you figure out if there was time to call the railroad and have them warn the engineers. But to do this, you would have to take your eye off of the trains and risk missing the spectacular crash. The dilemma: CALCULATEORWATCH?
What did the vegan do when told he was eating roast pig? SPITTED
Like @Rex, I noticed that TAI is also contained in the word cocktail. I think a very clever clue could have been: Half or 3/8 of a cocktail.
I would suggest that if you want to hear someone SLAMPOETs, ask @Nancy about those who overuse metaphors.
I liked this fine, and think I even felt a hint of a whoosh as I solved. But at my age, you sometimes can’t be sure whether you’ve just peed your pants. Thanks for a fun one, Erica and Matthew.
P.S. Congrats on the new job, @Weezie!
@pablito 9:08..."hispanohablantes"...pero che, que boludo! May I borrow this?
You start me off with a little hablantes de mi neck of the woods, and I will dance the fandango tango with you.
OK...ADOBO. Little history here. ADOBO is actually the national dish of the Philippines. It's the whole dish. ADOBO in Mexico is a sauce. I make my own ADOBO marinade for CARNE ASADA because my friend, CARLOS likes spice. In ESPANOL we call it salsa de amor....
I enjoyed this Friday romp....After yesterday's angst agita fest, this was nice. APROPOS of nothing, Erica and Matthew toss in some SINS and a bit of DEATH followed by SCRIPTURE. Hmmmm. Should I ponder?
I had a few problems that straightened themselves out. I suppose I was the only one that thought 4D might be ALLAH? YUCK STAB changed my mind. I've never heard of a Red-eye, so ESPRESSO was difficult. I didn't understand ACMES being number one spots and SPITTED kinda looks evil. Poor pig. Speaking of which:
@Weezie...My food culture lifestyle is Cuban. You tell me there are some Cubans in a particular area and I come visit. I hope they have a restaurant I can try. I hope they have some SPITTED pig on their menu and I hope everyone will speak ESPANOL with me (accent and all) and I'm one happy camper. Congrats on the new job!
I can boast that I finished a Friday all on my own.
Ah Friday. At last you grace me with your presence. All that gleaming white space and those sweet long stacks – each one right side up and going in the same direction. What a thing of beauty. Let us all give thanks.
Thank you Erica and Matthew. This felt like a refreshing OCEAN breeze compared to the “renegades” we had this week, to borrow a label from @Weezie. I still feel traumatized by yesterday’s odd TURN. And I still have a headache.
@Weezie: Woo hoo! A new STATUS QUO for you. Big congratulations! 🎉🍾 🥳 Enjoy that well-deserved celebration.
I found this one to be fairly easy. You just never know, sometimes.
I think red eye might refer to red eye gravy which has coffee as an ingredient although the Starbucks product sounds plausible too.
Ok Friday. I do think the cluing was just “off” and a little disingenuous in a few cases (including the NCAA, which awards about $3m annually mainly for degree completion or continuation. Its member schools, the institutions it governs, award over $3 billion annually. Answer was clearly playing off the latter, which is just technically wrong. Plus a bad cross with NYSE, as mentioned).
Funny on “dated up”, as I generally hear in a self-deprecating context, like “better half”, but whatever.
Liked the rhyming “O” through the middle, but can add IDAHO, LETO, EGO, OHIO, ADOBO, RATIO, and oof, that’s a lot of Os.
I found this a tough puzzle -- and for all the best reasons. Tricky, non-obvious cluing (STATUS QUO; ACAPELLA; ESPRESSO; OCTIPI; SALE; SCRIPTURE; DATA CENTER; and my absolute favorite: DATED UP). Interesting pieces of knowledge like Borges being Faulkner and Kafka's TRANSLATOR. And almost no tiny arcane bits of useless and ephemeral trivia that needed to be SPITTED out. There were a few pop culture-type people, but most were pretty familiar even to me -- and anyway that wasn't where the real challenge of the puzzle lay.
To me, this is exactly how a good themeless is done.
I wracked my brain trying to come up with a "beefy filling" -- I just had a wonderful Steak Tartare at Cafe D'Alsace last night and so beefy was very much on my mind -- but not knowing ANNA and CARAOS made getting to CARNE ASADA hard. I love that it crosses ADOBO -- I bet Lewis has already pointed that out -- but I think I'll wash down my Mexican "corner" meal with a thirst-quenching white wine or maybe even beer rather than OCEAN SPRAY anything.
I do deserve such a treat as I worked quite hard to solve this. Nice job.
Thanks Barbara S!! A well used hiatus. I love all the uniclues.
@Weezie
Mazel tov!
This clicked with me. New Friday record (I often need to check at least once but today was clean) and fun solve.
Thx, Erica & Matthew; just right for a Fri. puz! :)
Easy-med.
Bit of a glitch in the NW with YeCh instead of YUCK. Was left with AhBAR (even tho the mind pronounced it with a 'K'). Patched it up at the end of the solve when CeTS A DEAL got fixed.
ErA before ADA.
Otherwise, a pretty smooth trip.
Couldn't find an A CAPPELLA version of 'Beautiful OHIO', but here's a Zoom performance by The Ohio University School of Music faculty virtual ensemble, originally streamed at the 2019-2020 end of year awards ceremony.
Here's 'One Man Barbershop Choir' (Julien Neel) singing 'Beautiful Dreamer'; A CAPPELLA, of course.
Didn't know CARLOS Boozer, altho, Bob 'Boozer' was familiar from back in the day.
Have become interested in ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained TRANSformer) so, put this question to it: Is Carlos Boozer related to Bob Boozer?
Here's the reply:
"Carlos Boozer and Bob Boozer are not closely related. Although they share the same last name, there is no evidence to suggest that they are immediate family members. Bob Boozer was a professional basketball player who played in the 1960s and 1970s, while Carlos Boozer played in the NBA from 2002 to 2015. While it is possible that they are distant relatives, there is no public information to support this."
I Googled the same question and arrived at InsideHoops.com, where the bloggers confirm ChatGPT's take, e.g., Lax4422Chik1342 writes: "Just rec'd an e-mail answer from the Utah Jazz public relations dept. Bob and Carlos are not related but Carlos was curious to see if there was some kind of link because of the kinda rare surname, he did some checking and nothing popped up."
I also asked ChatGPT about SLAM POET 'performers':
"Slam poetry is a form of spoken word poetry that has become increasingly popular in recent years. It is typically performed in a competition setting, where poets perform their work before a panel of judges and a live audience. Slam poets often incorporate elements of performance, such as movement, gesture, and vocal intonation, to enhance the impact of their words.
Slam poetry emerged in the 1980s as a way for poets to engage with audiences in a more interactive and dynamic way. The format typically involves three-minute performances, with poets judged on criteria such as content, delivery, and originality. Many slam poets have gained a following through their performances, and some have even published collections of their work.
One of the defining characteristics of slam poetry is its focus on issues of social justice, identity, and politics. Many slam poets use their platform to speak out against oppression and injustice, and to raise awareness about issues such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. The genre has also been embraced by marginalized communities, who use slam poetry as a means of self-expression and empowerment.
Some notable slam poets include Saul Williams, Patricia Smith, and Taylor Mali, among many others. Slam poetry competitions are held all over the world, with the annual National Poetry Slam in the United States being one of the most prominent events in the genre."
A most enjoyable adventure today; liked this one a lot.
@Weezie (8:04 AM) 👍
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
As to Carlos: there was also a Bob Boozer in the NBA, also an all-star. As if I needed further head scratching with this puzzle.
CARLOS.
@Barbara! Where have you been?
Ah Friday, you random collection of words piled high with popular culture and arcania. I always skipped them back in the day before the terror of the streak counter on this app overran my better judgment. I'm so worried about that number I'm willing to do Fridays and Saturdays. This is how teenagers must feel on their Tik-Tok ERAS. I act like a 12-year-old most of the time so I suppose on some level it's all perfectly sensible.
Too much (?) foreign language stuff to have any hope here. I don't think I learned anything worth remembering, but I didn't get any dumb-er, so I'll take it.
On DATE UP, it's probably better to understand the ramifications from the "up" person suffering through the mental gymnastics of compromise, rather than the "not up" person who's delighted to be there at all, but with lingering fear it will all come crashing down.
Loved the OCTOPI clue and ridiculous spelling.
On the other hand, I'm always ready for...
Uniclues:
1 Vegan opinion of your burrito, ya know, on account of the corporate-powered murder society has normalized.
2 A very bad way to stop that infernal woman from flapping her arms next to the mayor during press briefings.
3 When cows nail it.
4 Dump the contents of the giant orange urn over the coach's head.
5 What an author wears to a reading in Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta.
6 The Bible of Bueno, the Diary of Delicioso, Los Libros de Lusciousness.
1 YUCK, CARNE ASADA
2 STAB TRANSLATOR
3 APROPOS MOOS
4 DISPERSE ADE (~)
5 SLAM POET SARI
6 ADOBO SCRIPTURE
Had BOOS before MESAS gave me the M in MOOS. I maintain that BOOS is a better answer for “low notes?” than MOOS.
ILIBTRD is too long but we need an abbreviation for that apt phrase which is used so often here.
Solid puzzle but pretty dull for Friday. Only eight red plus signs in the margins.
I'd love to find a nice restaurant around here that serves pork adobo.
POWERADE is a sports drink that I, like you, never heard of.
@Weezie -- How wonderful! Kudos! I'm not sure I'd choose to celebrate a big promotion by doing Spring Cleaning -- even if it is outdoors in beautiful weather -- but people all have their own quirks:) I wish you a very successful and happy career.
@Barbara S. Welcome back. Your #1 -- absolutely hilarious!!! Now you couldn't have made up those instructions, could you? I doubt anyone could! Are you at liberty to tell us what this "assemble-it-yourself [uh oh]" product was? My curiosity is killing me.
I hadn't thought of that, but I agree.
Halfway between Rex & @Lewis on this one. Seemed very easy for late week, but happy to land in the same playground area as @Barbara S.
Red eye gravy is great, but I think our constructor duo had this red eye in mind.
Quick note from yesterday: my gran used scud, scuds, scudding frequently. And I adopted the word, use it and passed it on to my daughter. I suspect this one was an age thing. It’s one that apparently has fallen out of usage but I like its descriptive power to describe certain cloud formations’ movement.
Speaking of usage, reading @Rex’s difficulty with CALCULATOR WATCH, may have been a similar issue, although I think he tried to go “older” with “transistor.” I remember the first hand held calculator with a memory function. My husband paid over $100 to acquire the first one he ever saw advertised (1972). After be received it and quickly exhausted its meager but still impressive capabilities, he talked often of the future and everyone have a computer “on their desks” that could rival Illiac (we were at the U of Illinois and be was obsessed with the computing power being developed there). With that small purchase, his career as a computer systems designer/analyst was born. Of course he had a CALCULATOR WATCH!
I thoroughly enjoyed this Friday. Something for everyone, plenty of resistance and lots of fun. And thank you @Pablo for my new word, hispanohablantes. I’ve not seem this before and my strong German heritage made me think of the word’s construction similarity to German construction.
I took a STAB in the. NW and gingerly dropped NCAA in. Verified it quickly and was able to went my way down the west side without hideous difficulty. Until the red-eye ingredient. The only consumable red-eye in my lexicon os the tomato juice/beer concoction. When no form of tomato or tomato juice fit, I thought maybe brand name Clamato? Or Clammato? None of that would fit nut the final O which was the “Jongle Bells” gimme. Ugh. All of this ironed itself out as I did the downs to get UPS, LOP and AER, which gave me the CALCULATOR for the WATCH I already had. On my across pass I wondered whether “took in” was saw, but ANNA Gunn convinced me Ii ATE what I took in.
DATED UP is certainly of the language and I suppose it makes it fair game, but it certainly speaks ill of both parties, the dater and the datee. I often wish our editors would try to be a. It more sensitive to things of this ilk since the only reason current -isms become dictionary entries is continuous usage (not unlike SCUDS). And yet, is today’s “current” phrase any more or leas offensive or derogatory than the oft asked “what does s/he see in him/her?” that has been around forever? Perhaps we should try to be less judgmental? As my daughter would say (following her study abroad year in England), “not bloody likely!”
Excellent wordplay on “low” notes (MOO) “sticks together” (NEST), “ needle, in a way” (SEWS), and “something’ off with this (SALE). Smiles all around. Loved seeing a NOD to the SLAM POET genre. Something I don’t have an opportunity to enjoy often enough.
I found this a delightful Friday. Thanks EHW and MS!
@Barbara S. 9:13 AM
It's never going to get better than octopodes wielding switchblades, no matter who ends up taking the fall.
Re DREAM vs DEATH - Two nights ago I had a DREAM where the township retrofitted the rainwater runoff system in town, putting giant garbage disposals in under some of the manhole covers. They did this so that anyone so inclined could simply slide the manhole covers off, dive in, get pureed and end up feeding the fishes downstream. Makes sense to me, no need to complicate DEATH.
I can't believe we're back to 'what is the plural of octopus'. WHy hasn't Will S apologized to @Z yet so he can put a stop to that nonsense.
Decent 72-worder themeless FriPuz. Had yer pangrammer false alarm Q in it.
Prefer themed FriPuzs, but M&A knows he is hopin against hope, most of the time on that.
fave entry: MOOS.
fave clue: {Low notes?} = MOOS. Nice SALE clue, too boot.
staff weeject pick: IBN. This was one of 4 puz no-knows, at our house (other 3 bein LETO & AKBAR & AQUI). IBN was absolutely necessary, tho -- in order to preserve MOOS.
also liked: STATUSQUO. IGUESSSO. SPITTED [har].
And hard to beat a good CALCULATORWATCH, I'd grant. M&A had always gone with Timex tho, until I got a nicer watch as a retirement gift (along with a real neat hook-stand to put bananas on). Always time for bananas -- got yer precious neutrinos. And go real well with cinnamon rolls.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Ms. Wojcik darlin & Mr. Stock dude.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
It took forever to make an inroad into this puzzle and I’m amazed that I actually ended up solving it, thanks to a lucky guess on the ADOBO / IBN cross. Gracias, Erica and Matthew, for the workout and the Spanish lesson and also for teaching me how to spell ACAPPELLA.
@mathgent 11:30...Several years back my husband and I went to a "grand" party catered by some good friends living in the Bay Area. The food was all Cuban. They had a lechon (pig that was SPITTED) marinated in a lemon-garlic adobo mojo sauce. The restaurant is called "Cuban Kitchen" and it's located in San Mateo. I think they now have sit-down service. Anyway, it was beyond delicioso....You might want to give it a whirl..
@GILL I. 10:20 AM
I love everything you write.
@Weezie Congrats. And as somebody else said, yard work is not how one celebrates.
Forgot to give a shoutout to Jeanne MOOS, whose vids are always so entertaining. :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Today's Fun Fact to Know and Tell: Cuyahoga Valley NP is Ohio's only NP. It's wonderful for biking.
I very much appreciate the nod to "Allahu Akbar" on Eid ul-Fitr! Eid Mubarak everyone!
@Gill - my sister-in-law of the last 20 years is Miami Cuban, and my folks became part time residents of Miami shortly after that. So, we’ve all been integrated into her large, amazing Cuban family. We’ve had quite a few very raucous, delicious 30-person holidays - the NYC Jewish contingent generally fits right in, and charades is outlandishly competitive and rowdy. Growing up my father loved to take us into Manhattan to one of a few Cuban-Chinese restaurants - now *that’s* delicious fusion. I think there’s one left.
Y’all are too kind - appreciate the well-wishes.
C'mon Erica and Matt -- you coulda used Emerson BOOZER from the one-time-ever Super Bowl Jets of the Joe Namath era. (Sigh.)
Thanks for the data on NCAA scholarships. I figured it was undoubtedly *technically* true that the NCAA gives a few scholarships. But the clue nevertheless felt misleading because I know it's the schools that are mostly paying them out.
Easyish. I started out with rotc at 1a but it was mostly whooshing after that. Solid with some fun cluing, liked it.
Here are some stats from yesterday’s polarizing puzzle.
% positive comments that were not anonymous: 55 (n=38)
% negative: 45 (n=31)
% positive anonymous comments: 42 (n=8)
% negative anonymous comments: 58 (n=11)
Amy: congrats @Weezie! Hope you have a great boss and even better colleagues.
As for storks, remember having a spirited discussion with a friend when we were in 1st grade about how babies are born. She was the eldest child; I am the youngest. Yup, I was passionately on the side of the storks.🤷🏻♀️
When I finally finished this baby, I said, "I GUESS SO". Good but not great. My next move is always to look up the Rex column, and read the comments, but my thought there was TL:DR, so after making sure I didn't miss a posed from our Muse, I went to the computer, played a couple of games of Solitaire, then came here.
For some reason, a Philippine ADOBO dish used to be on the menu of the Athenian, my favorite hangout in Seattle, in Pike Place Market. I don't think I saw ADOBO on any Mexican menu until fairly recently.
I did once have a CALCULATOR WATCH, but it was many AGES ago. You fiddled with the KNOB to make it do its thing. The iPhone put that out of business, not to mention the various Smart WATCHes that Apple and others make. Hands up for thinking twice about how to spell A CAPPELLA, a phrase that probably comes from the Pope's Sistine Chapel.
I knew BORGES was a TRANSLATOR, because though his native language was ESPANOL, he published many an English language story in the old New Yorker.
This was edging into record solving time for me. I pat myself on the back for getting NYSE crossing NCAA right off the bat, confirmed by AKBAR and YUCK. A brief hold-up was needed to acknowledge that I always want to misspell A CAPPELLA with only one P but I got past that.
Some great cluing today - I circled "They're armed to the gills" for OCTOPI and the STORKS clue. I never once associated that clue with the human infant delivery system myth, went straight to the "storks have bills, har" and thought it was very nice.
Hand up for mAI before TAI.
Nice Friday puzzle, thanks Erica and Matthew!
My thought exactly (on the NCAA)
OCTOPI always rubs me the wrong way. I know language changes, but I will think of you as uneducated if you use it.
This went very quickly for me; exactly 10 minutes in fact. I think I had no typeovers at all, except briefly for SCORE before RATIO for "Two to one, eg" (but which I deleted right away thinking: there's just too many possibles until I see some crosses).
Hands up for having a CALCULATOR WATCH back in the day. Of course I was doing a BSc in Physics so it was okay. I also remember in 1979 buying a programmable calculator -- a Hewlett-Packard -- which was like a crude computer and was my first such device.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0, my last word this tricky 7er. A rocky week, SB wise: Sat to Thurs: 0, -3, -2, -6 (I gave up), 0, 0. Notable missed words: ambulette, hiragana, lenity. Hi @Barbara S and welcome back!]
Octopuses are what I played with at the aquarium in Hawaii. (Amazing experience.)
Octopi is the circumference of a circle with a radius of 4.
Wow, Ethan T. Just wow!
Had to vent about the clue "scholarship-offering grp." That's inaccurate - NCAA doesn't offer scholarships. Sloppy clue.
I don't think there is anything mean about "dated up." Among college boys in the south back in the day this was known as "out kicking your coverage," which didn't really make sense but seemed to get the point across. It was generally said with a bit of admiration or jealousy regarding the boy who out kicked his coverage. "Kurt really out kicked his coverage with his date for Sword and Serpent (which was the Theta Chi spring formal).
OK, all you fraternity haters, have at it! I can take it and wouldn't give up those days for anything. Fun police be damned.
@Smith, I assure you it's a real word, and promise I won't use it unless we have lots of Spanish, like today. @CDilly52, You're welcome, and I urge you and @Smith to try to work this into a conversation. Just remember the "h" is silent. @GILL I-Not mine to loan, so use it freely. Nice long word for kids just learning the language.
@Weezie (8:04) Yay, you!
@Mothra (9:28) Thanks for the Starbucks red-eye info. Man, I love this blog for finding out stuff I didn’t know.
@CDilly52, @Nancy, @Gary Jugert
Glad you liked the uni’s. @Nancy, I did make up the stuff in #1 – just tried to make it as outrageous as I could. We can let our imaginations soar as to the nature of the “product.” @Gary, I hope Jared LETO doesn’t read this blog: he might sue me for nightmare provocation. Particularly liked your #1,5 and 6.
@okanganer (2:05 PM) I also missed your trio of missed words, and then some. I didn't know what any of the words you listed meant...but I do now!
I was thinking of red eye gravy, which has coffee in it.
The NCAA does not issue scholarships. Individual schools do.
Did I miss something here? The clue for 19 Across is "Lengua with a tilde" but the answer ESPANOL is without its tilde. Maybe "Lengua [tongue] without its tilde" would be a better clue.
ESPAÑOL is prominent por AQUI so I didn't need a TRANSLATOR for CARNE ASADA, ADOBO or TIO. I did a side eye to 25D "High lands" for MESAS. MESA is ESPAÑOL for "table" and is used for flat topped hills or mountains, not just any old high lands.
I knew 29D RUR from xwords. There may be a similar acronym on the horizon. When the SpaceX's Starship exploded midflight after yesterday's launch, it was described as a "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly" or RUD. Might we see this is an upcoming xword?
I live in Port Isabel which is about five miles from the SpaceX site in Boca Chica, TX, so I got to watch and listen(!) to the launch. The sound is beyond deafening. The earth and everything on it shook and vibrated like it was the end of times. It kicked up so much dirt and sand that the entire town of Port Isabel got a dusting.
Always glad to see discussions of the proper use of Classic Greek and Latin as happens in the comments today. I wish the same critical analysis would be extended to rebus (Latin for "with or by way of things) so often used in crosswords. By the way, rebus is already plural. It's a grammatical case (declension) of res, Latin for "things".
Funny how people read clues differently. A language with a tilde( that is the clue ) is español. ESPANOL is not a language with a tilde. I always get a laugh when the clue is something about a greeting in Madrid or such and the NYT answer is COMO ESTA which translates “I eat this…”
Shouldn’t the clue give some clue about the answer? I guess the one for DATA CENTER is too subtle for me.
Puzzle quite easy except for the upper right.
Congratulations!
@Barbara S, of those 3 words the only one I knew was hiragana, and it's also the only one that spell check didn't highlight when I was typing the post!
I never know which foreign words will be approved by Sam so now I just have to remember for the future. Ach speaking of that, I just noticed I also missed "bateau" last week! (and of course spell check is highlighting it right now)
Kind of a technicality to call NCAA scholarship granting, even though they offer the one you mentioned. Offering scholarships isn't a functional part of what the NCAA does (lone exception aside). IBM, for example, gives out lots of scholarships, but would be a weird answer for the given clue. Sloppy clue IMO - it's not difficult to come up with a clue that doesn't hinge on an obscure technicality for NCAA.
@EricStrattan (2:50). Drop on down to this corner of the playground. We've got a nice piece of cake for you.
Personally, I object to "octopi".
@Gary J 12:14. Why thank you!
@Weezie 12:25. Next time you see your "Cuban" familia...ask one of them if they ever use this:
"Cierra la window porque eta rainando." Classic Miami Cuban speak.
@pablito 2:55. Ay caramba...I could've sworn you coined it.
@Barbara S. Your # 1 belongs in a Bulwer-Lytton contest!....It was a dark and stormy night...The STAB TRANSLATOR was in desperate need of help affixing his Tab A onto Fold C.......
I dunno. My pandemic skill pickup was to improve my Mai TAI game, so I'm perfectly happy with guessing between the two in the grid. Also, Martin Cate's Smuggler's Cove is a great book about tiki cocktails - it won a James Beard - and his Mai TAI is chef's kiss good.
1A flummoxed me. I didn't think the NCAA gave scholarships. It's the college that gives the scholarship, typically. The NCAA coordinates the tournaments. I mean maybe they give scholarships, but you don't really hear about that?
And Carlos Boozer was an NBA all-star? Who knew? He was far better known as a star for Duke (who gave him a scholarship), and he played in the NCAA tourney. It all comes full circle.
"I liked this puz more than rex did" -- which seems to be the oft-repeated refrain.
14 x 15? I thought today skewed easy.
And how do I prove that I'm not a robot by simply clicking that box? I don't get it.
Red eye is a mixed drink.
I had ones for a while. I am happy I didn't think of your answer!
Like the puzzle. Thought it was medium. North I found very hard, but the rest was easy.
Noticed that after Nancy and others discussed poetry this week (interesting list of favorite poets you posted Nancy) this crossword has the contemporary SLAM POET as an answer.
Coffee with an espresso shot it in to be specific.
It’s not Starbucksese. It’s a term that existed in coffee before them.
Uh, what?
@jae 12:43
Thanks for confirming my post of yesterday afternoon, but it felt more lopsided!
@Pablo
Not sure if my reply posted (was interrupted).
If not, fantastic word, thank you. Didn't know Spanish dud wird building that way, seems very German.
My sentence for today : My husband is trying to become hispanohablante!
Good puzzle, good fill, good clues…even a few good “d’oh!” moments. Perfect Friday! I don’t want it to be easy, but I also don’t want to work late. Got most in spurts during the day between assignments (which often leads to extra face-palming later when I realize the obvious answers I missed), but wrapped up the rest while enjoying my 5pm glass of white wine on the patio. May have clocked in at a slogging 00:28:43, but this is another example where the critical blog and the satisfied daily user sometimes have different goals and expectations. The right amount of clever clueing to spark engagement without delaying the weekend (I have a streak to maintain, after all).
Thanks, Erica and Matthew!
Agreed! I sped through this one, after needing to cheat on the previous two days. Despite the CALCULATORWATCH answer, it felt like a younger person's puzzle, with no ancient celebrities from before my time.
I liked it better than Rex did, I think!
The cattle are lowing in “Away in the Manger”
Hand up for the double P in 3-down. Good tough Friday, but no tougher than medium for the day. As usual, a balky start, but as things got filled in, other things came to light. I lived through the CALCULATOR WATCH ERA without ever knowing there was such a thing. Learn something new [old] every day. Birdie.
Wordle par despite a BYGYG first guess. Certainly, I did not shine. My next try had no spine: they picked the last one, the swine!
Thanks so much for posting this link. The original album it was on is one of my favorites of all time
HOES SINS UP DATED
IHAVETO say IT's APROPOS
TO remain STATUSQUO,
or CUT ADEAL? IGUESSO.
ASK me if IDAHO.
--- ANNA CARLOS
@Barbara S. 8:53am:
If you add a second shot of espresso to the red eye, it becomes a black eye.
I loved the 59A clue and answer. Without those around the clock servers in the data centers, we wouldn't be communicating with each other on this blog.
A good themeless. Tough in spots, but fair. Had mAI before TAI. Tried in vain to fit Coca-Cola into the OCEANSPRAY spot. There’s a bit of junk (TIO, PSA, TAI, IBN, OER, ADA, ILK etc.) but besides that it was pretty good. 👍
Not much written over but still a good workout. Noticed: . . . TOASK . . . TOBITS. Circled: ANNA Gunn.
Wordle rhyme time: Stein SpINE ShINE SWINE
Yes, the NCAA does give out scholarships. No that isn't its primary function.
I went to numerous dictionaries and encyclopedias, and there are 3 accepted plurals to the word octopus. For the animal world faunatics, octopuses is the law of the terra. Previously, the accepted plural was octopi. Octopodes takes the bronze.
Of all things, NCAA was my only lookup. They do give scholarships, but that did NOT come to my mind.
The rest was clever and fun and doable for me.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Huh? It's 25.13.....
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