Constructor: Mangesh Ghogre and Brendan Emmett Quigley
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: Taj Mahal — circled squares form an outline of the Taj Mahal and contain information about the Taj Mahal (including the name "Taj Mahal," right at the top); then there's more Taj Mahal trivia scattered throughout:
Theme answers:
SHAH JAHAN (38D: Builder of the monument depicted in this puzzle)
ONION DOME (41D: Architectural feature depicted by this puzzle's arching circled letters)
INDIA (3D: Home to the monument depicted in this puzzle)
SPIRE (12D: Architectural feature depicted between 7- and 8-Down)
TOMB (75A: Type of structure that this puzzle's theme is a grand example of)
MINARETS (69A: Architectural features depicted by this puzzle's vertical circled squares)
FOUR (58D: Number of 69-Across surrounding the monument depicted in this puzzle)
AGRA (67D: Home to the monument depicted in this puzzle)
Word of the Day: SHAH JAHAN (38D) —
Mirza Shahab-ud-Din Baig Muhammad Khan Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also known as Shah Jahan I (Persian pronunciation: [ʃɑːh d͡ʒahɑːn]; lit.'King of the World'), was the fifth Muslim emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mughals reached the peak of their architectural achievements and cultural glory. He was Aurangzeb's father.
The third son of Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), Shah Jahan participated in military campaigns against the Rajputs of Mewar and the Lodis of the Deccan. After Jahangir's death in October 1627, Shah Jahan defeated his youngest brother Shahryar Mirza and crowned himself emperor in the Agra Fort. In addition to Shahryar, Shah Jahan executed most of his rival claimants to the throne. He commissioned many monuments, including the Red Fort, Shah Jahan Mosque and the Taj Mahal, where his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal is entombed. In foreign affairs, Shah Jahan presided over the aggressive campaigns against the Deccan Sultanates, the conflicts with the Portuguese, and the wars with Safavids. He also suppressed several local rebellions, and dealt with the devastating Deccan famine of 1630–32.
In September 1657, Shah Jahan was ailing and appointed his eldest son Dara Shikoh as his successor. This nomination led to a succession crisis among his three sons, from which Shah Jahan's third son Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) emerged victorious and became the sixth emperor, executing all of his surviving brothers, including Crown Prince Dara Shikoh. After Shah Jahan recovered from his illness in July 1658, Aurangzeb imprisoned his father in Agra Fort from July 1658 until his death in January 1666. He was laid to rest next to his wife in the Taj Mahal. His reign is known for doing away with the liberal policies initiated by Akbar. During Shah Jahan's time, Islamic revivalist movements like the Naqsbandibegan to shape Mughal policies (wikipedia)
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It's a picture. An intricate picture. Lots of trivia. As an architectural achievement (!) it's impressive. As a crossword puzzle, it wasn't terribly fun to solve. I figured out it was the Taj Mahal early. "OOH, look at that, the Taj Mahal, cool." And then all that followed was trivia. MINARETS, FOUR, AGRA ... yes, these are all true about the Taj Mahal, but this was all mere description. Once you see it's the Taj Mahal, the puzzle has nothing left to offer except some facts and figures. I did enjoy figuring out that the ONION DOME depicted in this puzzle actually spelled out TAJ MAHAL—that was a neat trick, and helped me remember what the hell "salt" was in Spanish (SAL) (25D: Spanish seasoning). And I'd never heard of SHAH JAHAN, so at least that bit of trivia was new (to me). But otherwise, solving this puzzle felt like coloring by numbers or completing a dot-to-dot puzzle. Very little actual crossword pleasure. The fill is very compromised by the (admittedly ambitious and complex) grid structure, so there's just a slew of short stuff, much of it unpretty. And then the hunk of material in the middle (HASNT ASTO ESIGNS LTGOV) is somewhat unpleasant as well. SWINGS AT MINARETS makes things somewhat more interesting down below (is that like "tilting at windmills"?), but mainly what you've got here is the outline of the Taj Mahal and then a bunch of highly segmented little nooks and crannies, all of them unsurprisingly stuffed with ho-hum or stale stuff. ELHI, yeesh, haven't seen that in a while. My favorite part (outside certain admirable parts of the theme execution) was probably VWJETTA into FJORD. I swept up into that crossing from below and it felt ... precarious and fun, like I'd gone around a hairpin turn really fast. Cool letter juxtapositions. Loved it. But no other fill gave me a thrill. And that "SPIRE," quote unquote??? I looked at the grid online to see if they'd done something elaborate with it and no, there's just a somewhat darker line (between REM and ANA). The "wow" of the puzzle kind of stops with the revelation that the puzzle is visually depicting the Taj Mahal. After that, it's mostly just symmetrical trivia and a lot of subpar fill.
Not a lot of real struggle today, though that SW corner felt dicey since JAHAN was unknown to me, and I wrote in LACK instead of LOSE (59D: Come up short), and there was yet another theme answer down there I didn't know for certain. But FOUR was probably always the likeliest number there (though FIVE fit just fine; you could have FIVE MINARETS, right? Seemed plausible). I never know who World Cup hosts are, but in three letters, probably USA (71A: 2026 World Cup co-host). So that tiny corner was briefly scary, but I got through it. I also had weird trouble getting LETHAL BLOW (31A: Knockout punch). Had the LET- and couldn't imagine how to get from there to a plausible answer. This was because I was pronouncing it like the word "LET" in my head—no hope there. But I went inside the Taj Mahal, got HASN'T, and then there it was—LETHAL. Otherwise, what else? Couldn't remember if it was CLAUDIA or CLAUDIO (28D: "Much Ado About Nothing" role), so just waited for the kangaroo cross on that one (JOEY, giving me the "O"). Had LEG room before REC room (26A: ___ room). I only ever see REC room in puzzles. Whereas I yearn for LEG room every time I fly (though weirdly I got upgraded to first class last time I flew and it felt wrong and excessive to have as much leg room as I had; the coffee in little ceramic cups, however, did not feel excessive; that felt right; as did the free booze). I do admire the intricacy of the puzzle today. It really went all out on architectural detail and the description thereof. I just found it somewhat of a drag to actually solve. Except for that part where I drove my VW JETTA along the FJORD, that was cool. See you tomorrow.
Yep. This is one of those puzzles that clearly prioritizes demonstrating the constructor’s neat trick over the solver’s experience on the whole. Normally I *loathe* when it’s this overt, but I at least was able to enjoy the gimmick this time before grumbling about its ramifications for the fill.
I did my study abroad semester in India learning about India, so that probably has something to do with my tolerance of the conceit. Similar to OFL, the only part of this puzzle that was crunchy for me was the southwest. It took me a long while to remember SHAHJAHAN but then once I got enough crosses to jog my memory the rest fell pretty quickly.
As for the fill itself, oof yeah way too many boring little words. I suppose it’s good to encounter less recent crosswordese like ELHI so I can add it to the mental bank? Interesting that before today, ELHI was used 89 times in NYTXW, all between 1993 and 2018 with ‘97 and ‘07 being the only years it didn’t appear. But then, a five year break. I’m wondering if that signals that the editorship has that word on a list to be used “only if there’s no other way and the puzzle is otherwise worth it,” and they deemed this one to meet the criteria? Would be curious to hear from you veteran solvers and constructors if that’s the kind of thing that happens.
That said, I liked SWELTER and ENSNARED, and I thought it was nice to consider the fruit-ness of OLIVEs.
A mixed bag today for sure. At least it gave us something different!
Excited at first to see one of my favorite constructors - but soon the anticipation waned when I realized we have a tribute puzzle loaded with 3s and 4s forced by grid art.
I knew I had just run across SHAH JAHAN recently in a puzzle. Sure enough, one of this week’s selections in the “From the Archives” section of the app was from Dec. 20, 2019. 20A was clued “___ Jahan, leader who commissioned the Taj Mahal.”
Same feeling here, and had to solve online again because of printing issues. I did find this relatively easy and am getting better at solving with a keyboard, so there's that.
The W from VWJETTA gave me BLOW which led to LETHALBLOW, which was hard to see otherwise. I had a VWJETTA for a while and it was fun to drive. Last stick shift car I owned, and a younger teacher was pretty impressed that I knew how to drive it. Never showed him how I could dial a rotary phone.
This gives "constructing a puzzle" another layer of meaning. Well done indeed, MG and BEQ. Minimal Guffaws, But Eventually Quite impressive. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
SB breaking news- QB yesterday without realizing I was getting even close. First one in a long time.
This was two different puzzles, in terms of difficulty for me: the Southwest and West, which were impenetrable (I only had FOUR, USA, REN, and the -EY of JOEY), and everything else, which was easy.
I found this one to be pretty meh. I could see the Taj Mahal before I even started filling answers, so it made the themers easy. For example, I got ONION DOME without seeing the clue, because I had ONIO- and thought, "How could ONION be related to the Taj Mahal?" Boom. ONION DOME. As a consequence, I never even noticed the circles spelled TAJ MAHAL until Rex pointed it out.
Problems: ScAN before SPAN for "Go over" messed me up for a while.
Don't like the clue for VW JETTA. A Golf alternative should just be JETTA. With the V in place I briefly put in VANAGON.
Never heard of ELHI, and still not entirely clear why the clue has anything to do with publishing. Is it not just another term for K-12?
Final thing: for one random moment the mobile app showed a dark line where the "spire" would be, then it disappeared. I couldn't get it to show up again. Did this happen to anyone else?
With all the stress that the theme/construction put on the grid (plus all of the trivia) - I’m surprised that this thing even rose to the level of mediocrity. Still, we unfortunately were asked to suffer through the insufferable - HSU, AMAS, COTE, TRAD, ELHI, ESME and the like in addition to stuff like JAHAN and MINARETS. Another NICHE offering with a so-so theme and crappy fill, but very well constructed - pretty much standard NYT fare these days.
This is a fitting follow-up to Mangesh’s last puzzle, a tribute to Mahatma Ghandi on the 150 anniversary of his birth. Mangesh spaces his NYT puzzles out, this being his fourth in a decade. For BEQ, on the other hand, this is his 192nd since 1996 (do yourself a favor and go to XwordInfo to see that most impressive BEQ beard!).
Like the Taj Mahal itself, this grid was an intricate build, with TAJ MAJAL perfectly fitting into the ONION DOME, with having SPIRE/INDIA, ONION DOME/SHAH JAHAN, and FOUR/AGRA being symmetrical, not to mention placing in the minarets, all in addition to the shape of the building itself. Bravo on that!
I especially liked: • [Fusilli shape] echoing Sunday’s pasta-shape-themed puzzle. • The mini-theme of OO-enders: RENEW / MENU / HSU / ASTO / OAHU / OOH. • The praises ringing out by bystanders on both sides of the structure – OOH and OMG – in the third row from the bottom. • Lovely answers FJORD, MINARETS, SWELTER, and HELIX. • That this was not a Wednesday Whoosh, and I’m glad for it, as my brain loves having areas it has to come back to. • The magnificent cross of OLIVE and OIL.
The Taj Mahal is gorgeous. Even when I see it in photos, it momentarily takes my breath away. Thank you, Mangesh and Brendan, for bringing it my way once again, and for a most enjoyable outing!
I never heard the word COTE before, that slowed me down a lot in the eastern side, and for some reason could not remember CESAR. the rest was a breeze and also felt a little let down by Quigley since i generally love his puzzles.
After finishing this puzzle, I felt like I had opened my "World Book Encyclopedia" to the TAJ MAHAL entry - lots of facts, figures, and pictures of the structure all packed into a small article that provides enough info for a ninth-grade essay.
Perhaps I should have paid closer attention in the ninth grade as a lot of this felt new to me.
"THEME: Taj Mahal — circled squares form an outline of the Taj Mahal..." Does it though? I mean, it's clever and as good an approximation of the structure as you can make in a 15X16 grid I gather, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
But did get a good sophomoric chuckle at the clue/answer of EARL. Sometimes studying middle English can do that for you.
Is this for real? That doesn't look like a picture of *anything* to me, much less the building in the photo. And the (mis)labelling of parts – one of the MINARETS (of which we are informed there are FOUR, but the grid only supplies two) reads ONION DOME, while the thing that's supposed to be the onion dome reads TAJ MAHAL, which is not directly clued but is passingly referred to as "the monument depicted in this puzzle"...
I mean, come on. This wasn't fun. The overly fussy set-up was enough to induce a bad case of PTSD.
(Actually, with the presence of LBJ and BUSH I thought at first we were getting a presidents-from-Texas theme.)
Still don’t know what ELHI means, and that whole central-west section killed me, but I did read the synopsis of Much Ado and a history article on the Taj Mahal, so consider myself schooled. An ambitious puzzle concept and tough for a Wednesday (for me, anyway). Cool seeing my alma mater smashed in the lower mid section. Thanks for a unique mid-week solving experience.
The west middle section totally stumped me. Had SHAHJAHAN CLAUDIO and OAHU no problem, but never heard the word COTE, the cluing for EARL is baffling (why on earth is it a counterpart to a countess - wouldn’t that be a count?), and on the acrosses I’ve never heard of a CESAR (and I’m a filmmaker!), the clue for the fiddle music was too obscure for me (I hate abbr. clues anyway - I can never seem to get them without a lot of cross help), and then WTH is an ELHI? Didn’t finish cause of that section. Maybe it’s all crosswordese stuff that I’m unfamiliar with (still relatively new to this, only been at it 6 months)? Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just those 8 squares got me.
In the movie A Late Quartet (2012) Christopher Walken, not playing a psychopath for once, has a scene in which he is telling his viola students not to focus too heavily on the negative. It's wonderful and I sometimes share it with my (differently talented) accounting students. In that spirit -- thank you Lewis for balancing out the comments on today's puzzle so nicely.
I got a text last night after 11, a time normally reserved for my daughter with news of some catastrophe (don't ask), but it was my friend Nancy with nice news that the son of friends of ours has a puzzle in today's WSJ. I enjoyed completing it, especially for an amazing answer at 44A, so I'm doing what I tell my grandchildren to do -- sharing. I hope you enjoy it if you give it a try. (The WSJ puzzles are free at https://www.wsj.com/news/puzzle. It's called "In the Can.")
More a learning exercise than a fun solve, tho did enjoy getting FJORD/VWJETTA. Actually first got real traction at the base with MINARET and worked upwards, but crashed in the mid-west because for some reason COTE/CESAR/SHAH was completed blank. Always enjoy the insights that others especially @Lewis bring to the table.
AGar! I reached into my xword glue memory bank and pulled out AGar when I meant AGRA.
Hadn’t read the SE across clues so MIa and ERr looked fine when I was doing my “where’s the typo” ocular scan. Tried SHAHJAPAN but OOp didn’t sound Awesome (unless you’re describing a Gwyneth Paltrow product), then saw - D’OH -my MIR/ERA boner (a term I never use but must have come to mind because of 14-D).
As for the artwork, looked more like a character from The Jetsons than a magnificent tomb. At least to me. But I obviously watch a lot of cartoons...
Quick, name a monument in INDIA! TAJ MAHAL, right? Now name another one... most of us are going to whiff on that one. So 3-D, which you are likely to get too very soon, gives the whole thing away. And except for the circles, which are a nice tough, the depiction of the monument is all done with black and gray squares, nothing to solve there.
I was bothered at first by LETHAL BLOW, as clued - I mean, boxing is unhealthy, but you don't always die when you're knocked out -- but after a bit of thought I realized that the clue and the answer can be used metaphorically to mean the same thing.
Pretty easy, except for trying to make out the clue numbers in the shaded squares.
Congrats on your QB! 🐝 ___ Elizabeth Gorski's Mon. New Yorker was Easy-med, except for a dnf on the 'vodka' / 'painter' cross. As always, a fine production by E.G.. :) ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I also failed in the West. Definitely not Wednesday material there. COTE? ELHI? SHAH whoever?
I got VWJETTA from the crosses; even though it looked wrong, I trusted the VW part to be Volkswagen and JETTA to be the make (but why is it an alternative to golf?).
Hey All ! Saves me a trip to AGRA to see the TAJ MAHAL. We have it right here in the puz!
Fill wasn't A-Level, but given the constraints of the theme, it's acceptable as is. Lots of wide open spaces in center and lower-middle. Not easy to get any kind of clean fill, throwing a Themer in (MINARETS) doesn't help.
Who had SMEE first for ESME? Got stuck in West-Center. Had to Goog for CLAUDIO. Wanted CLOUSEAU, too long. Ended up with CLAUSSO. Oops. Throw in CESAR, and it sunk my battleship. ELHI as a publishing division? Never heard it used like that. (Well, maybe I have. Terrible memory here, I'm sure it's been clued like that before in a puz.)
Pretty neat concept here. "Drawing" the TAJ MAHAL in a puz isn't easy. Pretty good depiction, here. The app has nice green shaded squares instead of gray ones. Green Paint. Har.
I have worked in education for two decades and have never once seen nor heard whatever the heck ELHI is supposed to be. Combine that with another abbreviation, an obscure word, and some trivia, and the west was just terrible.
The only thing that saved me is that there are only so many four letter place names that crosswords ever use.
Just a comment, no value judgement, but I find it interesting that so many were baffled by ELHI. I see it with some regularity in both real life and puzzles.
When I opened this up and saw the chaos with circles and dark squares, I figured we'd be in for a crazy ride, but it played out as a fun homage to the Taj Mahal. With this much theme material a lot of gibberish always follows, but I'll take it over themeless puzzles filled with actresses. The only place I got stuck was the west with the Shakespeare character and the "builder" (who didn't lift a finger to build anything so why are we giving another billionaire credit for something he didn't do?) crossing two very bad abbreviations in TRAD and ELHI (gad!).
I don't know how FedEx works other places, but in my neighborhood they dump the package in our lobby and leave whether it requires a signature or not, because, well, they have insurance and couldn't care less that Nana's ashes are in the box.
Uniclues:
1 The distance between a kangaroo and your broken nose. 2 Reaction of western tourists in the east. 3 Pump without a bug. 4 Assemble Lego Taj Mahal for pop. 5 Where minarets come from.
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The first letter of every paragraph spelled THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE A THUMB. Laughing. It's been nearly a year since @Z and his anonymous alter ego troll went away, and like Sinéad's, all the flowers in the back yard have died.
Rex and the first @Anon are right. Stopped reading responses there &dropped down to the comment box! This was a non starter from the word CHIPS! I’m truly amazed that OFL rated it medium and xwordinfo awarded it POW. As Rex said “ all that followed was trivia.” I seldom have quibbles with Wednesday cuteness, but today I gagged as though it were a Monday fill-in-the-blanks grid. Now I have to read the ensuing Commentariat (is this finally a grid that @Lewis will pan?), revisit xwordinfo for Jeff’s POW explanation, and marvel at the constructors notes……should make for an amusing morning. Then I can open AcrossLite to ENJOY da bomb puzzle by Brian Thomas that I downloaded yesterday and held in reserve for a disappointing day like 8/16/2023.
Rex nailed it today! I wonder if today is some kind of anniversary or other significant date to merit a tribute puzzle??
guaVa>OLIVE led to pleasant cross with OIL.
My malapop was GWB for his Crawford ranch, appears as BUSH later. (never noticed until typing it now that it has the same initials as the bridge)
ELHI does show up IRL (ELementary through HIgh School)
@BobMills - the Golf is another model of car made by VW. That answer gave me a nice OHO!
What on earth is LET HALB LOW? Got the happy music without parsing that and didn't think about it again until reading RP. D'oh!
I work with an Asian woman with the last name HUI, which I'll forever confuse with HSU, apparently...
The clue for ANDONE doesn't really express exactly what is going on, but I can't think how to do it better as concisely. It is used by the offensive player to say "you fouled me and I still scored". It is a tone mismatch rather than a technical one.
Is REN clued as the Faire more often in late summer/early fall? Then reverts to Star Wars or Cartoons in the rest of the year?
And to think I thought it would be the Chrysler building.
But when you put INDIA way up at the top, that kills all the suspense.
(Actually, there wasn't any suspense.)
Thought of the day: If that's what the Taj Mahal looks like, I sure don't have to go all the way to INDIA to see it. Frankly, I wouldn't cross Lexington Avenue to see it.
Second thought of the day: I don't have enough trouble reading the numbers in the grid? You have to put a whole slew of them in dark gray? I held the newspaper up to my nose and I still couldn't see them.
Here's the biggest problem of all: Other than MINARETS and TOMB, none of the words in the gray section, both Across and Down, have anything whatsoever to do with the Taj Mahal. And worst of all, HALB (of LETHAL BLOW) isn't even a word.
The clue that I would apply to this puzzle is 59D.
I'm in the pro column on this one. My own quibble is that I don't like clues that give you an anagram of the entry, as is the case with 55D [Name that is an anagram of SEEM]. God intended ESME to be a Salinger reference, and the appropriate clues would be [Precocious girl in a Salinger short story] or ["To — With Love and Squalor"].
Second thoughts: @Lewis finds merit & @Liveprof points out my bad acid reflux reaction and I appreciate his sharing that perspective. Chen calls the grid “ an impressionist masterpiece” and concludes that “ there are quite a few fill compromises. Overall, though, they're simply imperfections that give art its life, reminding us all of our flawed humanity.” And Mangesh is a worthy addition to Princeton, the USA & Crossworld itself as his comment clearly demonstrates. Plus any friend of BEQ is someone to be enjoyed obviously.
The Midwest is an inexcusable tangle of proper nouns. CESAR, OAHU, ELHI, CLAUDIO, SHAH JAHAN. Basically no proper English. Haven't had this much trouble on a Wednesday in ages.
A skosh tougher than the typical Wednesday for me, but then there are a lot of circles. Jeff gave this POW, unfortunately I’m not that fond these types of puzzles (or pretty much what @Rex said).
@jberg9:04 AM I've been thinking about your challenge for the last half hour, and I find it interesting when you switch the countries. It's surprising how few things leap to mind unless you've traveled in person. In Italy, I could name 20 places, but... -JAPAN: Nuthin' -CHINA: The wall, then nuthin' -BRAZIL: Jesus, then nuthin' -GERMANY: The wall that's not there, and Köln cathedral. FRANCE: Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. USA: Statue of Liberty, and honestly, maybe Mount Rushmore? CANADA: Nuthin' MEXICO: The margarita? ENGLAND: Stonehenge, and maybe that bridge that's not London Bridge?
There's a lot of respect for Mr. Quigley out there and that will show up in some reviews, but the commentariat is a tough crowd today.
I really enjoyed it. Grid art that not only didn't suck, it was great, and the Taj Mahal placement is a real accomplishment. I'd like to hear Daffy Duck say, "Ensnared on a Minaret." That would be fun. And agree with mathgent, Ren is a sad sub for the Renaissance. At my college radio station, I wrote a commercial for a women's group that called itself Renaissance and insisted we pronounced it ReNAYsaunce for their charity tag sale ad. Forty years later, I'm still scarred.
So "trad" and "inst" are abbreviations, and the clues tell us that. How about "ren" and "rec"? They are both abbreviations too, but the clues don't indicate that. Where were the editors?
Solving the puzzle, I felt like the classic crossword student waving her raised hand with OH! OH!, as I knew all of the TAJ MAHAL lore. Since I actually was that kind of student, I got a laugh at how gratifying I found it to write in the answers. I really liked how the structure was framed, with it's name around the top, and especially the TOMB so nicely set off by the surrounding black in the crypt area. Also enjoyed SWELTER, ENSNARED, CLAUDIO, LETHAL BLOW.
FWIW, I've seen TRAD often as where a song came from, especially with a folk song.
@Liveprof-Enjoyed the WSJ puzz a lot more than the NYT. Thanks for the tip.
@bocamp-Gracias. I'll usually press on when I get to having single digits left for QB, normally without success. Yesterday I never stopped to look so it was a pleasant surprise when the notification popped up.
Wow, the West block was a struggle. I wasn’t confident on any of CLAUDIO, CESAR, OAHU, TRAD, or EARL. They eventually supported each other in a creaky way, as I wanted to try SHAH, but it was rough going. ELHI was a complete unknown—even after reading the explanation from a few folks here, I don’t think that it’s something that I have ever come across.
OOH!! OMG!! Would you look at that! A crossword puzzle made to look like a famous TOMB in INDIA. Why, whatever could that be? It has a SPIRE and a DOME and all sorts of circles and shades of grey and MINARETS and SIGNS pointing to helpful hints to get the answers. Only problem is I had trouble finishing it because by that time, my mind had reached an almost indescribable level of loathing. At least it didn’t contain any references to feminine hygiene products.
Since there's a bit of curiosity here about the Countess/EARL connection, here's a quick account (sorry) of it:
EARL is the counterpart (oof sorry again) of Countess specifically among UK nobility, which stems partly from the fact that English is a language blended from Germanic and Romance roots (among others).
The rank of EARL, which comes from the Germanic side (Old English: eorl, Scandinavian: jarl), already existed in pre-Norman England, and was roughly equivalent to the continental rank of Count. There was no feminine form of the word EARL in Old English, an Earl's wife was called a "Lady". After the Norman conquest, the continental (French) term Countess was imported to replace Lady as the wife of an EARL.
@Mathgent re ELHI. Ditto. It's been in puzzles so often in recent years that I was surprised to see the many comments of unfamiliarity. However , I've never believed it was a thing. So, was interested to see the exchange questioning if elhi is a thing and assuring that it is. It usually does not appear clued as something in publishing. When I saw it that way I wondered if perhaps it were a thing in publishing.
Enjoyed the cross Lewis pointed out of oil and olive and agreed with another poster that it was fun to consider the fruitiness of an olive. Liked exacta ( which I guessed at, being no more racetrack than baseball and rock group savvy) advent, fjord, Mir as clued, having to decide by word length if india or Agra went in at the top then seeing Agra at the bottom. enjoyable puzzle
I enjoyed it. But I find some of the dismissive India-related comments here cringeworthy. It’s actually healthy to get out of your neighborhood occasionally.
ELHI is a familiar term to me (having been in the educ field, as well as via xwords), altho the word 'division' in the clue threw me off momentarily; didn't know there was a separate 'division' (hi @SharonAK (12:39 PM))
"In educational publishing and administrative contexts, "elhi" can sometimes refer to both elementary and high school levels collectively. It's used as a convenient abbreviation to encompass both the lower grade levels (elementary school) and the higher grade levels (high school) within a single term. This usage acknowledges the entire spectrum of primary and secondary education.
For example, if a publisher is creating educational materials or resources that are suitable for both elementary and high school students, they might use the term "elhi" to indicate that the content is relevant for the entire range of K-12 education.
It's important to consider the context in which "elhi" is being used, as it can have different meanings depending on the audience and the field of discussion." (ChatGPT)
@pabloinnh (11:23 AM) yw :)
Exactly my experience with TRAD.
@Roo, Joe
Smee for me, too. ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
T'OMB this WedPuz may concern: Well, I thought it was kinda interestin ... like an Indian monument built outta legos.
staff weeject pick: HSU. gesundheit.
fave stuff included: LBJ in GMAJ. VWJETTA. Learnin who built the Lego Mahal. ESME anagrammers. LETHALBLOW.
What what? A BEQ puz without a single ?-marker clue? BONNE Nuit!! How non-TRAD.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Ghogre & BEQ dudes. Primo 4-stacks of weejects, at the base of yer construction project, btw. Was kinda alarmed to hear that @kitshef's right foot looks like this, tho. har
From wikipedia, "Although the term count was not generally used in England, after the 1066 conquest by the Normans, the European term "count" was the normal translation used for the English title of "earl", and the wives of earls are still referred to as countesses."
So the clue makes perfect sense if we start from the answer EARL, and is a wild misdirect if we're actually starting from the clue. The solving experience clearly was not the priority on this puzzle.
I am unfamiliar with CESAR, COTE, Diamond Head, ELHI, CLAUDIO, and SHAH JAHAN, so that block in the west side was impossible to fill. Terrible construction over there. Just unfair and frustrating stuff for a Wednesday.
I've been deked! We have seen some meta-ish stuff in recent puzzles, like the three-day PASTA and PASTE run and the multiple ALAMOS on Saturday 8/12 followed by a single ALAMO on Monday 8/14. So when I saw the grid art [sic] black square layout, I was primed. The "knockout punch" came early at 3D "Home of the monument depicted by this puzzle's arching letters." I immediately threw down TEXAS and did a celebratory happy dance. Here, check out a picture of the ALAMO. Looks just like the outline in the grid, right? D'oh! Okay, NYTXW, you got me good.
I did enjoy listening to OFL's TAJ MAHAL selection from his "Giant Step" album. I have several of his vinyl LPs and have pretty much worn them out. Here's another cut, Corinna from his "The Natch'l Blues" album.
There have been a few comments on this: the print edition in the paper was missing the hard line on the east side of the puzzle. sometimes you might view this as just a typo, but in the structural context of this puzzle it looked thematic and made the thing much more difficult to sort out what was going on.
This past Monday was the first time the NYT was delivered to my doorstep since 3/26. I dislike spoilers, which is why I have not been here since then. No, I haven't died yet. Glad that ELHI and TRAD were explained before I could post this comment.
I recall eating dinner at an Indian restaurant by the name of Shah Jahan, I think located in Manhattan. So I knew the entry easily. As I recall, it was one of the better restaurants. A quick internet search suggests it may have been when I was on vacation in Britain, but who knows, it was so long ago.
this sucked. there, i said it. i very, very rarely feel this way (usually it's me who sucks, if anything) but...no. DNF/had to cheat on a wednesday and for what? just a bunch of stuff i've never heard of and don't care about on the west side, all very badly stacked together. EXACTA, CLAUDIO, CESAR, TRAD*, ELHI, SHAH JAHAN**. had -EY for the wallaby baby and in any other puzzle i probably would have been able to guess JOEY but i was already so annoyed that there was zero way for me to infer my way into any of those other answers that i gave up and googled it. (but it's a moot point because it got me nowhere and i had to google claudio as well to finish.) this isn't even an exhaustive list of stuff that made me make a face, but it certainly was the worst of it.
*i guess this means traditional? but it's...so bland...why **it feels rude and ignorant to say i don't care about learning the creator of a worldwide landmark but this puzzle ruined what would have been a "huh, i never knew that, cool" moment on any other day.
This was the first puzzle in quite a while that I was completely unable to finish. I know what the Taj Mahal is of course but all this random trivia about it that if you didn't know and didn't know every single cross completely ruined it for me. I'm sure I at some point read the name Shah Jahan and that it was in Agra but I long since forgot that, and not being a Russian speaker didn't know "Mir" was Russian for peace, and I had DOJ for DEA so the whole bottom right I couldn't figure out, then in the middle left I got nothing at all except COTE. Never heard of the Cesar award, Diamond Head, didn't think of "trad," was thinking of plurals, and I don't even know what "elhi" is supposed to mean. Also haven't seen Much Ado About Nothing in 15+ years, didn't remember Claudio, didn't get "earl" could only think of Duke, though honestly anything other than "count" seems wrong. That so many trivia facts and non-english words were allowed to cross seems like a gross oversight. My congratulations to Mr. Shortz on his wedding, but I think perhaps he skimped on overseeing this puzzle in his eagerness?
El/Hi is as crosswordese as you can get (though Mikeinbedstuy above did say it is used in publishing.) Someone else checked and it appeared frequently for decades then it disappeared only to rear it’s ugly head again. As noted count isn’t used in England thus earl is the male version of the title there. Also earl appears frequently in crosswords because of convenient letters. Cote alone is almost crosswordese because in real life it almost always accompanied by dove as a 3rd person said. So yes crosswordese did you in.
I wish Rex would explain and comment on unusual clues/responses. What is elhi? Ren Faire? Is the space station Mir named that because it means Peace? The former Rec would delve.
I can't say I recognize a TAJ MAHAL shape in this grid, other than the ONIONDOME pattern of the letters at top center. The whole grid was awkward to get around in, a set of boxes as if the T.M. had been shipped by Ikea. We seldom say "slog" before Sunday, but this comes close.
Huge theme content makes for some desperado filling. GMAJ, ESIGNS, HSU, I'm looking at you.
Knew EARL by back-formation; there was a game show question about what Earls' wives were called. (No one got it right.)
There were some very clever uses of Scrabbly letters, some points for those. All in all, a par.
It's all been said about the puz. At least the BUSH clue wasn't presidential. Local TV newswoman ESME Murphy has been on the local CBS affiliate staff for decades and I could never figure out why. She must have incriminating photos of someone. Always interesting to check the alignment of her eyebrows on any given day. Also a wordle eagle!
@Dr.A 8:05 am: The word COTE has been used 129 times in NYTxword puzzles alone. It references either pigeons, doves, or sheep. You definitely have heard of it.
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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107 comments:
Rex nailed it: like coloring by numbers or doing a dot-to-dot puzzle. Tons of three- and four-letter fill. Nice idea but not much fun to solve.
This was no fun at all…
A perfectly acceptable ‘tribute’ puzzle, doomed by one fatal flaw: the grid art. Resembles the Taj Mahal about as much as it does my right foot.
Attempted downs only but the CLAUDIO/SHAH JAHAN/EARL combo was too much for me.
Yep. This is one of those puzzles that clearly prioritizes demonstrating the constructor’s neat trick over the solver’s experience on the whole. Normally I *loathe* when it’s this overt, but I at least was able to enjoy the gimmick this time before grumbling about its ramifications for the fill.
I did my study abroad semester in India learning about India, so that probably has something to do with my tolerance of the conceit. Similar to OFL, the only part of this puzzle that was crunchy for me was the southwest. It took me a long while to remember SHAHJAHAN but then once I got enough crosses to jog my memory the rest fell pretty quickly.
As for the fill itself, oof yeah way too many boring little words. I suppose it’s good to encounter less recent crosswordese like ELHI so I can add it to the mental bank? Interesting that before today, ELHI was used 89 times in NYTXW, all between 1993 and 2018 with ‘97 and ‘07 being the only years it didn’t appear. But then, a five year break. I’m wondering if that signals that the editorship has that word on a list to be used “only if there’s no other way and the puzzle is otherwise worth it,” and they deemed this one to meet the criteria? Would be curious to hear from you veteran solvers and constructors if that’s the kind of thing that happens.
That said, I liked SWELTER and ENSNARED, and I thought it was nice to consider the fruit-ness of OLIVEs.
A mixed bag today for sure. At least it gave us something different!
Excited at first to see one of my favorite constructors - but soon the anticipation waned when I realized we have a tribute puzzle loaded with 3s and 4s forced by grid art.
Hard pass today.
EASY WINd
Stayed too long with Ooh before OMG at 70A, corrected by finally getting the real OOH at 68A.
Alternate clue for 31A: "What's the only thing you can do about Hurricane Hal?"
The west side was hard for me. Why isn’t a countesses counterpart a count? Couldn’t remember cote for a long time and never knew ELHI
I knew I had just run across SHAH JAHAN recently in a puzzle. Sure enough, one of this week’s selections in the “From the Archives” section of the app was from Dec. 20, 2019. 20A was clued “___ Jahan, leader who commissioned the Taj Mahal.”
Same feeling here, and had to solve online again because of printing issues. I did find this relatively easy and am getting better at solving with a keyboard, so there's that.
The W from VWJETTA gave me BLOW which led to LETHALBLOW, which was hard to see otherwise. I had a VWJETTA for a while and it was fun to drive. Last stick shift car I owned, and a younger teacher was pretty impressed that I knew how to drive it. Never showed him how I could dial a rotary phone.
This gives "constructing a puzzle" another layer of meaning. Well done indeed, MG and BEQ. Minimal Guffaws, But Eventually Quite impressive. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
SB breaking news- QB yesterday without realizing I was getting even close. First one in a long time.
This was two different puzzles, in terms of difficulty for me: the Southwest and West, which were impenetrable (I only had FOUR, USA, REN, and the -EY of JOEY), and everything else, which was easy.
I found this one to be pretty meh.
I could see the Taj Mahal before I even started filling answers, so it made the themers easy. For example, I got ONION DOME without seeing the clue, because I had ONIO- and thought, "How could ONION be related to the Taj Mahal?" Boom. ONION DOME. As a consequence, I never even noticed the circles spelled TAJ MAHAL until Rex pointed it out.
Problems:
ScAN before SPAN for "Go over" messed me up for a while.
Don't like the clue for VW JETTA. A Golf alternative should just be JETTA. With the V in place I briefly put in VANAGON.
Never heard of ELHI, and still not entirely clear why the clue has anything to do with publishing. Is it not just another term for K-12?
Final thing: for one random moment the mobile app showed a dark line where the "spire" would be, then it disappeared. I couldn't get it to show up again. Did this happen to anyone else?
I agree, Rex nailed it. Awful! OOH?!?
I agree!
With all the stress that the theme/construction put on the grid (plus all of the trivia) - I’m surprised that this thing even rose to the level of mediocrity. Still, we unfortunately were asked to suffer through the insufferable - HSU, AMAS, COTE, TRAD, ELHI, ESME and the like in addition to stuff like JAHAN and MINARETS. Another NICHE offering with a so-so theme and crappy fill, but very well constructed - pretty much standard NYT fare these days.
This is a fitting follow-up to Mangesh’s last puzzle, a tribute to Mahatma Ghandi on the 150 anniversary of his birth. Mangesh spaces his NYT puzzles out, this being his fourth in a decade. For BEQ, on the other hand, this is his 192nd since 1996 (do yourself a favor and go to XwordInfo to see that most impressive BEQ beard!).
Like the Taj Mahal itself, this grid was an intricate build, with TAJ MAJAL perfectly fitting into the ONION DOME, with having SPIRE/INDIA, ONION DOME/SHAH JAHAN, and FOUR/AGRA being symmetrical, not to mention placing in the minarets, all in addition to the shape of the building itself. Bravo on that!
I especially liked:
• [Fusilli shape] echoing Sunday’s pasta-shape-themed puzzle.
• The mini-theme of OO-enders: RENEW / MENU / HSU / ASTO / OAHU / OOH.
• The praises ringing out by bystanders on both sides of the structure – OOH and OMG – in the third row from the bottom.
• Lovely answers FJORD, MINARETS, SWELTER, and HELIX.
• That this was not a Wednesday Whoosh, and I’m glad for it, as my brain loves having areas it has to come back to.
• The magnificent cross of OLIVE and OIL.
The Taj Mahal is gorgeous. Even when I see it in photos, it momentarily takes my breath away. Thank you, Mangesh and Brendan, for bringing it my way once again, and for a most enjoyable outing!
I never heard the word COTE before, that slowed me down a lot in the eastern side, and for some reason could not remember CESAR. the rest was a breeze and also felt a little let down by Quigley since i generally love his puzzles.
After finishing this puzzle, I felt like I had opened my "World Book Encyclopedia" to the TAJ MAHAL entry - lots of facts, figures, and pictures of the structure all packed into a small article that provides enough info for a ninth-grade essay.
Perhaps I should have paid closer attention in the ninth grade as a lot of this felt new to me.
"THEME: Taj Mahal — circled squares form an outline of the Taj Mahal..." Does it though? I mean, it's clever and as good an approximation of the structure as you can make in a 15X16 grid I gather, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
But did get a good sophomoric chuckle at the clue/answer of EARL. Sometimes studying middle English can do that for you.
Is this for real? That doesn't look like a picture of *anything* to me, much less the building in the photo. And the (mis)labelling of parts – one of the MINARETS (of which we are informed there are FOUR, but the grid only supplies two) reads ONION DOME, while the thing that's supposed to be the onion dome reads TAJ MAHAL, which is not directly clued but is passingly referred to as "the monument depicted in this puzzle"...
I mean, come on. This wasn't fun. The overly fussy set-up was enough to induce a bad case of PTSD.
(Actually, with the presence of LBJ and BUSH I thought at first we were getting a presidents-from-Texas theme.)
4
ELHI is not a thing.
Impressive construction for sure, but the actual crossword itself was not fun too solve: too much trivia, isolation and subpar fill.
What's the reason for the lack of the vertical line on the east side of the puzzle?
Still don’t know what ELHI means, and that whole central-west section killed me, but I did read the synopsis of Much Ado and a history article on the Taj Mahal, so consider myself schooled. An ambitious puzzle concept and tough for a Wednesday (for me, anyway). Cool seeing my alma mater smashed in the lower mid section. Thanks for a unique mid-week solving experience.
First Wednesday DNF in a while. Could not figure the west... ELHI, COTE, CESAR, SHAH(JAHAN)... just too much minutiae in a very small area...
The west middle section totally stumped me. Had SHAHJAHAN CLAUDIO and OAHU no problem, but never heard the word COTE, the cluing for EARL is baffling (why on earth is it a counterpart to a countess - wouldn’t that be a count?), and on the acrosses I’ve never heard of a CESAR (and I’m a filmmaker!), the clue for the fiddle music was too obscure for me (I hate abbr. clues anyway - I can never seem to get them without a lot of cross help), and then WTH is an ELHI? Didn’t finish cause of that section. Maybe it’s all crosswordese stuff that I’m unfamiliar with (still relatively new to this, only been at it 6 months)? Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just those 8 squares got me.
In the movie A Late Quartet (2012) Christopher Walken, not playing a psychopath for once, has a scene in which he is telling his viola students not to focus too heavily on the negative. It's wonderful and I sometimes share it with my (differently talented) accounting students. In that spirit -- thank you Lewis for balancing out the comments on today's puzzle so nicely.
I got a text last night after 11, a time normally reserved for my daughter with news of some catastrophe (don't ask), but it was my friend Nancy with nice news that the son of friends of ours has a puzzle in today's WSJ. I enjoyed completing it, especially for an amazing answer at 44A, so I'm doing what I tell my grandchildren to do -- sharing. I hope you enjoy it if you give it a try. (The WSJ puzzles are free at https://www.wsj.com/news/puzzle. It's called "In the Can.")
More a learning exercise than a fun solve, tho did enjoy getting FJORD/VWJETTA. Actually first got real traction at the base with MINARET and worked upwards, but crashed in the mid-west because for some reason COTE/CESAR/SHAH was completed blank. Always enjoy the insights that others especially @Lewis bring to the table.
AGar! I reached into my xword glue memory bank and pulled out AGar when I meant AGRA.
Hadn’t read the SE across clues so MIa and ERr looked fine when I was doing my “where’s the typo” ocular scan. Tried SHAHJAPAN but OOp didn’t sound Awesome (unless you’re describing a Gwyneth Paltrow product), then saw - D’OH -my MIR/ERA boner (a term I never use but must have come to mind because of 14-D).
As for the artwork, looked more like a character from The Jetsons than a magnificent tomb. At least to me. But I obviously watch a lot of cartoons...
Taj Mahal? Or Rosey the Robot?
Quick, name a monument in INDIA! TAJ MAHAL, right? Now name another one... most of us are going to whiff on that one. So 3-D, which you are likely to get too very soon, gives the whole thing away. And except for the circles, which are a nice tough, the depiction of the monument is all done with black and gray squares, nothing to solve there.
I was bothered at first by LETHAL BLOW, as clued - I mean, boxing is unhealthy, but you don't always die when you're knocked out -- but after a bit of thought I realized that the clue and the answer can be used metaphorically to mean the same thing.
Pretty easy, except for trying to make out the clue numbers in the shaded squares.
Thx, Mangesh & Brendan, for this crunchy feast! 😋
Med+.
Easy top 1/3; tougher on the way down.
Smee before ESME. lol
Fun solve! :)
@pablo
Congrats on your QB! 🐝
___
Elizabeth Gorski's Mon. New Yorker was Easy-med, except for a dnf on the 'vodka' / 'painter' cross. As always, a fine production by E.G.. :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I also failed in the West. Definitely not Wednesday material there. COTE? ELHI? SHAH whoever?
I got VWJETTA from the crosses; even though it looked wrong, I trusted the VW part to be Volkswagen and JETTA to be the make (but why is it an alternative to golf?).
Hey All !
Saves me a trip to AGRA to see the TAJ MAHAL. We have it right here in the puz!
Fill wasn't A-Level, but given the constraints of the theme, it's acceptable as is. Lots of wide open spaces in center and lower-middle. Not easy to get any kind of clean fill, throwing a Themer in (MINARETS) doesn't help.
Who had SMEE first for ESME? Got stuck in West-Center. Had to Goog for CLAUDIO. Wanted CLOUSEAU, too long. Ended up with CLAUSSO. Oops. Throw in CESAR, and it sunk my battleship. ELHI as a publishing division? Never heard it used like that. (Well, maybe I have. Terrible memory here, I'm sure it's been clued like that before in a puz.)
Pretty neat concept here. "Drawing" the TAJ MAHAL in a puz isn't easy. Pretty good depiction, here. The app has nice green shaded squares instead of gray ones. Green Paint. Har.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I have worked in education for two decades and have never once seen nor heard whatever the heck ELHI is supposed to be. Combine that with another abbreviation, an obscure word, and some trivia, and the west was just terrible.
The only thing that saved me is that there are only so many four letter place names that crosswords ever use.
ELHI means ELementary through HIgh school
I can’t figure out what TRAD means. Any help?
Just a comment, no value judgement, but I find it interesting that so many were baffled by ELHI. I see it with some regularity in both real life and puzzles.
Fully agree with Rex’s review.
I've seen ELHI in the puzzle many times. Elementary/high school.
Happy to learn ONIONDOMES. I love seeing pictures of those multi-colored beauties in Moscow.
REN Faire instead of Renaissance Faire. Why avoid saying that lovely word?
When I opened this up and saw the chaos with circles and dark squares, I figured we'd be in for a crazy ride, but it played out as a fun homage to the Taj Mahal. With this much theme material a lot of gibberish always follows, but I'll take it over themeless puzzles filled with actresses. The only place I got stuck was the west with the Shakespeare character and the "builder" (who didn't lift a finger to build anything so why are we giving another billionaire credit for something he didn't do?) crossing two very bad abbreviations in TRAD and ELHI (gad!).
I don't know how FedEx works other places, but in my neighborhood they dump the package in our lobby and leave whether it requires a signature or not, because, well, they have insurance and couldn't care less that Nana's ashes are in the box.
Uniclues:
1 The distance between a kangaroo and your broken nose.
2 Reaction of western tourists in the east.
3 Pump without a bug.
4 Assemble Lego Taj Mahal for pop.
5 Where minarets come from.
1 JOEY SPAN
2 OOH MINARETS OMG
3 OIL VW JETTA
4 ERECT DAD'S AGRA
5 DAD'S ERECT AGRA (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The first letter of every paragraph spelled THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE A THUMB. Laughing. It's been nearly a year since @Z and his anonymous alter ego troll went away, and like Sinéad's, all the flowers in the back yard have died.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Rex and the first @Anon are right. Stopped reading responses there &dropped down to the comment box! This was a non starter from the word CHIPS! I’m truly amazed that OFL rated it medium and xwordinfo awarded it POW. As Rex said “ all that followed was trivia.” I seldom have quibbles with Wednesday cuteness, but today I gagged as though it were a Monday fill-in-the-blanks grid. Now I have to read the ensuing Commentariat (is this finally a grid that @Lewis will pan?), revisit xwordinfo for Jeff’s POW explanation, and marvel at the constructors notes……should make for an amusing morning. Then I can open AcrossLite to ENJOY da bomb puzzle by Brian Thomas that I downloaded yesterday and held in reserve for a disappointing day like 8/16/2023.
Well, I thought it was fun!
Rex nailed it today! I wonder if today is some kind of anniversary or other significant date to merit a tribute puzzle??
guaVa>OLIVE led to pleasant cross with OIL.
My malapop was GWB for his Crawford ranch, appears as BUSH later. (never noticed until typing it now that it has the same initials as the bridge)
ELHI does show up IRL (ELementary through HIgh School)
@BobMills - the Golf is another model of car made by VW. That answer gave me a nice OHO!
What on earth is LET HALB LOW? Got the happy music without parsing that and didn't think about it again until reading RP. D'oh!
I work with an Asian woman with the last name HUI, which I'll forever confuse with HSU, apparently...
The clue for ANDONE doesn't really express exactly what is going on, but I can't think how to do it better as concisely. It is used by the offensive player to say "you fouled me and I still scored". It is a tone mismatch rather than a technical one.
Is REN clued as the Faire more often in late summer/early fall? Then reverts to Star Wars or Cartoons in the rest of the year?
@Mack 7:54 AM - Yes, ELHI (elementary through high school) is just another term for K-12.
@Chris Wendell 8:21 AM - Yeah, ELHI is totally a thing. It's a thing in academic/educational publishing...but it's a thing.
And to think I thought it would be the Chrysler building.
But when you put INDIA way up at the top, that kills all the suspense.
(Actually, there wasn't any suspense.)
Thought of the day: If that's what the Taj Mahal looks like, I sure don't have to go all the way to INDIA to see it. Frankly, I wouldn't cross Lexington Avenue to see it.
Second thought of the day: I don't have enough trouble reading the numbers in the grid? You have to put a whole slew of them in dark gray? I held the newspaper up to my nose and I still couldn't see them.
Here's the biggest problem of all: Other than MINARETS and TOMB, none of the words in the gray section, both Across and Down, have anything whatsoever to do with the Taj Mahal. And worst of all, HALB (of LETHAL BLOW) isn't even a word.
The clue that I would apply to this puzzle is 59D.
Did not see the Taj Mahal (Do not see the Taj Mahal), and for whatever reason INDIA was elusive, so this whole puzzle felt like an absolute slog.
I'm in the pro column on this one. My own quibble is that I don't like clues that give you an anagram of the entry, as is the case with 55D [Name that is an anagram of SEEM]. God intended ESME to be a Salinger reference, and the appropriate clues would be [Precocious girl in a Salinger short story] or ["To — With Love and Squalor"].
Second thoughts: @Lewis finds merit & @Liveprof points out my bad acid reflux reaction and I appreciate his sharing that perspective. Chen calls the grid “ an impressionist masterpiece” and concludes that “ there are quite a few fill compromises. Overall, though, they're simply imperfections that give art its life, reminding us all of our flawed humanity.” And Mangesh is a worthy addition to Princeton, the USA & Crossworld itself as his comment clearly demonstrates. Plus any friend of BEQ is someone to be enjoyed obviously.
The Midwest is an inexcusable tangle of proper nouns. CESAR, OAHU, ELHI, CLAUDIO, SHAH JAHAN. Basically no proper English. Haven't had this much trouble on a Wednesday in ages.
I enjoyed it!
Worst puzzle in a long time. Gimmick doesn't justify the absolutely awful fill.
A skosh tougher than the typical Wednesday for me, but then there are a lot of circles. Jeff gave this POW, unfortunately I’m not that fond these types of puzzles (or pretty much what @Rex said).
I stumbled there too, cote is something I've always associated with doves " Dovecote" .
Went with loft which got me all screwed up!
@jberg9:04 AM
I've been thinking about your challenge for the last half hour, and I find it interesting when you switch the countries. It's surprising how few things leap to mind unless you've traveled in person. In Italy, I could name 20 places, but...
-JAPAN: Nuthin'
-CHINA: The wall, then nuthin'
-BRAZIL: Jesus, then nuthin'
-GERMANY: The wall that's not there, and Köln cathedral.
FRANCE: Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.
USA: Statue of Liberty, and honestly, maybe Mount Rushmore?
CANADA: Nuthin'
MEXICO: The margarita?
ENGLAND: Stonehenge, and maybe that bridge that's not London Bridge?
There's a lot of respect for Mr. Quigley out there and that will show up in some reviews, but the commentariat is a tough crowd today.
I really enjoyed it. Grid art that not only didn't suck, it was great, and the Taj Mahal placement is a real accomplishment. I'd like to hear Daffy Duck say, "Ensnared on a Minaret." That would be fun. And agree with mathgent, Ren is a sad sub for the Renaissance. At my college radio station, I wrote a commercial for a women's group that called itself Renaissance and insisted we pronounced it ReNAYsaunce for their charity tag sale ad. Forty years later, I'm still scarred.
So "trad" and "inst" are abbreviations, and the clues tell us that. How about "ren" and "rec"? They are both abbreviations too, but the clues don't indicate that. Where were the editors?
For Anonymous; I think TRAD is an abbreviation for "traditional." But it's a horrible piece of fill.
Solving the puzzle, I felt like the classic crossword student waving her raised hand with OH! OH!, as I knew all of the TAJ MAHAL lore. Since I actually was that kind of student, I got a laugh at how gratifying I found it to write in the answers. I really liked how the structure was framed, with it's name around the top, and especially the TOMB so nicely set off by the surrounding black in the crypt area. Also enjoyed SWELTER, ENSNARED, CLAUDIO, LETHAL BLOW.
@anonymous @9:55 am, TRAD probably is short for traditional.
FWIW, I've seen TRAD often as where a song came from, especially with a folk song.
@Liveprof-Enjoyed the WSJ puzz a lot more than the NYT. Thanks for the tip.
@bocamp-Gracias. I'll usually press on when I get to having single digits left for QB, normally without success. Yesterday I never stopped to look so it was a pleasant surprise when the notification popped up.
Bet I'm the only one who jumped to the conclusion that it depicted the Boll Weevil monument...
Wow, the West block was a struggle. I wasn’t confident on any of CLAUDIO, CESAR, OAHU, TRAD, or EARL. They eventually supported each other in a creaky way, as I wanted to try SHAH, but it was rough going. ELHI was a complete unknown—even after reading the explanation from a few folks here, I don’t think that it’s something that I have ever come across.
Not much fun for me if I have to struggle. "Onion Dome"?
OOH!! OMG!! Would you look at that! A crossword puzzle made to look like a famous TOMB in INDIA. Why, whatever could that be? It has a SPIRE and a DOME and all sorts of circles and shades of grey and MINARETS and SIGNS pointing to helpful hints to get the answers. Only problem is I had trouble finishing it because by that time, my mind had reached an almost indescribable level of loathing. At least it didn’t contain any references to feminine hygiene products.
So why is "earl" a "countess's counterpart??
86 occurrences of *elhi* in Shortz era dating from 12/28/93 according to xwordinfo.
What is a REN FAIRE?
Since there's a bit of curiosity here about the Countess/EARL connection, here's a quick account (sorry) of it:
EARL is the counterpart (oof sorry again) of Countess specifically among UK nobility, which stems partly from the fact that English is a language blended from Germanic and Romance roots (among others).
The rank of EARL, which comes from the Germanic side (Old English: eorl, Scandinavian: jarl), already existed in pre-Norman England, and was roughly equivalent to the continental rank of Count. There was no feminine form of the word EARL in Old English, an Earl's wife was called a "Lady". After the Norman conquest, the continental (French) term Countess was imported to replace Lady as the wife of an EARL.
@Mathgent re ELHI. Ditto. It's been in puzzles so often in recent years that I was surprised to see the many comments of unfamiliarity. However , I've never believed it was a thing.
So, was interested to see the exchange questioning if elhi is a thing and assuring that it is. It usually does not appear clued as something in publishing. When I saw it that way I wondered if perhaps it were a thing in publishing.
Enjoyed the cross Lewis pointed out of oil and olive and agreed with another poster that it was fun to consider the fruitiness of an olive. Liked exacta ( which I guessed at, being no more racetrack than baseball and rock group savvy) advent, fjord, Mir as clued, having to decide by word length if india or Agra went in at the top then seeing Agra at the bottom.
enjoyable puzzle
@Tim Ren Faire is a shortened version of Renaissance Faire.
That's a term I knew. ELHI is not. Barely muddled through the west with all the abbreviations, trivia and oddities (TRAD, ELHI, COTE, CESAR).
It’s been **four years** (almost to the day) since ELHI has been in the grid —RP
Traditional
@Roo – I put SMEE first as well.
I guess that explains it—27 years of teaching and don’t think I’ve heard of ELHI. But only been doing crosswords for 3.5 years! :)
I thought Thursday was gimmick day.
I enjoyed it.
But I find some of the dismissive India-related comments here cringeworthy. It’s actually healthy to get out of your neighborhood occasionally.
ELHI is a familiar term to me (having been in the educ field, as well as via xwords), altho the word 'division' in the clue threw me off momentarily; didn't know there was a separate 'division' (hi @SharonAK (12:39 PM))
"In educational publishing and administrative contexts, "elhi" can sometimes refer to both elementary and high school levels collectively. It's used as a convenient abbreviation to encompass both the lower grade levels (elementary school) and the higher grade levels (high school) within a single term. This usage acknowledges the entire spectrum of primary and secondary education.
For example, if a publisher is creating educational materials or resources that are suitable for both elementary and high school students, they might use the term "elhi" to indicate that the content is relevant for the entire range of K-12 education.
It's important to consider the context in which "elhi" is being used, as it can have different meanings depending on the audience and the field of discussion." (ChatGPT)
@pabloinnh (11:23 AM) yw :)
Exactly my experience with TRAD.
@Roo, Joe
Smee for me, too.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
T'OMB this WedPuz may concern: Well, I thought it was kinda interestin ... like an Indian monument built outta legos.
staff weeject pick: HSU. gesundheit.
fave stuff included: LBJ in GMAJ. VWJETTA. Learnin who built the Lego Mahal. ESME anagrammers. LETHALBLOW.
What what? A BEQ puz without a single ?-marker clue? BONNE Nuit!! How non-TRAD.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Ghogre & BEQ dudes. Primo 4-stacks of weejects, at the base of yer construction project, btw.
Was kinda alarmed to hear that @kitshef's right foot looks like this, tho. har
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
Well I finished it so I suppose that's something.
SB a few days ago: BEGEM?? ENBY?? Yet they can't find room for villi, or dicot, or apical.....
From wikipedia,
"Although the term count was not generally used in England, after the 1066 conquest by the Normans, the European term "count" was the normal translation used for the English title of "earl", and the wives of earls are still referred to as countesses."
So the clue makes perfect sense if we start from the answer EARL, and is a wild misdirect if we're actually starting from the clue. The solving experience clearly was not the priority on this puzzle.
Appearances by decade of ELHI in the Shortz era:
1993-1999 14
2000-2009 30
2010-2019 41
2020-2023 Today is the first
I am unfamiliar with CESAR, COTE, Diamond Head, ELHI, CLAUDIO, and SHAH JAHAN, so that block in the west side was impossible to fill. Terrible construction over there. Just unfair and frustrating stuff for a Wednesday.
I've been deked! We have seen some meta-ish stuff in recent puzzles, like the three-day PASTA and PASTE run and the multiple ALAMOS on Saturday 8/12 followed by a single ALAMO on Monday 8/14. So when I saw the grid art [sic] black square layout, I was primed. The "knockout punch" came early at 3D "Home of the monument depicted by this puzzle's arching letters." I immediately threw down TEXAS and did a celebratory happy dance. Here, check out a picture of the ALAMO. Looks just like the outline in the grid, right? D'oh! Okay, NYTXW, you got me good.
I did enjoy listening to OFL's TAJ MAHAL selection from his "Giant Step" album. I have several of his vinyl LPs and have pretty much worn them out. Here's another cut, Corinna from his "The Natch'l Blues" album.
Love when I hate a puzzle and come here to find that everyone else did too.
No fun at all. Learned a few things I guess.
There have been a few comments on this: the print edition in the paper was missing the hard line on the east side of the puzzle. sometimes you might view this as just a typo, but in the structural context of this puzzle it looked thematic and made the thing much more difficult to sort out what was going on.
The English don’t use count. England as opposed to the Continent is implied I guess
I agree 100% @Weezue. Nice job. And that’s all the time I have today.
This past Monday was the first time the NYT was delivered to my doorstep since 3/26. I dislike spoilers, which is why I have not been here since then. No, I haven't died yet. Glad that ELHI and TRAD were explained before I could post this comment.
I recall eating dinner at an Indian restaurant by the name of Shah Jahan, I think located in Manhattan. So I knew the entry easily. As I recall, it was one of the better restaurants. A quick internet search suggests it may have been when I was on vacation in Britain, but who knows, it was so long ago.
Hope to be back tomorrow.
I thought for awhile that “knockout punch” might be lethal bowl but soon came to my senses
Unlike so many others on this site, I absolutely loved this puzzle! Kudos to both of you for creating a wonderfully creative, eye appealing puzzle.
this sucked. there, i said it. i very, very rarely feel this way (usually it's me who sucks, if anything) but...no. DNF/had to cheat on a wednesday and for what? just a bunch of stuff i've never heard of and don't care about on the west side, all very badly stacked together. EXACTA, CLAUDIO, CESAR, TRAD*, ELHI, SHAH JAHAN**. had -EY for the wallaby baby and in any other puzzle i probably would have been able to guess JOEY but i was already so annoyed that there was zero way for me to infer my way into any of those other answers that i gave up and googled it. (but it's a moot point because it got me nowhere and i had to google claudio as well to finish.) this isn't even an exhaustive list of stuff that made me make a face, but it certainly was the worst of it.
*i guess this means traditional? but it's...so bland...why
**it feels rude and ignorant to say i don't care about learning the creator of a worldwide landmark but this puzzle ruined what would have been a "huh, i never knew that, cool" moment on any other day.
Really didn’t like this puzzle. A lot of ridiculous clues.
This was the first puzzle in quite a while that I was completely unable to finish. I know what the Taj Mahal is of course but all this random trivia about it that if you didn't know and didn't know every single cross completely ruined it for me. I'm sure I at some point read the name Shah Jahan and that it was in Agra but I long since forgot that, and not being a Russian speaker didn't know "Mir" was Russian for peace, and I had DOJ for DEA so the whole bottom right I couldn't figure out, then in the middle left I got nothing at all except COTE. Never heard of the Cesar award, Diamond Head, didn't think of "trad," was thinking of plurals, and I don't even know what "elhi" is supposed to mean. Also haven't seen Much Ado About Nothing in 15+ years, didn't remember Claudio, didn't get "earl" could only think of Duke, though honestly anything other than "count" seems wrong. That so many trivia facts and non-english words were allowed to cross seems like a gross oversight. My congratulations to Mr. Shortz on his wedding, but I think perhaps he skimped on overseeing this puzzle in his eagerness?
El/Hi is as crosswordese as you can get (though Mikeinbedstuy above did say it is used in publishing.) Someone else checked and it appeared frequently for decades then it disappeared only to rear it’s ugly head again.
As noted count isn’t used in England thus earl is the male version of the title there. Also earl appears frequently in crosswords because of convenient letters.
Cote alone is almost crosswordese because in real life it almost always accompanied by dove as a 3rd person said. So yes crosswordese did you in.
I LOVED this puzzle. Amazing construction, good fill, educational, interesting, and a lot of fun. A great ROMP for me. Thank you!
Some commenters seem to be nitpicking or blaming the constructors for using terms they didn’t know.
Hope to see a lot more from these constructors.
GOLF is another VW car model.
Me too! Peter Pan FTW
Does anyone actually use the term Ren Faire?
I wish Rex would explain and comment on unusual clues/responses. What is elhi? Ren Faire? Is the space station Mir named that because it means Peace? The former Rec would delve.
I can't say I recognize a TAJ MAHAL shape in this grid, other than the ONIONDOME pattern of the letters at top center. The whole grid was awkward to get around in, a set of boxes as if the T.M. had been shipped by Ikea. We seldom say "slog" before Sunday, but this comes close.
Huge theme content makes for some desperado filling. GMAJ, ESIGNS, HSU, I'm looking at you.
Knew EARL by back-formation; there was a game show question about what Earls' wives were called. (No one got it right.)
There were some very clever uses of Scrabbly letters, some points for those. All in all, a par.
Wordle eagle!
TOSS ASIDE?
She HASN'T been EASY TO date,
ANDONE thing about ESME TO know:
She's PROUDOF being SENSATE
AND SWINGS with A LETHALBLOW.
--- LT.GOV. CESAR CROWE
It's all been said about the puz. At least the BUSH clue wasn't presidential. Local TV newswoman ESME Murphy has been on the local CBS affiliate staff for decades and I could never figure out why. She must have incriminating photos of someone. Always interesting to check the alignment of her eyebrows on any given day.
Also a wordle eagle!
I love puzzles by the Legendary Quig but this one sacrificed quality fill for maximum theme content. Was it a fair trade? Not sure.
The Taj M. by Ikea - har! Good one!
Even with lots of unknown names (etc.) I managed to eke out a complete puzzle. Hey - I eked!
Quite odd, but in the end, doable.
Diana, LIW
PS
My favorite misdirecting answer was the JETTA.
Lady Di
@Dr.A 8:05 am:
The word COTE has been used 129 times in NYTxword puzzles alone. It references either pigeons, doves, or sheep. You definitely have heard of it.
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