Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (harder than usual, maybe, if only because of that one anomalous square)
THEME: 3D PRINTER (61A: Modern manufacturing device ... or you, when answering 17-, 31-, 39- and 46-Across?) — theme answers are three-part phrases where all three parts start with "D"; so we, the solvers, “print” 3 D’s (!) when entering the theme answers:
Theme answers:
DOT DOT DOT (17A: S, in Morse code)
DOUBLE-DOG DARE (31A: Emphatic challenge)
DING-DONG DITCH (39A: Bell ringer's prank)
DRESS-DOWN DAYS (46A: Casual office occasions)
Word of the Day: SHAYS's Rebellion (38D: Daniel who led a 1786-87 rebellion) —
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their trades. The fighting took place in the areas around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. Historically, scholars have argued that the four thousand rebels, called Shaysites, who protested against economic and civil rights injustices by the Massachusetts Government were led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays. However, recent scholarship has suggested that Shays's role in the protests was significantly and strategically exaggerated by Massachusetts elites, who had a political interest in shifting blame for bad economic conditions away from themselves.
In 1787, the protestors marched on the federalSpringfield Armoryin an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government, severely limited in its prerogatives under theArticles of Confederation, found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion; it was consequently put down by theMassachusetts State MilitiaunderWilliam Shepard, alongside a privately funded local militia led by formerContinental ArmyofficerBenjamin Lincoln. The widely held view had already developed that the Articles of Confederation were untenable and needed amending, with the events of the rebellion serving as further evidence for the laterConstitutional Convention. There is continuing debate among scholars as to what extent the rebellion influenced the later drafting and ratification of theConstitution. (wikipedia)
• • •
Well let's start with the most glaring problem, which is that a large chunk of the NYTXW solver base isn't "printing" anything when they solve the crossword, so the revealer is dead in the water right there. In the pre-internet days, this theme would've worked just fine, but it seems unfit for the digital age. Inapt, or unapt (I forget the difference), for all non-paper solvers. But let's just roll with it and allow that, for today, typing is a form of "printing," so we're all printers now. With that mindset, this theme is just fine. Take a "modern" device and redirect its meaning for punny crossword purposes—that's pretty much the brief. That's what you do. That's puzzle-making 101. The "3D" phrases here are ... fine. Well, half good, half less good. I literally stopped and slumped when I got to the first themer (DOT DOT DOT), internally howling, "oh no, we are not, in the year of our lord that is this year, going to do a whole-ass Morse Code theme! No. Absolutely not." And the gods heard me and made it so. DOUBLE-DOG DARE got the puzzle back onto my good side, and essentially gave me the theme (3 x D), although the revealer ... that, I did not see coming. As for the other themers, DING-DONG DITCH, good, DRESS-DOWN DAYS, oof, not good at all. I think they're called "Casual Fridays"? That's certainly the informal office-wear concept I'm familiar with. The only one I'm familiar with. Maybe when you wear jorts and flip-flops to the office on non-Fridays, this is what those days are called. The point is, it doesn't have the cultural resonance or on-the-money-ness of the previous two themers. Not a great way to round out the bunch. But half good / half acceptable is not half bad, and if I imagine it's 1988, then the puzzle's concept works great, and we've probably got ourselves an above-average Tuesday on our hands. Bringin' '88 back!
The puzzle's one architectural flourish was that "3" in the themer, the one that crosses "C3PO," which I was never gonna get without the "3" (55D: 11-time sci-fi role for Anthony Daniels). Of course I know the character—"Star Wars" blew my 7yo mind—but wow, 11 times, I had no idea they'd piled on that many garbage sequels to the original trilogy (not all of them! but most of them!), and also, when I've seen that droid's name written in my crossword, it's been the "informal" THREEPIO (see also ARTOO or the more "formal" ARTOO-DETOO). Speaking of formal v. informal, what the hell is going on with the "ON GOD"!? (13D: "My word is my bond," informally). How is "ON GOD" informal? Can you be "informal" and absurdly archaic as well? Who says "ON GOD?"** If you said that to me, I'd assume you were challenging me to a sword fight. Me: [brandishing sword at you]. You: [looking surprised]. Me: "Wait, didn't you say 'en garde'? ... no? ... [sheathing sword] phew, good, you had me worried there for a second." I don't know when this phrase is used "formally" or "informally." I know that Canadians stand "ON GOD" for thee, Canada*, but otherwise I don't know what's going on with the phrase, and I cannot believe that whatever is going on, it qualifies as "informal." The fill skewed slightly bad today, sorry to say. ALB IDEM DECI MESO all made me wince a little. THUNDERCLAP is fun, but BURIED ALIVE is grim, no matter how whimsically you try to clue it (26D: Absolutely inundated with work, so to speak). It's not bad fill at all, but neither was it THUNDERCLAP-fun. I've just seen too much rubble this week. Not the puzzle's fault, obviously.
I have to say that of all the modern coinages, YEET is the one I'm always happiest to see (71A: Throw forcefully, in modern parlance). It's such a fun little word. Half sound effect, half dynamic discarding action, there's something playful, succinct, vibrant, and enjoyable about this word. I don't use it, but I like hearing other people use it. It gives me the opposite of that "Get off my lawn! / In my day...!" feeling that is always threatening to bury me alive. Less tweeting, more YEETing. OMG the etymology on this word is crazy. From wiktionary:
Popularized in March 2014 by the "yeet" dance which went viral on the now-defunct video sharing site Vine. The earliest known yeet dance is recorded in a YouTube video uploaded on February 3, 2014. However, examples of the interjection can be [...] found much earlier, including a 1998 use by British presenter Jeremy Clarkson as well as a 2008 definition of "yeet yeet" on Urban Dictionary.
As an expression used when throwing something, apparently coined by Vine user David Banna in a Vine uploaded on or before March 28, 2014 in which he throws a CD and yells out "YEET!", as well as a Vine uploaded April 4, 2014 of a high school student hurling an empty soda can and shouting "This bitch empty! YEET!"
After the 2014 trend, the term faded into relative obscurity before resurging in 2018.
Well, if Vine gave us nothing, it gave us this. Let's all give thanks. And RIP, Vine. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*I’m being told Canadians stand ON GUARD for thee, O Canada, so apologies to my northerly friends
**I'm being told "ON GOD" is current youth slang; my current-youth daughter let me down here. Actually, maybe it's too "youth" even for her (age 23). Anyway, I guess this answer is "current" after all. Great. Are the kids bringing ALB back too?
It's 1:21 a.m. out here and I'm up having a cup of tea. I overate last night.
Very cute theme with a clever revealer. Liked it, but it needed some sparkle. And there were too many threes (22).
My wife loved reading Lessons in Chemistry so we had to subscribe to Apple TV to see the eight-episode series. First week free and then seven bucks a month. The first episode was pretty dull, we're going to see episode two tonight.
Largely agree with Rex, although the intro to the write up seems to confuse 3D with desktop printers. 3D printers have nothing to do with paper; they use plastic or some other composites to build 3D objects. Regardless, an “okay” theme with some less than stellar fill.
Uh, @Rex, I believe the lyrics to O Canada involve standing "On GUARD," not "On God".
I thought this was a fun puzzle, with the fun enhanced by the "3" at square 61. I had no problem with it because there are relatively few four-letter Star Wars characters. Once OMEN at 70A eliminated Yoda, 55D pretty much had to be C3PO.
My only overwrite was a wild guess at ANdrA for the 59A feminine aspect. I'm no Jungian.
Thought the "south-side" of the puzzle played harder than a typical Tuesday while the north felt Monday easy.
Cringed at DING DONG DITCH remembering a young teen being shot and killed by a homeowner when the boy and his pals tried the old doorbell gag during my days in South Florida. The homeowner eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Not the puzzle's fault, of course, but took some of the joy out of it today.
A lot of highschool-aged kids now use ON GOD as an emphasis! As a HS teacher I didn't even know it was archaic, given that I hear it every day in class when they swore they did their HW but they just happened to leave it at home...
I just saw a 3D PRINTER in action this weekend for the first time. Visited my stepson and his gf, and they have one. He was making decorations for our annual Halloween party to take back with me. Fascinating how it works - a spool of plastic “thread” is gradually unrolled into a machine that is moving around creating the item from the base up. I want one, though I have no idea what I would make.
DOUBLE DOG DARE is definitely the best themer. We called the prank ring-and-run in my youth, though I have heard of DING DONG DITCH. But like Rex, I’m suspicious of DRESS DOWN DAYS as a thing anyone would actually say. In the post-pandemic office world, every day you bother to go in is a dress-down day. I go into the office just two days a week now, and I wear a tie only on days I happen to have an appointment with visiting royalty.
I thought Rex might mention SIEGE as too topical right now. I didn’t make that connection with BURIED ALIVE.
I really liked HATE READ. I know some of you do that to Rex so that you can comment here about his curmudgeonliness. Not me. Even when I roll my eyes at the nits he picks, I find him hilarious, as with today’s ON GOD sword-fighting riff. I do hate read some self-righteous right-wing op-ed columnists though.
Felt a lot of the wind go out of the sails with the OH GOD clue. It just seems way off. The way C3PO is clued also seems like a Hail Mary - seriously, that’s the best they could come up with? And they couldn’t be bothered to rework that little section to get rid of IDEM?
Don’t know NETI, but that’s probably on me, and I also thought that the clue for TARS was a cop out. Not a terrible grid, but quite a few near-misses in the cluing. Would have liked to have seen what this one could have looked like if they sent it back for one more round of editing.
Found this to be extremely difficult, mostly because of Down A Run/Dress Down Days/Omen, Idem. North of that was Hate Read/Aiwa. Hate Read? Who would waste time Hate Read(ing)? @Rex if he were a book reviewer? I kid Pal! Isn't the Omen an Itchy palm?
Dug Shay's Rebellion out of that part of my brain where I store 8th grade American history class info, nearby the bin containing the Whiskey Rebellion.
Started with Door Ding Dash, didn't know Alb.
Great puzzle. Would've felt better about myself if it had been an easy Friday.
"On God" is definitely current informal slang for "my word is my bond." I teach middle school and the kids use it constantly. "On God, Miss, I'm going to do my work." "Can I go to the bathroom? It's an emergency. On God!" "I didn't throw that water bottle, on God bruh!" All. Day. Long.
Could've run on a Thurs. for me, and I'd've still been way off D.G.'s wavelength. Lots to learn today.
Felt fortunate to finish without a dnf.
I wonder what the % of NYT xword solvers is that print vs type?
Great workout; liked this Thurs. challenge very much! :)
I stand ON GOD and Guard for Thee! ___
Croce's #850 would've been easy, had it not been for a disastrous three-cell dnf in N. Texas. Also, had a flat out lucky guess at the 'myrtle' / 'South Park' cross. On to K.A.C's Mon. New Yorker. 🤞 ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I cannot believe @rex didn’t mention the down/down crossing. When I entered that I thought “uh oh. It’s bad when the same word is used twice in a puzzle, but crossing itself? “
Harmless little puzzle - had the same early concern as the big guy about a potential Morse code theme. He highlights most of the good stuff - THUNDER CLAP x DING DONG DITCH is solid.
Some unfortunate glue - TARS, ADS etc but smooth overall.
Random thoughts: • Before this debut, 26 NYT rejections over four and a half years, a remarkable lesson in perseverance. Wow! • Freshness all over the grid, with four NYT debut answers and six used but once before. • Lovely to see ARI near SARI. • Most impressive theme set. 3-d phrases must hard to come by or we’d have seen a good number in the comments. And to find four with the exact length needed to fulfill symmetry requirements, wow again! • Rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap SPANS. • Never seen this before. Four animals – APE, SEAL, RAT, and KID, given non-animal clues. Wow yet again! • Perfect balance of young and old – today’s YEET countering yesterday’s BY GUM.
A HEAP of praise to you, Dominic, for your inspiring example of tenacity and stellar never-done-before theme, not to mention a splendid outing that felt like it came from a veteran constructor. Thank you for making this!
Printing here means using block letters when writing with a pencil, as opposed to using cursive. I didn’t care for YEET. I have a 16-year old son, and while I have often heard him and his friends use this word it has never had the meaning in today’s clue.
This was a rare case of a theme that helped the solve. C3PO looks like a mistake, but 3DPRINTER was inevitable from the theme entries.
ONGOD might be modern phraseology, but I think it's ugly to look at and even uglier to say. YEET is a made-up word that doesn't relate to its meaning, as far as I can tell.
Ding dong ditch is older than I am, and I'm older than Rex. Is it even used anymore? White dress down days are very common, perfect fit, though the blast from the past was fun.
Yes, a bit a of delay before realizing that "3" belonged in 55D. Three-D printer...doesn't fit. Cd printer? no that doesn't make sense....what other d printer....oh!
Has 21D been clued with a reference to the band Thunderclap Newman, or the person in the band with that name (first part of the name a nickname)? "Something in the Air," you might recognize, even if the band name is unfamiliar.
Never heard of YEET or ON GOD but had no trouble getting them. Rex sparked me to look up ON GOD and evidently (as others will surely mention) it’s also a Kanye West song. How nice.
I once thought about writing a song with the lyric: "It was dress down day at the office / so my boss he dressed me down." Never got further than that.
ON GOD gave me the most trouble, since i could not get STUNG for a while. the C-3PO I found pretty easy. I did not love the SW corner but I got it. SLOWER Than usual that is the first in a long time.
Had a lot of trouble with DECa before DECI and OpEN before OMEN. I’ve never heard of “itchy hands” being a sign of things to come, or whatever, so I thought that clue meant “my hands are itchy for more money,” which to me meant “oh I guess you’d hold your hands open as if you’re asking for money.” Then I’d never heard of a decimeter, so I figured deca like deca-pod. THEN for that Latin clue, it could have been any collection of four letters and I would have believed it. So what I had (aDEp) was as plausible to me as what it was supposed to be (IDEM). Frustrating. Eventually had to check - on a Tuesday!! Loved the puzzle otherwise.
Canadians “Stand on Guard for Thee” Not On God. The lyrics also had a change to be gender neutral in 2018. From a loving Canadian living in New Mexico…
Benefit of solving on paper: I always PRINT my answers in capital letters, so the recealer was an accurate description, once I saw that 3 was involved. Also I learned the actor's name.
DINGDONGDITCH? OK, I guess. Virtually no one in my little hometown had a doorbell, wo I missed out on this particular form of hilarity. Retired from teaching ten years ago so I have missed ONGOD. Good. I have never heard anyone say YEET either. Shows you the age of the folks I hang with.
No real problems with this one except for STING instead of STUNG which had me wondering what a THINDER something might be. I wonder how many of us thought of A Christmas Story when DOUBLEDOGDARE went in.
I had a good time with this one, DG. You Done Good, and way to stick with it. Thanks for all the fun.
CAPO=ADPRINTER: It could be a thing CEPO=EDPRINTER: For education, maybe. CIPO=IDPRINTER: For fake IDs? COPO=ODPRINTER: Sounds real, but doubtful. CUPO=UDPRINTER: Probably nothing.
So I ran the first three, nothing. Then all five. Then decided it must be "A" since that seemed the most likely and went through the entire puzzle twice looking for the error. (Spent probably five minutes on YEET alone.) Reran the alphabet again. Finally decided to go to deep research mode and I discover Anthony Daniels played frigging C3PO and now I know the alphabet is a lie. It goes AEIOU3 and nobody ever tells you. And even more distressing, I saw the first Star Wars when I was seven and I'm pretty sure I thought C3PO was a real robot, not a person in a robot suit. Learning the alphabet is a sham and that robots aren't real is more than my heart can take this morning.
Except for ruining my life, the puzzle was outstanding in every way. Loved it. And as a dude with an English degree (way to set yourself up for a mediocre life Gary) if it ain't Shakespeare, it's all a HATE READ.
Uniclues:
1 Post-St. Patrick's Day discards in the subway (cuz ya know, at that point, peeps wanna know what yer packing underneath). 2 So I was working in the garden and yada yada yada. 3 Check it out, Ryan in black and white. Or, enormous shark who believes boys are boys and girls are girls suddenly appears. 4 Gem for underachievers in Arizona.
I often HATEREAD this blog because Rex is so easily triggered. Rex, as a college professor you should likely have some awareness of ONGOD, aka ong as the kids these days say. At least I learned something new about KILTs.
On god isn’t just a current slang term. It’s usage goes back at least as far as the early 90s and it shows up on countless rap albums of the era, particularly among those that where incredibly popular with what one may describe as Rex’s milieu (Wu-Tang, Native Tongues, etc, a piece of NY slang terminology), hence my surprise at his unfamiliarity.
Hey All ! When I got first Themer, DOTDOTDOT, I thought we were in for a three-word-repeat theme, which , for me, isn't the most fun type theme. Thankfully, it wasn't. Wasn't fooled much by the Revealer, as had enough crossers to see it was __PRINTER. The ole brain decided to help me this morning, and said, "The only type PRINTER with two letters in front is a 3D one. Hmm, let me check the cross." And sure enough, figured it had to be C3PO.
So, thanks, brain, you're alright in my mind. (Har. Is that a double meaning?)
Found puz a bit crunchier than a normal TuesPuz. Which is actually nice, not a fly-through, auto-fill puz. Did have a one-letter DNF, though. Dang. Went back through puz, but couldn't find it. Hit Check Puzzle. Found I had DECa/aDEM. Ugh. DECa defensible, aDEM not so much. Ah, well.
You can DINGDONGDITCH me all day, I never answer my door to knocks or DING DONGs. The only people nowadays who knock on doors are selling something. All of which I don't need. (I do look through the doors peep hole, to make sure it's not Publishers Clearing House waiting to give me a Million dollar prize!)
Pretty easy. ON GOD not familiar but ok if you say so. Surprised myself putting that 3 in the square but the themers were in and 3D had to be right. And while I haven't seen the sequels I definitely saw the first one (college).
Appreciate the revealer at the bottom instead of in the middle!
Laughed at the thought of us Canadians "standing on God" and assumed that @Rex was kidding and that the footnote would say as much.
Then the footnote explained that he ACTUALLY thought we were standing on God and then it was even funnier.
There's a video clip of a hockey game in Toronto a few years ago where the mic cut out during the performance of the US national anthem and the Canadian crowd in the stands picked up and finished the song en masse. I'm wondering, if it had been a game in the States and the Canadian singer's mic had cut out, if the Americans could've finished "O Canada"
Hey, everybody, feel free to revel in ravioli. It’s National Pasta Day!
I thought the revealer was legit. Enough people still solve on paper that the print concept seems applicable. It’s more of a stretch for us screen-solvers, but I’m used to stretching in all directions for crossword puzzle themes and clues. But I have to admit total ignorance of DING-DONG DITCH. I’m aware of the prank (may even have been party to it in my misspent youth), but not that it had a name, let alone what the name is. Truly, you learn the oddest things from crosswords. Completely unaware of ON GOD and YEET, too. (@Rex, tee hee, but standing ON GOD would be mighty uncomfortable for both stander and deity.) Also, no idea about SHAYS’ Rebellion, but in my defense I can plead Canadianness.
How does ARI sound like two letters of the alphabet? I’d pronounce it to rhyme with Harry. And here’s a curiosity I can’t explain: in French, élan means vivacity, style and flair, but it’s also the word for moose!
One overwrite: THUNDERbolt for THUNDERCLAP, which I now realize was dumb because the clue contains “bolt.” That resulted in [Free spot, in brief] beginning with T, so I merrily filled in “TBA.” As I became increasingly sure of DRESS-DOWN DAYS, I took out “bolt,” but the mistake caused me to wonder in retrospect about the difference between THUNDERbolt and THUNDERCLAP. “Bolt” doesn’t suggest an audible phenomenon the way CLAP does. Ah, just looked it up and THUNDERBOLT seems to be simultaneous thunder and lightning, used especially when the lightning strikes something. Or, metaphorically, it’s a jaw-dropper, a stunner, a shocking revelation. Or it’s the weapon of choice for Zeus. (Yikes, I’m definitely not seeking him out to stand ON GOD.)
[SB: Sun, 0; Mon, -3. Shucks, should have found them all yesterday. I’ll blame the X for unsettling me.]
One of the easiest Tuesdays in a while, for me. Even with the “3” trickery (given the cross, it could be nothing else.) “On God” and “yeet” might strike some as odd…but how more so than the archaic and obscure to which we are often treated? To me part of the fun of crosswords is puzzling out words I have no business knowing.
DNF. I had DEmI/m3PO. I managed to miss that role all 11 times that Anthony Daniels, whoever he is, played it.
Am I the wrong generation or the wrong gender? DOUBLE DOG DARE and DING DONG DITCH sound like things that little boys play or do. The latter doesn't even sound vaguely familiar.
But I'm proud of myself for guessing the 3. This only after trying maPO (AD PRINTER) and mdPO (DD PRINTER, whatever that is). But I needed a third D -- and that's when the 3 hit me.
I like the kicker, the 3, a lot. I really appreciate that kind of trickery on a Tuesday. I wish I'd heard of more of the 3Ds, but still: I'll always have DOT DOT DOT and DRESS DOWN DAYS to remember.
The toughest part (except for SHAYNE, I guess was 41-D. I'd worked out the revealer and the res of the SE corner, eventually remembering YEET (which we have seen before, haven't we? Or was that another puzzle?) and had seen the numeral in the clue for ENVY -- and I was looking at DOWN _ RUN. So of course I wanted to fill in that blank with the numeral "1." Fortunately ATE saved me, and in retrospect the phrase DOWN A RUN is pretty common.
I've never heard of DING DONG DITCH. Is it just that you ring the bell and then run away? Seems pretty tame for a prank. My mother claimed that in her childhood people would fill a paper bag with manure (easier to obtain if you live in a rural community), put it on someone's stoop, light it on fire, ring the bell, and then run away, hoping the resident would come out, see the fire and try to stamp it out. I don't think she ever actually did it, though.
Mixed feelings here. I did not find it difficult but I did an awful lot of erasing for a Tuesday. As my co-workers used to say when it came around to job evaluation time, the buts will get you every time. “She is a good employee but - DOT DOT DOT.” I liked this puzzle but . . .
Had A RUN DOWN before DOWN A RUN. MASERATI spelled with Z. IBID before IDEM. Never heard of SHAYS. Have no idea what was going on with ON GOD and YEET was a mystery. But the worst part was a Natick in the SE caused by one of the banes of my crossword existence - the Star Wars character. You’d think I’d know them all by now but with this one having the distinction of the numeral as opposed to a letter and given the other trivia surrounding the revealer, I never did get there. It’s a shame because I enjoyed it up to that point.
Knew-new YEET from somewhere, even tho it's a NYTPuz debutword. ONGOD was news to m&e, but not too hard to roll with … does sorta sound like en garde.
The theme revealer did a number on us. Since M&A does all his solvequests a la pencil on paper, made perfect sense to m&e. DRESSDOWNDAYS was a new approach to CASUALFRIDAYS, at our house. Kinda recall "dress down" bein associated more with reprimands, or somesuch.
staff weeject pick: NNE. Direction clues are often almost cryptic, to m&e. Especially for places far away from my realm of day trip coverage. Connecticut is pretty far out, in that regard. Nice NW & SE weeject stacks.
I think that DRESSDOWNDAYS are when women wear raiments made of duck feathers. At least, that's how Gen Z has been using the term.
It's nice to know that there is something unique about oneself. Apparently I'm that lone solver who, with an audible "aha!" rebussed THREE into the critical square. Another one square rebus! Didn't we recently have one of those? A lack of congratulatory signals from my 2D iPad caused me to reconsider. Personally, I don't print, I hunt and peck. So 3DPeckers seems like a good second choice as well.
And speaking of pecker's have you heard about the forthcoming 007 sequel to Thunderball where Bond gets THUNDERCLAP? Can he be saved by massive doses of antibiotics? Tune in.
Congrats on a nice debut, Dominic Grillo. I'm sure you had to Dig Down Deep for this one.
Just shows you never know... Although I didn't know YEET & NETI & struggled with C3PO, which finally happened, I didn't find it as hard as I thought it would be (being initially intimidated by the "Medium/Challenging" rating by Rex).
Thanks for the experience, Dominic & congrats on your debut!
Top half felt very easy— even On God, though I was unfamiliar with its current slang usage. Will try to use YEET occasionally and appropriately to remind myself that this old dog can…. Thank you, Dominic, for a fine Tuesday puzzle!
Triple Dog Dare is a famous scene in the film A Christmas Story. It’s winter and the kids in the elementary school taunt Flick to stick his tongue onto the frozen flag pole during recess! He of course gets stuck and both the fire department and the police department come to extricate him! The scene is so well known in that you can buy mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts and sweaters online with a picture of it.
There's a GLENDALE in Queens. Shouldn't the NY Times promote local neighborhoods? Especially with Halloween haunting upon us: Glendale is surrounded by about a dozen cemeteries.
A clever theme, some thorny patches to work though, and a MASERATI and THUNDERCLAP - a fine Tuesday, fun to solve. A few things were new to me: ON GOD - thank you commenters, for elaborating; YEET - will I remember for next time? DING DONG DITCH - reading the clue, "Bell ringer's prank," I though we were talking about a bell ringer in a church and was surprised that someone with that level of responsibility would resort to playing pranks.
@Andy Freude 6:52 - Thank you for explaining SHAYS - I, too, had always thought it was "Shay's," so looking at the spaces in the grid and seeing there were too many for SHAY, I wondered, "There's another Daniel that started a rebellion?"
@Twangster - 8:07 - LOL. Blast from my past: in 1967, woking as a file clerk, I DAREd to DRESS DOWN one day by wearing culottes to work. I was indeed DRESSed DOWN by my supervisor and sent home.
Triple Dog Dare is a famous scene in A Christmas Story. It’s Winter and the kids at the elementary school during recess taunt Flick to stick his tongue on the frozen flag pole! He promptly gets stuck. Both the Fire Dept. and Police Dept. come to rescue him. The scene is so well known that you can buy mugs, sweaters, t-shirts and sweaters on line with a still of the scene.
1. In international soccer, TIE does not mean what Americans mean by the word. TIE refers to a competition between two teams in a tournament and even in league play (i.e., they are tied together for a match by the tournament draw or the league schedule). What Americans refer to as a TIE is called a DRAW in international competition.
2. And, yes, the World Cup Final can end in a draw (the American TIE). If the two teams are still on level terms at the end of overtime period, the winner of he tournament is determined by a penalty shootout, but the game itself has no winner. The shootout only determine who is given the tournament trophy, but it does not change the score of the game, which is recorded as a draw. In such a case, the winner of the shootout indeed wins the tournament, but is not credited with a victory in the final game, which ended in a draw. It merely won the shoot-out -for which it is awarded the trophy.
If this is confusing, think of an election where two candidate received the same number of votes. Neither, then, won the election. But someone has to take office, so a new means of deciding who would take office is introduced - say, a coin flip. But the coin-flip does not change the result of the election, which will alway be a draw. The penalty shoot out in soccer serves the same function as the coin flip.
This would have been a tough Wednesday for me. I had to triple check the crosses for ON GOD to convince myself it was legit. Side eye to DOWN/DOWN cross. That said, mostly liked it, or what @Rex said.
@bocamp - working out those N. Texas squares took me quite a while.
as one of your younger readers (age 21!), i use 'On God' SO MUCH! can definitely confirm its a common saying in my zoomer generation... alongside 'no cap,' 'no printer, all fax,' and many, many others lol
I regret not having spent more time in that area. Time will tell whether or not I ever learn that lesson! 🤔 ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
@mathgent: Like you, have only watched the first episode of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (having loved the book) and am not sure the series will live up to the book's terrific qualities. But just in case you end up disappointed, do not waste your subscription to Apple TV+ and watch THE MORNING SHOW, SHRINKING, and, above all, TED LASSO.
Dang hard! 3x my average. YEET isn’t a word I’m not familiar with. Even with the note on etymology I would never use it or understand its strange meaning. Looks more like something you would say, “ What the yeet are you doin’ ??!!
What is the anomalous square that Rex is referring too?
@okanaganer - DECI I’ve used commonly in Europe for stuff like ordering wine, where you might ask for 3 deci/DL. While deciliter was common enough in my experience, decimeter I’ve never heard used.
@Masked and Anonymous — while YEET is a debut, YEETED appeared a year ago in October 11’s puzzle. I knew I had seen it in the NYT before, just had to try various forms of the word.
@Peter P... now that you mention it, I have seen that unit somewhere -- probably on a wine bottle? -- although in Canada it is pretty rare. Our wine comes in 375 ml, 750 ml (25 oz.), 1 L, and 1.5 L bottles, and 4 L boxes.
However!!.. I just realized there is decibel, which regular people will recognize and even use. It's a bit of an oddball: "The bel is rarely used either without a prefix or with SI unit prefixes other than deci; it is preferred, for example, to use hundredths of a decibel rather than millibels. Thus, five one-thousandths of a bel would normally be written 0.05 dB, and not 5 mB" (Wikipedia).
Also odd is that the decibel is logarithmic, meaning that 100 dB is 100,000 times the amplitude of 0 dB. Also you can have negative values, so that -20 dB is one tenth the amplitude of 0.
Alb is old crosswordese which has been less used of late. But still convenient letters, so it makes an occasional appearance still. I knew it immediately mainly because of crosswords.
Clue: Irish name variant derived from John. Simplified etymology of Shayne: Shane & Shayne: Anglicized form of Irish Sean. Sean: Irish form of John. I am not going further into the weeds, but the Celts in the British Isles , when they adopted Christianity, also created versions of the saints names in their languages. Maybe Sean came from Latin via the monks? But crossword answers are not definitions and clues are hints. I agree that derived probably should have been avoided, but the answer I think is close enough for crosswords.
My son goes to a Catholic school. He tells me that “on God” is totally a thing with his friends but in school, they say “on dog” because, you know, blasphemy and all.
About the worst Tuesday puzzle I've seen in a while. Filled with near-naticks and obnoxious slang, and an unlikable theme. YEET, SHAY/SHAYNE, ONGOD (??), NETI (????), just to name a few of the dislikable elements of this piece of garbage of a puzzle.
Wrapped up Tuesday and moving on to Wednesday here at midnight in the CDT zone. All I have to say is YEET gives me the opposite feeling as the feeling it gives OFL. The first time I encountered it, in a crossword of course, I was convinces it was incorrect. To date, I have encountered it exactly twice. Both in crosswords. Never have I heard it spoken by anyone other than me saying YEET with various tones of voice and inflection and in all sorts of creative sentences. I give up. I cannot make this word sound lime it means “heave” or “hurl” or “sling” to intend throwing forcefully. I’d love to know from folks here where geographically some of you have encountered the word, and what age group of people uses it. Other than that little personal nugget, I don’t have much for Tuesday.
The theme was a standard type and I got the necessary numeral easily. It is a bit odd, but since I have finally become very familiar with Star Wars, C3PO fell easily. My niece and nephew are huge Star Wars universe kids (OK they are young adults) who have over the course of a year during our Sunday dinner and a movie (or a board game) nights gotten me to watch everything- all the movies, the Mandalorian, Ahsoka etc. Ergo, the 3 seemed “so obvi” since we’re all up on the slang today. I’m moving on to Wednesday.
Very hard for a Tuesday and not in a good way. Late Boomer/early GenX'er here and maybe just fell between the cracks of the generation knowledge but never heard of DoubleDogDare or DingDongDitch and could only get those via crosses even though I knew the theme - CP3O a gimme of course. Nor have I ever heard OnGod or YEET as my own Millennial kids are long past meaningless lingo stage. Clue for "Shayne" ridiculous. SW a DNF for me for that reason and also never heard of Anima even though I was a Psych Major. Not a Tuesday answer IMO. Why is Ari a nickname? The Ari's I know are all just, Ari.
I recall casual Fridays, but we never had a DRESS DOWN DAY, unless you count the time the QA guy nailed one of the business analysts in a server closet.
And 48 down left me wishing that SNOT POT was a thing.
First I meet DOTDOTDOT, and I say, please tell me there's more than this. Uh, no. To insert a MASERATI into this dumpster is the height of insult. Sorry, but three D's on a report card means you're about to get a good dressing down. Double bogey.
Wordle birdie. Can't seem to get lucky with those Eagles--unless you mean the Philadelphia ones, who swooped into Arrowhead Stadium last night and counted coup on those Chiefs! Fly forever, Birds!!
I'm an early baby boomer, and I found this pretty darn easy for a tuez puz. Most likely, because once I had a few letters filled in the long answers, I was able to just write in the rest. I knew I had seen yeet before, but didn't remember that it was in the past tense previously. A couple complaints about not knowing ALB . It's in NYTxword puzzles about 5 times a year. Of course, having been an altar boy, I know the names of all the priestly vestments. Cincture and chasuble coming to a xword near you very soon.
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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90 comments:
It's 1:21 a.m. out here and I'm up having a cup of tea. I overate last night.
Very cute theme with a clever revealer. Liked it, but it needed some sparkle. And there were too many threes (22).
My wife loved reading Lessons in Chemistry so we had to subscribe to Apple TV to see the eight-episode series. First week free and then seven bucks a month. The first episode was pretty dull, we're going to see episode two tonight.
I loved ding dong ditch as an answer personally, and felt it was fresh
Loved yeet too!
Largely agree with Rex, although the intro to the write up seems to confuse 3D with desktop printers. 3D printers have nothing to do with paper; they use plastic or some other composites to build 3D objects. Regardless, an “okay” theme with some less than stellar fill.
I know what 3D printers are. The clue refers to *us* (solvers) as “printers”—that’s the joke. And the problem. ~RP
Uh, @Rex, I believe the lyrics to O Canada involve standing "On GUARD," not "On God".
I thought this was a fun puzzle, with the fun enhanced by the "3" at square 61. I had no problem with it because there are relatively few four-letter Star Wars characters. Once OMEN at 70A eliminated Yoda, 55D pretty much had to be C3PO.
My only overwrite was a wild guess at ANdrA for the 59A feminine aspect. I'm no Jungian.
Thought the "south-side" of the puzzle played harder than a typical Tuesday while the north felt Monday easy.
Cringed at DING DONG DITCH remembering a young teen being shot and killed by a homeowner when the boy and his pals tried the old doorbell gag during my days in South Florida. The homeowner eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Not the puzzle's fault, of course, but took some of the joy out of it today.
A lot of highschool-aged kids now use ON GOD as an emphasis! As a HS teacher I didn't even know it was archaic, given that I hear it every day in class when they swore they did their HW but they just happened to leave it at home...
I just saw a 3D PRINTER in action this weekend for the first time. Visited my stepson and his gf, and they have one. He was making decorations for our annual Halloween party to take back with me. Fascinating how it works - a spool of plastic “thread” is gradually unrolled into a machine that is moving around creating the item from the base up. I want one, though I have no idea what I would make.
DOUBLE DOG DARE is definitely the best themer. We called the prank ring-and-run in my youth, though I have heard of DING DONG DITCH. But like Rex, I’m suspicious of DRESS DOWN DAYS as a thing anyone would actually say. In the post-pandemic office world, every day you bother to go in is a dress-down day. I go into the office just two days a week now, and I wear a tie only on days I happen to have an appointment with visiting royalty.
I thought Rex might mention SIEGE as too topical right now. I didn’t make that connection with BURIED ALIVE.
I really liked HATE READ. I know some of you do that to Rex so that you can comment here about his curmudgeonliness. Not me. Even when I roll my eyes at the nits he picks, I find him hilarious, as with today’s ON GOD sword-fighting riff. I do hate read some self-righteous right-wing op-ed columnists though.
And all these years I’ve thought it was Shay’s Rebellion. TIL it’s Shays’ Rebellion. (Shays’s Rebellion in Chicago style, I suppose.)
ON GOD was a WOE, as was DING DONG DITCH. Oh, we kids played it. We just never had a name for it.
Felt a lot of the wind go out of the sails with the OH GOD clue. It just seems way off. The way C3PO is clued also seems like a Hail Mary - seriously, that’s the best they could come up with? And they couldn’t be bothered to rework that little section to get rid of IDEM?
Don’t know NETI, but that’s probably on me, and I also thought that the clue for TARS was a cop out. Not a terrible grid, but quite a few near-misses in the cluing. Would have liked to have seen what this one could have looked like if they sent it back for one more round of editing.
Found this to be extremely difficult, mostly because of Down A Run/Dress Down Days/Omen, Idem. North of that was Hate Read/Aiwa. Hate Read? Who would waste time Hate Read(ing)? @Rex if he were a book reviewer? I kid Pal! Isn't the Omen an Itchy palm?
Dug Shay's Rebellion out of that part of my brain where I store 8th grade American history class info, nearby the bin containing the Whiskey Rebellion.
Started with Door Ding Dash, didn't know Alb.
Great puzzle. Would've felt better about myself if it had been an easy Friday.
"On God" is definitely current informal slang for "my word is my bond." I teach middle school and the kids use it constantly. "On God, Miss, I'm going to do my work." "Can I go to the bathroom? It's an emergency. On God!" "I didn't throw that water bottle, on God bruh!" All. Day. Long.
ON GOD is a very hip, current phrase among the youth, the Twitterati, the Tumblr set. Heck, my top hit is the UrbanDictionary page for it. :D
What was old is new again!
Thx, Dominic, for this Devilishly Done Deed! 😋
Hard.
Could've run on a Thurs. for me, and I'd've still been way off D.G.'s wavelength. Lots to learn today.
Felt fortunate to finish without a dnf.
I wonder what the % of NYT xword solvers is that print vs type?
Great workout; liked this Thurs. challenge very much! :)
I stand ON GOD and Guard for Thee!
___
Croce's #850 would've been easy, had it not been for a disastrous three-cell dnf in N. Texas. Also, had a flat out lucky guess at the 'myrtle' / 'South Park' cross. On to K.A.C's Mon. New Yorker. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
"On God" is Gen Z / internet slang derived from AAVE.
I cannot believe @rex didn’t mention the down/down crossing. When I entered that I thought “uh oh. It’s bad when the same word is used twice in a puzzle, but crossing itself? “
YEET. DING-DONG DITCH. ON GOD.
Nope. Nope. Huh????
SHAYNE. Wikipedia: variant of the Irish given name Shane: variant of Sean, linguistically derived from the Hebrew given name John.
So...nope.
I have a 16-year-old, so I know that "On God" is definitely a thing. With the kids. Who need to get off my lawn.
Harmless little puzzle - had the same early concern as the big guy about a potential Morse code theme. He highlights most of the good stuff - THUNDER CLAP x DING DONG DITCH is solid.
Some unfortunate glue - TARS, ADS etc but smooth overall.
Pleasant Tuesday morning solve.
KID
Random thoughts:
• Before this debut, 26 NYT rejections over four and a half years, a remarkable lesson in perseverance. Wow!
• Freshness all over the grid, with four NYT debut answers and six used but once before.
• Lovely to see ARI near SARI.
• Most impressive theme set. 3-d phrases must hard to come by or we’d have seen a good number in the comments. And to find four with the exact length needed to fulfill symmetry requirements, wow again!
• Rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap SPANS.
• Never seen this before. Four animals – APE, SEAL, RAT, and KID, given non-animal clues. Wow yet again!
• Perfect balance of young and old – today’s YEET countering yesterday’s BY GUM.
A HEAP of praise to you, Dominic, for your inspiring example of tenacity and stellar never-done-before theme, not to mention a splendid outing that felt like it came from a veteran constructor. Thank you for making this!
Printing here means using block letters when writing with a pencil, as opposed to using cursive. I didn’t care for YEET. I have a 16-year old son, and while I have often heard him and his friends use this word it has never had the meaning in today’s clue.
This was a rare case of a theme that helped the solve. C3PO looks like a mistake, but 3DPRINTER was inevitable from the theme entries.
ONGOD might be modern phraseology, but I think it's ugly to look at and even uglier to say. YEET is a made-up word that doesn't relate to its meaning, as far as I can tell.
Ding dong ditch is older than I am, and I'm older than Rex. Is it even used anymore? White dress down days are very common, perfect fit, though the blast from the past was fun.
Yes, a bit a of delay before realizing that "3" belonged in 55D. Three-D printer...doesn't fit. Cd printer? no that doesn't make sense....what other d printer....oh!
Has 21D been clued with a reference to the band Thunderclap Newman, or the person in the band with that name (first part of the name a nickname)? "Something in the Air," you might recognize, even if the band name is unfamiliar.
Had no idea ON GOD was a thing. Rex Parker’s is one of the few comment sections worth reading.
Never heard of YEET or ON GOD but had no trouble getting them. Rex sparked me to look up ON GOD and evidently (as others will surely mention) it’s also a Kanye West song. How nice.
I once thought about writing a song with the lyric: "It was dress down day at the office / so my boss he dressed me down." Never got further than that.
ON GOD is AAVE
ON GOD gave me the most trouble, since i could not get STUNG for a while. the C-3PO I found pretty easy. I did not love the SW corner but I got it. SLOWER Than usual that is the first in a long time.
Definitely challenging - hardest Tuesday I've seen in a long while. Clever.
Had a lot of trouble with DECa before DECI and OpEN before OMEN. I’ve never heard of “itchy hands” being a sign of things to come, or whatever, so I thought that clue meant “my hands are itchy for more money,” which to me meant “oh I guess you’d hold your hands open as if you’re asking for money.” Then I’d never heard of a decimeter, so I figured deca like deca-pod. THEN for that Latin clue, it could have been any collection of four letters and I would have believed it. So what I had (aDEp) was as plausible to me as what it was supposed to be (IDEM). Frustrating. Eventually had to check - on a Tuesday!! Loved the puzzle otherwise.
Canadians “Stand on Guard for Thee”
Not On God.
The lyrics also had a change to be gender neutral in 2018.
From a loving Canadian living in New Mexico…
Benefit of solving on paper: I always PRINT my answers in capital letters, so the recealer was an accurate description, once I saw that 3 was involved. Also I learned the actor's name.
DINGDONGDITCH? OK, I guess. Virtually no one in my little hometown had a doorbell, wo I missed out on this particular form of hilarity. Retired from teaching ten years ago so I have missed ONGOD. Good. I have never heard anyone say YEET either. Shows you the age of the folks I hang with.
No real problems with this one except for STING instead of STUNG which had me wondering what a THINDER something might be. I wonder how many of us thought of A Christmas Story when DOUBLEDOGDARE went in.
I had a good time with this one, DG. You Done Good, and way to stick with it. Thanks for all the fun.
How the alphabet works:
CAPO=ADPRINTER: It could be a thing
CEPO=EDPRINTER: For education, maybe.
CIPO=IDPRINTER: For fake IDs?
COPO=ODPRINTER: Sounds real, but doubtful.
CUPO=UDPRINTER: Probably nothing.
So I ran the first three, nothing. Then all five. Then decided it must be "A" since that seemed the most likely and went through the entire puzzle twice looking for the error. (Spent probably five minutes on YEET alone.) Reran the alphabet again. Finally decided to go to deep research mode and I discover Anthony Daniels played frigging C3PO and now I know the alphabet is a lie. It goes AEIOU3 and nobody ever tells you. And even more distressing, I saw the first Star Wars when I was seven and I'm pretty sure I thought C3PO was a real robot, not a person in a robot suit. Learning the alphabet is a sham and that robots aren't real is more than my heart can take this morning.
Except for ruining my life, the puzzle was outstanding in every way. Loved it. And as a dude with an English degree (way to set yourself up for a mediocre life Gary) if it ain't Shakespeare, it's all a HATE READ.
Uniclues:
1 Post-St. Patrick's Day discards in the subway (cuz ya know, at that point, peeps wanna know what yer packing underneath).
2 So I was working in the garden and yada yada yada.
3 Check it out, Ryan in black and white. Or, enormous shark who believes boys are boys and girls are girls suddenly appears.
4 Gem for underachievers in Arizona.
1 METRO KILT HEAP (~)
2 DOT DOT DOT STUNG
3 TADA! BINARY MEG!
4 GLENDALE OPAL (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: "I see London, I see France." NEAT WELCOME MAT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Huh. I thought this was a solid, good, fun Tuesday. The theme was easily gettable and made it play like a Tuesday.
Maybe solving with my 26-year-old softened the Gen Z edges for us. IMO, more of this.
I often HATEREAD this blog because Rex is so easily triggered. Rex, as a college professor you should likely have some awareness of ONGOD, aka ong as the kids these days say. At least I learned something new about KILTs.
On god isn’t just a current slang term. It’s usage goes back at least as far as the early 90s and it shows up on countless rap albums of the era, particularly among those that where incredibly popular with what one may describe as Rex’s milieu (Wu-Tang, Native Tongues, etc, a piece of NY slang terminology), hence my surprise at his unfamiliarity.
Hey All !
When I got first Themer, DOTDOTDOT, I thought we were in for a three-word-repeat theme, which , for me, isn't the most fun type theme. Thankfully, it wasn't. Wasn't fooled much by the Revealer, as had enough crossers to see it was __PRINTER. The ole brain decided to help me this morning, and said, "The only type PRINTER with two letters in front is a 3D one. Hmm, let me check the cross." And sure enough, figured it had to be C3PO.
So, thanks, brain, you're alright in my mind. (Har. Is that a double meaning?)
Found puz a bit crunchier than a normal TuesPuz. Which is actually nice, not a fly-through, auto-fill puz. Did have a one-letter DNF, though. Dang. Went back through puz, but couldn't find it. Hit Check Puzzle. Found I had DECa/aDEM. Ugh. DECa defensible, aDEM not so much. Ah, well.
You can DINGDONGDITCH me all day, I never answer my door to knocks or DING DONGs. The only people nowadays who knock on doors are selling something. All of which I don't need. (I do look through the doors peep hole, to make sure it's not Publishers Clearing House waiting to give me a Million dollar prize!)
No F's (ME SO disappointed!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Pretty easy. ON GOD not familiar but ok if you say so. Surprised myself putting that 3 in the square but the themers were in and 3D had to be right. And while I haven't seen the sequels I definitely saw the first one (college).
Appreciate the revealer at the bottom instead of in the middle!
Laughed at the thought of us Canadians "standing on God" and assumed that @Rex was kidding and that the footnote would say as much.
Then the footnote explained that he ACTUALLY thought we were standing on God and then it was even funnier.
There's a video clip of a hockey game in Toronto a few years ago where the mic cut out during the performance of the US national anthem and the Canadian crowd in the stands picked up and finished the song en masse.
I'm wondering, if it had been a game in the States and the Canadian singer's mic had cut out, if the Americans could've finished "O Canada"
In the French-speaking portions, is it “O Canada, We stand en garde for thee?”
As an iPad solver tapping my answers, am I a 3D PoINTER?
Do DRESS DOWN MonDAYS (by bosses fed up with Gen Z “workers”) cause SUNDAY SCARIES?
Hey, everybody, feel free to revel in ravioli. It’s National Pasta Day!
I thought the revealer was legit. Enough people still solve on paper that the print concept seems applicable. It’s more of a stretch for us screen-solvers, but I’m used to stretching in all directions for crossword puzzle themes and clues. But I have to admit total ignorance of DING-DONG DITCH. I’m aware of the prank (may even have been party to it in my misspent youth), but not that it had a name, let alone what the name is. Truly, you learn the oddest things from crosswords. Completely unaware of ON GOD and YEET, too. (@Rex, tee hee, but standing ON GOD would be mighty uncomfortable for both stander and deity.) Also, no idea about SHAYS’ Rebellion, but in my defense I can plead Canadianness.
How does ARI sound like two letters of the alphabet? I’d pronounce it to rhyme with Harry. And here’s a curiosity I can’t explain: in French, élan means vivacity, style and flair, but it’s also the word for moose!
One overwrite: THUNDERbolt for THUNDERCLAP, which I now realize was dumb because the clue contains “bolt.” That resulted in [Free spot, in brief] beginning with T, so I merrily filled in “TBA.” As I became increasingly sure of DRESS-DOWN DAYS, I took out “bolt,” but the mistake caused me to wonder in retrospect about the difference between THUNDERbolt and THUNDERCLAP. “Bolt” doesn’t suggest an audible phenomenon the way CLAP does. Ah, just looked it up and THUNDERBOLT seems to be simultaneous thunder and lightning, used especially when the lightning strikes something. Or, metaphorically, it’s a jaw-dropper, a stunner, a shocking revelation. Or it’s the weapon of choice for Zeus. (Yikes, I’m definitely not seeking him out to stand ON GOD.)
[SB: Sun, 0; Mon, -3. Shucks, should have found them all yesterday. I’ll blame the X for unsettling me.]
Put me down for 10 minutes stuck at:
C
ADPRINTER
P
O
My NYT solve time average took a hit on this one so I'm going to go with "this puzzle is an affront to crosswords everywhere!"
One of the easiest Tuesdays in a while, for me. Even with the “3” trickery (given the cross, it could be nothing else.) “On God” and “yeet” might strike some as odd…but how more so than the archaic and obscure to which we are often treated? To me part of the fun of crosswords is puzzling out words I have no business knowing.
I wrote “three” as a rebus, rather than “3” - which did not show a successful finish and I wasted valuable time looking for other errors.
DNF. I had DEmI/m3PO. I managed to miss that role all 11 times that Anthony Daniels, whoever he is, played it.
Am I the wrong generation or the wrong gender? DOUBLE DOG DARE and DING DONG DITCH sound like things that little boys play or do. The latter doesn't even sound vaguely familiar.
But I'm proud of myself for guessing the 3. This only after trying maPO (AD PRINTER) and mdPO (DD PRINTER, whatever that is). But I needed a third D -- and that's when the 3 hit me.
I like the kicker, the 3, a lot. I really appreciate that kind of trickery on a Tuesday. I wish I'd heard of more of the 3Ds, but still: I'll always have DOT DOT DOT and DRESS DOWN DAYS to remember.
The toughest part (except for SHAYNE, I guess was 41-D. I'd worked out the revealer and the res of the SE corner, eventually remembering YEET (which we have seen before, haven't we? Or was that another puzzle?) and had seen the numeral in the clue for ENVY -- and I was looking at DOWN _ RUN. So of course I wanted to fill in that blank with the numeral "1." Fortunately ATE saved me, and in retrospect the phrase DOWN A RUN is pretty common.
I've never heard of DING DONG DITCH. Is it just that you ring the bell and then run away? Seems pretty tame for a prank. My mother claimed that in her childhood people would fill a paper bag with manure (easier to obtain if you live in a rural community), put it on someone's stoop, light it on fire, ring the bell, and then run away, hoping the resident would come out, see the fire and try to stamp it out. I don't think she ever actually did it, though.
@Carlos
Love your last sentence.
Mixed feelings here. I did not find it difficult but I did an awful lot of erasing for a Tuesday. As my co-workers used to say when it came around to job evaluation time, the buts will get you every time. “She is a good employee but - DOT DOT DOT.” I liked this puzzle but . . .
Had A RUN DOWN before DOWN A RUN. MASERATI spelled with Z. IBID before IDEM. Never heard of SHAYS. Have no idea what was going on with ON GOD and YEET was a mystery. But the worst part was a Natick in the SE caused by one of the banes of my crossword existence - the Star Wars character. You’d think I’d know them all by now but with this one having the distinction of the numeral as opposed to a letter and given the other trivia surrounding the revealer, I never did get there. It’s a shame because I enjoyed it up to that point.
Knew-new YEET from somewhere, even tho it's a NYTPuz debutword. ONGOD was news to m&e, but not too hard to roll with … does sorta sound like en garde.
The theme revealer did a number on us. Since M&A does all his solvequests a la pencil on paper, made perfect sense to m&e. DRESSDOWNDAYS was a new approach to CASUALFRIDAYS, at our house.
Kinda recall "dress down" bein associated more with reprimands, or somesuch.
staff weeject pick: NNE. Direction clues are often almost cryptic, to m&e. Especially for places far away from my realm of day trip coverage. Connecticut is pretty far out, in that regard.
Nice NW & SE weeject stacks.
niceties: THUNDERCLAP. BINARY. NSA/PSA. DOWNARUN. 3.
Thanx, Mr. Grillo dddude. Yer debut rates a 3-D(own) TA-DA.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
I think that DRESSDOWNDAYS are when women wear raiments made of duck feathers. At least, that's how Gen Z has been using the term.
It's nice to know that there is something unique about oneself. Apparently I'm that lone solver who, with an audible "aha!" rebussed THREE into the critical square. Another one square rebus! Didn't we recently have one of those? A lack of congratulatory signals from my 2D iPad caused me to reconsider. Personally, I don't print, I hunt and peck. So 3DPeckers seems like a good second choice as well.
And speaking of pecker's have you heard about the forthcoming 007 sequel to Thunderball where Bond gets THUNDERCLAP? Can he be saved by massive doses of antibiotics? Tune in.
Congrats on a nice debut, Dominic Grillo. I'm sure you had to Dig Down Deep for this one.
Just shows you never know... Although I didn't know YEET & NETI & struggled with C3PO, which finally happened, I didn't find it as hard as I thought it would be (being initially intimidated by the "Medium/Challenging" rating by Rex).
Thanks for the experience, Dominic & congrats on your debut!
See three POs? Sorry, no. I grade this puzzle a D. I grade this puzzle a D. I grade this puzzle a D.
I have never heard, or seen, the verb "yeet" snd hope to keep it that way.
Otherwise the puzzle was Okay. Didn't love or dislike it.
Top half felt very easy— even On God, though I was unfamiliar with its current slang usage. Will try to use YEET occasionally
and appropriately to remind myself that this old dog can…. Thank you, Dominic, for a fine Tuesday puzzle!
Triple Dog Dare is a famous scene in the film A Christmas Story. It’s winter and the kids in the elementary school taunt Flick to stick his tongue onto the frozen flag pole during recess! He of course gets stuck and both the fire department and the police department come to extricate him!
The scene is so well known in that you can buy mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts and sweaters online with a picture of it.
There's a GLENDALE in Queens. Shouldn't the NY Times promote local neighborhoods? Especially with Halloween haunting upon us: Glendale is surrounded by about a dozen cemeteries.
♪ My Maserati does 185
I lost my license, now I don't drive ♪
A clever theme, some thorny patches to work though, and a MASERATI and THUNDERCLAP - a fine Tuesday, fun to solve. A few things were new to me:
ON GOD - thank you commenters, for elaborating;
YEET - will I remember for next time?
DING DONG DITCH - reading the clue, "Bell ringer's prank," I though we were talking about a bell ringer in a church and was surprised that someone with that level of responsibility would resort to playing pranks.
@Andy Freude 6:52 - Thank you for explaining SHAYS - I, too, had always thought it was "Shay's," so looking at the spaces in the grid and seeing there were too many for SHAY, I wondered, "There's another Daniel that started a rebellion?"
@Twangster - 8:07 - LOL. Blast from my past: in 1967, woking as a file clerk, I DAREd to DRESS DOWN one day by wearing culottes to work. I was indeed DRESSed DOWN by my supervisor and sent home.
Triple Dog Dare is a famous scene in A Christmas Story. It’s Winter and the kids at the elementary school during recess taunt Flick to stick his tongue on the frozen flag pole! He promptly gets stuck. Both the Fire Dept. and Police Dept. come to rescue him. The scene is so well known that you can buy mugs, sweaters, t-shirts and sweaters on line with a still of the scene.
Got me confused momentarily at the top; today is *not* "WED 10-17-23 "
Cannot let 63D pass without comment:
1. In international soccer, TIE does not mean what Americans mean by the word. TIE refers to a competition between two teams in a tournament and even in league play (i.e., they are tied together for a match by the tournament draw or the league schedule). What Americans refer to as a TIE is called a DRAW in international competition.
2. And, yes, the World Cup Final can end in a draw (the American TIE). If the two teams are still on level terms at the end of overtime period, the winner of he tournament is determined by a penalty shootout, but the game itself has no winner. The shootout only determine who is given the tournament trophy, but it does not change the score of the game, which is recorded as a draw. In such a case, the winner of the shootout indeed wins the tournament, but is not credited with a victory in the final game, which ended in a draw. It merely won the shoot-out -for which it is awarded the trophy.
If this is confusing, think of an election where two candidate received the same number of votes. Neither, then, won the election. But someone has to take office, so a new means of deciding who would take office is introduced - say, a coin flip. But the coin-flip does not change the result of the election, which will alway be a draw. The penalty shoot out in soccer serves the same function as the coin flip.
This would have been a tough Wednesday for me. I had to triple check the crosses for ON GOD to convince myself it was legit. Side eye to DOWN/DOWN cross. That said, mostly liked it, or what @Rex said.
@bocamp - working out those N. Texas squares took me quite a while.
as one of your younger readers (age 21!), i use 'On God' SO MUCH! can definitely confirm its a common saying in my zoomer generation... alongside 'no cap,' 'no printer, all fax,' and many, many others lol
Across Lite refused to accept the 3, but I just left it in and declared victory.
Of course I had KILO before DECI. DECI is one of those metric prefixes which regular people never use, along with FEMTO and many others.
@RooMonster... I used to be able to ignore people knocking on my door until my neighbor's kids started bringing me cookies and stuff.
[Spelling Bee: @Barbara S, I am currently sitting at -1 missing an 8er for Sunday. I'll have another shot at it today.]
@jae (1:07 PM) 👍
I regret not having spent more time in that area. Time will tell whether or not I ever learn that lesson! 🤔
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
@mathgent: Like you, have only watched the first episode of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (having loved the book) and am not sure the series will live up to the book's terrific qualities. But just in case you end up disappointed, do not waste your subscription to Apple TV+ and watch THE MORNING SHOW, SHRINKING, and, above all, TED LASSO.
Dang hard! 3x my average. YEET isn’t a word I’m not familiar with. Even with the note on etymology I would never use it or understand its strange meaning. Looks more like something you would say, “ What the yeet are you doin’ ??!!
What is the anomalous square that Rex is referring too?
Me too on the bell ringer thing, so wanted Ding Dong Switch which of course doesn't fit.
@okanaganer - DECI I’ve used commonly in Europe for stuff like ordering wine, where you might ask for 3 deci/DL. While deciliter was common enough in my experience, decimeter I’ve never heard used.
@Masked and Anonymous — while YEET is a debut, YEETED appeared a year ago in October 11’s puzzle. I knew I had seen it in the NYT before, just had to try various forms of the word.
@Peter P... now that you mention it, I have seen that unit somewhere -- probably on a wine bottle? -- although in Canada it is pretty rare. Our wine comes in 375 ml, 750 ml (25 oz.), 1 L, and 1.5 L bottles, and 4 L boxes.
However!!.. I just realized there is decibel, which regular people will recognize and even use. It's a bit of an oddball: "The bel is rarely used either without a prefix or with SI unit prefixes other than deci; it is preferred, for example, to use hundredths of a decibel rather than millibels. Thus, five one-thousandths of a bel would normally be written 0.05 dB, and not 5 mB" (Wikipedia).
Also odd is that the decibel is logarithmic, meaning that 100 dB is 100,000 times the amplitude of 0 dB. Also you can have negative values, so that -20 dB is one tenth the amplitude of 0.
Alb is old crosswordese which has been less used of late. But still convenient letters, so it makes an occasional appearance still. I knew it immediately mainly because of crosswords.
Clue: Irish name variant derived from John.
Simplified etymology of Shayne:
Shane & Shayne: Anglicized form of Irish Sean.
Sean: Irish form of John.
I am not going further into the weeds, but the Celts in the British Isles , when they adopted Christianity, also created versions of the saints names in their languages. Maybe Sean came from Latin via the monks?
But crossword answers are not definitions and clues are hints. I agree that derived probably should have been avoided, but the answer I think is close enough for crosswords.
My son goes to a Catholic school. He tells me that “on God” is totally a thing with his friends but in school, they say “on dog” because, you know, blasphemy and all.
About the worst Tuesday puzzle I've seen in a while. Filled with near-naticks and obnoxious slang, and an unlikable theme. YEET, SHAY/SHAYNE, ONGOD (??), NETI (????), just to name a few of the dislikable elements of this piece of garbage of a puzzle.
"On God" is specifically AAVE parlance, but has been adopted/appropriated (depending on your view) by the younguns in general.
Correct. I don't usually delve into the comments here so I'm commenting since there's not an equivalent of "liking" your comment.
not impressed with the crossing DOWNs dupe. what has the world (nyt crossword) come to
Wrapped up Tuesday and moving on to Wednesday here at midnight in the CDT zone. All I have to say is YEET gives me the opposite feeling as the feeling it gives OFL. The first time I encountered it, in a crossword of course, I was convinces it was incorrect. To date, I have encountered it exactly twice. Both in crosswords. Never have I heard it spoken by anyone other than me saying YEET with various tones of voice and inflection and in all sorts of creative sentences. I give up. I cannot make this word sound lime it means “heave” or “hurl” or “sling” to intend throwing forcefully. I’d love to know from folks here where geographically some of you have encountered the word, and what age group of people uses it. Other than that little personal nugget, I don’t have much for Tuesday.
The theme was a standard type and I got the necessary numeral easily. It is a bit odd, but since I have finally become very familiar with Star Wars, C3PO fell easily. My niece and nephew are huge Star Wars universe kids (OK they are young adults) who have over the course of a year during our Sunday dinner and a movie (or a board game) nights gotten me to watch everything- all the movies, the Mandalorian, Ahsoka etc. Ergo, the 3 seemed “so obvi” since we’re all up on the slang today. I’m moving on to Wednesday.
Got stuck on line coz I spelled out "three" in Rebus mode instead of the number
I don’t understand PSA as an answer to “free spot, in brief”. Any help would be appreciated.
PSA= Public Service Announcement ( my guess)
Very hard for a Tuesday and not in a good way. Late Boomer/early GenX'er here and maybe just fell between the cracks of the generation knowledge but never heard of DoubleDogDare or DingDongDitch and could only get those via crosses even though I knew the theme - CP3O a gimme of course. Nor have I ever heard OnGod or YEET as my own Millennial kids are long past meaningless lingo stage. Clue for "Shayne" ridiculous. SW a DNF for me for that reason and also never heard of Anima even though I was a Psych Major. Not a Tuesday answer IMO. Why is Ari a nickname? The Ari's I know are all just, Ari.
Anthony Daniels has played C3PO over 50 times. I don't think that 11 figure is correct unless the clue restricts it to major movie releases
I've worked in corporate America for 30 years.
I recall casual Fridays, but we never had a DRESS DOWN DAY, unless you count the time the QA guy nailed one of the business analysts in a server closet.
And 48 down left me wishing that SNOT POT was a thing.
ON GOD, YEET, and RENEE = an awful lot of WoEs for a Tuesday. But the rest was insultingly easy, so I guess things evened out.
Bleagh. Or, whatever goes into that NETI.
First I meet DOTDOTDOT, and I say, please tell me there's more than this. Uh, no. To insert a MASERATI into this dumpster is the height of insult. Sorry, but three D's on a report card means you're about to get a good dressing down. Double bogey.
Wordle birdie. Can't seem to get lucky with those Eagles--unless you mean the Philadelphia ones, who swooped into Arrowhead Stadium last night and counted coup on those Chiefs! Fly forever, Birds!!
VIVA ELAN
“IDO DOUBLEDOGDARE
you to DITCH it to DAY,
A NOVEL IDEA, go bare,
LET your DRESSDOWN, RENEE.”
--- SHAYNE SHAYS
I'm an early baby boomer, and I found this pretty darn easy for a tuez puz. Most likely, because once I had a few letters filled in the long answers, I was able to just write in the rest. I knew I had seen yeet before, but didn't remember that it was in the past tense previously. A couple complaints about not knowing ALB . It's in NYTxword puzzles about 5 times a year. Of course, having been an altar boy, I know the names of all the priestly vestments. Cincture and chasuble coming to a xword near you very soon.
DINGDONGDITCH??? Never, ever heard of that in my life.
But DOUBLEDOGDARE made up for that by bringing up memories of the soon-to-be 24-hour movie, Christmas Story. Gotta love that.
Lady Di, sometimes referred to as lil D
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