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Cattle-catching weapon / TUE 3-5-24 / Spring-loaded office device / Weightlifting item for a biceps routine / Flo Rida hit with the lyric "Champagne buckets still got two tears in it" / Fellow bringing a dozen roses, maybe
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Constructor: Christina Iverson
Relative difficulty: Easy (an undersized 14x15, so times should be fast)
Theme answers:
- LOGICAL FALLACY (16A: Flaw in an argument) ("Hole" 1)
- EMPTY SPACE (26A: Void) ("Hole" 2)
- PIG STY (34A: Messy living area) ("Hole" 3)
- FRUIT DRINK (41A: Many a beverage ending in "-ade") (... and the Punch)
A phrase used as an abbreviation for "my bad"; utilized by a person claiming that the fault is his own, that he screwed up; commonly used in a casual environment such as when playing games with family and friends. (slang.net)
• • •
Puzzle started inauspiciously with a small corner choked with overfamiliar short stuff, with BOLA and ANI being decidedly subpar. I should not be feeling "oof" *twice* in so small a space. Also, I just resent BOLA (1D: Cattle-catching weapon) because I always confuse it with BOLO, a mistake I made again today, which left me wondering if Inventor David Aguilar had maybe built a fully prosthetic and functional ORE out of Legos. That would've been ... something. The middle of the grid gets particularly cruddy, with three (3!) "I"s to go with the "I" we'd already seen in the aforementioned bad answer "AN I" (4D: What "their" is spelled with, but not "there" or "they're") So ... four "I"s! "I CRY," "I'M UP," and "There but for the grace of God GO I," which sounds like a particularly depressing morning litany. I'm just gonna leave to the side the fact that the puzzle also contains the Spanish word for "I" ("YO TE AMO") and the objective form of "I" ("ON ME") and would've had a fifth "I" if an alert editor hadn't finally said "enough is enough" at AMI (37A: French friend).
There weren't too many potential pitfalls today. I use a CURL BAR at the gym all the time, but have never heard anyone refer to it by name and so it took me a weird lot of crosses to finally pick up (29A: Weightlifting item for a biceps routine). I kept reading [Void] as a verb, which meant that even after I got EMPTY, the SPACE part was not obvious and took some (small amount of) time to fill in. No idea about the Flo Rida song. He is ... never going away, because of his name parts (FLO and RIDA will haunt crossword grids for some time to come), and now I see that he has at least one "hit" that is probably never going to go away either. At least I got to "hear" the colorful lyric, "Champagne buckets still got two tears in it." It's a cute way to signal that "CRY" is in the title, in case you had any trouble with the crosses, which you shouldn't have. If nothing else, the Flo Rida song led me to this line, from Melissa Maerz's review of the Flo Rida album Wild Ones, on which the song "I CRY" appears:
"Most bizarre is "I Cry", which speeds up Brenda Russell's 1988 smooth-jazz cheesefest "Piano in the Dark" until it has all the emotional heft of an LMFAO track. You couldn't program a robot to cry to it." (EW, June 29, 2012)
"All the emotional heft of an LMFAO track," LMFAO. Nice.
Guessed the KABOB spelling correctly at first pass, which is always a nice feeling (59A: Meat skewer). Spelling on that one is always slippery: aside from the relative common "KEBAB" spelling, there was also a KEBOB back in 2020, and even a KABAB back in 1988, so, you know, probably not gonna be KEBOB or KABAB, but once you know those precedents are out there, they can haunt you. Feels like a dangerous spelling trap, every time.
My daughter (Ella) was assistant production manager on Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola's dark comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln—which I'm told is fantastic (playing through May 5 at the Lortel Theater in NYC!)—and she texted us after opening night to tell us that "famous people" had been at the premiere, as well as at the opening night party. We wondered who? "Do you know AMY Sedaris?" LOL, yes, yes I do, kid (28D: Comedian Sedaris).
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| [photo credit: Rebecca J. Michelson, from playbill.com] |
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82 comments:
Kabob made me angry. It’s spelled kebab. That is how you spell that word.
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Refrain from going on road trips? (3)(2)(5)(3)
2. They who shall not be named (6)
3. Simple bucket (5)
4. Unusual change (4)(5)
5. Missing work? (6)(3)
ARE WE THERE YET?
OTHERS
LAYUP
RARE COINS
STOLEN ART
Didn't get the theme until I got here. Clever!
Trying to solve without reading the clues for the long acrosses (I call this "Downs-Only Lite"). Had EMPTY S_A_E at 26A and went with EMPTY StArE before SPACE. That took some figuring because I CRY (25D) and CURL BAR (29A) were WOEs.
BOBA, BOLA, ODIN, and OSAGE up in the NW took a lot of wind out of my sails initially - then I drifted eastward for more trivia (HOLMES, LOIRE, DEL Toro) and was concerned that this one was going to be a total turd. Fortunately I skipped down to the southern hemisphere, built up some momentum, and was able to return to the top and slog my way through the rest.
Didn’t understand the reveal until OFL explained it, which of course is not atypical for me. It’s only Tuesday - I have a feeling that Thursday could be brutal this week.
Morning grumpiness : I was puzzled by the YO te amo, which is not correct. In Spanish it is "te amo", period. The clue should have read "Sp. for I love you (while they don't) in order to be linguistically correct.
Is a tightrope that is anything but taut a logical fallacy?
And since we are on the subject, let me add one more defense of words meaning something (against the onslaught of ignorance): "to beg the question" is the term for a particular king of logical fallacy (i.e., the conclusion is already assumed or embedded in the question being asked); it does NOT mean that "it gives rise to a further question."
Apparently, however, there are legions of people who heard the term while half asleep in Philosophy 101. and, thinking it useful, resurrected it later in life when wanting to sound intelligent and erudite only to utterly misuse it and, as a consequence, make themselves sound even dumber that they probably acutally are.
kebab/kabab/kabob/kebob is the ultimate kealoa, and was half the reason for my across-only failure today as I went with KeBOB/HeM. The other half is my own fault, as I went with EMeRY instead of EMORY. (And gee, wouldn't EMeRY/ROBe have been better than EMORY/ROBO anyway?)
seconding this grumpiness! “amo” already means I love. so the “yo te amo” nonsensically means “I it is you I love.” Just because google translate makes grammatical leaps doesn’t mean the language does!!
Hah! I tried so hard to figure out the revealer before uncovering it. Tried every angle to see what the theme answers had in common, looked at first words, last words, hidden inner words, first and last letters, possible synonyms. Nothing. Nothing came.
So, I uncovered the revealer, saw its meaning -- so simple and perfect -- and with a “Dang!” and a “D’oh!”, I just shook my head and wondered, “Why the heck didn’t I crack this?”
That is the sign of the finest riddles, the ones that best you fair and square, that flummox you with something right in front of your face that you don’t see. Oh, I loved this. Great one, Christina. Props and high respect.
And amazing props for coming up with this theme in the first place, hearing “three-hole punch” and morphing it into this!
Often when I uncover the reaveler, it results in an “I see”, or an “Ah, there’s some cleverness there,” but this one hit me with a wow and a pow, a combo of humor, wit, and surprise. A great, great crossword moment. Thank you, Christina, with thumbs sky high.
Never heard of a BOLA, and the theme makes zero sense to me (Does a pig sty have a hole? Is it the hole?). But the fill was easy, so it goes down as a routine Tuesday.
Kind of the fun of the NYT connectors puzzle.
Can any of you brilliant solvers out there explain how "Queen's pawn" (51 acr) works out to "ANT"? I am missing something! Thank you.
It’s formicology
I agree about KABAB. No, just no. It’s KEBAB. Also about YO TE AMO. I have never heard that in my life. I did think the theme was cute and I did enjoy seeing LOGICAL FALLACY in the puzzle. Congrats to Ella and I wish I could dress as cute as Amy Sedaris in that photo and I wish I could see the show! (Live in SD)
Calling something a “hole” is a slang way to say “it’s a mess”. As in,
“Your room is a hole!” could be me telling my kid that their room is a disaster.
I'll third the rant about YO at the front of TE AMO. It's just not done.
...and neither is "Legos". The man built a prosthetic ARM out of Lego. It was a Lego arm. He built it out of Lego, which means it was constructed from Lego bricks, Lego pieces, Lego parts... but never, ever, "Legos."
Lego themselves have made this clear, why can't the NYT get beyond this mistake?
Could not not not figure out what the revealer had to do with the themers till I got here. Ah, ha! That’s cute.
I have a nit! I would say that ET AL. is used *instead* of a list of authors, not at the end of a list. You say Smith, et al., not Smith, Jones, Kelly, Brown, Parker, et al. At least I do.
Never heard of a CURL BAR or Flo Rida, but no problem with crosses.
THREE HOLE PUNCH, I finally get it, cute!
@Tobias: in case formicology doesn't register, think ant colonies with worker ants serving their Queen.
@Bob Mills: a "hole" can mean a dirty place to live, i.e. that Hell's Kitchen studio apartment they wanted 4,500 a month for was a real sh*thole.
Thanks to the commenters for explaining the funny reaction I had to YOTEAMO. A legit complaint as opposed to all the "the puzzle was bad because I didn't know something" ones that have been RIFE in the comments recently.
@Ari Stotle: While I thank you for pointing out the real meaning of "begs the question", I think that ship has sailed for it to mean something else, albeit related, for laymen. "Literally" literally has a definition as meaning "metaphorical used for emphasis". Music is constantly building to reach a "crescendo", whereas the building IS the crescendo (my personal pet peeve). Or mis-using I, or myself to try to sound more literate. LMS could expand on this mutable language soapbox, whatever she is up to these days...
I love the phrase, "there but for the grace of God GOI". A reminder to be humble in the face of all we've been gifted in life.
Thanks RP for explaining the theme, which I wasn't patient enough to suss out even after getting "punch" from fruit drink. Now if I could just unsee that LMFAO video...
Happy Unique Names Day! Looks like this one’s for Moon Unit Zappa. I’ve known two women with what I think are unique names: Rosellandra and Marsonda. I don’t know the origins of Rosellandra, but Marsonda’s parents, thoroughly delighted by the bouncing bundle of joy they’d created, crafted her name out of their own: Margaret and Jason with a “da” ending to feminize it. My husband once had a colleague with an unusual (although undoubtedly not unique) surname which, I kid you not, was Gotobed. His full name: Joe Gotobed. Someone waited his whole career to print this, but when Joe finally decided to hang up his spurs, the headline in his university departmental newsletter read: “Gotobed Retires.”
I was close to figuring out this theme on my own, but had some trouble equating PIGSTY with HOLE. But yeah, it fits the “wretched or unpleasant place” definition. In the end I rate this puzzle as clever and unexpected, which is always a plus. Despite many years of gym experience, I’ve never heard the term CURL BAR. (And, funnily, when I searched it on Google, the first thing that came up was the CURL BAR Hair Salon in Toronto.) My Spanish is sufficiently weak that I have no opinion on YO TE AMO, and I’m conditioned to accept a variety of spellings of KABOB thanks to Spelling Bee. In the first instance I had Anthony Hopkins playing Ares – EEK, talk about mixed-up pantheons. We could have eliminated one of those “I”s with ANI DiFranco, always my favorite choice for cluing that answer. Hah, my husband and I (who are slowly reading aloud the whole HOLMES canon to one another) just finished A Study in Scarlet -- man, does Conan Doyle ever do a number on the Mormons. Cringed at first at DWEEBY, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s so bad, it’s good.
[Spelling Bee: Sun 0, Mon -5. Yeah, I got massacred yesterday. Most of my failings were just dumb, but these two are probably the most interesting. I remain annoyed at Sam, though, for consistently rejecting GANNET.]
Hey All !
Saw the "12" in the last box of the first Row, realizing the puz was only 14 wide. Good way to get your 14 Revealer to be a grid spanner.
Had to come here and read how the Revealer tied everything together, however. The ole brain not caring to connect the dots, or rather, the HOLEs.
Got a U (Hi @M&A!) in last square, rather unusual.
Haven't read comments yet, Wonder if anyone will call out YO TE AMO. I believe you don't need the YO there? I remember a slight kerfuffle the last time we had this answer (remembering that is in itself amazing. Har.)
Have a great Tuesday!
THREE wHOLE F's 😁
RooMonster
DarrinV
Agree. Good to great theme and revealer and some rough fill up top.
And yes, If you know even a modicum of Spanish, like only exposure is Spanish 101 25 years ago, YOTEAMO is nails on chalkboard.
In any event, like most of her puzzles, CI usually has some redeeming qualities for everyone. Enjoyed, albeit very quickly,
All I got out of the theme was one HOLE consisting of EMPTY SPACE and a FRUIT PUNCH. The others flew right over my head or slipped through the cracks or maybe they fell into a large black hole somewhere. Now that it’s been explained to me, I see how FALLACY can be construed to work but PIG STY means messy, and that’s how it’s clued. On the OTHER hand, in terms of where one lives, a hole implies the dwelling itself is undesirable. My point is, you could live in a dump which is spotless or have a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and it could be a pig sty. But I’ll have to think about that, could be there’s a hole in my argument.
Scusi, I have to go E-FILE my taxes now.
Well, I'm taking a chance here, having not read any of the crossword blogs including Rex, nor any of the comments on any of the blogs, but I'm prepared to take every nickel I have in the bank and bet that...
NOBODY guessed this theme, much less the revealer. Not Rex, Jeff, Deb, Sam, or Rachel. Not either of the Patricks, nor Erik, nor my collaborator Will nor David S. The theme is so...subtle! After seeing the revealer, I still didn't get the connection. I thought and I thought some more. And then, finally...
AHA!!!
But even if this had been a themeless -- which is what I solved it as -- it would have been terrific. No junk at all -- I'm looking for a name and I'm darned if I see one. And such a smooth grid! A splendid Tuesday -- with the ace well hidden up the sleeve. Nice one, Christina!
So much rides here on a feeling for idiom and slang, a very sensitive connection and summary in the revealer. A bit of this is stretched in the “queen’s pawn” clue because ANT is kinda generic, unlike say “drone” if the queen were a bee. From my limited understanding of Spanish the use of YO does add stress, but is not necessarily incorrect grammar, tho probably would not be used in a tender moment. Ah to be young again!
@Gary Jugert
I don’t always get a chance to read the blog these days, so I don’t know if you entertain much companionship/competition in the UNICLUE field, but I applaud your dedication to the art and I join you today.
UNICLUES:
1. Possible answer to “Who’s that deity and what on earth has he got on his head?”
2. Dainty dance of one of the indigenous peoples of the Midwest.
3. Sweet nothing you might whisper to Three Dog Night’s “Jeremiah.”
4. Prize for the person who’s first to fall asleep in their armchair after Thanksgiving dinner.
5. Horrified reaction on seeing the long white slash on the cheek of a Middle Eastern food aficionado.
1. “ODIN, LOIRE HAT.”
2. OSAGE TIPTOE
3. “YO TE AMO, FROG.”
4. GO-LIMP AWARD
5. “EEK, KABOB SCAR!”
Clever Tuesday fun! Struggled with Empty Space because I had S_a_e and wanted it to be an Empty State of things. Also IOS instead of PCs. So ... DNF.
Love the theme because I was a big fan of the Three-Hole-Punch.
Also found this, "Kebab (UK: /kɪˈbæb/, US: /kɪˈbɑːb/; Persian: كباب, kabāb, Arabic: كباب, [kaˈbaːb]; Turkish: kebap, [kebɑp]), kabob (North American)."
So really it's كباب
Plain vanilla Tuesday. Some nice features, and some awkward. On review, much nicer than it felt while doing it.
New Yorker puz nice today, even learned a few new phrases unlike this one.
"yo te amo" is perfectly acceptable Spanish and translates to "I love you". While it is typical to omit subject nouns with Spanish verbs, it is not wrong to include them.
So... no need to get grumpy! :)
"Yo te amo" is perfectly acceptable Spanish and translates to "I love you". While it is typical to omit subject nouns with Spanish verbs, it is not wrong to include them.
So, no need to be grumpy this morning! :)
Sheesh! Kabob!
Here's a bad joke on unique names.
An Indian warrior is about to become a father for the first time and is struggling over what the baby should be named. His wife suggests he confer with the tribe's leader on the matter.
The leader says: "We have a custom in our tribe to name to baby after the first thing the father sees upon leaving the tent in which the baby was born. Thus, we have names just as Flying Eagle or Running Bear. But you should know of this custom Two Dogs F*cking.
Rex Parker ROBO Bot ... that's what I needed in the darkness. Where can we find an IT-Guy with AI chops and a love of grousing about the NYTXW to build a robot capable of mimicking writing style of 🦖 and be ready to explain a puzzle's theme in the middle of the night when you wake up in a panic thinking, "Oh lord what have I done with my life?" and "Did I remember to put the medicine in the cat's dinner?"
I stared at THREE-HOLE PUNCH at 3 am forever trying to figure out how it applied to the four theme answers. My usual mantra, "You can do this, you can figure it out," gave way to, "Jeez I need 🦖 to wake up and write his stupid blog post and explain this to me, wake up wake up wake up," gave way to, "If we had a Rex Bot, I could ask it." With a couple decades of posts to analyze, seems like a computer could spit out a middle of the night explainer for those of us with chronic insomnia. "This puzzle was meh, and here's why THREE-HOLE PUNCH works, but doesn't really work...."
As I type this I realize, the robot could also (unfortunately) run through the comments section. AI Commentariat: "This puzzle was terrible says @SouthsideJohnny because I'm not a Roman centurion and some of the words in THREE-HOLE PUNCH are derived from Latin." And, "This is the greatest puzzle ever (since yesterday) and I am going to marry the brilliant constructor in a wedding on the beach with a THREE-HOLE PUNCH theme says @Lewis." And, "Schmurble-dee burble-dee THREE-HO-LE-PUN says @egsforbreakfast." And, "Waaaah, I am being censored says @andrew." And, "What on Earth are kids these days doing by punching thee holes at once, I've never heard of such a silly thing and I will need to punch three holes simultaneously exactly never says @Nancy." And, "I did this downs-only in 17 hours says @bocamp. 🙏" And, "Tee-Hee, if you rearrange the letters in THREE-HOLE PUNCH it spells FART says @Gary Jugert." And, "This is the worst piece of THREE-HOLE garbage ever and Will's gotta go says @Anonymous."
The AI Commentator seems like it has no soul, doesn't it? Or does it?
As a music teacher I pass out a lot of sheet music and I own three industrial size THREE-HOLE PUNCHES. But the glory days of the THREE-HOLE PUNCH are behind us as the kids bring their iPads loaded with PDFs. No LOGICAL FALLACY holes, no EMPTY SPACE holes, no PIG STY holes, no need to PUNCH FRUIT. Just suckle on the teat of Apple Corporation and all of life will be KA-BOB-BING along.
Uniclues:
1 Fur head covering for God sailing past Feurs.
2 Future prince of Salamanca needing a kiss.
3 What I deserve every time there is a scary scene in a movie.
4 Merrymaking melody makers.
5 Digital records on Darth Vader's pedicures.
6 Mouthy dude who doesn't take batting for the office softball team seriously.
7 Sign reading "Do-si-do-ing HERE" with an arrow pointing toward the troughs.
1 ODIN LOIRE HAT
2 YO TE AMO FROG
3 GO LIMP AWARD
4 BIG MOMENT LARKS
5 ANI SPA E-FILE
6 SLANGY "I'M UP" HAM
7 BARN DANCE CHART (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Red neck astringent. DUCT TAPE PORE CLEANSER.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@ Burtonkd (8:29)
Thanks for the comment. I do, of course, understand that language and the meaning of words evolve continuously - and not just continually ;) - and that dictionaries - where you will sadly find this corrupted definition of "beg the question" - are descriptive rather than prescriptive of language usage and meaning.
But when it comes to abusing a very technical term such as this - one that I sweated more blood and shed more tears than I care to remember seeking to comprehend as an undergraduate - I will stubbornly, persistently and unwaveringly be a prescriptive curmudgeon, and exercise my God-given right to point out ignorance when I see it, and wherever I see it. I will stand firm. I will not yield to despair because a ship has already sailed. I will not be enticed down this slippery slope of imprecision, faux intellect, and chaos.
So there!!!!! lol
It's doesn't work. The grid has three "holes", plural. But there no such object as a three-holes punch. So we get this contortion to make it come out right.
Go I-eye-eye-eye-eye...
Crossing ICRY and CURLBAR was a bit Natick-y for a Tuesday; otherwise not bad, I thought.
I figured the answer was KABOB or a variant but I thought KABOB was the meat dish and 'shish' (my first penciled-in answer) the meat skewer. Like how there's a doener kebab and others denoting the style of kebap.
Jerri Blank's got something to say
Very easy, except for liking the theme. Not one to cramp into your 3-ring binder of favorite crosswords.
Your daughter’s play is hot hot hot! I follow several writers, comedians, and other assorted ARTY types, and several have recently mentioned how fun and funny it is.
Thanks for this! Not to be confused with comic-strip punch KAPOW.
@Jim in Canada 8:22 AM
Pausing on my journey down the comments to pat you on the back and wish you good luck with this presciptivist outlook on life. It is a challenging road in a world where there is a liquor store on every corner and many believing in right and wrong will find their only friend and solace waiting at the bottom of a fifth of whiskey (with an E). Lego might be "right" as is "ultimate disc," but you are attempting to exist in a world of barbarians like me who will die around you playing Legos and (unbranded) Frisbee. Keep up the good fight my man. I still judge those who put an S on "toward" and find Jim Beam an affordable pain killer.
It was a beautiful August day and I was carrying suitcases up to our guest's cabin, she a well-dressed lady with a nice car. We stood on the porch overlooking a view of a blue sky with some puffy white clouds, our lake sparkling in the sunshine, and everything looking wonderfully fresh and summer-green. It was then she turned to me to ask,"How did you get stuck in a HOLE like this?". Sadly, at the time I did not think to answer that my wife's parents didn't have the good sense to leave her a Ritz Carlton somewhere. I mean, some people.
I have a very thick notebook of songs I have printed out and use my THREEHOLEPUNCH often, but it didn't help me to fully understand the theme.
YOTEAMO is certainly OK if you want to emphasize that it's I that love you and not someone else, as others have noted, but it did slow me down.
Veteran solvers may have been reminded of the "black cuckoo" clue for ANI. I know I was.
Found out from Rex that FLO is a male. something I have learned to be careful about.
Really well done CI. Creative, Intelligent, and a devious revealer. Thanks for all the fun.
@Barbara S. 9:04 AM
I was going to meet you at high noon at the uniclue corral for a duel, but then I read your #5 and was slayed.
Word of warning, writing these things seems to make me wildly unpopular among a certain segment of readers, and they believe their affection is worth having.
@Gary J (9:49) Hoping you get insomnia more often - you outdid yourself today. I can certainly relate to your middle of the night panic, and will still be laughing every time I think of it. 😂
.
Mr. Cobb: What are those swinish animals in that messy, messy HOLE?
Mrs. Cobb: Those are PIGSTY.
If you're full of tension solely because of your own anxieties, are you self-TAUT?
The Nevada State Anthem: OSAGE Can You See......
With all of the different spellings of KABOB that already exist, it can't be good that K-mart is introducing its own version, the K-bob.
I knew I had put too much Everclear in the party drink bowl when I saw one of the guests passed out after drinking three whole punch.
Another delightfully different themer approach today. Thanks, Christina Iverson.
It doesn't work. My b.
"Pawn" can mean "Someone who is being ... used to some end." Here, ants are pawns for the Queen ant. That said, not a great clue. It's their nature.
¿Es Yo Te Amo correcto?
¿Por qué cuando dices "Te Amo" en español es "Te Amo" y algunos dicen "Yo Te Amo" que es correcto? Ambas son correctas , en español realmente no es necesario decir quién hace una acción o dice algo todo el tiempo porque la forma de conjugar el verbo te lo dice.
Did someone say "Sedaris?"
Spoiler alert -- do not read on if you are planning to read David Sedaris's most recent piece in the NYer (Jan. 22).
It has a seemingly rational discussion between him and a friend on how best to eat a tire if you are required to and are given one year in which to do it. They conclude humanity can be divided between those who succeed and those who fail, and that that would be a fair way to decide who can be saved by space travel to another planet and who must stay behind to perish.
My time was only OK today. I mostly blame the people I live with who had the audacity to talk to me. But also I wrote CRINGY instead of SLANGY and I stand by that answer.
Easy. I CRY was it for WOEs and no erasures. Like @Rex, I solved the puzzle with stopping to see what was going on. This resulted in a little bit of staring post solve before i got the ah ha.
Subtle and clever, liked it, but @Rex is right about some of the fill.
Cole Escola is an American underground comedy treasure. If you like that sort of thing, go find all of his stuff.
Clever! Your three holes and a final punch....Yes. I needed to squint and think at the same time; not easy to do. The PIG STYLE hole gave me a little pause, and then my mind did its usual wandering and I remembered living in one. "My b" as in brother, called my apartment on 98th and Broadway a shit hole. It was. My bedroom window was maybe ten inches from the building next door. My Latino neighbors were loud. They ate lots of black beans and I knew exactly what to expect all night. Yeah, it was indeed a shit hole.
Back to the puzzle. As Tuesdays go, this definitely didn't fall into the "red-headed step daughter" category. It felt more like an emerging swan with a smile on its face. My first thought after completion: How do you come up with this clever and entertaining puzzle? And look what you did! Clever and entertaining comments!
@burtonkd 8:29. I love GOI....and you post as well. @Pablito 10:33. Ay Dios Mio! Couldn't you have accidentally hit her on the head with a big pine cone? @Gary J and Barbara S. you both make such good dance partners....and @Nancy...you found the hidden ace up its sleeve! HAH!
I've fought the YO TE AMO battle and lost. While technically correct, no one, nadie and nunca will utter a YO in their love quest. Not even if they love themselves.
I’m here to say that Oh Mary! is brilliant and hilarious. The pacing and comedic timing of all the actors left no EMPTYSPACE whatsoever. I felt my body GOLIMP from laughter on multiple occasions. It simply must win an AWARD… or two or three 🍦
Had some punch, especially in the bottom puzgrid half. Liked.
Christina the constructioneer has cranked out 27 NYTPuzs in the last 4-5 years. She clearly knows her trade.
staff weeject picks: AMI & AMY. honrable mention to GOI.
other faves included: DWEEBY & SLANGY [primo 7 dwarfs subs]. HOLMES. TAYLOR clue. BARNDANCE. ROBO. GETEM. U in square #210 [yo, @Roo dude].
Thanx for the clever theme fun, Ms. Iverson darlin. Epic ahar bigmoment for a TuesPuz.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
some poetic lingo license may be involved:
**gruntz**
I hated kabob, yo te amo, and bola. I've lived in Oklahoma my entire life and helped buddies out with cattle and I've never heard of a bola. In Oklahoma you catch cattle with a lasso and a horse. Maybe the clue should have been a cattle catcher south of the equator?
I loved the ease & flow of this puzzle but wouldn't expect anything less from Christina.
Except for that damn "I CRY" - whos' Flo Rida anyway?
To me, it's a meta puzzle. A puzzle about a puzzle. What does THREEHOLEPUNCH have to do with the four longs, is the challenge. I don't consider it a theme because it doesn't have to do with solving the crossword. Solving was easy enough without thinking about THREEHOLEPUNCH.
I’m not a Lego user but I do know that the company insists that there is no such thing as Legos. Shortz must be aware of this by now. To me, it seems similar to willingly misgendering someone’s pronouns.
Ugh I hate the S in “towards” *shudder*
KABOB (no matter how you spell it) is not a skewer.
SHISH is a skewer. KEBAB is grilled meat. From the Turkish.
This all comes from SHISH KEBAB, but everybody got it backwards.
@Ari Stotle and @burtonkd: If "beg the question" is widely misused these days, it's probably because the actual meaning is so convoluted and confusing that no one can understand it. I mean, I consider myself a pretty smart and well-educated person, but when I read Aristotle's very own definition, I thought: "What on earth is Aristotle trying to say?" Judge for yourselves:
"The original phrase used by Aristotle from which begging the question descends is τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτεῖν, or sometimes ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖν, 'asking for the initial thing'...
Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to take the expression in its widest sense) [in] failing to demonstrate the required proposition. But there are several other ways in which this may happen; for example, if the argument has not taken syllogistic form at all, he may argue from premises which are less known or equally unknown, or he may establish the antecedent utilizing its consequents; for demonstration proceeds from what is more certain and is prior. Now begging the question is none of these. [...] If, however, the relation of B to C is such that they are identical, or that they are clearly convertible, or that one applies to the other, then he is begging the point at issue. ... [B]egging the question is proving what is not self-evidently employing itself ... either because identical predicates belong to the same subject, or because the same predicate belongs to identical subjects."
(You're welcome.)
I solved down clues only and had no idea what the heck the theme was. When I finished, I looked at the across clues and... still didn't get it. Had to go to NYT Wordplay for the explanation!
CACAO and COCOA are way too familiar from from Spelling Bee. Speaking of:
[Sun -1, missed this 7er which does NOT mean what I guessed it meant. Mon also currently -1 missing a 6er; @Barbara S I got your two and agree about GANNET.]
@Anonymous 12:12 PM
It's not even close to the same thing.
The puzzle solved easy enough as a themeless but THREE HOLE PUNCH did not work as the reveal for me. It works okay for EMPTY SPACE as a HOLE and FRUIT DRINK as a PUNCH but, as @Whatsername 8:57 points out, HOLE, as in HOLE in the wall or tiny living SPACE, is not the characteristic that makes something a PIG STY.
Maybe taking both both Deductive and Inductive Logic courses as an undergrad also kept me from equating LOGICAL FALLACY with HOLE.
Seeing as how the reveal worked for all y'all other smart cookies, guess I'll say "my bad". (Does saying the full two words instead of "my b" make me DWEEBY?)
@Nancy 12;44 pm
Thanks for sharing the text. Here's what is being talked about...
"Begging the question" is a particular type of circular reasoning where what is being proved is already assumed in the premise.
What sets "begging the question" apart from other types of circular reasoning is the "sleight of hand" employed: the assumption is embedded in the premise in a way that it is not easily detected or evident -i.e, "proving what is not self-evidently employing itself."
Here Aristotle is describing various types of circular reasoning, and then highlighting what makes "begging the question" distinctive.
His verbosity, I believe, is accounted for by the fact that the Lyceum was paying him by the word. ;)
Anonymous 5:57 am
Many words have variant spellings especially words like kebab which come from other languages. A brief look online shows frequent use of both. Kabob is a valid spelling. BTW the word arose among people who use the Arabic script and either spelling In English is an approximation of the original.
Dr. A.
I looked it up. Kabob is used quite often. Nothing wrong with the answer. Remember, it is a word originally written in Arabic script and either rendition is a valid transliteration
Sam 12:23 PM
You hate towards. I hate aunt pronounced like ant. But I have to accept it. But that’s the way language is. That’s Gary Jugert’s point.
JD about that 9:09 AM
Thanks for providing the “real” spelling of that skewer!
Anoa Bob
Hole in one’s logic is what I thought of when I was trying to get the connection.
The hole/pigsty connection apparently comes from a shortened version of an impolite term for a dirty place. S—thole seems pretty close to pigsty in my mind!
@Nancy - I was taking Ari Stotle's word for it. Still clear as mud to me, maybe an example would help?
Back from vacay and too late for anyone to read but @ari stotle…I see your point and I didn’t understand the term “begs the question” until law school (it was in a case). I STILL find it to be a counter-intuitive phrase. My solution? I NEVER say it.
@ burtonkd 5:38
Circular reasoning: The consensus best commentator on crosswords puzzles is Rex Parker, as attested to by the people who recognize him as the world's foremost authority on crossword blogs.
Circular reasoning that "begs the question:" Michael Sharp's excellent insights into excellent crossword construction are daily confirmed in the commentary found in "Rex Parker Does the NYTimes Crossword Puzzle."
@burtonkd and @Ari Stotle-- "Clear as mud" was exactly my thought when I saw that Aristotle passage. That's why I reproduced it: I thought it was pretty funny.
Dense, indecipherable writing like that explains why I avoided taking any pure Philosophy courses in college. But as a Government major, I did take a course in Political Philosophy -- and that course I loved. Political Philosophy deals with pragmatic questions: How do you balance the need for order and the desire for freedom in a society? How much control should men and women "in the state of nature" cede to government? The writings of the philosophers we studied tended to be extremely clear and easy to follow: Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke were a pleasure to read. One philosopher we studied, though, was someone I found almost impossible to read. I didn't understand a word he said back then -- nor do I now remember a single thing he wrote. And that philosopher was (wait for it!)...Aristotle:)
Terribly sorry, @Ari Stotle!
About “yo te amo”… no spanish speaker would actually say that, unless there was a dispute about who was actually the lover, when there is a need to emphasize “yo” instead of some other guy/girl who loves you… “te amo” is what I always hear… well, the comment is never addressed to me, of course, just overhearing, or reading, or fantasizing…
if you went with BLANK SPACE for the taylor swift tie-in, then you'd be remiss to not also tie in the clue for SCAR (60A), as well.
If you ever work in an office with Chuck Norris, never ask for his three hole punch.
I love this comment so much that I'm commenting for the first time ever just to say so.
The PUNCH line did not move me. I was puzzled until I came here about how the theme worked. I couldn’t figure out how FRUITDRINK fit in. EEK was my reaction.
This is one of those "Now what in the holy hell do these themers have in common?" puzzles. And then the revealer, which at first I thought was THREE ring binder (didn't count the SPACEs). But when HOLEPUNCH unfolded, I agree it was a knockout one. Tied it all together. That's how you do themes.
ANT was my last word in. The clue had me head-scratching for a bit, but I do recall that every colony has a queen, and she is served by many "pawns." Quite a stretchy clue for a Tuesday, but fair enough.
I did not notice the 14-wide grid, but thankfully there was room enough for DOD TAYLOR, though she might resent being next to DWEEBY. Birdie.
Wordle par.
Masters will be interesting, with the LIVers joining in. GL all!
BOBA BOLA BEAU
EMORY will GOLIMP
in A TAUT MOMENT of jealousy,
YO, GO out ON A limb,
it’s LOGICAL he’s not FALLACY.
--- MRS. AMY TAYLOR-HOLMES
Fun puzzle. Seems just right for a Tuesday. But now I want to go to a party and see if I can drink three (w)hole bowls of punch.
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