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Furniture retailer with an arboreal name / WED 4-24-24 / Tragic NASA mission of 1967 / Lewis who sang the theme for "Avatar" / Classic computer game in MoMA's video game collection
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- MAUI, HAWAII (3D: *Home to Haleakala National Park)
- "WAIT, WHAT?" (4D: *"Hold on, repeat that?")
- "MWAHAHA!" (45D: *[Evil laugh])
- MAXIMUM (46D: *Calculus calculation)
- "MAMMA MIA!" (10D: *Musical whose name is an Italian exclamation)
- HOITY-TOITY (11D: *Highfalutin)
West Elm (stylized as west elm) is a retail store that features contemporary furniture designs and other housewares. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc. There are currently stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Customers are able to shop in-store, online, or through a catalog by telephone. The larger products such as sofas and beds are only displayed in stores for customers to see and feel in-person, likening West Elm to a pure catalog/online retail company. (wikipedia)
• • •
I say EWW to ERM. I say EWW to EWW too, in that I was told only yesterday that the spelling is actually just a two-letter "EW." Does the puzzle think I don't remember yesterday? Well, in general that's a pretty good bet, the days do kinda bleed into one another that makes them hard to distinguish, but that "EW" business, I remember. WOAH is also terrible but at least it was clued with special attention to its ugly wrongness (51A: "Slow down!," spelled unusually). Except ... WAIT, WHAT? No one would spell WOAH that way for *that* meaning of the word ("slow down"). Younger people do tend to spell it that way, but only to express astonishment, not to stop their horses. Bizarre cluing choice. ATAD is not "the smallest amount"—it's a totally unspecified amount—but I guess figuratively you can get away with this clue (I had ATOM here). ABYSM? (70A: Bottomless pit). LOL just say this word out loud to yourself a few times if you wanna feel silly. This is different from an ABYSS how? And how is it "appropriate" that OPRAH has a middle name that's the same* as her best friend's first name? (34D: Celebrity whose middle name is Gail, appropriately enough). It's a weird coincidence, I'll grant you, but there's nothing "appropriate" about it. If your middle name were WOOD and you grew up to be a carpenter, that might be "appropriate"; but unless we think of OPRAH as having grown up to be a windstorm, "Gail" doesn't really qualify as "appropriate."
I don't know my Laotian currency from my Albanian currency, so KIP was an adventure (26D: Currency of Laos) ... wait, is Albania the LEK ... it is! Hey, maybe I do know my Laotian currency from my Albanian currency. Fascinating development. There were no particularly difficult parts of this grid, except maybe the far north, where my consumer habits didn't prepare me for what was being offered, i.e. I am only vaguely aware of WEST ELM and probably would've told you it was a clothing retailer (plus I thought the "arboreal name" was going to be WOOD-something); and as for IMODIUM (18A: Alternative to Pepto-Bismol) ... I know the name, but not how to spell it, and after Pepto, my familiarity with brand names in this category drops off sharply. Even ARCADIA, which is kind of in my wheelhouse, didn't come to me quickly (I thought maybe "Pan's domain" was something like ORGIES or PARTYING or something like that) (15A: Pan's domain in Greek myth). So I had to run a lot of crosses through that section before it filled out. Otherwise, smooth sailing. See you tomorrow.
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150 comments:
Abysm?? ABYSM??? ðŸ˜
I'm not the only one who had ABYSS x MAXIMUS at first (just go check the r/crossword thread...). I was breezing through the grid, so I didn't fully read the revealer clue ("feature of this puzzle" and something to do with the themers which I thought I'd just go figure out post-solve. I scanned the grid for mistakes, then I decided to look at the full revealer clue and fixed the ABYSs/MAXIMUs crossing. MAXIMUS did feel iffy since I knew the calculus term was MAXIMUM, but my logic was "well, the NYT has gotten math clues wrong before".
Having ALARM instead of ABYSM would avoid that ambiguity (even though nothing's really ambiguous, given the revealer clue) and get rid of ABYSM at the same time. You do get LAL in the downs which isn't exactly great fill but SPA and YER are fine.
ABYSM was a nightmare for me. I had it as ABYSS, obviously which made the cross MAXIMUS, which seemed...correct?
Took me multiple attempts and many minutes to zoom in on that square as my error.
OED calls ABYSM "archaic" and I'd agree. I don't know how that made it through.
I hated this puzzle. I confidently put in Atom for "smallest amount", eventually realized it was "A TAD", which is a small amount but not the smallest. (Arguably, an atom isn't the smallest either, but it's hard to have a neutron or electron or quark of something, but an atom of it everyone would understand.)
I had the puzzle filled in but no happy music. I went through the grid three times to try to find my "error", and only when I changed "MAXIMUs" to "MAXIMUM" did I get the happy music. ABYSM? ABYSM?!? It's ABYSS or CHASM, but despite ABYSM being a poetic term for ABYSS (thank you, Google) I was today years old (I'm 59) when I first heard of it, because of course ABYSS, which is by far the better answer, doesn't allow for the LATERAL SYMMETRY of MAXIMUM. And OFL is correct: I didn't notice the LATERAL SYMMETRY of the letters in the answers until I came here--I was looking for it as a grid element (symmetry between pairs of answers or something.
Blech.
I didn't catch that the symmetry was in the words themselves - just thought it was the length of those specific answers in the grid. That, plus not catching the difference between MAXIMUS and MAXIMUM (and ABYSS / ABYSM), kept me from completing without checking the grid.
I had the exact same problem.
It was the far north that made the puzzle Medium for me rather than Easy or Easy-Medium, for all the reasons @Rex cited plus hmM before ERM at 5D.
My 45D evil laugh was bWA-HA-HA before it was MWA-HA-HA (before I knew about the lateral symmetry thing)
Like everybody else I stumbled on ABYSs before ABYSM at 70A, even though I knew MAXIMUs wasn't a calculus term.
Besides WEST ELM (4A), LEONA Lewis (36D) was also a WOE
ABYSM is what you end up with when you are so wedded to your clever theme that you give up on actual playability. ABYSS makes a lot more sense, but that S would turn MAXIMUM into MAXIMUS and the LATERALSYMMETRY is lost. Also, am I now supposed to keep track of friends of famous people? Gail who???
So.. Who is Gail?
Even after reading the blog and the comments, I’m still confused as to the whole lateral symmetry thing? How are MWAHAHA and MAXIMUM laterally symmetrical of each other? Or any of the other answers for that matter? Is it just that they’re the same length? Seems like that’s common in xwords… Can someone explain it to me like I’m a kindergartener? Sorry I feel like a doofus.
Also ABYSM got me. I was so certain of ABYSs/MAXIMUs that I never even considered looking at that when I didn’t get the happy music. Frustrating.
Just terrible - with the horrid north-center kicking it off with WEST ELM, ARCADIA and IMODIUM - that’s just a flat-out trivia test, nothing crossword-ish about it. Add in HAWKE crossing KIP, ELIE, STEWIE and ISAIAH, LIMN next to LEONA and of course top it all off with ABYSM. Not even a niche puzzle - not even a crossword puzzle really. Just awful - it happens way too many times a year where we say “How did this thing get published?”. By now, it’s painfully obvious that the NYT doesn’t aspire to be a top-tier crossword publisher.
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we had a gunk free grid and a fine example of what a puzzle could be - and today we have, well, this.
Even worse Oprah's best friend doesn't even spell her name the same, it's Gayle
The letters in the words are laterally symmetrical—fold an “M” in half and the halves match up
This really feels a level of difficulty above the usual Wednesday fare. WEST ELM, ARCADIA (as clued), HAM (as clued) all WoEs, and USA with a clue that does not indicate an abbreviation, then IMODIUM with a pretty bad clue (they do different things) ... and I'm not even out of the first three rows yet.
I hope that I never get so desperate as to include both ERM and UMS in a puzzle.
Why on earth is Gail appropriate for OPRAH?
You could read the write-up and find out?
I guess I'm the only one who thought the lateral symmetry of the theme answers was cool!
Aahhhhh ok. Thank you. That’s…so dumb.
Once again didn’t get the theme AT ALL until I came here. I saw that the theme answers were using a lot of repetive letters and generally were two words that sometimes rhymes or sometimes sounded alike, but that’s it. i Didn’t think too much about the revealer because it didn’t make sense. Now it does.
But really, f*** LIMN and f*** ABYSM, some sort of holdover Middle English non-words that exist only because of some ridiculous software word list. I can recognize that “subliminal” probably comes from “limn” and it may have been a word at some point, but probably hs not been used as a standalone word in centuries. As for abysm? Im not sure that has ever been a word in English. If you’re going to clue it it hs to be clued as Latin, old English, or old French. Whatever language it formally belongs to. Does the cknstructir think they are somehow devilishly clever because people will put ABYSS or CHASM there and then struggle to get the crappy three letter fill or figure the “calculus calculation” is the improper plural MAXIMAS?
Like who the hell thought those non two words were ok?
I’m almost tempted to coin, alongside “natick,” ABYSM for a word too close to a synonym that is too plausible on a cross for an error to be found. And the “Gail” thing actually delayed me finding OPRAH, whose phone contact favorites I pay no attention to. As for the big reveal, I was searching for letter positions and crossing my eyes trying to find some special LATERAL SYMMETRY that was remotely out of the ordinary. Ugh, ugh, and ugh.
Still am clueless on the symmetry thing. And abysm is abysmal.
Any puzzle that expects me to know who Oprah's best friend is (or, actually, to know anything about a person who is a serial enabler and promoter of the worst of celebrity culture) is not a puzzle with which I care to be associated.
So THERE!!!
I thought the bottom row pretty much summed up this puzzle (maybe add an AL to abysm). And while I know some dictionaries list ‘oar’ as a verb, no one uses it that way in contemporary usage, other than in crossworld - please stop it!.
We’re more used to the adjectival form ABYSMal - but knowing 46d could not be MAXIMUs set that cross straight. I take no issue with the theme - it is slightly contrived and a little awkward in places but had some edge to it.
The overall fill suffered from the grid constraints - liked ARCADIA, WAIT WHAT and SHAPE UP. Loads of short glue - the worst being ERM and UMS.
Enjoyable enough Wednesday morning solve.
Hey daddy-o
Did not enjoy. It felt like there was a lot of proper name trivia that was just out of my wheelhouse. And then, yeah, the ABYSs ABYSSM thing. Trying to track down my mistake to finish the puzzle was abysmal. Ha.
But happy to see STEVE show up again.
Best moment for me was when I finally got the theme – that the letters of the theme answers belonged to that group of capital letters whose sides mirrored each other. That brought a “Hah!” Not an “Ooh, isn’t that cool” hah, but more an “Oho, I cracked the riddle” hah. And it was most satisfying.
Best puzzle-related moment for me was reading John Ezra’s sixpence parody post in Wordplay. Oh, man, can that guy crackle! (I'll post it here right away.)
Regarding Jeffrey Martinovic, he’s on a NYT puzzle roll, this being his fifth puzzle in five months.
I loved the PuzzPair© of I AM SAM and its neighbor SUSS, the latter being one letter off the creator of the former. And speaking of one letter off, I love that HOITY TOITY neighbors an answer that is one letter off of I’M ODIUS.
So, a fun jaunt for me, with some lovely rub and serendipities. Thank you, Jeffrey, for making this!
John Ezra's WordPlay post:
Sing a song of six kips, a puzzleful of ryes
Mr. Mom and Mamma Mia making pizza pie.
When the pie was slit, Ethan Hawke began to sing:
"Woah, wait what? Abysm, how is that a thing?"
The CEO at LGA is flying straight to Maui
while Mr. Mom tends to Stewie, putting aloe on his owie
And Oprah is on the set, quizzing Simu Liu.
"Say hi to Gayle," said he, ere he said "Adieu."
Isaiah's in the garden, singing Mwa-ha-ha;
he turned Imodium into Scope and then proclaimed "Ta-da!"
Arcadia's been lumbered for tables at West Elm,
Pan's flute is heard no longer in that barren realm
but you can see him at the Apollo, doing his scaly jam.
Sam listens at his table with a cocktail, green eggs, and ham.
Mon DIEU, just say ADIEU to Joel already!
His world of WOAHs, UMs and EEW/EWs is ABYSMal. MAMMAMIA (Italian for MRMOM), MAXIMUM badness in such a Shortz time!
What a horrible puzzle. Not only was the theme completely uninteresting, but the fill was so bad. Stewie crossing Elie, “erm” as a word, abysm, an obscure movie with Ethan Hawke, and, for me at least, a completely unknown furniture store. And a lot of crosswordese of course. Because the long downs had to be symmetric, the long answers, with the exception of Hoity Toity, were bland. So no fun diving at all and a lot of dreck.
Exactly this. It seems as if almost everyone will be caught here and while it’s ultimately solvable, hunting for typos isn’t how most folk prefer to spend their Tuesday morning.
My written solve did not alert me to the fact that ABYSS was incorrect, so a technical DNF, but don't really care. Also the reveal was lost on me because I forgot exactly what LATERALSYMMETRY might be. Thanks to OFL for refreshing my memory, but I share his reaction in thinking it was not enough to build a puzzle on.
More actors and tv people today. EWW. WESTELM? Not around here. See also ERM, which people may say in some parts of the country, but I doubt it.
At least we had a throwback kind of clue in "currency of Laos". Didn't know KIP and I guessed at the K in HAWKE which turned out to be right, but it's the kind of clue that was common when I started doing crosswords about sixty years ago.
Semi-interesting trick, JM. Just Made me remember that the fact that something is possible doesn't make it a good idea. Thanks for a modicum of fun.
FYI: Oprah’s middle name may be ‘Gail’ but her best friend spells her name ‘Gayle’. (King, CBS co-anchor)
I haven't wanted to throw my phone across the room in a while (I guess I brace myself when on Twitter), but ABYSM brought me awful close to the, well, you know.
@saneguy
It took me awhile to understand it too.
Take the answer:
W
A
I
T
W
H
A
T
Draw a line, north to south, down the centre of the letters and fold it in half along the line. The left side matches the right side.
You can't do that with the letter "P", for instance.
I finished the puzzle with few problems (never heard of Speck or Serrano — I’m not into ham but it had to be HAM), but I had to read Rex 3 or 4 times to finally understand the whole LATERAL SYMMETRY shtick. It just wasn’t making any sense, I was looking for symmetrical/parallel letters around the grid and totally confused. But oh, now I get it — actual letters like O, V, H, and W that you can flip sideways, but not letters like P, R, C, B, etc. Whoa, talk about an obscure theme that is irrelevant to the solve. Maybe it was fun to construct, but sheesh. Meanwhile, I think I’ll ask some A.I. engine to make me a picture of Maui, North Dakota.
Hey All !
Aha, if you are still scratching your head about this theme, as I was, take a look at @Anon 7:11, which is a response to @Anon 6:46. Or, in youth-parlance, TL;DR, @Anon said, "The letters in the word are laterally symmetrical - fold an M in half and the halves match up."
Aha, so each letter in each Themer is a mirror image of itself. I see... A bit strange. How can an I be folded in on itself? But anyway, a WAIT, WHAT? explained.
Fill came out decent for the amount of Theme material everywhere. I'm sure it was a bear to fill. But I join the chorus of the "ABYSM" could go jump in a lake people. Of course that was the site of my one-letter DNF. Abysmal, indeed.
Who had SAMIAM ahead of IAMSAM? Evil, that. Not a deep Dr. Suess cut, but the title is SAM I AM, so you'd think that's how it would start. I'm assuming the second line is Sam I Am.
Welp, interesting WedsPuz, to say the least. Onto Wordle, let's see if it recognized my YesterSolve.
Happy Wednesday!
No F's EWW!
RooMonster
DarrinV
I am grateful for Rex and the commentariat today after this ABYSMal puzzle. I have little confidence in what I learned in calculus of yore so I wasn’t about to argue about MAXIMUs, thus I just let it be. At least I am in good company! Rex was in rare form, and, in my opinion, spot-on. The comments have been so entertaining that I will find myself checking back during the day. Therein lies the beauty of this blog, the worst puzzles often spawn the best skewering.
I got everything except ABYSM, which I think is pretty abysmal. An "abyss" is a bottomless pit, and crossing with "maximus" is at least tolerable.
I got WOAH from the crosses, but this might be the worst crossword fill ever. I doubt that Will Shortz would have allowed it.
@saneguy Thank you, at least you kept me sane by explaining WTF I've been staring at here!
Awful, or spelled differently AweFull
I am not going to reiterate what everyone else has been saying about this puzzle. It is the worst puzzle I have done in recent memory.... cannot believe I could not finish a Wednesday due to ABYSM. I MISS WILL. Time for the substitute teacher to move on.
Thanks for posting this, @Lewis! And thanks @John Ezra, that's a wonderful poem!
me toooooo
I thought the lateral symmetry was going to be symmetry with the other downs, not within the individual downs themselves, which made me give up to try and parse. While of course abysm is abysmal, I suppose the puzzle does clue you in to the spelling it wants.
My bigger issue is ERM. There are countless ways, both in crosswordise and in real life, that "sound of hesitation" is conveyed. Never once nada zilch has "erm" been uttered in the wild. I had initially put in "Err" because that does fit, and is a plausible word, only for imodium to correct that. Making up words seems very lazy to construct yourself out of the box you created.
Wait. WHAT? Yike. I feel confident in another chorus of well deserved raspberries. Another "whatever" theme. It's a bummer because I love themes.
We have a West Elm in Cherry Creek North shopping area next to where I live, but I've never been inside because if I were in charge of our furniture we'd have folding tables and chairs from Goodwill.
A PIE shop opened up next to my studio, so now I am going to die from pie.
I spell it MWAH HA HA.
I once enjoyed musical theater and opera, but then Mamma Mia. Wow. Now I just sit in my La-Z-Boy (probably from West Elm... who knows where these things come from?) and weep for humanity on Saturday nights.
My first real computer came with Myst. I remember not going very far into the game because I am dumb, but it had great music.
Propers: 9
Places: 1
Products: 5
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26
Tee-Hee: LAY STEWIE. EWW.
Uniclues:
1 Gobbling down the last tiny slice of chocolate cream.
2 Where crosswords come from.
3 Statement from one shocked to learn how the raft will be propelled when not navigating the rapids.
4 Torch for the greatest musical ever.
1 LEAST PIE ADIEU
2 SAD NYT ABYSM (~)
3 WAIT. WHAT? OARS?!
4 MAMMA MIA LAMP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The cheese stands alone (and ready). ON-CALL PARMESAN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I gave up on the theme and basically treated the puzzle as themeless.
WAIT! ERM, UM, quite A TAD I didn’t know, for a Wednesday anyway. Never heard of ALOE tea or WEST ELM furniture. Always thought LIMN strictly meant to outline, but learned it also means to draw, and found out that ABYSM is an actual word. Still confused on one thing though – yesterday we had EW and today we have EWW. WHAT’s a cruciverbalist to do?
Afraid I didn’t have the observational ability - or perhaps the artistic bent? - required to appreciate what was intended as a theme. I will say that with all the M’s, MR. MOM mostly in the middle was a nice touch.
@Lewis (7:43) Thanks for posting the ditty. Pure genius!
Yet another puzzle that might have been fun for the constructor but giving not a speck of enjoyment for this solver. EWW, ERM, UMS….. about sums up how bad this puzzle was. One of these lazy fill “sounds” is bad enough. LIU and LIMN aren’t much better. Yet it was easy, so at least I didn’t waste too much time on this trash.
Hands up for ABYSS - fortunately, I don’t care about streaks, so a quick check-puzzle found my one letter error. If something can be abysmal, I suppose ABYSM is a thing, and see now the letter symmetry that forces the correct answer, just like solving the gimmick was necessary on Sunday to differentiate between DAM and JAM.
Seems like a lot of new commentariat, which is good for traffic, but mostly appearing to compose negative comments. While I appreciate that a wide range of opinions can be offered here, it seems like it is drawing people away from the lovefest over at Wordplay who just want a place to vent because they didn’t finish the puzzle, making the comments even more of a slog than the puzzle purportedly is.
Kind of interesting that since I know all will be explained here, I don’t take the time to figure everything out, such as the letter symmetry today. While I truly appreciate Rex and the community, it is kind of a personal joy to do other outlets and succeed or fail on my own.
“What seest thou else / In the dark backward and abysm of time?” (Prospero to Miranda in The Tempest, 1.2.61-62)
LATERAL SYMMETRY? What's that?
I had absolutely no idea why certain clues were starred as I was solving and I needed for Rex to tell me or I never would have figured it out. Now that I know, I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. Rex seems to be thoroughly underwhelmed too.
Please explain why that minor curiosity would have been of the LEAST interest to me while solving.
My favorite parts of the puzzle, btw, were the LEAST/FEWER and LIE/LAY clue/answers. Jeffrey has performed a valuable public service here, though I fear he's preaching to a rapidly diminishing choir. I have often thought that once I die, the last living person who knows these distinctions and cares about them in the LEAST will be gone.
Writeovers: DR MOM before MR MOM. FAN before ION for the "Non-neutral entity?". And SAM I AM before I AM SAM. I AM SAM is certainly a much better first line than SAM I AM, but I am not the Dr Seuss generation and I knew only the title. (I am instead the A.A. Milne generation and I never would get any of those verses wrong.)
A perfectly pleasant puzzle which would have been just as perfectly pleasant if it didn't have any LATERAL SYMMETRY at all.
To my fellow (gender neutral) bloggers.
I am not afraid to admit I started doing puzzles under Margaret Ferrar while I was still in school. I learned and perfected my puzzle solving under Eugene Maleska, who constructed his puzzles for people such as myself: classically educated, classically literate, who read a wide range of books, including the Old and New Testaments.. I felt tortured by Will Short who wanted me to know about everything I was NOT interested in: popular music, television, movies, internet jargon and everything that was, and still is, not essential to my life, Academic and otherwise. This is my last blog I am writing because I have been reduced to puzzles edited by the current "editor" and this morning counted twenty-five proper names or nouns in the puzzle, and I am not really willing to try to figure them out, never mind all the additional work of trying to figure out the additional puzzles that are tacked on. I had already given up on the abysmal puzzles that are featured on Sundays.
I have enjoyed reading the blog comments (some often funny, some stimulating and some truly bizarre, and have nothing but praise and respect for "Rex Parker" whose stimulating comments and observations (though not always mine) prove a deep understanding of puzzles, and a serious approach to criticizing them.
So to all of you, I can say nothing but "Ave atque Vale."
From the constructor, “Among the treasure-trove of puzzles that play on mirror symmetry, I was shocked to discover that none centered on symmetry of letter shapes.”
So, mirror symmetry grids happen all the time. Nothing unique.
Then, “shocked” to find none focused on letter symmetry. Shame that didn’t register as “um, yeah, for good reason, its really flimsy idea, bound to really force some terrible fill in the grid.”
Finally, as with the lone “I” cyclops puzzle, I will never understand emphasizing some artificial, contrived, pointless construction “parameter” (no other Down symmetry answers, in this case). Self-inflicted non-sense by choice. I think this actually has me most concerned on future. There are others, but this embodies where the priorities lie currently, and it ain’t solver enjoyment.
*shrug* I enjoyed it. I don't see what about noting that some letters are mirror symmetric and some aren't draws such hostility. Orthography is cool!
Re: ARCADIA, I will always find it amusing as a GenZ solver that clues in my wheelhouse (math, physics, and classics) often cause consternation among the commentariat here but oblique references to 1950s film do not.
@Anonymous 7:11 AM
Thank you. Very helpful. And wow, that makes this theme exponentially worse.
In the immortal words of Colonel Sherman T. Potter, "Horse pucky!"
I spent minutes after completing the puzzle looking for an error, not finding it, and then finally coming here to see that it's ABYSM. ABYSM. I had MAXIMUM first, but changed it, having more confidence in my knowledge of the everyday word ABYSS than my knowledge of calculus. So much for that.
Also, ATAD not ATOM? Gimme a break.
First off, if anyone claims that they got the revealer by studying the themers without looking at the revealer clue, I'd say "Welcome, San-Ti." (The San-Ti are the molto-advanced aliens who'll be taking over Earth in 400 years in 3 Body Problem, streaming on Netflix. I guarantee that some reprobate constructor is inserting SANTI into a puzzle as we speak.). Of course some wiseacre will say that to really do this theme right you need to eschew the symmetrical letters in all of the non-theme answers. Good f***ing luck. I did check and I don't think there are any totally symmetrical non-themers down entries.
I love that TADA follows on the heels of yesterday's much-maligned PRESTO. I'm telling you, there's something magic in the air during this budding Fagliano era.
Of course, the guy who's just MRMOM to us might be Superheroine MAXIMUM to the Brits.
Cool theme concept, Jeffrey Martinovic. Glad I could SUSS it out after about 10 minutes of staring at my finished grid.
Thanks Rex . Laughed out loud at a few of your comments
@Rex, your suggestion that Pan's domain might be "partying" made the whole thing worthwhile.
As far as the theme goes, I never got past the "WAIT WHAT?" stage with the six entries: I couldn't figure out how vertically oriented words could have LATERAL SYMMETRY, never thinking that the term could apply to individual letters and thus missing an "Oh, cool" opportunity. But, at least I learned something there, along with ABYSM.
Do-overs: MAUI county (I thought HAWAII would be just too dumb) and malapop "rye" before PIE. No idea: KIP.
Infuriating.
Ditto on this Oprah/GAIL business… I may be old and cranky but why am I supposed to know who Oprah’s best friend is? I was always too busy working to ever watch her show, and I know she’s a cultural icon and all that, but her “appropriate” middle name was way out of my wheelhouse.
Anyone else getting tired of seeing OLE every stinkin’ day!?!?
I like this coinage. I could see an extension of this concept with the confusion that sometime arises with the plural forms of Latinate words. Puzzle wants "ulnas." Solver writes "ulnae." And it's not obvious from the cross that it's wrong.
See that box at the top or bottom of your browser that says “ https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2024/04/furniture-retailer-with-arboreal-name.html?m=1”? Highlight that box, type in the words “Oprah” and “Gail”, hit enter. Welcome to the internet!
Wow, it’s becoming clear that the new puzzle editor loves brain-twisters more than fun word-play. Had to come to the blog to get the meaning of the “revealer”, and found much more fun here than in the puzzle itself. Loved the poetic recital from@Lewis and @Nancy’s public service comment. I filled in LIMN as a kind of reflex action and then thought “where did that come from?”, a word I’ve read but never ever used to my knowledge. Anyway, a mental challenge—now have to re-calibrate approach to NYT puzzles in the absence of Mr. Shortz. Great to have this blog to follow the evolution the NYT puzzle and its community.
You know those jokes where you ask, What do you get when you combine a this with a that? Chocolate cake that speaks Yiddish! or whatever. Well, we have a real answer for what do you get when you combine Ethan HAWKE with Uma Thurman? -- their beautiful daughter is the actress Maya Hawke.
On the puzzle, I couldn't figure out that the symmetry was about the individual letters themselves (as well as that of the grid), but once I came here and saw it, I think the puzzle's pretty neat.
I used to complain about the data CPA exam review companies gave out about their pass rates -- they survey their students and, of course, the ones who fail don't respond. Who's going to go out of their way to inform someone that they are a failure? I wonder if something like that is going on with these comments -- someone who mildly enjoys the puzzle feels no need to speak up. Someone annoyed by it wants an outlet for venting. Thus, the negative tilt to the comments. Don't take them to heart, Jeff -- just keep re-reading @Lewis!
So again this week we are faced with JAM/DAM. And now this obsession with EWW. No doubt we will see ERM again & probably WMAHAHA.
I have to agree with the comment from "Canon Chasuble said..." Although I had to google "Ave atque Vale."
@Canon Chasuble (10:02). We'll get over it.
I think that it's more commonly termed "mirror symmetry" or "reflection symmetry."
You have your opinions, others have theirs. Lots of people disliked the puzzle. Why can’t you simply accept this? Lewis seems nice but you can’t learn anything from someone who praises everything.
I liked the puzzle but basically worked it as a themeless. It seemed Tuesday easy EXCEPT for the ABYSYM/MAXIMUM intersection and, like others here, I had to do “check puzzle” to find my mistake. Yeah, I’m in the generation (born mid-1950s) where many people either didn’t have calculus class in their high school OR like me, knew I did not want to be an engineer or scientist (or math teacher!) so did NOT take calculus. I NOW feel the need to find out how MAXIMUMLATERALSYMMETRY relates to math!
Interesting comments by @Canon Chasuble AND @Pyroclasts. I guess I enjoy a mixture of things in the puzzle and enjoy finding out new things, so the evolution of the puzzle over the years doesn’t bother me much if at all. I DO think the “theme” requirement sometimes results in sub-optimal fill, however. I enjoy reading everyone’s “take” on a daily basis (and am sometimes amused) at some “takes” regarding “arcane trivia” with respect to answers that may not be known to the solver, but is not really “trivia” OR “arcane.” Ya know, “trivialities” like history and geography.
This puzzle should be tossed into an ABYSM!
Will Shortz allowed WOAH three times.
ERM, UM, EWW did I hate all the stammering in this puzzle! I found several of the clues to be ABYSM-al. But why is no one is talking about OARS? Not to throw around my crew team cred, but I rowed in college. No, I did not OAR. We did not go out oaring at 5:30 in the morning. I know it can technically be used as a verb, but I’m guessing this is more of a literary term than a crew team term, which is how it was clued. EWW.
Thanks. Now I get it.
I am confused. Could someone please enlighten me as to why Gail is an appropriate middle name for Oprah… is it because she talks up a storm?
@Anon (10:50) -- thanks for the reply!
I wasn't questioning that people disliked the puzzle. I was wondering if those who liked it might tend less to enter comments -- sorta like Nixon's "silent majority" but in a good way. In case the constructor might be feeling a little battered here.
And I learn a lot from Lewis -- just as I learn a lot from Rex (and the commentariat in general).
WOAH! EWW! ERM again? NO! A TAD of EDITS could have prevented that.
An actually nice symmetry would have occurred had the corners been JAM, HAM, SAM and PAM. ATOM/LGO, would have done it in the SW. SE would have been more involved. I AM SAD or I AM I AM would have prevented the repeat -- and, YES, perhaps the ugly UMS as well.
Exactly my response. Just figured Maximus was a calculus concept I had forgotten and then had to check the answers to get to the finish line over that stupid M. Chasm? sure! abyss? absolutely. Abysm? Without Al? Well, that’s … abysmal.
Dictionary tells me it’s a “literary or poetic” word which was not clued.
I’m very grumpy about this.
West Elm is in 35 states (though I've never been in one). Oprah's pretty famously been best friends with Gayle for decades, even if you've never watched either of their shows (I haven't). "Before Sunrise" is part of a critically-acclaimed trilogy of movies from critically-acclaimed director Richard Linklater (and I've seen none of them). These are all more than fair game.
There comes a time where "I refuse to learn anything from this millennium*" ceases to be the defense of your mental superiority that you think it is.
Nobody is dumb here. It's the theme that is dumb.
ERM
EWW
WOAH
And that’s just my first reactions. Names & bizarre crossings ATAD too much, but I agree with @Beezer about commentariat. & @Lewis even found the lipstick for this piglet��
Lateral Symmetry? Not always. Puzzles always have some kind of symmetry, but not necessarily Lateral.
Will someone please explain to this abysmal idiot where the symmetry is? Please tell me there's more than just that the paired words have the same amount of letters.
Symmetrical with what? What is it about the individual letters that makes anything symmetrical. I feel like I'm going to feel like a fool when I get the answer.
I mostly liked the puzzle, though I fell into the same trap as so many did with the MAXIMUs/ABYSs error.
I was wondering how vertical themers could have lateral symmetry. Didn't notice until stopping by here that the symmetry was in the individual upper case letters since the reveal said "Features of...the answers to the six starred clues".
Seems like a distinction that doesn't make much of a difference. And it's a MYST to me how the single vertical line in I and T can have lateral symmetry. Aren't two things off to the side of one another required for lateral anything?
Anyone out there working on a puzzle where all the themer letters have vertical symmetry? No symmetry at all? Hope not.
Can anyone explain the ARMY = Host connection? I don’t get it…
I too was tripped up by the ABYSM…
U is a laterally symmetric(al) letter, sooo … OK. Just barely, tho.
WOAH, rodeo hands -- that top central region was hard as nails, at our house. ERM/WESTELM/ARCADIA/IMODIUM/LIU? MAMMA MIA! Lost a day-um abysm of precious nanoseconds.
staff weeject picks: ERM, EWW, UMS. Nice variety of gruntation. Primo weeject stacks, in the NW, NE, and South central, btw.
Was impressive that no other laterally symmetric(al) Down entries were included, except for them themers.
fave thing: An Across word clued as {Down}.
Already had MAXIMUM, so let ABYSM lay/lie.
Thanx, Mr. Martinovic dude. Nice E/W everything.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
someone (not real careful for what they wish for) yesterday asked for an all-2-letter-word xword puz, sooo …
**gruntz**
“Revolutionary car part” is not an axle. Rotational, yes. The earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun
A mite too clever for us common folk, perhaps a bit HOITY TOITY construction- wise. Some strange answers thrown in, overall not ABYSMal but not much fun
ABYSMAL
ABYSM is ABYSMAL, as I bet others have noted.
WAIT, WHAT? is an apt description of my discovery, through reading Rex, of what the revealer means. I thought this puzzle was going to have something to do with I's and A's after MAUI, HAWAII and MAMMA MIA filled in but the others belied that theory.
Lots of stumbles today made this a longer than normal Wednesday solve. I misremembered the Laos currency as bIP, misplaced the 59D answer over at 56D and I decided the pocket full of rye was the food in the "Sing a Song of Sixpence", all ultimately fixable but time-consuming.
I thought the Speck or Serrano were possible car models so HAM was a surprise.
Lots of strangeness today, so thanks, Jeffrey Martinovic.
Agree that the theme was pointless. I didn't fully understand i it until I came here. Thought it just referred to the positioningof the theme answers, or something...
But the puzzled seemed OK otherwise.
I wanted THE WILD in 15 A. That is what I"ve always read was Pan's domaine. Can't remember ever reading of Arcadia in relation to Greek myths.
Granted, most of my reading on Greek myths since college days (eons ago) was Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series. Great fun. As so often, with a series, the first one "the LightingThief" has the best and most humor, but all were a fun read.
Since I never studied calculus and din't get that the letters were to have lateral symmetry I stuck with maximus an abyss. Oh well.
Here is a list of Pepto alternatives generated by Googling. “Pepto-Bismol alternatives”
Here are some of the most common ones:
• Pepto-Bismol (bismuth subsalicylate)
• Mylanta (aluminum hydroxide/magnesium hydroxide/simethicone)
• Emetrol (phosphorated carbohydrate)
• Tums (calcium carbonate)
• Rolaids (calcium carbonate/magnesium hydroxide)
• Cola syrup.
Notice IMODIUM isn’t there because it helps an entirely different problem.
Medium except for figuring out the ABYSs error. Much like yesterday’s, this one didn’t do it for me or precisely what @Rex said.
Hear! Hear!
@egs…yep…Three Body Problem…it’s a winner! This reminds me of something related to my previous post (learning new things)…the other day MITZI was the answer to the clue…”The Fabelmans” character.” I watched the movie I’d previously not heard of, and really enjoyed it. It’s loosely based on Steven Spielberg’s family and life as a teen. Well…it might be not that “loose” but give it a watch. Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, et al make up a pretty good cast.
Harsh… but funny
ABYSM is making me slightly less mad now that I realize it's the root word of "abysmal", but even when you look up "abysmal" the first definition to pop up reads "of or like an ABYSS (!!!!!!); immeasurably deep or great; extremely or hopelessly bad or severe". brb finding the nearest abysm to jump into
@Anonymous 11:52
Both an ARMY and a HOST can mean a huge number of something/ a large amount of something
I know Rex won't say it, since he has spent go knows how many years lambasting Will Shortz, but it has to be said, the puzzles have NOT been as good in his absence. At best, they've bene a slog, at worst, positively unenjoyable. too many esoteric clues/answers, too many unknown celebrity names, too many sayings/exclamations that don't make sense. I'm sorry to say it, but Joel Fagliano is just not yet ready for prime time. I've enjoyed his minis, but not the regular puzzle. Hoping that Will will be back soon.
I disagree with Rex so frequently that it’s only fair for me to point out that his take on this puzzle was right on the money, in every way. Tomorrow, it’s back into the ABYSs, I’m guessing. But today, big thumbs up.
No need to be mean
I actually didn't mind the theme in itself, but I agree the remainder of the puzzle was not great. And once again, just wayyyyy too many names. WESTELM ARCADIA IMODIUM!
Hands up for ABYSS; even though I took tons of calculus I convinced myself that MAXIMUS must be a thing and I've just forgotten it. ROWS before OARS and ATOM before A TAD.
[Spelling Bee: Tues 0; streak 16 which is my 2nd highest. Learned a new element yd!]
I just love that you call a spade, a spade. Thank you! Makes me laugh when you call it as you’re it!
Oprah/Gail. I just went with the homophone Gale and assumed it had something to do with being full of wind. So that clue sorta worked for me. DNF because I came here for Abysm, left feeling completely justified in that little cheat.
i for one thing ABYSS and MAXIMUS are the correct answers. And i will d*e on that hill (sortof).
ABYSM has to be a victim of the theme. Calculus students also identify maximas and minimas but that S which would have made ABYSS ruins it I guesS.
Always enjoy the daily GGGG.
@What should I take for diarrhea…(btw eww but necessary)…Yes! I thought the same thing! Apparently some peeps will use P-B for EWW, but IMODIUM only has ONE use (EWW). My initial thought was Mylanta for that clue. And when it comes to the EWW part, I’d love to hear from actual medical doctors, but unless u are at point of dehydration, I’ve always heard…get it OUT cuz it might be E. coli.
@Anonymous (11:52) The word "host" can mean a large quantity, or "army." Think about all of those Christmas carols that sing of "hosts of heavenly angels." They really mean "armies of heavenly angels," but it doesn't sound as sweet or scan as well.
Another ABYSS / MAXIMUS here. Seriously, what a fucking awful cross. Hated this.
To echo Anonymous 9:26, just making up words (e.g. erm) is lazy and, really, absurd. Why not clue it as "mispronounced and misspelled bait"? I shall add mwahaha, a random collection of letters used in the service of the theme. Yech ( or yekck)
p.s.
That OPRAh clue was quite mysterious, for m&e. However, I did, thanx to a couple of crosses, splatz in a semi-guess of OPRAH, anyhoo. Becuz M&A's middle name, after all, is Prepostulation ... appropriately enough.
M&Also
You could take Pepto-Bismol for diarrhea ..... or gas (or gasm, as they say archaically in the ABYSM).
I finished and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. I thought MAXIMUS looked less wrong than ABYSM but what do I know, apparently.
While I agree that people complain too much about having to know stuff to finish a puzzle, I definitely prefer the NYT puzzles as they are to ones filled with "Ave atque Vale", which is a sign-off to a hero, usually as a eulogy. In other words, the old world of using Latin to obscure meaning and show off a "classical" education. It doesn't even seem to be used properly here. See also doctors using Latin so that everyone else thinks they know more than they do...
Hands up for learning a lot from Lewis despite the eternal sunshine.
I have also learned that Rex has a lot of opinions and triggers that he will remark upon that make a puzzle less than stellar for him, but don't make the puzzle objectively bad. I am also grateful for all I've learned from him.
Maximus IS a calculus concept. The grid entirely works with an S there. I call foul on this.
It does not have to be said. Also, you are not “sorry to say it,” you’re positively gleeful.
Wow. I did not see where the lateral symmetry was until I came here. And once I saw it, my jaw dropped because of how terrible a theme that is. My god.
Abysmal.
I have to add my voice to the chorus on ABYSM. I mean, I can deal with the stupid theme, but ABYSM is completely unacceptable. I found my ABYSS error--FINALLY--to maintain my streak, but that's like 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
@Anonymous (9:26) @Andrew R (3:05) I join in your loathing of the expression, but I actually have seen ERM used more than once in novels. Thankfully though, never saw or heard it spoken any where else.
@Anonymous (11:51) It’s the individual letters, not necessarily their placement in the grid. Take a completed puzzle printed on paper and fold it down the middle of MAUI HAWAII OR MAMMA MIA and it would look exactly the same on each side of the fold. The two halves of the M, the A, etc, look the same. That’s it. That’s the lateral symmetry.
Ah, majuscule symmetry about each letter's midline vertical axis. I had to turn here to see that part of it. Peculiar puzzle resolution for me, but first..
Hello! First comment.
I first stumbled across these write-ups during a bout of crossword gaming several phases ago--I start and stop over the years, sometimes going many years free of the grid--and I recall for a time confusing the wine-critic Parker with the gaming-; in fact, it was the page colorway which tripped my memory. At one point, ten or more years ago, I posted a single comment introducing myself to the Fiend blog: ignored or not actually posted, cannot recall, I left and did not return. In any case, the comments and acerbic analysis here, more to my liking. Plus, the author's stance regarding the Orange Turnip, for me, spot on--I've been reading parts of the blog here and there for a few months.
I did not care for this one. Much of the puzzle filled in at 12, but it took twice that long to drop in the last letter, then another half hour (!) to suss out the error.
Top half came together quickly, mostly, starting with West Elm, we've a bedstead, but on punching in the last character to a fail gong, I questioned if STEWIE could be STEvIE: vOAH, WOAH? This made no sense to me either way. Then I quickly changed the ending s to an M at 46d (I loved calc, through college) without reverting STEvIE, but ABYSM did not look right (after completing the puzzle, I found The Free Dictionary characterizes it as an archaism in one definition) so I changed it back, bah! Then came the spiral, as I began to question the U in IMODIUM and the I in ARCADIA, when I was unsure of the actor's name at 9d. With ballooning possibilities, your head spins, and the mindlessness casts a pall over any climax.
Finally, I reset to my original-ending, half-hour-earlier attempt (which included STEWIE), with the lone incorrect but undiscovered ending s at 70a, and in a wild-and-wrong stab typed in chaSM at 70a, incorrect for three patent reasons. And when I began to change 70a back to A, B, Y, the corresponding S, plus the M from chaSM remained, and bada-bing, I tripped into the solve backwards.
In these occasions, ferreting out the error can be rewarding, particularly when associated with an epiphany, but this was no such occasion.
A puzzle is as enjoyable as its weakest salient link. And for me, WOAH and ABYSM were the cinder blocks which sunk this one.
Southside Johnny
I agree there was a trivia fest in the puzzle
But limn is not trivia at all. It is a fairly common though very formal word.
Abysm IS obscure but it isn’t trivia. Just something Maleska might have approved!
I take trivia to mean people, places, products etc.
An addendum to my submission above regarding my gaming approach: phone via browser signed in to The Times (yes, the larger Sunday grid is cumbersome), no outside help, of any kind, ever, no letter-checking or revealing, ever--but come that occasional, "The puzzle is filled, but at least one square's amiss. Horsefeathers," I hit the "Keep trying," and flog the dead horse for a cadaveric spasm. Which is what transpired.
This raises questions of mindlessness, and my response to that is that the occasional tedium of rooting out the error has not yet surpassed the monotony of Wordle, which I quit after a few months.
So even though my "Solve Rate" is 100%, there are clearly some fails in there, or DSQs, as I see them.
Incidentally, in consulting the Parker blog after a problematic game, the second action I'll take, after a glance at the author's summary difficulty assessment, is a search on "DNF," so thank you to those commenters who encapsulate their attempts in this way.
One inconspicuous aspect I discovered after some reading is that these players, who discuss their "DNFs," may be gaming by pen on paper and seem to be some of the very best.
On solving the other week https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2015/02/soap-star-deborah-thu-2-26-15-eponymous.html , which had spit up as a part of the weekly Times free puzzles, a search of the blog for "DNF" returned dozens of hits and some of them were connected to acrimonious comments questioning why there was discussion as to what constituted a "DNF." But I found the relevant jibber-jabber insightful as it set context for the yardstick by which a commenter measures a "DNF" and thus by which a reader can connect or not with aspects of the comment.
So, considering this, another round of thanks to pabloinnh, RooMonster + Rich.
Tag: Solved, but "DNF."
Kitshef
About USA
Clearly the clue was being cute. A misdirection toward some other country , as USA doesn’t always win. An indication of abbreviation would have made it too easy. USA is also the chant American fans use at international competitions and it’s on the signs, scoreboards and TV screens at these events.
In that context I don’t think the clue was unfair ( anyway, the rule is sometimes ignored later in the week).
M Morgan
LOL ( or is it ROFL?) at your idea of asking Ai to about Maui , North Dakota
Bob Mills
About woah
It has been in the puzzle in the Shortz era more than once.
That’s how I learned about it.
Anonymous 9:26 AM
About erm
It’s British
So it has been uttered a lot
I know it because it’s been in the puzzle several times before Whether it has been uttered in the US is another question entirely!
Host=many, as does the word army. It took me a bit also
Andrew R
To be fair
erm is NOT made up
It is British. Been in the puzzle and annoyed people before. That’s how I knew it
Same struggle, makes me wonder if 45D “[Evil Laugh]” was the sound of the constructor when they came up with ABYSM.
Wait. How else do you spell WOAH?
Yesterday I went back to solve an old puzzle and it was the pi day puzzle. After I solve I like to check out your comments. Today I noticed it was the same constructor. I didn’t like either puzzle either. But they were both quick solves except for that weird abysm.
If you turn on closed captioning during a BBC production you are likely to see ERM occasionally show up on the screen.
.
I always spelled it whoa. Never saw it as woah.
Our loss. Sorry to see someone with so much t add and to teach , even though I too am older than rocks.
Well, sure, it's hard. That's because it's riddled with mistakes of an astonishingly elementary character. A true WS-era puzzle.
Abysm? Abysmal!
Terrible theme Terrible clues Terrible puzzle. Not a single AHA moment. NO MAAM.
Just wanted to point out that if you failed with ABYSS/MAXIMUS (like I did) it means you didn’t grasp the theme (which I didn’t either), as the S is not laterally symmetrical so can’t be right. A mild justification for a rough cross
One more who was taken out by abysm. I almost never feel like a puzzle is just plain unfair. But this one really got to me for some reason.
I’ve read limn several times in my life, but one might say it’s a bit precious and poetic. Right with you and everyone else on abysm.
I *did* get the theme, and still was stuck on ABYSS for ages… Didn’t even think to check whether it had lateral symmetry, it seemed so obviously correct. :(
Hope I don’t get an “F” for being a day late. If you give me a “d” I’ll add it to Oprah’s last name. It will become Windfrey and then having the middle name Gail would be quite unusual.
It's two days late, but I have to point out that some of the letters are not laterally symmetrical in LOWERCASE (a,h,u) which is only available if you complete the grid on paper. The online version changes your entries to uppercase.
Posting even later but this must be noted: "lateral symmetry" is not a term that is used by anybody. Mathematicians and physicists say "mirror symmetry" and biologists say "bilateral symmetry." Obviously neither of those would fit in the grid as the reveal, but that is no excuse. Agree with Rex. Idea should have been shelved.
Rex is wayyyy off when he writes "And as for the grid ... crossword grids have LATERAL SYMMETRY all the time. All. The. Time. It's not a remarkable feature. Not in the least."
Actual NYT puzzle symmetries are described nicely in, for example, the Wordplay blog of 11/22/2021. Many concrete examples of nontraditional ones can be seen by clicking on "Nontraditional symmetries" in that blog entry.
Most NYT puzzles traditionally have 180-degree Rotational Symmetry, i.e., they look the same when rotated by 180 degrees.
Less commonly they have a nontraditional symmetry such as a Mirror Symmetry, either around a horizontal axis (Up/Down Mirror Symmetry) or around a vertical axis (Left/Right Mirror Symmetry, also known as Lateral Symmetry). This puzzle is an example of the latter.
The above examples of “Nontraditional Symmetries” also show several rare instances of NYT puzzles that have Diagonal Symmetry (e.g., 8/12/2023) and quite a few that are asymmetric with no symmetry at all (e.g., 5/5/2022).
Everybody knows all this. Rex is still right. Lateral symmetry can be found in many recent grids. It’s simply not uncommon.
I could not be more annoyed with this answer especially because Maximu”s” could have just as easily been the down answer clued with a reference to Russel Crowe’s character in Gladiator or gluteus ____. Grrrr!!!
Not laterally symmetrical I guess
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