.png)
Nincompoop, more vulgarly / SUN 5-19-24 / A "waking dream," per Aristotle/ Giveaways in some common scams of the 2010s / Grunting ox, by another name / 1991 crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening / Drink for which Pliny the Elder recorded a recipe / Video game company that published Frogger / Frosting alternative / Member of an isolated colony, once / Masters of underwater camouflage
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Constructor: Christina Iverson and Katie Hale
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- "SHOULD THE DEED ARISE ..." (26A: "If that missing house title ever does show up...") ("should the need arise ...")
- WHAT ELSE IS DUE? (43A: Question from someone with a lot of outstanding debt?) ("what else is new?")
- DO AS I SAY DOT AS I DO (57A: Teacher's instruction in a class on pointillism?) ("do as I say, not as I do")
- IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE (80A: Stevedore's complaint?) ("It's a Hard Knock Life" (the song from "Annie"))
- "USE YOUR DOODLE" (92A: "No need to find a professional illustrator!") ("use your noodle")
- "THAT'S A DOUGH BRAIDER" (110A: Tour guide's remark at the challah factory?) ("that's a no-brainer")
Bugsy is a 1991 American biographical crime drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by James Toback. The film stars Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Bebe Neuwirth, and Joe Mantegna. It is based on the life of American mobster Bugsy Siegel and his relationship with wife and starlet Virginia Hill.Bugsy was given a limited release by TriStar Pictures on December 13, 1991, followed by a theatrical wide release on December 20, 1991. It received generally positive reviews from critics. It received ten nominations at the 64th Academy Awards (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and won two: Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. (wikipedia)
• • •
 |
| [103A: NASA shorthand for a spacewalk] |
The theme is pretty thin, as Sundays go, so there's room for some nice longer fill, and with room to breathe, the grid in general tends to be pretty clean. There's something semi-hilarious about NOT PICTURED (34D: Caption for an absent student, say). Just the idea of people missing their club or team's yearbook photo ... shouldn't make me laugh, but it does. I'd've gone with "club" or "team member" in the clue, since an "absent student" is more of a classroom, less of a yearbook thing, but I guess the clue is technically correct. FONDANT hasn't been seen in the NYTXW since 1983 (!?!?!), which makes no sense at all (89D: Frosting alternative). Welcome back, basic cake decorating feature! Put it on a PEDESTAL! Really love the WHOOP WAZOO corner. Maybe not thrilled about ZOO crossing WAZOO ("WHOSE ZOO?" "WA-ZOO!" "WHOSE ZOO?" "WA-ZOO!" (Cheerleaders and hype men, feel free to borrow that one, especially if you've got a gig at a zoo in Washington)). But it's hard to be mad at WHOOP WAZOO! Let's all get WHOOP WAZOO TATTOOS. It'll be cool.
What the hell is this IPADS scam? (7D: Giveaways in some common scams of the 2010s). Did they actually give the IPADS away, and if so, how is that a scam? Should "Giveaways" be in quotation marks? I'm not quite old enough to get targeted for these scams yet, but please check in on older people in your life because, speaking from unfortunately personal experience, you would (or might) be stunned at how many of the most nakedly scammy scams actually work, and how easily people you've always known to be reasonable and careful can fall prey to them. Jaw-dropping. Alarming. Special place in hell-type stuff. Besides this alleged IPADS scam, I'd heard of everything else in the grid, I think, including POP OFF, though I'm not sure I could've defined it precisely. Also, pretty sure POP OFF also means "run your mouth without much thought." Looks like Google / Oxford Languages is defining it as "speak spontaneously and at length, typically angrily." But I've heard this newer "Perform very well" meaning too.
- 1A: End of the line? (BAIT) — a toughie, right off the bat. I needed BAI- before I saw it. My wife needed -AIT ("Oh, you knew BUGSY, did you?" Guilty).
- 36D: Official OKs (SAYSOS) — not a term that wants to be pluralized. At all.
- 65A: How one might punnily define "Saran" or "sari"? ("IT'S A WRAP") — I groaned, but I also don't hate the corniness. You're allowed some corniness. Mix it up! It's Sunday. Show me what you got, clue-wise!
- 101A: What "Eat" stands for in the mnemonic "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" (EAST) — who is it, exactly, that needs a mnemonic for the basic cardinal directions? ROYGBIV, I get. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos, LOL, not gonna remember that one, but I respect it. Every Good Boy Does Fine, sure. But "Never Eat Soggy Waffles?" How hard is it to remember North South EAST and West. And if it is hard, why didn't you just go with NEWS? Is the idea that "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" puts the directions in clockwise order? 54 years old and never heard of anyone needing a mnemonic for the directions. Crazy.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Save And Share :
104 comments:
Easy-medium seems right. Not too many problems with this one. Andie before AUDRA and teE before LIE were my only costly erasures. POP OFF was a WOE. I did know FONDANT from watching the Food Network.
Cute, breezy and mildly amusing, liked it. Fun Sunday.
Once again I found myself two themers into a Sunday puzzle when I realized that I never bothered to read the title or noticed it so little that I forgot it immediately. For this solve it made little difference as the first 1/3 or so was very easy to get and the N to D switch was obvious.
Things slowed down a little from the pointilism clue on. At one point I misread SARI as SIRI and could see no connection between that and SARAN. All that letter switching in the theme caused my old brain to play tricks on me.
The only really challenging points for me were POPOFF crossed with SHOOP and that whole little SE corner. FONDANT is a complete unknown and I thought the WalK of Fame dog would be SCOOBY. Luckily it was SNOOPY to the rescue for a clean solve.
yd -0. QB35
Mad alive! I had this all written up for @Rex (in my mind). So the theme is you change "n" to "d" I guess. Is there a point to this? Is there something I'm missing? Check's tweets from pals. Nope. Change "n" to "d". Why not "t" to"x"? ....... I guess I'm not yet a reliable predictor of Rex.
Doctor: Bring me a stool sample.
Patient: Should I do anything to preserve it?
Doctor: No, I want to see it ASSHAT.
Increasingly common pronouns for wedding role-players: USHER.
8 x (circumference/diameter) = OCTOPI.
In the UK, it’s Never Eat Shredded Wheat. Equally unnecessary, but the rhyme gives it a bit more elegance.
I'm glad Rex liked this puzzle because I did too... Until, that is, I encountered the grand finale. I have never heard of a "challah" before and I doubt that many outside of the NYC area have. I hadn't heard of the Philippine dish either. Moreover, I'm a septuagenarian whose mother did all her own baking, and I've never, ever heard or read the word FONDANT in my whole lifetime (and judging by it's apparent ingredients that's something to be thankful for). Anyway, realizing that the pattern here was to replace one "n" with a "d" for a wacky answer, I did get as far as DOUGHBRAInER, and thinking that perhaps a challah resembled a brain in its appearance, went with that. But no, now there were two substitutions, so I was SOL. Notice that all these are food clues, and I have to wonder if at least one of these constructors is a culinary arts student or specialist. Still, I otherwise liked their style, and hope to see more from them...
Haha! Also “never eat sour watermelon”
'\I'm 85 and I've neve heard of anyone needing a monic for the directions.
Agree r th them answers tho I didn't much like It's a hard dock life because I didn't remember the song, and stilldont having googled it a few minutes ago. Thought "bait" a clever answer for the clue, but man that was a hard start Well, maybe not so hard. the crosses 23an 4 were pretty easy.
Off to bed now.
Goodnight
Came here right after solving hoping to find answers as to how “LIE” is the answer to “where a golf ball sits”. I realize that I know nothing about golf, but…what am I missing here? Is there some other or double meaning that I’m just totally missing? Normally once I have it solved I can puzzle out the ones that confused me, but this is just completely escaping my brain
48 years old and cannot, CANNOT, get the directions in order without Never Eat Shredded Wheat (I am a Brit so No to soggy waffles and Yes to bizarre, unpleasant yet passively aggressively much consumed breakfast cereals). I have learned to live with this inadequacy of mine. Loved the puzzle today. How nice to enjoy a Sunday so much, it's been a while!
Like OFL, my sticking point was square one. I'd never heard of (or didn't remember) the movie and the 1A clue could have been anything. My first attempt was wAIT/wUGSY, followed by mAIT/mUGSY before finally hitting on the correct BAIT/BUGSY.
My gripe is with 80A. The song -- whether you favor Annie or Jay-Z -- is "It's the Hard-Knock Life."
Minor complaint: the "N becomes D" mechanic works fine, as noted, except that there are some D's appearing in the final solutions that did *not* arise from converted N's.
Another way of looking at the problem:
"NEW AS I SAY, NOT AS I NEW" would also produce the same result.
Same with "IT'S A HARN KNOCK LIFE" except harn is not a word.
You get the point.
The *perfect* execution of the chosen theme would *only* include converted D's and no other naturally arising D's.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
Challah is not a New York thing. It is originally an Ashkenazi Jewish thing and can be found in many places. You are correct however that fondant is gross.
Lie is a golf term whose definition is exactly the clue. If you nothing about golf, you are SOL.
Sundays have become homophone day. Not as objectionable as tribute or quote puzzles but close. Today the fun revolves around the changing sounds from a stuffy nose - brilliant.
It’s up to my ankles
Midweek level fill - loaded with 4s and 5s that leave you begging for the solve to be over. OWLISH, WWW, some fake mnemonic my ASS. The plural cross of PAS x SAYSOS is all-time brutal. I assume Anoa Bob will expound later.
Where’s @Z to discuss OCTOPI?
At least we had a nice Thursday - Saturday run.
The Menzingers
No double meaning. Just a golf term for 'The terrain and conditions surrounding the ball before it is struck.' That includes whether it's fairway or rough, e.g., but also whether it's high on the grass or deep in it, &c.
To me NOT PICTURED really sticks out with this theme. My first instinct was to change the N to D for DOT-PICTURED (a sort of second pointillist reference– it even crosses DOT AS I DO). It's an awkward answer to have in the grid.
Never heard "out the WAZOO", only "up" it.
@Conrad 4:40 – the 80a clue doesn't link the expression to any song, that was Rex.
A recurring, grammatical error that Will Shortz should finally correct: Octopus is a Greek word, not Latin, so the plural is either "octopuses" or "octopodes". And the excuse that "everyone says 'octopi', so it's accepted now" is a lazy one. Bad grammar is bad grammar.
Think of LIE as a noun and not a verb. It’s literally the place where your ball ends up after you hit it. “Uh oh Bob, you hit the ball into the sand trap. That’s a bad lie.”
Sometimes the best part of a puzzle is how it makes me feel. Today’s is one of those.
The solve brought a tubing-down-a-lazy-river feel to it, enough bite to feel involved, but no waves to battle. Calmed me right down, felt mighty good.
Even better was the fact that a bit through the fill-in, I noticed that my whole being was smiling, and it continued to smile right through the end, and even beyond. Why? The theme answers and clues. Their wackiness, cleverness, and element of surprise.
This was top-notch wordplay. Highlights:
• SHOULD THE DEED ARISE brought a spontaneous “Hah!” in how it perfectly explained an inscrutable clue, and in the surprise and funny-ness of the transformed common phrase.
• DO AS I SAY, DOT AS I DO – So wacky, what a find!
• USE YOUR DOODLE was so perfectly clued [“No need to find a professional illustrator!”]. Clue writing as art.
• THAT’S A DOUGH BRAIDER brought a mental image of a challah factory tour, which made the humor even more involving.
This puzzle was balmy in both its senses – calming and wacky. Marvelous one, Katie and Christina. I get the feeling that you had as much fun making this as I had doing it. Thank you so much!
Learned it this way in the states as well! But I guess some of us like shredded wheat whereas we can all agree to turn our noses up at soggy waffles… ;)
It works just fine as is, really. No need to needle the idea to death.
Well, not knowing the meaning of pointillism, stevedore and challah put me at, how shall we say - a slight disadvantage with the theme entries. Fortunately I could parse together a lot of the sayings via the crosses - but it did make it tough to guess where to pull the switchero and what to switchero to.
I think we may have set the record for CrossWorld’s longest ever clue for OREOS, which was kind of neat.
It seemed like I bumped into some form of PPP pretty much everywhere I turned (heck, one small area of the grid squeezes in MAE, ANDES, PLATTE and LILA all abutting each other). Will be interesting to see the gunk gauge results today as well.
I'm with @nickyboy. It's octopuses.
Otherwise, great puzzle. Enjoyed it very much, and like Rex I think the best part was "that's a dough braider."
I think I would agree with this more heartily if the letter switch were more arbitrary, whereas this is genuinely how that phrase would come out with a stuffy nose…
I dunno. Made this more complicated than it was, thinking something tricky was going on with ''d" and "o", you know, doze. Never occurred to me we were playing with how things sound with a cold. But did end up sort of fun swapping Ns and Ds, tho this raised unnecessary questions about consistency. Thought ITSAWRAP was great, and definitely something amusing in the SW.
I'm old enough that I learned "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" in music class! None of that "Does Fine" hogwash. :-)
So glad I have a practice to fold back the title corner of the paper so I don’t have to see it until I’m done solving. What a spoiler of a cute aha moment!
Difficulty-wise I thought it fine if a bit easy, but I found the theme overly cute, and like Anonymous I was annoyed that DO AS I SAY... involved inconsistent application of the D->N rule. Guest appearances by AHH and TROU (the latter of which has never been used as an informal way to refer to "pants" in the history of human beings) did not improve my impression of the puzzle.
For the longest time, I stared at “do as I say, not as I do “ and wondered if we had a one square rebus- “do as I say, not as I dot”. But worked it out in the end.
Wonderful puzzle.
I am surprised that OFL did not gripe more about the seemingly inconsistent
theme. Yes, each answer involved switching an “N” for a “D,” but in some cases
entire words were respelled (like “DOUGH” becomes “NO”, etc.), though in most
cases it was just the one letter (“DOT” becomes “NOT”). As a result I was not
quite sure what I was looking for.
Otherwise, a fun and clever puzzle, indeed!
tc
I've always used Never Eat Shredded Wheat (even to this day at 54 years old as well!) and thought everyone else did too! It just shows to go ya!
Man oh man this puzzle was fun! I got the picture with the N/D substitution pretty early and then it was off to the races…that is until I got to the SE corner with a Hollywood dog that was NOT Lassie, Asta, Rin Tin Tin, Toto, OR ScOObY. When I finally sorted everything out, I was left to wonder how a 69 year old (who DOES) cook/bake could go through life and have FONDANT absent from ANY portion of my brain…not even, oh, yeah, seems Ive heard of it. I now look forward to displaying this knowledge at my earliest opportunity…NOT!
Absolutely loved NOTPICTURED and THATSADOUGHBRAIDER which made it worth the price of admission.
@Joe DiPinto…I’ve heard both up and out the wazoo but usually something like…”and they had knick-knacks out the wazoo.”
1. Moisten your taco in beer.
2. Kidnapping of hinds forbidden.
3. Beating all charges thanks to the Leopold-and-Loeb lawyer.
4. Sleep in a hammock.
5. Heavy metal song
6. White pastry decorated with black spots.
7. Neighborhood child who rolls in the grass every morning.
8. Outdoor addition to the front of the house and outdoor addition to the back of the house.
9. Rex, every morning at 3:45.
Hey, FONDANT, LEAVEN and challah -- it’s World Baking Day! And since it’s also National Devil’s Food Cake Day, people, you know what you have to do. (And don’t forget to serve with ice cream.)
I like these letter-substitution themes. Especially when the results are amusing, as here. I didn’t look at the title until quite late in the solve so, happily, I was able to figure out the gimmick for myself. I found it interesting that sometimes the spelling of the D-word changed from its N-word origin, and sometimes it didn’t: DEED/need versus DUE/new. I didn’t think this was a bug, just a feature.
Hah! At one stage, for [Break up the band, say], I had ___O_O. And for a wild moment I wondered if they wanted wedOnO. I guess that was a little too specific, and also might do a disservice to our friend of many puzzles. I had a malapop with TUBES. Thought it might answer [Hatches, e.g.] only to reject that idea and then find it as the solution to [Lazy river conveyances]. Got mixed up between DOTH and DOst. Looked them up later and found that DOTH is used for the third person (“The lady DOTH protest too much”) and DOst for the second (“Thou DOst know me well”). Well, I never.
[Spelling Bee: Fri 0, Sat -1. Brought low by this, which I’m sure has been in other SBs, therefore I should have got it. BTW, Spelling Bee is how I know the word “challah.”]
1. DIP IT IN THE BUD
2. DOE HOLDS BARRED
3. A DARROW ESCAPE
4. DOZE IN THE AIR
5. DITTY GRITTY
6. DICE AS PIE
7. DEW KID ON THE BLOCK
8. DECK AND DECK
9. DOZY PARKER
I liked this one too. I didn’t have too much trouble but there were definitely some names I had to fill in from the crosses like ODELL. But i can imagine that there are places that don’t have CHALLAH anywhere to be noticed or heard of. It’s definitely a thing that will be much more prevalent in areas with significant Jewish Populations. Whole Foods in my area and everywhere I have ever lived has several types generally but I’ve never lived in Alabama or Texas.
Anyhoo, fun puzzle. Enjoyed the write up too, Every Good Boy Does Fine is the best! I love that one.
Stop trying to make whap happen
Finished it quickly once I grasped the theme. Very enjoyable puzzle, with one nitpick; I don't think THATSADOUGHBRAIDER is a valid pun for THATSANOBRAINER.
Otherwise, my compliments to the constructor.
We were taught Never Eat Soggy Worms in elementary, when learning compass directions. I would happily eat a soggy waffle right now.
Challah is a good NYT Spelling Bee word. Also Baba, babka, kebab/kabob. Learned FONDANT. I'm sure ants would be fond of it (my own childish mnemonic).
Some fun entries and clues sprinkled throughout. Enjoyable Sunday :)
I agree with both Lewis and Rex today, but somehow I doubt the constructors deliberately avoided “M”s, seeing as how they had stray N’s and D’s in themers . Enjoyed this nonetheless. Glad I didn’t read the title, so I got the AHA moment.
Just as you can be surprised how many seemingly smart, sane and reasonable people in your life fall for scams or forward obviously fraudulent schemes.-“Let’s all not buy from Exxon on Tuesday and it will force them….”, you’d be surprised how many people can’t keep track of West/East, thus the mnemonic. The number of middle school piano students who pick up their right hand when I ask for the left is also mind-blowing.
I used to wonder who all the prescriptivists were that LMS would preemptively argue against - I finally meet Nickboy. Octopodes is the poster example for correct usage that is on the silly end of the spectrum, measured against the technically incorrect but widely adopted OCTOPI. Words get adopted across languages, and modify in the process.
Thought there would be more complaints over having STY and STYE in the same puzzle as well as another appearance by Rex’s fav TROU.
I only know this because I was married to a former Boy Scout: It's not about remembering *what* the compass direction are; it's a matter of knowing *where* the compass directions are with relation to your current position. it's so that when you are on foot or on a bike or whatever, you can determine which way you need to turn based on which way you are going. See, usually, when you rattle off the directions, you say "north, south, east, west," but when you are navigating—yes, as Rex suggested in his write-up—you need to have the compass directions in clockwise order. Hence, "never eat shredded wheat," so if I'm headed north, east is to my right, south is behind me, and west is to my left. It's very handy.
Because that’s how Ns sound when you have a cold.
Hah, had to agree with Rex on the questionable need for a mnemonic for the directions. If you're lost in the woods?
I wasn't paying all that much attention to what the theme might be so I wondered why SHOULD THE DEED ARISE sounded vaguely familiar. Later, looking at what crosses left me, I threw in ISsUE into the end of 43A, again not paying attention to the theme. But 57A got me onto the right track (and DISS got me off the wrong track.)
I found that bottom SW corner the only hard part of this puzzle. I didn't know the Aristotle waking dream. My URLs start with http, a happy groan seemed oxymoronic and in my part of the world, things are "up the 116A" not "Out". It all worked out in the end.
Thanks, Christina and Katie!
Hey All !
I did like this puz, however, wasn't thrilled by the unchanged D's in the Themers. Seems to me (but who am I?) that if you're putting D's in as substitutions for another letter (N), then there shouldn't be regular unchanged D's in the answer. But that's just a niggling nit.
I did get a chuckle out of the Themers. Fav is of course THATS A DOUGH BRAIDER. Funny, punny, and an imagined Challah factory tour guides answer to someone asking, "What does that machine do
Got a couple of ITS A answers close to each other. Got a WHOOP and a SHOOP. Got your stalwart OREOS. Even a @Gary TeeHee with ASSHAT. Funny insult, there. 30 Threes. High, even for a SunPuz. O fests in SW and SE corners. Plus, OCTOPI! Get the debate started! Har.
Pretty nice puz. Fairly quick in the solve for me. This seems like a love-hate solve here. 😁 Liked it more than didn't.
Anyway, Happy Sunday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Merriam-Webster says Octopi is perfectly legit. I highly doubt Will would have any issue.
Also my thought as I was filling in the answer. Pedants unite!
@Ken Freeland and @Beezer: If by some chance you live in NYC, black & white cookies are ubiquitous. You may have seen them and even eaten one...(or seen the Seinfeld episode). That form of icing is fondant.
Benbini: Not that I've ever had use for the term, but DROP TROU is a common enough phrase that means to pull down one's pants..
Right now there are 33 comments ahead of me -- and I'm therefore betting that 33 people plus Rex have already said that the title gives the game away.
But that's the main problem with this puzzle. I looked at the title and immediately knew that "D"s were going to replace "N"s in the theme answers. Now why would I want to know that in advance? And why would you?
Today's contest: Come up with a title that hints at, but doesn't give the whole ballgame. If I can think of one, I'll play too. At the moment, nothing is coming to mind.
I thought the theme answers were perfectly fine, but not especially funny. At least some crosses in every case were required for me to solve them. I found the puzzle mildly diverting, but there have been puzzles by this team that I remember liking more. Now if I could just remember which ones they were.
"The best thing about the puzzle is how it sticks the landing—that is, how it saves the best, and themeiest, themer for last" -- strong agree! I feel like this doesn't happen nearly as often as it should and it's SO pleasing when it does, as here. I was charmed.
Is "Use your noodle" a common phrase? I got the answer easily enough from the pun, but couldnt reference the alleged common saying. Of course, I am the person who thought Scooby (Doo) had a star on the walk of fame, so perhaps its a me issue. Justice for Scooby!
50 years old here and I also employ it regularly (and always the anti-cereal version).
I thoroughly enjoyed today’s puzzle. The theme was just punny enough but not too much. Not too many trivia clues that I didn’t know (the football player and the river in Denver aside).
I had no idea that Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith ranked American snacks. (I would have said Oreos are #1 but I’m Canadian so maybe that’s why?) Off to google that now…
Learned what HOMES stood for in my 30s when it showed up in my kids’ homework. Of course, being born and raised in Michigan made it unnecessary. Is anyone else annoyed that the lakes aren’t in any particular order?
Refused to put in OWLISH until the very end, because of the dupe with ISH.
This one left me with a smile: I was cruising along nicely, writing in the theme answers with a mix of admiration for their cleverness and PRIDE at how easily I was getting them, until I was (suitably) brought up short by the "no brainer" pun. How could the constructors possibly think we'd accept DOUGH BRAInER? Ohhh! BRAIDER! I thought that one was genius, and I loved the concluding double-D flourish. Along with the zany idea of touring a challah "factory." Fun Sunday!
I made up my own mnemonic for the order of the planets, when Pluto was still considered a planet. Many Vultures Eat Meat, Jack, So Use No Plastic.
Never Eat Shredded Wheat was what I learned in the US. It's not to remember WHAT the directions are, it's to remember their order. So clockwise it goes N-E-S-W. That is the only reason I was able to memorize the relative position of east and west.
Otherwise I just want to know what the bounty on new clues for OREO(S) is up to within the NYT Puzzle staff.
@Nancy
Puzzle title: May Kennedy Win!
I had ALLEWED for (18D: Kosher) and could not let it go because it amused me so much. EER and OER both seemed like plausible crosses…
Shout out to ASSHAT.
One wonders how many superior crosswords were rejected to make room for this inferior offering by the NYT’s associate puzzle editor.
Sloggy for me and the theme is pure awkwardness.
I love the phrase OUT THE WAZOO.
OWLISH is a weird thought when referring to owls, and even weirder (meaningless) when you use it to describe a person.
I've built a few sheds and put an ocean of future trash in sheds, but I've never felt the shedding experience. Perhaps I shredded incorrectly.
Propers: 11
Places: 4
Products: 9
Partials: 13
Foreignisms: 5
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 42 (30%)
Tee-Hee: Naughty little puzz and it's been so grown up lately. POT, ASSHAT, TRYST. Maybe a leftover from Joel's days on the slush pile?
Uniclues:
1 Husband who disagreed with his wife.
2 Plastic megaphones.
3 Pointed a camera at The Orange One.
1 ULTRA OPPONENT LOSER
2 WHOOP PEDESTAL TUBES
3 ALLOWED ASSHAT HOPE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Less than enthusiastic traveling companions headed toward an underwear convention sponsored by their rival Fruit of the Loom. TEPID HANES CAR.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Never eat soggy waffles is often used in lower elementary grades to introduce and reinforce the four directions as they are seen on a map. 7 & 8 yr olds love funny clues.
@egs (11:17) -- Apologies, but I don't get it. Can you explain? It may be a lot cleverer than my idea, but I can't parse it.
Here's one idea that I had:
The problem with "HOLD YOUR DOZE" as a headline is that "hold your nose" immediately screams out at you as the phrase being changed. There's nothing else it can be -- making the switch from "N" to "D" obvious as the trick.
I wanted to find a phrase that would be less obvious. HEAD LIED! comes to mind. A lot of people won't see that it's a play on HEADLINE. It will make sense only after the puzzle is being worked out and not before. It's also not clear that it's a letter substitution theme. The puzzle could be about heads. Or it could be about lying. It could even [gasp!] be about Donald Trump. :)
That's one possibility. Anyone have any other ideas?
I really thought Rex would savage this one for weak theme, off cluing and bad fill. Very surprised he liked it so much.
I also learned this, and I learned it when I was 7 or 8 years old as a way to remember they go clockwise. Rex can slow his roll on this one; it's a perfectly valid mnemonic.
@Nancy
Make "n" a "d" - win!
You never heard the expression " drop trou"?
Alternative title: "Filled With Stuff"
Most people's first thought would likely have been a mix of "Sunday Themeless" and "Rebus".
Couldn’t stop thinking of this: https://youtu.be/COtiM_1noKc?si=gskDn8y7cPXyL5rl
@Anonymous 8:51 AM
Complaints like that would STY me.
Agreed, easy-peasy theme. The SW corner was the last to be completed for me.
I've tried making a challah at home a while back... not easy to braid, as a newbie... Came out looking like the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.
For all that we see EPEE, "Olympic event with masks" was a new clue I haven't seen before!
As for OCTOPI, it seems Linnaeus used "octopus" as "scientific Latin" but as pointed out by others, ancient Greek can claim "octopus" long before Linnaeus. Based on this etymology, the OED accepts OCTOPI as one plural form, as well as octopuses and octopodes. Hmm.
I had a few overwrites in the West...I mean the East...I mean the South. I wish there were a way to remember these!
I also learned in school that “A Rat In The Hole Might Eat The Ice Cream,” was a way to remember how to spell arithmetic.
@egs
Good one!
@Nancy…maybe I don’t understand your question, but since D is also substituted for N, I’m not sure how Head Lied would work. I think, while it might be obvious to some (not me at first), the phrase is very fitting.
@Gary J…not trying to rock the boat here but I’m not sure why “foreignisms”and “places” are on gunk meter, and do not know what a “partial” is. The old @Z (or somebody before him) standard was PPP…product names, pop culture, and (I think) proper nouns of which more than 30% suboptimal. Comments?
There should be a name for instances where you need to remember the thing itself in order to remember the mnemonic for it. I mean, wtf is "Roy G. Biv"? I would have to think "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – so it's r-o-y, that looks like Roy..." Whereas if I just envision a rainbow I see the colors right there in the correct order.
And @ Anonymous 10:12, HOMES is ultra-stupid because in that arrangement none of the lakes is next to one that it borders geographically.
@egs (12:27) -- That's great! And no one can say that the trick isn't very well hidden indeed!
Weft is left was enough for me….
Challah is traditionally served at Jewish Sabbath dinners but…it’s not particularly obscure. I imagine the vast majority of French toast recipes use Challah. Probably less known than bagels, but no more obscure than brioche, which I would consider a fair crossword clue.
fave themer: DOASISAYDOTASIDO. Next fave themer: All of @Barbara S. darlin's themers. har
Took m&e way too long to catch on to the puztheme mcguffin. At first I thought maybe the 26-A answer was a play on words for SHOULDTHEDEADARISE. Perhaps a famous zombie flick tagline, M&A reasoned. Wrong again, M&A breath.
staff weeject pick: DEE, DEI, and DNA. Especially DEE, cuz I've heard of NEE.
Hold Your No-knows lineup today: POPOFF/SHOOP. MAE. ROBB. ANOBO.
fave other stuff: ASSHAT. OHIDUNNO. ITSAWRAP clue.
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Iverson & Hale darlins. Dice job.
Masked & Anonymo13Us
**gruntz**
I think that the thing "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" helps you remember is not just the cardinal directions but their positions on a compass. The directions go clockwise in the order of the phrase, something not accomplished by "NEWS".
It really has been. “Drop trou” grosses me out every time I encounter it.
What exactly is a bus shed? Just the building where they store busses?
@Barbara S, as far as I can tell this is the first appearance for that word and yes as much as I can I keep track. Xwordinfo says it's never been in the NYTXW either. If my wife hadn't ordered some at a restaurant recently it would have got me too.
I wasn’t sure on this either, Conrad, but it looks like the expression “hard-knock” which I’ve always heard used with “a…life” outside of song, predates the musical Annie by about a decade. So, while not definitive, it seems quite possible that “a” predates or at least runs parallel to “the.”
Either way, I think the version with “a” has become common, and the puzzle isn’t specifically playing on song titles but rather expressions.
Language evolves. English isn’t a prescriptive language. Common usage defines grammar, not vice versa. This is, in my opinion, a feature not a bug.
I’ve never once in my life heard of slots of utensils as “compartments” so it took me a long time to just accept just plain SPOONS as an answer.
Ken Freeland
About challah
I am in my’70’s and raised a Catholic, and born & raised in R.I.
I have heard of it. And knew it is braided. I agree with Anonymous above that it is at least as well known as brioche.
I had no clue about padiddle a while back yet more than half the commenters had heard about it. Just because I had no clue doesn’t mean it’s obscure. The same applies to challah. Jewish people do not just live in NYC!
Conrad
I just googled it
Annie song is It’s A Hard Knock Life
No idea about JayZ
@egs - I read your 1:15 am post this morning and didn't think about it too much, but this evening ASSHAT hit me. Bravo! 👏
The albums only went platinum. How can the NYT be expected to get the song title right?
Benbini
Trou just came up not long ago. It is most definitely is crosswordese.
But as I said the last time, I just heard someone use the phrase drop trou that same day ( a fellow baby boomer).
So while I am sure your post is exaggerating for effect, it is not as rare as you think it is.
Anonymous & Johnk
I am surprised that no dupe hater has yet mentioned OWLISH and ISH yet. And they are not that far apart.and they have the same meaning. Normally, I don’t even see the dupes. But this one I saw Doesn’t bother me, but not even Rex said anything!
Charles
About bus shed. Yes.
Pretty easy for a Sunday, with only the SE corner giving any resistance. ADOBO and ALT both WoEs.
That has to be the most useless, totally worthless mnemonic I’ve ever heard of.
Forgot to mention: Are we supposed to know who Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith are?
Re: hard knock life - Check out this Sunday’s Marmaduke comic strip.
https://www.gocomics.com/marmaduke/2024/05/19
Am I the only one who struggled with "Snoopy" - I insisted it was "Lassie" - which along with RinTinTin are often listed as the only dogs that won an Oscar.
Both are fictional dogs - There were many animals who performed these roles.
Snoopy got me.
Wow I am always so far off everyone else’s opinions of the Sunday puzzle. Always. I thought this was a simplistic boring theme. Replace n with d? Why is that challenging? Any baker or foodie - anywhere in the U.S. - has heard of fondant and challah.
OMG, that brush-with-fame story was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh!
Every time the eight-tentacled creature comes up, we get an avalanche of opinions on the plural. Why is it so important? Call them anything, just stop throwing the poor things onto the ice.* [You know who you are.]
I'm with a vast majority here, especially with that last themer. A double-D: what a WHOOP! Though I found it easy for a Sunday, that final SE corner gave me pause because of the second substitution. I soon saw it, creating a nice aha! coda to the whole piece. Birdie.
Wordle birdie.
*Yeah, I know they're dead, but still...
Only if you watch Great British Baking Show”
Ha! A one-letter dnf with nothing looked up. That's success for me with this puzzle. I mean, who knew they ate housing material in the Phillipines - thus, a no brainer was wrong.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
HOPE SO
IT'S SORT of A HARD thing to SAY,
but SHOULD LILA INSIST
THAT ONE of THE TEAM IS MAE,
I'MUP to TRY for A TRYST.
---ROBB "BUGSY" O'DELL
I've been doing the puzzles for over 30 years. I completed this one with ease, as I always do on a Sunday. BUT ......since I didn't see any other comments about this: Am I the only person who has never heard anything remotely like ultra marine or ultra marathon?
Post a Comment