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German word that sounds like a number in English / SUN 8-4-24 / Wonderland bird / Place to get a pricey cab
Sunday, August 4, 2024
Constructor: SCOTT HOGAN and KATIE HALE
Relative difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM
THEME: Weather, Man! — The theme answers are meteorological terms defined using silly phrases and synonyms
Word of the Day: TYSON'S (135A: ___ Corner, suburb of Washington, D.C.) —
Tysons, also known as Tysons Corner,[5] is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, spanning from the corner of SR 123 (Chain Bridge Road) and SR 7 (Leesburg Pike).[6] It is part of the Washington metropolitan area and located in Northern Virginia between McLean and Vienna along the I-495.[7][8]
Tysons is home to two super-regional shopping malls, Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria, and the corporate and administrative headquarters of Alarm.com, Appian, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One, Freddie Mac, Gannett, Hilton Worldwide, ID.me, Intelsat, M.C. Dean, Inc., MicroStrategy, and Tegna Inc.
• • •
Hello, it's Eli again, bringing you your Sunday puzzle fix. Today's theme is what we'll call a "classic" style (which I'm using as a polite way of saying old-fashioned). Nothing wrong with that, but this specific kind of theme has never been my personal cup of tea. Let's mix up a MAI TAI (7A: Tiki bar cocktail) and jump right in. I make a very good mai tai. |
| Why, yes, that is homemade orgeat. Thank you for noticing. |
Like I said, the "punny definition of a common phrase" theme has never been a favorite of mine. It's fine, I'm just rarely wowed by it. Today was no exception. It wasn't a bad puzzle at all, just not for me. The answers were all legitimate weather forecast phrases (one bumped for me just a bit; see below), the clues were fun (if not really funny), and that's all there is to it.
Theme answers:
Theme answers:
- SHOWERS LIKELY (23A: High chance of parties celebrating a baby's arrival?)
- MOSTLY CLOUDY (42A: Like one's mental state before morning coffee?)
- HEAVY SNOW (52A: Terrible TV reception?)
- ISOLATED SPRINKLES (71A: What you might find on the counter after making ice cream sundaes?)
- WINTRY MIX (94A: Eclectic holiday party playlist?)
- MORNING FROST (103A: "The Road Not Taken" enjoyed over breakfast?)
- DAMAGING WINDS (125A: Smashing clarinets and oboes?)
The theme density doesn't leave much room for flash in the fill. Not a lot stood out to me, good or bad. On a personal level, I have a distaste for ODEA (117D: Greek theaters) and it's singular friend "odeon." I was a theater major, I love ancient Greek theater, but for some reason this word just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Conversely, YEET (45D: Forcefully throw, in modern slang) is one of my favorite recent words. It always makes me laugh a bit. I also like that Y-AXES (80D: Lines for which x = 0) looks like "Yaxes," which makes me imagine some unread Dr. Seuss story. And hey, look! It's UDON (122D: Noodle used in shabu-shabu). I had too many crosses by the time I saw this so I wasn't able to confuse it with SOBA. But anyone who read my post yesterday will know it could have been a problem. Maybe I should post the Uma/Oprah video again, introducing Udon to Soba... nah, I'll spare you this time.
Parting thoughts:
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Parting thoughts:
- 1D: Sounds from a mat (OMS) — Do people actually use "om" as a mantra, or is it just a stereotype? I meditate daily, though not in a form that requires a mantra. I've just never actually witnessed this.
- 27A: Casino fixture (ATM) — Vegas tip: don't use the ATMs in the casino unless you're ok throwing even more money away on fees. Bring cash with you. I wish someone had told me this before I went to Vegas for the first time.
- 81A: ___ for Sore Eyes (punny name for an ophthalmologist's office) (SITE) — These feels like a business that would open next to Bob's Burgers. No complaints from me; I love that show.
- 5D: Title role for Fran Drescher (THE NANNY)— Something I think about a lot is that I have trouble remembering peoples' names and new information, but for some reason I still know every word to the theme song to The Nanny. Memory can be weird.
Well, now that's back in my brain. Yay. It's been a long day, and I'm not sure I have the energy to think about the puzzle anymore. Hope you all enjoyed it; enjoy your Mali Monday tomorrow!
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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102 comments:
Talk about Kea/Loas—GAWP apparently means exactly the same thing in Britain as GAWk does in America (which is, ahem, where this puzzle was made and published). And with no hint we’re supposed to be thinking “across the pond”, and no clue (for me, anyhow) that skaters don’t LOOk at their toes when jumping LOOPs, how the
heck does one escape from Natick at that 48-across 10-down intersection?
webwinger
Easy. I never really paused during this one (avoiding potential erasures by checking crosses as you solve can be a good strategy).
Cute, fun, breezy Sunday, liked it.
I knew RUE from The Hunger Games.
My sister and BIL lived near TYSONS Corner 3 or 4 decades ago.,
Eli, totally agree with you that ISOLATED SPRINKLES should have been ISOLATED SHOWERS. I'm a weather nerd, and the latter is uttered often in forecasts; the former not so often.
And as a weather nerd this puzzle was pretty much up my alley. As a kid I used to listen to the French Canadian weather on CBC, and almost every winter evening this delectable cadence was broadcast: "Abitibi-Temiscamingue: quelques averses de neige" ("...some snow showers"). AB-ah-TI-bee tah-MIS-ka-MING, kelkes a-VER-sa duh NEJH. So rhythmic.
Again this went very quickly; 17 minutes for me. One noteable typeover was JAMES before CROWE for "Filmmaker Cameron". Remember him... Terminator? Titanic?
This one didn’t land for me personally. Too much theme, with some questionable, as Eli mentioned. But also some bad fill (GAWP, CMERE, CHIRRUPS), fair amount of obscure PPP and then a mix of old timey crosswordese.
Bur, maybe Carly Simon would tell me I’m so vain, and caused dreams of clouds in her coffee.
Thanks for the good write-up. I do yoga frequently, and before the actual class we chant about 7 or 9 lines of Sanskrit. The chant begins and ends with "Om". So yep, still done.
Y AXES would normally be Y AXIS in mathematics.
Crossing Muir and Rue in the SW corner was not fair for the vast majority of solvers who are not a) gardeners; or b) TCM aficionados.
Wow weather puns - I can’t control my excitement. Densely themed - the fill is a mix of Highlights level easy with some oddball stuff strewn about.
DIANE
The FROST themer was neat and I liked STAR PUPIL, SAFETY NET and the NAPA clue. However - absolute junk like CHIRRUPS, GAWP, YEET and the hidden plural of Y AXES overshadow the grid.
Nice set up Eli - for a really nice MAI TAI ditch that Myers and substitute Plantation Pineapple rum.
Like the wicked thunderstorm overnight - thankfully this passed through quickly.
Still my heart’s on the Isle of CAPRI
Another overly easy Sunday puzzle. Once you got one of the theme clues it was over.
What is Mali Monday?
Maybe it’s me, but I just found the themers to be flat and disappointing, and the puzzle as a whole to be boring. Maybe it was too easy? No sizzle, no struggle, no pop.
On a positive note, I did get the ALOUs, Mrs MUIR and I’m familiar with TYSONS Corner. Unfortunately, I pretty much took the collar on the rest of the trivia today, and there was plenty to go around - EBOY, STEVE Madden, AMATI, ELMO (as clued), ETALII (yeah, right), ROO, DALI, VISINE, Arcimboldo and his weird pictures, NIM, and of course OSWALT crossing CROWE). Not much fun to be had parsing that nonsense together.
I got a bit of a chuckle out of HEAVY SNOW and MORNING FROST since they sounded totally contrived. At least you might actually hear a weather person say things like WINTERY MIX, MOSTLY CLOUDY or DAMAGING WINDS - the others not so much. It may have been a smoother experience if they had taken a more minimalist approach to the theme. It doesn’t seem like having seven theme entries added much over what three or four would have gotten us.
Ah yes, Sunday Punday. Rarely a Funday. Gave it 10 minutes and then went to do other things.
Clue/Answer quibble: "Deserted Isle" sounds more correct than "Desert Isle" to me, but it appears some people are wrong and use the latter.
The three Sunday puzzles Katie and Scott have made all feature italicized theme clues. Yet the themes are completely different. To wit:
• Today’s weather reports.
• Their last puzzle followed the pattern [I visited the {insert health professional) and now I …] – such as [I visited the podiatrist and now I …] for STAND CORRECTED.
• Their puzzle before that featured punny exclamations – such as [Dracula has lived half a millennium!”] for BATS FIVE HUNDRED.
All three themes hit my happy button, brought warm smiles. I don’t know how long Katie and Scott will continue with the italicized clue pattern, but it’s a formula that works beautifully for me.
Three points specific to today’s puzzle:
• To add to the zip of the theme answers are lovely long downs: TEAR LOOSE, THE NANNY, STAGE CREW, TOE LOOPS, SAFETY NET, STAR PUPIL.
• A world-class never-before-used clue: [One who manages to get by?] for BOSS.
• YEET and YEESH, two words I adore, in the same box!
Katie and Scott, your puzzles have a sweet feel and are most entertaining, IMO. More please, and thank you for today’s splendid outing!
For “place to get a pricey cab” I had NA-A and thought, “I mean, if you were in space that sure would be a pricey cab ride home” and wrote in NASA. I mean it’s true!
ETHOS instead of ETHIC and POO instead of ROO because I forgot the cartoon bear has an H and I've never heard of CHIRRUPS. Otherwise no roadblocks here.
GAWP???? AYFKM???? The NYT puzzle is trash.
Boring and dumb ...
@anonymous 4:15, to the GAWk/GAWp kealoa we can add GAze. I do love TOELOOk as an answer, though. That would be ice dancing to shoegaze.
Even if it’s plural (which it is in the puzzle)?
Toe loops are one of the main figure skating jumps…it’s a common term.
In a fun puzzle/life coincidence, we had an impromptu Cameron Crowe double feature last night - “Say Anything” (which holds up really well) followed by “Almost Famous” (a perfect film) making the CROWE clue a satisfying gimme.
Some may call this one old-fashioned, but I prefer "classic", and it bothers me not at all that I've seen this kind of puzz many times. I always think of folks for whom this may be their first Sunday attempt and think this one would be perfect.
A couple of names I didn't know right off, viz. STEVE and OSWALT, but they filled in easily.
Nice to see the ALOUs clued as a family.
CHIRRUPS is one of those words you never see any more, so that took a beat. And we have an actual FROST today to balance yesterday's Sandburg.
Another ROO. Also a RUE, just to pile on. I surrender.
I liked your Sundecito just fine, SH and KH. Sincerely Hope you Keep Handing in more like this, and thanks for all the fun.
I don’t get the sos clue. Is that a sinking ship?
This is where my single error was and I couldn’t find it.
Thought ISOLATED-SPRINKLES was the best theme answer - as it’s used relatively often from folksy meteorologists and works wackily well for the vision of a few random jimmies falling off the Sunday sundae.
HEAVYSNOW is such a dated reference to an old-timey faulty TV - am amazed MAX still uses it as its identifier intro to its HBO productions. Does anyone under 60 remember when all you saw was snow, with or without bunny-eared antennas? Or adjusting the vertical and horizontal controls for the set’s annoying rolling up/sideways every two seconds?
An easy but not bad Sunday which I finished in exactly 20:00 (don’t recall ever having such an even total except once at the gas pump (but I prepaid the $20 there so it really wasn’t that surprising an achievement)…
Hey All !
Thought the puz pretty good. Hit the marks on all things weather. Got a chuckle out of myself when my first reaction to Smashing clarinets and oboes was BREAKING WIND!
MORNING FROST is pretty good. ISOLATED SPRINKLES also got a chuckle. Pretty good fill, considering all the navigation having to be done around all the Themers. Seemed a lot of W's today, let me count... I got 10. Weird how some letters jump out at you (well, at me, at least.)
Got me another ROO. Piling them up! Har. Won't even mention my French brother, RUE. 😁
Got the QB yesterday! Doubtful today, but for me, been getting QB regularly. I don't get it every day, like some of y'all (which amazes me), but I'm averaging about 2 a month (sad trombone tune). Although July had 4!
Have a great Sunday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Cute and breezy. I started this pretty late (for me) last night, and was nodding off so needed a good night's sleep to complete the last 20% this morning.
Some minor bumps:
- 94A: Started with WINDY**** but couldn't make this work.
- 51A: Had ART at first. Once I pictured the DODO from Alice in Wonderland for 44D, POE came. I enjoy much of EAP's writing and had lived in Baltimore for a few years, so was glad to see this.
- 15D: Figured it might be ***MILES. Thinking of the gauges on the dashboard.
- Agree with others that CHIRRUPS and CMERE were... oofs.
@Bill Hood, 6:22 AM: I thought the same, wrote the same, and agree with you. The clue calls for the plural, which is a bit silly.
@Anonymous, 8:04 AM: Yes! I wrote NASA at first, but I do enjoy my red wines and so quickly pivoted to NAPA.
The clue is “Lines…” so the answer has to be plural. AXES is the plural of axis.
@mmorgan - no, it's not just you. I had something similar drafted but you said it better.
Today I learned that GAWP is not the common word used by everybody that I had thought.
I just wish the name of the puzzle wasn't such a giveaway. There might have been a nice little "aha" in the reveal of the theme but by just laying it out there, the themed answers practically filled themselves in. Or a "revealer" would have been nice too. As it is, too easy, sorry.
Also was a tv program for a few years in the ‘60’s
3-letter Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW) are so common in the daily crossword grids that I generally avoid including them unless there's something I can't resist. But I certainly notice them (most of them) and I've noticed one in particular that has felt like it appears more often than any other: SEA. Not such a surprise--three letters used very often by constructors--but it seems to appear almost every day, often more than once, in Hidden Diagonal form. And then came today's grid, which features the Hidden Diagonal Word SEA ... 8 times! There's one in the North (begins with the 1st S in SASS, 24D). There's one in the South (the S in 110D, STEW). I'll let you go on an "SEA-ster egg hunt to find the other 6. Not one of the 8 SEAs adds a fourth letter to create a useable 4-letter HDW (SEAL, SEAM, SEAN, as in Connery or Penn, SEAR, SEAS, SEAT, ASEA).
I wonder if all those SEAs in the Diagonals is a predictor of how easy this puzzle played. It wasn't my fastest Sunday ever, but it was very close. All 7 theme answers dropped in with very few crosses.
There were a couple of 4-letter HDWs that offered opportunities for Saturday level cluing:
1. Team that famously won 40 games in 1962 (METS, M in 34D, BMW; actually those METS are famous not for the 40 wins but the 120 losses!)
2. Amsterdam neighborhood with a directional name (OOST, O in 26A, OMAN; OOST translates to EAST--which contains the letters S, E, & A)
OH RATS, O,DEAr I've gone on too long; I'll RIDE AWAY
gawp? #1 comment by webwinger is right on
Light and easy Sunday with weather reports SPRINKLED about. GAWP and TAW took me back to boyhood reading and marble playing memories. I’m guessing CHIRRUPS is the root word for “chirps”. YEET is a completely foreign word to me, so guess it’s an ageist thing…Always fun to pick up on something new…
Not bad. A bit choppy with all the small fill.. A bit too much junk like CMERE, NIM, GIT, TAW, TVAD, GAWP and YEET etc. YEESH! Not all of the themers landed but DAMAGINGWINDS was a good one.
Malaika will be subbing in for Rex.
The plural of Y axis is Y axes. Ugly but technically correct.
The National Weather Service tends to say "snow, heavy at times, rather than "heavy snow." But that answer doesn't seem wrong to me.
Toe loop is a standard skating term. No more obscure than a whole bunch of other stuff that you either know or you don't know.
Villager
I noticed that they're predicting MORNING Sandburg here tomorrow.
Egyptian ornithologist: Dam, I saw ASWAN on the Nile this morning.
And speaking of ASWAN Dam, it's apparently getting old prematurely due to the velocity of the air currents. They're what you call DAMAGINGWINDS.
C'mon, can't we cmup with something better than CMERE?
Very fun stuff. Thanks, SCOTT HOGAN and KATIE HALE.
Easy Sunday but happy to see TYSONS Corner at the end of the puzzle and as the word of the day. Growing up in Arlington VA in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Tyson’s was the place my parents would take us to see that new retail wonder, a shopping mall. It was a two-lane road to get there from our house, and the mall was basically surrounded by almost nothing. It is today, of course, a ginormous city all by itself and part of the much larger DC metropolis. When I return home these days, it’s like I’m visiting the sites of an ancient civilization that was buried and an entirely new civilization has been built on top of it.
This didn't run easy for me. I had many a write-over. Having somehow managed to miss the title, I was skipping around on my random solve without any idea what the theme was. But I found ISOLATED SPRINKLES and then it came clear and sunny.
I'd rather the clue for 126A be "Oboes and clarinets run amok" so the winds are damaging rather than being damaged, but it was a fun reimagining of the phrase anyway.
HEAVY SNOW - I can relate. When I was growing up in far southern Minnesota, we didn't get much for TV stations. But late at night, I would rotate the roof antenna and could sometimes catch the Twin Cities stations that played old black and white movies. Inevitably, the signal would fade in and out of snow - the staticky noise would lull me to sleep on the basement couch.
Thanks, Scott and Katie, I liked this!
Axes is the plural
Easy but I think 2 unfair crosses. RUE/MUIR and CHIRRUPS/ROO. I liked the sound of CHIRPUPS/POO, and assumed my mistake was with the other one.
That WOULD be pricey! NASA crossed my mind, too, but living in California, Napa won out.
It will never cease to amaze me how you can get utterly stuck, seriously log jammed with a complete disconnect between you and the zeitgeist of the puzzle, and so you walk away and a bit later you return and fill the whole thing out as if it was written for you. How do brains work? I went from hopeless slog to whooshy finish.
This is a great puzzle. Hilarious and challenging until it finally gave up its fight.
The storm related clues read like my goofy uniclues. They're basically UNhelpful. Cute and funny, but you're better off waiting for crosses until the familiar weather phrase becomes obvious.
I agreed to stop crying about Asian cooking in the puzzles and bam MOOSHU and UDON. I guess that's less grating than YAXES. And I asked for birds and they gave me birds.
I don't remember ever seeing the Dali Elephants painting before. It's magnificent.
German vocabulary up to 3! ACH, BITTE, NEIN.
❤️ CHIRRUPS. YEESH. Two alley-related entries in two days.
When you're writing a good puzzle, don't ruin the vibe with [Shrub with small yellow flowers.] I live in the high desert. Every plant is a shrub with yellow flowers. And stickers. And please delete YEET when you buy your word lists. Stop trying to make fetch happen.
Propers: 15
Places: 6
Products: 12
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 45 of 142 (32%)
Funnyisms: 17 🤣
Tee-Hee: SALIVA. Yuck.
Uniclues:
1 Emulates mountain lion with TikTokker in the forest.
2 Showed editor the first ever collection of gravy poems.
3 Mock tree placement experts in northern California.
4 Undercoating pushers go for a test drive.
1 NABS EBOY AT CAMP
2 LET SEE STEW ODES
3 SASS NAPA STAGE CREW
4 CAR SALES ILK RIDE AWAY
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Leaders of the Holy Order of Pong. ATARI CLERGYMEN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I thought this puzzle was cute and fun, with imaginative theme clues and mostly good fill. Eboy, rue, taw, yeet were all new to me but could be worked out from the crosses, and isn't that what puzzling is about? I like the Sunday puzzle to be fun with a bit of challenge; HARD is for Friday and Saturday. Good job, Scott and Katie!
BTW, I cheated a bit on the Arcimboldo clues. When I was at the Louvre, lo these many years ago, I fell in love the the Arcimboldo paintings and in the museum store, I bought prints of the four seasons. They're framed and hanging in my library. Guessing the EYE was easy enough but I snuck a look at the paintings for the NOSE on Fall's portrait.
I LOVED this puzzle!
I'm sure there are those who will say it was too easy. Maybe so. But why not enjoy a fun puzzle for a change?? Even if it IS Sunday (which, BTW, this was the best Sunday in a while). Not to sound like The Beach Boys but it was FUN FUN FUN for me :)
Got hung up on YAXES, OSWALT, YEET but really liked MOUTH WATERING STUFF = SALIVA.
Thank you so much, Katie & Scott (yes, I'm gushing) for a great Sunday solve :)
First commenter today nailed it... GAWP/TOELOOPS is textbook natick. Poor editing again...
As a STEVE who makes a solid MAITAI, I approve of this puzzle.
(Props to you @Eli for making your own orgeat - I've never done that. Small Hand is my go-to. Merchant's Reserve, sometimes with a float of OFTD. 'Cause delicious.)
A MILD AND PLEASANT MORNING.
Would that that were also so outside my window, but the puzzleweather was nice. This was mostly pretty easy, but there were a couple of places where I had write-overs. SERENE before SEDATE for "calm" and ET ALIA before ET ALIA. The latter meant that the ice cream sundae answer began with an "A", not an "I" and kept me from seeing the absolutely wonderful ISOLATED SPRINKLES -- my second favorite answer in the bunch. Instead I was on the path of A SOLiTary something-or-other.
The theme answers to from the ordinary to the glorious and surprising. The first three. along with WINTRY MIX, were a bit of a YAWN. But then came the inspired ISOLATED SPRINKLES, DAMAGING WINDS and my absolute favorite, MORNING FROST.
A most diverting puzzle. If that sounds like rather mild praise from me, it's not. With all the awful weather and all the awful news, a bit of diversion is always to be hoped for -- and this puzzle provided it.
Axes is the plural of axis
Agreed. Not to mention I ASSUME and I AM TOO on the same row. Also don’t like YEESH and YEET in the same puzzle.
@Bill Hood 6:22 AM
The clue wants a plural answer, so AXES. We speak Latin, because it's so Profesional.
@Aaron 7:50 AM
"Desert", as used in "Desert ISLE", is an adjective meaning "desolate and sparsely occupied". Maine's Mt. Desert Isle, for instance, has no desert.
Easiness rains supreme today!
An easy Sunday, but very enjoyable due to a clever theme that helped the solve. I especially liked MORNINGFROST.
yes, we "om" at my yoga class.
@Roo, congrats on SB yesterday. My final word was this 7er which I typed in thinking "this is definitely not a word". QB streak 6!
@Anonymous: the SOS clue is Morse code. "Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash Dot Dot Dot" spells out SOS in code.
@okanaganer
My final word, too! Just throwing letters together...
Today I'm about 35 points away! Oof. My SB is a daily roller coaster.
RooMonster Still Happy Just Getting Genius Guy
Definitely the only time this Wisconsinite has smiled at the appearance of WINTRY MIX! I loved the repurposing of that misery into a festive treat. Also a nod of appreciation for confining HEAVY SNOW to a TV screen. Anyway. I liked it, had fun figuring out the forecasts. I was surprised to read CHIRRUPS-disdaining comments - for me, it was a highlight, a note of cheeriness.
Easy & enjoyable. My only Natick , filmmaker Cameron crossing comic actor Patton. You can get every letter of both by crosses bar the W so stuck there since I knew neither!
_ _ _ . . . _ _ _ is Morse Code
Another nice writeup, @Eli. Turns out your poet MIXup was just an early FROST.
I thought the puns were good, but the SHOWERS LIKELY clue was awkward. Baby showers usually happen before the arrival, and generally only for a first baby.
HEAVY SNOW stood out to me as unique, the TV SNOW being literally named after the precipitation. Brought back memories of staying up late enough to see the station sign-off, national anthem, color bars, and static. That static would be on all night. I RUE the day CNN went to 24-hour news. (You too, @ROO?)
MORNING FROST was the best. I also like the humor of the SPRINKLES clue, though I imagined them less ISOLATED and more scattered, especially if you let your kids help. CHIRRUP, CHIRRUP! sounds like a delightful accompaniment to MORNING FROST.
The others leaned toward the less pleasant side. How about some ‘sunny skies’ or, on second thought, ‘a cooling trend’? I went outside early and still felt like I was MELTing.
A cute, friendly Sunday - thanks, Scott and Katie.
We refer to this style of puzzle as a "Longo"
My hand is up for thinking the puzzle was FUN today. Boo naysayers that thought it was a YAWN. (It’s ok really because you can have your opinion). I was a little surprised at all the anti-GAWP comments, but MAYBE those were from people who haven’t seen the word numerous times in past crosswords. I CAN see the Natick potential with the MUIR/RUE cross for younger peeps. I knew of it as a tv show in the 60s before I knew it had been a movie made “before my time.” I THINK Hope Lang played Mrs. Muir in tv show.
Ok. I am oddball enough to know who Patton Oswalt is. He is a comedian (I think he MIGHT have been in Drew Carey’s tv show, but was definitely on King of Queens. He is quite “unassuming looking” and has written books. Ya know how sphere is the expression, “actor’s actor, writer’s writer, etc? I’m not sure what niche Patton falls into, but I think he is beloved by everyone who has worked with him.
Gee, I thought the reference to Mail meant we would have a Malaika PUZZLE tomorrow! Either way…good deal!
A note that Site for Sore Eyes is real. It's an eyeglass chain with over 70 stores.
I am not above admitting that I genuinely thought 125 across would be BREAKING WINDS. It would've made the puzzle infinitely better if it were.
Morse code.
Yes, it's an old-fashioned puzzle, and I like one of those now and then. I enjoyed the solve experience. Five stars for the cluing for MORNING FROST.
Enjoyed all the Sandburg/Frost jokes and the weather puns in the comments
agreed. hated it. muir and rue. chirrups. taw
@Gary
Re: your 1st paragraph
Yes, indeed, that is one astonishing thing that happens (not to me today, but not infrequently) and it really makes you wonder how the brain functions!
It's not JUST you. I came here for Rex's (would-be) evisceration...and my (would-be) validation. Fuggin snooooooozefest!
Liked it! Would have liked it less if the ~3 guesses I made to finish off the puzzle weren't all correct.
Really liked CMERE, STAR PUPIL, WINTRY MIX, NAPA.
Another example of why I don’t normally do Sunday puzzles. Acres and acres of mediocrity. And dumbness. I mean, I’m a farmer and I depend on weather forecasts to set up my work schedule. I check the dailies, the weeklies, and the fourteen day forecasts. Never have I ever seen the term “ISOLATEDSPRINKLES”. Not ever. And WINTRYMIX - not a thing. DAMAGINGWINDS, really? Was all this tedious dumbassness worth it for MORNINGFROST, MOSTLYCLOUDY, and SHOWERSLIKELY? (The good stuff, as it were). No! And don’t get me started on TYSONS corner. Also, I have a handful of Grenadians working for me at the moment. We occasionally have discussions about Caribbean culture. As far as I can recall, the term TRINI has never come up, though they are not hesitant about mocking Trinidadians (or their fave targets, Jamaicans).
@pabloinnh, I’m beginning to feel your pain. If it helps in the Pablo/Roo war, I could mention my dog Pablo Picasso more. Or does it have to be in the puzzle itself?
Anonymous 4:17 AM
I agree with Anonymous 8:32 AM
We can’t know everything. So some answers that are quite well known like toe loops you might think is arcane. Figure skating is as famous the recent gymnastics competition. Millions of people have heard the term repeatedly over the decades.
Gawp has been in this puzzle fairly often.
Also with all the spinning going on in figure skating, loop would seem more likely.
Sun Volt
Just wondering about y axes.
As said just above, the clue had lines. Why did you think the plural was hidden?
cmere
NYTimes Xword has officially scraped the bottom of the barrel with made up abbreviations and "modern" slang from the Xword gods of the internet.
Cluing is getting messy too. A tureen is a bowl, not a plate, and when is the last time you went for an "antiflu" shot?
Anonymous 6:27 AM
About Muir. and rue
Baby boomers like me who are not TCM aficionados also know the movie because it was on local broadcast TV stations constantly. Maybe some Gen xers also know it from their youth. The constructors were just trying for something different from the famous Western naturalist.
Rue has appeared in the Times puzzle before as a shrub. But more importantly it appears in a scene in that obscure play Hamlet
where Ophelia hands out rue, I am not a gardener either but I got it from her.
So in addition to TCM people and gardeners you got to add lovers of Shakespeare, baby boomers et al and veteran solvers. That cross was not a natick.
Southside Johnny
I don’t remember where you live but in New England HEAVY SNOW is a VERY common term used by the TV weather people. Along with light and moderate snow. Wintry mix until global warming was much less so. It is a fairly recent invention, so they don’t have to say sleet and freezing rain. That was the only themer that caused me trouble.
Morning frost doesn’t sound at all contrived to my ears. I have heard that too on TV.
Aaron
Desert island
I think you were too quick to judge some people.
Desert as in the Sahara is a modern noun created from an adjective desert which meant deserted.
Sometimes old expressions get fixed in the language even when primary meaning of the old words change. Desert island is such a fixed expression and is perfectly proper. It has a different connotation from deserted island. I have heard it most often in reference to such stories as Robinson Crusoe and other castaway stories of the past.
Johnny Mic
Winnie the Pooh stories are of course famous and famously occurring in the Hundred Acre Wood. The characters appear almost monthly in this puzzle. How is any character from these stories unfair?
Don’t know if anyone will see this.
But my main complaint about the blog. today: Too many complaints!
Often completely contradictory. Some think an old movie is unfair. Some think modern slang is unfair.
And even a complaint about ROO!
I actually dnf because of another stupid mistake but I don’t think there was anything unfair in the puzzle
I didn’t know either per se, but a name starting MUI_ is just gonna be MUIR. And while I don’t know what RUE looks like, I know that it’s a plant that exists, so no worries there.
I had ETHOS as well, took me quite a while to find it.
It’s Morse code. Dits and dahs.
Why TIS for seventh notes in scales?
desert isle is standard usage https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desert%20island#:~:text=%3A%20an%20island%20where%20no%20people,stranded%20on%20a%20desert%20island
i think in the internet era more and more british usage is becoming common in america and vice versa
i liked the puzzle. well done hogan/hale. not sure about the cluing for wintry mix. also for 80 across, print edition had x=o instead of x=O. bad editing?
looks like the nytimes is in the constant battle to not alienate new puzzle players so they go super easy on Sundays now... not the ramp up difficulty from the old days
I really liked this puzzle, more fun than I’ve had doing the NYtimes xword in a while. It was doable without having to be a crossword expert. Thurs/Fri/Sat are for the experts. How would advanced solvers feel if the advanced beginners and intermediates for whom Sunday-Wednesday are the only days doable at all started complaining that Friday and Saturday are “too hard”?
It would seem, for a Sunday puzz at least, that one of these should have been clued differently. I’m sure plenty of folks didn’t know either of them, clued this way, and there are readily available alternatives
Ti is the seventh note in scales following do, re, mi...Remember the Sound of Music song?
This simple Sunday puzzle came at the perfect time for me — after a long, sluggish, hazy week recovering from being groggy and under the weather (pun intended) breezing through the Sunday crossword made me feel sharp and on my game. I had MUM where RUE ultimately needed to go, but worse mistakes have been made than that.
YEESH, YEET me a softball! That's what this: a 21x21 Monday.
I wish I could experience more of these weather conditions. Here, it's "Another week of triple-digit temperatures, sorry about that, folks!" But besides tiptoeing through the raindrops, this one didn't offer ALOT. Par.
Wordle par.
PERT TVAD
THENANNY was no DODO,
THE STARPUPIL of THE cast,
IN THE SHOWER MADE A PROMO
of MOSTLY Franny SASS.
--- STEVE CROWE
Yesterday:
TULLE OPTIONAL
HENRY said, "THIS is ASETUP,
YEAHSURE, but I'LL say 'NO thanks',
AS if I'LL wear THIS get UP,
LIKEHELLIWILL wear SPANX!"
--- ZEKE "SARGE" MILNE, USAF
I wish everybody would stop gawking at gawp! It's a perfectly cromulent locution.
It should be GAWK.
Came here expecting an understandably scathing critique from Rex. Instead I get Eli offering me a drink. Just give me the rum and make mine a double, please!
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