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Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- GREEN PEAS (18A: *Mendel studied them) (odd letters spell GENES)
- FRAZZLE (20A: *Disconcert mightily) (odd letters spell FAZE)
- ALL SORTS (31A: *Tons) (odd letters spell ALOT)
- FOOTNOTE (46A: *Book designer's concern) (odd letters spell FONT)
- ARCHERS (61A: *Ones with good aim) (odd letters spell ACES)
- SITUATION (63A: *Mess that might be sticky) (odd letters spell STAIN)
noun
Slang.
• • •
Also, the revealer was kind of superfluous from a solving standpoint because, I mean, how could I *not* CONSIDER THE ODDS? You highlighted every single one of them for me. The puzzle forces your attention to those squares rather than letting you find them yourself. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is the kind of puzzle that might actually benefit from one of those post-solve animation dealies the NYTXW has increasingly used as visual glitz in recent years. It would have been nice to have the "odd letters" aspect of this grid appear as a kind of revelation. I guess I did get a kind of "aha," but it was muted, and very early. After the first themer, filling the others in was kind of painting-by-numbers. I was curious to see what the pairs would be, but with the big puzzle twist in my rearview, there just wasn't much aha left. More, "oh, I see." "Did you see!?" Yes, I SAW (56D: "You don't have to tell me").
On the plus side, the grid on the whole seems pretty polished (except that SE corner—what a mess of Es Ts and Ss). Lots of snazzy longer Downs. INNOVATE doesn't do much for me, but the others are actively good, including LAERTES, and particularly RADON TESTS (33D: Parts of many home inspections) and CINEASTE—a word, and magazine, that I love (8D: Film buff). I love it from afar, in that I would never use it in a sentence myself, but I like the way it looks, and I like that it exists. I also like having a few honest-to-god old-fashioned dead-tree magazine subscriptions, and CINEASTE is probably the one I most look forward to. That and the other movie magazine I get, Sight + Sound. I enjoy my New Yorker, but as you probably know, they pile up faster than I can read them. And the Guardian Weekly, oof, good reporting and writing, but I can't say I look forward to it. Every issue has some atrocity front and center, right on the cover. I mostly just hand that magazine to my wife immediately, and then she'll direct my attention later to whatever movie / book / culture article she thinks might be interesting to me. Honestly, I mainly get the Guardian for the cryptic crossword in the back (highly recommended if you are an American training to be a better cryptic solver and want to be humiliated by your insufficient skills (and non-Britishness) on a regular basis)
Bullets:
Annie, on the other hand, has decided that a small plush fake tree is safer
Barney is making a return appearance. He was on the blog last year. He is now a very elegant 17 years old. After allowing you to take his photo, he is headed to the club to enjoy a cigar and a martini. Send the driver for him around 7pm, would you?
Maizie wants you to know that she is in no way a willing participant in this "Christmas spirit" stuff. She is simply warming her butt on the charging laptop. Any appearance of festiveness is completely coincidental.
And finally today we have Orzo and Moose, fighting over the NYT's special holiday Puzzle Mania section. Don't worry, guys, there are more than 50 puzzles, you can share! What? You don't want to solve the puzzles in Puzzle Mania, you just want to sit on it because it's rectangular and on a flat surface? Oh, well, then, fight to the death, I guess
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
Bullets:
- 1A: Flower in a children's rhyme (POSY) — first thought was IRIS, but that's only because my best friends have a child named IRIS. As soon as my brain went into "children's rhyme" mode, "pocket full of POSY" came to me straight away.
- 44A: Amazon Handmade competitor (ETSY) — wow, I didn't even know Amazon Handmade existed, so I'd say ETSY is (improbably) winning the branding wars. Amazon Handmade should try a shorter, more crossword friendly name. Worked with ECHO and (esp.) ALEXA. I mean, ask Apple about its choice to lean into crossword-friendly names. Or better yet, ask SIRI. All the free advertising anyone could dream of ... (IMAC, IPAD, IPOD, etc. etc. etc.)
- 40D: Lunchroom, casually (CAF) — now I know what this emoji 😒 is supposed to signify—it's my face when someone tries to convince me that people call the cafeteria the "CAF."
- 54D: Longtime Saints QB whose name has a windy homophone (BREES) — weird to add the homophone bit. Drew BREES is a future Hall-of-Famer. I can see adding the "windy homophone" helper on a M or T, but by W things should toughen up. I mean, you didn't use a "sounds like a Canadian gas brand" helper on Sylvan ESSO (12D: Sylvan ___ (electropop duo)), and that band is way Way more obscure than Drew BREES.
That's all for the puzzle today. Time to move on to our ongoing end-of-year feature, Holiday Pet Pics (submissions are now closed, try again next year!)
It's an all-cat extravaganza today. Instead of ending with a partridge in a pear tree, we'll start with kittens in Christmas trees ... again! (it's the most common genre of Holiday Pet Pic). This is Lilly, who has gone to all the trouble of getting into the tree but is now distracted by some piece of fluff on the ground that only a cat could possibly see or be interested in. Careful jumping down, Lilly!
.jpeg) |
| [Thanks, Michelle] |
And here's another tree explorer, Remy. "I iz ornament?" For now, Remy, yeah. (Look at his silly hind leg hanging down. Hang in there, buddy!]
.jpeg) |
| [Thanks, Olivia] |
Annie, on the other hand, has decided that a small plush fake tree is safer
.jpg) |
| [Thanks, Kitty] |
%20(Stacy).png) |
| [Thanks, Stacy] |
Maizie wants you to know that she is in no way a willing participant in this "Christmas spirit" stuff. She is simply warming her butt on the charging laptop. Any appearance of festiveness is completely coincidental.
.jpeg) |
| [Thanks, Linda] |
And finally today we have Orzo and Moose, fighting over the NYT's special holiday Puzzle Mania section. Don't worry, guys, there are more than 50 puzzles, you can share! What? You don't want to solve the puzzles in Puzzle Mania, you just want to sit on it because it's rectangular and on a flat surface? Oh, well, then, fight to the death, I guess
.jpg) |
| [Thanks, Rob] |
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
I think “Consider the odds” is a good revealer. It’s in the language, it’s in the right spot in the grid, and it does a good job of describing the architectural feat of the puzzle’s theme. I think what robs this of sparkle is the revealer’s CLUE. “Think before placing a bet” is the most anodyne thing you could possibly put to get “consider the odds”. So, puzzlemaker, if you are reading these comments and you submitted a more sparkly clue for this revealer, you were right and your editor was wrong! :)
ReplyDeletePosting anonymously in order to throw the editor under the bus. Interesting move. 🤔
DeleteMy five favorite original clues from last week
ReplyDelete(in order of appearance):
1. Fly ball? (5)
2. Word after one fell? (5)
3. Contribute to a company, say (3)
4. Garden-variety poker? (5)
5. A little bit of everything? (6)
SWARM
SWOOP
ACT
THORN
SESAME
You're back! Thanks
DeleteAlways love your top 5, Lewis!
DeleteDidn't fully understand the theme, and had no idea what a CINEASTE is, didn't cheat, but the music sounded, anyway. Sometimes we get lucky.
ReplyDeleteA posy is a small bunch of flowers.
ReplyDeleteYes it is: This is an incorrect clue!
DeleteMerriam-Webster.com says it can also mean "flower."
DeleteI like it.
ReplyDeleteI don't like a review that begins with pure speculation, without any first hand evidence, that tends to undermine the work of the constructors. The question about how the themers were "found" is a valid question, but it is one that could have been framed as a question deeper into the write-up rather than framed as an opening argument/accusation. Seems a bit disrespectful.
I’m super easy until I got way held up with CINEfilE instead of CINEASTE and I See instead of I SAW. Both answers that I’d “confirmed” multiple times and was absolutely certain of.
ReplyDelete@anon 6:55
DeleteIt would have been cinePHile, not "f" so it wouldn't have fit
I live in LA and there’s a major store here that spells in Cinefile. There are a few that spell it that way. Figured it must be this alternate spelling. https://www.cinefilevideo.com/
Delete
ReplyDeleteI agree with @Rex that it was easy for a Wednesday. One overwrite (T-topS before TANKS at 52D) and one WOE (12D ESSO as clued).
Over the course of my career, I worked in several places that had company cafeterias and in all of them we referred to the lunch room as the "CAF" (40D).
Ditto - everyone in my office calls if a CAF too
DeleteI had quite an adventure up in the NE, as I have never encountered the word CINEASTE before today, and kept trying to squeeze in some version of CINEPHILE, even though it has too many letters. I also had no clue on Sylvan ESSO (could have used the gas brand hint on that one) - so I turned that whole section into a sticky, gooey, messy SITUATION.
ReplyDeleteThe theme was probably “pretty good” at the end of the day, but it definitely flirted with the “too tedious for not enough payoff” boundary, but probably didn’t step over it.
I felt proud of myself for knowing LAERTES, but quickly got a reality check as I struggled with the 4 letter MIMI - I started out with crossing VIg, and was thinking maybe gIgI, but suspected that MLK was going to be, well, MLK or maybe RFK - gosh I just love PPP crosses. Anyway - I struggled my way through it. Just about right for a Wednesday, with enough of a challenge and I think the shaded squares helped to keep the theme from being too cryptic.
“ …but it also feels like the themers were "found" by some bit of simple code that someone wrote…”
ReplyDeleteyep, they admit as much in the constructors’ notes.
Anonymous 7:30 AM
DeleteInteresting info about the use of a program for the theme.
I noticed that one of the first comments criticized Rex for immediately suggesting that very thing. What Rex was saying : It is highly unlikely that this type of gimmick would be created without a computer. And he is right
Highly entertained by the idea that the Guardian cryptic might "humiliate" an American for their "non-Britishness" - especially given that I am regularly stumped as a Brit by any clue in the NYT crossword about American Football, Baseball, Basketball or Ice Hockey. That and remembering to remove certain vowels which your fellow countrymen seems to view as extraneous!
ReplyDeleteGood one! But you forgot to add we annoyingly switch our e’s and r’s in things like liter!
DeleteThe order of the letters is held over from the words' roots in romance languages, eg the late Latin litra. It is US modernizers who switch the letters around to get "liter".
DeleteJacke
DeleteAgree.
These changes are some 200 years old. I read as a child that Webster and his dictionaries were a major part of the change.
I would say that the re spelling mostly came from borrowing French words keeping the spelling but changing the pronunciation. Eg centre.
Great theme. I feel like I've seen the green peas/genes thing before, somehow. Whatever the case, it's a marvellous coincidence.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the blog, they did use Python code to find appropriate answers. Your suspicion is correct. I also thought a couple were a little thin. On the blog they also showed some answers they didn't use, and which I think might have improved the puzzle had they found ways to use them: [Get rid of] would have solved to "blot out," [Some fermenters] to "brewers" and [One might help a motorist get on the highway] to "road map."
Quibbles aside, I had a good time solving this one, and liked the revealer.
Wanted POSY right away, but did not know YUTZ,. I thought of PUTZ, and that led to FRAZZLE, and other crosses confirmed the UTZ part and YUTZ it had to be. Talk about backing into an answer.
ReplyDeleteNo other real problems. Took many nanoseconds to come up with the WORSE ISAW cross as my frequent eye exams are for checking on the state of my macular degeneration, which is in check, hooray.
When we sold our house the buyers wanted a RADONTEST and we discovered said RADON had been in both our air and water. (Expensive) remediation was required but the buyers split the cost. Nice people. If we suffered any ill effects from all that exposure to RADON I don't know what they are.
Note to OFL--in my last high school, everyone called the cafeteria the CAF. Everyone.
Impressive construction today. I saw the GENES in the GREENPEAS and had a good time discovering the other themers. Nice work JM and WN. Just Maybe what We Needed on a gloomy Wednesday morning, and thanks for all the fun.
Language quirks like what Jeffrey and Will found set me agog as a kid, and still do today. I jawdrop and “Huh!” at finds like this. Then, when they are all tied together with a revealer that perfectly lands, and set in a grid with spark like CINEASTE and FRAZZLE, and clean as a whistle, I slowly nod side to side with respect and gratitude.
ReplyDeleteI wish EASES had been EESES, which would have been a stellar revealer for the mini-theme of double-E’s, of which there are eight. Oh, and I did love [Morel support] for stem. Double bravo on that.
Thank you, Jeffrey and Will. Your puzzle started my day with a big “Ain’t life grand?”, and that is a gift!
I was sure the "word of the day" was going to be CINEASTE, but YUTZ also added to my vocabulary! And RP loved on CINEASTE in his discussion, so all's well.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyable nifty puzzle . Stuck on PUTZ for too long, so slow start. Mostly easy. More like this one!
I liked this one! very cute. I especially liked the GREENPEAS/GENES combo, since I loved Genetics in college. Anyhoo, the pet pics are adorable, could not even find the first two kitties. LOL, had to enlarge the photos. I would love a tutorial on how to start solving cryptic puzzles if you feel like doing that sometime!!!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite kind of theme: completely ignorable. Agree with Rex that this could have benefited from a little post-solve animation, which would have allowed the shaded squares to be skipped. The shading was a little too much hand-holding.
ReplyDeleteFor a moment had pUTZ instead of YUTZ, which made 1A read “PO_p.” I thought, “That’s not a flower!”
Had to run the alphabet to get the far SW square. I couldn’t see I SAW, and not just because my vision is getting WORSE.
I thought the puzzle was fun. I too am amazed that the constructors could come up with words within the words that match the clues! If I had one little complaint it’s that a posy in my mind is a tiny bouquet of flowers, not a type of flower. I put “rosy” there instead at first.
ReplyDeleteIt's a neat trick, but I'm not sure that it makes for a great crossword. Maybe if it didn't have the odd squared highlighted, I would have enjoyed it more. I hate it when the NYTXW spoon-feeds us, rather than letting us figure things out ourselves.
ReplyDeleterOSe/POSY kealoa. I also thought Pike an Pine might be mTS at first, rather than STS.
the constructors did use code (python) to find candidates - they say as much in the notes, adding that it the task became “remarkably easy.”
ReplyDeletehere are some others that they left out:
“[Get rid of] would have solved to “blot out,” [Some fermenters] to “brewers” and [One might help a motorist get on the highway] to “road map.”
A few words about stuckness in solving a crossword puzzle. I love it for two reasons. First, when the answer finally comes I feel happy and proud and good. And second, the kind of brainwork involved in getting from stuck to unstuck – that makes my brain come alive in a most wonderful way.
ReplyDeleteI came across this poem by Wendell Berry, not written about crosswording per se, but it so beautifully applies to that second point. I’m hoping some readers here will relate to it as I did, grateful for its beauty and wisdom:
THE REAL WORK
It may be that when we no long know what to do
we have come to our real work
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey
The mind that is not baffled is not employed
The impeded stream is the one that sings
Thanx for that. Stagnation is a bad nation to be in.
DeleteThank you
DeleteI thought POSY was a small floral display, not a flower itself.
ReplyDeleteThat’s what I thought too- that a posy was a small bouquet or something
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteDifferent type puz. Liked the overall idea, nicely executed. Fill pretty good, with all the Themers in every section. Even with the stacked letters of GE in top two Themers, and AN in bottom two.
Gonna show some more ignorance, but apparently Mandel studied the GENES of GREEN PEAS? Aha, just Googled, he discovered different traits in pairs that became known as genes. The stuff you learn from crosswords.
Will Nediger is a fairly prolific constructor. He is @Nancys oft collaborator.
Surprised UFO and ALIEN didn't get a cross reference.
Well, Happy Wednesday!
Five F's (ROGER that!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Easy-medium with a solid theme. Surprisingly fine fill for a grid with SIX theme answers + a grid-spanning revealer.
ReplyDeleteThe trickiest part was the NW corner, where PUFFY needed crossings and POSY/YUTZ were unknown. Plus, as a non-American, I was baffled by the UHAUL clue. I've seen that answer so many times in grids but never bothered to actually look at the actual trucks.
18A works really well. Mendel however had no idea about the existence of GENES and DNA.
Knowing zip about sports, and with OHARE in there, I was trying to make _REES sound like "Chicago" ... but finally saw that it had to be TBA, oof. And done.
ReplyDeleteThis is like the KNICKKNACKKNOCK puzzle, where once you get the GREENPEAS/GENES it's all over except writing in the answers.
Expecting more from a Wednesday!
Once I had FRAZZLE/FAZE and GREEN PEAS/GENES, I wondered if I'd be able to get the other theme answers without crosses, but I couldn't -- not even close. This is what I often try to do when a theme is doing something quite intricate and clever, but that fails to involve me in any way. I try to do myself what I wish the constructor(s) had done: make the puzzle impossible to solve without figuring out the trick -- whatever the trick is.
ReplyDeleteHere, we're told exactly that: we'll need to understand the trick to "fully appreciate each starred clue." Appreciate it, not solve it.
Still, I'm not completely unhappy that I didn't have to work all that hard this morning. A printout of Lewis's crunchy LAT puzzle arrived by snail mail late yesterday and I haven't fully recovered from wrestling with it. So my little gray cells were perhaps too tired for another big challenge today. This puzzle was cleverly conceived and executed, but pretty easy when all is said and done.
Anyone have tASED before LASED? that had me in a FRAZZLEd SITUATION for a moment. I liked this puzzle, regardless how the themers were derived; the end justifies the means . Oh, also had MOpiSh before MOROSE though I knew that was wonky. Thanks Jeffrey and Will.
ReplyDeleteI totally didn't get the revealing squares part of the theme until I finished the puzzle and read Rex's comments. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteConsidere las probabilidades.
ReplyDelete🦖 gave this a good deal more credit than this yawner deserves. Victim of the IAM/CINEASTE cross. A "well, how 'bout them apples" kinda theme. Pretty dull and lifeless fill.
OLD = [Not funny anymore]? What?! Is that why the girl at the front desk of the gym won't make eye contact anymore?
Propers: 10 {grr}
Places: 3
Products: 6
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 29 of 78 (37%)
Funnyisms: 0 😫
Tee-Hee: PUFFY
Uniclues:
1 Where to get a truck to move your gooey axes in the middle of the ocean.
2 Bouncer's job description.
1 ORC ISLES U-HAUL
2 TOSS ALL SORTS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: LinkedIn. INTERNS GENRE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Very enjoyable and clever puzzle for a Wednesday. I KNEW that the particular nursery rhyme had dark origins but still struggled with the POSY/rOSY option. Yikes, the “rosy” refers to the red ring around the buboes, the pos(ies) were thrown on the newly dead to stem the odor before…the body was cremated…ashes. Really glad I didn’t actually know any of this when I was in kindergarten…
ReplyDeleteGood grief, Beezer! It's not just in kindergarten that I didn't know that. I didn't know it until about 30 seconds ago. I didn't have the faintest inkling. Which is such a good thing!
DeleteI didn't like "dark" when I was a child. Two scenes in the Wizard of Oz gave me nightmares. The witch's hand clutching the apple in Snow White gave me nightmares. Whatever happened to the feet or the shoes ( did they melt away or something?) in that awful The Red Shoes, I've blocked out. And I always preferred Anderson's fairy tales to the very grim Grimm's.
But THIS!!!!! Oh, Beezer, say it isn't so! All that happy, innocent falling down in playground, schoolyard and park when I was a child. Who knew?
@Nancy, you may not see this…yeah, it’s true! I think I MAY have learned the whole “ring around the rosy” thing from a past NYT puzzle well into adulthood, but not sure just HOW I found out. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it became a “nursery rhyme.” Greetings from Florida! Not big on the politics but love the warm weather!
DeleteWhy is a Statin a mess that might be sticky? Isn't that just a medicine?
ReplyDeleteStain, not statin
DeleteI do well on quizzes, but I'm RADONTESTS.
ReplyDeleteTranslating from the Latin: I came, You don't have to tell me, I conquered.
My dentist, Theo, is not a pushy guy. Doesn't market himself with hype. He just uses a suggestive tag line: CONSIDERTHEODDS.
@Lewis. Nice to have you back. I'm not sure what the exact criterion/criteria is/are for a PuzzPair, but it seems like BRR and ICEE standing adjacent to each other might qualify.
OHARE you leaving? Yes, I've got a flight to catch out of OHARE.
If someone HASP on their mind, you can invariably later find them PEEN.
Great concept. Too easy for a Wednesday, but that doesn't detract from the nice theme and solid fill. Thanks, Jeffrey Martinovic and Will Nediger.
@egs -- No might about it; that's a prime PuzzPair© -- great catch! And thank you for the welcome back...
ReplyDeleteMedium. I actually thought about figuring out the theme while I was solving but realized it would involve a significant pause in what ever momentum I had going. So “solve it like it’s a themeless” prevailed.
ReplyDeleteI did not know ESSO (not the Canadian gas?) and CINEASTE.
Clever idea, pretty smooth grid, liked it.
Nice, different puztheme. Liked. Coulda well done without any hi-lited squares, tho. Let the revealer do the heavy hintin.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject pick: UPS. It delivers an odd US. Now U just need to come up with a clue that fits both UPS and US...
[Shoot, I'm sure it can be done -- if they did it for ARCHERS/ACERS.]
some fave stuff: INNOVATE. SANANTONIO. UHAUL. STEM clue.
some know-nos: CINEASTE. YUTZ. MIMI.
Thanx for the fun, and for gangin up on u(p)s, Mr. Martinovic & Nediger dudes. Nice AI-discovered finds.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
and further more ...
**gruntz**
M&A
real ugly to look at while solving online
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty neat trick, finding words where the odd-numbered letters fit the same clue as the longer word. And the revealer is great! But you don't have to do anything, other than solve the puzzle in the usual fashion. Then you get to the revealer--and to the shaded squares, provided to help you out if you don't know which numbers are odd--and notice, what is going on. Maybe if I'd stopped to note what was in the shaded squares I could have tried to guess the revealer--but I didn't. So the trick was nifty, but the experience kind of blah.
ReplyDeleteI did like seeing PEET and PEEN near each other-- I peered at them in admiration. And I liked having TRAIT a little below GENES/GREEN PEAS, since what Mendel was actually studying was the distribution of TRAITs among peas. Also the double stack of orange things in the NE corner.
I resisted POSY, since that means a bouquet or nosegay, not a particular flower--but a single flower stuck in one's lapel counts, so it will do. And I did enjoy the clue for WORSE--although in my experience the response is often, "hmmm....WORSE, I guess."
I really wanted "thunderbolt" for the Olympian's weapon, but a few nanos of thought straightened that out.
And I learned that Amazon Handmade exists.
Yeah, it's Wednesday so time to take off the early week training wheels. All those gray squares seemed a little, okay A LOT too fussy.
ReplyDeleteThe theme set struck me as a tad loose. As has been noted above, GENES were not yet discovered when Mendel was studying GREEN PEAS.
A couple of the themers were more or less synonymous with their imbedded ODDS---FRAZZLE/FAZE and ALL SORTS/A LOT---but the last three, not so much.
FOOT NOTE and FONT are related to books but not necessarily to each other. ARCHERS may or may not be ACES. The biggest stretch for me was the SITUATION STAIN. That would require some semantic gymnastics to stick the landing if you ask me.
I would clue PUFFY as "Like lips that have been injected with filler".
Nice one! I got the idea after FRAZZLE and GREEN PEAS, then set about trying to guess the rest. I wrote in A-L-O-T but was stymied by its partner - it was fun to see ALL SORTS materialize.. My small moment of triumph was writing in ARCHERS with no crosses; that was followed by complete bafflement at the last one. I thought the reveal was right on the money. I see others' point that with that hint, there might not have been a need for the shaded squares, thus making for a more rewarding solve. Hmmmm.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous Brit 7:34 - I think you lot have enough cricket terms to cover all of U.S. football, basketball, baseball, and ice hockey combined!
Does it count that I solved as a themeless? (very quickly, 2 days in a row). I guess I missed out, not grasping the theme. I also had TASED before LASED, I liked WORSE a lot, & we always called the cafeteria the CAF - maybe it's "a big company thing?"
ReplyDeleteThanks to you both :)
This was a great puzzle, except the theme (and its revealer) didn't make sense to me. The combo of GREENPEAS and GENES, for example, starts with 18-Across. How is 18 an odd number? And the combo SITUATION and STAIN is 63 across, which is an odd number. The real theme was how the two words, in each themed answer, were spaced out every other letter. That's how 40 Across (the revealer) should've been phrased. I finished the puzzle in record time, without ever looking at the revealer. The revealer, in fact, was the only puzzling thing about the entire exercise!
ReplyDeleteThe odd numbered letters of frazzle are faze
Delete"Consider the odds" as in see how the 1st, 3d, 5th, 7th (etc.) letters spell out another answer.
DeleteThanks for the many well wishes yesterday.
ReplyDeleteNancy’s reminded me of the value of physical therapy vs knee surgery - read the article (and a variety of studies linked to it) - and set up my first session for tomorrow!
Thanks again, one and all…
I'm so glad you're doing that, Andrew, and I hope you are lucky enough to find someone as knowledgeable and skillful as my own PT, Scott,-- who I truly believe walks on water. And most other people I know also swear by their own assortment of PTs. When these therapists are good, they're usually pretty great and they garner a great deal of trust, devotion, and loyalty. Wishing you the best of luck with your upcoming treatment.
DeleteAlways a reminder that different people have different sets of ‘common knowledge’ I got Slyvan ESSO easily, but I had to cheat and look up a list of all New Orleans QBs to get BREES. Never heard of him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, did anyone else have trouble even seeing the shading for the ‘odds’? Might be my monitor brightness, but my eyes hurt trying to pick them out.
And Egs thaks for the chuckles as usual.
ReplyDeleteAll of you brilliant puzzlers who hate on the shaded square. Do they really sppoil your fun so much that you have to complain about them? I didn't think aabout them until I got the realer and then they helped me see the second answer mixed in the longer answer. And the first one "green peas" and "genes" was so perfect.
I thought "genes" first, but of course it was much too short. Then green peas worked. Did nt notice the gene inside the peas until I got to the revealer (which I thought had the right clue)
So had a bit of an aha. and enjoyed finding the rest of the double answers.
The GREENPEAS/GENE theme solution is a sloppy rewrite of history. As many puzzlers will recall from fifth-grade science class, Mendel studied SWEET PEAS (a flower in the pea family), not GREEN PEAS (a vegetable). Yes, there is a difference and it matters.
ReplyDeleteThis comment got me curious. I wondered if this was a case of having top much knowledge ruining the clue/answer. But Wikipedia says this in it's first paragraph: "Taking seed color as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred, their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1 green to 3 yellow." Clue seemed good so far... So I asked Google what kind of pea plant he used and was told Pisum sativum. Another search and I learned this plant goes by several names, including GREEN PEA and sugar snap pea. Seems like the clue/answer is fair and correct to me.
Delete@Dorkito 2pm Pretty sure Pete was making a silly. Surely he isn't of the opinion that today's youth pick up 90% of their science history from the NYTXW. Haha, good one Pete!
DeleteThis was a great Weds. Sure, it was easy, but the theme was so good. Good for them to have the idea and write the necessary code. Makes me think learning Python would be fun. All that and no drek in the fill (we all said "CAF" in my high school). Looking forward to my favorite day tomorrow!
ReplyDelete@Rex as someone who has work in high schools for many years, I can tell you that students and staff most certainly call the cafeteria "the caf"
ReplyDeleteEasy medium for me SE to
ReplyDeleteNW diagonally
Rex, new to your website but have very much enjoyed your write ups over the last few weeks. However, you have yet to once rate a puzzle’s relative difficulty above medium. This leads me to believe your ‘relative’ difficulty scale is off.
ReplyDeleteBeing a regular complainer about too many names, I have to admit it's been better the last few days. I briefly swore at MLK crossing MIMI when I was almost finished but that wasn't that bad.
ReplyDeleteNo one has mentioned LASED right beside LAZES!
I dunno why, but I had DROOPY before MOROSE for "Eeyore-like".
Eeyore WAS droopy! Honestly, I thought MOROSE was a bit much. I accept the answer and I suppose MOROSE could be “a bit of a downer.” I just know I felt sorry for Eeyore when I was kid!
DeleteMany who posted here say they thought cinephile was the answer to the film buff clue. As I did. I knew it couldn't be cinephile since it was one letter too long. But a cineaste is a film artist (director). A cinephile is a film buff. Both are French terms. In his essay for the film journal Cahiers du cinema, "A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema," François Truffaut wrote: "let us recognize in this cineaste the virtue of always remaining, in his films, honest with himself." And elsewhere in the same essay, "If the French cinema exists by means of about a hundred films a year, it is well understood that only ten or twelve merit the attention of critics and cinephiles, the attention, therefore, of 'Cahiers.'" One can be both a cineaste and a cinephile, as Truffaut was, but they are different.
ReplyDeleteAs a lifelong Nutmegger (i.e. person from Connecticut), I can confirm we always called the cafeteria the "caf" in school.
ReplyDeleteposy (noun)
ReplyDelete1 a small bunch of cut flowers
2 a flower
Yes and thank you from Fla (temporarily).
DeleteA bit earlier than usual in the day for me…clever theme and respect for construction but this just didn’t do it for me from an entertainment/fun perspective. Got the revealer and theme very early on (CONSIDERTHEODDS fell with only the “N” from SANANTONIO and the “E” from PEET) so it didn’t put up quite enough fight for a Wednesday. However- I had no clue re: CINEASTE but figured it had to be right as it was the only way ALLSORTS fit. So for the third day in a row, learned something new, always welcome.
ReplyDelete@Rex- as an undergraduate in (what was then) SUNY Binghamton, we called the place in the Union the “caf” - is that no longer a thing up there?? In grad school at CUNY further downstate, we also called the dining hall the “caf”… Well, back then I was also wearing Reeboks tucked into my Levi’s and ALL SORTS of colors of Lacoste shirts, so not everything can stay in style… wore way too many TANKS as well which I had to TOSS and spent too much time watching CABLE, what with the ONSET of MTV….