Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: February 2025

Constructor: Kate Chin Park and Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: "AIN'T I A WOMAN?" (28A: Sojourner Truth speech in which she said "You need not be afraid to give us our rights") —

"Ain't I a Woman?" is a speech, generally considered to have been delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), born into slavery in the state of New York. Some time after gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was delivered at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, and did not originally have a title.
The speech was briefly reported in two contemporary newspapers, and a transcript of the speech was published in the Anti-Slavery Bugle on June 21, 1851. It received wider publicity in 1863 during the American Civil War when Frances Dana Barker Gage published a different version, one which became known as "Ain't I a Woman?", because of its oft-repeated question. This later, better known and more widely available version was the one commonly referenced in popular culture and, until historian Nell Irvin Painter's 1996 biography of Truth, by historians as well.
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree, in 1797 in Ulster County, New York. Truth ran from her enslaver in 1827 after he went back on his promise of her freedom. She became a preacher and an activist throughout the 1840s–1850s. She delivered her speech, "Ain't I a Woman?", at the Women's Rights Convention in 1851. Truth questions the treatment of white women compared to Black women. Seemingly pointing out a man in the room, Truth says, "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere." In the Gage version, she exclaims that no one ever does any of these things for her, repeating the question, "And ain't I a woman?" several times. She says that she has worked and birthed many children, making her as much a woman as anyone else. Despite giving birth to children just like white women did, black women were not treated with the same respect as white women. Black women were women, but because their race was seen as inferior, being a woman did not mean much if they were not white. There is no official published version of her speech; many rewritings of it were published anywhere from one month to 12 years after it was spoken. (wikipedia)

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[28D: "Till one has loved a~~n ANIMAL~~ PIZZA, a part of one's soul remains unawakened": Anatole France]

Lovely but far too easy for a Saturday. Or maybe I just lucked out. I put down ACID TRIP first thing (1A: Experience that'll change your mind) and then was semi-stunned to find that the crosses all checked out:

The clue just seemed to be shouting "mind-altering drug experience" so I put down the first thing that came to mind, AND VOILA! (funny, I was going to say the "AND" part of "AND VOILA!" was a bit tacked-on and contrived, but apparently it's not!) (33D: "Ta-da!"). On Saturday, you expect the trickiness, which is why the "change one's mind" part of that 1A clue seemed obviously drug-related to me. It's not going to be merely "change one's opinion" (probably). So how else are minds changed? Chemically! Anyway, ACID TRIP went straight in and the crosses all checked (and checked Easily), and so that NW corner was done in maybe 30 seconds to a minute. After I dropped down in the middle, I had another "I can't believe my initial guesses are correct!" moment when I went clear around those middle three black squares with a good guess followed by another good guess. Again, I was writing these things in dubiously, like "it can't be this easy." But it was:

LOUPES (45A: Tools for certain appraisers) to ANIMAL (28D: "Till one has loved an ___ a part of one's soul remains unawakened": Anatole France), with almost no assistance from crosses, genuinely startled me. After this, I kept waiting for the Saturday shoe to drop (and kick me in the ass, or worse), but it never did. It's a very smooth grid with many winning answers, but there's almost no real resistance anywhere. (In case the word is unfamiliar, the LOUPES in question are jewelers' LOUPES—the magnifying thingies they use to inspect stones)

OK, there is *some* resistance if you've never heard of "AIN'T I A WOMAN?" I knew far too many Women's Studies majors in college for that answer to be a problem for me, but I think it's probably one of the two most-likely-to-be-unknown answers in the grid today. The other such answer is HIRAGANA, which was the one answer in this grid I absolutely didn't know (12D: Main script of written Japanese). Just reading about the various components of Japanese writing just now made my head hurt a little. I'm familiar with KANJI, but get any more complicated than that and I'm lost. Kanji are the more ancient logographic characters, whereas HIRAGANA is a subsequently-derived syllabic script. Then there's katakana:

In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji and for grammatical inflections, the katakana syllabary usage is comparable to italics in English; specifically, it is used for transcription of foreign-language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively gairaigo); for emphasis; to represent onomatopoeia; for technical and scientific terms; and for names of plants, animals, minerals and often Japanese companies" (wikipedia)

So look for KATAKANA ... I dunno, someday (actually, it already appeared once, nearly a decade ago, Sat. Dec. 26, 2015—[Form of Japanese syllabic writing]). Anyway, if you got held up there, I understand. I too was at a loss. But everything around that answer was so easily clued that I didn't really get slowed down.

I had one other minor trouble spot—very minor, as it was caused entirely by a four-letter word that I had half wrong. At 30D: Center of revolution (AXIS), I had AXLE. Just two letters wrong, and yet those two letters were perfectly placed to block the two longer Across answers I needed to get from the center to the west, so (briefly), my access to the SW corner was cut off. Couldn't believe I was staring down yet another variation on "honeymoon" (36A: Brief getaway for newlyweds). Almost exactly a year ago, I had to contend with BABYMOON, a term I had never heard, and now here I was looking at some other damn made-up -MOON, which (because of AXLE), I had as ---LMOON. FULLMOON? MALLMOON? SMALMOON? Eventually, ODDS AND ENDS would not be denied, though honestly I have no idea what a "grab bag" means in this instance (39A: Grab bag contents). I was thinking of "go bag," and was like "uh, you need more than ODDS AND ENDS if you have to disappear in a hurry. Cash. Passport. Those are not ODDS AND ENDS." But "grab bag" is just a thing full of, like, party favors ... and it can be a metaphor for any miscellany:

1. a receptacle (such as a bag) containing small articles which are to be drawn (as at a party or fair) without being seen
2. a miscellaneous collection: POTPOURRI (merriam-webster.com)

But as I say, ODDS AND ENDS was eventually, obviously the answer, which changed AXLE to AXIS, which made MINIMOON highly inferrable. The SW corner went down from there. Ended up in the SE, where only CLASSMATE gave me any cause to ponder (53A: Figure in history or math?). In history class or math class. Got it. I wish this one had taken a little more work, if only so that I could've had a bit more time to appreciate the grid. It doesn't really have the stunning highs that I might like to see in a late-week grid, but it's got solid, high-quality longer answers throughout, and there is very, very little in the way of grid gunk. An EST here, an OTOE there ... just the bare minimum of crosswordese mortar holding things together today. No BIG NONOS. In short, I'M A FAN. Just wish it had had a little more fight in it.

Bullets:

34D: Share the bill (GO DUTCH) — I got this easily, but was ... mildly startled? ... as I thought this was kind of a slur (against the Dutch, for being cheap). "The Oxford English Dictionary connects "go Dutch" / "Dutch treat" to other phrases which have "an opprobrious or derisive application, largely due to the rivalry and enmity between the English and Dutch in the 17th century", the period of the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Another example is "Dutch courage". A term bearing some similarities is Dutch oven." (wikipedia). But dictionary dot com says: "Going Dutch appears to come from a 19th century Americanism, a Dutch treat (or Dutch lunch/supper), which also refers to each person paying their own way in a meal. The Dutch, here, apparently refers not to people from the Netherlands, but from Germany and Switzerland: the Pennsylvania Dutch, who supposedly had a custom of bringing their own food to gatherings, like a potluck."

31A: E to F, for example (SEMITONE) — I will confess that I "knew" this only in the sense that I had heard the term before, and once I had a few crosses, I could infer it. It's just the interval between two adjacent notes in a twelve-tone scale. Think piano keyboard. Since there is no (black) E sharp key, one note up from E is F.
50A: Pseudoscientific bodily emanations (AURAS) — sounds like something they'd try to sell you a spray or a roll-on for. "Stop pseudoscientific bodily emanations in their tracks with new AuraKwench!" I'm just glad the answer wasn't AURAE. Hurray for regular old English plurals!
58A: Five-limbed marine creatures (SEA STARS) — growing up, we just called these "starfish." Got this one easily from SEA-.
9D: Dubious, in modern lingo (SUS) — I am dubious about most things "in modern lingo," but I had to say I love "SUS." It's just so compact and evocative, with a deeper undercurrent of "that ain't right" than the full "suspicious" can convey. I remember my sister and I abbreviating "sketchy" to "sketch." Maybe lots of people did that. Anyway, same idea. I wouldn't use it, as I'm too old to be picking up new slang without sounding ... well, SUS ... but I do not mind seeing SUS in the grid at all.
21D: Play areas that, despite their name, are actually squares (DIAMONDS) — I love baseball and I love this clue, though *technically* a diamond can, in fact, be a square (see def. 1.3 here)