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Classic pickup lines, familiarly / FRI 3-14-25 / Truffula forest logger in "The Lorax" / Where hips do lie / Knight shtick? / Hurdles before some touchdowns / Bench press? / Snack made with celery sticks, peanut butter and raisins / Completing a video game as fast as possible, say / Subjected to a waiting game, militarily / Beehive state flower / French wine designation
Friday, March 14, 2025
Constructor: Brandon Koppy
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: Rose hips (25A: Where hips do lie = ROSE BED) —
The rose hip or rosehip, also called rose haw and rose hep, is the accessory fruit of the various species of rose plant. It is typically red to orange, but ranges from dark purple to black in some species. Rose hips begin to form after pollination of flowers in spring or early summer, and ripen in late summer through autumn. [...] Rose hips are used in bread and pies, jam, jelly, marmalade, syrup, soup, tea, wine, and other beverages. [...] Wild rose hip fruits are particularly rich in vitamin C, containing 426 mg per 100 g or 0.4% by weight (w/w). RP-HPLC assays of fresh rose hips and several commercially available products revealed a wide range of L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) content, ranging from 0.03 to 1.3%. (wikipedia)
• • •
Do people born after 1995 know SUGAR RAY? Shakira? John Fogerty? I don't know what people know. Half of what I know, I crossword-know, you know? Anyway, I'm more a DINAH Washington guy than a SUGAR RAY guy.
And speaking of (faux) chivalry, that clue on HONOR is godawful (13A: Knight shtick?). First of all, you're punning on ... nightstick? The thing cops beat people with, do I have that right? And HONOR is ... shtick? Really? So the clue is evoking police brutality while also being sneeringly cynical. Wow, OK. Bizarre, tin-eared, bad. I would've loved "WHO'S A GOOD BOY!?" but I hated the clue (21A: Question to one's best friend, maybe). I get that dogs are "man's best friend," in a familiar saying, but much as I love dogs (and I love them more than you, trust me), my best friend is actually human. Also, if you have more than one dog (as I did, once—RIP Dutchess and Gabby), then which one is "best"? The clue makes no sense in that situation. I wish the clue here had just leaned into dogness instead of trying to hide it, if only because that answer runs through the Very Worst part of the grid. SEGO? Again? And SIEGED!?!? REOS!?!? As clued, REOS is terrible (16D: Classic pickup lines, familiarly). REO is a "line" (of motor vehicle), but REOS are not "lines," just as FORD is a line of car but FORDS are not "lines" (they're part of the same, single line: FORD). Again, I ask, why would you take your worst fill and give it a (botched) tricky clue? Why call attention to your own garbage like that? In case the clue makes no sense to you: the REO Speedwagon was a truck of yore (also a band of yore).
 |
| [Dutchy, Gabby, the goodest dogs] |
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
- 16A: Hurdles before some touchdowns (REENTRIES) — "Hurdles" seems an odd word choice here. I guess reentry is a ... dangerous? ... transition period for the spacecraft, but "hurdle?" Is this clue trying to evoke American football somehow? It's not doing a very good job of it.
- 18A: Subjected to a waiting game, militarily (SIEGED) — "Waiting game?" Starving people to death is a "waiting game"? This wins the Euphemism Olympics. (Also, again, SIEGED is just a terrible word, no matter how you clue it)
- 44A: Bench press? ("PUT ME IN, COACH!") — tortured use of "press." The idea is that the player sitting on the bench "presses" (i.e. "urges" "exhorts") their coach to put them in. I mentioned John Fogerty above. Twice. This is why.
[Opening Day in 4 days!! (for Dodgers/Cubs, who are playing in Japan)]
[Opening Day in 13 days! (for everyone else)]
- 52A: ___ Locks, connection between Lake Superior and Lake Huron (SOO) — might make a crossword journey here next summer, when my wife and best friends and I complete our 5-summer 5-lake Great Lakes vacation odyssey. This summer is Lake Ontario, and then we'll finish things up on Huron in 2026. Then we're all getting Great Lakes tattoos. Hell yes, I'm serious.
- 40D: Truffula forest logger in "The Lorax" (ONCELER) — this book was not in my Seuss rotation as a child. I just happen to know the name of this "logger," somehow, no idea how.
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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102 comments:
Easy-Medium Friday.
Overwrites:
add up to before SMASH UP for "Total" at 6A
WHO'S A GOOD dOg before BOY at 21A
YES M'Lord before M'LADY at 34D
WOEs:
SPEED RUN at 6D, but easily inferred
The rock band SUGAR RAY at 31A (well before that generation)
Saturday-level difficulty for me, mostly owing to the too-cute clueing Rex points out. No whoosh today; I had to jump all over the grid to get through this one.
I was raising kids in the 1990s and completely missed SUGAR RAY. The boy was in high school when Smashmouth had their 15 minutes of fame, so I would have at least recognized that name.
The clue for SPEEDRUN is just straight up wrong. If you're going to use [Completing a video game...], then it is SPEEDRUNning and not SPEEDRUN. This is such a basic mistake that NYT/Shortz really should have caught - please just get someone who knows these things to look through the newer vocabulary clues.
One of my favorite bits from the show Silicon Valley is when Richard gets a girlfriend (presumably for the first time, at least in a *long* time), he keeps referring to her as "M'LADY." A classic send-up of that particular sort of guy who has no idea how to talk to the opposite sex.
Is ATT INT a KEALOA?
So many problems for me today. Awful cluing, awful puzzle, I cheated multiple times. The Lorax was (I think) one of Seuss’s later books and not really well- known to me. SEIGED is terrible, it should be beSIEGED. PUT PMEINCOACH made no sense until I read Rex’s write-up - the comma makes all the difference but I didn’t get it. I always thought SUGARRAY was a person, not a whole band, but I guess I’m thinking of the boxer?
Certainly enjoyed it more than @REX. Loved "IGETTHATALOT" and enjoyed sussing out that the best friend was my dog--that was cute. Those little 3 and 4 letter pieces of detritus required to support the nice long entries don't bug me as much as OFL, but of course, I'm not a puzzle expert, just a guy enjoying some decaf Earl Grey from Harney and Sons (first time trying this one.... not bad!) and congratulating myself on sleeping through the lunar eclipse. : )
This was one of those puzzles where the cluing was exemplary, but the answers were pretty meh.
Hard for me.
WoEs: HEGIRAS, REOS(?????), ONCELER.
Known from crosswords, but never seen outside of crosswords: SOO, ANTS ON A LOG, CRU.
My two longest pauses were considering that 16D/18A cross, and I still got it wrong. What the forking farm is REOS????
[Update after reading Rex: Did REO make a pickup truck? I'm pretty sure not, but even if so that is ridiculously obscure and THE WORST CLUE EVER.]
I never knew that HEGIRAS was the plural of Hijra, mostly because I didn’t know that Hijra is a word and that it even needs a plural. I agree with Rex that the best friend clue for the dog was well-intentioned, but tried too hard.
I did think that the clue for TOUCHDOWNS landed - just off the beaten trail enough without stretching credulity, so you win some and you lose some.
I remember thinking “I hope REOS has something to do with trucks” as that answer materialized. The song “Answer the Phone” by SUGAR RAY has not aged well, but it was pretty much an anthem when the band had its brief spell of fame.
Personally, I would prefer to do without SPIT, epizoa and LICE - similar to the way Rex gets icky about Knight schtick. However, by the time we get finished eliminating everything that could possibly make anyone feel uncomfortable, at best we would have left a puzzle suitable for the Weekly Reader.
Oh, the longs, the lovely longs:
BRUSH ASIDE
SCORCHER
I GET THAT A LOT
ANTS ON A LOG
MIND BOGGLING
PUT ME IN COACH
WHO’S A GOOD BOY
That last one won me over, made it so I would overlook any nits, as it brought my sweet dog Teddy, who floods my heart with smiles, to mind. And for that, Brandon, you are a very good boy.
Those last three longs on my list are all NYT puzzle debuts, by the way. Beauty and freshness in long answers, just the gallery I want to uncover on Friday.
And the box brought welcome bite, for me at least, after a string of relatively sweat-free Fridays. No-knows and wicked cluing generated a steep hill feeling, which my brain loved attacking, and every time it cracked a nettlesome riddle, it seemed, I was rewarded with a mini-splat-fill thrill, going from fraught to frolic.
That wicked cluing included [Question to one’s best friend, maybe], and even the simple-yet-marvelously-thorny [Stop by] for END AT.
Stellar, Brandon, one splendid outing. Treasure in the box today. Thank you so much for this!
Only vaguely remember Sugar Ray, so I was thinking it might be Sigur Ros, who I also only vaguely remember.
Was thrilled to know ONCELER with no crosses but the rest… yeesh. Esp that REOS/SIEGED neighborhood.
I did like SKIPCLASS on top of LIMESODA.
TRAMP and ANTSONALOG set the resistance bar very low and it stayed that way throughout. "The Lorax" was my favorite books to read to our youngest back in the aughts.
Hard, with a few questionable entries. I had to cheat to get THECW because I had no idea about the program in question. That helped me get WHOSAGOODBOY, but I have no clue as to why someone would ask that question of a best friend. IGETTHATALOT was a highlight of the puzzle, and I liked PUTMEINCOACH and MINDBOGGLING as well.
A couple of bright spots (PUTMEINCOACH, IGETTHATALOT) amid a lot of truly awful cluing and cringy fill. Overall kinda hated it.
Good job at including Jason and the Scorchers. Good stuff.
Hey All !
Toughie here. Took some time to tackle all the areas. Got NW first, then a chunk of the center, SW, NE, SE. Ended at END AT (well, LAIRS actually, but that doesn't have the same charm).
HEGIRAS quite an unusual word. It was (still is ... ) hiding in some dark corner of the brain. A @Gary Uniclue - Escapes the Shore? HEGIRAS DINAH
Good, tough FriPuz.
Happy Friday!
No F's (MIND BOGGLING) 😁
RooMonster
DarrinV
I think the lines on the REO Speedwagon pickup are the flair of the fenders, etc. Classic design.
Absolutely not. There has to be correspondence between clue and answer. You’re talking about a *feature* of the REOS. Clue is saying the lines *are* the REOS.
SUGAR RAY a Rock band? maybe at some point but not those songs that became popular. That threw me, since I am a rock aficionado and could not remember any rock songs with those names. Hard agree with Rex on pretty much everything today!
Now, while I promise not to go all Galahaddy and Lancelotty on you, I do think that describing HONOR as "knight shtick is sort of a sad commentary on just how far our current generation has fallen into irony and cynicism. (Unless, of course, we're talking about "Spamalot!")
I made the puzzle messy by MINDlessly writing in MINDBendING in dark ink, belatedly realizing it wasn't long enough, and then having to write MINDBOGGLING over it.
But that was corrected quickly. My big hang-up was wanting ROSEBuD for the "hips" clue and not being able to make it work. It took me forever to change to ROSEBED.
Great baffling clue for WHO'S A GOOD BOY. I'm not sure that the "Bench press?" clue for PUT ME IN COACH is really fair. But CORAL is one of my favorite colors -- both for tees and for lipstick -- and that C helped me get PUT ME IN COACH.
Too many names as per usual -- and I thought I'd have to look one or two of them up. But I didn't have to -- and that's a good thing.
Question: Is 34D parsed "YES'M, LADY" or "YES, M'LADY"? Just asking for a friend.
So glad that Rex the Crankapotamus is fully back in his chair. The offense he takes at so many entries and/or clues is entertainment that's hard to match!
As for me, this was fine, but nothing super-special. IGETTHATALOT, WHOSAGOODBOY, PUTMEINCOACH -- great entries. SPITTAKE, SKIPCLASS, SCORCHER, YESMLADY -- good enough. LIMESODA, AMENITY, MINDBOGGLING, BRUSHASIDE -- meh. STRAYER, SPEEDRUN, REENTRIES -- no, thanks.
My favorite is the ONCELER, the rapacious clear-cutter of all the world's truffula trees in (and narrator of) Seuss's environmentalist story. I read "The Lorax" over and over as a child, and can still recite many passages by heart. About 15 years ago, my wife came home with a garment that was part blouse, part poncho, part scarf depending on how you donned it -- I immediately dubbed it the "thneed", much to her confusion. You probably had to be there.
I'm of two minds on SUGARRAY. My kids were under 10 during their heyday, and "Every Morning" was quite hummable for them, so that association is a fond one. On the other hand, their music has not aged well in my opinion, and I'll listen to just about anything else if I want some '90s nostalgia. Ultimately though, they're harmless, and good for them for having a nice run.
Who pissed in Rex’s cornflakes this morning? WHO’S A GOOD BOY, PUT ME IN COACH (is this why he kept mentioning John Fogarty in re 90s music?), MIND-BOGGLING, EAT ME, ONCELER, SPIT TAKE, I GET THAT A LOT. There’s a ton of marquee stuff today, and the short fill is the short fill. Not a perfect puzzle, but my god, I get enough relentless negativity watching the country get destroyed by fascist idiots. Save your venom for something that deserves it.
I liked this one, due to the long answers. See @Lewis for the list. Some painful cluing and gunky fill but worth it, at least to me. SUGARRAY is either Leonard or Robinson for me, and THECW is a total no-know, but otherwise things were at least vaguely familiar. Great to see the ONCELER again, a real one-and-done type, as far as the environment was concerned.
Nice work, BK. Best Kind of Friday, IMHO, with just the right amount of crunch. Thanks for all the fun.
@Nancy from yesterday-I appreciate your taking the time to explain your love for Seinfeld. I really haven't watched a sitcom since MASH, but you have inspired me to check out an episode or two, probably on Youtube. The urban vibe is not really my thing, as I have spent almost all of my life in places where I could walk out the door and into the woods in five minutes. (Also share your utter disdain for laugh tracks. Unwatchable.)
@jae, aslo from yesterday. I have seen some of the later Newhart shows where he ran a B&B in VT which hit home, as my wife and I ran a B&B for thirty years here in NH. Interestingly enough, the show was pretty obviously set in Norwich VT, home of the Norwich Inn, where my Monday night hootenanny group meets, in the Newhart Room.
I disagree. The most interesting clues are not A = B, but ones that make you think, "Ah, that's what they meant." REO Speedwagons were designed with memorable body lines, as opposed to, say, a new utilitarian looking Ford F-150.
I have never encountered "siege" as a verb. To perform a siege is to "besiege".
Also, one who strays is a stray, never a "strayer".
Medium for me, and full of so many rewarding treats: ANTS ON A LOG x EAT ME, SCORCHER, SKIP CLASS, BRUSH ASIDE, PUT ME IN COACH, WHO'S A GOOD BOY?, and a small moment of triumph, writing in I GET THAT A LOT from the I and the E. It was fun to finally get ROSE BED, after erasing SPEEDwin and finish up aptly with END AT, after erasing (oct)AvE. I thought it was a terrific Friday.
With regards to SIEGED/beSIEGED - both sides are subjected to waiting, so both are acceptable here. The problem for me as a former service member, was that being subjected to a waiting game evokes being ordered to 'hurry up and wait'.
So constructing a crossword is basically: put your fancy words in and everything else is alphabetical soup but we have enough cultural context to make almost any 3 or 4 letter combination into a word, phrase, acronym…feels lazy. But WDIK?
¡Póngame, entrenador!
Another lovely grid, but ONCELER refused to give up on me. I kinda remembered they SIMULCASTED DINAH Shore when I was a kid. A talk show of some sort. I wish they'd used the "blow your horn" lady.
Hips lying. Hips not lying. I wish I could see Shakira right now. I love her. She'd straighten it all out for us. And, speaking of DAMES, I am pretty sure a scoundrel would say, YES M'LADY, making it a non-gentleman's agreement.
You have to zoom way in on Google maps before the Soo Locks show up. I bet they're bigger in real life than on my phone. I also wonder if old people in São Gonçalo get sick of adding the squiggles when addressing envelopes and at some point just stop. "They know where I live." I wanted to learn Esperanto at one point, but it's full of squiggles too, and who has the time? I'm exhausted by the shift key.
❤️ MINDBOGGLING.
People: 6
Places: 1
Products: 5
Partials: 2
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 18 of 68 (26%)
Funnyisms: 5 😄
Tee-Hee: EAT ME. SPIT. SIN.
Uniclues:
1 How bouncers end up bleeding in the backyard.
2 Going back at the buffet.
3 McDonald's.
4 Nat-Geo's simulcastings.
1 TRAMP SMASH UP
2 EAT ME RE-ENTRIES
3 SKIP CLASS LAIRS
4 ANTS ON A LOG TIME
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: When you give the monster under the bed a massage. RUB ON BAD DREAM.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anonymous 918 there’s no basis for disagreement. You’re simply wrong. “Lines” is the main part of speech in the clue. It’s a plural noun. So the answer has to be a plural noun that = “lines.” So REOS *are* the “lines.” Clue would have to be rewritten to have your meaning.
I agree, loved the fresh long answers today. Didn’t mind the glue as much as others. Friday should make you think without completely halting progress - I think this mix of (overused) fill and odd cluing hit the mark. I wasn’t as put off by HONOR as Rex but after reading I acknowledge that as a clunker!
In the spirit of the medieval KNIGHT, I’d say, it’s pronounced M’LADY.
Agreed, Reos...so horrible. Didn't mind Who's a good boy in the least, our late corgi Puck qualified in all ways. Now Sugar Ray stuck in my head all day long
Learned something new today. Ransom E Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile, left that company in 1905 to start a new car company, eventually naming it REO due to brand copyright issues. Though they later added trucks, there’s no specific mention of pick-up trucks. A better clue could have been to mention its two best selling automobiles, the Royale and the Flying Cloud … though I’m not sure many would recognize either one, other than some car enthusiasts.
Once again I am just letting Will Shortz know that other things have happened in the last several (!!!) decades.
Charlie Chaplin 1889-1977
Alice in Wonderland 1865
Frasier 1993-2004
Sugar Ray 1990s
Upton Sinclair 1927
Dinah Washington 1950s
Dinah Shore 1940s and 1950s
Shakespeare 1604
Isaac Newton knighted in 1705
Elton John knighted in 1998
Olivia Newton John 1970s and 1980s (peak popularity)
The Lorax 1971
Shrodinger Equation 1926
Never thought I would be this grateful for Gossip Girl (2007-2012) and Frozen (2013), themselves more than 10 years old, and CSI which originally aired in, you guessed it, 2000.
WHO’S A GOOD BOY? They all are even the ones who identify as girls. Everyone thinks they have the best dog. And none of them is wrong.
I had a different interpretation of schtick as being related to King Arthur’s Knights who were bound by their HONOR. Except when it came to Queen Guinevere, where things seemed to get a little more um, complicated.
According to Wikipedia "The REO Speed Wagon (alternatively Reo Speedwagon) was a light motor truck model manufactured by REO Motor Car Company. It is an ancestor of the pickup truck." Also as a Michigander my wife and I visited the Soo locks a few years ago on the way back from Georgian Bay Ontario.
Shakespeare and Newton 🙄 you know there are lots more years before 2000 than after?
Take a Quick Look at Wikipedia: speedrun, speedruns, speedrunning, speedrunners all used frequently. It’s just grammar.
If you have a choice of which Seinfeld to watch, start with The Marine Biologist. Then maybe The Soup Nazi, and The Chinese Restaurant. These are considered classics and they're some of my favorites too.
But the episode that's never listed among the classics, but had me laughing the hardest of all of them is, I think, "The Suzy". Or maybe "The Susie"? Something like that.
Hope you enjoy them!
Medium.
WOEs: SUGAR RAY, SPEED RUN, ONCELER, HEGIRAS, and SIN (I tried wIt briefly)
No costly erasures ( except for maybe wIt - see above).
Cringy stuff: SIEGED, REOS (Hi @Rex), LIME SODA, and STRAYER
Completely fooled by and my last entry: REOS
A bit of sparkle but @Rex is right about the draw backs, didn’t hate it.
Definitely the latter (,M’LADY). U for E in ROSEBED was my one error.
Just saw your Seinfeld comment from yesterday and wonder if you’ve seen 30 Rock. Brilliantly written and acted with som many insider NYC references.
Agreed, though I think I need to work on reading it as entertainment rather than letting the Crankapotamus takes aggravate me (hi Sir Hillary)
If the constructor used "lines" to mean vehicle models or manufacturers, then the constructor erred in the verb tense. If (design) lines were meant, then I believe that "REOs" works just fine as an answer. The plural works here as there were several classic REO Speedwagon designs.
I feel you Rex. I shared a work space with a guy in like 2001, and he constantly was listening to the Binghamton top 40 station. Just so happened that Sugar Ray was playing Spiedie fest that year and the station would play the same 2 Sugar Ray songs at least 5 times a day to promote it. I need to go to Total Recall and get that Four post bed song out of my head.
Had to “Stop by” to mention the lovely gems from @Rex this morning: “Crossword-know” and “Suess rotation.”
I thought this was fun. True, some of the fill was suboptimal, and some clues definitely MINDBOGGLING - Knight’s shtick? Ack -OFL nailed that one. But The TRAMP right off the bat, ANTS ON A LOG, and MOM making everything better with a kiss put me in a good mood, so I was more disposed to BRUSH ASIDE the LICE and admire things like SKIP CLASS, I GET THAT A LOT, YES M’LADY, PUT ME IN COACH, and my favorite - SPITTAKE.
I loved the best friend question and thought it was a great clue. Plus, imagining asking that of a human best friend was entertaining. (Come to think of it, I’m not certain I’ve never said it to Mr. A.) I did try WHOSAGOOD dOg first. All my dogs have been female. Couldn’t make voyAgER work (for “wandering sort”) though, so changed it to BOY.
My MOM used to nibble on ROSE HIPs for the vitamin C.
@Rex didn’t even mention the POSH HEGIRAS LICE big orbiter section - got that on a wing and a prayer. This seems like a good time to read some Sinclair.
Took me a long minute to figure out UKES, which I’d love to banish. Ukuleles should never be called that, and they sound much nicer strummed than plucked.
TIL SPEED RUN and ONCELER.
Happy Pie Day, y’all!
@RooMonster 8:46 AM
Escapes the Shore! Dynamite. Better than anything I found today by a long shot.
Overall, found this a challenging puzzle with some entertaining answers. But never heard of SUGARRAY as a band (too late to catch my ear) and tho the Lorax is familiar to me as a title, never heard of the ONCELER. Favorite was PUTMEINCOACH—I can listen to Fogarty play Centerfield all day. Loved @Nancy’s Galahaddy comment—goes for M”LADY as well as HONOR.
The problem is that grammatically the clue doesn't match the answer
@Anonymous 10:20 AM
My semi-regular reminder: There are lots of other puzzles littering the internet, many of them by youthful constructors who are only too proud to peacock their hipness with Twitterspeak, y'no, Twitchyisms, and nothing is requiring you to do the NYTXW. Your grumble list of pre-21st century-isms looks like a reasonable list every educated person should be comfy knowing.
I believe the complaint about SPEEDRUN isn't that "speedrun" isn't frequently used (which, as you point out, it is), but rather that it doesn't match the clue. The clue, "Completing a video game...", starts with either a gerund or present participle (i.e., ends in -ing), which would match SPEEDRUNning; a more appropriate clue would have started "Complete a video game..."
With the arguable exceptions of Frasier, Dinah Shore (very arguable!), and Olivia N-J, everything/everyone listed above is a reference that any reasonably culturally literate U.S.'er could be expected to know. I don't see the problem with including any of them in the puzzle.
I'm disappointed that there isn't a link to HEJIRA by Joni Mitchell in today's blog!
At lunch I discussed the clue for WHOSAGOODBOY with my significant other. She immediately caught on that the "good boy" was a dog (man's best friend). I should have caught on earlier...but what would the man say if his dog were a female? "Who's a good girl?"
Yes, those are all acceptable terms, but his point is that, as clued, if you are completING a game, you are speedrunnING. SPEEDRUN is fine as an answer, but grammatically, in this case, it doesn't work.
It's about the clue's grammar. If you're completING the video game, as the clue indicates, you're speedrunNING it.
I'm not looking at the answers quite yet as I want to come back to it later, but I'm being held hostage by the first two letters of 16A and the two below it – is this section unreasonably difficult, or is it just because sports and military lingo is completely out of my wheelhouse? No idea what pickup lines 16D refers to and if S _ _ O is not sago then no idea despite my decent floral knowledge.
I've definitely heard people address their female dogs as "Good girl!" (or, for that matter, "Bad girl!") when they wanted to praise or reprimand them.
That's what threw me off. She spelled it with a "j", and this puzzle spells it with a "g". Didn't know there were two alternate spellings.
Identify? Are you talking about … dogs? I don’t think dogs have the brainpower necessary to “identify” as anything. I think the “, maybe” at the end of the clue means it may be incorrect in the case of a female dog. In that case it would be WHOSAGOODGIRL, but you’re not stupid, you know that already.
That felt like it took forever. SPITTAKE, HEGIRAS, SPEED RUN, SUGAR RAY (not the fighter?), ONCELER ??
I did like seeing DINAH Washington &
I GET THAT A LOT. Haven't read the comments yet, but a hard(er) Friday for me :(
YES!!!
The Great Lakes discussion reminded me of the mnemonic LMS (I think it was she) suggested for them: LLLLL -- Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Superior.
PUT ME IN COACH: Leroy Hoard was a former running back (1990-99 Browns/Vikings). He once famously said, "Coach, if you need 1 yard, I'll get you 3 yards. If you need 5 yards, I'll get you 3 yards." I don't why I love that quote so much, but I do.
SPEEDRUN: as already mentioned, the clue is off, but happy to see it as a debut. NYT also had an error 2 weeks ago, which they fixed the next day. (Currency depicting statesman Mufasa/Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.)
Games Done Quick (GDQ) is a SPEEDRUN charity event, streamed twice a year on Twitch. They raise over $1 million per event for cancer research & Doctors Without Borders ($50 mil raised so far). The More You Know.
Enjoyed the puzzle quite a bit. Thanks & kudos, Brandon.
TDS too
Puzzle is using speedrun as a noun, not a verb. Google search of “speedrun definition” returns “ an instance of completing a video game, or level of a game, as fast as possible” for the noun.
I see your point about matching the -ing form
Oh, Happy Pi Day!
Almost forgot!
RooMonster High Pi! Guy
Completing a video game is a speedrun. It’s correct!
I remember Leroy Hoard -- a Michigan Wolverine, right? But I have never heard that fabulous quote. Thanks so much for sharing!
The one where Jerry and Elaine visit J's parents in Florida and E takes too much pain killer for her sore back. "Stella!! Stella!!" Kills me.
I enjoyed the long answers, and don't recall being annoyed by the names, so all in all a good puzzle. Loved I GET THAT A LOT and MIND BOGGLING. Typeovers: taking a different meaning of "total" made AMOUNT TO before SMASH UP, and SCAN before SKIM for "Not read thoroughly".
@Twangster, thanks for reminding me of Sigur Ros. A band from Iceland with a unique eerie sound, they sang in a unique made-up language called "Hopelandic".
SOO comes from "Sault" Ste Marie, the twin towns in Michigan and Ontario. One part of Canada I've never visited.
There's only one alternate spelling.
It will be easier to visit once they become the 51st state. Shouldn't be long.
Thank you Joni Mitchell for my familiarity with the word Hejira (HEGIRA).
Michael & Anon, I"m so glad you two chimed in. I had trouble there for a while because ... well, because Joni.
Whenever any grid, themed or themeless, has 34 black squares, there will perforce be quite a bit of short stuff. I thought this puzzle had a enough sparkling longer entries like WHO'S A GOOD BOY and PUT ME IN COACH so that I could BRUSH ASIDE those pesky 3s and 4s.
I used to be a fan so my go to clue for SUGAR RAY would be former championship boxer Leonard. The original in that department was SUGAR RAY Robinson. I think both got that nickname because of their smooth, even graceful moves in the ring.
Not sure how YES M'LADY qualifies as an objectionable way to address a woman. Now the classic "Saturday Night Live" line "Jane, you ignorant slut" does seem to cross the line a bit. Watch that 49 second YouTube video and BABE, MISSUS, DAME or M"LADY won't seem quite so bad.
I had trouble with today’s puzzle, but finally finished it after getting MIND BOGGLING. Surprised there was nothing to do with pi.
It really was a blood moon . So sorry you missed it.
In 16A (Hurdles before some touchdowns), Rex feels that the word "hurdles" is misdirection that somehow invokes American football. I agree and fell into the trap, which is why I confidently entered "Hail Marys".
Wowzers. This FriPuz had a real superb bunch of longball fillins. Color m&e impressed by this 68-worder rodeo.
fave stuff: The Jaws of Themelessness. WHOSAGOODBOY. PUTMEINCOACH. ANTSONALOG. SPITTAKE. SKIPCLASS. 44-A's {Bench press?} clue.
More on SKIPCLASS: Young M&A once had to do a detention period, at the schoolday's end, becuz he was accused of skippin a homeroom class. I was actually in the entirety of that class, but had such a nuthin presence, that the teacher's assistant thought I weren't there. Later on, M&A became best buddies with that there homeroom teacher ... he even taught m&e how to play the "Oh Hell" card game, which really beat studyin, durin that homeroom period.
staff weeject pick: OCT. Almost a pure gimme. I ask U -- What other suffixes could OCT- possibly have -- 'ceptin maybe for: -ANT?
And -AVE.
And maybe -AVO, -ENE, ETS, -ILE, -OIC, -UOR, -ROI, -OYL-, or -OPI [M&A fave & first guess].
Thanx, Mr. Koppy dude. Primo job of puzzlin.
p.s. M&A has hereby opted to rescind his 21% runtpuz price-per-runtpuz increase. Turns out, one of his valued runtpuz test solvers is Canadian. And the Dodo-in-Chief and his Doge-Bro-in-Chief have already done enough extra-tariffic damage to our treasured friendship with Canada.
... bargain runtpuz ensues ... [heck, who'd pay for this kinda biter, anyway?] ...
"Trade Wars" - 7x7 12 min. runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I waited around a while to see if mycomment would show up, and it didn't. Probably blocked by an admin because of my naughty limerick which, as I recollect, involved EATME and rhymed HEGIRAS with "queer as". Sorry about that. The only other part I can remember was the response to "Sir, we are able to offer you an upgrade to first class. You'll be sitting next to. Ms. Marjorie Taylor Green." PUTMEINCOACH.
Tickled to report that at my granddaughter's Friday assembly today, a fourth grader recited Pi to 50 decimal places! The sequence was projected onto a wall behind him so that we could verify his recitation as it went. Perfect! Happy Pi day to all, and a big thanks to Brandon Koppy for a somewhat sticky Friday.
p.p.s.s.
Shoulda actually given -ANE more credit, as the staff weeject pick, as today’s suffix-of-honor for OCT-.
And somehow neglected to give a “fave” credit to: IGETTHATALOT.
… and also forgot to include my regular signoff:
Masked & Anonymo4Us
I forgot … I get that a lot, anymore.
Terrible crossword with notable errors. Horrible honestly. But music was very solid at the turn of the century. Nerds gonna nerd.
I also thought this was clued wrong, and (cheekily) my immediate reaction was a howler like this would probably not have gotten by the millennial Fagliano :-)
I shared many of Rex's feelings about the fill but also agree with you that WHOSAGOODBOY was a good answer with a good cute clue.
Just a quick shout-out to 22 down. Measure for Measure is an under-appreciated play, so I was happy to have a quote from it here!
I too enjoyed the hell out of this puzzle.
Oof! As in run headlong into a brick wall (at low speed in order not to completely SMASH UP). I had to jump all over this grid to find anything that made sense but I finally hunted, pecked and flat out guessed my way through.
I love a tough puzzle, truly. But I have to agree with OFL on this one. Odd creaky clues, no good misdirects and a bunch of things I just don’t know. The ONCELER and all things Lorax being a prime example.
I only know Lorax from crosswords as it came along after both my and my daughter’s Seuss eras. After completion, I did look up The Lorax and its characters and at least I now understand that the character is the narrator, pronounced ONCE-ler as in “Once upon a time.” Very Seussian and clever. I will probably drop in to the library and give it a read; I do love the good Doctor - Seuss, that is.
This wasn’t much of a banner week for the NYTXW, in my opinion. I was thankful to have sped through yesterday’s not hard and really obvious Thursday theme since I had medical events yesterday that kept me on the road. But I look forward to Friday and Saturday when I don’t have to worry about a theme and can just hunker down and wait for the tough clues to give me a workout. There’s always hope for tomorrow.
Happy weekend my friends! And it is Spring Break here next week so it’s. . . grandma time!!!
I am going to teach Grace how to temper chocolate and we are custom designing chocolate bars. I ordered some molds and we are going to create a Kit-Kat styled extravaganza with pistachio paste in the layers. We have been sourcing ingredients and researching techniques for a few weeks. I hope you all have something as exciting (and educational) as this to do next week. ✌️ out!
No, I haven't seen 30 Rock. First, I'll Google a scene on YouTube -- and if I think I'll like it, I'll look for a way to access full episodes without paying for them:) Thanks, for the heads-up, @burtonkd.
Anonymous 6:38 AM
I didn’t know SPEEDRUN at all But I took it as a noun. Several responses said it can be a noun. Works for me. Close enough for crosswords.
Anonymous 9:30. AM
I agree both words are acceptable.
As to the “problem”. That’s the point. It is Friday so they used a slight misdirection to get people thinking of hurry up and wait to make the clue harder.
Kitshef
I would have to disagree that the clue was terrible. It IS Friday so I suspected a truck ( annd a trick) immediately. Also 3 letters. What actual pickup line could be 3 letters? Classic means old so the light went on REO
Classic vehicle and classic crosswordese. Apparently, it WAS a pickup precursor. Close enough for crosswords.
Southside Johnny
Completely agree with your last comment. Rex piles it on when he doesn’t like a word choice and then his argument makes no sense to me.
Again I liked a lot of what Rex complained about. (He did have a lot of company) for example I liked REO. I thought great clue answer combo. Yet Rex and so many others hated it. To each his own.
But what’s wrong with MLADY? He twists it into a contemporary reference because he wanted to go on a tear. Clearly an historical reference.
And I liked what he criticized. Oh well.
Fun fact: Sugar Ray Robinson's name was Walker Smith. When he started fighting, he used Ray Robinson's ID to hide the fact he was underage, and stuck with it for boxing purposes, but his legal name was always Walker Smith.
@CDilly52 5:14 PM
Yum. When should I stop by for my nuevo-Kit-Kat?
Speedrun = noun
Completing, here, is being used not as a verb but a gerund noun. As in, “the act of completing…”
@kitshef & maybe others:
There is now an M&A explanation of the "Trade Wars" runtpuz, on its Down Home page.
Canada has demanded it.
Just sayin.
M&A Help Desk
The NYT Crossword has become a waste of time. I know I'm 76, but I have been doing puzzles since I was abouit 7 and I am just disgusted with ... Ya know what ? It's not worth talking about.
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