.png)
Bestrewn with droplets / TUES 4-29-25 / Double-decker checker / Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, for three / Verb that has largely replaced "Skypes"
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Hi, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday of April!
Did you all just hear that? Yes? That was me screaming with joy because my Liverpool Reds won the Premier League title!! In our first year with our new manager, we clinched the title with four games left! So I’ve been on cloud nine since Sunday. Life is good! Well, mostly… A couple of weeks ago, I had a bike accident and ended up in the ER. Luckily, there were no cars involved, and I’m all good now (I just still have a very swollen finger and a painful neck). But I’ve got a new bike now that I get to go pick up tomorrow! In the meantime, I’ll keep my feet up and watch some more sports (like watching my Warriors eke out a win against the Rockets to go up 3-1 in the series).
Anywho, on to the puzzle…
Relative difficulty: Medium-hard
THEME: GROWING PAINS (21A: Early struggles for a new enterprise … or a hint to the shaded squares) — The shaded squares are words that are usually exclaimed when in pain and grow in number of letters from left to right in the puzzle
Theme answers:
- TOO LATE NOW (28D: "You had your chance")
- HIT THE ROOF (29D: Go berserk)
- DON’T SLOUCH (32D: Instruction to improve posture)
- PHOTOSHOOT (34D: Cameraperson's session)
Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana was a New Spanish writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, as well as a Hieronymite nun, nicknamed "The Tenth Muse", "The Mexican Phoenix", and "The Phoenix of America" by her contemporary critics. She was also a student of science and corresponded with the English scientist Isaac Newton. As a Spanish-criolla, she was among the main contributors to the Spanish Golden Age and is considered one of the most important female writers in Spanish language literature and the literature of Mexico. Sor Juana's significance to different communities has varied greatly across time, having been presented as a candidate for Catholic sainthood; a symbol of Mexican nationalism; and a paragon of freedom of speech, women's rights, and sexual diversity, making her a figure of great controversy and debate to this day. (Wiki)
• • •
This was a somewhat challenging Tuesday puzzle and a nice debut from constructor Gene Louise De Vera. The theme didn’t excite me a whole lot at first glance, but I liked it a whole lot more when I realized that the four exclamations that are the theme answers grow in size from left to right. SHOOT (34D) seems like a bit of an outlier, but I suppose it is still something you’d say if you stub a toe (or you might say a four-letter word that’s not quite crossword-appropriate). My biggest complaint with the puzzle is that it sure seemed that TANGENT LINES (53A: Figures that are straight approximations of curves, in geometry) should have some relation to the theme, given that it has the same weight as GROWING PAINS (21A) and was toward the bottom of the puzzle, where the revealers were. But then TANGENT LINES was just there with no relation, which felt clunky. I wasn’t particularly wild about any of the theme answers, but they were fine. PHOTOSHOOT (34D) was probably my favorite. DON’T SLOUCH (32D) was my least favorite, but maybe that’s just because I, of course, have great posture; or maybe I just repressed the memory of my mom saying this to me repeatedly growing up. HIT THE ROOF (29D) seems antiquated, and I can take or leave TOO LATE NOW (28D).
It was nice that there wasn’t much crosswordese; the construction doesn’t lend itself to too many three-letter words (which also might’ve had something to do with my finding it to be a bit harder Tuesday than usual). The structure of the puzzle is aesthetically nice, too.
I struggled with some of the proper nouns in the puzzle — EBSEN (35D: Buddy ___, Jed Clampett portrayer on "The Beverly Hillbillies"), ROS (39D: Children's author Asquith), and INES (55D) tied me up for a bit. And then HIED (29A: Went in haste) and ELO (37A: Rating system used in chess) are words that I knew somewhere in my brain but that took a while for me to come up with.
I loved some of the other words in the puzzle, like OOMPH (22D: That extra punch), SCOWL (5D: Death stare), and SHOD (56D: Like a racehorse's feet). I also loved the clue and answer for KING (8D: Double-decker checker). And ST. PAT’S (47A: Green day, familiarly?) is another clever clue/answer. PRIMROSE (38A: Proper-sounding spring flower?) is both very clever and cute. DRAPERY (46D: Curtains) is a good word. ON A WHIM (58A: Without forethought, say) is a great phrase. I’m not sure why, but I liked seeing ICE WINE (48D: Dessert drink made with frozen grapes) in the puzzle.
Still, there were some other things I don’t think worked. The clue for DNC (25A: Blues group, for short?) is trying a bit too hard. I didn’t love HOT OR NOT (43A: Early 2000s rating site with a rhyming name) being right there at the center of the puzzle. And is a SCEPTER (56A: Pageant prize) actually given to pageant winners now, or is it more likely a tiara, a sash, and a bouquet?
But overall, this was a clever puzzle with some fun fill, and I’m looking forward to more from this constructor!
Misc.:
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
Misc.:
- PRIMROSE (38A) reminds me of the younger sister character in “The Hunger Games” series, which I just finished a reread of. I also read the new book “Sunrise on the Reaping.” It was emotionally devastating but so well done. Now we’re getting casting news, and it looks like it’s going to be a stellar movie (when it comes out in November 2026).
- I’m stretching a bit here, but CODE (57D: What a software developer develops with) also relates to the medical field and is something that a doctor might say in an ER — like “CODE blue!” And… speaking of ERs… Everyone should watch a drama on HBO (41A) called “The Pitt,” where each episode in the 15-episode season represents one hour of the same shift in the ER. It’s fantastic. Brilliant. Stupendous. Wonderful. All the good things!
- Seeing LENA Headey (18D: "Game of Thrones" co-star Headey) in the puzzle reminds me of this quite funny clip from a few years ago that’s recently been making the rounds on my TikTok, where a comedian has a show where the premise is that she has to interview people she’s never heard of and guess who they are.
- My puppy is now six months old and is, of course, as adorable as ever (not that I’m biased or anything)! Please admire the pictures below because I’m officially a dog mom who needs to show hers off all the time. The fact that her name is Red is pretty perfect, because my Reds just won the Premier League, so I’d say she was a good luck charm. My sister and I managed to snag the pic on the top left (as she was trying desperately to bite my jersey — or maybe just kiss the crest like a good little Red).
And that’s all from me! See you all in May.
Signed, Clare Carroll, still screaming aaaaaaAH
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
Save And Share :
103 comments:
My least favorite theme answer was PHOTO SHOOT because it didn’t hide the theme word. Puzzle was fine overall. I look forward to people losing their minds over HIED.
Hi Clare! Thanks so much for posting in the evening rather than the next morning (by then I usually forget what I really wanted to comment about). And hope your bike accident wasn't too bad... a good friend had one where she somehow ran into the curb (?!!?) in heavy traffic but did not collide with any motor vehicles. Fortunately, it was right in front of the regional hospital, so a short ambulance ride it was!
I had a few issues with this puzzle. I tried solving down clues only (don't hate me) and thought: this is way tough! So many of those down clues are just so opaque. "Inspiriting sound.." "Long for", "Womb, in an idiom", "Double decker checker" (whaaaaat?... more on this below). Eventually I gave in and read a couple of across clues, and they were *wayy* easier. EG: 1, 5, 11, 15, 16, 17 across... Monday easy.
Anyway, for 8 down the only "double decker" I could think of was a bus, so... CONDUCTOR (checks tickets?) didn't fit. Or maybe a sandwich? I even Googled the phrase and got nowhere. I eventually finished and got the Happy Pencil, but had not the *slightest* idea how the answer could be KING. I came back an hour later and... no idea. Then another hour later it finally came to me: checkers, the game! Doh.
But there's more... why the convoluted clue for STARVE? Probably because that answer was in yesterday's puzzle with a more sane clue.
But my big objection, especially after reading the clue: TANGENT LINES are not "straight approximations of curves". They are tangent to the curves, so they are always entirely outside the curves; not even trying to approximate them. Approximations would cut across the curves, so they would be half inside, half outside. Why such a stupidly wrong clue?
Also, according to today's (Monday) Spelling Bee HIED is not a word. Inconsistent, NYT!
Medium for me.
I did not know HOT OR NOT, INES, and LENA
Costly erasure - sic EM before GETEM
Fun theme, dreck free grid, like it, but I agree with Clare about SHOOT being an outlier.
…also, Clare is right about The Pitt on HBO although she may have under praised it.
I recall young men finding out the hard way that wearing a t-shirt and not enough SPF could result in a bronzed pattern that was often the subject of derision--a farmer's tan we called it. Yes, a common growing pain those TANGENTLINES
Never considered the theme until reading Clare's explanation. Solved it as a themeless, and found it mostly easy, except I had "damp" instead of DEWY and "sped" instead of HIED at first.
This puzzle has evidently not got the memorandum from the Spelling Bee editors that HIED is not a word. Not a day goes by but that some perfectly good word is jilted for bizarre vulgarisms and misspellings. Still have nightmares about the day they wanted lollygag /and/ the non-existent "lallygag" but not plagal.
These last couple of Tuesdays haven't seemed very Tuesday. Good puzzle Gene.
Still trying to figure out what DNC is referring to? Agreed that scepter was a weird one. Other than that, a good one! I can’t believe you didn’t like Hot or Not 😂 brought me back
Always nice to see you in the blog, Clare. Your puppy is very adorable.
I bought this theme was pretty ho-hum. Some of the cluing was also opaque, so that took things into medium territory for a Tuesday. I also didn’t know most of the proper names, except for EBSEN, a gimme for anyone who watched TV in the 60s. Home sick from school and allowed to watch the line-up: The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres.
I didn’t like HOTORNOT. Was that the rating that was Mark Zuckerberg’s prelude to Facebook? Ugh.
Can someone explain “Double Decker Checker” being King?
Democratic National Committee - blue states
I see that crossword queen LENA Horne has been dethroned by an actress I’ve never heard of in a show I’ve never watched. Sic transit Gloria mundi.
Democratic National Committee
I thought DRYAN crossing DNC was kind of unfair. One is out and out trivia and the other has a clue that Clare charitably described as trying too hard.
The grid itself and the theme were perfectly acceptable, with a few “not-so-interesting“ (to me at least) items here and there like ELO, HOTORNOT, ESO which did create a few un-Tuesday-like challenges, but in the end, all is well.
I’m math-oriented, so TANGENT LINES dropped right in - I wonder how many will struggle with that one. I’m Switzerland (neutral) on the great HIED debate, if in fact we have one.
In the game of checkers, when you manage to get one of your pieces all the way over to your opponent’s side of the board, your opponent will top it with one of your pieces they have taken in the game creating a “double decker king” that can move in all directions.
For Jacke: The Spelling Bee is inscrutable...they don't allow INTINCTION (a Communion practice) or ANNUITANT (every Social Security recipient is an annuitant by definition), but they do allow GONNA in lieu of "going to."
When you play checkers, a “king” is two stacked checker pieces.
Thoughts:
• Quality debut, with hardly a whiff of junk and a pitch-perfect Tuesday theme.
• That theme is original, BTW, never done before in the major crossword outlets.
• Sweet that the pain answers not only grow in size, but also grow from down to up.
• If your solving time was a little longer than usual, could be because the grid has an extra column.
• Beauty in answer: SCEPTER, ON A WHIM, OOMPH.
• Touch of irony in that the answer NO CLUE has one.
• Very nice that both chess and checkers are represented.
• Serendipities: The lovely abutting PuzzPair© of SMOKED/CAVIAR, rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (ELIOT), and ooh – five double O’s!
Much promise here, and I eagerly await your coming themeless, Gene. Thank you for a splendid outing!
Along with @anon 2:46 a.m., I fully back Clare's praise of The Pitt -- smart and engaging, with well-drawn characters.
Re: SB Sam is very fond of ANAL - dunno why unless he's bent on describing himself.
The podcast Stuff You Missed In History Class has a great episode on Sor Juana Ines. Just FYI, it’s a great podcast in general. I don’t feel like I have heard someone say STARVE for attention. It’s generally STARVED for attention. And the Blues group as DNC was such a bust. I had some issues with TANGENT LINE too, that’s way too technical of a clue for a Tuesday, and I’m pretty sure that definition is incorrect. A Tangent is a straight line that touches a curve at one point, but straight approximations of curves makes no sense to me at least.
Hey All !
Debut? Nice. 16 wide, left/right symmetry. I'm sure this wasn't her first attempt to get a puz in the NYT (at least I hope not!)
The Downs across the top row went in easily. There were some thorny areas also. I had IsLET for INLET, so left the DRYA_/_sC box empty till the end. Tried U, for USC, but then DRYAU didn't seem like a thing. Finally convinced myself it had to be DRYAD, and was able to get the S out, and replace with an N for DNC/INLET. Shouldn't the DNC clue be singular?
62A would've been a prime spot for a misdirectional "-" (dash) clue. Our brains are trained here to think a "-" has something to do with other clues. Just sayin'.
Why do a lot of pain words start with O?
Spotted 5 double-O's. I'm sure @Lewis will point them out. I once made a puz with the O as the only vowel. It had a ton of Blockers, and a few non-words thrown in, though ironically, not "non-words"!
Have a great Tuesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Crazy, crazy that I knew Buddy EBSEN's name.
The clue for TANGENT LINES threw me because I'm reading Pynchon's Against the Day and of course it made me think of the great circle route and all those... rays...
HIT THE ROOF sounds really ancient.
👋 👋 @Okanaganer, same with the downs only and finally caving to the acrosses, waaay easier clues!
Happy Tuesday to all
@Andy 6.46
Gloria Mundi would be a great stage name.
Too bad no one studies Latin any more, I loved it!
these 6 minute solvers are impressive but i almost feel sorry for them when the fun is over so quickly
Boo to STARVE, I'm with @Andy Freude on LENA being clued incorrectly, and I didn't check to see how the PAINS were GROWING, but don't feel that I missed much. TANGENTLINES? OK, I guess. I never remember ELO as anything other than the Electric Light Orchestra and ROS and MARA are who dats? . The only other WOE was HOTORNOT but easily inferred.
Nice to see ERRANT, always makes me think of my favorite knight ERRANT, Don Quijote.
Congrats on your first, GDLV Good Debut, Liked Virtually all of it, and thanks for all the fun.
Puzzle was extra large at 16 x 16 but otherwise an easy-to-medium Tuesday. When I saw the last GROWING PAINS entry (SHOOT), that old Sesame Street song popped into my head: “One of these things is not like the others.”
Way more excited about Wrexham’s historic third consecutive promotion Saturday than perennial powerhouse Liverpool. Crazy to think Wrexham will be playing in the Championship League next season.
Tangent Lines is actually a pretty appropriate phrase for the act of measuring your growing height by placing a ruler on the top of your round head and marking the doorframe with a pencil, which, if intentional, actually makes it very on theme!
I thought this puzzle was filled with awful crosswordese. Not charming imho.
Of course HIED is a word. NYT Spelling Bee just compiles all possible words (usually between 100-200) and then culls the list down to a manageable number (usually between 30 and 60) for solvers. The absence of a word in the Bee has nothing to do with its validity.
Quality puzzle, would love to see this one on a Friday with tougher clues.
Theme was almost an afterthought at the bottom; puzzle did great without it
Clare, happy for you and Liverpool. Your reviews always make me feel upbeat and younger!
The answer to 53 A seems wrong because the CLUE ITSELF is wrong. It isn't geometry, it's CALCULUS
When something really, really hurts, do people say SHOOT? I've never in my life heard that -- and so this puzzle doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'll go back to read the comments and see if it made sense to anyone else.
A cute, if unchallenging theme idea. But never mind -- the rest of the puzzle was plenty challenging for a Tuesday. Late-week cluing, I thought, for KING, OVEN, START (which I thought was going to be STAnd) and STARVE. I struggled in places, and I suspect that those who like to do Tuesdays Downs Only might have had a change of heart mid-solve. I appreciated the challenge.
Maybe it was a real fun session, you know, A PHOTOS HOOT!
Good call on me pointing out the double-O's!
I'm torn over whose day I like better, STPATS or START. I was really thrilled when Art got canonized.
Seems like just yesterday that some were complaining that IMAMAC was a DRYAD.
I like to start with a PRIMROSE, followed by a hearty Burgundy.
@Clare - Congratulations to all of the Reds in your life. I assume you're a fan of the 1981 movie "Reds". Warren Beatty won Best Director for it. Anyway, glad you survived the accident with your always-welcome spirit intact.
Nice theme idea today. Too bad about having the revealer so early, but I see why it worked best to put it there. Thanks and congrats, Gene Louise De Vera.
SHOOT? Is that an exclamation of pain? More frustration, to my ear. There's a lot of that a-little-bit-off quality to this puzzle. GET 'EM instead of sic em; GENT in the English context is a matter of lineage, you could be quite nasty and still a gentleman, and an estuary isn't exactly an INLET. ICE WINE annoyed me too, but that's my fault -- since the practice of making them began in Germany, I've always heard the term as "eiswein."
I did like LENS right above PHOTO SHOOT, and the absurdly clued TANGENT LINES. "Inspiriting sound on a game show," not so much.
I concede this is better than my tan-gent-lines attempt.
I believe tangents are by definition the best first-degree approximation of a curve /locally/ at a point.
Hi Clare. Thanks for the pup pics. Puzzles may come and go, but fur babies are always a priority with me, and yours is a real beauty. ♥️
The perfectly legal words that Spelling Bee declines to recognize drive me crazy. Or rather Spelling Bee drives me crazy in its refusal to recognize perfectly legal words.
Interesting! In what way is it Calculus?
TBF, I can't think of a good 5-letter exclamation of pain. YIKES! isn't specifically pain-related. But there must be one, somewhere.
But those mother-of-pearl spoons? I've had plenty of caviar in my life, but all the spoons I can remember were silver. Is there really such a convention?
A TANGENT LINE is not an approximation of a curve, but if you draw a bunch of them around a circle, there will be a circular opening in the middle. Maybe that was what the clue was trying (unsuccessfully) to say.
I wonder how "claw" came to represent ONYX. Because claws can be a hard, black material, maybe? Language evolution is so interesting.
Not sure how much of a pain SHOOT is but the theme is interesting as is the mirror symmetry.
Thanks, Gene Louise De Vera!
I'm baffled that there appears to be "a great HIED debate" at all. While I, like many others, first wrote in spED, I've certainly seen HIED used in many, many novels if they're old and old-fashioned enough. No one would use it today, but that doesn't make it not a word. I'd argue that it's as least as much of a word as, say, WOOT. For one thing, it has a pedigree -- which is a lot more than I can say for WOOT.
I did not like STARVE. One does not starve for (long for) attention. One is starved for attention. The person doing the starving is the one withholding the attention.
One of the first things that came to mind in doing this puzzle was SHOOTing pains. Growing up I heard SHOOT a lot as a youthful euphemism for the four letter word—those were the days when the four letter variant got you a mouthful of soap so the longer version got a lot of use. Also, didn’t we have a recent puzzle with the spelling LYS instead of LIS? Apparently there is some controversy relating to this—that the flower symbol existed long before the French appropriated it. Anyway, some TANGENTal thoughts about this puzzle…
Mathematician here, you are correct. When I saw the clue, I thought this was going to confuse a lot of people.
Righto
Exactly!
Why is a scowl a “death stare”? Seems a bit overboard - a scowl can show a wide range of disapproval.
Ha! An egs imposter!
Always grate to have a painful TuesPuz. And the cool E-W puzgrid symmetry is also appreciated, even tho I'm not sure what image is gettin depicted.
staff weeject picks: SOS & OSO. Almost always a good thing to recycle.
Some faves: ONAWHIM. IMOPEN. OOMPH. STPATS clue.
Thanx for the shoot of pain, Mr. De Vera dude. And congratz on yer debut.
And congratz and thanx to Clare darlin. Nice doggie, btw.
Masked & Anonymo1U [s]
... and now for somethin more edgy ...
"The Raiser's Edge" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
The Checker Cab was a popular taxicab in the U.S. and England for many years. As a convenience, on longer trips the drivers would provide a deck of playing cards to their passengers. And when the King (England) was riding in one, he would be given two decks, so it was known as a "double decker Checker" for the KING.
Hi friends. I'm that guy who was given a subscription to the Times puzzles about a year ago but I'm still playing catch up from a few months back. I'm up to January so hopefully I'll catch up with you guys soon and stop bugging you! But for now, I hate throwing away a finished puzzle where I don't understand something, but I figure if I ask about it on the puzzle date from a couple of months ago, no one will see it and respond. So if you'll just indulge me on (hopefully rare) occasion, the clue and answer that are throwing me on this puzzle are the clue, "Sending help?" with the answer being "ups." What's UPS with that? What am I missing here? Thanks all!
SHOOT in this case is a variant of SH*T, which I often say in the dark when slamming my toe into whatever.
CAVIAR is not a "garnish" if you're eating it with a spoon, mother-of-pearl or not.
As for this puzzle/game as a whole, apparently, every day is a Thursday now, except perhaps Fri/Sat.
The above comment is mine. I needed to change my google PW yesterday and did not log back in.
Hi Clare,
I enjoyed your write-up & loved the pics of Red :)
I solved as a themeless then came here to see the theme. Like I've said before, I don't analyze them I just solve them. So today no hesitations, no typos - just whoosh.
Thank you Gene & congratulations on your debut :)
Good job as usual, Clare. Get well and stay well.
Great Tuesday puzzle. I knew Rex took a day off when I saw the Medium-Hard rating. I only watched Game of Thrones up until they had an incest scene and I just could not stomach it anymore. But I knew LENA Headley. The cross of DRYAD and DNC was tough for me. I had a stupid error that took me a minute to find. I had IWoN instead of IWIN at first and did not pick up that NOoR was incorrect, should have been NOIR. Corrected that and got the happy music. Lotsa gimmes: EBSEN, ZOOMS, STPATS, OHENRY, MARA, LOPEZ, Claire - I totally agree about The Pitt! We binged it in 3 nights. One of the best shows I ave seen in years. Noah Wyle deserves and Emmy.
Sending packages via UPS (or FEDEX) seems like a good fit.
If this is a Tuesday puzzle, I'm the new Pope. Hard natick at "gel" (gel is something you MAKE from aloe, not the goo that's in it) and "Lena" (never saw "Game of Thrones," don't care about it, and never will). Lots of obscure proper names. Also, "OW" and "OUCH" are basically the same thing, and "SHOOT" is not something someone typically says when physically hurt, which is presumably what this was about. "HOTORNOT" is very out-of-date and was not that well known in its time, and crossing with "ROS" is not a Tuesday thing. As if "OW" and "OUCH" are not too similar enough, you also have "OOF" and "OOMPH." And "INES." All in a TUESDAY puzzle. Give me a break.
For David: UPS helps you "send" things, i.e. they help you in your sending (of stuff).
@egs😂
You need calculus to find the tangent line of a curve.
The United Parcel Service helps you send stuff
Answer was SOS. Acrosses were primroSe, hotornOt, st. patS.
Hello David. If you need to send a package to somebody, UPS can help you with that.
Don’t have strong feelings about this one either way—the fact that the hidden words “grew” fit in with the revealer fine, making both words relevant, but it didn’t really wow me either since there are so many words/verbalizations we say when we are hurt. If Rex were here, he would point out that it’s not particularly tight, that these particular woods are somewhat arbitrary (especially since, as Clare points out, the addition of SHOOT makes any other mild expletive up for grabs). But it was fine as a whole, light on the gunk, and the names I didn’t know were inferable. Fine way to pass the time while I’m waiting for a mechanic to reopen from lunch so I can see about replacing a clutch!
As a farmer, I wear that look with pride!
As a Classicist who teaches and researches a lot of Latin, I can say that that at least a few people still study Latin!
@LP, did you ever get up during the night to stub your toe, and end up going to the bathroom instead? I hate when that happens.
Re: TANGENT LINES. They are indeed used as curve approximations, as the tangent is the line that mostly closely resembles the curve of a graph at a particular point. If you don't want to bother with the complicated curve, then sometimes a straight line is good enough. But it's more accurate to say that this is the way calculus deals with tangents, not geometry. I suppose they used the word "geometry" instead because that might be the more familiar context to non-experts.
To all those who complained about "hied" and it "not being a word" according to Spelling Bee. SB never says it's not a word, just that it is not in the -I forget - think it is word list.
Re SpellingBee, what's up with "alee" never being accepted? After the first couple of times, I actually looked up "alee" in several dictionaries. It was in all and Not as obscure or slang or etc.
I think the Medici symbol was, or somehow incorporated, fleurs de lis.
@Del Maticic that's encouraging! I had two years of Latin in High School and think it is a CODE for the origin and meaning of many English words. It's why I occasionally chide the NYTXW for using the Latin rebus (with or by way of things) for a puzzle with multiple letters in a single grid square and have made my case at The Rebus Principle.
Oh my gosh, the spelling bee is NOT inscrutable. It's just a SELECTION of words, not every word. If they included every word you could possibly make, the answer set would frequently be well over 200 words. You can see the full list on SBsolver.com.
The editors choose just a small subset, typically between 25 and 50 words, with a mixture of common words, a few slang terms, and a few obscure ones to make it spicy. The fact that a word does not make it into the answer set doesn't mean the editors don't know that word (intinction, hied etc). It just means they didn't select it.
That's the nature of the game.
“A comedian”? The brilliant Tig Notaro deserves better than that!
Hahahahahaha thank you egs
@sharonak, there are lots of "words" that are hardly ever used, yet are accepted by SB. Eg: birria, nubble, giftee, yente, crog (note all of these are being flagged by the spell checker as I type them).
And there are many words which are not accepted even though they are much more commonly used -- 100 to 10,000 times more common according to Google ngrams. Eg: ligand, lignin, dura (note that *none* of these words are being flagged by my spell checker).
Hey Clare!! I am with you and the Liverpool Reds! A colleague I worked with ages ago (while I spent quite a while in London) was from Liverpool and so proud of her heritage. We saw lots of footie over there and I became a super fan of the British scene as well as the Premiere League, but there was no US tv coverage back then. Once we had Premiere League available here I signed up!
It’s the best time of year to binge sports. And as luck would have it, my former “home team” in the NBA is in the playoffs! Will this be the Thunder’s year?I became a fan of all Oklahoma sports ‘by marriage’ in 1974. Don’t get me wrong, my Ohio State Buckeyes and Chicago Cubs will never be forsaken, but Okies love their sports and all my new friends and acquaintances talked constantly about wanting a pro sports team to call OKC home (that’s Oklahoma City).
The Thunder have been insanely popular since their first game in 2008, but just haven’t gotten all the way to the top. This is the year! So while you heal from your accident, any extra support for my Thunder won’t go amiss. Get well soon!!
OK, the puzzle. While it felt pretty smooth, my clock said this played slow for a Tuesday - about 30 seconds slow to be exact. My one sticking point was HOT OR NOT; never heard of it but then, I did not use a computer until about 1990. I had secretaries and paralegals for that. And as Captain Von Trapp said to the Nazis in “Sound of Music,” I also apparently had a “deplorable lack of curiosity.” All things technology were my genius husband’s domain. I’m great with hand tools in the kitchen and those necessary for minor to fairly complex repairs to a car like my 1974 Karman Ghia. Electronics not so much. My granddaughter is teaching me the more complex things I can do with my iPhone. Color me gobsmacked.
Anyway, (stream of consciousness anyone?) the enjoyment today came from this fun grid shape and the junk-free environment. What a welcome feeling especially for a Tuesday!
Excellent theme idea brought to fruition with a fun visual exclamation point. Loved seeing a favorite short story author, O HENRY, and we don’t see the indigenous IOWA people often enough. Super debut; I’m excited to see more.
This reads like I’m on speed. Sheesh.
@sharonak. As to ALEE, I'm pretty sure Sam Ezersky has never been on a boat and may not have even heard of them. There are lots of boat-related terms that he doesn't accept, like ALEE, ASTERN, LUFF, DAVIT. I can't think of them all right now, but anytime I see a nautical term that is more exotic than boat or sail, I get worried that it won't be deemed seaworthy by the Beemeister.
Clare Carroll no blues for them Reds; great canine photos. DNC < E.S.P. Jazz album, for sure*
Not to sound churlish but I’m English but checkered cabs are definitely not British. And i’ve never heard of an English taxi driver giving anyone a deck of cards
I ignored the theme until the end and went back to look. I do agree shoot is a bit of an outlier but it didn’t bother me. Close enough for crosswords.
I agreed with most of what Clare said except that DNC. was a fine answer. The DNC is a committee, so a group. which is part of the Democratic Party, commonly referred to as blue
If anyone is interested about the origin of blue and red for the two main parties, it was from the maps displayed on network television as the states were for either party’s presidential candidate.
To this day, the choice of blue for Democrats and Red for Republicans drives me nuts.
Traditionally in Europe and elsewhere in the world, it is the reverse. Leftists at least were also always associated with red in the US in the past The color thing did not jump from the maps to the parties until fairly recently. And I can’t get used to it!
Sometimes this country goes out of its way to be confusing to the rest of the world.
Both Clare and Smith called hit the roof ancient. Ouch! Another indicator I am old. It seemed quite normal and every day to me. My guess is most Boomers and older would agree.
I posted this hours ago, then went out do run errands - about 3 hours of picking up cigars in the distant shop (there are no decent cigar shops in the country), picking up tractor parts (there are decent tractor dealers), picking up mail (post offices apparently still exist), and hitting the wine store (thank god they exist) and checked in here when I got back to find out that none of my comments had been published. The following one had been saved to a clipboard so, even though no one will see it at this late hour, I'll post it again.
I'm probably one of those people you are imagining, @Nancy. I looked at all those seemingly unfillable squares in the centre of the grid and seriously considered throwing in the towel but, after considerable staring, I realized the themers might actually be helpful today. Changed 32D from sitstraight to DON'TSLOUCH and that suggested the OOF ending at 29D and I was able to successfully proceed. Part of the joy of downs-only is, often painfully, plowing through self constructed barriers. SHOOT! (Though I'm more inclined to use @Liveprof's variant.)
To estimate the circumference of circle you could draw a square around it and add up the sides, and then next step draw a square inside your circle add up the sides and get a 2nd estimate. The first estimate will obviously be too large and the 2nd too small. Next step estimate is to average the inside and outside measure and get a closer estimate. Arcimedes went farther and used a 96 sided polygon to get a good estimate off circumference and so also good estimate of pi. Next step Leibnez and Newton made polygons with infinitely small sides and calculus was born and the value of pi was accurately calculated. Sorry for the TLDR but I like this math story.
Democrats are hardly "leftist".
I'm so glad I'm not in some political office. I look washed out and sallow in blue and never wear it -- at least not close to my face. Whereas red is a highly flattering color on me and always has been. But if, say, I were in Congress and I wore red a lot, well, people would get the wrong impression. But this way I can wear red up the wazoo and no one remotely cares.
I do resent the fact that the GOP got assigned the better color. Very unfair, I say.
D'oh! You caught me!
The defences of the Spelling Bee wordlist here, interestingly, seem only to note that there is editorial selection involved, but not to defend the actual choices. My view is that the editors exclude all words they deem too obscure and reveal a parochial view in their attempts. This accords with what their rules say. Quite alright to say they should exclude some words they know "exist"; explain to me why they'd allow "lallygag" and not annuitant or plagal.
While I didn't find the theme terribly exciting (and only realized the "growing" part after I read Claire's write-up) I still had a bit of fun with this one. As has been stated, some clever cluing for KING and STPATS and I personally thought all the long ones look lovely in the grid - TANGENTLINES looking a bit less lovely than the rest but still holds up.
Plenty I did not know - namely ROS, HIED and ELO as clued, but the crosses all made them fair.
The revealer- GROWINGPAINS fell with very little effort and PHOTOSHOOT was the first themer that fell with almost as little effort, so I first thought something about "Shooting pain". But sussing the rest of those downs didn't take much time so it all sunk in. Yes, SHOOT is a bit of an outlier here but I grew up with a Dad who literally NEVER cursed, so he likely said either "shoot!" or "Doggonit!" when stubbing his toe in the middle of the night. My Mom, on the other hand, was like living with a repeating loop of George Carlin's "7 Words You Can't Say On TV." So while SHOOT may be a bit of a stretch here, it's a crossword puzzle, constructors gotta do what's gotta be done...
I think I read that this is a debut - so nice work Gene! Looking forward to more.
Thanks, everyone. Looks like it's simply the shipping service. Thank you also, Mary Jane, but I had different letters going across so you must have been thinking of a different puzzle with a similar clue. But thanks anyway.
When I was at MIT there was an alternative student newspaper called Thursday, as that was the day it came out. They published a page of random funny items in many issues. It was called “Sic Transit Gloria Thursdi”.
And years after Thursday died, there was a quip-of-the-day app called Gloria…
Tuviste tu oportunidad. Ahora es demasiado tarde.
Well, I've asked for funny and this is funny. Those growing pains are knee slappers. I do remember as a kid having growing pains (at least that's what my mom said they were as she wasn't spending the money to take me to the doctor), and those pains were not so funny.
I don't think I've ever seen CAVIAR and certainly didn't know about the spoon. I'm assuming the mother of pearl is decorative and not a culinary requirement. I should try to be fancy some day.
I wonder if anyone on Earth used the word HIED today. I am surprised there's not more discussion about HOTORNOT as it was pretty gross and certainly inspired Zuckerberg to lead the world into dumbness.
People: 11 {stop!}
Places: 2
Products: 2
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 20 of 79 (25%)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Uniclues:
1 Did someone die in that elevator? And, mix in a salad dude.
2 What rhymes with Nazi?
3 Why the Jeopardy champ is in big trouble.
4 The fish fry got a lot out of control.
5 An eye for the ladies.
1 NOIR ODOR TOPICS (~)
2 ELIOT ODE CODE (~)
3 DING TOO LATE NOW
4 MAHI HIT THE ROOF
5 PHOTOSHOOT LENS (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Start a lizard army. AMASS GECKOS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I with the NYT would make up its mind on LyS/LIS. That and SCEPTre were among my many, many detours on a ridiculously hard Tuesday (would have been medium-hard on a Wednesday). Lot's of unknown names (ROS, INES, LENA, MARA).
Yeah, SHOOT doesn't really fit.
Last entry for me was 29A - HIED. It was like being served a really bad cup of coffee after a fine meal. Also, SHOOT isn’t quite the same as OW, OOF and OUCH which are all onomatopoeias. SHOOT is a word expressing dismay like darn, drat damn or rats. It’s not a sound you spontaeously make after being punched in the stomach or after hitting your thumb with a hammer e.g.
Agree with @Foggy that SHOOT is out of place here. They're all exclamations--but that's as far as they go. Something like "YOWIE!" would work...
Simplistic, if ragged, theme, with a long across that's laughably arbitrary. TANGENTLINES? Why??
Some good fillers, but this needs more work. Bogey.
Wordle par.
I disagree with everyone. Shoot is not an outlier! It's what you said, when you were a kid, and you were in the company of adults, because if you said sh*t, it could get you a slap across the face. Which to me, was better than the bar of soap in the mouth. Also I have heard the term hit the roof plenty of times. So sayeth the old man!
Lys is the older spelling. Lis the more modern spelling. And that's in France. Both are acceptable. Just spin the wheel and see where it lands.
You've obviously have never owned an aloe plant, or bought a bottle of 100% aloe gel. If you break open an aloe leaf, out comes the gel, which you can put directly on your booboo or burn.
Long before Buddy EBSEN finally found fame playing Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies, he was cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939) but fell seriously ill during filming due to the aluminum dust in his makeup and was forced to drop out. Those of us who were kids during the 1950s also knew him well as Davy Crockett's sidekick, Georgie Russell, in Walt Disney's Davy Crockett TV series.
Post a Comment