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Nonchalant comeback / FRI 6-20-25 / Reddit rule enforcers / Request by those under 21 / "OMG!," in a modern spelling / Writer with a monument in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce / Dweller near Dubai / Big name in bookstores / Moves slightly closer, as a baseball fielder
Friday, June 20, 2025
Constructor: Adrianne Baik
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: ROYAL OPERA HOUSE (16A: Cultural attraction in London's Covent Garden) —
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (now known collectively as the Royal Ballet and Opera).The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.
The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s.
The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, making it the third largest in London, and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. (wikipedia)
• • •
 |
| [Writer with a monument in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce] |
["... there's talk on the street ..." RIP J.D. Souther]
As I say, there were a few irksome clues. Let's start with the clue on NOVELS (6D: They're long stories), which ... no. They're longer than short stories, generally, or novellas (whatever those are), but NOVELS are frequently short. There is nothing inherently "long" about them. SAGAS, EPICS, these imply length / breadth / expansiveness. NOVELS are only "long" or "short" relative to themselves, i.e. there are long and short novels. I've been reading a lot of sub-200pp. novels this summer. Those are short. I regularly teach one of the first novels in English: Oroonoko by Aphra Behn. It's like 80 pages. Not Long. I also didn't love the clue on LION'S SHARE (27D: This is the greatest part!), since it forces "greatest" into a phrase that would normally have "best" in it (needing "greatest" to make the misdirection work—it's referring to amount, not quality). And then there's 45D: Request by those under 21 (“HIT ME!”). Again, no. Misleading, even when you know the clue refers to blackjack. Some of those “under 21” will hit, sure, sometimes. But the "those" in the clue implies a universality, and no one is hitting on 20, come on. The smallest qualifier here ("at times" "possibly" "maybe" etc.) would've made the clue accurate.
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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- 37A: Retro means of communication (FLIP PHONE) — increasingly nostalgic for these, with every passing day. I know they still exist, I just ... do too much stuff on my smartphone to give it up. I have to start putting it in a box for huge chunks of the day, just so I don't have the temptation to grab it and scroll mindlessly through all the things I scroll through. Any time my phone is well out of arm's reach, I'm happier, calmer, and time feels different. The dumbphone world was slower and less convenient, but it wasn't less happy.
- 49D: "OMG!," in a modern spelling ("WOAH!") — The smartphone world gave us "WOAH!" Yet another mark against it.
[the only good "WOAH"]
- 46A: Part of many a car's dashboard (CD SLOT) — I said there was no wincing today, but I kinda winced at this. And my car actually has one of these. But I would call that "part" of my "car's dashboard" the CD PLAYER. But you can't argue with the fact that there is a SLOT there for the CD to go into. So ... accurate enough. Just odd / awkward. (Completely unsurprisingly, CDSLOT is a debut—and once again I am tapping the "Not All Debuts Are Good" sign).
- 35D: Moves slightly closer, as a baseball fielder (CHEATS IN) — this is also a debut. It will appear like odd terminology to non-baseball fans, but it's real enough. To "cheat in" is to move out of your regular playing position, toward home plate, in anticipation of an expected bunt or, if you're an outfielder, to try to prevent grounders hit past the infield or other short-hit balls from generating a run (closer to the plate = better position to throw a runner out ... but if a ball is hit hard or deep, god help you).
- 43D: Coffee roaster's creation (BLEND) — my roaster makes great holiday blends around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and a "Black & Tan" (a special dark + light) he does all year round. Gotta go pick up a couple bags of coffee today for my lake vacation, which starts this weekend. So it'll be a mix of me and my guest writers next week. Mostly guest writers. Starting Sunday. But I'm here again tomorrow. See you then.
Happy summer solstice, everyone.
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122 comments:
Looked tough at first, but proved to be fairly easy for a Friday puzzle. Most of the cluing was straightforward, which helped. My only issue is with CHOW for "munch." "Chew" seemed correct there, but only ONINTIMATETERMS worked.
Still trying to get “K” for THOU
I got it.
Ugliness aside, I wonder how many cars in the wild actually have CDSLOTs anymore.
Thousand.
This one redeems the week for me. Loved the tristacks - clean, slick fill. ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, WORD ON THE STREET are wonderful spanners.
Scruffy the Cat
K is THOUsand. LIONS SHARE and AYE CAPTAIN are solid long downs. There are a lot of shorts with these stacked grids but my glue meter was quiet today. Liked the cute masked bandit clue. Needed the crosses for DANO.
TESSie
Highly enjoyable Friday morning solve. Enjoy the vacay Rex.
Room to ROAM
How does torn = RENT?
K for THOU?
Common abbr for a thousand.
By the way, Adrianne's constructor notes on WordPlay in the Times are moving, inspiring and well worth reading.
Because that’s one meaning of rent????
K = thousand (as in $10k)
Rent is the past tense or the past participle of Rend - which means tear.
Usually when I open a puzzle and see that much virgin snow across the top and the bottom, I am overwhelmed by a sense of panic and dread. Fortunately, of the six grid-spanners, only one really required specialized knowledge (ROYAL OPERA HOUSE). Today I was able to take a few deep breaths, and pieced together enough of the crosses to discern EVERY VOTE COUNTS and was off to the races.
I suspect that the secondary or tertiary definition of RENT is going to have a few of us scratching our heads today (myself included). I may motivate and try to determine if there is a backstory regarding QE II and her multitude of CORGIS - like did she actually keep them as pets and know their names, or is it some sort of a Royal Tradition to breed/raise them for a semi-official reason or use? Any Brits in today’s solving cohort who may be able to shed some light on the situation?
Nice write-up by Rex today, btw. I sort of enjoy the calmer, more relaxed tone and the lack of a two-paragraph rant was refreshing. Maybe we should hide his phone from him until he finishes his solve and completes his blog post every day.
Fridays lately have been ridiculously easy - as if NYTimes Puzzles eliminated Friday and replaced it with mid-week themeless. Go into the archives and try a Friday from 10-15 years ago, and the difference in the challenge is stunning (even compensating for stuff from the pop culture and news of the time).
TIL: “Aye, Captain” has the same number of letters as “Aye Aye, Cap’n.”
As a smartphone-era solver, I would claim that WOAH and WOW are two different words. WOAH rhymes with no, WOW rhymes with now, and these are not interchangeable. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that WOAH is a variant spelling of WHOA.
Oh, so clean, so noise-free, so well-scrubbed, this filled-in grid. My whole being calms down as I look it over. Ahhhh.
But that’s not all I liked. That top stack, for instance, opening with the lovely colloquial THAT ANSWERS THAT – a NYT answer debut, by the way – then shifting gears to the classy ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, then moving to EVERY VOTE COUNTS, that in ordinary times would sound, well, ordinary, but packs a punch, at least in my mind, these days. Gorgeous stack.
I liked HOVER floating at the top. I liked MAIN POINT and can’t believe it has never appeared in a Times crossword before. I liked CHEATS IN, which so perfectly describes that infielder sneakily edging closer to the batter. I liked ON INTIMATE TERMS – simply a lovely phrase.
And I loved [Request for those under 21] which had me trying to come up with scenarios involving young people for so long that when the answer finally hit me (as it were), it gave me one terrific aha.
From all this, I left the puzzle feeling happy – what a gift! Congratulations on your debut, Adrianne, and thank you for this jewel!
A friend has been looking for a car with a CD SLOT for a couple of years. I happened across a 2025 Subaru that had a CD player, but it's in the center console, not on the dash.
Medium for a Friday. Top 2/3 easy, bottom third a bit more challenging.
Overwrites:
CHeW before CHOW at 46D
Hot before HIP at 50A, leading to ...
... Tick before PEST at 51D
His before HER at 55D
WOEs:
Model TESS Holliday at 15D
LEE Jung-jae at 27A
I didn't know that PANSY (39A) was a color
Love @Rex's quote The dumbphone world was slower and less convenient, but it wasn't less happy.
Too tough for me. I don't love to brag about my ignorance but the stuff in this grid I had simply never heard of was humbling. I watch baseball daily and never once heard the term CHEATS IN. TAR? RENT? Still don't understand the WOAH clue/answer. Loved HITME, great clue/answer.
LOL:
Usually when I open a puzzle and see that much virgin snow across the top and the bottom, I am overwhelmed by a sense of panic and dread.
Hyperbolic? Not to me.
Agree. What a story. She’s someone to admire.
I’ve always thought of the LION’S SHARE as referring to the largest portion, not necessarily the best. So “greatest” in the clue works fine as a synonym for “largest.” When Lincoln called Harriet Beecher Stowe “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war,” he was commenting on the war’s size and scope, not its goodness.
Appreciated the puzzle’s reminder that Greenland remains, for the moment at least, DANISH.
Some triple-stack puzzles are "terribly memorable" due to the terrible fill. I don't recall one that was as clean as this puzzle, and the spanners were great. Quite impressive. Nice bit of nostalgia with FLIPPHONE, CDSLOT. Thanks for a memorable puzzle (and Constructor Notes), Ms. Baik. Congrats on the debut, baksu! 👏
Squid Game season 3 next week.
Learning about Jeannette Rankin redeemed the week for me!
QE II reigned for 70 years. I took the 30+ count to mean that she kept replacing her corgis when they died.
last letter to fall Was the cross of RENT/MOONS. I never hear torn = RENT. Never. Is this really a thing?
All that empty real estate made me feel totally adrift to start but gradually the shorts made sense and the longs took shape. Very close to same experience as Rex and enjoyed his write-up. Agree with first comment above—I felt that using CHOW as a verb was a bit “off”, but ultimately it was a rough fit. Guessing right with HOVER at the start was a big help. Enjoyed working my way through this puzzle without having to look up a lot of PPP or deal with excessive crosswordese. Good one!
How ever many there are, none of them are on the dashboard. Criminally negligent cluing.
Another way to say I have entirely too much time on my hands.
Past tense of rend
Tried to fit NOTFORSALE in 44 across but it was only 6 letter long.
I'm a big fan of triple stacks like this. Getting a few letters in the long acrosses means I can use my Acrostic skills, which have gotten rusty since the NYT stopped running them on Sundays. Thought both the top and bottom stacks were solid and fresh enough for me. Good stuff.
Only two unknown names today, TESS, nice to see, as granddaughter Tessa is off to England tomorrow to catch up with the other grandparents and do other neat stuff with Mom and Dad, and LEE, who easily filled in from crosses.
Two real slow downs--PLUS for PROS and worst, looking at the "Torn" clue and reading it as "Tom", RENT I know but finding a synonym for Tom? Gent? Stronger reading glasses may be required. Nor is this the first time I've done this. Come on man.
I liked your Friday very much, AB. Any puzz with an inside baseball reference is A Beautiful thing, and thanks for all the fun.
Was happily surprised by what turned out to be a fun puzzle. But, decided to give up on Sundays and simply do the Sunday puzzles in the archives. Recent Sunday puzzles have been so bad , it’s no longer worth the time and effort required to finish.
I just zoomed through the upper three-quarters of this and thought I was destined for a smashed Friday record. But, alas, I found the lower triple stack and its accompaniments much harder than the top. I know, for example, that for 46D [Munch], I went through “nosh” and “gnaW” before finally hitting on the correct CHOW. “Gnaw” wasn’t a terribly good answer there, but I thought the cross at the first letter was going to be GPS-something, the clue being [Part of many a car’s dashboard]. Also – didn’t know Paul DANO or the term CHEATS IN, thought the now-outdated GMT was going to be either GsT (Greenwich sidereal time) or “utc” (coordinated universal time), forgot about WOAH, didn’t see BARNES or LION’S SHARE for a while, and missed the misdirection on HIT ME (thought 21 referred to age). So, following @Rex’s methodology for filling in grid-spanners, it took some time to get enough letters in the three lower ones to be able to use pattern recognition. (By contrast, at the top, I’d splatzed in ROYAL OPERA HOUSE with no crosses at all.) In the end, my time was good for a Friday, but it wasn’t the knock-it-out-of-the-park result I’d initially expected.
Thanks to @Lewis (6:38) for pointing out the constructor's notes.
CD SLOTs seem to be a thing of the past, alas. I recently had to replace my 2008 Prius and CD players aren't even an option on most of the cars I considered. Now I'll have to invest in a portable CD player for the car. This makes me grumpy.
Who said anything about wow?
Thanks, I didn't get it either
I didn't know ROYALOPERAHOUSE, so it was thrilling to see it appear before my eyes as if through the London fog.
Crossing TOO and ARTOO rubbed me wrong, but whatever. However, clueing TOO as “what 2 can stand for” was just 2 on the nose.
BUNS MOONS HUNG? I feel that we're ONINTIMATETERMS here.
Easy for sure, but I liked it, and likers gonna like. Thanks and congrats, Adrianne Baik
Dang, forgot to post my uniclues:
1. Asian maracas.
2. Beep-whiz-beep-whistle-whistle-BEEEEEP!
1. RATTLE WOKS
2. ARTOO MAIN POINT
K short for Kilo (as in kilogram - a thousand grams).
WOAH has been spelled WHOA until textspeak popularized this spelling.
Agreed, RP’s point was that the word “best” is the usual for the in-the-language phrase.
Exactly what Rex said. Stacks look daunting, but they can often be quite easy to solve. (MAS's never seemed to be, but this one was.) Part of the reason is that the clues were very fair and there were quite a number of gimmes in the crossing Downs. At the top, HOVER, ERE, HUNG and ASTI were gimmes. Right under it, CORGIS was a gimme -- at least for me. And when AYE AYE SIR was too short, it had to be AYE CAPTAIN.
But even though easy, this was fun to solve. The fill was colorful and chatty. And after yesterday's bear, I didn't mind having a whooshy puzzle today.
In cricket, when a new edgy batsmen comes to the wicket, most of the infield fielders, especially the silly square leg (yes, that's the name of the fielder closest to the the batsman) "CLOSE IN" so I wrote in the singular "CLOSES IN" Anyway fits with Royal Opera House and QE2's corgis And of course no cheating, it just "not cricket."
@egs - I can’t believe I’ve never heard likersgonnalike before!
Too bad about the exact wording on the 21 clue, bc it was a great misdirection. Someone on Wordplay pointed out that changing it to 16 would have also been more accurate.
While there are long and short novels, they are almost always longer than, say, poems, short stories, essays, blogposts, etc. and most other forms of written communication.
MOONS next to TAINT is testing my breakfast
If a batter CHOKESUP the smart fielder CLOSESIN. This unfortunately reminds me of childhood baseball where everyone yells loudly to come in when there is a weak hitter. Very satisfying as an adult when a team did that to me when they didn’t even know me to knock it over all their heads, and have them back up every time I came up after that.
Eso responde a eso.
Enjoyable and doable, but not exactly thrilling. It would be okay to write humorous clues because I think you're safe from Will Smith slapping you in public over a joke these days.
CD SLOTS, oof.
I love TOO crossing ARTOO. In yo face dupe-doubters.
People: 7
Places: 2
Products: 3
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 21 of 70 (30%)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Uniclues:
1 One said to be unafraid of bricks.
2 Scotty's statement to Kirk when making muffins.
3 Reads the last chapter first.
1 FLIP PHONE PANSY
2 AYE CAPTAIN, STIR
3 CHEATS IN NOVELS (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: To squeeze lunch in. ANACONDA INTENT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@egsforbreakfast 8:59 AM
Someone's mind is in the GRATER.
@Barbara S. 9:08 AM
I stared and stared at that and couldn't remember his main point! Thanks for hitting a home run.
I liked the clue for NOVELS, and I "saw" the long answers pretty easily, so this puzzle went very fast for me, a welcome change after yesterday's #*@!**!! But I only WISH there were a CD slot on car dashboards these days. That clue seemed dated.
I put that in at first also!
I had the hardest time with 17A. EVE__VOTE COUNTS. Eve of? So TAo is a natural pitch? Event? So TAn is a color, aka pitch? The word “reminder” in the 17A clue was leading me to think of something that would pop up on one's calendar, not a slogan. I finally got the EVERY, whew!
Otherwise, only griND before BLEND as a writeover. Not whoosh whoosh but steady progress.
MOONS as clued got me wondering how that ever became a word for dreaming or yearning. Merriam Webster was of no help. All I can come up with is that gazing at the moon might lead one to idly dream, thus becoming a term for that action?
Adrianne Baki, nice Friday!
Took me a loooong second to get that it is the BATTER who CHokeS up.
Enjoyed this one very much, with a caveat on 46D: Munch--The clue wants a verb so I plunked down CHeW, only to change it to the correct CHOW after getting the cross. You eat some CHOW (noun), but you don't CHOW (verb) food. The correct answer should have been CHOWdown (on some food). Nosh works as a verb and noun, but obviously wrong although it fits.
Surprised to not see Rex upset at the TOO and ARTOO cross, even the clue for TOO made it super similar to ARTOO (R2-D2). But I’m guessing he solved that area easily enough, he never saw it. 🤣 This one was easy for me, first Friday in forever that I didn’t have to look anything up! Probably because it was fairly light on proper nouns and sports jargon. 😅
Hey All !
Late today (for me). Tough-ish, but ultimately doable. TOO crossing TOO, which I'm sure has been mentioned. Liked it as far as I can like a Themeless.
That's it!
Have a great Friday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Anonymous 8:03 AM
{Knock, knock, knock (kinda loud)} "Open up in there. We're from the crossword police and we're here to arrest you for 'criminally negligent cluing.' Our probable cause? Our perceived notion of where CD SLOTS exist inside automobiles. You're gonna have to come to crossword jail. Lunch is always UDON served with OREOS there."
At 18 I went into the local beer distributor on a dare and bought a case of Ballentine Ale. I was a regular customer for 3 years til I ordered a keg. When he asked what the occasion was I answered without thinking " it's my 21st birthday"! Needless to say I wasn"t welcome in his place any longer!
Except for a couple of hiccups, the stacks of 15s were fairly easy, but some of the fill was tough. Two hiccups, I guess-- I liked THAT'S THAT THEN so much that I forgot to count the letters, but fortunately noticed before I inked in that S. ALY took care of that. And in my book, munch is a verb and CHOW is a noun, which made it hard to see ON INTIMATE TERMS. But not THAT hard, so I fixed it fairly quickly.
But the fill! I was so careful to not commit to either pots or pans before I cross-checked the second letter, but RACCOONS made it clear that we were dealing with pOtS-- or so I thought. So maybe the puppy's plaint was "pet mE" -- a plaint because it was not being petted at the time. That blocked MAIN POINT, COINS, and most importantly THOU. I had to come all the way around before I had _HINE and saw it was WOKS. I had a little trouble with BIAS, but that was my fault, I couldn't see LEANING as a noun, until suddenly I did.
A lovely puzzle, except for the clue for TOO, which belongs in the Weekly Reader.
DANISH is meant as a poke at Trump, I suppose, but many of the Greenlanders want to throw off the colonial yoke (although they don't want it replaced by a Trumpian yoke, either). And if a flip phone is retro, what do you call one with a rotary dial? (Actually, we didn't get one of those until I was 11, so it seemed pretty new-fangled to me.)
@Rex - The audiobook of Oroonoko is 3 hours and 3 minutes. Do you really consider that a short story? Candide, another short novel, is a 4 hour 17 minute listen.
I wanted "Buy a six-pack for me" instead of HIT ME, but it wouldn't fit.
She voted against both world wars.
I encourage everyone to read Adrienne's constructor's notes. Absolutely beautiful story
Pansies are flowers, as are violets.
Actually, lion’s share means ALL of it.
Add me to the list.
Where Rex had Moet, I had brut--both of us should have thought about why the clue said "bubbly" instead of champagne. ASTI is not always bubbly (that's the spumante part), but it fits the clue.
As Rex's WOD says, that opera house is most commonly referred to as "Covent Garden;" so commonly that it took me a bunch of crosses to remember that it was the ROYAL OPERA HOUSE.
Anonymous 9:22AM thanks for that bit of trivia! I knew K meant thousand but I never knew why!
I associate the word with the Bible - in the translation I grew up with, people would "rend" their clothes as a sign of grief and distress. Example: In Genesis 37:34, Jacob believes his son Joseph as been killed: "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days." When I was growing up, my family read aloud a chapter of the Bible every evening, so I had many encounters with rent garments.
You might already know this, but for a $20 annual fee, you can solve the NYT acrostics online at xwordinfo.com. Worth it for me - I solved in the mag for decades and have had enough of. trying to match up those tiny numbers and letters.
14 minutes for me on Friday--so I guess that's medium. Great Puzzle, Adrianne!!!! Thanks a bunch. I love stack puzzles--fun to parse those long answers. I agree with those who felt mainly the retro vibe.... CDSLOTS, FLIPPHONES, WOKS, ETSY was the most modern thing in there, HATERSGONNAHATE, etc. Hahaha on the "Intimate Terms" vibe, which I missed but LOLed about when I read @egsforbreakfast's comment! Thanks again : )
"And if a flip phone is retro, what do you call one with a rotary dial?"
Until 1995, you would have called it "Nancy's phone." I had to abandon it when I moved to a new apartment and I learned that the ringer was in the wall, not in the phone. I was broken-hearted and switched to another AT&T phone -- the next one they made after the rotary. It was beige, not black, and it had push buttons.
One of the very few modern tech things that actually WAS an improvement. I could dial "9" and it wouldn't take 25 seconds to roll around. I never wanted all the other bells and whistles -- and by dint of great effort and perseverance, I've avoided them. But on rotary vs. buttons, I've never looked back.
Easy up top, nicely resistant below. Favorite moments: 1) writing in RACCOONS, whose masked banditry I can now smile at since we have trash cans they can no longer open - years ago, it was a grim day when we saw they were able to deal with the double bungee-ing of lids; 2) seeing LIONS SHARE appear. I also liked the bakery stack of BUNS and DANISH.
A serviceable Friday offering with 6 horizontal grid spanners that, while not super scintillating, were pretty good. Could’ve been better with cleverer clues. Liked the clue for LIONSSHARE at 27D, even though I generally dislike those kind of exclamatory misdirection attempts. This one had me looking for something about a punchline or a surprise ending before I cleaned it up with crosses and smiled.
A couple of complaints: Does anyone actually sub in the numeral 2 for the word TOO? (23D). And I can’t see how CHOW at 46D is equivalent to munch. It’s just 2 much of a stretch. And ASTI at 14D! It seems constructors and editors are only aware of 2 kinds of sparkling wine - Champagne, usually clued via Moet and ASTI Spumante. C’mon, there’s some great ones out there. Couldn’t you work in a Prosecco or a Cremant d’ Alsace or even my original entry, Cava from the Catalan region of Spain. I plopped it in at 14D, even though I knew it would be wrong, but I just did not want to type in ASTI one more time!
I did like the 2 dog related clues. At 24D I, off the initial W, dropped in Woofs before realizing my mistake. But that made me think about dogs that woof. We have had plenty of dogs in our family and, presently, we have 3 on the farm, but only one of them has ever truly woofed. Fred, my son’s 120 pound Great Pyrenees patrols the farm woofing his amazing baritone woof just often enough to not upset the neighbouring farmers but just loud enough to scare the crap out of any overly adventurous coyotes. My dog Pablo, on the other hand, ARFS (30D).
Nice job, Adrianne. I enjoyed it.
I think the clue for FLIP PHONE was accurate, but there has actually been a rise in flip phone sales the past three years due to “digital detox”. Still a tiny market share though.
Late to the party as a left coaster. Initial reaction was uh oh, bet breezed through with much satisfaction. I have a 2016 BMW with a CD slot, and a ‘98 M Roadster with a CD slot behind the removable face plate (anti-theft, supposedly), so that clue worked for me, but don’t know if newer cars have them. Best puzzle of the week IMHO.
Thanks for asking. I actually know this, but completely forgot today, having been focused recently on the word as the (archaic) second-person singular personal pronoun and rather regretting that we lost it.
So, I thank thee that thou hast askéd.
The ver Munch is simply the wrong clue for CHOW, which is a noun (unless it’s accompanied by DOWN). A better clue might be Grub… or Eats, if you’re tricky.
Medium for me. I did not know CHEATS IN and TESS.
Costly erasures - CHeW before CHOW, moët before ASTI, and PluS before PROS.
Low on junk and high on sparkle with solid triple stacks and some nice long downs, liked it.
Argh! Just when I had put that miserable failure out of my head!
I love Fridays by Robyn W.
Now I'm looking forward to more Fridays from Adrianne Balik. I got a late start but after yesterday's fiasco (for me) so this was a really pleasant surprise. I didn't know TESS, LEE, WOAH but they worked themselves out. I've come to the realization that gimmick-puzzles aren't my thing ('wheelhouse') & tend to lean toward long fills & so I really enjoyed this Friday. Very nice debut & thank you, Adrianne.
And your tribute to your friend was lovely & so very welcome when most constructor's comments are usually (& I guess, rightfully?) about themselves. Thank you :)
Have a good vacation, Rex :)
Agreed. Although seeing it spelled WOAH is always slightly painful.
You think WOKS are retro? Try making a shrimp stir fry in one of those new-ish cooking devices like an air fryer or an instant pot or, heaven forbid, your sous vide set up. Not gonna work. WOKS are just basic cooking necessities.
(All right, I agree, you could just sub in a good, solid fry pan, but that doesn't make WOKS retro.)
Many a one. That's all you need for the clue to work.
Last car I had with a CD player was my 2014 Abarth but it was so discreetly placed, in the dashboard, that I'd had the car for a year before I realized it was there.
it was a pretty fun Friday puzzle. I actually had national Gallery instead of Royal Opera House, but quickly learned that was wrong
Incredible that this was a debut puz. Talk about takin on a lot of potential first-time constructioneerin obstacles!
Not too feisty a solvequest, at our house. Was a little nanosecond deficit, gettin started in the NW/NE.
staff weeject picks: ALY & LEE. No-knows, but nice to meet y'all. [You too, TESS.]
Some faves: The great 15-stacks, top & bottom. Clues for ARFS & RACCOONS.
Thanx, Ms. Baik darlin. Real good job, and congratz on yer primo debut.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
... and to continue our mini-trek into the emptiness, via another approach ...
"Runting on Empty II" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
p.s. Happy lake-time, @RP.
Munch is a Gen Z word (noun) for nosh. Maybe that's what it meant.
Wednesday difficulty in a Friday grid.
Lots to like and very little to WHINE about in this solidly built offering. I did give a side eye to 32D "Idly dreams" for MOONS. How about something along the lines of "Europa and Ganymede, for two"? Or "Many ___ ago"?
I have a dumb phone---it makes and receives calls and texts which seems pretty smart to me---but it isn't even a FLIP PHONE, just the simplest, no frills model out there.
I have a mild aversion to using phones of any kind. We got our first rotary phone many MOONS ago when I was about nine. We lived in the country and these phones were made to ring so loudly that they could be heard by farmers out in the field.
One summer afternoon I was home alone and I came in after doing my chores and laid down for a short nap. Then the phone rang. It scared the hell out of me. It was like an explosion. I jumped up, heart racing and breathing rapidly in full fight or flight mode. Yeah, I was totally SHOOK UP. Just that one incident and to this day I don't feel comfortable with a phone.
I always think WOAH or WHOA should be two syllables and rhyme with the three syllable Anoa.
I thought this was a great smooth puzzle; however it went by pretty quick at just under 12 minutes. Up top, I had two of the same errors as Rex: ALI and OILS. Rex, thanks for the description of how you root out those errors... I do it too but I guess I never realized it.
Two weeks ago I bought a 2009 Nissan Versa, and it has a CD SLOT in the middle of... yes, the dashboard. Unfortunately I got rid of all my CDs a decade ago. Fortunately it has Bluetooth.
Hands up for AYEAYE CAPN before AYE CAPTAIN.
I have a RACCOON in my back yard every evening, so I pick up my rake and convince him/her to leave. And seeing CORGIS makes me think of the wonderful Helen Mirren as her majesty: "Come on, dogs!", and they do.
Well, IMHO, WOAH is simply a needless misspelling of WHOA that has somehow caught on.
Happy Friday. Appreciate sharing the "this looks daunting" feeling, and getting some good advice on how to tackle it. I hadn't done that. Happily put IGUESSTHATSTHAT straight in and was so pleased the second THAT worked for the downs it took me awhile to let go of the first part, until RACCOONS came along. Same with AYEayecApN.
Haven't seen a cd player in a car for quite awhile. Wasn't fond of the clue for LIONSSHARE, but any Friday I can swing without cheating, and solve fairly quickly, is still gratifying.
I got ROYAL… to start the London attraction… and confidently wrote in ROYALALBERTHALL! It fits. I think it was a conscious misdirection.
Coffee blends aren’t generally made by the same person or company doing the roasting, btw.
I think more accurately, pansies are a type of flower in the violet family
Woah! Proud not to have gotten that one.
Actually, it means “most” not all. MW dictionary, Wikipedia, and every other entry on google front page.
Spelling out R2D2 feels like it should be TWO. So it was nice that the last cross told us how to spell it in this case
My wife had 2 clue me in. But we're ONINTIMATETERMS.
We still had a wall mounted phone with a rotary dial in 2000. I know because we put one of those stickers on it that said "Y 2k compliant"(I think).
Aye, Aye Cap’n
Ditto!
Conrad
I did chow chew chow. I eventually realized we are talking modern slang On the other hand I resisted His and sure enough it was HER.
Why Hamlet never went hungry: There were always some Danish in the castle.
Yes. It's horrible. But you may find you'll be repeating it to friends. It's an odd sort of horrible. How many Hamlet jokes are out there?
Gary Jugert
I always enjoy when you mention the dupes. Like you, they don’t bother me. But I usually don’t even see them. I did notice too/too and again thought Shortz doesn’t care why bother to complain. He’s not listening.
JT. about CD slots. But the clue doesn’t say new cars. There are millions of cars on the road with them. I
Casrussell
I looked munch and chow up
Apparently munch is now used as a NOUN = chow.
I had to rent a tuxedo when my daughter got married. That's different, right? I managed to get through the ceremony and reception without crying until I saw the catering bill.
After reading all the criticism of munch/chow I looked it up. People do use munch as a noun these days Not in the least surprised. If people use it that way then to me it is a valid clue whether I like the word or not. As I said above! put in CHOW changed to CHeW then back to the correct answer.
The puzzle was easy for me about 2/3 of the way through The I stumbled at DANO CDSLOT cross Couldn’t think of CD for some reason and don’t know the actor. A short alphabet run solves that.
Liked the 21,clue for hit me despite the Rex rant. Ditto novel. Ditto lion’s share
I have read that the pack
of corgis were house pets.
Originally it did mean all. From Wikipedia: When it comes to dividing the spoil, the lion says, "I take the first portion because of my title, since I am addressed as king; the second portion you will assign to me, since I'm your partner; then because I am the stronger, the third will follow me; and an accident will happen to anyone who touches the fourth."
It's funny that we still "dial " numbers on our smartphones, just like we still "sail" overseas even on ocean liners.
What a joy. This Friday gem really made my week, especially after two DNFs that were fine puzzles, just not in my wheelhouse.
At first, those triple stacks were very intimidating, but this turned into a very even keeled, calm and enjoyable solve. With just the right amount of resistance. Every spanner looks pretty in the greed and I love all the phrases. I agree with @Rex - funny how an old phrase like WORDONTHESTREET rings a bit fresher than the relatively new (but now somehow dated) HATERSGONNAHATE.
FLIPPHONE was fun and I had a good time getting LIONSSHARE to fall, I appreciated the mis-direct of "Greatest".
Like @Rex, my least favorite answer was CDSLOT. Nothing incorrect or unfair about it, I just found it a bit weaker than everything else. And the "everything else" I thought was top notch.
CHEATESIN is a perfectly upstanding baseball term and that fell fairly easily.
Great way to end the work week, thank you Adrianne!
I am 73 and my father when passive aggressively wanted one of the women in the house to get him a snack would ask “What do we have to munch on?” It was very much in the language my entire life, not necessarily a Gen Z word for nosh. Also very familiar with nosh from my German grandmother. Have used both all my verbal life.
And here I thought the “console” was the storage place between the two front seats in cars post-1980ish. I think instead of dashboard, today’s word given the array of “stuff” on the electronic panel that spans the width of a car below the windshield is often called ”the display” (my USAF husband called it the cockpit).
Also, since “dashboard” is the topic at the moment, my warped brain thinks of that as the flatish section of plastic or leather (on high end rides) to which all of the driver’s gauges and other electronic gadgets on the display are attached (and which provides space for the glove box) and upon which I prop my feet on long road trips when I’m not driving. Isn’t language fabulous! And the “dashboard” has been around since the “Surry With the Fringe on Top” 🎶 “. . . The wheels are yellow, the upholstery’s brown, the dashboard’s gen-you-wine leather.” 🎶 This kind of discussion is a huge reason why I! Love! Crosswords! And also everybody here who shares ideas, knowledge and opinions.
I look forward to more from Adrianne too. Her story inspired me. Crosswords bring people together in special ways. I got to know my husband when he came to the U of Illinois after his last deployment to Viet Nam by solving crosswords during tech week in the U of I opera orchestra. A small group of us solved while the musicians waited seemingly endlessly for things on stage, lights and tech got figured out.
Ditto!
Couldn’t agree more!
Congratulations to Adrianne Baik on her debut! And a first try at publication at that! Just Wow. When I read her touching constructor’s note and saw that she’s a student at Harvey Mudd, I was instantly impressed and humbled. I think this very elite and mostly science and math institution (part of the Claremont Colleges group) has only about 1,000 students. Just reading her comments gave me hope. We need more future leaders of her caliber. And I certainly look forward to her next puzzle.
Although fairly easy, I really enjoyed the solve; I love a stacked grid especially on a Friday. Some of the clues were a tad squishy as @Rex pointed out, but c’mon, this woman hasn’t even been solving very long and she created this gem overnight! The editorial staff could have easily helped her understand where things could be tweaked for improvement. But we are going to see more from her.
My one little wince was the clue for MOONS. I had MuseS at 32D because When I think of someone who MOONS over something, it’s an emotional feeling: the breakup or an unexpected loss of an opportunity, more sad, lamenting lost opportunity or regret than “dreaming.” She MOONS over not getting picked for Student Government like it’s the end of the world.
My favorite moment though was CHEATS IN. That was the cherry on my hot fudge sundae. It demonstrated the breadth of Ms. Baik’s frame of reference (and y’all know I love baseball). She touched on so many areas, created engaging wide stacks and topics from the ROYAL OPERA HOUSE to the FLIP PHONE and old colloquialisms like WORD ON THE STREET. What a delightful breezy Friday.
Thanks @Paulfahn. My thoughts exactly about the coffee BLEND.
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