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1972 hit for Tanya Tucker / TUE 4-21-26 / Wild West way of settling disputes / Cool, in '90s slang / Literary friend of Finn / Starbucks alternatives from the Golden Arches / Dual degrees for physicians / Haitian currency unit / "___ dat" (slangy agreement)
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Constructor: Victoria Fernandez Grande
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- SPIRIT GUIDE (17A: Mentor from the beyond)
- UNITED WAY (25A: Major charity whose recipients include the Red Cross and Salvation Army)
- FRONTIER JUSTICE (36A: Wild West way of settling disputes)
- "DELTA DAWN" (49A: 1972 country hit for Tanya Tucker)
The gourde (French: [ɡuʁd]) or goud (Haitian Creole: [ɡud]) is the currency of Haiti. Its ISO 4217 code is HTG and it is divided into 100 centimes (French) or santim (Creole).
The word "gourde" is a French cognate for the Spanish term "gordo", from the "pesos gordos" (also known in English as "hard" pieces of eight, and in French as "piastres fortes espagnoles") in which colonial-era contracts within the Spanish sphere of influence were often denominated. (wikipedia)
• • •
The fill on this one was a little above average for a Tuesday, I thought. I could've done without two foreign currencies (few things reek of crosswordese like foreign currencies), and I'm not sure crossing FLYING with FLY was the best idea, but otherwise I didn't wrinkle my face at the grid much at all, and generally enjoyed making my way through the grid (often a chore in early-week themed puzzles, where the fill often feels like an afterthought). The fact that the grid was fun to move through is particularly impressive given that there are only a small handful of answers more than six letters long: just two 8s and two 7s. Normally, the longer answers are the thing giving the grid life, but today's puzzle relies on an army of 6s to get the job done. The effects are particularly nice in the SW corner. I don't love the idea of plural MCCAFES (I've only ever seen one, that I remember, and that was in NZ), but otherwise, in addition to the always lovely "DELTA DAWN," we get SEX and CLIMAX (!) as well as the musical stylings of CELINE Dion and the consonantal onslaught that is MD/PHDS. Did CELINE ever cover "DELTA DAWN"? Not that I can find. She does sing something called "New Dawn," but it's a pretty boring gospel song, so here's the VH1 Pop-Up Video version of that song from Titanic instead, enjoy:
Bullets:
- 56A: "But Daddy I Love ___" (Taylor Swift song) ("HIM") — I never saw this clue, so I can't really complain, but I'm gonna complain anyway—no need to shoehorn Taylor Swift into yet another puzzle, esp. for a completely ordinary word like "HIM." And, I mean, if you really want to do a musical fill-in-the-blank clue with a song containing "HIM," there are sooooooooo many to choose from. Branch out!
- 29D: Left-wing protest group (ANTIFA) — feels fresh, but it's not new—this is actually the fifth appearance of ANTIFA (which debuted in 2018). This answer always makes the fascists mad, so I like it.
- 10D: Female form of the animal that outnumbers humans in Iceland (EWE) — this feels forced. As a clue for SHEEP, I'd love the Iceland trivia, but as a clue for EWE, it's ungainly ... the whole "Female form of the" part makes it wordy and awkward.
- 46D: Literary friend of Finn (SAWYER) — This clue makes it sound like Tom was bookish. Remember how Tom got out of painting that fence so he could go off and read Dostoevsky? Classic.
- 57D: Cool, in '90s slang (FLY) — I was there (the '90s, that is), and I still hesitated here, even with the "F"—my brain went "... FAT ... wait, isn't it PHAT?" The "FLY Girls" were dancers on the popular early-'90s sketch show In Living Color. J-Lo was a FLY Girl. The word came out of hip-hop culture and was everywhere for a while. If I could bring back any '90s slang, I'd bring back FLY. Beats PHAT by a country mile.
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67 comments:
Easy-Medium. A bit more crunch than most recent Tuesdays (solved without reading the theme clues).
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
Got my Turkish currency messed up at 4D. Had rIalS before LIRAS.
My 5D tiny drop was a tear before it was a DRIp before it was a DRIB.
TEA pot before URN for the 26D steeping container.
At 35A, I had Art for "song and dance" before ADO.
rad before FLY for the 90s slang at 57D.
One WOE, the Haitian currency GOURDE at 18D
Easily 4-5 entries today tougher or at least more obscure than anything we saw over the weekend. Rex is right - well filled overall with a somewhat tepid theme. I liked SPIRIT GUIDE but that center spanner stands out also.
SAGE & SPIRIT
The FLY x FLYING cross can’t happen. If we’re being real - neither can LIES and LIAR. SPURN, FOR YOU are solid. MOROSELY, GOURDE, MD PHDS, ERM - there is some odd early week stuff here. Most know DELTA DAWN from Helen Reddy.
EMILY Smiles
A pleasant little Tuesday morning solve.
LIES
I want to FLY FLY away from this puzzle.
FLY as 90’s slang is never not going to make me think of Weird Al’s “Pretty Fly (for a Rabbi).” For some reason, if Weird Al does a parody of a song, that will always be the version that sticks for me.
The time was fine, but for a first-words theme, I felt like UNITED WAY wasn’t repurposed enough from the implied “United Airlines.” I guess one’s a charity and the other’s an airline company, but they’re both proper nouns. But the other theme answers were great, as Rex says, and I certainly don’t mind seeing UNITED WAY in the grid other than for the inelegance.
Cheers to making the fascists mad
It’s not wrong to call FLY ‘90s slang, but the term (with that definition) goes much further back, into the 1800s, in fact. In the early 1900s Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” inspired the popular song “Poor Butterfly,” which in turn inspired an answer song called “Poor Butterfly Is a Fly Girl Now.” Billy Murray (no, not that Bill Murray) recorded it in 1919–you can hear it on YouTube. That was what? 75 years? before JLo.
Nice Tuesday despite the corporate plugs. Always nice to see the designated domestic terror group Antifa in the puzzle. McCafes is a dubious plural.
DELTA DAWN highlighted FLY rather than the revealer, which I assume was a mistake but really drew attention to the FLY/FLYING cross, which I wasn’t a fan of.
A smooth, pleasing solve, a bit like tubing down a river, with some lovely sights along the way – SPIRIT GUIDE, FRONTIER JUSTICE, the cross of DOE and EYES, homophones (EWE / YOU), rhymers EYES / LIES / ALIBIS, and a backward BIRD sharing a column with FLY.
And you do you, Victoria, with your focus on earlier-week puzzles in your crossword solving life (as you mention in your notes), which may have given you a FLYING START on crafting them. There is an art to making good early week puzzles, and, IMO, you nailed it here, with a theme whose revealer can either bring an aha or be fun to guess at, and a high percentage of interesting answers.
Any time I cross paths with quality I feel enriched, and thank you for making that happen today, Victoria. More please!
My personal trainer suggested I get an exercise ball to work on my core. So I picked up an ABSORB.
Don't ask Trump what ALIBIS unless you want an earful of F-bombs.
Here's a "three couples" joke about SEX.
A church holds an "open house" to get new members to join the congregation, and three couples show up and say they want to join. The first are in their fifties, married close to thirty years. The second in their thirties, married seven or eight. And the third was a pair of shiny bright newlyweds. The minister is delighted but explains that they need to pass a test in order to join. To prove the strength of their commitment, they have to agree to refrain from sex for 30 days. All three couples agree.
A month goes by and they meet at the church. The minister asks the older couple how it went. The husband says, "To be honest, it wasn't that difficult for us. There were a few nights we had to fight back desire, and my wife made sure to wear her least sexy pajamas, but overall, we passed the test without too much difficulty." The minister says, "Don't sell yourself short -- you made an important commitment and you honored it. We're delighted to have you join our congregation."
He turns to the couple in their thirties. The husband says: "It was pretty tough, especially the last few weeks. I slept on the couch a few nights to be safe. But I'm happy to report we made it!" The minister was thrilled. "Excellent! Welcome to our church!"
Finally, he asks the newlyweds how they did. The husband says: "We so much wanted to join this church. We did everything we could to pass the test: I slept on the couch. I stayed at my brother's place a few nights. My wife did everything she could to not be sexy. But with just three days to go, she reached up to get a can of paint off a shelf, and it was just so alluring I couldn't stand it. So I grabbed her, and, well, we didn't last for 30 days." The minister says, "Well, I'm very sorry to hear that, but you know what the deal was. I'm afraid I can't let you into our congregation." And the husband says, "Yeah, they're not letting us into Home Depot anymore either."
I got the theme from SPIRIT and FRONTIER, which let me guess DELTA--so by the time I got to the revealer I knew what kind of START we were dealing with. I somehow never noticed UNITED, but didn't need to to know the theme.
I actually wanted DELTA DAmN at first, I think under the unconscious influence of Nina Simone and "Mississippi Goddamn."
But I ended up with an error because of the horrible clue at 5-D, "Tiny drop," which just HAD to be DRIp. I had ABSORB but took out the B because of that clue. I checked two dictionaries, which agreed that a DRIB was a tiny amount of something--no connotation of fluidity at all. You could lawyer it up and argue that a tiny amount of water is still a tiny amount, and hence a DRIB, but that's a stretch too far for me, at least on a Tuesday.
So yeah, I'm irked, but the puzzle itself was fine. I kind of liked the FLY/FLYING cross, and Rex has already mentioned CLIMAX/SEX.
I can't recall hearing Delta Dawn growing up but it made me think of another song often, Catfish John (often performed by Jerry Garcia), with the chorus:
Mama said, "Don't go near that river
Don't be hanging around old Catfish John"
Come the morning, I'd always be there
Walking in his footsteps in the sweet Delta dawn
Hey All !
VIRGIN DAIQUIRI
EASTERN PHILOSOPHY
AMERICAN GRAFFITI
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANT 🤣
Nifty TuesTheme. Surprised by no Rex, "Why these Airlines?", or not lambasting the crossing FLYs, especially with one being the Revealer. He keeps you guessing!
I liked the puz. Always neat to find YURT. It's slightly less than glamping, in that it is tent-like, but with solid sides, and usually has some amenities in it. Drove some people (when I was limo driving) to a music festival way out in the desert who were staying in a yurt. It had a porch, even.
Fill good here. All corners have the three 6 letter stacks (well, top and bottom stack have the Themers as part of them), with good fill. Gets yer required @M&A weeject stacks in each one.
Randomness:
Who had wmDS before IEDS? *Raises hand* Is MDPHDS a thing? Looks odd. Could've redone bottom center as
FLYI
LEES
OORT
getting your scientific spacyness on.
Anyway, good puz Victoria. Any relation to Ariana? 😁
Have a great Tuesday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Tom Sawyer *was* bookish. His band of pirates from Tom Sawyer and his escape plan for Jim from Huckleberry Finn leap to mind as examples of the way everything Tom did came from books he read (and didn't really understand).
Tricky little devil of a Tuesday. I had forgotten about DELTA DAWN and FRONTIER JUSTICE didn’t register with “disputes” as the clue. I think of it more along the lines of criminal activity rather than two guys with six shooters in front of a saloon. Fortunately, the reveal confirmed FRONTIER and after that DELTA jumped right out at me.
One of the few times that the theme/reveal combo actually assisted me in the solve. It was fun and a nice change of pace.
The puzzle was a tad hard for a Tuesday. The theme was good and was enjoyable to solve.🎈🎈🎊🎊
I also hate FAT before FLY. The 90s slang I still use all the time is WORD, as a version of “yes” or “I hear you.”
Three star Tuesday from my view, too.
My wife hates IT'LL, perhaps irrationally; and so I laugh out loud whenever it appears. Ahh, love.
First wrote in GOURDs for the (TIL) Haitian currency unit, thinking I must have missed a word signifying "once" in the clue.
Then when GOURDE was the WOTD, after reading "pieces of eight" and looking at the coin, I expected it to have eight sides. Nope, seven. But a seven-sided coin was noteworthy enough for me to learn more.
Its shape is referred to as a Reuleaux heptagon, which gives it a constant width and allows it to work in a vending machine (as if circular). It also makes it identifiable by touch and harder to counterfeit.
Are epilogues to the WOTD allowed to be submitted by the masses?
Enjoyed from start to finish, many 6 -letter answers throughout, good fill for a Tuesday, simple but effective theme. I'm not a constructor, but I like how this grid shaped up. 4 stars from me.
Hey, kiddo. At this crossroads for American democracy I have to wonder, is the FRONTIERJUSTICE? Nothing more than a bunch of masked IDIOTS who SAWYER PAINED EYES but still JOININ the LIES of EMPIRE? Or is it ANTIFA? I know it's a lot to ABSORB, but someday this nightmare will ENDSON, FORYOU and all of us.
Foolish people walk right by beauty resorts owned by vipers: Saps pass ASPS spas.
Gotta like a puzzle that starts with YES and ends with TRU. Thanks, Victoria Fernandez Grande.
Easy-Medium seems right to me too. Although I'm beginning to think that Easy-Medium is the new Medium.
Perfectly suitable, and inoffensive, but unexciting to me. (I wouldn't call it drab though. DRIB misses its partner. Heh.) On the bright side, I'm happy not to see their (the NYTXW's) puerile sense of humor on display today.
TEApot before TEA URN, natch. GOURDE is new to me.
IDIOTS. Apparently that word is still safe for use. The word "retarded" has recently been called "the r-word", as in you're not allowed to say it aloud in polite company, and I expect the use has also become obsolete in medical settings where they used to refer to the mentally retarded. Despite best intentions in the beginning, when "retarded" was a bit of a euphemism, a polite word to indicate delay in mental development, it has now become, or is considered, hate speech. (The acceptable phrase du jour is "intellectually disabled", but I wouldn't be shocked if that too undergoes a similar semantic shift.) For some reason I can't put my finger on, the words "idiot", "imbecile", "moron" have not taken on the same taint -- is it because their use as clinical terms is so far back in the past that that has been forgotten, so they are no longer taken as indirect slurs on people who are cognitively impaired, whereas "retarded" is still too recent for that to have taken place? Merriam-Webster has an article here (I find their suggestions for acceptable substitutes laughable, lily-livered, and unrealistic, e.g., "jobbernowl").
Hope you all have a pleasant day.
Tea urn? Someone please explain.
Well…that DOES go back. I’ll tag on the fact that I heard it in high school in the early ‘70s, not to mention there was a movie (and song by Curtis Mayfield) Superfly in 1972.
I usually do the new MIDI crossword first. Today there was an identical clue. Captain in “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”. Are they purposely trying to irk me?
been alive for 6 decades...have never heard the term 'flying start'
An urn that has tea inside.
Nostalgic puzzle. A Helen Reddy hit/earworm. SPIRITGUIDE and FRONTIERJUSTICE put me in mind of old TV westerns. Of all things I flubbed on MCCAFE, but then I am more partial to Starbuck lattes. Fun write up and blogs today!
Henry Goddard (sp?) used terms like imbecile and moron with great specificity. He used IQ as the benchmark and attached terns to the scores. Moron was under 70.
Imbecile under 50.
Idiot under 25.
McCafe is McDonald's line of premium coffee (latte, cappuccino, etc) in the US and on most menus. It is the name of standalone stores in some other geographies, e.g. New Zealand.
Never?
Never heard anyone or anything off to a flying start?
Never seen an auto race that uses a flying start?
Where have you been?
A sharp constructor's EYE to see the potential for a first-word theme in FLYING START and then make it work with the four airlines. Speaking of which, I needed the first three to get me DELTA, the song being unfamiliar to me. I thought SPIRIT GUIDE and FRONTIER JUSTICE were great and also enjoyed writing in SPURN and MOROSELY.
Help from previous puzzles: LIRAS. No idea: GOURDE. DNF: I wrote in Act (for ADO) and never checked the crosses.
Like the one for my late Auntie?
WAAAAAAY too many plural in this grid. Like Rex pointed out, MCCAFES and MDPHDS are particularly bad, but I also really hate the sounds of LIRAS and ASPS, and there are a ton more.
I know Delta Dawn by Bette Midler - who, I think, recorded it first.
Flew through this one (see what I did there?) and didn't bother to look for a theme so after FLYINGSTART appeared I went back to see what I had missed. More of an oh. than an aha!
Nice to find out about the GOURDE and its etymology. "Gordo" is Spanish for "fat" and the biggest national lottery is always referred to as "El Gordo". People are always making plans for what they will do when they win El Gordo. "Cuando me toca el gordo...." which is literally " when el gordo touches me", but it means "when I win". Irrational hope is not limited by nationality.
So THAT'S what ANTIFA is. Better clue--"Republican bogeyman".
Solid Tuesday, VFG. A Very Fine Grid and a pleasant solve. Thanks for a bunch of fun.
I guess there is a way to “steep” tea for large groups of people in things that look like the kind of coffee urns you might find at banquets or receptions. I personally wouldn’t want tea “steeped” in an urn because steeping time is tricky in a regular teapot. But yes…the “steeping” part of the clue made it tricky.
Laughed out loud, here's another story of three couples: They're waiting at the "Pearly Gates" to get into heaven, St. Peter refuses the first couple saying to hubby "You were such a miser you wouldn't give to charity or add to the collection plate at church, why you even married a woman named Penny. The 2nd couple were also refused entry, the husband was a lush, always drunk, even married a woman named Sherry. The 3rd husband looked at his wife and said "Come on Fannie, we're going to hell!"
My re-write of the FLY crossing FLY was as follows:
FL
RO
YU
I'm sure you could skip to your LOU or remember LOU Costello. And there would be the annoying plural ROES but I could stomach that more easily than the FLY dupe. I'm surprised at how much this irked me and how little it irked Rex!
MCCAFES was a WOE for me. I don't do MC-anything and am always chagrined when I find fast food detritus in my husband's vehicle. Usually Wendy's, though.
Did I hear Helen Reddy sing "man of low degree"? I always thought the line was "ill repute". Nope, Google tells me I've been hearing it incorrectly all these years. Well shoot.
I enjoyed this puzzle and thought the revealer was good, though I didn't figure it out until I hit 57A. Thanks, Victoria Fernandez Grande!
To paraphrase Ralphy after he decoded the message
: Airlines? A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!
Carolbb
It’s the start you get from sudden turbulence.
I thought Rex would eviscerate the puzzle for FLY crossing FLY--in the revealer!! stomp it into the ground. Howl into the abyss.
Other than that, it was a pretty good time!
I was put off by the fill. I don’t think we should put IEDS in the grid, especially with the way it was clues. It evoked images of veterans missing limbs due to those devices. Do not need that. Also, MDPHDS? Surely there’s something better than that.
Probably needed to punish this ASAP, because Spirit seems to be in its death throes and may not last longer…
On the easy side for me too, but I did need the reveal to see what was going on.
No costly erasures and GOURDE was it for WOEs (although I may have known it in previous decade).
Smooth grid, sparkly theme answers, liked it.
Now this was more like it! I don't remember yesterday's puzzle but I know I wasn't thrilled & was thinking 'What is going on at the NYT?" (putting it nicely). I whooshed through this (no typos) & I really enjoyed it.
Congrats on your debut, Victoria & looking forward to more from you :)
Tanya Tucker
@Son Volt 6:06 AM
After exhaustive research, it appears FLY x FLY can indeed happen. 🤓
I like your clue for ANTIFA way better than theirs. I stopped solving when I got to that. Believing that ANTIFA is an organized group is an absolute giveaway that this group is on the dark side. Which I hate to believe about the New York Times. Surely they know it doesn't exist?
Hah!
TEA URN? ok, if you say so
I'd never heard DELTA DAWN either -- and it's wonderful. I loved it. But, musically speaking, it reminded me of another folk song. While the verses of DELTA DAWN are very different, the chorus, I thought, bore a striking resemblance
to this song.
Great music clips! And totally agree re: the T. Swift clue.
Actually I believe the first DELTA DAWN recording was by Tanya Tucker (1972). although speaking as a true, certified geezer, I remember the Helen Reddy one as the one oft-played, over and over, ad nauseam on radios (remember those things?) In fact it gave birth to mocking parodies, starting with something like ... "Hey there Rose, what's that dangling from your nose?"
Another starts/ends-with puztheme. Well-constructed, but not exactly the freshest of puztheme ideas. The Shortzmeister & crew must like this puztheme type, cuz it always has an ahar moment revealer.
staff weeject pick: ERM. Primo weeject stacks in all 4 corners, btw.
fave fillins: ANTIFA/LEMONADE, I reckon. Don't recall any ?-marker clues to salute.
Thanx, Ms. Grande darlin. And congratz on yer high-flyin debut, along with that of MDPHDS & MCCAFES. har
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s.
runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Another easy D-O solve with some really nice answers - the theme-related ones. The short stuff was kind of dull. Breezed right through it without even considering the theme. Sometimes if you can infer a few themers from the crossing downs, you can use that to your advantage. Not an issue today. Only saw it while reviewing the finished grid.
Also, while reviewing, noticed ANTIFA and its clue. I’ve never thought of it as a “group”. More of a “movement”, I think. But maybe I’m nit-picking.
Actually, I think minoridreams had it right. The first version of DELTA DAWN was by Bette Midler, 1971.
It was the first. But Helen Reddy made it break into top 40 in 73. Not much in the way of “cross-over” between country and pop back then.
Not if the third couple was from Australia. Fanny in the antipodes is song for vagina. Go ahead and use the term fanny pack around an Aussie and enjoy the snickers.
Boy, DELTA DAWN really takes me back to youth. As @bigsteve said, Helen's version was on all stations a lot.
Theme wise, I'm rarely happy to see company names as a theme. I've never even heard of SPIRIT airline, and Google says it's near collapse. And why clue DOLLAR as a company? Please stop.
Several typeovers: TEA POT before URN, DRIP before DRIB, AHAB before NEMO, SUMMIT before CLIMAX. And somehow, GOURDE is a total Unknown to me!
Mostly pleasing Tuesday, we've seen this theme before but so what? This was nicely done and had a great spanner. I'm not familiar with the phrase FRONTIERJUSTICE but very happy to learn it and it looks great in the grid. The other themers were also pretty solid.
I don't associate DELTADAWN with anyone other than Hellen Reddy (though I do appreciate someone referencing the Garcia tune - a very, very different song) but the crosses were all fair and it fell relatively quickly.
13D played some tricks on me. EMILYS List was not front of brain for me and I kept on reading it as if it was some sort of play on "emails"... so I was convinced it was wrong for way too long.
IEDS doesn't make for very pleasant fill but as I always say, a constructor's gotta do what a constructor's gotta do to make it all work. And this one did indeed work.
Thank you for this Victoria, I believe I saw that this was a debut - congratulations and I hope to see more from you!
The Steeping part is especially hard if you're old and mis-read/see it as sleeping.
From Wikipedia "Delta Dawn" is a song written by musician Larry Collins and country songwriter Alex Harvey.[a] The first notable recording of the song was in 1972 by American singer and actress Bette Midler for her debut album The Divine Miss M. However it is best known as a 1972 top ten country hit for Tanya Tucker[1] and a 1973 US number one hit for Helen Reddy."
antifa may appear in cosswords, but it still doesn't exist as a "group" except in the fevered brains of some folks
As a child in the nineties and a teen in the aughts, the "r-word" was regularly used both to insult someone being foolish, awkward or uncool, and to describe/insult people with developmental disabilities (more precisely, a swath of people that children with no training flattened into developmental disabilities). Moron has not, in my life-time, ever been used in the second way. I don't think it's about using the word retard as a clinical term, it's about using it in everyday speech to describe a disabled person, something that still happens. It's this conflation of description and insult that is the problem.
@Rex , Your comment on 46D = LOL .Thnx for the laugh
All these decades later, I never knew until today that Tanya Tucker had done "Delta Dawn." I've only heard Helen Reddy's version, from 1973, when I was still in high school. Apparently Tucker's version preceded it. Learn something new every day, I guess.
Enjoyed this fine Tuesday thank you. TIL GOURDE and thanks , Rex, for the explanation. It was good to be reminded of ISOMER.
Started to listen to DELTA DAWN but too sad
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