.png)
Clergyman known for his verbal gaffes / SUN 6-21-26 / Farm play area / Launch points in disc golf / Long, hooded cloak that's also an author's name / Debuted to stockholders, in Wall St. lingo / Hindu god with an elephant head / Physician specializing in reproductive health, informally / Mathematical constant equal to two times pi
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Constructor: Hannah Slovut-Einertson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
 |
| [122D: "Star Wars" character whose species is never named] |
Theme answers:
My actual feelings about this puzzle are more in two-star territory, but I want to give the puzzle credit for originality (i.e. weirdness), and for a few of the longer non-theme answers, which were strong and occasionally delightful (BEAR WITNESS, STORE CREDIT, "LEVEL WITH ME," COFFEE RUN). But the theme, yeah, no, what? What is even happening? Did people know this was a "Day"? Are you all "celebrating" this today? Is anyone? God love and preserve the giraffes of the world, but this is such (Such!) a weird puzzle to run on a day that is Notably A Holiday! A non-giraffe holiday. Unless your father is a giraffe, in which case ... wow, I have questions. Anyway, it's Father's Day. I don't need a Father's Day-themed puzzle, but to celebrate a different, and (I think it's safe to say) less popular "holiday" on Father's Day is bizarre. Not all bizarre things are bad, but this ... is child's placemat stuff. Connect the dots, draw a long-necked horsey. Mkay. Done and done, I guess, but why? It's not like there were any surprises here. There's one pun, which gives the theme a very (very) mild playfulness, but otherwise it's just giraffe trivia (mostly short answers you might see on any day), and then ... you draw. I knew I was dealing with a giraffe-related puzzle very early—as soon as I got OKAPI, in fact. At that point, I thought the "circled letters" were going to spell "GIRAFFE" somehow, so I got very confused as A B C D etc. started to show up. Eventually I realized that I was going to be asked to connect the circled squares in alphabetical order, which then made it pretty easy to find and fill in the circled squares. Here's what happened immediately after I grasped the connect-the-dots angle:
After this point, the puzzle was basically a tall and somewhat dull themeless. There are few things I like less than being asked to draw a picture on my puzzle when I'm done. Maybe the app did some cool giraffe-related animation, I dunno. Mine just sat there. Not that a graphic would've improved the solving experience. The puzzle isn't bad, it's just ... it's only interesting as a novelty. It has novelty dimensions. Wacky tallness. Beyond that, there's really not much to it. Oh, and one last thing about the theme, specifically the revealer clue: if you ask me to "connect the circled letters from A to T and back to A" (my emphasis), then I am going to assume that you want me to actually go back, i.e. retrace my steps, T to A (the long way). Just a little thought told me that my interpretation made no sense from a drawing perspective, but I still maintain that that instruction is clumsily worded.
Overall, it's a pretty easy puzzle. I had real trouble with TSENG / NOUN, and only wrote that "N" in at the very end. I still can't really accept that [Whatchamacallit] is NOUN. How? In the sense that any ... thing (whether you can remember its name or not) is a NOUN, I guess the clue is, at some basic level, accurate, but you'd never (ever) swap either of those words for the other. Absolutely insane cluing choice. My not knowing a golfer: not a surprise. My not knowing NOUN: strange. I had EYE-to-EYE before TOE-to-TOE (47A: Word on either side of "to"). Struggled with GANESHA because I really (really) thought the god was called simply GANESH ... which it is, though apparently GANESHA is the preferred / more common spelling (89A: Hindu god with an elephant head). It's the primary spelling at the wikipedia entry, at any rate. My trouble there was compounded by my uncertainty about neighboring ACES OUT (the "OUT" part, specifically) and by the tough clue on RANSOM, which crosses both of the aforementioned answers (78D: Price for a return, perhaps). I had ANNOY before ANGER (99D: Tick off). I've never heard of a CORN PIT and can barely imagine it. CORN MAZE? Sure. CORN PIT??? Weirdly, not an element of any farm I've ever seen. I assume they're real, or why would this answer be here, but ... yeah, I needed lots of crosses there. "BEATS ME!" I might've said (but didn't).
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)] =============================
📘 My other blog 📘:
- NECKING (21A: Fighting technique used by [circled letters] (as explained at 76-Across))
- "THAT'S A TALL ORDER" (67A: "Boy, you're asking too much" ... or what you might say after following the instructions at 76-Across?)
- SAVANNA (124A: Habitat for [circled letters])
- OKAPI (20D: Closing living relative of the [circled letters])
- TOWERS (39D: Term for groups of [circled letters])
- ACACIA (81D: Tree whose leaves are eaten by [circled letters])
- SPOTS (109D: Fur pattern on a [circled letters])
Word of the Day: Yani TSENG (25D: Golfer Yani) —
Yani Tseng (Chinese: 曾雅妮; pinyin: Zēng Yǎní; born 23 January 1989) is a Taiwanese professional golfer playing on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. She is the youngest player ever, male or female, to win five major championships. She was ranked number 1 in the Women's World Golf Rankings for 109 consecutive weeks from 2011 to 2013. (wikipedia)
• • •
Bullets:
- 23A: Verify, as an editor (FACTCHECK) — I think of an editor and a factchecker as being separate jobs. I knew a factchecker for National Geographic, and she was not an editor. But I guess some editors do FACTCHECK, so, fine.
- 132A: Debuted to stockholders, in Wall St. lingo (WENT IPO) — awful. Just a horrible, ugly bit of "lingo." A total wordlist answer (i.e. one you use only because your software recommended it). No one wants this.
- 106D: Small superhero whose catchphrase starts "Up and at 'em" (ATOM ANT) — had the first "A" and tried to make ANT MAN work, to no avail.
- 52D: R&B group Bell Biv ___ (DEVOE) — they were popular for precisely the years that I was in college. I don't remember hearing about them again after 1991. But they were pretty damn big in that '90-'91 window. I see now that they released other albums besides their massive 1990 debut (Poison). Bell Biv DEVOE (also known as "BBD," yes, really) was made up of three former members of the '80s boy band New Edition, whose other members included Ralph Tresvant, Johnny Gill, and (most famously) Bobby Brown. Bell Biv DEVOE are: Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe. So, if you didn't know about Bell Biv DEVOE, well ... now you know.
- 53A: Long, hooded cloak that's also an author's name (CAPOTE) — ooh, I forgot this name had a sartorial angle. I think I knew that. But I also think I would've said it was something a bullfighter wore. No idea how my brain ever made that association.
- 119A: Clergyman known for his verbal gaffes (SPOONER) — if you don't know the Reverend, then you have probably never solved a cryptic crossword in your life. Man, those setters (don't call them "constructors") love their spoonerisms. A "spoonerism"is when you transpose the first sounds of two-word phrases, so ... uh ... a "cakewalk" would be a "wake cock" ... that's not really a good example, but it's the first thing that came to mind, sorry / you're welcome.
- 110A: Common holder of pens (MUG) — yes. In fact there's a MUG holding pens (and pencils) on my desk right now. But I got a bit screwed up by the alphabetical sequencing of the circled letters and thought that there should be a "J" where the "M" should be, which resulted in a JAR holding the pens. And then, however improbably, a JUG.
That's all for today. Happy Father's Day to all who celebrate. If that's not you, well then, Happy WORLD GIRAFFE TODAY. Today's got something for everyone!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
📘 My other blog 📘:
- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Save And Share :
132 comments:
Medium, but not in a good way. What a slog! Lots of stuff I didn't know or didn't remember that wasn't much fun to learn. A wavelength thing.
* _ _ _ _
Overwrites:
thc before CBD for the marijuana compound at 7D.
At 15D, my med. diagnostic was an mri before it was an EkG before it was an ECG.
My 28A cook offered "TASTE it" before asking "TASTE OK?"
Era before EON for the history books thing at 73A.
My 74D vow was aver before it was OATH.
At 88A, I had agilE before LITHE for "Limber"
I kinda sorta knew the French word JAUNE (98D), but it took several iterations to get it spelled correctement.
WOEs:
I've probably encountered TEE PADS (25A) in crosswords but it didn't stick.
Golfer Yani TSENG (25D).
If I ever knew it, I'd forgotten that a 39D group of giraffes is called a TOWER
R&Bers Bell Biv DEVOE at 52D.
The natural hairstyle LOCS at 66A.
The TOR browser at 71A.
I've seen depictions of the Hindu elephant-head god but I never knew his name was GANESHA (89A).
Is MAN BAG (92A) really a thing? I've heard of murse for a man's purse, but that didn't fit.
Held onto AdaM ANT at 106D for way too long (ATOM ANT).
Didn't remember (if I ever knew) the math constant TAU (111A).
Is a CORN PIT (117A) the same as a CORN crib, only with fewer letters?
Today is also summer solstice (if we're looking for a more famous holiday)
I love the backstory, that Hannah has had a passion for giraffes for as long as she can remember, and decides to share it with us.
But she wants to do it right, and for months, according to her notes, she throws herself into this puzzle, not satisfied until after having gone through 77 versions, getting the drawing just right, getting the grid and answer set to make that drawing happen – trust me, this was very difficult to do.
But she doesn’t stop there. She brings zing into the grid with a dozen worthy debut answers, including some that raise the question, “How can these answers never have been in the Times puzzle before?” Answers such as BEAR WITNESS, FACT CHECK, COFFEE RUN, COMES EASY, and LEVEL WITH ME.
Well, I like giraffes. They make me smile. I had fun filling in the grid, with enough sticking points in it to make my brain smile too. The giraffe in the grid is cute as can be, and everything about the puzzle and the story behind it has simply charmed me. What a treat, Hannah – thank you!
Rex was far too generous. The 17 x 27 grid was a straight up eff you to app solvers.
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads!
GIRAFFEs are insincere
Thank you for that charming backstory! I enjoyed the puzzle. I knew something was up (no pun intended) as soon as I saw the tall grid, and got a chuckle when I figured out the theme.
Does Be Ar Witness really work?
Just the puzzle I needed to swear off Sundays forever. Circled letters are bad enough, but when there's nothing credible about how to connect them, it isn't a crossword puzzle now, it's closer to a jigsaw. I'll do Monday thru Saturday.
A corn pit is the agrarian version of a ball pit. It’s a kernel of farm fun!
Giraffe fighting, as the puzzle says, is called “necking”, but family members never engage in it because they don’t want to hurt the necks of kin.
Not really, no.
But BEAR WITNESS, does.
Hey All !
Yes, the app draws you a GIRAFFE when puz is done, complete with a yellow color and SPOTS! However, the drawing starts at the I at the bottom, goes to the H, then restarts athe PO at the bottom. And draws the ears separately, with the left ear looking like a unicorn horn.
Said, "What the heck?" when I first gazed upon the grid. But since you needed a GIRAFFE in your puz, I can see why it is 934 rows long.
So, WORLD GIRAFFE DAY is June 21, just so happens this year is a Fathers Day Sunday. We got Fathers Day Mini and Midi puzs, so I guess that'll have to do.
Ended up liking this oddball puz. Putting a GIRAFFE in your puz with ABCDetc., along with related Themers, puts a strain on the grid that Hannah overcame nicely. Not too much dreck.
Hope y'all have a great WORLD GIRAFFE DAY! (Oh, and a great Sunday and Fathers Day!)
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
That was just...odd.
Happy Fathers Day!
As a freelance copy editor back in the 1980s and ‘90s, I also did plenty of FACTCHECKing, with a bookcase full of dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, you name it. Ah, the pre-Internet days—how did we survive them? All those reference books now, poof! Gone.
Working from home let me be more involved in raising my kids than I otherwise might have been. That’s been one of the greatest blessings in a life full of good things. When they call up later today to wish me happy Father’s Day, I’ll act surprised and say I had no idea that was today, I’ve busy celebrating World Giraffe Day.
Mixed feelings. I’m not big on connect-the-dots, but the circled squares were easy enough to ignore. Unfortunately , the onslaught of giraffe trivia was not. But I enjoyed a lot of the longer answers.
A corn pit is a less gritty sandbox, filled with seed corn instead of sand. Kids enjoy it.
Another “visual arts” stunt puzzle that requires good eyesight, and much more patience than I have the ability to muster. Last Sunday we had probably the worst puzzle in about five years, and we followed it up with this, which to me is well below average, and Rex gave it an admittedly generous average rating.
The fill is not lacking the usual slop (see ACACIA crossing PASA, for example). It seems as though the grids are now generally a vehicle for some sort of a gimmick, and the crossword puzzle component is just a secondary consideration, which I believe is a misguided step in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, I think all would be better served if Shortz retired, but he’s on record as saying that’s not going to happen. It’s not much fun to watch him tarnish his legacy like this.
I guess I was giraffe witness today instead of a bear one.
A totally goofy puzzle with roll-off-the tongue long phrases and silly references, celebrating GIRAFFES and “F”s. And generating @Lewis’s neat “necks of kin” pun. No way I was ever going to try to draw the picture myself but congrats to the author for the construction effort. Loved the MUG reference—I have ‘em filled with pens and pencils all over the place.
Which is the longest day of the year, which I’m sure is why World Giraffe Day is also this day.
Why all the Giraffe Day hate? Must we really have a Father's Day puzzle every year? Boring!
That said, I had an issue with two clues and answers: 73A: It's one for the history books - EON. I don't think EONs come up in history books; science books maybe. And 80D: Political exile - EMIGRE. Isn't an emigre basically... anyone who emigrates? For whatever reason?
Primo!
The NYTgames app showed a giraffe at the end when you completed the puzzle. I thought it was very cute.
I have nothing to compare it to but this was my first ever completed Sunday crossword so I’m personally chuffed - felt doable for once!
I thought Rex was going to rate this Embarrassingly Easy, or Child's Placemat-Easy (aptly if you consider the connect-the-circles aspect they are trying to get you to engage in), or some such. It was very easy, is how it hit me. (But fairly tedious, as it was long and there wasn't a great deal of flow; instead for me there was a lot of across-down toggling.) I just ignored the circled letters business and filled in the entries on automatic pilot. When it was done, the on-site software connected the dots for me; I just sat there and watched. It even colored it in with virtual crayons. (Which animation, frankly, I'm getting a little tired of seeing as I look over the completed puzzle.)
This type of thing does not fill my heart with delight and gaiety, and I'm not sure what percentage of the adult solving population it would. It's a very weird puzzle to appear on Father's Day. Didn't they do something nice and fitting for Mother's Day? Equal time!
It reminded me of the "Cappie Dick" section of the funnies that used to appear in the Sunday newspaper (in my case, the Richmond Times-Dispatch). How many of you remember Cappie Dick? Anyone? No one? It was a collection of puzzles and other odds and ends meant to entertain the kiddos. From memory, Cappie Dick was a bearded and grizzled-looking captain with a pipe, who would say something like, "Hey Kids, check these out!" and there may have been an option to mail in your puzzles for a chance to win a small prize. I myself preferred the Fun Facts, jostling for space in the same vicinity as Cappie Dick, especially because my mom would think up snarky comments to annotate the Fun Facts with, and write them in. I wouldn't see the fruits of her labor until Monday the next day at school, where the clipped out Fun Facts with her additions came scotch-taped to the wax-paper wrapping for the sandwich in my bag lunch, and my friends and I would pore over what she had cooked up. In fact her comments were funny and they made my friends laugh. I was pretty proud of my mom, who in that stage of life was an artist and who (whom) all my friends thought was cool.
Hope you enjoy your day!
Went IPO is not a thing. “IPO’d” is a thing. “Went public” is a thing. “Went IPO” is a gaffe.
Locs = certain natural hairstyle? Anagram? I don’t get it
I stopped in for coffee and a smoothie at my local place this morning and asked what the special was. Turned out to be a very tall glass of yellow and brown stuff pulsed in a blender to celebrate Whirled Giraffe Day. I was kind of hungry so I ordered a New Orleans style sandwich to go, aka a po'boy in a POBOX.
First step in making a "Martial Arts Pizza": TAKEONE Dough...
People don't just watch that show about a Chicago restaurant. They BEARWITNESS.
I heard that when OFL applied for his current teaching position he forgot to include some crucial support documents, leading the interviewer to say "We need RECS, Parker." This was overheard by the hiring coordinator and the rest is history.
When asked how he dealt with his violent frustrations, Captain Hook said "BEATSME".
I tried that so-called fun farm activity but it really irritated my underarm. A bad case of CORNPIT.
I really liked the unusual vibe of this puzzle. Nice job and thanks, Hannah Slovut-Einertson.
I defer to fluent/native Spanish speakers but I believe "what's wrong with you" would be more commonly translated as "que te pasa" rather than "que pasa contigo?" (105A)
I remember Cappie Dick, tht! I enjoyed this puzzle. Cute animation on the app, too. Everyone is grousing about it not being a Father’s Day themer, but haven’t we seen dozens of those? Let’s let giraffes have a day, too.
Why?
Another holiday of today (definitely not one that would pass the breakfast test for the NYTXW): I happen to be leading a travel course in Ireland at the moment, so last week I learned that June 21 is also Belfast’s Annual Day of Reflection for the Troubles. Apparently when they were trying to pick a day for that, they initially wanted to find a day that had no deaths/injuries from the Troubles, but when they did their research they learned that there were none. With that ruled out, they chose the summer solstice for the symbolism of light. Giraffes are probably much better for a theme.
Pretty much agree with all of what Rex. I felt embarrassed by how long it took me to get the tricky clue for RANSOM, since that is actually my name IRL (“Dr. Random” is my favorite autocorrect mistake that students make when they email me on their phones—sounds like it would be a Marvell villain). I’ve spent my life with RANSOM jokes (when I’m writing something it’s a Ransom note, I go to the library to pick up books being held for Ransom, etc.), so missing a new one felt like quite the L.
Well that was weird. Weird to get a GIRAFFE tribute puzzle on Father's Day, weird to see the overly tall grid, and weirdest GIRAFFE head ever.
That said, I didn't mind the puzzle. No great, clever wordplay but it wasn't a slog either. I couldn't get it to open in my usual Sunday solving platform and that's just as well because then I would have missed the online graphics.
Hannah Slovut-Einertson, what an interesting choice of themes!
Oh, and if you MUST have a Father’s Day puzzle, check out today’s midi and mini puzzles.
Nice puzzle. If anyone cares, giraffes have the same number of cervical vertebrae as us (7).
And if you’re lucky enough to go on safari, you might notice that the Japanese are the world’s biggest fans of giraffes.
More than once I’ve seen a group whiz past one of the big five to gaze on giraffes.
Hard no on the "draw a line from here to there to make a picture after you've solved the puzzle" thing. I tried to find the A to T and back to A or whatever the hell it said and gave up immediately. Even after I saw the animation and tried to follow where to go my eyes glazed over before I could give a sh*t.
Having said that, it was a fairly enjoyable if pretty easy themeless Sunday solve for me. A slight sticking point in the SE where I didn't know SPOONER and wanted guRu for the SIRI answer, but once PHONE fell then things opened up. 28:29
Agree about the easy rating. As a newer solver, I assume that any weekend puzzle that I can solve without cheating will be rated easy. But I suppose Sundays aren’t necessarily the hardest; they’re just the biggest with the most involved theme.
Slow clap for this gem: “So, if you didn't know about Bell Biv DEVOE, well ... now you know.”
A bit of a letdown! Was hoping for a FATHERS DAY theme and we’re stuck w giraffes lol. Anyhow, I know the puzzle is oddly shaped, but is it bigger than it normally is? Are there more squares/clues than normal? Thx
Oh, that made my day!
But for half a second, didn’t we all delight in knowing that fellow solvers were mentally singing: “His boy Elroy”???
Anonymous 8:30, that is indeed why is was selected even though the solstice isn't always June 21.
As a physician, I had to come on here to let you know that GYNO is not a thing. Not in the medical world and not (as far as I know) in the lay-person world.
You can say OB or GYN or OB/GYN but not gyno. Just bad stuff. Don’t like my puzzle making up terms to fit it.
I second your comment on the difficulty caused by the grid. I solve on my laptop (not app) and while Sunday puzzles are always a bit of an eye test, this one was extreme.
Pretty sure we only have one ear (just as we have one front leg and one back). The pointy one is the ear, and the square one is an ossicone, which is in fact similar to a horn (but made of cartilage rather than bone), so the comparison to a unicorn is apt.
I've never been so certain that it's time for Will Shortz to retire, this is just awful.
People use guno all the time Doc
The strange thing is that most giraffes live in the southern hemisphere, so the longest day should be in December…
Surprising to see a GIRAFFE on Father's Day. I was assuming it would be relating to the Day honoring Dads unless I'm missing something.
Not being fond of puzzles with circles, especially in a Sunday grid, I was determined not to like this until I solved it & I did - it was okay.
WOES =GANESHA, NECKING, TSENG, CORN PIT.
Thank you, Hannah :)
Anonymous @10:10 - OB/GYN rings nicer in the ear, but “gyno” is definitely a thing. Not a *good* thing, but a thing.
“Lay person”
Ladies and gentlemen I give you exhibit 1A of the arrogance of doctors.
How insufferable. Ladies, pleade help me out. Tell the expert just how common gyno is in causual usage. TIA
Jane his wife!
It’s a shorthand for dreadlocks.
What would a "misguided" step in the "right" direction be?
I've rarely hated a Times puzzle as much as this one. Clunky, uninteresting, too many clues that reference other clues. Simply a slog and a mess - all for very little payoff. Yuck!
This must be the medical equivalent of LIT CRIT, which Rex often asserts and I affirm is not a thing that is said in the field of literary criticism. And yes, as a non-medical-professional with a female body, I’ll affirm that I’ve never heard GYNO among the laity.
Indeed it’s never said in the US, but I believe GYNO is common in the UK.
Man, that's never happened before!
Started to connect the dots before getting the revealer and said to myself Oh, it’s a lllama!
Easiest Sunday puzzle I’ve seen in a long time.
It annoyed me more than it probably should that the dot to dot animation in the app started with “I” instead of “A to T and back to A”. If you’re going to give dot to dot instructions - follow them!
Pretty common in the lay world
I thought the puzzle was cute. There were a couple of near naticks for me, but I got through them. I solve on the app on my phone, so the giraffe drawing appeared automatically (I never would’ve bothered connecting the circles myself), complete with colored design. I like giraffes and I enjoyed the drawing. Being pretty bored with Father’s Day puzzles, I really appreciated the homage to a fascinating creature.
Solved on the app so got the cool graphic animation which did not follow the correct drawing order as someone noted but the. actually went into my print magazine version to fill in the clues with circled letters so I could also draw it myself with a pencil. 🦒
Thank you for the anecdote. Your mom really does sound cool.
Very excited to see TAU (as a mathematical constant) in the puzzle! You should all pause your Giraffe Day celebrations for a moment to read the Tau Manifesto: https://www.tauday.com/. It will change your life. I'm looking forward to what I assume will be a TAU-day themed puzzle on June 28.
A little late to the game today. I enjoyed this, but agree, it's a little odd that we co-celebrate WORLDGIRAFFEDAY on Father's Day this year, so... Happy Giraffe Father's Day! Do a little NECKING (human-style, not giraffe-style) while you're at it.
@Anonymous, 10:10 AM: I agree with you, but I asked my wife, and she said, absolutely, GYNO is still used. I was surprised.
I watched a lot of TV in my youth (1970's), and absolutely know ATOMANT. There was a dramatic pause in our hero's exclamation: "Up and at 'em... Ato-o-o-m-m... Ant!!!" Aligned with other small-but-mighty cartoon heroes, such as Mighty Mouse and Underdog. Loved them all.
OK, just barely.🎈🎈🎊🎊
I do not want odd-shaped puzzle grids. I always zoom in on Sunday puzzles because the grid is slightly larger and a bit hard for me to see well. But (at least with my browser) I can only zoom in once and then, although the text on the webpage continues to get larger, the puzzle grid starts to get smaller with each zoom. So because of the height of today's grid, even zoomed in once, the grid was too small for me to see well. I finished the puzzle, which I found easy enough, but all I remember of the experience is how much I had to struggle to see the grid. I realize I should update my prescription for my glasses, but I was DOGE'd and am still looking for work, and I can't afford it right now. Grrr. I wish the NYT would focus on giving us entertaining clues and scintillating answers and tight themes and stop with the "innovative" grids and cutesy drawings and digital frills. Rant over.
Locs are dreadlocks.
Absolutely dreadful.
A loc is a long, twisted lock of hair, on the dreadlocks to braids spectrum.
Continuing to include ELKS isn't going to make it ok. 🦒 (<-- And this GIRAFFE definitely agrees with me.)
I just read the Tau Manifesto. My life seems, thus far, unchanged.
I have a degree in mathematics and I don't recall ever seeing or using "tau" for 6.28.... All my life that quantity, which does after all come up quite regularly, has been known to me as "two pi" and nothing else.
Villager
How would I ever be expected to know the name of a dark web browser?
As with all grids containing dumbass circles, shaded squares and other little games, I ignored them and solved as a themeless.
The ed. appears to ignore the holiday themes we actually recognize these days. Juneteenth was ignored recently, for instance, as was Flag Day. Maybe the July 4 theme will be Alice in Wonderland Day.
So June 21 should really be Northern Hemisphere Giraffe Day, I guess...
"If you don't know Reverend Spooner, you've clearly never existed in the upper echelons of cryptic crossword society, you absolute casual!"
What a pun! Spot-on.
I sure hope I never ever see IPOD clued as IPO'd instead of iPod.
I liked it. I like giraffes, and I like knowing about World Giraffe Day. And I don't mind circles, or being asked to connect them (I solved on hard copy and it was fun to see the shape emerge), and I'm glad I'm not as grumpy as so many of you are on this beautful Father's Dad! Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, grump or not. ;-)
what a stretch !? boo
I obviously enjoy the blog as I read it every time I do a puzzle, and I do think it’s very funny. And also I sometimes want to tell the puzzle makers how much I appreciate their creativity after the roasting they inevitably get!
Amen to that. I think in Britain they are Gynes, right?
Having worked on Wall Street my whole career ai can attest that Wentipo doesn’t exist. You either went public or did an ipo. Constructor and Will both made an error.
Yep, I didn't enjoy this one. In fact, I DNF'd in the CORNPIT area.... had no idea about PEABO's name (that 1st consonant could have been anything), and actually had "GoeSLIT" instead of GETSLIT, so I wasn't even running the alphabet at the right square. Was also unsure about the LOCS/TOWERS (????)/DEVOE area, so wasn't even sure where my problem was. Once I looked up PEABO then everything else sorted itself out. Kinda cute, I love Giraffes, but was turned off by GYNO and flummoxed by TEEPADS and LOCS and GANESHA (????). Oh well.
Easy and I now know there is a WORLD GIRAFFE DAY.
The only ??? cross for me was DEVOE//LOCS.
Fortunately the app connected the circles. I am pretty sure that is something I would not have done.
Cute, fun and breezy with an impressive graphic, liked it, and @Rex the graphic definitely improved the solving experience.
Apparently motive plays a part in the definitions of EMIGRE and emigrant. The former leaves for political reasons/possible fear for their life and the latter for economic or other personal reasons.
I am a dad. I do the crossword on paper every day. I did not want a Father’s Day themed puzzle. But let’s be real. This puzzle is a shot at Father’s Day. Very frustrating.
Snooze. Wondering about how A TAD is clued: Minimally? How is “a tad” an adverb? Also, TSENG and PEABO … and JAUNE and PASA … Ick. History books deal with eras, not eons. An EON is a scientific or geological category, not a term I’d think one expects to find in history books. I’m surprised that anyone else knows or remembers ATOM ANT, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that ran from 1965-67. I guess it showed up on a computer-generated list.
I hate scrolling, so I solve in Across Lite on my HD monitor (1920 x 1080 pixels). Across clues in the left column, down clues on the right, grid in the middle. Perfect on weekdays; no scrolling ever. On Sunday, I simply zoom out a bit until the bigger grid fits in the middle. No problem!
But today, yikes. I had to zoom waaaaaay out to fit the grid on the screen, and the squares were teeny tiny. So for the first time ever, I moved it over to my other monitor -- 1600 x 1200 -- and it fit okay. But jeez NYT, please don't make this kind of grid a habit!
So the theme... fine. The grid art... forget it, I didn't even try.
Good news: not too many names! A few Unknowns: RAO TSENG DEVOE GILA GANESHA PEABO. But I did know ADLER, SPOONER, ATOM ANT, and ORK!
I enjoyed it. Once NECKING was in, I figured we were dealing either with GIRAFFEs or some sort of snake (pause to Google: do snakes have necks? Answer: yes; they have two cervical vertebrae). But why? Thank you to the constructor for alerting me to the giraffe conservation effort behind WORLD GIRAFFE DAY. I liked the wit of the tall puzzle honoring the longest-necked animal on the longest day of the year.
Easy - cute, silly, certainly unexpected. My favorite GIF of all-time: NECKING giraffes.
77 previous giraffes? I mean, drafts? Gotta admire the dedication. I got to feed a giraffe at the zoo during a 3rd grade field trip. Long, black, sticky tongue. Gross but pretty cool at the same time. The giraffe was very gentle. Good giraffe. Happy memories. Thanks, Hannah!
I came here hoping to learn what a corn pit is. Thanks!
Came here to say that. 45 years of corporate law, never once has anyone said “went IPO”. IPO is used as the “verb” as in “we’re going to IPO next year” or “we IPO’d in May”.
Well, 114 across is PERE so there’s that …
Hated the grid format. Made it very hard to read the clues as it caused the text to shrink 😛
Well this was fun. I liked it. The grid dimensions were a surprise. I initially thought of maybe a dinosaur. Once I realized it was giraffe I knew what the connected circles would be (not a big leap). I ignored the circles and the app did it for me anyway. I don't like "ELKS" or INVITE
Puztheme was just a U short of a perfect giraffe pic. Now, that's somethin M&A never thought he'd ever end up sayin.
Puzgrid was a fairly unusual 17x27 shape, in case nobody noticed.
staff weeject pick: GIT.
some hi-lites at our house: After-solvequest animal-drawin fun. The Jaws of Giraffethemedness. NECKING [M&A was intrigued, early-on, by any fightin technique that'd include NECKING. Would sure make all conflicts much more enjoyable -- altho might tend to increase the world population, a tad].
speakin of conflicts: fave Jimmy Kimmel quip of late = How Trump will say his war with Iran ended: I ran.
Thanx for the looong solvequest, Ms. Slovut-Einertson darlin. For the first time, I learnt that The Circles like to eat ACACIA.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle with an M&A identity reveal:
**gruntz**
M&A
Egs and Lewis on top of their games today -- what a Father's Day treat!
I don't get why today's the longest day of the year -- aren't they all 24 hours? (Don't answer that.)
And who doesn't love giraffes? Many years ago my wife and I were at a fancy restaurant, you know, with way too much silverware at each setting. And, to impress my wife (and the very pretty waitress) with my wit, at the end of our order I said, very debonairly, "And please bring us a giraffe of red wine." The waitress looked at me without skipping a beat and said: "I know what you mean."
Corn pit = part of your farm attraction, alongside the corn maze, hayride, etc. Take some bales of straw and stack them into a low rectangle, fill the middle with shelled field corn maybe 18 or 24" deep (the dry kind that you see on the cob as an autumn door decoration, not the squishy sweet corn you eat) and you have a corn pit for kids to play in. Feels a bit like getting partially buried in sand at the beach.
“What kind of lunatic trick is this going to be?”I asked myself when I saw the grid shape. I have enough trouble reading the numbers in a normal Sunday grid. But 27 rows! I have to lean in to where my nose is about 8 inches from the screen to locate myself. I feel for the people solving on their phones. We used to have a commenter, Barbara S, who often let us know when it was National Flapjack Day or International Garden Gnome Day, or whatever, and I would just roll my eyes and move on. It’s weird and sometimes amusing trivia as an aside in a comment but I don’t think it’s a worthy theme. Why do we even have these days? (I miss her comments, by the way. She was smart and funny and I think she was an art historian so I always enjoyed her art references.)
I like to review the grid in order to organize my thoughts and possible comments but, as @tht notes, it is tiring to try to review the puzzle with that animation turning on and off. So I’m not going to bother doing a thorough (for me) analysis. But I will note that GYNO just sounds odd to me. We have three children and I have been “present” through all the pregnancies and births and I have never heard the term. I don’t even recall running into OB/GYN until I started doing crosswords; they were always obstetricians and gynaecologists.
PS. Gynaecologist. From γυναικα, pronounced yuh-nay-kuh, Greek for woman, in case you wanted to know. It also doubles as wife.
Anon, it’s not an inadvertent mishap, it’s a conscious decision to emphasize style over substance. At least that’s my take on the approach they have taken over the last year or so.
LOVED IT!
@tht, thanks for the reminder the of Cappie Dick. I associate my memories of that cartoon with visiting my grandmother's house. It must have been in whatever paper she got.
@Liveprof: (you said don't answer but I can't resist)... there have been 27 leap seconds since 1972. So I guess during that time we have had 27 days that were 24 hours and one second long! The last one was Dec. 31 2016.
@Andy
I still have an encyclopedia set that my dad bought circa 1980!
Ha! Now that you mention it, that day did seem to drag a bit.
1. Locs is *not* just short for dreadlocks; they are different, you can search 'locs vs dreadlocks' or 'difference between locs and dreads' if you care to find out what exactly is different.
2. Am I the only person here familiar with reading glasses? Given the number of complaints about the small size of the numerals in the grid, I'm guessing I might be [I'm kidding of course!]. I don't always use them for the crossword (I'm typically solving on a computer monitor in the NYT app), but I put them on today and had no problem seeing things after that. Every comment about 'couldn't read, too small,' I kept wondering 'why not use readers?'!
3. Many years ago, I was dragged against my will to see the movie "Patch Adams." I still wish I could get the time back, but one thing does come in handy in regard to today's puzzle/comments: there is a scene in which the lead character made a sign to welcome a group of visiting gynecologists that says "Welcome gynos" at the top, so that's at least one actual use of 'gyno'!
Paper solve here, the kind of day when I should have done a digital version to be able to have the GIRAFFE in living color. As it came to pass I did not connect the dots with my pencil but was pretty sure of what it would look like.
No problems here except for the finish in the SW which gave me PEABO, which I spelled wrong, ADAM instead of ATOM for the ANT and a CORNPIT, of which I had not heard, Also contained ARENTI which I know is common usage but it will sound right to me about the same time we start saying "I are". I mean really.
Had a good time with my two sons getting our camp on the lake opened this morning and then lunch with them and the daughters-in-law and the grandchildren, so as it turned out I didn't need a Father's Day puzzle for anything. Have to say that I was not expecting a GIRAFFE puzzle though.
OK Sunday, HSE, Had Some Entertainment value at least, for which thanks.
Primo today @egs!
Roo
It literally says A to T in the instructions
thought this was a wonderful way to celebrate giraffes plus a tall grid and easy-medium clues. 4 1/2 stars in my book
@Anon 9:58
Regular 21x21 nets you 441 squares. Today's 17x27 nets you 459 squares. So we get 18 more. Had it been 17x26, that would've been 442.
RooMonster Square Guy
Who does? Can’t even find in on google…
Sorry- I’ve never heard anyone say gyno. And I’m not a doctor.
I woke late today and did this with pencil in the actual magazine section. Mostly it was an easy solve until I hit the southern tier. There were a couple of glitches before that. I had a PENN/PITT write over and the DEVOE/LOCS crossing was a bit of a challenge as was the TSENG/NOUN crossing. Where things really went off the rails was my HANGER/HANGAR write over. That spelling mistake led to my DELETES/NEGATES write over. Compounding this was the kea/loa that 108 down could be either LETSRIP or GETSLIT and I couldn't square either one. I had no idea which vowel GANESH_ should end with so the normally easy ATTN answer became a _TTD mystery
In addition to the HANGeR induced confusion I had an ANNOY/ANGER write over compounded by my unfamiliarity with JAUNE. That section was further muddied by an ERASE/PAUSE write over.
In the SW there was my ADAMANT/ATOMANT write over blocking TAU. One is a cartoon the other a rocker but they're near homophones so it's a mistake I keep on making.
I straightened it all out and then figured out the connect the dots instructions (which were very poor.) As I said it was an easy solve until it wasn't. I had no idea this was WORLDGIRAFFEDAY but now I do. Happy Father's Day to all.
Anon 1:26. 45 years of corporate law! I tip my cap to you. I could barely make it through one semester.
Locs are strands of hair often accompanied by ringlets known as bagels.
Cool.
If 117 across is CORNPIT, then what's 108 down? GOTSLIT? Am I missing something? Also, I'm not devoid of artistjc talent, but my "giraffe" looks like a big hound dog head sitting atop a small sawhorse. Connecting the circles was not that straightforward.
Yo Slick, blow
Still a stock market pro. "Went IPO" still not a thing. You did an IPO or even IPO'd. You went public. 37 years in the business, never once heard "went IPO" other than in recent NYT crosswords. Must be time for a change in the editorial suite.
Also too cutesy, too easy. I don't want to finish Sunday in 13 minutes and change.
RAO/RECS was a natick for me, and had the same trouble as Rex with NOUN/TSENG...whatchamacallit? I don't think so!
Pretty middle-of-the-road finish time for me, at 83 percent of my average.
My first reaction to seeing the shape was "what the...?" but I have to admit I was won over by the wackiness of it. (I had also forgotten—even as a father myself—that it was Father's Day in addition to, of course, World Giraffe Day.)
I thought at first, having seen it eats the leaves of 81 Down, that it would be a KOALA, but that was obviously not long enough for "eucalyptus," even with the extra height. I liked the NOVA callout on white dwarfs (this happens when they accumulate enough matter from their binary companion that it undergoes a thermonuclear explosion), as well as TOR (The Onion Router, is what I remember it as). I also learned that CAPOTE is a hooded cloak, which I hadn't known.
I only knew JAUNE from the Tour de France. I don't know how I feel about INVITES as a noun, but on the other hand I'm old(-ish).
Errors: OKEPI for OKAPI (I can never remember what that vowel is). SLAV for SERB. AFRO for LOCS. SONY for AIWA, very briefly. CAN and JAR for MUG. HAVE ONE for TAKE ONE. ERA for EON. YES for TIS. Par for the course.
Agree with the majority that this was below mediocre for an NYT puzzle. I use the webpages and was urinated that the length of the puzzle prevented me from being able to enlarge the puzzle. Forcing me to enter tiny letters I could barely see into the tiny boxes. Some tech pro at NYT should be able to fix this annoying bug. But the most disheartening thing was learning that Rex pronounces the word WALK as WOK. An awful American regionalism. Does no one actually pronounce the L in the LK consonant blend anymore? Imagine Ratso Rizzo saying his iconic ad libbed line “Hey, I’m wocking here!” I can’t. It makes my ears bleed just thinking about it. The spoonerism for cakewalk really should be “wake caulk.”
You just connect them alphabetically from A to T, and then connect the T back to A. I agree the instructions could have been clearer.
Got to the puz late today. Didn't bother drawing the horsey so went to Rex to see what I missed. Once again OFL's write up was way better than the puzzle. Maybe if my father was an actual giraffe.I would have liked it better.
Thanks Anon 8:56 AM. My thoughts exactly. And same to Anon 12:20PM.I did not make it in securities and tax law. Stuck it out until I could get the job I really wanted. Fascinationg work though and I learned a lot. Power to all of you in every position in a securities firm. It is grueling, stressful, regulation-heavy, time sensitive work. And it requires exceptional people in every single position - not just the lawyers.
Hard to keep up with the slang. When did dreads become LOCS, or are they two different styles? I’m always eager to learn and don’t like to assume.
It's GETS LIT. You gave an O where an E should be.
Roo
Tad is an adverb ny definition.
You’re disheartened by how (many) people speak? How sad for you. Personally, I'm more disheartened by pompous blog comments than I am by the vagaries of pronunciation.
Oh my I thought this was cute ! And I loved the little giraffe that popped up in color no less! I also enjoyed theme clues that led to answers like neck! Loved it! Minor typos I’m used to. It’s a crossword !
Pablo. Great way to spend Father's Day! My two younger sons are upstairs preparing a special meal for me and I'm sitting here in my studio feeling useless. "Can I help?" "No, get outta here. Just put on a nice shirt for dinner." It's sometimes hard being a dad. I'd kinda like to be in the kitchen with them but you have to let them fly. Your camp project sounds great, though. Happy Father's Day to you and all the other Dads … and all the giraffes out there.
Post a Comment