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"Little" Dickens girl /TUE 8-4-26 / Cookie with an "enrobed" variety in the U.K. / The "m" in many a physics equation / Rawboned / So-called "servebot" in tennis, essentially
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Constructor: Vasu Seralathan
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: Puns at an Indian Wedding — Four phrases reworded with punny homophones related to Indian weddings.
Word of the Day: ANC (54D - Anti-apartheid org.) —
The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election resulted in Nelson Mandela being elected as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national president, has served as president of the ANC since 18 December 2017.[12]
• • •
Hello and happy Tuesday! It's Eli back and Rexplacing once again. Tuesday puzzles can be a real mixed bag, quality-wise, so I was happy to see a theme that genuinely made me smile. And then... well, we'll get there. Let's start with the positive. Theme answers:
- SARI NOT SARI (17A: Words uttered while sorting potential gowns for an Indian wedding?)
- DELHI PLATTERS (27A: Wedding feast delivery from India's capital)
- HOLI MATRIMONY (44A: Tying the knot during a colorful Hindu festival?)
- NAAN APOLOGY (57A: "Esteemed reception guests, we regret to report that we've run out of flatbread," e.g.?)
But the fill...
10D - Stylish shoe feature
Unfortunately, today's puzzle continued the New York Times' continued love affair with transphonic hate-monger JK Rowling at 27D. They just will not stop with the Harry Potter references. This woman is a bigoted monster, and by continuing to promote her work, they are implicitly endorsing her disgusting views. It shouldn't be this hard for adults to give up a children's book when its creator is using every cent of the profit from it to attack an already marginalized community.
Throw in 36A (AYN - Writer Rand), 38A (MAO - Great Leap Forward leader), and 32D (NERO - Infamous Roman ruler) and you've got yourself a nice little puzzle of the despicable. Way to go. It makes me feel like ROVE (29D - Wander) was probably clued as Karl before an editor decided maybe it was all a little too much. Not a good taste to leave in my mouth.
Ok, rant over. I know I usually try to be light and funny on here, but out of respect to my transgender friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers (to say nothing of the complete strangers!) I couldn't stay silent. Sorry (not sari) if this makes me your SWORN ENEMY (11D - Someone you will never stop despising).
 |
| I don't know if I'm Frank Grimes or Homer in this scenario |
Ok, let me see if I can steer this back on track to close things out.
Stray Thoughts:
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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- 11A: Music genre with offbeat rhythms (SKA) — Just gonna drop this here so you can... pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!
- 36D: Attractive plus-one (ARM CANDY) — Is this ever said about a man, or is it just women? I'm not sure it would be better to have equal-opportunity objectification, but at least it wouldn't be worse.
- 4D: Toughest hits to get when hitting for the cycle in baseball (TRIPLES)— This clue addresses a pet peeve of mine: the phrase "a triple away from the cycle." If you look at the historical stats, "a triple away from the cycle" is just a good day at the plate; it's not terribly uncommon. A single away from the cycle? Now that's worth talking about.
- 54D: Iconic lab assistant of film (IGOR) — Quick: what's the name of the lab assistant in Frank Whale's original Frankenstein film from 1931? That's right; it's Fritz! Dwight Frye's portrayal of Fritz is captivating and iconic, but he's not Igor. Mary Shelley's book doesn't even feature an assistant; Fritz was introduced in an early play adaptation. The first Igor in the film series was actually Ygor, played by Bela Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein, and he wasn't a lab assistant. He was a blacksmith with a broken neck from a failed hanging. I know there have been other film Igors over the years, so I'm not trying to fact check the clue. I just like this trivia. So, to sum it up:
- FRITZ:
- YGOR:
- IGOR (Eye-gor?):Thank you for your time.
Ok, I've probably angered enough people for today. I'll be back in a couple of days to try and win you back. Going to the movies with Rex tonight; I'll tell him you all said hi.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
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66 comments:
Fairly easy solve, albeit I needed a (very brief) alphabet run for the BALEEN/BPA cross. Enjoyed the punny theme, especially NAANAPOLOGY.
Only objection: multiple females who graduate are ALUMNAE, not "alumni." I'm sure others will pick up on this. It would have been easy for the constructor to cite two male graduates of SNL
Easy-Medium. Cute wordplay in the theme, decent crunch for a Tuesday. Solved without reading the clues for the long answers.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
My 7D quick communications were dMS before they were IMS.
I initially misspelled STILETTO (10D) with two L's and one T. That made the 24A whale a BALlEN.
One (sorta) WOE:
I'm not sure if I've heard of actress TERI Polo but I had her name in place before I read the clue.
A better clue for ALUMNI (25D) might have involved Tina Fey and Seth Meyers, because Tina and Amy might be considered ALUMNae.
A fun pun puzzle.🎈🎈🎊🎊
Desi puns - interesting concept. These ones are just odd enough to meet Rex’s go big requirement - chuckle inducing at times. DELHI PLATTERS was the highlight for me. Really liked the lack of a revealer.
As I ROVEd Out
Choppy grid with probably too many shorts - but overall fill was fine. Eli summarizes nicely. TRIPLES, SCORCH, SWORN ENEMY, ANGELIC are all top notch. BALEEN is cool - ARM CANDY and the ANC - NIH pair are not. We’ve discussed the preoccupation with the kiddie lit stuff enough over the years - the Times never misses a chance for product placement.
SWAN SWAN Hummingbird
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve. We all have our own beliefs and direction Eli - yours are always welcome here.
Ziggy
IMO there is an error in the puzzle. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are both women, therefore the answer should be ALUMNAE and not ALUMNI.
Thanks for the quieter response to this than Rex’s, although proper bile spilled over DUMBLEDORE. At least GAUNT isn’t alsoclued as a HP reference. And no Star Wars references.
I enjoyed the puns a lot. SARI NOT SARI was a cute romcom novel set at a big Indian wedding, so that entry especially made me smile.
Funny to read the JKR is transphonic (“sounds like she is trans? Sending sound across ?).
I was expecting Rex would weigh in on the war references (SNIPER, COMBAT, even SWORN ENEMY) as a reason to hate on it.
Great write-up, Eli. 👍 There are enough terrible people in the news, I'm tired of being reminded of terrible people in the middle of my entertainment.
Cute, easy tribute to Indian weddings. One complaint: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are alumnae, not alumni. Alumni is plural for males or mixed gender.
Some more esoteric than usual puns. It took me a beat to get the first one. Just recently we had a discussion here over the pronunciation of SARI, and in my mind for some reason it gets pronounced with a short “a”, so I didn’t immediately get “sorry”. Overall, a light and casual Tuesday.
25D should be ALUMNAE since both Fey and Poehler are women.
Just curious, where or by whom are cops called Popo? New slang to me.
Hey, when a puzzle makes me smile, brightens my day, I’m grateful. Sunday’s “buy this junky car” theme did just that, and today was a lovely chaser.
Especially the engaging SARI NOT SARI which not only brought a laugh, but had me imagining the scene in which the gowns are being sorted.
This was a tight theme. It was silly, quirky, and clever, and its purpose was to entertain, on top of giving us a box to fill with letters. Bravo to you, Vasu, for coming up with it.
The Hindi for “wedding” is “shaadi”, which sounds like an American word that is the opposite of what your puzzle was. I loved it, and thank you!
YEAH! AMEN!
That is, you pundit most excellently, Vasu.
Decent puzzle. Awesome review. Agreed on Rowling. Makes one wish for more Star Wars clues.
Whenever you have a theme that requires “specialized” knowledge or vocabulary, it’s always nice when the crosses are fair and reasonable, which the constructor was able to accomplish today - so kudos for a job well done on that score.
I’ve only followed the trials and tribulations of the Harry Potter author peripherally, so I haven’t formulated an opinion on her position without reading or hearing her own thoughts/quotes on the matter rather than someone paraphrasing her. However, I do wish that Shortz would put up the air breaks on the whole Harry Potter, LOTR, GOT, Star Wars ecosystem. That dead horse of a source for crossword clues and answers has been beaten so many times that it’s pathetic.
In fact I’m pretty a-political (is that a word?) about who appears in a puzzle. Some people are jerks, I get it, but if clued appropriately, it may not be a bad idea to remind everyone that there is still a dangerous world out there. Maybe it will even motivate a few good souls to get out and vote for example.
I read the clue for 58-D, saw it had three letters, and put in AAA. That didn't seem right so, since I was solving online and had a mouse in my hand, I opened said mouse up and found: an AA (double-A) battery. No doubt there are some eensy-weensy mice that take triple As somewhere, but I've never seen one.
The clue for 27-A so clearly points to DELHI PLATTER that Sam Corbin lists it that way in the "Wordplay" column. Sure, you can lawyer up a case for the POC, but why? Just change Delivery to Deliveries and you make it clear -- it's only Tuesday, after all.
We had a big discussion about the pronunciation of SARI only a few days ago; so today the puzzle has decided to double down (literally) on the "rhymes with sorry" option. Given the constructor's name, I'm willing to accept this as an authentic variant, though I certainly have heard it the other way all my life.
Actually, I guess you could still make the pun with the way I pronounce it -- but as for the my other points, not to mention ALUMNI, it would have been so easy to fix them, so that they didn't distract from this clever and fun puzzle.
Agreed on Alumni - why specifically name two female alumna when you could easily clue it more accurately? Seems a bit lazy.
Hey All !
Wondering if Vesu had been in, or was attending an Indian wedding lately, and was sitting at the reception, when a bolt of lightning struck his brain, and he said, "Waaaaait a minute ... This would make a great Theme for a puzzle!"
And viola, here we are.
We get the wedding and the reception, but without the perks of it being in real time. Ala, no food or drinks. Or dancing. 😁
Fun sound-alike phrases. Good fill. Slightly tougher than usual TuesPuz.
Wondering what the over/under on people saying they've never heard of POPO before. It seems like every time it's in a puz, a few say they never heard it
©Uniclue:
Question to millionaires about the need for a large boat?
ARE YACHTS CORE?
Hope y'all have a great Tuesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Themers were cute and the puzzle was fine, but way too easy. I tend to agree when people complain about despicable people in the puzzle, but I usually don’t really notice while solving.
What movie are you going to see? Se hi to Rex!
Pretty ok, but I would have liked it more if all four puns were snarky like the first and last.
NAANAPOLOGY is one of the better puns I've seen in quite some time. An overall good puzzle today, in spite of the questionable references noted by Eli.
spot on - had the exact same thought re: alumni
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler vis-à-vis "Saturday Night Live" should be alumnae, not alumni!
I think these days ALUMNI can be used as the plural form for any gender.
Cute theme, I thought it a bit more basic and straightforward than yesterday's but I am one of those who absolutely love puns, so I was happy enough today.
I'm sure like many, I threw in DELHIPLATTERS with no letters in and chuckled, then is was fun to work on the other themers. All landed well.
The rest of the fill didn't thrill me. A longish Harry Potter reference is always a waste of space and I always need almost every cross to grock those as my knowledge there is nil... And what Eli said about the author...
IPOS crossing NYSE was kinda neat and SWORNENEMY is good fill. I'm not well versed on whales or what should or should not be in plastics. I had _ Aleen for 24A and _ PA for 24D. I was thinking, "GRR, I now have to run the alphabet here to finish", which is my least favorite way to complete a solve. Lucky for me the happy music came at B and I was done.
Thank you Vasu, a light and clever theme that made me smile.
Very cute puzzle with some good fill. My problem was I thought the name was DUMBLEDORF, with a final "f," and since ARF looked perfectly fine instead of ARE, I didn't catch that mistake for a while.
Thanks for a fun Tuesday, Vasu Seralathan!
I don’t love pun puzzles and I really don’t like the “change a letter and clue wackily” form of puzzle. For people who like them, this is cute. Not just Indian/Desi themed but specifically Indian Wedding themed.
My bigger issue has nothing to do with the construction. This puzzle should be Wednesday or later. These types of puzzles feature themes that are not gettable from the clues alone. You need to grok the theme first, then mostly you have to have a bunch of crosses to guess at the answer. Only then does the pun maybe make sense.
Mondays and Tuesdays are for beginners. Theme answers there should be 100% gettable from the clues alone, with the revealer providing an extra layer of wordplay on top.
This should have run on Wednesday, or take the concept and expand it to Sunday sized.
I guessed wrong at first on the KEALOA: lutes vs. LYRES.😒
Ya captas la idea.
So fun and funny. So little OMG WTF until I ran into the deplorable POPO and until I counted partials and names. Just brilliant cluing, fun words, silly thematic elements, and a tickle me adventure I adored.
SARI NOT SARI is the best of the jokes. NAAN APOLOGY is great too. They're all gems.
HARRY POTTER IS #1! I am confident we'll have plenty of weeping about DUMBLEDORE -- kids show, psycho author, made after 1957, it's popular -- so yeah yeah whatever, but here's the exciting part. At one point, I really wanted to let my beard go and see if I could grow a Dumbledore-esque face full of awesome. It helps to know he has an epic beard and long hair and really shouldn't have been left in charge of children as they're constantly in mortal danger. I abandoned my razor, but mostly ended up looking homeless and deranged, so my wife said enough is enough. Thanks to one character from the runaway number one best selling book series of all time, I learned the power doing what you're told by a strong intelligent woman.
I don't watch tennis mainly because it makes golf seem exciting, so I'd never heard of a servebot. Apparently in some circles it's used disparagingly. Probably loser circles, amirite?
When it's LUTES I always start with LYRES and when it's LYRES I wanna jump off a bridge. By the way, both are still being made and readily available so they're only "of old" if you don't plan to get one and write a space opera on it.
The constructor's horrible people binge AYN, MAO, Rowling, LANA, NERO along with the war-related negativism COMBAT, SWORN ENEMY and SNIPER feels like we got dumped onto Fox News panel and the topic is How to Stop Beauty in the World.
😩 POPO.
People: 10 (no thanks)
Places: 1
Products: 2
Partials: 10 (boo)
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 76 (30%)
Funny Factor: 6 😅
Tee-Hee: Smears with goo. Rawboned.
Uniclues:
1 Why your pinkie toe is so yummy.
2 Non-profit's website dedicated to tombstone authors. (It's most popular page is "Fun ways to say goodbye.")
1 OREO STILETTO (~)
2 ETCHER.ORG
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Boston rubber boy. THE REDSOX GYM MASSEUR.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s one thing to strive for gender neutral language in modern English, but applying it to Latin is beyond the pale.
I disagree. Wednesday puzzles begin to offer some resistance; a slight degree of difficulty is discernable. Yes, in this puzzle you needed some crosses to get all the fill, but the crosses were so easy that the puzle was, all in all, definitely whooshy. I thought it was perfect for a Tuesday.
I think that if you win each of the Grand Tours you Sit for the Cycle. Much harder than smacking a baseball 4 times.
Remember when MITT Romney seemed like an evil guy? Boy, those were the days.
At least we've got NOW counterbalancing JK Rowling.
We're already getting nervous about Iran's ability to sabotage our water systems but, even worse, I hear they're close to perfecting a way to ARMCANDY. And they're working on OREOs.
Even though I can't stand puns, I liked these. Thanks, Vasu Seralathan.
This puzzle was not my cup of chai.
I agree with someone above that all kinds of publications now allow ALUMNI as a gender-neutral plural term. Language changes.
I only accept Rex subs who reference Goldfinger, so thank you.
If ALUMNI is used for women, it's simply wrong. The singular form for a female graduate is "alumna," not "alumnus." So..."alumna" becomes ALUMNAE.
@Anonymous 8:27 AM
Um no.
It's alumniipodaeia for smartypants amateur linguists.
@RooMonster 7:56 AM
I stared and stared at that uniclue opportunity trying to find a way to connect sit-ups and boats and got a little too far down the billionaire belly path. Darrin for the W.
One quibble: The director of Frankenstein was James Whale, not Frank Whale.
I have definitely called men "arm candy"!
Off to google what the heck the cycle is in baseball.
I like that "sorry, not sorry" is kind of the prototypical "non-apology". Nice bookends on the theme
I've had quite enough Chinese history for one day: Hold the MAO.
Why are the church bells ringing so solemnly? A death, NELL.
Me, trying to do something with my hair: "Darling, where's my COMBAT?"
Weaponize tootsie rolls: ARMCANDY.
What an IPO does: Makes NYSE.
I agree with the complaints that the NYTXW is becoming Harry Potter's field.
Did you attend the University of Edinburgh? -- Me? ALUM? NAE.
A fine puzzle (and writeup, thanks Eli!): not the least bit dal.
I like this way of looking at things. Plugging ears and closing eyes does no one any good. Also agreed on the cluing, especially regarding Star Wars and Harry Potter. Oh, and ORCS!!!
Agreed! I specifically rejected “alumni” at first on the grounds that if the clue includes only female actors, it must have specifically gendered significance, and thus must be referring either to “alumnae” or something entirely different (since alumnae has too many letters).
Lutes are renaissance, think troUbadors, lyres classical, think mYths ;-)
Do they teach Chinese history at the Mao Clinic?
The husband in madam secretary was referred to as arm candy
@Bob Mills 5:13 AM
This was probably true in the days when we studied grammar from big fat tomes with dust on them, but English has moved on and we no longer need to gender our language. They taught me this in high school in the 70s, so maybe it's not new information. Waiter, actor, flight attendant. Alumni is perfectly acceptable for a group of female graduates. Adding Greek endings onto English words like they regularly do in this puzzle is out of desperation and usually pretty dumb, and I am glad they didn't do it here.
Thank you, Bob Mills! Alumnae it is. It's vexation enough to be addressed as "you guys" everywhere, every day. Yeah, I know I'm swimming against current...
After Sari...sari I wanted Delhi deli tray, the "yet-T" nailed it for a bit.
I agree about the despicables. I would add that, if you have two female graduates of an institution, why is the answer ALUMNI? I know AlUMNAE wouldn't fit, but how about clueing it some other way?
Enjoyed the funny Indian weddin puns. Hard to beat a good, funny TuesPuz. Howdah-U-do!
staff weeject pick: BPA. This no-know inflicted some serious precious nanosecond SCORCHin on M&A's solvequest, due to m&e totally not rememberin BALEEN whales -- it's been a few, since one last surfaced here. Luckily, the pesky crossin "B" came early in my alphabet run, and research on BPA yielded the desired Google results.
primo weeject stacks, NE & SW, btw.
I, too, had trouble with that ALUMN? endin. I guess they are sorta two grads from a mixed gender pool of all SNL grads, tho -- sooo ...ok?
As far as Harry Potter stuff, I went to a coupla early Potter flicks, but fell deeply asleep in both. So my knowledge of such stuff is darn near zippo-de-dumble-dah. Sooo... the seashells say: 86 27-D.
some faves included: SWORNENEMY. STILETTO [spellin challenge]. IGNITE & SCORCH. ITCHER clue.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Seralathan dude. Nice job.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Medium.
I did not know ACER and SKA as clued.
No costly erasures but spelling STILETTO and BALEEN took some effort.
Not much junk, amusing puns, a couple of nice long downs, liked it except for what @Eli pointed out.
I wouldn’t say easy, but that’s just my opinion. Actually tricky for a Tuesday! I got hung up in the NW corner with the theme an answer there.
Gary, alumnae/alumni is not English so it should not move on. Use the word graduates instead. Same with emerita/emeritus which is also misused.
forever thank you for that !
For Gary Jugert 10:50 a.m. What does it mean that we "...no longer need to gender our language." (?) No more Mr. or Mrs.? No more hero or heroine? No more prince or princess? Everything is neutered? Wow! I'm sure glad I didn't attend your high school.
Gary, English may have moved on, but alumna/alumnus is Latin and should not be changed. Say graduate instead. I see the same problem with other Latin words such as emerita/emeritus.
@Eric, agreed. And with the other assorted miscreants, it makes one wish for more OREO clues. Wait, there is one. Okay, KAMA SUTRA then.
There are other examples I could go into, but one point I'll make is that Latin is correctly pronounced with hard Cs only, not soft Cs! So, I sure hope that all the ALUMxxx arm wringers say "et KETera" instead of "et SETera" and order "KAYzar" salads not "SEEzar" salads. If not, you're being hypocritical!
Agreed!
I'm a bit mortified to come here and realize there was a theme. I solved last evening and did the down clues first, though I didn't really try to solve down clues only. So the long acrosses just filled themselves in and... it still seems weird that I didn't even notice the puns. And they are kinda funny.
Quite a few names, but I believe DUMBLEDORE is the only one longer than 4 letters! TERI NELL NERO AYN MAO EVA YUMA IGOR!
@mmorgan, the themers weren't what I'd call easy; they took some time to suss out, each with some playfulness.
I assume you mean the rest of the puzzle which, aside from a couple of decent long Downs, was a plethora of three (24) and four (26) letter fill, plus ten plurals. Actually thought Gary's Gunk Gauge would go to "TILT" mode, but his count was surprisingly lean.
I'm only in my third year "in residence" here, but I've definitely become more discerning when despicable people, or even things (e.g., never used to be bothered seeing ICE as an answer) appear in the NYTXW. And I usually wonder how Rex will react, ranging from Eli-esque's today, to a mild in-passing comment, to ignoring it completely. For me it adds greatly to the enjoyment/satisfaction of visiting this blog.
And seconding the request to give regards to Rex. Don't know whether I missed something that referenced his scheduled absence, and hope all is ok.
I enjoyed the Indian wedding puns. And it caused me to wander around the house saying SARI and sorry to myself before concluding that they are very close to the same pronunciation in my accent.
I enjoyed Eli's concept of "equal-opportunity objectification." There was just recently a NYT article about men dressing for the male gaze. Woohoo, it's about time.
I appreciated the clue for TRIPLES. I never gave it any thought but a homer means the runner is under no pressure to round the bases whereas getting a TRIPLE means you probably need some help by defense errors and really good base coaching to get to third.
Vasu Seralathan, nice job on imagining this theme.
I posted this late yesterday. I don't understand the clue for the entry at 36A in Sunday's Puns & Anagrams. I found an AI explanation that I also don't understand.
I liked each of the four themers. Nice puzzle.
What a delicate bunch we are. Seeing a despicable person in the puzzle ruins our day.
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