Could someone explain LIEWITH at 5D. I don't see the connection to the clue especially "as chances"
@Michael
They are just synonymous? Your chances "LIE WITH" the cards. You chances "rest on" the cards. Might seem a bit tenuous, but I think it's ok.
Re the mini: Loved it! Started out slow because I entered the conventional order of the Roman numerals, e.g., MVI for 1A.
2
TIL that SWISSCHARD is related to beets. Loved the reminder about Helen KELLER being a founder of the ACLU. Probably won’t remember SHTETL, but enjoyed learning the term.
One of the primary reasons I love the NYT Crosswords is the opportunity to learn new words and be reminded of words I once used but have forgotten. As I age, especially since I’ve been retired, it’s more and more important to me to give my brain something to do that requires a bit of work.
:-)
10
If you get beets with tops, BY ALL MEANS, prepare the tops like chard. You can't tell the difference.
Of course, this only works if you use beets. I'm addicted to pickled beets, so it works well for us.
1
(Second try)
Re: Shtetl
Shtetl is the Yiddish word for a small town or village, predominantly used in English to refer to a community that is largely or exclusively Jewish in character. Such is the village of Anatevka, setting for "Fiddler."
The word comes from the Germanic "Stadt" (pronounced shtaht), meaning a place where people live together, a city, a town. When it's a small place, it gets the standard Germanic treatment for diminutives: the main vowel gets an umlaut and a suffix is added: Städtlein (pronounced shtett-line). That word gets shortened to Städtl, in Yiddish spelling Shtetl but pronounced basically the same.
Yiddish favors the -l ending for smallness or cuteness. Another example of the process that might ring a bell is Magd (maid) becoming Mägdlein (young maiden /girl) which in Yiddish becomes maydl or meydl. [Standard German prefers Mädchen nowadays.] Parallel formation: Yiddish bissele / German Bisschen = English a little bit(e).
12
@David Connell - My earlier post calls to mind an early language lesson I got from my high school teachers long ago. The original idea behind the word "town" was "enclosed place" - still shown in German "Zaun" which means "fence". Dutch "tuin" is often best translated as "garden" - which is related to English "yard" - and "earth" - and Latin "hortus" as in "horticulture" - with our familiar crosswordese "girt" and "gird" - all of which share one simple idea: enclosure & protected space. A garden walled round.
The ancient roots of towns is that they were founded on hilltops ("dun" in Celtic), which could better be defended against attack. Cities eventually were formed at ports, islands, or meetings of rivers, extremely rarely not on a waterway. Eventually, the cities won out, leaving lots of interesting hilltop castles, forts, and ruins to explore. Who knows what the next chapter holds...history lives a long life.
Even though Shtetl is derived from the word for a "place to stay" - it carries with it much of the meaning of a "place to be safe inside." Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out for Anatevka, or for many another Shtetl.
3
Finally a Friday puzzle that wasn't torture. In fact, came within one minute of my best! No lookups. Started slowly in the NW, with only WIDE (good guess), OVA (bad guess), GTOS, and THU for the downs. Getting HASBEENS led me to WAVELENGTHS (and EGG). Seeing the D, G, and OUS at 17A triggered a brain spasm and DANGERMOUSE! (I had no idea, until reading Deb's column, what he/she/it was.)
Remembered that 25A had appeared in a recent puzzle, but just couldn't remember. It gradually got filled in by the crosses until my memory was triggered -- SHTETL! (Love those Yiddish (?) words!) Probably like many others, filled in AVIA before FILA. Welcome back Ms. KELLER!
Many unknowns -- AMAS, NEMEA, SEP, DELIA, BABERUTH (as clued), NSA (as clued), KOENIG, DEIRDRE, and DAX -- but gettable from the crosses. Tricky clues for VANS, HASBEENS, ROTISSERIE, TERSEST, and SEER! Getting more experienced, though, as I was *not* led astray by the clues for CHEATER or DYE. :)
This puzzle looked tough at first sight, with all the white space and long entries, but solved pretty methodically.
2
STAT= Saves or assists? Not in the dictionaries I consulted. I found: statistics, or immediately, in medical parlance; also:
1. stabilizing agent or device thermostat
2 : instrument for reflecting (something specified) constantly in one direction heliostat
3 : agent causing inhibition of growth without destruction bacteriostat
Also, statutes do various other instruments that include the syllable stat. But Merriam Webster, Oxford, and other dictionaries I saw do not include the definition saves or assists.
It's the other way around. Assists and Saves are sports statistics, or stats.
1
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stat
(See baseball usage in the usage)
Whew! this one was really tough for me, but it was worth the struggle. I also find the zig-zag construction very satisfying. RE: Hellen Keller and the ACLU, didn't we see ACLU clued as founded by Hellen Keller just a couple weeks ago? I distinctly recall learning that from a crossword, and it was one of the gimme answers for me on this one.
Favorite clue was definitely "change the locks?" for DYE.
1
@Nick - you’re right re Helen Keller - I learned that in the puzzle a few weeks ago as well.
3
I've been doing the puzzles for less than a month (upgraded subscription) and I'm pretty sure this is the third appearance as a clue in that time period.
Macs run OSX. Mobile devices run iOS. That held me up for a bit.
And when you're out there, without care
Yeah I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
4
For whatever reason Deb's tricky clues are never my tricky clues. Like we get an explanation for WOES and ESS but not SHTETL? I spent like 10 minutes staring at that and eventually moved on because it's the only thing that fit the crosses, but not a word of explanation on that bizarre word?
Love the blog but sometimes I don't get how you choose your clues to explain.
1
@Thom
It's a NYC newspaper, and Fiddler On The Roof is a classic, so...maybe the assumption is that people just knew it? I've never seen it myself, but inexplicably, I knew the answer, and knew SHTETL is a word, which i think I got from growing up in NYC.
2
SHTETL was a first-pass gimme for me, so I guess to each his own. Fiddler on the Roof? Yentl? I. B. Singer? Yiddish 101 for New York goyim?
4
@Thom, possibly not a gimme for Houston, but definitely so for NYC! And for film buffs. And Broadway musical buffs. And even Irish Catholic (but now nontheist) me.
3
Those mystified by or commenting on the day's Mini puzzle might be enticed to follow up with articles on
Gematria
and
Isopsephy
in Wikipedia.
Adding up the numerical value of the letters in words is an ancient, um, thing. Differences arise in whether the number assigned to a letter depends on its place in the alphabet/abjad or other factors.
Delta is the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, so one of its meanings is 4. It is also the beginning of the Greek word "deka" = "ten", so another of its meanings is 10. This is a basic example of the complexity in word-number counting. The whole "666" thing makes a very commonly-known example of that sitch.
1
Or Arithmancy, which is so much better than Divination. ;)
5
I thoroughly enjoyed today's puzzle, especially CHEATER, which was so clever!
My biggest glitch was that naturally Ce Lo Greene came to mind, and the number of letters exactly fit, so it took some effort to make myself alter it to DANGERMOUSE, who, to me, is less famous. Ah, Ce Lo, so talented, and yet not out of the woods in terms of character.
Anyway, I loved the puzzle, and to those of you who say it was too easy, I say - Just easy enough!
2
The clue could have been “Melania”. :-)
*two* Star Wars references equals a very happy Friday
2
Defeat.
SHEEPLISHly, I must admit that it was not the plethora of (unknown) pop-culture things that led to my defeat. It was two naticks. Not a double natick, mid you, but two whole separate ones. Couldn't even run the alphabet because it would take approximately all day to do that with two blank squares, so I revealed both.
They were the 23 (FILA/FETT) and 47 (DAX/XKES) squares. And is this person DAX Shepard or Shepard DAX?
Never heard of DANGERMOUSEe or Gnarles Barkley. Or Sarah KOENIG. I did know better, but it took a while to remember that Murderers' Row referred to NYC baseball and not Chicago mob.
LATE HIT? From the clue, I'm guessing sports, but it's baseball that has HITs and football that has yards, so I'm confused.
Favorite cluing: HAS-BEENS, ROTISSERIE, CHEATER. Other great entries: PASS THE BAR, HUNT AND PECK (touch typist here), WAVE LENGTHS. Plus I love having lots of longies. Don't give up on them, please, John. And keep that flow flowing.
Has there been any word from the N.C. contingent?
2
Deadline,
Liz B's opener last night is the only NC post I've seen.
LATE HIT is football; a tackle or block after the whistle that is supposed to end the play.
Liz B did have a post about 3 hours ago so that would be late morning today.
I recall a few others in NC are in Asheville, which looks like it's 100 miles further inland. Not sure that means they'd be better off for the hurricane.
Wen,
I missed the more recent Liz B post when I went back to look. Radar shows Durham getting rain from outer bands, Asheville still dry.
No, it was too easy for a Friday puzzle.
1
True. All five puzzles this week have been on the easy side. Looking forward to seeing if Saturday breaks the streak.
Deb noticed the Z pattern, and how it affected her as a solver. I noticed how interconnected it was (which relates to her feeling "like I can cover large swaths of the grid before I have to go elsewhere in the puzzle").
Highly connected puzzles are hard to construct because their parts are so interdependent. Long words and stacks increase connectivity. Some other common grid motifs decrease it.
Most puzzles have some narrows, where a single word threads between two black squares a knight's move apart. Regions connected by narrows barely affect each other.
And many puzzles have parts that connect to the rest of the puzzle by only a single channel, making them nearly independent minis.
John Guzzetta cut himself no such slack in constructing today's puzzle. Kudos for its thick connections.
5
@speede
Ditto. This grid is indeed fluid.
I really dislike grids that have choked-off segments. I appreciate that they are easier on the constructors, and I want them to be happy, but it's not why I do the puzzles.
@speede
I commented yesterday about the Thursday puzzle -- that it was like a number of minis connected only by the theme entries.
@Deadline You think constructors are going to do puzzles because it makes THEM happy, or it makes YOU happy? I'm guessing the former.
I thoroughly enjoyed today's crossword! It was truly representative of what working crosswise can really do. It was challenging, fun and still fell right within a typical Friday time for me. Favorite cluing was for: Pass the bar, rotisserie, hunt and peck.
I had many blanks at first, and there were lots of items I didn't know or remember like Danger Mouse or Dax (Shepard), but all could be worked out with determination. Top left corner was the last nut to crack. I got "ess" right away but "vans" not so much. Once I got the "lengths" part from working the down clues more than once, the corner finally cracked.
One note: I am not talented at discerning the spoken phrases as used in this puzzle ('Imagine that', 'That's Genius', 'It's a Miracle') nor do I love their use. Today, for once, they did not trip me up.
3
@Liane
I'm with you on the phrases. I always have difficulties with them - I would almost prefer long obscure word - but today I got through with minimal problems.
Just over an hour with zero lookups. I was stunned to get the chime because how could something that felt so wrong be so right? SHTETL could not possibly be a real word. Gnarls Barkley must be a country duo. But, whoever heard of a C&W singer with a name like Danger Mouse? Great fun.
@Kevin
Grady? is that you?
This Friday fell unusually fast. The only hold-up was the NEMEA/DANGERMOUSE cross. I guess it's important to know where Hercules did his handiwork, and now I know that Nemea is a significant wine region. Nice offering, Mr. Guzzetta.
Hercules’ Labors are usually listed following a pattern: verb (often slay) ”the” adjective noun. So “Slay the Neman lion” is familiar for mythology fans.
I am 72 years old and have happily done NYT puzzles for more than fifty years. Nowadays, technological advances record my stats, but this development is not encouraging. It’s clear that solve times are getting longer. Hmm...
4
@Spanker
Longer? Who cares! What's important is that you're still enjoying the solve, right?
8
@Johanna Right! Yes, of course. The puzzles remain provocative and pleasurable, even as this brain is slowing down. As to the question of who cares....well, I do. Why shouldn't I?
2
I agree about "Why shouldn't I?" (Johanna is very sweet and just wants us to feel better,) but BW (Before Will) the puzzles (and especially the cluing) was more straightforward and there were a lot of geographical and biographical entries....My Granny kept a gazetteer and an atlas next to her "davenport" where she liked to solve. I think the clever clues just take longer because it means recall PLUS word play, oft-times.
1
School copier: Deb refers to the smell of mimeograph ink, but I believe she's thinking about fluid duplicator ("Ditto") copying. Liked the clue, though, and the fact that it's right under another school-related term.
4
@jma I told you it wasn't good to sniff those pages.
3
@jma
You beat me to it.
Mimeo ink did indeed have a slight odor, but nothing all that distinctive. But ditto fluid? Nothing like it!
2
@Deb Amlen
LOL, Deb! The ditto masters had purple ink; they were good for only so many copies. The mimeograph masters were usually longer and printed out in black--plus they were good for many more pages of printing. Between the smoke in the Teachers' Lounge and the ditto fluid fumes, it was pretty heady...
Excellent themeless. I had a few wrong answers that slowed me down -- 'ills' before WOES, 'faster' before HOTTER, 'starred' before STEERED, but I allowed instinct to lead the way and voilà.
After decades of flying into O'Hare and continuing the journey with a rental car, VANS as "Circlers at airports" was as gimme as it gets.
3
@Barry Ancona
I kept trying to think of some short word for the baggage carousels.
2
Big Bee:
Last week's Spelling Bee (the long version) omitted so many words that I had on MY list that I went and checked them all on Google; they are all legitimate words. What's up with that?
annal (YES, the singular form is acceptable and used often!)
calif (Var. of caliph)
calculi (pl. of calculus)
calla (a plant, different from canna)
liana (much beloved in Old CrossWorld: woody vine)
laical (pertaining to the laity)
Uncial (wonderful calligraphic form)
unfilial (filial was on the list; this should be, too)
That's TEN WORDS that should have been on the list....
6
@Mean Old Lady
I love that the weekly Bee doesn't have Queen Bee status and that Frank Longo doesn't purport to write every possible word (given he expressly tells us to add points for other legitimate words). It means I can stop when I am satisfied instead of killing time trying to guess what is in the creator's mind or dictionary.
That said, added to the words on your list -- some of which I missed (not liana, of course) -- I also had: infill, ilial, iliac, cilial, calluna, cannula, allicin, lacunal, funiculi, ulnae.
I don't mind any of those missing - except funiculi, which is too fun to miss. I kept singing a certain song while doing the puzzle!
This week's Variety Bee will prove similar. I'm just above genius now, having taken longer than usual to see the pangram. I'll do a few more words and happily retire the puzzle (adding only if something comes to mind during the week), but stop short of any compulsion to guess all possible words. It reminds me that my drive to get to QB daily is not rational. Yet . . . .
1
@Liane
Actually, I had some of the ones you list, too, but failed to pick them out (I don't alphabetize) when listing.
I put in funiculi/la but when I looked them up later it just came up with 'song lyrics' (which I took to mean nonsense syllables and did not therefore count them.)
Alicin? Infill? Must look up!
Gratefully John and my WAVELENGTHS meshed this morning making this a most enjoyable solve.
I can't believe I remembered DANGERMOUSE. Much better than Dead Mouse (Deadmau5) who was a favorite of our youngest son back when he was into electronic music, i.e. dubstep. His favorite was SKRILLEX who recently showed up in a puzzle.
I love when puzzles "talk to me." Today's conversation is "I just reinvented the wheel! IMAGINE THAT! IT'S A MIRACLE! Yep, THAT'S GENIUS for you."
Thank you, John Guzzetta, today you definitely deserve to feel just a little bit ABOVE IT ALL. Great puzzle!
3
I guess if he's a six-time Grammy winner, someone must have heard of DANGER MOUSE, but that someone is not me. And because I had rIfE instead of WIDE (1D) and cAbS instead of VANS, my DANGERMOUSE line of letters looked like this:
F-BGER--OU-A. I thought it was the FAB someone-or-other.
But much much worse was what I had at 1A: rAcELE-GT-S. It sure looked like RACE LENGTHS -- and the clue was "Differences between colors" (!) Oy!! Were RACE LENGTHS some sort of term for RACE RIOTS or the like? If so, what an ugly clue. Since it never occurred to me to change RIFE to WIDE and CABS to VANS, WAVELENGTHS could not be sussed out. And, DANGERMOUSE -- you were no bloody help at all!
Add to that the podcast person, the Star Wars bounty hunter, the MTV toon teen, the Shepard guy, and two car model nonsense letters, and you can well IMAGINE what I thought of this pop culture-laden nightmare. The answer is: not much.
2
Nancy,
I had the same trouble in the northwest, using the same words and trying to make sense of fArGERMOUSE. I rationalized RACELENGTHS as referring to HORSE racing, with “colors” being the colors representing each owner’s stables. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one misdirected!
P.S. And yes, I had to resort to Google today to come up with DANGERMOUSE!
2
@NYC Traveler
Misery loves company, @NYC Traveler, so thanks for letting me know. But your RACE LENGTHS rationale was a lot more benign than mine!
This was full of unknowns for me. Of course the lower right DAX XKES but also DANGER MOUSE, LATE HIT, and AMAS. with that clue. While I had listened to the Serial podcast, I didn't remember Sarah KOENIG's name until I had a couple of letters. I kept thinking that 'cuspidor' would be the answer to Spit Spot.
HUNT AND PECK was the only long answer I got without any crossings. I really enjoy that the long answers are often everyday phrases but the definitions often steer me into brain paralysis.
1
This puzzle was an ideal breakfast companion: cordial and friendly, interesting and thought-provoking. And what a fine sense of humor: "distant stars?" = HASBEENS and "change the locks?" = DYES. All I can say is THATSGENIUS!
5
@archaeoprof
oh, I forgot I really liked the HAS-BEENS cloue too! Thanks for the reminder.
1
Question about today's mini: what are the numbers in parentheses following several of the clues?
@tom campbell
Entries are all composed of Roman numerals which can be re-arranged to equal the number in parentheses.
@tom campbell
The Roman numeral values of the letters in the answers. Not always in order.
@tom campbell, I believe they are some sort of reference to Roman numerals, but the answers seem to be out of order from the clue numbers.
SPELLING BEE
26 words, 148 points, 1 pangram
A-4 (5L=3, 7L=1), C-7 (5L=3, 6L=1, 7L=1, 8L=2), I-1 (7L), L-3 (4,5,6 - 1 each), N-2 (5, 7), R-1(5), V=8 (4L=2, 5L=3, 7L=2, 8L-1) I hope this is right -- I would not attempt this again with more words
Easiest Bee all week, for which I am grateful. For me, the panagram flew out of the letters today. I was hung up at the end for 7 points and wheel housing through letter combinations only to discover it was a common word. Dang. No particular uncommon words. Several variations of a few words are key.
9
@Liane
Thanks, Liane.
I see you upping the game on word frequency hinting including both first letter and the word lengths in each.
Thank you for your stellar service to the hive, Liane. You got me to 23 words (and I know exactly what I'm missing though seem to have buzzed to a halt).
VINCA is not accepted (I have it all over instead of grass, since the live oaks cast too much shade for a lawn in our front yard)
VIVA is not accepted.
I'm apparently missing one word beginning with N and two beginning with V. Likelihood of Victory: zero. I will perhaps reVisit whilst enjoying the Viands at midday. I dream of the Wee Bee makers surrounded by laVa.
1
FETT up with the gnarly nature of the roof fiddler’s nabe, I caved. And I was having such an easy go of it until the rag merchant of SHTETL lurked unanswered, shrouded in perpetuity. That one stung...Natch, I added an ‘h’ to the late novelist’s first name for fit, until I remembered that Nora has a surviving sister...I see IN IT is doing yeoman duty, also showing up in the Mini today...VAN’S “WAVELENGTH(S)” is WORTH a click; ‘tis a live performance in Belfast from ‘79.
https://youtu.be/CsEdUH3j1KU
Without Any SHEEPISHness,
Bru
3
TIL that Deb is not as obsessed with doing the NYT XWORD puzzles every day as many of us.
Also a plug for clues like Gnarls Barkely - without such trivia in these puzzles, I’d feel guilty about consulting Professor Google.
3
I started at the bottom, as is my wont, and except for having to change the cartridge in my pen, I sailed through merrily. (I "touch-type," no HUNT AND PECK silliness for me.). And......then I hit the NW corner, and except for -ESS ("End of a count?") just kind of ground to a halt. The Lion of NEMEA was a gimme, and GTOS balanced the XKES below, but everything to the left was a sea of What? Huh? Hmm?
I had RIFE for 1D, CABS for 3D, OVA for 4D, and T?? For 9D.
Surely MOUSE was not someone's name!
Reddit--isn't that real estate or something? (No, that was RedFIN, silly.)
I resisted LIE WITH at 5D because it seemed a bit tenuous; a Biblical definition would have been too much, I suppose....
Eventually I worked it out, but I don't get 2D at all.
Off to check my Big Bee.
Wee Bee today is at Genius 23/ 126, but I am somewhat in despair of finding more....
1
@Mean Old Lady
Hand up; the NW was by far my toughest of the four corners. I was hung up on variegations (no fit) for 1A and ledger (right size, wrong word) for ENROLL.
To partially quote Liz B: "Reading through the clues, I thought there were going to be a lot of proper names I didn't know in this one" - and I was right. I only knew Helen Keller. Of course I knew BABE RUTH, but not as clued, never heard the term "Murderers row". However with my usual late week look ups, I got enough to have a go at the long entries which were fun, and did get all the misdirections with my first guess so chuffed about that.
4
For those who appreciate dips into the etymology of our words - supercilious is literally "eyebrowish" - from "super" (above) and "cilia" (hairs) - and is a reference to the raised eyebrow of the person who is haughtily dismissive of others, or "above it all." Someone who PANs the words or works of others.
Some posters here have remarked that some comments here come across as "raised eyebrow" comments - supercilious - but one of the constant delimiters online is (not) hearing the tone of voice, whether humorous, sarcastic, dismissive, or judgmental.
Getting to know individual posters over time helps just about as often as it hurts: when someone earnest posts a jest, or someone jokey posts a judgment, it can cause some disorientation. This arena - regardless of the technical difficulties - is fairly rare in the online experience. I consider the "rapper's names" discussion yesterday. How would this discourse have gone in any other online forum? Views were expressed, the subject was opened, but name-calling and dismissive judgments were avoided. Something we can celebrate.
21
@David Connell
Hear! Hear!
2
@David Connell. Thanks for the breakdown of supercilious. It's been right there in front of me all these years and I never noticed it before.
3
Some comments are supercilious. Others are just plain super silly.
(QED)
This week I have sailed through the M-F crosswords in 10.5 minutes or less (no lookups, nada), only to then have my cloud of smug entirely dissipated by the Bee, which over the last few days has given me serious hives.
5
Trivial note: Mark KOENIG was also a member of Murderers' Row.
7
13D--ROTISSERIE (Spit spot)--None of the blogs and columns, as far as I can tell, noticed that this is wordplay beyond the alliterativeness of the clue. Maybe some of you are too young to make the connection.
In the 1964 film "Mary Poppins," the expression "spit spot" was used by Mary to mean now, get to it, move. It was apparently made up for the movie, as there appears to be no record of the phrase existing before then. But Mary did use it repeatedly, in phrases such as "Hurry up, please! Spit spot!" and "Well, don't stand there staring. Best foot forward. Spit spot!"
5
@Steve L Good catch! I didn't notice that at all, even though I spent ages trying to finish the NE. For some reason, I got stuck on the idea that spit spot referred to some sort of musical instrument (because of spit valves, I guess?). I guess it's just as well that I didn't have even more misdirection to trip me up.
1
I agree with Steve about the overall wonderfulness of the clue for ROTISSERIE.
For reasons I won't go into, I saw "Mary Poppins" three times in a very brief period following its release. I became rather more familiar with that movie than was absolutely necessary (although it's a good flick), but until he mentioned it I didn't think of "spit spot!" at all.
Most of it went pretty quickly except the NW corner. Got the right side so had E_GTHS. Figured that was LENGTHS, then finally tumbled to WAVE. Wasn't familiar with Gnarls Barkley but had heard of DANGERMOUSE. When those were filled in I got the rest. The last was ESS. Good puzzle.
1
Couldn't finish this one. With patience I managed to fill in most of the bottom, but the top third (everything above SHTETL) remained largely blank, with just a few short answers filled in.
Oddly, considering my age, I could have named the other half of Gnarls Barkley - Cee Lo Green. And I'm something of a fan of the songs 'Crazy' (Gnarls Barkley) and 'Forget You' (the friendly version of the song Deb mentioned). Just couldn't come up with DANGERMOUSE.
On the other hand the 'hit' HONEYHONEY was not familiar to me, though I'm sure I had the radio on constantly during that era and heard ABBA a lot. I pulled it up on Youtube after I finished and still didn't recognize it. Still managed to get that from the crosses.
As usual, I see some things I should have gotten. But I didn't.
2
Loved it! Misdirection all around but nothing that made me shake my head, just lots of grins.
6
I must have been on the same WAVELENGTHS as the constructor. This wasn't easy, but came quickly. I beat my personal best for Friday (1/3 my average).
Deb always posts most of the stuff I liked in her post. Then Liz B and many others post the others, leaving me to say "me too."
I liked the clues for ESS, CHEATER, SEER, DYE.
Like Liz B, I looked at the 4 letter space for sneaker maker and thought NIKE or AVIA before remembering FILA.
We had Helen Keller a couple of times a week or two ago, and one of them was about her co-founding ACLU, and it's good to see it again.
Didn't know DEIRDRE, KOENIG, DAX, HONEY HONEY. DELIA. Heard of DANGER MOUSE but didn't know the answer from the clue. Only very vague knowledge of BABE RUTH being in the Murderers' Row.
Nice grid. Fun clues. Great puzzle.
9
Think Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) taking a bite out of Babe Ruth's straw hat in the movie ....mentions "Murderers' Row" (but not Koenig.)
1
Quite hard for an ex-pat pop-culture ignoramus like me.
Starting at the botttom with BABE RUTH, STAT, PAN, ACLU and HUNT AND PECK, I needed only one look-up (the Natick at DAX/XKES) to fill almost all but the NW corner, where I was stymied by having the perfectly legitimate frequENcieS instaed of WAVELENGTHS. Even after EGG forced me to make the correction, I had to look-up the unknown DANGER MOUSE to fill the corner.
This left the Natick at FILA/FETT, for which I went through the alphabet and heard the unearned Happy Music at F.
4
@Amitai Halevi
Same ending as you, Amitai - that F was the last to fall, and also via alphabet trials.
We had the Helen Keller/ACLU connection more than once quite recently, and discussed here.
I found the four triple stacks to be quite easy - five of them were expressions that fell into place quite quicky from a few crosses. In all, a well-built, junk-free themeless.
3
Hello all you clever Friday puzzle solvers! I’m here to ask about Spelling Bee. I’m getting the sense that the Bee configuration (including the middle letter) repeats quite often and without too many weeks in between. Am I just imagining it??
If they have repeated it, we would have noticed.
I keep a history of the puzzles, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. And I think people who do it would be able to say from memory if they think they've encountered a particular puzzle before. They have been able to say when one feels similar to one they'd seen before.
@Susan
I think there are just inevitable repeats of individual words...but there also seem always to be new ones in each configuration, due probably to the fact that none of the Pangram words are repeated.
@Mean Old Lady
Obviously, it is possible for the pangram word to repeat but for the puzzle itself to not be repeated by switching the center letter, but you're right, that hasn't happened yet.
A couple of unknowns in this one--DAX Shepard and DANGER MOUSE--plus I'm generally at a loss with anything related to Star Wars (never a fan). STarRED before STEERED kept me from getting BEAVIS (and I did feel like a butthead).
6
I thought it was interesting that both the regular Friday xwd and the Mini shared an entry: "in it".
1
I always feel mighty proud of myself when I finish a Friday puzzle without even opening the wordplay blog!
10
As far as I can find, a PAN is always the review, and never the show. A review may *have* zero stars, but it's the movie which is *receiving* zero stars. So I think that the clue is (slightly) incorrect.
16
@PaulSFO
Apparently, the print version is different. In pictographs, there was one black star, three white stars, and the abbreviation e.g.
Apparently, a one-star review is also a PAN.
1
Paul,
I'm puzzled by your comment.
I see a "rating" of one out of four stars, and I consider that "rating" a PAN. End of story for me.
What did you see that led you to need to say that a PAN is the review, not the show? I agree with you, of course, but I don't see review, show or movie in the clue or entry, so I'm not sure why you felt you needed to make the point or why you think the clue as written is (slightly) incorrect.
On the iOS app, the clue for PAN is “It might receive zero stars.” I agree with the original poster—this clue refers to the work, not the review, so it seems a little off.
2
and Elke
Am out of practice, not having done a couple of days' WORTH of puzzles. Wanted 'avia' before FILA , 'Norah' before DELIA , 'gong' before BELL. Thought that Minute Rice needed to be 'fluffed with fork' ( after BOILing).
While DANGER MOUSE , HONEY HONEY etc. were strangers to me, I did remember NEMEA, Cleopatra's ASP , not firsthand, mind you. And Helen KELLER and her role in the ACLU was recently in a puzzle.
Wanted to squeeze 'Anatevka' into SHTETL (IMAGINE THAT ).
Being a HUNT AND PECK typer, this took me TRIPLE the TIME to write .
Just enough short answers to make the long ones 'gettable'. I'd say THAT'S GENIUS on the part of constructor, J.G.
To Dan in Sidney (Down Under)- ' A guten Shabbes and an easy fast ' next week.
10
Having never watched Parenthood, I entered SAM for DAX. (I can’t keep those Jaguar letter strings straight, and I blame the U.S.’s irrational clinging to the standard measuring system for my stumbling over DECI.) That was really my only hang up. Otherwise, a near-personal best for me. Enjoyable!
4
Fun puzzle. But the clue for WAVELENGTHS was just wrong. Like clueing “inches” as “differences in heights.” Or “pitches” as “differences in frequencies.”
1
Ah, we had Doppler (and his effect) a couple of weeks ago. The old red shift.
Think qualitatively, not quantitatively. Colors are different because of wavelengths.
2
I have to say I agree with NotMyRealName (and Jim at xwordinfo) on this one. The clue snagged on my brain the second I filled in "wavelengths". Even in the simplest terms (i.e., somehow designating a prismatic color by its wavelength), the clue is somewhere between clunky and just plain wrong. But once the actuality of color theory (i.e. how colors work in our experience of the world) is taken into consideration - then the clue is so far off as to be humorous.
Somehow managed a Friday record today. I confidently filled in HONEY HONEY thinking that I remembered the song, even though I know almost no ABBA. Turns out that I was remembering the song SUGAR SUGAR by the Archies, a 60s bubble gum song, but the lyrics HONEY HONEY are quite prominent in that song as well.
Sweet!
5
My first pass through I had MONEYMONEY. Slowed me a bit.
2
@Brian Same here until I learned it's actually "MONEY MONEY MONEY". (I cheated.)
1
I managed to go through whatever era it was when Abba was popular without ever having heard of them, until the recent fascination with them. But I still couldn't name any of their songs except "Mamma Mia" because of the endless ads for the show and movie.
Luckily all the crossings of HONEY HONEY were easy, thanks to the gimme of SWISS CHARD.
Most of this puzzle was challenging but fun for me. The NW stack, though, was my downfall. Never heard of Gnarls Barkley, and never imagined anyone named DANGER MOUSE. Once I finally figured out airport circlers could be CABS, I couldn't imagine another answer for 2D. IMAGINE THAT! And I had trouble imagining that one, too. Never heard of an oocyte, but it looked like an obvious ORE to me. And LIE WITH? Yikes. The "gimme" down answers, WIDE and GTOS were in and out numerous times as I couldn't make any progress on the acrosses. I finally googled Gnarls, shook my head in wonder at DANGER MOUSE, and managed to work out the rest. Whew! ITS A MIRACLE. Even if I was a bit of a CHEATER, and feel a little SHEEPISH, I'll count it as a victory, and happily head to bed for some needed REM time.
9
Great puzzle! i had to try a few at 47 before it resolved.
@Rodzu—Maybe you were bothered by the fact that the model name XKE is merely an Americanism, derived from the previous series of Jaguars beginning with the famous XK120. The actual designation of that incredibly sleek follow-up series is, simply, E-Type.
1
@paulymath
This is an American puzzle, and by his or her location, Rodzu is probably an American.
So what's the issue?
I don't know about Rodzu, but my issue is that XKE is a random string of letters (to someone unfamiliar with Jaguars). I was lucky in this case that I've heard of DAX Shepard, but if I hadn't I'm sure I would have confidently filled in DAN and never suspected that NKE wasn't a real car.
We like the long entries.
5
Deb, the radio-friendly version of that Cee-Lo hit was called “Forget You.”
4
@William Shunn You're right! And further research uncovered a slew of terrific American Sign Language videos of the song. Here's one that I liked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuSqXr7VVZM
Had to run the alphabet at the 23 square, but the rest filled in nicely bottom-to-top. DANGER MOUSE is a person? Oh, and also a toon. I feel better now.
Somebody please let me know if the Acrostic grid is all squished in so you can't read it. Or maybe it's my stupid malfunctioning computer which is right now underlining everything after DANGER MOUSE in red! WOE is moi.
"WOE is moi."
But, Suzy, I trust you have your BOA.
1
@Suzy M
The Acrostic looks fine on my Mac with Safari on Friday morning.
After years of badgering from Google I finally downloaded Chrome. The acrostic is fully visible on that one, so the problem is in Microsoft Edge. At least on my machine.
1
The grid looked daunting, but thanks to toEholds like DANGER MOUSE, I notched a Friday personal best, beating my average by more than 12 minutes. I guess I was on all the right WAVELENGTHS. IMAGINE THAT.
4
good Friday! I feel somewhat SHEEPISH in saying I'm a HUNT AND PECK typist as we speak!
2
Fresh wordplay and clever misdirection. My favorite was school copier. Tough but fair.
4
Deft touch on the mini. Something a little different.
3
@Brian, re the mini - ok, I guess I got the number references, but they seemed to be jumbles of Roman numerals, not nicely laid out in proper order. Did I miss something?
Reading through the clues, I thought there were going to be a lot of proper names I didn't know in this one. But with some good crosses and a little bit of guesswork, they all came together. I didn't know Sarah KOENIG at all, or the Abba song, or DAX, and I usually have trouble remembering all the Ephrons. I knew the Helen KELLER fact (from previous puzzles) but my first thought there was that maybe Helen MIRREN had founded a stage-related group. DEIRDRE saved me from that. It took me a minute to parse the clue for SEER.
And we had FILA instead of the more usual AVIA or NIKE.
4
Indeed, I feel like the Heller KELLER-ACLU connection was in a puzzle within the last couple of weeks.
This was a fun one!
5
@Irene August 29th.
ACLU was clued in reference to Helen Keller.
@Rich in Atlanta.
I'm sure there have been 2 puzzles very recently referring to Helen Keller's leading role in the ACLU. I was surprised that Deb missed them, so assume they were on the weekend.
1