I think this is innovative and challenging, and would like to see it in the paper more often.
Thank you.
Really enjoyed this puzzle though it took me until the February 21st to finish. Would be happy to see another vowelless crossword in the future.
Not a fan. I had never heard of vowelless puzzles, so had no idea what was going on.
That was a good thing, because the struggle to figure that out what was fun. Then the solve was fun. Until I got about 30% through, and then it went from interesting/different to slog.
I can see the attraction...just not for me.
That was a good thing, because the struggle to figure that out what was fun. Then the solve was fun. Until I got about 30% through, and then it went from interesting/different to slog.
I can see the attraction...just not for me.
Out of town all weekend so not getting to this till now. I came here to ask (BUT I JUST ANSWERED MY OWN QUESTION) what BCT was for 42A Tap (6). Then I changed DEBATABLE to DOUBTFUL and now I can't get Farrah Fawcett Majors out of my brain, and that's not a bad thing for an old guy like me.
Could someone explain NDRGS (37D)?
(uNDeRGoeS)
I must insist that "Y" as in New York Times is not a vowel, but a consonant. I am surprised that this escaped the notice of the editor.
There was a general note in the version I solved, to say that all Ys would be treated as vowels and therefore absent in the grid.
This was my first vowelless crossword, and I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. My having worked for a couple of decades in New York City helped a lot, although my fading gnomic memory gave me a fair amount of trouble. It took me a long time to remember the name of the Frank Lloyd Wright museum with the spiral viewing ramp, and I was obsessed with trying to fit in Gertrude or Geraldine as the first name of puzzle editor FARRAR, before MARGARET suddenly popped out from that bowl of soup between my ears. My biggest teeth-gnasher, however, was not remembering La-Z-Boy.
All in all, it was good mental exercise for a snowed-in day.
All in all, it was good mental exercise for a snowed-in day.
lvd t!
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That was hard.
Love it! It did help, though, that there was that NYC theme.
1
I didn't care for it. With the exception of the NYC trivia (which was annoying for those who don't live there), it was too easy.
That was a nice, nasty little challenge, not equivalent to a cryptic but still sufficiently irritating in places to be worth the effort. Some favorites were NDRGS, MPRCS, SBPLT, because there were such feasible alternatives unless you got the crossing answers...of course I realize the constructor's achievement was building those titanic New York landmarks vowel-less-ly.
But who in heaven's name was Margaret FRRR? Sounds like a foreboding character.
But who in heaven's name was Margaret FRRR? Sounds like a foreboding character.
Margaret Petherbridge FaRRaR (March 23, 1897 – June 11, 1984) was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times (1942–1968).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Farrar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Farrar
2
The patron saint of the NYT XWP.
May her legacy endure.
May her legacy endure.
1
Please. No more. Better another cryptic than this. So boring.
Verbless post. Uninteresting, yes?
Verbless post. Uninteresting, yes?
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This was a lot of fun. I hope we will be seeing more vwlss pzzls.
1
My first vowelless, found it fun and intriguing. Love the word tosspot and will have to incorporate it into my vocabulary.
Hope to see more of these.
Hope to see more of these.
2
I just want recommend THIS to anybody here who has not already found it on their own:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/11/obituaries/smullyan-logic...
By the way, I got the first two right, but I could not figure out the others at all. I'm a lot better at math puzzles, and word puzzles, than I am at logic puzzles.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/11/obituaries/smullyan-logic...
By the way, I got the first two right, but I could not figure out the others at all. I'm a lot better at math puzzles, and word puzzles, than I am at logic puzzles.
1
Notepad: In this puzzle, the letter "Y" always counts as a vowel.
What has always irritated me about the vowelless is the unequal status of semivowels "W" and "Y." The possible solutions:
1. Treat both as vowels.
2. Treat both as consonants.
3. Treat each according to its function. This could cause problems at crossings, however.
4. Unpredictable behavior. This is my favorite because it adds another challenge to the dilemma.
What has always irritated me about the vowelless is the unequal status of semivowels "W" and "Y." The possible solutions:
1. Treat both as vowels.
2. Treat both as consonants.
3. Treat each according to its function. This could cause problems at crossings, however.
4. Unpredictable behavior. This is my favorite because it adds another challenge to the dilemma.
I was messed up by the one clue I have no idea what the starting word would be: 13D, Beat in athletic competition (7). I thought it would be TOPPLE--> TPPL but there are 4 letters not three. TPL was the answer. Is there a different word I should have been thinking about that reduces to TPL?
2
OUTPLAY. I had trouble too at first; got the OUT, but was thinking OUTRUN, OUTJUMP, etc, combing OUT with various sport verbs.
4
Thanks! Didn't occur to me aTaLL! But....Hmmm...as a lacrosse player, "beat UP" would the the same as ouTPLay, but I have been in games where we clearly outplayed another team but still lost, so we beat up on the other team, but didn't beat them. (Just thinking ouTLouD why ouTPLay didn't occur to me. . . :)) Thanks, Jenna!
1
Thanks. I never figured out what this was supposed to be.
1
I was happy to see the Vowelless again after a long time.
I did it online, and I kept having a problem that I wonder if other people were having. Letters kept changing "on their own" to other letters.
I don't know if the glitch is in the Times's computer system or with my own computer.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Anyway, as a New Yorker I liked the theme.
For a long time I had DEBIT CARD instead of SMART CARD.
I kept mentally going over the map of the PATH system, trying to figure out just which station would fit into (6,3,6). Finally I realized NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.
I grew up in Brooklyn, so I wound up being surprised that I had to search for BUSHWICK instead of knowing it.
I did it online, and I kept having a problem that I wonder if other people were having. Letters kept changing "on their own" to other letters.
I don't know if the glitch is in the Times's computer system or with my own computer.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Anyway, as a New Yorker I liked the theme.
For a long time I had DEBIT CARD instead of SMART CARD.
I kept mentally going over the map of the PATH system, trying to figure out just which station would fit into (6,3,6). Finally I realized NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.
I grew up in Brooklyn, so I wound up being surprised that I had to search for BUSHWICK instead of knowing it.
2
P.S. I forgot to include:
[SPOILER ALERT]
I wonder if RHENISH is still used to refer to some German wines.
After getting some of the letters, I remembered the character in "Hamlet" saying that Yorick had once poured a "flagon of Rhenish" over his head.
How about those two consecutive tricky answers, BOOKCASE and NEURON? In each case you are misled into expecting something pertaining ro computer technology.
[SPOILER ALERT]
I wonder if RHENISH is still used to refer to some German wines.
After getting some of the letters, I remembered the character in "Hamlet" saying that Yorick had once poured a "flagon of Rhenish" over his head.
How about those two consecutive tricky answers, BOOKCASE and NEURON? In each case you are misled into expecting something pertaining ro computer technology.
2
Reading your post, Jerrold, I realized I had fooled myself.
I completed the puzzle (wondering what non-New Yorkers were thinking but mentally reminding them that the NYT is our "hometown paper"!)...where was I? Oh, yeah, I got it down to one answer I knew had to be correct, but not what it stood for.
It was the intersection of 6D and 20A that done me in.
I now see that 6D is not BKCN, answering the question in the clue with BOOK CAN! Okay, lame, but the trouble was, I could not check it because I didn't know the cactus. (*That* clue belongs in Tucson's hometown paper!)
But that one tiny glitch did not nullify all the fun I had doing this puzzle. I've done vowelless XWDs before and it's often much easier than you think it's going to be...especially if you live in the target city. ;-)
I completed the puzzle (wondering what non-New Yorkers were thinking but mentally reminding them that the NYT is our "hometown paper"!)...where was I? Oh, yeah, I got it down to one answer I knew had to be correct, but not what it stood for.
It was the intersection of 6D and 20A that done me in.
I now see that 6D is not BKCN, answering the question in the clue with BOOK CAN! Okay, lame, but the trouble was, I could not check it because I didn't know the cactus. (*That* clue belongs in Tucson's hometown paper!)
But that one tiny glitch did not nullify all the fun I had doing this puzzle. I've done vowelless XWDs before and it's often much easier than you think it's going to be...especially if you live in the target city. ;-)
It's hard to say for sure, since vowelless crosswords come up so infrequently, but I believe this is the best one I've seen. That's saying a lot, given the theme and my status as a born-and-bred Philadelphian...
3