Sincere thanks to: W.S., NYT XWords, Deb and her regular band of wonky Sunday Wordies. Stench of 2017 simply unbearable without yu'all. (Can't teach old Jaguar new tricks (10+ years in Fernandina Beach).
p.s. Losing circulation in crossed fingers hoping we all survive til Nov. '18.
p.p.s. Till then H.N.Y.
m.
7
I don't understand why "country that menorca is a part of" wasn't indicative of a nonenglish answer. anyone else??
1
Sorry but th, sh, and ou are NOT phonemes but digraphs. I expect better!
2
I got hung up on 78D "Legitimate business practices' because of the "s" at the end. I just assumed that the last cell was an "s". Bad clue.
1
Hi, I’m so confused. I have read the comments but still not understanding 84D. I got it on the cross but don’t understand it.
HNY to all.
Happy New Year back at you, Babs.
"Phoneme" = unit of speech sound. The clue is not very good (not very precise) and was disputed by commenters at other sites.
5
thank you --I had the same question. I read the answer as two words: "phone me"
And Happy New Year to All
1
This erstwhile substitute English teacher had no idea. SMH
22 across and 96 across, L O L
1
This one didn’t click for me. Even with multiple spoilers I couldn’t see URANIUMOREO staring at me. The whole SW corner just kind of dragged on all day. I feel like I should have something more positive to say. Happy New Year anyhow.
Cheers to you Deb for your endlessly creative approach to the daily elucidation. And your LOLZ which are always on fleek. Peace out.
1
I might be coming here too late today for anyone to read my comments, but my apartment has been so cold that I spent all day curled up in bed under the covers with my Nook (and Jessica).
(Also having computer problems, including completely inoperative email, so may not be here regularly until that's fixed. I promised myself a new computer for right after the New Year, and I am no even more firmly committed to the idea.)
Anyway, a nice puzzle for the end of a not-so-nice year.
Thanks to all Will, Joel, and Sam, of course to Our Own Deb, and to all the WPers for alleviating some of the pain and providing some fun and entertainment.
Happy New Year to all, and a final COVFEFE.
7
Get and stay warm, Deadline.
(Is it November yet?)
3
Would you like cream and tweetener with that covfefe?
3
I had fun solving this puzzle today with my wife, making it more of a social activity than usual. We worked on it late last night till we got too sleepy, then finished it up this afternoon. We didn’t understand the theme at all until coming here to the blog – it just seemed like randomly added “O’s” to some answers and subtracted them from others. We totally didn’t connect “O” with “ring.”
I often teach my students to remember the meaning of “da CAPO” by telling them to remember that the capo is the head of the family and refers to the “head” of the piece. I use my best Marlon Brando voice to explain it. They don’t get the reference but I don’t care, I do it anyway.
I read the blog almost every day, though I don’t often have the time to sit and write a comment. I always enjoy everyone’s ideas, insights, and even irrelevant comments, though! Thank you, Deb, for your dedication to this little community and for your comments today. It’s an oasis of sanity in a world that seems to be getting crazier by the day. Here’s to a hopefully saner 2018!
9
Well, Maestro, here we're an hour into 2018 and - so far so good.
H N Y to all and to all a good night.
6
TANG story: years ago, when space travel was very new, I remember watching live, an astronaut demonstrate how to breakfast in weightless conditions. He showed how he was able to squirt juice from a bulb directly into his mouth. He made a face and said something like, “It’s not as good as the real thing, but it’ll have to do.” This was followed immediately by a commercial for “The Drink of the Astronauts.” Yep, Tang.
5
IONE showed up in Puns and Anagrams today as “1:1 girl”.
1
Fine Sunday puzzle to wrap up the year. Had most of it solved before figuring out how the title tied in with the themers. We’ve had a lot of OREOs in the puzzle this year, but this is the first radioactive one. Love the idea of FLOPPYDISCO.
My confession: my brothers and I ate a lot of TANG straight out the jar. Who needs water?
Happy New Year to Deb and all WPers, thanks for making this a special place on the internet. I look forward to reading everybody’s comments every day. May 2018 bring us all good times.
George Harrison’s 1974 single “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” has become a pop staple for New Year’s Eve, and echoes today’s title, with its verse of “Ring out the old, ring in the new.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrXswIbWA7Y
5
I had no idea that there was a NATO alphabet! :(
2
Now you do. Happy New Year!
And you stay indoors, Deb!
(NyQuil)
Terrific finale to 2017 !
1
Well, my "March came in like ALamb(kin). I know it's Lampkin with a P but obviously I had a subliminal cue from the constructor who I thank very much for this Sunday puzzle ... which had quite a perfect ring to it!
It would have been cool if the clue for PHONEME were, "A ring, please!"
Most of all I thank Deb and the entire NYT team for giving us this gift every single day of the week. Great write-up today, Deb!
And I thank all of the posters here who add to my day immensely. I used to be at another blog for years but couldn't take the negativity anymore. Everybody here is every bit as smart and witty but with a big difference: no snark. What the world needs now is more love, less negativity.
So a big thank you to everybody today and very Happy New Year to all!
19
Johanna, thank you for a comment worthy of the impending new year. What the world definitely needs is a lot less snark , negativity, and cynicism. All we really do need is LOVE and a lot more of it.
The puzzle today was somewhat underwhelming, but as always, I marvel at the work of the constructors and the editors who all do their best to keep us busy and interested. And, yes, many of us are at times are being a little too critical when a clue or an answer is just slightly off, but these are, after all, crossword puzzles not dissertations.
5
Got the whole thing without a single lookup—Google or dictionary! CAMGEAR threw me for a loop, because I was trying to make it fit into the theme. Only after finishing the whole thing did it dawn on me that it was just an abbreviation-clue.
One of the last clues that FELLTO me was 76A, since I know nothing about the science-fiction awards. I got it from the crosses.
I recalled the answer to 82A from my early-1960s childhood, when the high-school kids would talk about going "stag or drag" (without or with a date) to dances.
Anyway, I liked this one, particularly because I was able to solve it without help! Now I'll relax at my home west of the POLGROUNDS and look forward to 2018's first puzzle.
1
CAMO GEAR—camouflage clothes—is the base phrase.
I assumed it was CAMERA GEAR, for a photog. I eventually got it, anyway.
One quibble with this otherwise very good and well-executed theme: FLOPPY DISCO fails to add an O to a common phrase, since the accepted spelling of "disk" in the computer storage sense is "disk", not "disc".
Guess it is spelled disk now, but when floppies were common, so was the spelling 'disc'.
2
Thanks to Lewis whose mention of CCC and CWT gave me the last letter I needed to ring the bell. Also I had to look up Shakur's first name; I might have eventually gotten it from the crosses but I was bogged down in that area. Sometimes names that I know well, simply elude me; today it took quite awhile for me to dig SADAT out of my brain's storehouse.
Happy New Year to all as I complete my first full year following you on Wordplay.
5
Neat theme! Had to look up the "new" Erle -- glad to find an alternate to ol' Stanley G.
Thought 85A clue meant Rex Parker's URL. :-)
Is 62A a tripod?
Couple of genuine quibbles in this one:
Re 96A, I think radium was the first element seen by its ionizing glow. I don't think you see that aura with uranium ore.
Re 94D, the iBook is one of the Apple laptops and not an app. The only app I know of for presenting books on screen is in Barnes and Noble's "nook" system. (OTOH, I'm still running on two Macs with 10.4 and 10.5 .....)
Best wishes to all for a saner NY. Get out and vote in November!
4
You are correct that once upon a time Apple made a laptop computer called iBook (I had one myself), but iBooks is the name of the native Apple app used to buy and read ebooks. No quibble necessary.
5
62A was the weird puppet who was the title character of an NBC sitcom for four seasons in the late 1980s--and bizarrely popular in Germany as well, as I recall.
Hi Julia,
It's good to see a comment from another Iowan, to join our lone correspondent in Boone.
2
122A would have been more accurate if the apostrophe had followed the "s," as "Neurons' ends." "Neuron's ends" was therefore quite confusing. I entered "ens," but was not at all satisfied with it because of the errant apostrophe. Only the crossings rescued me.
1
It works if you think of “ends” as both the front and back of the word “neuron.”
3
I'm not following you, SteveG. The "ends" of "neurons" would be an EN and an ESS; the "ends" of a "neuron" (Neuron's ends?) are ENS.
4
BarryA, SteveG was making [Neuron's] the entity instead of [Neuron]
1
Thanks for a fun solve to end 2017. It took me a while to get the theme; I NEED A HUGO was the tip off for me. My favorite, though, was LAST TANG IN PARIS, taking me back to grad school where I met my husband and when I was too poor to buy orange juice so bought Tang instead. Blech! Haven't drunk it since (44 years!)
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all.
3
You gotta love a puzzle that has I NEED A HUG (o) as an entry in the middle. This took me a long time, but enjoyed the journey. The first to go was SUMWRESTLER. I got a couple more before the sci-fi writer's plea, which gave me the idea of how the ring theme worked. Very clever.
Beejay and I are out tonight with a couple of good friends to my favourite restaurant. Happy New Year everyone. I do indeed believe that solving crosswords as a social activity is the way to go.
5
Now you got me thinking or wondering what a hug from a sumo wrestler would be like ..... oooouch!!
1
Oh, Dr W, I do wish I could get that image out of my mind.
1
A fun solve, and since I'm a top-to-bottom solver as Deb described, the theme emerged quickly. One nit to pick: Padrinophiles will tell you that a "capo" serves under the Godfather.
1
But they would also refer to a Godfather as Capo di tutti capi, no?
(regime)
2
Almost sounds like a fruitcake.
I’m very new to this forum and am enjoying following the logic behind various clues — which leads me to a question about a clue in the mini puzzle: How on Earth does “English” yield “spin”? (Please excuse me if my question is inappropriate. Is there a mini-puzzle forum?)
4
Hi PJane,
No separate forum for the mini (that I'm aware of). A quick trip to your local pool hall will answer the question...or see def. 8 in the link.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/english
5
Think pool
2
Thanks, gentlemen!
And a happy new year it shall be, now that I’m no longer puzzled.
2
Now that as the old year is being rung out, I allowed myself to break my resolution to skip the Sunday whopper. The top half went more smoothly than expected, but the bottom half called for look-ups and took much longer. (Fatigue had also set in.)
The theme, as far as moving the O’s down is concerned, was soon obvious, and all of the themers were amusing. However, not having read the title, I missed the O=ring aspect of the clue.
A moot point that has come up several times in the past. The order of Books in the Bible is not universal. 121A is no exception.
5
Not a good one to go gimme hunting in, and top old/bottom new is hardly enlightening. But once a movie title (last tang) emerged, progress was improved. It wasn't much fun, but it did offer an appropriate farewell to a messy year, and prelude to an even more unpleasant one.
A pleasant struggle to end the year. I caught on fairly early with SUMWRESTLER and then SEVENDAYSINMAYO, but never did notice the balance from top to bottom. Some of the themers weren't quite as strong as others, but that's going to happen with so many of them. I think that INEEDAHUGO and FLOPPYDISCO were my favorites.
One thing I learned today is that I need new computer glasses. I struggled with 7d and especially 35a because I was reading the clue for the former as 'T_o_m' and for the latter as 'Things said by S_i_n,' which made absolutely no sense. Finally re-parsed 7d but filled in 35a from the crosses and was still baffled.
Thank you Deb and all the usual suspects here for making every day more enjoyable for me. Looking forward to another year of the same.
I was just thinking about this old favorite last night; nice to have an excuse to link it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp6j5HJ-Cok
..
3
Thanks, RiA, mee too.
A little background (though most of the Richie Valens shown is actually Lou Diamond Phillips):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9M6u7-9yNE
2
"[I]t’s challenging to come up with a fresh and entertaining take." Yes, it certainly is. "Drift" and GIST are not quite opposites, but close, the latter meaning not the overall tendency or vague import but the precise center, briefly expressed. FAN for "Blade runner"? A fan runs blades? Liked ESP, though -- a clue that repaid being thought about. Overall, seemed like a fair amount of remote trivia, though I didn't count. Erle C. Kenton stopped me (but how many first letters could it have been?) Looked him up after. Wiki lists 38 of, they say, the 131 films he directed. Anybody remember him? Actually, he may be a byword among the imdb crowd, who knows.
Anyway, we made it through the year. Happy New Year, all, and be careful out there tonight. (Maybe a good night for a puzzle from the archive . . . .)
3
I liked the New Year's title and how it played out in the puzzle, and loved the clever clue for FAN ("Blade runner?") and tricky clue for SPATS ("Short rows?"). I learned CCC and CWT and love the word FLEDGE. The answer OBSESSED tripped off the phrase "o-obsessed" in my head, which the puzzle was, and the alphabet feel of that tripped off fond memories of recently departed and crossword-friendly Sue Grafton.
On the last day of the year, giving thanks to the NYT for providing high quality puzzles -- often memorable gems -- and wishing all here happy surprises in the coming 365.
8
I remembered a PBS program about the CCC and how it paid thousands to build roads, ditches, fences and whatever was needed all across the country. However, I wasn't sure of the initialism, so I tried HCC, because I always think HWT for hundred-weight.
Thought of FLEDGE as the partner of fledgling, but kept FLETCH back of mind, as a fletcher does something with feathers, right?
'I fledge allegiance to the plag[ue]'?
6
I too thought of FLETCH for some reason, even though it was Fledglings I was thinking of and FLEDGE was the right answer. There was the movie FLETCH with Chevy Chase, of course, and the people who put feathers on arrows were the fletchers, of course. So that must be where we both ended up with FLETCH.
3
A fletcher puts feathers on arrows. So there is a connect.
3
A nice end-of-the-year workout. I look forward to the puzzle and Wordplay every day. Wishing all a happy and healthy new year.
6
Was slightly thrown as I assumed ring out the old meant remonving an o for old. Thus ring in the new should mean adding an n for new - perhaps being a primarily cryptic crossword solver I’m too attuned to seeing old and new mean o and n respectively.
3
A very enjoyable romp, the last puz of 2017.
Backing up to yesterday, about HOWDAH. I rode an elephant in Thailand in 1998 but I learned the word from Xword puzzles.
4
I learned HOWDAH at an early age in the course of random readings, but I hope I can still say this to you, Viv:
I heard that was a fine HOWDAH you do.
May the coming year be all that we hope for, every one.
1
and Elke
Liked how no letters went to waste- what was taken out at the top, was added at the bottom (of the puzzle). Especially SUMWRESTLER and the LAST TANG IN PARIS were clever.
Noted the FERRARI was far from the HAIRPIN turns and any fun driving . ACURAS would not be a FAIR TRADE for that activity.
After consulting, discovered that the YIPPIES were founded exactly 50 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_International_Party
Deb- liked your comments today. I agree that ' solving is best enjoyed as
a social activity (not to say that you can't enjoy them by yourself)'. Am glad that you specified crosswords- the emus are ever vigilant, you know.
A Happy and Healthy New Year to all.
Bonne Annee. Feliz Ano Nuevo. Frohes Neues Jahr.
Now for some FERReRo chocolates.
9
"...the YIPPIES were founded exactly 50 years ago..."
Well, *named* exactly 50 years ago. They had already visited the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange by then.
Nice catch, elke.
3
I enjoyed the puzzle, but I'm going to nitpick. TARPITs are typically places where prehistoric animals were trapped. Archeologists study human culture. I used to own a shirt that said "Archeologists Don't Dig Dinosaurs". End of rant. The theme was great!
15
Good point, Josh, but I trust you agree that "typically" is not "exclusively," and that "Paleontological treasure trove" would have been (even more of) a gimme.
1
I thought TARPIT was what you do to a baseball diamond if it's going to rain.
No really, I love some of those T-shirt quotes. There was a statistics/ computer seminar I once attended where the fellow sitting in front of me had across his back "Broken by by age and sex". Seemed to be in his mid-forties, and actually didn't look all that used up.
I SPOSE a linguist looking for a date could wear a PHONEME T-shirt
9
liked the themers: some minus a ring some plus a ring! favorites were CELL RECITAL (minus) and I NEED A HUGO! (plus) Happy 2018 to all! Keeping our fingers crossed.
3
That was fun. As a non-native speaker I don't get to finish a lot of Sunday puzzles, but this one was worth persevering.
Happy New Year to all!
13
Congrats! I can't imagine solving a puzzle like this in my non-native language
9
Impressive!
4
and Elke
Belgium has two languages ,so :
Bonne Annee and Gelukkig Nieuwjaar to you also.
5
Well, I agree with the constructor about this type of puzzle being done to the saturation point. I liked some of the theme entries a lot, while others just left me feeling blah. And I still haven't figured out CAM GEAR, which I assume is supposed to be CAMO GEAR, but CAM GEAR doesn't sound like a real thing to me. And the thought of a URANIUM OREO is quite frightening. I was a little surprised to see two kinds of Polish/polish in the clues!
On the positive side, I have a couple of friends who write science fiction who really need HUGOs (as well as hugs).
4
I have no idea what the constructor or editor had in mind for CAMGEAR, Liz, but it is a brand of photo accessories: http://www.camgear-pro.com/
3
Or just being short for CAMera, as in spy CAM, nanny CAM, etc. On another tangent, one could be wearing CAMO GEAR while lugging the CAM GEAR if you're stalking wildlife in the forest.
5
Clever way to end the puzzle year. I trust that crossing OWLS with WHO'S WHO was intentional.
Happy new year to you, Deb, and all the Wordplay gang.
19
It's just a crossword puzzle. It has my surname in it but the clue does not "point" to me. Oh well.
Happy New Year to all of you who follow the Gregorian calendar.
3
@HALinNY, now I'm intrigued. FERRARI or TESLA would be nice. No relation to Alger HISS, I SPOSE?
2
If this were a test, I'd guess KAPLAN.
(Before Dean, Ashe or Sadat)
2
I don't gripe about difficult themes--if it was easy, why would you bother?--but this one struck me as totally abstruse. There seems to be no logic in removing Os from some answers and inserting them in others except for their placement in the puzzle. There's nothing inherently "old" or "new" about the respective answers. In fact, to be hyper-literal, "Last Tango In Paris," from which we are to "ring out the old," is more recent by several years than "Seven Days in May," to which we "ring in the new." John Lampkin says "Will rejected my first draft for lack of a coherent rationale and title." I don't think the published version is any better.
6
I thought the puzzle was fine, but the title was the problem. I'm very bad at coming up with punny related titles, so I can sympathize with that. Trying to connect it to the new year seemed to be a stretch.
4
I also thought the puzzle was fine, and I don't have a problem with the title:
(1) Sunday puzzle titles are often a stretch.
(2) I thought Deb offered a perfectly valid thought on old/new in the column -- "My guess is that if you solve from top to bottom, as many people do, the top constitutes the 'old' and the bottom constitutes the 'new'..."
8
Or, as Deb said, "that could just be the NyQuil talking."
2
Very adroit offering, nicely suited for New Year's Eve.
5
Et rien à gauche, en suite, n'est-ce pas?
Bonne année a tout le monde!
7