To the young, thirsty means sexually needy, as in "I'm thirstier than a horned toad." And that's much too polite a use. So be careful about showing your slang chops to your children and younger colleagues.
as a solver of nytimes since the 60's i refuse to let go by without comment two egregious errors in this puzzle. "off of" is a really bad grammatical flop. and tycho brahe was not kepler's assistant, kepler was his assistant.
3
While I appreciate your indignation:
Error 1 - according to Merriam-Webster "off of" is an idiom.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/off%20of
Error 2 - Perhaps with 160 prior comments to yours, you might consider the possibility that this issue has been raised elsewhere in this column.
Third generation here. Grew up with parents solving the Universal Crossword in the Orlando Sentinel. Moved to books and finally the NYT about 15 years ago. Fourth generation does them now - and faster than I. (Kids these days.)
NYTXWP, congratulations on reaching TWENTYFIVE THOUSAND!! You don't look a day over TWENTYFour THOUSAND. Thought this a most WINSOME tribute, and y'all are just lucky I've timed out from telling why I knew the ELEPHANT's gestational period.
First-generation cruciverbalist, hoping to start a dynasty.
Today’s puzzle made us want to do the first puzzle ever and then do the other 24,999 in order, redoing some along the way of course. But as we sat down to start the process via your archive, we realized it only goes back to ‘93. How can we access the early puzzles?
1
Steve, you can find them all on Xword Info:
https://www.xwordinfo.com/
You have to subscribe to get all of the puzzles, but it's only $20 a year and there are a LOT of great things on the site. You can solve all the older puzzles in their own online format.
1
thanks, Rich.
I don't think I have ever solved a puzzle in which I had such low confidence in my entries! DAW, EPI, HOLT, EAZYE, OSS, OLLIES, SUBVOCE, STRINGER, SCRY, DEEPSTATE, DEE? Thankful for crosses and good guesses!
Frustrating but nevertheless clever clues for PITABREAD, OVERICE, TOE, RELIT, and ECOMMERCE.
Wow, congratulations on 25,000! I'm new to this and this is my first post. Can someone please explain PST as the answer to "S.F. winter setting". It was easy because of the crosses but I have no idea what it means.
A setting can be a place or a time.
PST = Pacific Standard Time as oppose to Pacific Daylight Time, which would be S.F. summer setting
If anybody’s still reading, I solved today’s puzzle on my flight down to GA but haven’t had the time to post sooner. Congrats to all on 25,000. Those unfamiliar with SCRY might consider watching more paranormal TV shows.
Probably won’t get a chance to solve the next couple of days so see y’all on Monday.
3
Scary made me cry. Never saw it before.
2
Dang Autocorrect.
2
Somehow, with only a scant few entries to help me, my brain picked TWENTYFIVE THOUSANDTH out of the air, and miraculously it stood up. From there the puzzle fell quickly. I was sorry to learn that all these years I have been storing my wine glasses upside down (i.e. right side up). I also was under the false impression that DEEP STATE was the title of a Stormy Daniels film.
I agree that the CONTINENTS mnemonic is more trouble than simply remembering the real things, and I am still not sure that I understand the relevance of today's photo. A TWENTY FIVE THOUSANDTH birthday cake? Oh well, it's my party and I'll SCRY if I want to.
4
"I also was under the false impression that DEEP STATE was the title of a Stormy Daniels film."
The much older porn film with the much older political connection is Deep Throat (with Linda, not Stormy).
First, hooray for 25,0000 NYT XWPs. And they laughed -- ha ha, they said -- and called it a passing fad!
And to those who might say that doing the puzzle, or especially following Wordplay, is a waste of time, today's Comments taught me more about Tycho Brahe than I ever anticipated knowing. (Also drummed it into my tiny brain through repetition; great minds!)
Only things absolutely new to me today were HOLT, OLLIES, and EAZY-E (or however it's parsed). Also a fact about THE WHO, a new meaning for SUB VOCE, and a mnemonic for the CONTINENTS. Also, for the umpteenth time, how APOLO OHNO spells his name.
Curious to see if any of the replies I posted earlier have actually posted, visibly, today.
Today is Lima Bean Respect Day.
6
"Today is Lima Bean Respect Day."
Indeed it is. I just told a cup of them how much they meant to me before dumping them into boiling water.
3
They probably anticipated that you'd butter them up.
1
Saw your C-i-C and lots of replies, Deadline, and I hope you saw them too.
But as Andrew demonstrated, Lima Beans get no respect.
1
In case anyone wants to bake the cake Deb featured at the top of the column, here's the recipe in The Times (with the cake's correct name):
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018364-rainbow-sprinkle-cake
2
Anyway, a final note on this Brahe-Kepler debacle (see my other comment here).
So, I want to turn this history into a musical or an opera: The rich tyrant genius astronomer, and his poor, church-mouse colleague, both locked in mortal combat with each other and warrior Mars, and only the poor one, who finally used Tycho’s observations, was able to break through, and cut the Gordian Knot of orbits with little extra curlicues, and find ELLIPSES.
As ‘tis said, “Mars is difficult!” Look at how many of our craft have CRASH-LANDED there, even in recent history.
About ten or fifteen years ago, I wrote this all up, all my fevered stürm und drang, and sent my appeal to my favorite lyricist, Stephen Sondheim.
After a time, I received back a very nice, typed notecard, signed by the man himself, and he said, in a word, “No.”
And then he went and composed “Bounce,” and I said for this, he turned down what could be the next “Sweeney Todd”?!
So, I leave it to you, my crossword friends, WE NEED A TYCHO-KEPLER-MARS opera or musical! And we need it now! I don’t care who does it. I’m no composer, and not much of a lyricist, but GET THE WORD OUT!
But there’s still time, because we’re years away from getting to Mars.
And, as we know, “Mars is hard!”
3
Not quite the same storm and drang, but close...
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/05/archives/opera-galileo-galilei-has-pr...
1
Great Friday puzzle and thank you for 25,000!
3
I loved this puzzle, and congrats to Will & Joel & all helpers concerned!
HOWEVER, and here comes the bad part, 11D, Tycho BRAHE was NOT Kepler’s assistant! And Brahe was his contemporary only tangentially.
In truth, Kepler was Brahe’s assistant, in deed! The clue is bad, in my opinion.
Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler are two astronomers dear to my heart, and I write them in the present tense, as if they’re still living. And with the KEPLER satellite doing whatever its mission is now, in a sense they ARE still alive. And we still are in the long process of trying to land on Mars, the orbit of which Kepler finally resolved.
Tycho came first. He was a landed nobleman, known as a tyrant, or anyway, the only astronomer I’m aware of who had a dungeon and serfs working on his lands.
And he mapped approximately 5,000 stars and compiled the largest star map to that date. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude, and you can read about all the astronomers in Arthur Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers,” 1959, or any other astronomical history books.
Kepler, in contrast, was poor, a schoolteacher, and gifted astronomer. He became attached in some way to Tycho’s household, and, indeed, became Brahe’s astronomical assistant.
Then Brahe died, and Kepler managed to keep and see with his own eyes Brahe’s observations. And finally Kepler figured out that space is not “perfect,” or “perfectly circular,” but in fact, the orbit of Mars, the orbits of everything, was an ELLIPSE!
5
It is good to have this information posted every few hours, so people who read the comments from newest to oldest don't have to scroll too far to find it.
(this comment is elliptical)
3
Unless I'm mistaken, DSPearce has a whole other dimension (as well as more detail) in his comment, and I (already fascinated ever since learning o the Ag nose) am becoming infected by his fascination.
BarryA, I'd really appreciate it if you were to scale back on this hall-monitor turn you've adopted.
If you like, I'm happy to explain why, and I thank you, in advance.
3
The thing about Brahe - some have remarked here that his observations were done without benefit of the telescope (which lay in the future at his time). But he had Hven, an island in the northern sea unmolested by light pollution, uninhabited other than by himself and his staff, with an impossibly large and uniquely designed apparatus for observing the stars and planets for a good part of the long nights of a good part of the year, all facilitated by his nobility and connections to the powers of his world. The fact that he took advantage of those things, and did something good (on its own merits) and useful (when taken over into the broader thought-world of Kepler), that was special and wonderful. He could have sat around being noble and wealthy and noseless; he used his power and his powers to do something. Concomittantly, he never fudged his data to agree with his notion of the world, but went strictly with detailing what he observed. I wish our current national science establishment had his orbs.
1
Wow! 25,000 is just a hard-to-believe number! Congratulations to the NYT for achieving such a significant milestone.
I wonder how many puzzles I've done in my lifetime. My grandmother gave me an early start with a subscription to an elementary school magazine, then I solved puzzles in newspapers that teachers left lying around, and so on through odd magazines, puzzle books, and whatever else that was available in my little backwater hometown. I hit puzzle glory when I moved East for college! There was the Washington Post, NYT, Atlantic, and just hundreds more. I have spent so many entertaining hours solving and !earning and discussing.
Here's to many more!
3
Twenty Five Thousand!!! Hard to wrap my mind around that number. I would certainly salute anyone who credibly claims to have done (nearly) all of them. My personal best estimate is that, since 1962, I've done about 19,700 of the puzzles. I'm sure that there are lots of people out there who have done more.
2
Ok, admit it, SCRY was not fair! Otherwise this was unusually easy for a Friday. I think I have done all 25,000 of them...or does just seem like it. YEESH!
4
My sister and I are the third generation in my family doing the NY Times crossword puzzle. We learned to do them in pen from our mother. Now we do them online. Our grandfather did the Sunday puzzle in his 80's. A wonderful tradition.
4
So happy to hear that you're carrying on the tradition, Margaret!
Tyco Brahe was not Kepler’s assistant. The other way around: Kepler was Brahe‘ s assistant and came up with his three laws of planetary orbit after Brahe died.
3
It's true. I can vouch for it.
Brahe was meticulous and a bit overly possessive. So Kepler, who was fascinated by the strange patterns, was frustrated. He wanted to see more but Brahe would not allow it.
Anyhow, once Brahe passed, the data was readily available to Kepler but he soon realized that he was a decimal place away from being inundated with data. That's when he called me. I showed him how to set up some spreadsheets and how to use formulas. The rest, as they say, is history.
Hey, they don't call me the ancient geek for nothing.
4
Thanks, Roy. That's been noted and discussed already. See the discussion at Jon's comment near the beginning of today's list of comments.
2
Oh forgot to say this: Happy 25,000th, and it’d be a nice present for the subscribers to get access to all of them in the app, not just the post 11/23/1993 puzzles. :). I’d think that puzzles from the 50s and 60s would present a special challenge because a lot of “obvious” answers in, say, 1955 may not be so obvious today.
8
They are available, just not here.
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Calendar?type=ps
I needed help from my better half to finish this one. 5.5 words came from her and this was a full hour. Ugh. Significantly above average. Took awhile to get APOLO OHNO spelled right, and thought ^ was a CARAT not CARET. Other than those, no real mistakes, just a lot of empty boxes to star at for a long time.
Sheesh, that was a bear. Had to run the alphabet to get SCRY. Didn't know that one. And in my circles, no one says YEESH. But it was a good challenge. Had ANI before DAW and LAIR before HOLT. So, no wonder the NW held me up a long time.
1
TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND puzzles add up to quite an accomplishment even if it meant allowing YEESH onto the grid. The SW was my entry into the daunting grid... On with the day!
1
I got on quite well for the top 2/3 for a Friday, but had pretty much of a brain freeze in the bottom 1/3. Pretty much the same trouble as others in the SW, but I also was completely fooled by the PITA BREAD ( annoyed at myself about that), and not familiar with DEEP STATE.
I loved the mini theme, and will add to all the congratulations to the NYT.
2
If you are unfamiliar with DEEP STATE, you haven't been following U.S. politics lately, suejean.
Wise move.
1
I have been following politics closely but have never heard of the term DEEP STATE.
SCRY? Really? That’s a word?
3
Apparently it is, although I've never heard nor read it. I think it derives from "descry," meaning to catch sight of, or discern, or detect. My dictionary doesn't have "scry," and I had to take a leap of faith: Nothing worked but "y," and that turned out to be right. Don't know what dictionary Mr. Fagliano used for this one, but I want--and apparently need--a copy of my own.
2
Really. SCRY is a word. It's quite an old word. I would say it doesn't get around much anymore.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/scry
2
"I would say it doesn't get around much anymore."
I scry(with my little eye) it making a big comeback!
2
Congratulations NYT on 25,000 crosswords! And that doesn't include the acrostics, the puns and anagrams, and the diagramless (which I've only tackled in the last ten years or so with many thanks to graph paper).
My father used to do the puzzles in the Herald Tribune; I remember beginning with skeleton puzzles in a magazine on my long train trips to spend the summer with my grandmother on her Midwest farm. I began to tackle 'real' puzzles in my university year in England at elevenses with co-students. My return to the US brought me to the NY Times Sunday puzzles.
One of the things I love about this column, aside from the lively comments, is the variety of links offered by others. Oh, yes, I do read other sections of the Times and actually have a life too.
8
How fortunate for Joel that TWENTYFIVE and THOUSANDTH are a matching 10 letters! And how fortunate for us that Joel created this delightful Friday puzzle to celebrate such a remarkable fact. Wow.
This puzzle also perfectly demonstrates how the NYT puzzles have evolved -- for the better -- from the arcane to contemporary, in-the-language answers. This puzzle sparkles with them. Along with Joel's super clever clues.
So thanks to Joel and Will and everybody else who contributes for keeping up the good work which allows all of us to indulge in our favorite pastime. Long live the NYT crossword!
7
First, congratulations on your TWENTY THOUSANDTH! What a great feat to keep this excellence over so many puzzles. I feel a little moved that I joined this great river...
Want a cracker of a puzzle today! Our trickier cross was GLOM/SUBVOCE, both new to us. Then, do people say OVERICE? I was familiar with on ice ( “on the rocks”). I liked HEN as ladybird, given the movie and cartoon and of course the beetle; and TOE as 1 in ten! Son knew THIRSTY as desperately wanting something, not necessary attention, should there be a “say” in the clue, or perhaps it’s an Americanism? Or we are out of touch?
Comey in Mini: good timing. Not necessarily a great fan of the FBI, I am finding Comey’s book a great read.
Not quite the magnitude of 25000 NYT XWORDs but here a final scene of TURANDOT, in which the emperor is wished another 10000 (years ).
https://youtu.be/m2CWpTPCnPY
3
“Neat” as regards a drink, means without ice, so I’m told though I didn’t know that until after getting that and being confused. But I’m not much of a drinker and apparently neither are you. :)
2
Cheers!
I recognized THIRSTY as clued only because of the curent TV ads for "Mean Girls," which opened a week or so ago.
I also filled the SW last, and had ROom before ROLE and tried gEESH first... The SE corner came first and quickly.
Congratulations and great conjugations to the Times on this landmark puzzle.
Quite fitting that I didn't quite get it without help (a couple of failed checks), despite having a promising toehold in every section. SW was the toughest for me and in retrospect I can't understand why.
Notable error. After yesterday's discussion I managed to glom over 'winter' in the clue for 15a and confidently entered USAINBOLT. And thought it was a weird coincidence. Didn't take me too long to see that that wouldn't work, but a long time to remember Mr. OHNO. Then was pleased to see the surname pop up in 10a.
I've only been solving since 2011, so I guess I've done a couple thousand of these. For those who may be intimidated by the 'streak' listings by several solvers over the last few days, let me just note that while I don't really keep track, I 'may' have had a five day streak at some point (by my rules, which is no checks or lookups), but I can promise it was never more than that. Still happily bringing up the rear.
3
How do those adorable little otters keep their textbooks dry in the HOLT? Maybe they have a waterproof Rinehart or Winston to keep them. (-;}
4
Wanted "Otter's den" to be FRAT.
PITA BREAD is a Tamale Trap (I'll have the khubz).
Didn't we have a celeb co-con who should have reviewed 11D?
I haven't been solving NYT crosswords for too long, but I'm sure my maternal grandmother would have followed Mrs. Farrar to The Times and done the first one here (I remember her doing this one in the a.m. and the WT&S puzzle in the p.m.).
9
Question for NYT XWP historians: When did the puzzle start appearing seven days a week? Which day(s) had it not previously appeared?
(We celebrated 75 years of crosswords in 2017; if they had appeared daily from the get go we would be over 27,000 by now.)
1
Hi Barry,
The first daily puzzle to run in The New York Times appeared on Monday, Sept. 11, 1950 and, although the constructor is unknown, the rumor is that Margaret Farrar herself made this puzzle.
You can see the answer grid on XWord Info as part of David Steinberg's Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project: https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=9/11/1950
4
Hi Deb,
So from 1942 to 1950, the crossword only appeared in The Times on Sundays?
2
That's correct.
1
As an American of Danish descent, I'm vaguely insulted by 11-Down. Otherwise, nice puzzle.
1
I shudder to think how quickly the conspiracy theory phrase "DEEP STATE" has made its way into common parlance.
People talk about the idea like it's an obvious thing, not realizing how close they are to Rothschild Area 51 Tinfoil territory.
16
Agree. I was considering commenting that some indication could have been given that DEEPSTATE” is not necessarily a real thing, with allegedly, or what some people call etc
A local story (by memory, so details might be wrong ). The British Museum does many international exhibitions. In one about the HAJJ (http://www.britishmuseum.org/hajj) , an explanatory note referred to a place where Allah spoke Muhammad. This formulation caused a controversy: shouldn’t it have been “the place where MUSLIMS BELIEVE Allah spoke etc “
How a thing is described is not neutral. On the other hand it was a very nice clue...
4
Agree, but with a caveat based on experience:
When an editor inserts the qualifier, she might get a whole lotta flack from a True Believer.
1
Fifty years ago in my Astronomy for non-scientist class I learned that Tycho de Brahe, with his silver nose, was a superb observor who kept meticulous records. When he died (of a ruptured bladder because he could not leave the table at court before the king) Kepler, his assistant, finally got access to de Brahe's data. Kepler was an indifferent observor but a creative thinker who was willing to think past Aristotle's assertion that heavenly bodies must travel in perfect circles. Kepler's laws were pure genius, and described mathematically the elliptical paths of the planets. ( I included the silver nose, result of a duel, because that was a question on the final exam.)
14
As a lover of the contributions of both - I feel compelled to note that nothing Kepler deduced from Brahe's facts could have been deduced (nor proven) without Brahe's facts.
The case is entirely relevant in today's climate...facts have to be facts and ideas have to be supported by facts - keep them apart (by law, in today's USA [go GOP, go NRA, is there a difference?]!) and nothing can be accomplished.
See: gun groups suppress gun-related statistics.
7
Absolutely correct. In fact, Kepler wanted the orbits to be circular, to fit in with philosophical ideas. He was forced to abandon that idea and use ellipses because he could not reconcile circular orbits with Brahe’s remarkably accurate observations. A great example of theory and observation going hand in hand.
1
Wanted the cruise seat to be a chaise longue and had ROOM before ROLE. Did not know SCRY and like others would say SHEESH before YEESH.
I have a pronunciation question related to a puzzle in the archive I did the other day. If the interjection "ZOUNDS" comes from the expression "GOD'S WOUNDS", is it pronounced to rhyme with sounds(as I always thought ) or wounds?
2
Sounds. Totally guessing here, but I bet WOUNDS rhymed with sounds way back when Chaucer was a telling tales.
1
Rhymes with “wounds” in the myriad Shakespeare plays I’ve attended.
2
It definitely rhymes with sounds.
25 thou and that's all she (The Grey Lady) WROTE!...Hot off the GRIDDLE, THIS TEST was positively grand. A crumby natick at square 57 would GLOM onto my success severely; YEESH. With steely determination, I managed to overcome a DEEP STATE of cruciverbal thrombosis. Happily, I've no other miscues or slip ups to report. A second cup of my go to brew, Pike Place, acted as a virtual solving ROSIN(S) bag...Two pals, both shrinks, meet by happenstance. Shaking hands the discourse started like this: "you're fine, how am I?"...The scene might be from a HAMBURG rathskeller. Tom Waits is at his usual hypnotic best performing "ELEPHANT Beer Blues." Sorry 'bout the German subtitles. Surprisingly Tom's gravelly, grisly and gritty, mumbo jumbo is relatively lucid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u5p7pIGlVs
Stay THIRSTY WPers,
Bru
6
Glad to see I'm not the only one who learned the word HOLT today.
8
Now whenever I watch Lester HOLT on TV, I'm going to be thinking about otters.
4
I hate to rain on the parade here, but I just counted, twice, and there've only been 24,998. Someone wanna double check that?(It's easiest to just print them all up and then sort them into manageable piles of 12,500.)
8
I wonder if they were counting the Misenko duplicates once or twice:
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Misenko
3
A nice puzzle overall, but as a historian of science I have a bone to pick with 11D, 'BRAHE'. Johannes Kepler was Tycho Brahe's assistant, not the other way around.
10
Thanks, JLW. That's been noted and discussed already. See Jon's comment near the beginning of today's list of comments for fuller discussion..
1
Two boring stories.
1. At the tender ages of 17 and 18 I photographed two US Who performances. One of the road crew and I got to chatting and he opined "we will all have hearing loss." He was right.
2. As a young photog I served as a STRINGER for a couple of news outlets. My 'job" was to bring them concert photos not desired by the promoter for possible use in publication. It was a good deal in 1968. I got 30 dollars for every photo used by the promoter and and 25 from the newspapers. As every constructor knows papers do not pay as well :).
Gawd How Could I Be So Dumb (GHCIBSD) moment was getting 51A followed by 41D. My old f#rt car has no electronic gizmos is my excuse.
Challenging solve worthy of a 25,000th. Thanks Joel
5
Golly, dk, you're almost famous! Was that old f#rt buggy a Nash?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7hch0wQD1w
4
Who stores their wine glasses upside down?
2
Who doesn't?
https://www.google.com/search?q=wine+glass+rack&client=opera&hs=...
2
If you store them on a shelf, it is better to store them upright and not upside down on their thin rims. Racks allow for upside down without risk of breakage.
6
What JoHarp said.
3
A delicious and demanding celebratory puzzle (and congratulations, NYT!) by one who I consider a master cluer, once again demonstrating his extraordinary skill with devilish/clever clues such as those for ECOMMERCE, TOES, PITA BREAD, and TEES. Did anyone else here want RETRO for RELIT?
The gauntlet of sweet resistance was fair, the grid clean (a given with Joel), a grid with a remarkable nine double EEs. Plus a cross that for me, at least, perfectly expresses something I've probably felt 25,000 times: The cross of IF ONLY and END OF AN ERA.
5
Yeah, I'll fess up, I too went retro with haste.
1
YEESH! That was my last entry, and when the music didn’t play I was sure ir was wrong and “checked” the Y. It wasn’t wrong, but I had thrown away my gold star. There were two typos elsewhere in the grid that another visual scan would have detected. Otherwise, a strenuous, informative Friday exercise.
Could I have gotten the one-L APOL[l]O without google? OH, NO! ;
and shouldn’t the OLIVE OIL be on the GRIDDLE, not under it?
To judge from the clue to 58A, Joel evidently considers the DEEP STATE to be a fact, not a conjecture. Is it?
5
By saying "Entrenched network in A government" instead of "THE government," he is making it hypothetical.
3
Only to the Tinfoil Hat Brigade.
2
Fun to be here for the milestone 25,000th puzzle. My own latest record is sadly low at 725 solves according to the iPad app, but I keep plugging away and enjoying every bit of it. There was a period when my husband and I solved them together on the iPad when the device was fairly new to us, but I deleted the app when he passed away 6 years ago, not having the stomach to do them alone, and only picked it up again in late 2016. At that point, I solved the current puzzle, but then began solving them going backward in time, through October 2016, September 2016, and so on. I try to keep current even when I travel, despite spotty internet signals here and there. It’s a great way to make new friends at airport bars, with a confused look on my face and a total blank on some arcane clues.
8
It's fun when the answer needs Spanish or French and you happen to be in Madrid or Paris. I got BEDSIT last week from a flight attendant on British Air. My Russian husband gets the call for an occasional TSAR or URAL, but refuses to participate if he sees CZAR.
2
Could you explain, please? I have seen that the old crossword CZAR has been replaced in recent years with TSAR but I’ve never heard the back story....
1
JoHarp: It just depends on what letters a constructor is needing for his or her fill. Czar has been used twice in the last month.
Happy birthday! Now to “scry’ For the next 25,000. I do have a nit to pick, though. Not sure whether it is with NYT or with my father. I had been brought up on stories of Kepler being assistant to Tycho Brahe. Not the other way around. That prevented me from completing the NW. corner sooner.
3
You are absolutely right there. Kepler was brought on by Brahe to try to make some sense of his years of excellent pre-telescopic observations.
1
So chuffed to see my daughter’s name at 35A! She was too. I’ve been too long in Australia. I actually wrote chuffed.
3
I have a college classmate whose name is 35A.
Well, I guess you 35A and you lose some … :)
1
Wow. I raise my THIRSTY HISNHERS WINEGLASS to the NYT on posting crossword puzzle no. 25,000!!! Quite a milestone. ...Now, IFONLY someone could pass me some OLIVEOIL and PITABREAD. KAREEM? APOLO...?
2
A fun puzzle for the 25,000th, and not too hard. I figure I've done about 3,600 - haven't missed a day in 9.5 years, and did it sporadically at times before that...
The timer had some sort of glitch for me today and reports that I did this puzzle in 5:06.
HA! - I wish! Monday and Tuesday take me about 10, because that's about as fast as I can type. Today was still quick for me for a Friday at ~ 20 minutes...
1
Congratulations to Mr. Happy Pencil and all his friends on the occasion of this milestone puzzle.
One interesting use of 25,000 that Will Shortz did not mention is the number of holes in a typical 24" x 24" acoustical ceiling tile. I can attest to this number because I have spent many, many hours staring at the ceiling of one of our better municipal facilities and there is not much else to do. 6 to 12 minutes with the crossword and then what?
Nevertheless, this is something to celebrate. I would like to be here for #50,000 but I doubt that I will.
2
I wonder how old Mr. Happy Pencil is.
SCRY was new to me, but YEESH? SHEESH!
12
jess, i'm with ya! jeez!
I found a lot to like and learned new words like SCRY, HOLT and SUB VOCE in this fine milestone puzzle! Congratulations. I liked the warm place to chill, and wonder how quickly suejean will get 17A.
4
Beejay, I got 17a quickly and was already preparing my comment that it is not the recommended way to store wine glasses.
2
and Elke
WOW- TWENTYFIVE THOUSAND and no dupes ?!
Does that picture of the Sprinkles Sprinkle Cake have TWENTYFIVE THOUSAND sprinkles on it ? Or what is the connection to the puzzle?
For a change got my start with two sports figures : KAREEM and the vowel-rich APOLO OHNO.
Like dipping PITABREAD into OLIVE OIL, but I don't store my WINEGLASSes upside down.
Joe F. can SCRY ? Today's mini has COMEY- who was just on the Rachel Maddow show..
If we had Asti's product in the puzzle I would say, turn over that WINEGLASS, pour in some bubbly, say good bye to THE END OF AN ERA, and prosit to the next one. Hope you're THIRSTY.
IN SHORT to all of us, and Will SHORTz, may the fun continue for another new ERA.
Hummel,Hummel.
5
When you raise that glass of bubbly, Elke, add happy birthday wishes to Robert.
3
Elle, You are quite right not to store your wine glasses upside down.
And I'll toast Robert on his birthday.
3
A warm Thank You to Viv and suejean and all for the Birthday wishes upon my 82nd. Am raising my glass in return to celebrate not yet an END OF AN ERA.
1
It took me 79 years and 364 days before I learned that if you want a drink without ice you ordered it "neat". I only got "over ice" by the crossings and had to look it up after the fact
4
Happy birthday, ColoradoZ and many more!
1
Thanks
Net sales = ecommerce. This is why I would do all 25,000 puzzles if I could.
6
YEESH, almost gave up in the SW. Because for one thing I say SHEESH. Also I never heard of SCRY and was surprised when Mr Happy Pencil popped out... I have no idea how many puzzles I've done - a bunch. Yesterday I had my first "wellness" home visit, because I am supposedly old and need to be checked on. I mentioned that I do the NYT puzzle every day, as proof that my brain cells are still mostly intact. This had the desired effect! And I can name the CONTINENTS without a mnemonic (never heard that one, either) so I guess I'm good.
19
Coupla things here, Suzy M. Love your pooch but you need to get some water out there.
Next, who fell for that line about being brain-worthy enough to do the puzzle? I tried that and they told me that making such a statement is proof that there is something wrong with me because no one can do the puzzle ... it's too hard.
Third (and thankfully last) is that mnemonic for the continents is harder to remember than the names of the continents. I know you have nothing to do with it but since you mentioned it ... well, I gotta get back to counting the holes in those ceiling tiles.
Have a happy Suzy!
6
then again Suzy, we do the NYT puzzle every day. maybe our sanity should be questioned. keep on keepin' on sweetie!
2
Greetings from 31,000 feet as I wend my way to Jackson, MS for a teacher/faculty workshop I am conducting in the morning. I had a complementary "gogo" pass. Since I am not sure what tomorrow's schedule brings, I thought I would cash in the pass and do the puzzle tonight. And in honor of learning HOLT, an obligatory cute baby otter video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n50jvENMYY0
4
Thanks for the baby otter.
What on earth is a "gogo" pass?
gogoair.com is a company that provides (rather lousy imho) wifi service from American and other airplanes above 10,000 ft. You need to buy a pass or have someone give one to you. Normally I resist spending my own money, but I had a complementary pass to gain wifi access.
1
Thanks, RMP.
Don't travel at all anymore, so I would never have figured it out.
Do the numerous double letters have a significance or are they just a fun addition?
I don't know if they have some meaning but for a while I thought they possibly were a clue to a theme
Congratulations to the New York Times puzzle team, and to all the constructors, editors, testers, grid setters, Wordplay columnists, and everyone else over the years who have had a part in supplying us with our daily cruciverbal "constitutional."
Good thing Joel didn't use yesterday's "this many" technique to represent the number in the puzzle. We'd still be at it for some time to come.
Thanks to the puzzle numbers in the XWordInfo archive, it looks as if Will Shortz has edited 8,917 puzzles so far, meaning he has edited over 35% of all those 25,000 daily crosswords. And that doesn't even get into the other kinds of puzzles he edits for N.Y. Times, and outside activities like ACPT, etc. One busy guy!
18
Alan J, you forgot the most important contributors to the longevity of the NYT xwords ... US! If we did not buy the paper to do the crossword, where would the NYT be today?
1
C'mon, HAL. We're not doing anybody any favors by solving the puzzles. We're entertaining ourselves. We are most definitely the beneficiaries of the great work of all the people mentioned in the first paragraph of Alan J's note.
3
For extra credit: How many constructors have there been? Must be in the thousands too.
Pretty tricky but enjoyable. Never heard of a holt.
4
Alex, there's no way to know the answer to that.
For many years, constructors were not credited.
1
Congratulations, New York Times crossword puzzle! May you have at least TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND more!
THOUSANDTH appeared early on, with THIS/ HEN/ ELEPHANT/ THE WHO/ HELIOS etc all slotting nicely into place. The east side of the puzzle was slower. My footholds there were BRAHE (the first and only 5-letter old-time astronomer who came to mind) and WROTE and OLIVE OIL and DIAN and PITA BREAD. They were enough (and nicely spread out enough) to give me a framework to connect on that side.
I wasn't sure whether 15A was going to be a person or a country or what. With DAW and CONTINENTS, I started playing with the alphabet for the second letter (A_O) and APOLO OHNO showed up. And for a while I was wondering if 1A was some weird misdirect for a Tom Cruise movie, but eventually I figured it out. IN SHORT, it was a very enjoyable puzzle.
5
Congrats on 25000th!
Kind of OT: regarding yesterday’s discussion of comments disappearing or not, my experience is that if I get to the comments via the iPhone app - as I did here - comments do seem to disappear sometimes. I think long groups of replies tend to go missing. OTOH, if I come here via nytimes.com wordplay the appearance and behavior are somewhat different. In particular, seeing long groups of replies (and, for that matter a large number of comments) one has to tap on a see-more button after which newer replies in a given group appear at the top of the group. Hope that helps.
1
Thanks, but "Read More" and "See All Replies" didn't resuscitate my missing ones yesterday. (Haven't been back to check yesterday's Comments section to see if they've appeared.)
Using desktop, Windows 10, Firefox.
wow! 25000 is impressive. I wonder how many of them I've done in my 50 years of NYT crosswords!
4
That's how long I've been doing them too!
I've been doing them a bit longer than that and as I recall, back then it took me about a year before I could finish a daily and about 3 years before I could finish a Sunday. In those "early" puzzles, the clues and fills were more like a test than a pastime and when a fill consisted of more than one word there was no warning.
1
I'm in the fifty year club, too. I started in college, probably in 1966 and just never stopped. I come by it naturally. My great aunt lived with use and never missed a puzzle in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Evening Bulletin; my mother did the double crostic in the Saturday Review and when that ceased publication, moved to the newspapers wherever she lived until her death at 96. Thank you, NY Times, for so many years of puzzling. And thanks, fellow puzzlers; these comments and threads are so much fun!
4
I think you have your Kepler fact wrong. Kepler was the assistant not the other way around.
10
I agree. Kepler was Tycho’s assistant for a time - not the reverse.
You got there first, Jon! Kepler worked under Brahe and then worked Brahe's data into a synthetic astronomy.
But - very happy to see Tycho Brahe in the puzzle. He is an immensely important figure in the history of that part of science which is patient, meticulous, careful observation and collection of data. Severely underrated work, I fear, yet crucial to the progress of ideas and knowledge.
3
Yes, indeed.
It was Kepler who took all the observations Brahe made and figured out the laws of planetary motion.
1
25,000 is quite a large number. And to think I have probably done at least 10,000 of them!
4
Pretty sure I've only done less than 1500 of them when I started in earnest back 2 years ago.
Currently in the online version I've got over 1100 and then in years past on paper there may have been a couple of hundred. 10,000 is an impressive number.