I was clueless as to the rebusness of this puzzle, to the extent that I googled “Skrea” to find out where this great winter Wonderland is located. It’s in Sweden.
A note to that the iOS app accepts the letter "A" in the place of the rebus "AUDI" as correct. Caused much confusion when "Check Puzzle" marked the square as correct and I was frantically searching for the last CAR.
Also now that the puzzle is "complete" it does not let me change it, and I must now forever stare at GAEST as if it's a word!
I’m not blind to rebuses. I hate them. They do not belong in a crossword puzzle. If you must make a rebus, then post a warning, so that we won’t waste our time. Or better yet, just don’t make rebuses.
2
I on the other hand love rebuses.
1
I absolutely agree. Rebuses are the biggest cheats.
Lovely puzzle with the REBUS clues! However, oh dear, the Android application does not allow correct entries of FORD or KIA (Can enter in KI or KIAA, FOR or FORDD, bizarre). The others work fine. Also, upon re-entry of the puzzle all REBUS clues reset to two letters. My 10 day streak will not be acknowledged! Pass along word to your development team, the REBUS needs work. I'll still be back for tomorrow's puzzle, don't worry.
How do I even solve this puzzle with the web app? It doesn't let me enter multiple letters in one square?
I also hate this kind of puzzle (but that's more to do with me not being very good anyway - so this trickery totally stumps me...)
2
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-tha...
7
This puzzle is awful, it doesn’t even follow it’s own rules. R___LADDER isn’t missing OPEL, it’s missing OPE.
5
Yes, but R_ADDER is missing OPEL. That's what my copy of the puzzle shows.
1
Take another look, Frank.
1
It surely does follow its own rules.
1
Try parking your "easy to park" FORD F-150 in a tight spot. What a dreadful answer.
1
It is “compact cars” that are easy to park. What is found in the puzzle are four different brands of car “compacted” into one square each. No one is saying that an F-150 is easy to park!
3
No, but you don't need 40 acres to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDxVJ471hyg
2
And/or a mule?
2
Had to wait until this afternoon to even start today's puzzle-- it's been *that* kind of day. Funnily/oddly enough, the last several (four, five, six? I've lost count!) Thursdays I've opened the puzzle wondering, "Hmm, are we having a rebus today? It's been so long." And yet, today...
So yes, I admit I was caught off-guard during the first quick run through, but I *knew* something wasn't right with that tree house clue! It HAD to have LADDER in it, right???
Anyway, a great puzzle today! Once I realized it was my long awaited rebus, I was off to the races. My only issue was with AUDI. Yes, the A4 is smaller and sporty, but I think of COMPACTCARS as two-doors, or hatchbacks. I wouldn't call my old A4 (or S4, for that matter) COMPACTCARS. But I'm sure it's just me...
Ok, I'm off to enjoy a bit of rare, May sunshine I Seattle! I can't believe it's 75°!!!
4
First rebus puzzle I've ever figured out in the couple of months I have been doing the puzzle. I was wondering how I would ever figure out when a puzzle was a rebus puzzle, but knowing 56A was Slovakia forced to me to realize finally that this was one!
5
"KIA" was so compact...
How compact was it?
"KIA" was so compact it only had 3 letters when the other 3 had 4.
3
The four-letter version is called the I-KIA, but that car you have to build yourself.
12
Turkish meatballs.
(Great story for those who read the paper too.)
2
Fun rebus today, and it even included my beloved and long gone first car, an Opel.
Good strategy for solving rebuses, Deb, especially the chocolate part. I always have dark chocolate in the house for just such situations. Ritter Sport is a current favorite, and don't miss Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups. Bet you can't eat just, well, you know.
3
I have a soft spot in my heart for Opels. Elaine's '67 Kadett, Ophelia, was my wing-car. Our first "date" was my replacing a burnt-out headlight I noticed on Ophie when Elaine pulled into the parking lot at work. That poor car needed a lot of care. No, really. The Buick dealer was not doing right by her. By the time I did the a valve job, Ophie was our car.
Elaine taught my sister to drive a stick on Ophie. Lots of memories.
4
My first new car was an Opel. I loved it!
1
Fun, fun, fun, even though it has cars in it!
Got the rebus early, but in a couple of steps. Had a couple of Ds in NW, which gave me ACCLAIM (and changed SEC to CRU). ACCLAIM and FRAILTY made AFFORD inevitable, so Rebus! Didn't take much thought to get FOR DUMMIES, so I knew we were going for cars.
Then a problem. When I got to NE via MANDELA, I just assumed that the rebus entry would be the first square in the entry, so confidently entered LADDER for the rest of 13D. Could there be a car named a ROPE? They do give the things some awfully silly names, even names that aren't even words and sometimes have numbers in them. But what's an OAROPE. I wound up leaving that blank until I finished the rest of the puzzle and (a) realized that the rebus wasn't always the first letter and (b) took another look at 16A which said PRL.
DIRGE before DINGE. Didn't know DIDO as clued. Never saw "Glee" and didn't know it even had a city setting.
Blame it on the ITCH. I forgot to put on sunscreen yesterday before setting off for my doctor's appointment, so now I'm living with sunburn. It ITCHes worse than it hurts.
Loved the nontheme longies, indeed the whole puzzle.
Glad to see a woman constructor again. (Don't forget to get your Women of Words puzzle pack!)
Thanks all.
6
Hallelujah! My C-i-C posted! It was definitely not "Fun, fun, fun" trying to get that to happen.
First, after having successfully posted several replies, I typed in my C-i-C only to find that "Submit" was dimmed out and not working. Made a copy of my comment and tried a whole lot of things. Kept getting logged out. Logged back in. Cleared cookies, etc. Lots of stuff. Rebooted. Nuttin'.
Called the NYT (still had the number from the acknowledgment of my earlier complaints about the disappearing comments). First rep I spoke to said there was no record of my account. Sent me to someone else.
She found me, and we danced around for a while. She needed a whole lot of guidance to find our comments at all. Too many steps, I guess, or she didn't realize that the listing after the major articles on the Wordplay page was for the daily columns. So she learned something today.
Went around and around again for a while, then whatever she did worked.
Until it gets screwed up again.
3
The NW became pretty complicated after I had DUMboES there early on! *headsmack*. Kept looking for that 4th rebus for a long while
2
Who doesn't love a Thursday rebus as clever and consistent as this one? Got slowed down in the SE when I confidently checked into a Marriott and stayed there even though the crosses were trying to tell me to switch to the RADISSON.
3
This was a tough one. I didn't like OPEL because it seems to appear only in crosswords and not on actual roads. I know that constructors like it because the letters are easy to work with. But from a solver's point of view, it does nothing to add to the solving experience. Crossword geeks are the only ones who've ever heard of the brand.
I also didn't like referencing a plot detail in LIMA OHIO on a show (Glee) that's been off the air since 2015 and not even running in syndication. I admittedly did watch the show religiously until the main characters graduated and did eventually remember it, once I had enough crossings. But if you've never seen the show, you were pretty much SOL on that 8-letter entry.
1
Opels used to be fairly common (under their own name) in the US, and can still be found renamed (or "rebadged") as Buick Regals and Buick Cascadas. The company produces 1.2 million of them a year (as of 2016 data). So it's a brand known in many other countries, and by older Americans...and by crossword geeks. It's the younger US crowd who don't generally know the name.
Back in my married days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth and computer geeks spoke COBOL), my wife owned an Opel. So I do know the name first-hand. Of course that was over 40 years ago. Of course, I'm a computer geek too. But it didn't have to been one to know the name.
This may be yet another case of "I don't know it, therefore no one knows it." I'm often prone to the same logical leap. Everyone is (!).
1
Yikes, I am getting old. Too many "Of course's," and "didn't have to been." (Sigh.) Just wake me in time for supper. (Snzzzzzzzzzz!)
OPELs are apparently not rare in Europe and some other parts of the world. How often do you see a Ferrari on the road? I see nothing wrong with OPEL in a xword puzzle.
2
Zyzzyva leaves me feeling somewhat discouraged about the state of lexicography. I went to look in my original OED. and the final word there is zymurgy. The 1933 supplement makes no mention of zyzzyva either. The current online Oxford dictionary does define zyzzyva, and proclaims its origin as "1920's of unknown origin".
The OED has always prided itself on tracing every single word in the English language back to its roots, often many hundreds of years ago. And yet now this so-called Oxford dictionary cannot trace a word that was coined in the 1920's. Sad to say I had to turn to Wikipedia for more information. There I learned that this weevil was "named by an Irishman" and that he collected one specimen. According to Wikipedia it is believed that "it was probably named Zyzzyva as a practical joke to place it in a prominent ending position in many guides and manuals".
As with so many other things today it is all about publicity and ratings. A big media splash was created in 2017 when the OED made this its new last entry. I say it is a "fake" word. Besides, in my online research I discovered the "Zyzzyzus rubusidaeus (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa, Tubulariidae), a new species of
anthoathecate hydroid from the coast of British Columbia, Canada", so I am sure that in a couple of years zyzzyva will be left behind and zyzzyzus will be the new star.
5
I just re-read my post and my reaction is... zzz...
3
I would have loved to see Mini Cooper fit in a rebus.
2
Very nice puzzle. Tough, but fair. I was thinking that Audi’s aren’t that compact, but then the light went on and I realized that compact referred to fitting the name of the car into one (compact) space.
3
Deb, in your notes you refer to R_LADDER, when you meant R_ADDER.
2
Love me some rebus Thursdays. Much ACCLAIM due to Emily Carroll. I backed into the theme with SLOVA(KIA), and the revealer helped uncover the rest. A little DRAMA on the east side, where I tried to ORPHAN Warren Buffett--terrible faux pas. DIDO was a gimme as clued. Casey STENGEL is a legend to both Yankee and Met fans.
In deference to several Aussie WPers joining us today, let's check in with AC/DC as they offer "Dirty Deeds Done DIRT CHEAP."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMFhYMVawk
5
I've always liked the song, Jimbo, but most of all it's one of my favorite misheard titles.
..
1
Are you alluding to the ovine variation, Rich?
Baa-a-a.
1
Enjoyed this puzzle, enjoyed this column.
I was startled to get an email a couple of minutes ago that a comment I sent in yesterday afternoon to *yesterday's* comments had just posted; I was certain it was lost in cyberspace. It was a second response to Stu on the "fighting Nazis" with humor or on the battlefield theme. If that subject was of interest, you might want to go to yesterday's comments and take a peek.
Will this link magically take you to the updated thread?
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2018-05-02.htm...
Alas! The NYT app seems to have killed all the links in the comments!
1
Enjoyable game...
hope everyone earned some dark chocolate, 70% and higher cacao content, after or during the solve as suggested by our moderator!
3
I refuse to read any "For Dummies" books. Some people are going to think that they must be stupid if they read one of these books. They are wrong, and the people who named the books are jerks.
Shakespeare for Dummies is great!
3
"the people who named the books are jerks."
I guess you mean because they indulge in name-calling.
You are kidding, aren't you? Hard to tell in print.
3
Super puzzle.I’ve loved rebuses since my first Will Shortz book many years ago. Some of the answers even had pictures in those boxes, maybe because the print in the back of the book was so small. I remember one with a silhouette of a house in the rebus squares.
Great, great commentary, Deb. Thoroughly amusing. One question, do you find a particular type of chocolate effective? I’m into 85% - 90% dark these days. Would milk chocolate make for easier solving? Or do you recommend coordinating the chocolate with the beverage?
P.S. Really hoping you don’t say white chocolate with white wine. I’d never get off my diabetes medicine! :-)
3
Hi Jack,
I am a dark chocolate person, myself, and percentages don't bother me as long as it tastes good. I have been known to use milk chocolate as well, but that's when my kids have made off with the good stuff.
This will undoubtedly provoke some debate, but I would never recommend white chocolate, with white wine or anything else. White chocolate is not real chocolate, she said, deftly tiptoeing out of the room.
4
Couldn’t agree more regarding chocolate. Dark=good. Milk=meh. White=not!
5
Absolutely agree.
Very, very dark is the best chocolate there is. Wonderful to let it melt lovingly on the tongue.
Milk chocolate in an emergency.
As Deb says, white chocolate isn't chocolate.
But I don't eat chocolate with wine. I love both, but not together.
1
This was a thoroughly enjoyable rebus puzzle. Please excuse my picking one possible nit. To be grammatically correct, shouldn't the clue to 62A read "Rein cats and dogs?"? (One LEASH "reins," but LEASHES "rein.")
You have to verb the noun, or vice versa.
I LEASH or REIN my pets.
He LEASHES or REINS his pets
1
No, it's verb matching verb – REINS = LEASHES
Cats and dogs are plural. To rein (verb) cats and dogs you will need several LEASHES (noun plural).
This was a puzzle I enjoyed thoroughly, even though it took me a lot of staring and cursing. Caught on to the rebus at SLOVAKIA, and then the rest came together along with the revealer. Didn’t know a bunch of names as usual (LADD, STENGEL, ARLEDGE, DIDO), never heard of ‘Glee’, let alone knew where it was set, and so on, but managed to finish without looking up anything. Super thrilled when the app sort of paused and belted out the jingle!
And the Wordplay column was also a very good and apt for this clever, tough but gettable puzzle. Thank you.
6
Well, that was cute! I caught on when I couldn't get the LADDER to fit (and I wanted PROD for 16A)....This is one time when paying attention to the symmetry was helpful to me. Usually I ignore or don't notice it.
Onward!
2
My LAMBO can take any KIA, OPEL, FORD or AUDI on the lot.
3
No speed bumps (or road blocks for that matter!). Saw the rebus at PROPEL and then it was just a question of where else to park the CARS. REVS is appropriate. Like the cross of SPA and BATH and OAR near PROPEL. All in all, a good rebus for a beautiful Thursday. Nicely done, Ms. Carroll.
3
OK, so where's my Mini? Talk about easy to park! I imagine a Fiat is, too.
No matter, this was so much fun. Thank you, Emily Carroll, for the care you took in creating my favorite Thursday format, the always tricky rebus.
I got the theme at PLAUDITS which is a wonderful word in which to compact AUDI. My last to find was AFFORD, even though AFD made absolutely no sense.
I think "zyzzyva" sounds like the noise a Vuvuzela makes.
5
Your Mini was right below your Daily like it always is. ;-)
2
Yeah, after getting the theme with only one rebus completed, I was so sure a Mini must be hiding in there somewhere. Love the old school Minis and still sometimes miss my old red 2003 Mini Cooper S.
Mine's a 2005 Mini Cooper, not an S, and I love it. British racing green with black mirrors and roof. I smile every time I see the grille that is always smiling right back at me.
1
Hello DALI! That very entry was one of the ITEMS that went a long way in helping me resolutely face today's chicanery. Fluency in STENGELESE was also of help. I met the DARE and sussed each 4 wheel, 1 square character. Employ your most rapt and attentive listening skill and you just might decipher the subliminal gist contained on this 2 1/2 minute refresher course in linguistics and situational solving from Casey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylreuvfaNgk
CARS have always been a source of amazement and amusement. It would've been a major letdown if my solve fizzled. The first chariot I found a space for on my grid was the solver friendly OPEL; AUDI was the last to pull up curbside...I was very happy that at no time did I ever feel compelled to have pay to park. Saving all of my pocket change, there was to be no pressing of the check, google or reveal buttons...Oracle needed strike-over attention when I realized Warren's clue was geographic in nature, not a description of the mighty prognosticator's investing savvy...This rebus theme allowed for a triumphant closing declaration of I WON, truly a last ITCH effort.
Muscle car king Crown Vic is from neither genus nor species of 38a. Possessing equal levels of pulchritude and horsepower it's a spectacle to behold when a driver un-LEASHES the Vic's raw faculty leaving ESPOUSErs IN AWE of both; and it's easy to park! Jerry Lee sings of the Custom '51.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMCA8v17yGo
With Acclamation,
Bru
4
Everything a puzzle should be. Thank you Emily Carroll. Great job.
5
Hooray! Rebus day! OPEL was the first car I spotted (I learned to drive a stick shift in an Opel. It had a light that let you know just when the clutch had engaged, a tremendous help.)
I loved that the rebus clues were not symmetrical. That sent me on quite a hunt and I enjoyed every minute. FORD was the last to fall even though that was the car I expected to find. Lots of other good clues too. Come back soon Emily.
7
There YU GO! Great puzzle! TA TA.
10
Deb. Loved your comments almost as much as I loved this puzzle.
7
Thank you, Marcia. I’m still recovering.
3
I am happy there are people who like rebus puzzles.
I typed in Idiots Guide, but that was wrong.
Never think of a FORD as a COMPACTCAR, but that is wrong.
Our tree house had boards nailed into the massive Elm in our backyard: Safety last! Imagine our horror when one morning we found our sisters playing with dolls in our fort. The shock remains with me to this day. Alas the Elm is gone.
Thank you Emily and your effusive joy in creating a rebus is clear.... albeit misguided :)
4
I think COMPACT CAR is referring to the rebuses which compact the car names into single cells. More like COMPACTed CARS, but that’s not a thing. FWIW, I found myself mislead into expecting all of the car makes to be compacts, too, especially since OPEL was my first rebus fill.
1
Oops, misled, not mislead!
1
That's okay, David. I red it the way you ment it.
3
I used to be intimidated by Thursday puzzles and the fear that there might be rebuses involved. Now, I actually look forward to the challenge. I caught on today with the crossing of R(OPEL)ADDER and PR(OPEL). Guessed DION before DIDO, and had to google a couple of other unknowns. It was an enjoyable Thursday for me.
7
I like your attitude, Deborah! It’s much nicer to look at the puzzle as a challenge to be conquered, isn’t it?
2
Yup - it certainly is :)
2
Really fun puzzle and it took me forever (approximately). Half caught on with 13d, but wasn't sure where the where the rebus was going to be until I read the clue for the reveal (which I didn't fill in at that point). Can't say any area was easy for me, but was patient enough to work them out. Finished in the NW where FRAILTY ended up being the key to completion. A rare 4 day streak for me (just barely). Who knows - maybe I'll finish a Friday.
Deb, loved your column today; was actually CA (chuckling aloud) while I read it. I will add my own piece of advice, which will make absolutely no sense to anyone, but somehow helps me re-adjust my mind-set whenever I'm really stuck. It's a line from one of David P. Wagner's novels (our own Wags, in case you didn't know): "When carving a hippopotamus, I just chip away everything that doesn't look like a hippopotamus."
11
Thanks, Rich! And great advice from our Wags.
3
'When carving a hippopotamus...'
Wow! I've never tried to carve anything larger than a turkey.
1
The joy of dancing for MANDELA:
https://youtu.be/AgcTvoWjZJU
Who wrote, in “long Walk to Freedom : “ No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
14
That's some fancy foot work !
2
Great song (and dancing)! Thanks for the link.
1
And even better quote.
1
One tiny nit for the blog, Deb. The dragon SMAUG appeared (and was slain) in The Hobbit, which is a separate work preceding The Lord of the Rings trilogy. They're all set in the same Middle Earth universe, though, and the story continues from one into the next. So they are very much related, but to a Tolkien fan, distinct. I agree with SMAUG being a fun puzzle entry. I can always groove on a bit of Tolkien, though ENTs and ORCs tend to overpopulate the place at times.
8
Thanks, Alan! I’ll correct it in the column today.
1
Love REBUSes!!!!! Today’s were tricky for us because two entries worked without the rebus: DUMMIES and GAUDÍ ( that’s how I first entered them). The first rebus we spotted was SLOVAKIA because we had S- - V A and none of the the other new European countries fit ( Slovenia? Etc). Than we went for the revealer - ah! Rebus about cars! and expanded DUMMIES to FORDUMMIES and GAUDY to GAUDIEST and finally were able to enter ROPELADDER. Which we had wanted to fit before, because that is how one climbs to tree houses, but couldn’tuntil it dawned on us: THURSDAY! Think REBUS!
6
Of course, Laura, the idea that GAUDÍ is the "most over the top" is an opinion, but when I was in Barcelona and toured the never-finished Sagrada Familia cathedral, it was my opinion as well.
1
Very enjoyable rebus puzzle. At one point I had most of the grid filled except for the areas around the rebuses and the first part of the reveal. I knew there had to be rebuses but couldn't work out where. My first crack was when I had the NW corner filled except for 1D where I had AFD and wondered for a moment if it was an acronym. And then I looked at DUMMIES and the penny dropped. So FORD was my first compact car and the rest followed easily.
4
A very enjoyable solve. Before filling in the first letter, as I saw the grid had no set of long acrosses or spaced out long downs, it just looked like a rebus puzzle with the reveal in the center (or maybe the bottom). That put me on alert. But then there was the matter of finding the rebuses (if my suspicion was correct), and even after finding the first, there was the hunt for the others, and with so many possibilities to go into the rebus squares, it made my love-a-challenge brain say, "Thank you!"
So there was the thrill of the hunt, along with some sparkling cluing ("Got off the bottle" for WEANED, "Facial spot" for SPA, "Tiny power source" for ATOM), and lovely answers (OPEN AND SHUT, ESPOUSE, DANCE AROUND, DIRT CHEAP) -- all in all, a grand old time. A lovely gem thrown into the day. Thank you for this, Emily!
And by the way, zyzzyva sounds like an invention by someone with my first name joined with the constructor's last name!
7
A zyzzyva sounds like something in “If I Ran the Zoo”, but you’re right, it’s more likely to be in Wonderland with Alice. Dr. Seuss was trying to help children read and pronounce words, not trying to confuse and discourage them!
2
A zyzzyva sounds like what sits next to the vuvuzela in the orchestra.
1
Mini theme answer - AERO was a CzechoSLOVAKIAn car brand (up to 1947) as well as a Shelby model.
Speaking of mini - FRAlL in the mini. FRAIlLITY in the regular puzzle. The mini also had LAMBO (a compact name for an Italian car).
Interesting , as Sgt. Schultz would say.
3
I think you're conflating your, pardon the expression, NAZIS.
It was Arte Johnson's German soldier character on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In that said "Very interesting."
Sgt. Schultz's signature line was "I see nussing".
Star Trek's Mr. Spock did say "Interesting" a time or two, but he was definitely not a NAZI.
5
Spock was not a Nazi, but he did play one on TV (in the Star Trek episode "Patterns of Force").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwVr5D8Hwbc
1
I remember that one, Jimbo.
1
My experience was similar to others with one exception. I had OPEL early on (nice aha, it's a rebus) but even though I know perfectly well how to spell the gem, I still had jewels in my mind for the other rebuses. I'm very poor at car makes. Luckily the reveal put me right, and again like others I found AUDI and KIA, but not FORD until the very end. I loved the puzzle, but it was very inconsistent in how it accepted the rebus fills. It came up with incorrect for two of them, Audi and Ford, but when I hit reveal it came up with what I had. Two letters were accepted, but not 3 except for KIA. I guess it's safer to just out the first letter, but it doesn't look as nice that way.
I loved seeing the clue "gobsmacked", also pleased to see COIT tower as I visited that on my last California trip.
Loved the puzzle in spite of the rebus entering inconsistencies.
5
IMO this puzzle really hits the bullseye for a well-constructed NYT Thursday puzzle. Always happy to find a few rebuses so directly clued by the centered revealer. As for those who would complain that rebus puzzles are a waste of their time, at less than $0.11. per puzzle online, at least they're DIRT CHEAP.
Nice micro-stack with OAR/PROPEL. Liked clues for (messenger) RNA, SPF and LEASHES.
It's always good to be reminded that the official end to apartheid in the RSA was due to cooperative efforts of leaders from both sides of that great system of social injustice. As with the Jim Crow laws in the USA, efforts to complete that takedown are fitful and ongoing. The same type of courageous leadership will surely be needed for a very long time to come.
9
"The same type of courageous leadership will surely be needed for a very long time to come."
Amen, Mike. Needed more than ever in this time of two (or more) steps back.
3
A reBUS all about COMPACT CARS. I was off and running with the OPEL but struggled FORDing that final square in the NW. Fun puzzle!
2
A very pleasant Thursday solve. A rebus puzzle is always welcome.
I went directly to the revealer, got COMPACT CARS from the crosses, and then kept my eyes open for hidden cars as I proceeded. The first was AUDI, and KIA followed almost immediately. A few name look-ups were unavoidable; for example, ARLEDGE and LADD were both unknown. A minor disappointment: the rebus squares were not placed symmetrically.
4
"A minor disappointment: the rebus squares were not placed symmetrically."
Another minor disappointment: three of the rebuses were four letters, one was only three letters. [soft SAAB]
2
Amitai, as I replied to paulymath above, I like the physical asymmetry for the solving challenge, even though it might lower the score for aesthetics and difficulty of design.
A minor disappointment: They didn't rebus LAMBORGHINI and STUDEBAKER.
3
I’m just over a year into solving these puzzles and still think of myself as a beginner. So I have genuine punch the air moments when I recognise a REBUS let alone solve it without a peek at Debs hints. Casey at the bat was new to this Aussie but appreciated SYD and have holidayed in SLOVENIA (looking forward to a Ljubljana entry in future), a big DIDO and Tolkin fan (not to mention Benadict Crumberbach - who voiced the movie version) so may have lucked into a few more gimmies then usual for a Thursday. Still I’ll take it!!
10
Good on ya fellow Aussie solver!
2
Benedict Cumberbatch not only voiced but also acted as a basis for the computer generated images of the dragon!
https://youtu.be/sXN9IHrnVVU
2
Welcome to our growing contingent of Australian Wordplayers!
1
Took me a while to recognize that the demonym for a person from Omaha is Omahan. I kep trying to add a rebus in there somewhere, to spell Omaha man or Omaha born or something like that. Nothing worked, of course. Fun puzzle!
In the iOS app it accepted just A where it should be AUDI. I didn't like that answer, but it said it was right, so when I was down to just one square and only had three rebuses (rebi?) I couldn't figure out a car make that could possibly fit there.... :-/
and Elke
Yay- it's Thursday aka 'rebus maybe'.
Starting at the SW meant I got to SLOVAKIA first. Since one of us (not I , MYSELF ) was born and WEANED in that part of one-time
Czecho-SLOVAKIA , which a couple of years later became Hungary and is now Soviet Ukraine , KIA as a rebus became a gimme.
OPEL in PROPEL and AUDI in PLAUDITS fell into place. As others already noted, FORD was FOR DUMMIES, doh.
I do have a nit with the premise of the theme :i.e. 'easy to park vehicles' : in a recent puzzle about parallel parking, I revealed my dislike for that manoeuvre .
In the 70's, while on foreign assignment in Europe , we had a lease AUDI (frontwheel drive). On a trip to Antwerp in Belgium to the Kleinblatt Bakery (which still is in business and worth a 5hr. trip ), I , the (E)SPOUSE, while trying to park in a parking lot, hooked the decorative chrome strip on the side on the bumper of another car and pulled it(the strip) right off. Absolutely no damage to the other car. AUDI - 'easy to park ' ??
Would not say that FORD , OPEL and AUDI are known for their COMPACT CARS , either.
Oh yes, had INAnE before IN AWE.
This puzzle was by a GENIUS, who is a good looker, too.
7
They're compact because they're rebused. More compacted (mashed!) than compact by design. Though I'm not sure a compacted car parks very easily at all! It sits on a junkyard heap pretty well, though.
3
Strangely the puzzle accepted ‘O’ in lieu of ‘OPEL’ as I happened to type in the O. I knew it couldn’t be the answer but OPEL didn’t come to me, yet the puzzle was ‘solved’!
Not strange. All apps accept the first letter of a rebus as correct, by convention. There are ways to enter the entire string if you wish, but each app has its own way.
4
The "Nth" item in a series isn't necessarily the LAST item in a series.
For every item "N" there's going to be "N+1", "N+2", etc.
9
This was a delightful and rewarding puzzle. I only wish there had been a few more rebus entries. I love it when a rebus square is not quite where you think it will be. For example, I was pretty sure that the answer to 13D was ROPE LADDER and the rebus square would, naturally, be 'ROPE'. But the cross OA'ROPE' made no sense, so I was left, as my GPS would say, recalculating. The fun solution was the next square down, giving me R'OPEL'ADDER, which also solved 16A, giving me PR'OPEL'. The other three rebuses provided the same fun. And all four were wonderful examples of the 38A revealer. Let's have many more rebus puzzles!
6
Agreed. I’m always impressed with puzzles that have special boxes in symmetrical places. It just seems a it more elegant and difficult work by a constructor. But asymmetric rebuses and the like keep you on your toes more when solving.
2
Happy Rebus Day! Loved it!
4
I had no idea Slovakia was a country. Neither did my IPad auto spell. It kept correcting it to Slovenia. We both learned something tonight.
Slovakia is “half” of the former Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic being the other.
And what happened to the O? Maybe a small tax haven country?
5
Ha! Nice one, Laura. Thanks for the chuckle. I’m picturing it like Liechtenstein between Switzerland and Austria. :)
1
Once in a while a puzzle evokes a special frisson. This was one. Had the P and T. Instantly thought of PLAUDIT. It didn't fit. Then came OPEL. Revelation!
2
I found this one pretty easy, too. First car was OPEL. Last was FORD. I’d filled in DUMMIES and knew I was short one car after I filled the grid. Then I saw AFD for 1D and arrived at FORD. All in all an average Thursday for me.
4
Nice little crunch—do they put those DIRT CHEAP jitneys into trash COMPACTors when they’re done? Lah-di-dah, it’s after my bedtime, and now I’m craving wine and chocolate.
1
I had a tough time getting started. I realized some kind of Thursdayism was going on in it, but I couldn't quite suss it out. I got distracted in the NE by the way "ROPE LADDER" can (almost) be spelled out by starting with the R in the top right corner and moving left, down, and right around a 3x3 matrix, and then down the rightmost column. But the A of ARLEDGE kept getting in the way. The light finally came on with AUDI. Then I knew to look for car brands as rebuses, and it worked out pretty directly from there. Still a bit crunchy, but doable.
So a tough fun Thursday for me.
2
A lot of fun. OPEL was the giveaway since PR across couldn’t end in just one letter. FORD took forever.
Nice theme and execution. Got hung up in NW with FORD.
2
I got hung up on ALL the rebus answers until I very nearly had the rest of the grid filled in! Once the light dawned, it was quick and easy to fix, though.
Kind of a weird, mostly easy solve--I got COMPACT CARS fairly early on and figured out KIA. But FORD, OPEL, and AUDI were literally the last three squares I filled in. I wasn't specifically thinking of a ROPE LADDER, just a LADDER, so for me 13D was one square too long, not too short. And PLAUDITS was not a word I was going to think of quickly. And the FOR DUMMIES series. . . well, I really didn't notice that one much for a while.
10:30pm and no posts are up yet, so I'll stop this now and see what happens.
3
Very cute theme. Lots to like, and pretty easy (OPEN AND SHUT as they say). I cottoned on (to borrow the phrase from judy d) to the rebus on the same one as Deb - RLADDER. Knew it had to be ROPE LADDER, etc.
on 68A had ENDORSE, then EMBRACE before ESPOUSE.
Funny how PLAUDITS and its synonym. ACCLAIM, both a little unusual, are in this puzzle, GENIUS!
2
I had ESPOUSA, briefly; which clearly couldn't be right!
very clever. loved it! first car was AUDI from Plaudits. Then came OPEL FORD and KIA! liked seeing STENGEL intersecting with ESE. His defining characteristic in addition to great baseball acumen was his entertaining STENGEL-ESE!
6
I'm not a huge fan of rebuses, but this one was fun.
I remember the ET & COW puzzle, too; and I liked that one a lot.
Maybe I DO like rebus puzzles, but I just like complaining about them, too?
Thank You for a fine Thursday!
8
This one was fun. Some rebus puzzles are slogs. Maybe you just like good rebus puzzles.
That's partly it, but I realized another thing: I think rebuses are easier on paper. The app is sometimes finicky with rebuses. Even today, KIA showed up as just KI on my screen, and I thought I might have mis-entered it.
On at least one occasion, I have gotten the "somethin wrong" message, and gone back and re-entered EXACTLY THE SAME LETTERS into a rebus, and gotten the victory music.
So maybe I've just been more frustrated with them since I started using the app...
Pretty easy for a Thursday. The rebuses jumped right out at me, and so did the theme.
2
I didn't realize it was a rebus until I was nearly done. I knew it should be ROPELADDER but I didn't see OPEL, and I knew I had 3 or 4 problems.
Some what embarrassingly, COMPACTCARS eluded me in passing, and I skipped over it...
Once I realized it was a rebus, it took only a moment to patch the holes.
2