No mention of The Clash’s COMPLETE CONTROL? Only the finest 3 minutes of popular music ever:
https://youtu.be/JeTw_p_WglY
Look carefully, I’m in this video...
1
A very nice little jewel. A bagatelle.
1
not baguette?
Finally!!! Genius by 1 point!! My husband is relieved.
2
Another good one by Erik, the current crossword champion.
His deft touch with the fill always makes solving feel effortless.
I love that his puzzles consistently have food in them, even though they make me hungry! I don't know how he stays so skinny...
2
In re: 27A
At least two people have commented that coins are not likely to be counterfeited. True, but the entry is COIN, not coins, and "COIN of the realm" includes paper. Fair clue and entry, faux complaint (for my money).
1
Don’t take any wooden nickels.
2
Or plugged nickels?
junction box knockouts
It seems that a number of solvers aren't very impressed by the production of ersatz cash that isn't in a foldable form. However, since the entry is COUNTERFEIT COIN (singular) instead of COUNTERFEIT COINS (plural), I understood that to be having COIN mean 'money' or 'cash' in a casual but *general* sense, the same as BREAD, LETTUCE, CABBAGE, MOOLAH and LUCRE.
Shilling for s living
1
I saw your post on COIN while waiting for mine to post, Leapy. I'll fix that "s" to an "a" in the tag for you.
@Barry Ancona
[Yikes! I wasn't prepared for automatic writing!]
Instead of changing the "s" to an "a", would you be so good as to just eliminate the final hiatus? It was supposed to read 'Shilling for sliving'
Too shlippery to be shpinned down
I thought "Shilling for a living" worked fine!
(Public relations)
This is unbelievable: I have a MONDAY Natick!
Where 16A and 10D cross.
Put it down to generation gap.... ;-)
2
It's not a generation gap the way I think you mean it, Dr W: EMO and I'M OUT were in the language before our constructor was born.
1
EMO, Barry? Seems pretty recent. Of course so does WWII
1
For me, a little tougher than recent Monday puzzles, for the same reasons as others have pointed out: SWAG, NEYO, RAITA, COCO, and of course, COMECORRECT. As usual, thanks to the crosses.
Really liked the theme and the revealer. Not easy to come up with such theme entries. (Don't know if counterfeiting *coins* is really a concern, though.) :)
Nice to see ACLU in the puzzle. Keep up the good work!
2
Very simplistic theme. But Monday puzzles are supposed to be simple so why bother with a theme at all?
Think seasoning. Themeless is, like, without flavor.
2
[This is a second try; first wouldn't post.]
This is an original comment, my C-i-C. (I did reply to one original today, but when I tried to reply to a second I got the first one filled in and didn't want to go through the whole cancel-close comments-refresh wordplay-return to comments rigmarole.)
Minority report: My reaction was "This is Monday?!"
Started optimistically, since OPAL was a gimme. But after that? Sheesh!
No-knows, at least as clued: NEYO, COCO, SWAG, and of course COME CORRECT.
About that last one: Since I'd never heard the term before (just lucky I guess), no racial implication occurred to me until I read Barry's comment on it, or on others' reactions to it. Since I spend virtually none of my time among really young people (as in under 40), I wouldn't know which young people's terms might be specific to which racial group. If a black person in my age cohort uses a term I'm not famiilar with, I ask. ("Say wha'?")
But assuming COME CORRECT is primarily African-American, that's not my problem with the term. What my problem is is that it's ugly. And aggressively ungrammatical. And actually doesn't make sense if the clue is accurate (haven't Googled; don't intend to).
Did I mention ugly?
Note to MOL: I've looked and looked and can't find anything that would seem to be the BigBee you mention. Everything I've found seems to be your WeeBee. Even on Sunday. What'm I missing?
Fingers crossed that this (a) appears (b) as an original comment.
1
DL - I think the BigBee that MOL references is the A Little Variety Spelling Bee by Frank Longo. That's where most people got their taste of the cocaine that is Spelling Bee. The WeeBee is the crack version.
3
@Deadline
[? the @Deadline appeared there automatically. I guess the marmots are still hard at work here... (they are too underground for me to keep calling them emus)]
Come dressed = spoken shorthand for "come appropriately dressed (up)".
Come correct = spoken shorthand for "come situationally correct (= situationally proper, a well attested sense of the word correct, listed second in every dictionary I went to today).
Both phrases omit the adverb and jump to the adjective. I use the first with my peers all the time. Though I don't use the second, I see it as in line with English idiomatic usages.
3
@David Connell
I got it too, D.C.! Do ya s'pose this is the IT beings (whatever species they belong to) making an attempt to "solve" the problem of our being unable to figure out who is replying to whom? If so, it is an incomplete fix at best. How do we know what thread we're actually supposed to be in? And if we follow Barry's suggestion about always replying to the latest reply in a thread, we'll get the wrong "@person."
Anyway. I think I could accept more easily COME CORRECTly. Not that I would be any clearer about what is or isn't "correct" in the speaker's view. "Be nice" would be nice. Or just showing respect to everyone automatically, so you don't have to single out who is deserving of common courtesy.
"Come dressed"? Unless that means don't run around nekkid, this also has the problem of not defining the term.
I'm reminded, though, of a manuscript I edited many many decades ago. It was designed to teach high school kids how to apply for jobs and covered resume writing and basic comportment. The overall quality of the writing was ... problematic. In the section covering the job interview, the kids were advised "Don't dress like a turkey."
I'm not accustomed to struggling on a Monday. But I mis-guessed the theme as being CC (instead of COCO), and, not knowing the 2017 film, I guessed COPY for the revealer. As fate would have it, I had also carelessly read *Princess'* as implying the plural, and as headwear is either singular or plural, I entered CORONas for 47D. This left me with __PA for "Political competition", and __YS for "Space on a schedule". Suddenly this puzzle lost its Monday-ness for me, and took some figuring out to get things straight.
Deb mentioned that a fisherman "might also bring home a tall TALE of the fish they caught." More likely though of the one that got away.
I can't figure out the relevance of the photo of cocoa beans to today's puzzle, except that cocoa is a homonym of the revealer.
I’m happy to see that COME CORRECT got some many responses. When I first read the clue I was trying to think of words that describe giving someone personal space — not touching, standing too close.
1
How does everybody feel about IMOUT as the answer to “Later!”? It doesn’t resonate with me ...
2
I've used it myself. Actually, I've even shortened it to MOUT for someone that I interact with frequently.
I don't recall where I've seen it used except in online chats like in games and such. Usually there is a big group chat and people send greetings to announce their presence and say "I'M OUT" when they leave.
1
I have heard people say this often enough to not be surprised - mostly young men in their twenties.
Obviously I need more young men in their Twenties around me....COugh COugh, said the COnniving COugar.
I think that takes care of the COCO theme.
As the proud holder of the 2018 Natick award for oldest living crossword puzzle solver, I must admit that this one felt pretty tough for a Monday, but I made it. Memories of the clue a few days ago for Myrna LOY sustained me.
The myriad comments about COME CORRECT remind me that all kinds of groups have their own lingo. Years ago I had a wonderful secretary who spoke two languages, English and Brooklynese. I always knew whether she was talking on the telephone to a client or a friend by which language she used.
10
You be referring to British English?
I think this is my favorite Spelling Bee ever (even though at 179 points I am still only amazing). Such diversity! To all of you who get to Queen Bee (ever), kudos!! Since I started with the Bee, there have always been words on the "yesterday" list that I simply don't know. So I remain a drone, albeit an amazing one today.
3
I only just made it to QB today. There are 48 words , The word distribution is skewed toward longer words (average score of 5.48 per word is very high) such that my last 2 words were both 4-letter. There is only 1 pangram.
There were only 2 words I was only vaguely familiar with – one of which is normally considered a proper noun, the other derived from a Spanish proper noun.
There are 2 sets of 3-derivative words. And, with I, C, A and L in the ring, it is not surprising that there are 16 adjectives, mostly long words, in the list.
25% of the words are 6-letter; 31% have 7 letters or more.
Good luck.
3
Is the clue for 41A correct?
Yes. (As to your screen name, "both.")
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel; the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; the Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature; and the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded not by a Swedish organization but by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize
1
Actually that question is pertinent. The clue should have said "awards".
Regarding “award” vs “awards” one could argue that the plural would require an answer of NOBELs.
My five favorite clues from last week:
1. Six for dinner? (10)
2. Tiny brain? (7)
3. "Hummina, hummina" (6)
4. Things drawn by eccentric people (6)
5. Water cooler? (4)
WORD LENGTH
WHIZ KID
OH BABY
STARES
BRIG
6
IMOUT of ideas that explain what POOP has in relation to the “latest dope”. I find their connection completely UNFAMILIAR. Can anyone help?
This online "poop sheet" may help.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/poop
1
(Trying this one again...)
This online poop sheet may help:
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/poop
Another interpretation: You could regard someone lacking in a desirable quality as a dope or a poop.
Et tu, NYTXWP? Isn’t the correct form “princess’s” as in 47D? Princess is singular and requires an ‘s to become possessive, right?
3
I didn't even notice it, but that's the way I learned it too, Rhonda.
But I have seen also where some believes it to be acceptable to add only apostrophe and no "s" to the end of a singular noun that ends in "s". I think it makes more sense and is more consistent to add 's to all singular nouns.
The NYT style manual is profoundly quirky and proud of it. This form (princess') is required in the Times.
1
"This form (princess') is required in the Times."
And for that, the Times should be ashamed of itself. The differences between singular and plural are useful and worth preserving, and the apostrophe is an efficient, if terribly abused, tool.
Grrrrrr.
Not so easy to come up with genuine in-the-language phrases of two words, both beginning with CO -- at least for me. Props to Erik for that, and for making a puzzle that I think a beginning-level solver would enjoy (see @Megan below), which is what Monday is all about. Actually the theme answer beginnings are COU/COU/COM/COM, kinda cool.
1
Jumping on Ye Olde Bandwagon: COME CORRECT? POOP? Really? I think this puzzle lacks imagination. I hate to be that critical, but...
It was a very quick solve but not a fulfilling one.
:|
2
Have not yet tackled today's Spelling Bee, but I feel compelled to point out that RAITA is in today's crossword, despite being rejected from the word list in a recent Bee.
How about a little internal consistency, at minimum???
4
I noticed a feedback link at the bottom of the little box that appears when the SB ranking line is clicked. I had a comment last week, and they had a real live person who answered it. You might try there to ask for words to be added. That's what I'm going to do from now on.
3
Thanks, Mary. Writing to Crossword Feedback when you have a question is absolutely the correct thing to do when you have a question or, well, feedback.
As to Chungclan's question: In the crossword, solvers are expected to know certain things, while the Spelling Bee is edited for familiarity. The editor of the SB may have felt that RAITA would not be familiar to the majority of SB solvers. They are two very different audiences, so they are edited differently.
Thanks, Deb. So how does the SB editor gauge familiarity of words to that audience? Any chance they would ever look here to see what words we thought should be included but were omitted, and which we found to be high on Nice Cuppa's CLOTBUR scale?
Elsewhere in The Times:
While explicit bias remains part of the fabric of life in the United States, elected leaders and chiefs of police have increasingly focused on what is often called implicit bias, inherently unintentional yet more pervasive.
In one sense, the reaction to COME CORRECT in the puzzle is akin to the reaction to TOTES ADORBS in the puzzle. In that sense, it's "What are you doing to my language?" I have no problem with that.
In another sense, the reaction to COME CORRECT strikes me as (at best) implicit racism. I do have a problem with that.
My age peer Black friends do not use the term COME CORRECT, my teenage daughter's age peer Black friends do use it. They are college students, not rappers or gangsters. You don't have to use their words (my daughter does not), but do not fear them or their coinage.
7
Words and phrases do not have color, religion, or national origin stamped on them, generally. This wasn't identified with any group except 'modern'.........which might or might not imply kids.
The reason I myself dislike it has to do with its awkward grammatical and syntactical characteristics. Since I've never heard or seen it, I had to get it on the crosses, as I suspect many others did.
I'm around some youngsters on occasion, but not teens (our children being in their 30's) so I suppose I have limited exposure to 'modern language' developments...and sometimes I'm glad!
2
Wow, please be clear. Are you calling me a racist because I don't like the term COME CORRECT? I don't fear the word or its use by anybody, I would just feel ridiculous using it myself. I don't judge the college kids or their language. Lord, I still remember my parents reaction to what I brought back home from college!
3
BarryA, to some extent, you may be conflating racism with ageism, and frankly, mon vieux, at this point in my life's journey, I have no problem with acting my age.
...Seems I had an excess of commas to dispose of...
6
I posted a bit of a rant (well O.K. It was a full on rant) on Saturday’s wordplay about the number of anachronistic clues and answers in that puzzle, and today we have COMECORRECT. I guess the NYT crossword listens... ;-)
P.S. I know the puzzles are chosen well in advance...so no need to respond with that. :-)
And I provided an answer...
Further rejects on Wee Bee
Caracal, arnica, iliac and ilia, and of course canna, even though the other lilies make it onto the list.....
SRSLY?
4
OK, so I've just read several definitions of COME CORRECT and listened to rappers rapping about it and it has all reinforced why I really, really don't like rap. I totally get why the NYT crossword wants to be current, but I don't have to like some of the language that I learn. I know rap is here to stay but, again, I don't have to like it!
I actually enjoyed the solve today but I was a bit confused about the CC'S hanging out in the Midwest. Bonus answer? I think it would have been more elegant with the simply perfect reveal, COCO.
I liked the OPAL/PALO opening cross.
Thank you, Erik A hard, for educating me ... I think.
4
Well, I knew I was over the hill when I found out several years ago that LOL did not mean LOTS OF LOVE. Now COME CORRECT has come along.
I zipped along fairly well this morning but stumbled in the NE. It took quite awhile before I latched on to PERMA frost. Good job, Eric.
2
OUTATE! Such a delicious word!
RAITA, NEYO, and COCO were all UNFAMILIAR to me, but gettable on crosses.
The NYT xword is part of my daily SELFCARE.
3
OUTATE - something Joey Chestnut often did to his fellow contestants in Nathan's hot dog eating contest.
https://nathansfamous.com/promos-and-fanfare/hot-dog-eating-contest/hall...
1
Ugh. COME CORRECT ruins it for me, and unfortunately I can't unsee it. Aside from that, no one bothers to COUNTERFEIT COINs....
Well, it's Monday, so BEQ will have a new offering, and there's always another Wee Bee to fiddle with....
5
Today we mostly breezed through, though we too were tripped up on COME CORRECT. We went through mostly top down today, thus the last clue was solved was COCO, and it took is a second to catch on to the theme.
Unlike others, it seems, I'm always delighted to see it, and other, "newfangled parlance" creep in. Feels like the baton is slowly being passed to a younger generation of builders and solvers. English evolves, and the puzzles will naturally evolve with it.
IM OUT.
3
This felt like a bit more work than most Mondays, but still came in at a typical Monday time.
Hands up for being unfamiliar with COMECORRECT. Also didn't know either NEYO or COCO, so I needed pretty much every cross for that theme answer and then sort of got the theme and the unknown letters in the theme answer simultaneously.
Also paused a bit over ROOFTOPBAR. I somehow mentally dropped one of the duplicated instances of 'the town' after I read the clue, so had it in my head as "Place to see while painting the town red," which didn't make any sense.
1
I wanted a ROOF GARDEN, but No. COCO is about Dia de Los Muertos, and friends tell me it is sweet, but cartoon movies....not my fave....
1
Modern parlance makes me groan just as much as modern lingo, so had a similar reaction to COME CORRECT as others. I'm not sure when I'll be using it. I couldn't get past the first 2 theme answers starting with COUNT, and was at the "reveal" before I really tried to figure it out. Reveal in quotes, as I was UNFAMILIAR with the film, but it filled in easily and helped to fill in the last theme answer. This didn't go as fast as most Mondays, so that was nice. I love RAITA, really delicious, as Jeff noted.
2
I am sure I will not be using it, but at least if someone says it to me now, I'll have a clue.
2
I thought the theme was just CC'S until I realized it was COCOs. Maybe a hint of things to come with COO?
Pretty interesting that we have COUNTRY_CODE so soon after Saturday's GENETIC_CODE. Maybe it's coincidence that CODE is crossed by GENOME?
TIL the UNFAMILIAR phrase COME_CORRECT, and like the bracketing with O PAL to start, ALLY to finish. Sadly, it turns out the PERMAfrost won't be, for want of A Guard.
Erik A delivers a tasty Monday spread with RAITA and ROE, and maybe the COCOnut theme will help the Spelling Bee gurus fill the GAP next time they're faced with COPRA or COIR.
Today's tip for kind hearts: Monet grosses but CORO NETS
4
RAITA and COME CORRECT gave me pause.
As I peruse the comments, I couldn’t help but wonder, apart from the movie “Arrival” , can anyone think of any other movie where a linguist was the central character?
My Fair Lady?
3
an important character in "saving pvt ryan"
2
Here you go:
http://www.languagecrawler.com/2016/07/25-must-see-movies-featuring-ling...
1
Add me to the Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-does-COME-CORRECT-mean chorus?
2
I’ve never finished an NYT crossword before. However, I enjoy attempting them—they’re my daily “SELF-CARE,” if you will.
But today, a month after subscribing to the NYT and toiling away on its crosswords, I *finally* completed one. Yes, it’s one of those easier Monday ones, but the rush I felt afterward was indescribable. Thanks for the challenge, Mr. Agard!
42
Way to go, Megan. That's how we all start.
1
Way to go, Megan! Keep up the great solving!
2
Good job!
1
COME CORRECT???
COME on.
3
Can’t believe POOP is in the puzzle
7
TIT as well. Crude words are fine as long as the crude meaning is not what's being used.
1
POOP decks have been around ever since sailing vessels had cabins built aftward in the ship.
Apparently derived from something French (wouldn't you know).
Fun, but I'd never heard COME CORRECT either. The rest of it filled in quickly, and that came easily with the crosses.
Enjoyed it.
In addition to the whole "come correct" thing, "self-care"also has African American roots in the writing of Audre Lorde.
Audre Lorde repopularized it for the African-American and queer communities, but the term is much older, and has certainly crossed over.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-politics-of-selfcare
I must not be very modern in my parlance, since COME CORRECT was a new one for me. I looked it up and only found it on urban dictionary and slang sites. Seems like a bit of a stretch for the NYTXWP. Same with I'M OUT, which should have been clued in a card game manner. Are we trying to be too cool here? And another thing: when are we going to see OPAL clued to the character in Pickles, one of my favorite comic strips?
https://www.gocomics.com/pickles/2018/07/06
3
How appropriate for Erik Agard* to introduce NYT XWP solvers (who haven't met it) to COME CORRECT.
*Education
University of Maryland College Park
Bachelor’s Degree, African-American/Black Studies
2011 – 2015
4
Didn’t he win this year’s nyt crossword tournament ?
Puzzle Lovers Find Their Tribe at a Crossword Tournament
https://nyti.ms/2Gdi83v?smid=nytcore-ios-share
3
Hand up for Coco from Foster's, Deb!
2
Why not both?
TIL COME CORRECT. Otherwise, pretty quick.
3
Crunchy for a Monday, even after catching on to the CODE early on.
It's 3 pm on the West Coast, but it just turned Monday at the NYT. So I will just briefly post the BEE stats for Sunday.
FINALLY made it to QB status (43 words, 191 points). What a slog! I spent about 2 hours on the last word - a modern portmanteau. The other major hold-up was an alternate spelling of one of the 8-letter words.
Average points per word was high (4.44), with 2 pangrams. 70% of words were 4-5 letters long, but we had 8 sixes, 2 sevens, 2 eigths and one nine.
On the CLOTBUR scale (0-10) I's day it scored a 1.
Nice Cuppa!, I don't know if you would have seen my post yesterday because that Wordplay is already gone. I wanted to thank you for the hint about the alternate spelling of the 8-ltr word. It was the only word I still needed,and I knew right away what I had missed. Now, no facepalm tomorrow for me.
I have 41 words and 184 points, two pangrams. What is QB status and how do you know if you’ve reached it? How do you know how many words are possible? Love to see CLOTBUR referenced, that really burned me up. I’ve looked in vain for Spelling Bee discussion and I don’t regularly read Wordplay comments. Any recommendations?
2
bm:
QB is "Queen Bee" (bee with crown on head versus mortarboard for "genius"); you get QB when you get all the words/points, it will come up just like "genius" with a window in the middle of the screen announcing there are no more words to find; you won't know how many total words there are until you get them all, but you can figure out the total points (approx) for the day, as an example for today:
Beginner (0) = 0%
Good Start (5) = 2%
Moving Up (13) = 5%
Good (21) = 7.5%
Solid (39) = 15%
Nice (66) = 25%
Great (105) = 40%
Amazing (132) = 50% (so just double this one for total pts)
Genius (184) = 70%
3