New Yorker email cartoon of the day, by Brendan Loper:
[Trump, standing behind desk, holds up a copy of the Times while speaking to a male visitor who is clearly supposed to be A.G. Sulzberger, but does not resemble him at all:]
“I’ll stop calling you ‘the enemy of the people’ when you start printing crossword puzzles that I can solve!”
6
Uncalled for snark. Save it for another venue.
I love this puzzle. It was difficult, for me at least. I usually try and do the puzzle in under and hour, but this guy had me stumped. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but smile at some of the clues- PROPAGANDA- so clever. Thank you Will and Will for a wonderful puzzle.
1
POMEGRANATE? Before I figured out what was happening, I filled in GRANNY SMITH. :-)
P.S. I chuckled at the proximity of ALANIS and ANISETTE. :)
2
Would someone explain the clue for 56D? I've Googled "Thoro" but nothing relates to "detox."
3
My thought was “thoro” is short for “thorough” and “detox” is short for “detoxification”, but I agree it’s less than intuitive.
1
@Ron
Cleansing refers to detox. The use of THORO as a shorter form of THOROUGH suggests the answer is DETOX and nor detoxification. That's the way I read it.
2
Thanks, Chungclan and RMP!
1
Loved this puzzle! I’m a big fan of wordplay (the column too!). My faves were DISC ON TENT, PRO PAGAN DA, and perhaps the best - POME GRAN ATE. On a side note, did anyone notice that ILIAC would have made a perfectly fine word in Spelling Bee, but it was not in the word list. Hello? Crossword peeps please consult with the bee peeps from now on! :-)
2
@Steve Faiella
There's no "L" in the Spelling Bee circle.
@GreaterMetropolitanArea
Apologies. I learned from reading other comments about the existence of the Wee Bee; being a pencil-person who does not subscribe separately to the puzzles, I hadn't heard of it.
@GreaterMetropolitanAreaa
no prob... For a second there I thought maybe I was losing my mind LOL
I am going to disagree with the majority of my esteemed fellow puzzlers here - I loved YOINK (very much a common word among my admittedly nerdy set), SEXYTIME, THANX, -ASS as an intensifier and DINK!
I suppose a "double income no kids" clue would have been too on point there?
TABLE D’HOTE did give me some trouble, though. Go figure.
This puzzle felt very contemporary to this solver - it was quite a refreshing break from the stars of 1950’s television shows I have never heard of nor seen!
Fun theme that had my husband and I giggling out loud. Thank you, Mr. Nediger!
5
50 wds, 252 points and it would not accept "Finial." (sigh)
2
@Chris Atkins
Unoriginal but late comment from me: Lots of real words, as you mention finial. Also Liana. Words that you NEED to know for the XWP, but do not register for the BEE. Strange.
@Robert Michael Panoff I went back and found a couple I had missed, but I can't understand why finial was excluded.
@Chris Atkins
I'm at 50 words, 268 pts, so we clearly had different words! Different people "see" different words I guess.
Quick comment, gotta run. Will read the other comments tonight.
Another slog. Unsure of the _EMME/_UFFY cross (either D or H?), the IN_D/TABLED_OTE cross (?), and 29A (_OIN_). I thought that the first letter of the latter was a Y but also considered N, and couldn't decide between K and G for the last letter (nothing made sense). I shuttled among all the unknowns till I got INHD (and understood TABLEDHOTE), guessed (correctly) at D for the _EMME/_UFFY cross and guessed Y and K for the first and last letters of 29A. However, I never had all the correct letters at the same time! Back and forth and back and forth ... Finally, all of them correct! YOINK ?? Over three hours!!
@Steve G.: Well, the origin of pomegranate is Old French, "pome grenate," from Medieval Latin "pomum granatum,” meaning literally “apple with seeds.” So it seems to me it’s basically the same word.
@polymath: Fair enough. I just didn’t have the same reaction of “oh, that’s cute!” that I did with all the other re-parsings in the other answers.
1
Did the puzzle last night, read the column this morning, but was unable to get through to the comments until just a little bit ago.
I confess to having replied to some of the comments before having read them all -- too cumbersome -- so I am guilty of saying things that have already been said. Don't yell at me, Barry.
Actually, pretty much everything I have to say has been said. That's what comes of having been locked out. I'm on the side of being a fan of this puzzle. The themers are my kind of wordplay, and I got a kick out of figuring out the entries, or reparsing them after entering.
Pretty much everything was gettable with a few letters, except the DAWGS/SEXY TIME/DINK/YOINK stuff requiring outright guesses. And not understanding the clue for TALES at all.
I see that this week's Second Sunday is a Mel Taub PandA, wo I have something to look forward to after dinner tonight.
I was hoping that the weekend's (slightly) lower temps would make it possible for me to get out, at least to the fruit stand. But the dew point stuff means that the RealFeel is still in the upper 90s, and I am still housebound. So here I sit, dreaming of nectarines and cherries. {sigh}
1
Deadline,
No yelling.
I wasn't sure about TALES either, but "gathering" can also mean collection or compilation, and many, many tales are told around a campfire...
1
@Barry Ancona
I thought of that interpretation too, but it falls pretty far short IMO. I have little experience of campfires, with or without tale-telling, but it doesn't seem as if the stories are gathered, mor that they are passed on.
But I think your interpretation is the closest we're likely to get!
Minor typo alert: The name Lavoisier is misspelled in the column (as Lavoisiere).
@polymath
désolé!
Fixing now. I feel like I checked that three times.
I had to check puzzle on this one, and it's my first Sunday in a long time to not begin my streak. I'm also struggling with Spelling Bee, with only 37 words so far. Not my day.
1
@Megan Wallis
37?? I have 25 and thought I was doing well. But I'm glad you mentioned it because I can't figure out how to reveal all the possibilities (once I give up) and also see how I stack up against other players (not so well, I guess). Anybody?
1
@Suzy M.
Well, for starters, there are 19 words beginning with C, of which 4 belong to a single root word (noun, adjective, adverb, noun); 3 belong to another (two adjectival forms; 1 adverb); and there are two other pairs with the same root (adjective, adverb); and all but one (a noun) of these end in C, L or Y.
17 words begin with F, and these include 5 adjective-adverb pairs ending in L or Y.
There is also an L-triplet (2 adjectival forms, 1 adverb).
Of the total 55 words, 21 end in Y.
I counted 12 adverbs and 13 adjectives in total.
1
@NICE CUPPA
Thank you nice Cuppa, your L-triplet hint gave me Queen Bee! Love those non-spoiler hints.
@Suzy M.
I don’t know how to find out how many possible words there are unless someone who’s finished says so in the commments. But the maximum score is usually around twice whatever the amazing score is, so today it was 287 (amazing was 144). As for how you stack up, I think “amazing,” “genius,” etc. say it nicely.
Thanx Will Nediger. This is what I call a perfect Sunday. Clever, tricky, fun, challenging without being a brainbuster.
3
Other possible three-in-ones:
RE MINI SCENT (about the trace odor that you smelled..)
BE TRAY ED (Please pretend to be a platter, Mr. McMahon)
DIS SON ANT (The queen puts down non-female descendants)
It's harder than it looks to find single words that can be broken up into 3 parts and then coming up with reasonable clues for them.
3
I can't tell quickly whether anyone else has mentioned this, so...
I was good with all the theme answers except for 40D.
All the other themers required re-parsing the word or phrase to yield a completely different idea: PRO PAGAN DA or REIN FOR CEMENT. Pretty funny, in fact.
POMEGRANATE, however (at least linguistically) has the word POME sitting right in it. In other words--even if it's not so botanically--a pomegranate is a kind of pome.
Anybody else have a similar reaction?
1
Pome ~ apple (French)
Actually Pomme in French, but
Pome
a fruit consisting of a fleshy enlarged receptacle and a tough central core containing the seeds, e.g., an apple or pear.
How about pomelo? It's a big grapefruit.
Dave S, I suppose if you're going that route, one might say the PRO in PROPAGANDA is the same PRO as in the theme parsing.
1
78A brought me an Ogden Nash memory:
http://blog.ogdennash.org/2008/10/ogden-nash-apologizes-to-bronx.html
1
Also got a chuckle out of 71D: drama could also be a performer's minor. So ... would one suspect that person of using dramamine? :-)
1
YOINK is about as far from SEXYTALK as is possible.
ON A SAD NOTE it’s TOO BAD that my MISTAKING in that spot took so long to resolve. I DID STRIVE to do better. When did the iPad app add a cute little snail when my time stinks?
2
Having read all the prior comments, I am surprised that nobody complained about JONES. Real origin? Harry Jones?? Not a takeoff on Mary Jane?
@SteveG
I first heard it with Cheech & Chong's "Basketball Jones".
1
Steve G,
The clue for JONES was fine, and I read Caitlin's comment and the comments in the link. I had no complaints. What, exactly, are yours?
There was fixation and addiction and then at some point... along came JONES:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFyr49TwuiI
..
Had a good chewy time with this puzzle with fewer lookups than expected. (Needed two to prevent a Natick at square 49.) Fill had a lot of good words not often seen.
Biggest nuisance fill: 29A. First, I had "T" in the 29A square-- it also fits but isn't the answer. Second, in all my experience "gotcha" is the right answer to 29A, but who's listening?
21A brings back memories of the first timeshare computer at the University of Illinois.
1
My previous comment should have noted that accepted words for all Spelling Bees (daily and weekly) can and often do exceed 7 letters in length.
Who has ever said "yoink"?
5
At a bare minimum, one or more of the actors who voice characters on "The Simpsons" (I gather from the column and the comments).
2
@edaf1246
I have! And I picked it up from a friend of mine. I also say zoinks, and I suppose I got that from Scooby Doo.
2
Enjoyed today’s puzzle, even though I relied on Google quite a bit. Started with mote/moan instead of WART/WAIL.
To me, DINK is a band from Kent in the early 90’s that almost, but not quite, hit the big time.
https://youtu.be/LvkXyAmG1B4
1
One of the first words I got in this puzzle was "iliac." Meanwhile, the Spelling Bee for today does not recognize this as a word, along with a number of other common words typically seen in the crossword, e.g. liana, anil....you gotta get it together.
@Tony Longo
You wouldn't happen to be related to Frank Longo, the creator of the Spelling Bee puzzles in the weekly A Little Variety puzzles, would you?
And, I would like to know who invented the Spelling Bee puzzle. I haven't been able to find any information on it - does anyone know?
@Tony Longo
Also INFALL (astronomy) didn't show up. Spelling Bee today moved to common words, which is good if it holds up (e.g., no chemistry/taxonomy/science/junky arcana); pretty obviously SB and the Crossword aren't being constructed by the same people ...
2
When is a word not a word? When it is ILIAC I suppose.
1
Spelling Bee:
Today's letters:
ACFINY-L
are very similar to the one on July 6:
CFILRY-A
Substitute the R for the N and move A to center for the L.
Consequently, lots of words common between the two. That puzzle was 221 points for Genius and 316 for QB.
Similar to that one - there is a trio of words that can be made in today's puzzle that are related to/extended from each other. But the antonym version can only be made for one of them. Since these words don't use R or N, it was the same problem in the July 6th puzzle too.
1
“Short laugh for final kid’s move” — HA DAB LAST!
1
This was a very clever, very enjoyable puzzle. I finished in 22 minutes but no happy music. I'd been hopeful but really knew quite well that my problem was in the personal natick of YOING and DING. Lacking the patience to run through the alphabet (and knowing neither YOINK nor DINK anyway) I hit reveal and learned two new words that I guarantee I will never use in polite conversation.
The cleverness of this puzzle reminds me that I've long wanted to give a shout-out to the awesome-ass Sunday puzzle from February 11. That one is my second all-time favorite. SO BRILLIANT AND ENJOYABLE. I hadn't yet joined this delightful intellectual community/high school cafeteria of daily commenters so was forced to kvell only to people I know IRL, who could not care less. My all time favorite puzzle was from decades ago, during the Gene Maleska era (I once got copies of the magazine section signed by him at a literary festival in NYC for both my xword loving parents, a thrill). I don't remember much of it, but in all the long entries, the clue was one lower-case italicized letter. So for example, the clue might be "s" and the answer was Last of the Mohicans, or the clue might be "y" and the answer was Fourth of July. So much fun. I don't remember what I had for breakfast, but I remember that puzzle.
SB today is an embarrassment of riches. I have 39 words, 195 pts and am still merely amazing. :)
4
Yoink is definitely not in my vocabulary. And the cross of Dink, could just as well have been Ding, a term for hitting the ball with the rim of the racket.
2
The puzzle was fabulous! It was so much fun and made me laugh for real.
SB, I have 41 words/202 points, and I think I'll call it quits; maybe try for QB later.
1
@mary "Genius" popped up at 203/44 - taking a break.
My kind of puzzle. All wordplay all the time. Very crunchy and absolutely delicious.
I did have one wrong letter. Had no idea whether it was SEXY TIME/YOINK or SEXT TIME/TOINK. Neither YOINK or TOINK made any sense to me at all. I chose the wrong letter.
But that wasn't my biggest problem. I left the NW pretty quickly, being absolutely stymied there, and did quite well everywhere else -- in that I had no wrong answers to confuse me. When I returned to the NW, I still had my four big Wrong Answers written in:
At 1A/1D: MOTE/MOAN instead of WART/WAIL. (I was thinking of the "ignoring the mote in your own eye" quote.)
TOY instead of USE at 42A.
MPG instead of APR at 48D.
It took me like forever to straighten it all out. But I did. READY, SET, GO (which I'd wanted from the get-go, but which didn't go with any of my wrong answers) finally helped me correct all my mistakes. Well, all my mistakes except TOINK.
Consistently engrossing. Great puzzle, Will!
1
@Nancy
I agree with you, I got Toink, as well.
YOINK was my Rubicon. I’m finally OK with getting almost the whole puzzle.
@Nancy I’m there with but couldn’t break up with howl/hole, especially when laden confirned the hypothesis. Is was all downhill after that start.
Also, best ass clue that I have see clued.
FWIW, the answer to 21A in today's crossword is rejected by today's Spelling Bee (mini-version).
2
@Robert Nailling
The Wee Bee also hates FINIAL, and my lamps are pretty annoyed about it.
Ilia/ilial is a long-standing reject, while Tibia/tibial are always acceptable. Legs, but not pelvises, apparently are approved.
5
What is the Wee Bee? I only see Spelling Bee.
@Hildy Johnson: The "Wee Bee" (online only) is the daily Spelling Bee that appears on the NYT Crossword page. It accepts words of 4 to 7 letters. The "Big Bee" (in the NYT Sunday mag and online) is a weekly Spelling Bee that accepts words of 5 to 7 letters. You can find it by going to the "A Little Variety" page at the bottom of the NYT Crossword page. Hope this helps.
YOINK??? Really?
8
@Gretchen Asam
See Caitlin's hilarious mash-up clip of YOINK on the US's longest running TV show, The Simpsons. I also was not familiar...
Between YOINK, DINK, and DAWGS, it took some pretty fancy guesswork to get the gold star on this one!
Laughed out loud at 99D. Never thought that crude and annoying suffix used by my college age children would make it to the NYT, but there it is!
Overall a fantastic puzzle. Perfect Sunday. Well-done, Mr. Nediger!
This puzzle didn’t make sense to me. I still don’t get the answer “propaganda” based on the clue. Frustrating.
1
@Befuddled
PRO + PAGAN + DA
For Witch District Attorney
A D.A. who is pro pagan.
1
PRO = sympathetic to
PAGAN = defendant in a witch trial
DA = prosecutor (District Attorney)
Pro-pagan DA.
OK?
1
Tough one! I felt lucky to finally wrap it up after just over an hour. POMEGRANTE was the toughest 3-in-1 for me for some reason, despite my fondness for them.
I'm going to guess that your fondness for them *was* the reason, Jon; you'd be less likely to want to look at the word in a different way.
1
@Jon
Especially since 97A designates "Mom's mom" as NANA (what about pore ole Pop?) when all the world knows the right title is 'GRAN NY.'
[Lobs Apple of Discord into the room and leaves]
My mother's mother was known to all of us grandchildren as:
Mom-mom (pronounced mum-mum).
Never had a nana or a meemaw...
What a wonderful display of wordplay!
These are harder to come up with than I first thought. All I got is PEPPERMLL (Energy expended at a flour factory?) Or PEPPERMINT (Energy it takes to eat an after dinner treat?) And these are nowhere near as good ... great! ... as what Will came up with.
I loved the simplicity of MAN HAT TAN. What an eye it took to see that.
I loved every minute it took to solve this puzzle.
Thank you, Will Nediger!
4
@Johanna
I don't see the point of "Man" in the triplet.
Began the puzzle last night and actually managed to finish it before getting completely stumped. Like so many, DINK and YOINK were new to me. I stuck with TOY for way too long before submitting to USE. TABLE D'HOTE was an echo from the past; I somehow learned it long before I had the chance to visit a restaurant with that choice. Enjoyed seeing Neville SHUTE whose books I've enjoyed since childhood.
1
I was making my way quite slowly through the puzzle and didn't get a theme answer until MANHATTAN. At that point it was lots of fun to put a bit more effort into getting the rest.
I enjoyed the misdirection for BRITISH of course ( and wasn't misdirected). I still had a lot of white squares in the north, so took a break. That really worked. Most of it came to me fairly quickly then, even YOINK. I don't know why it took me so long to get FROCK; in so many of the books I read as a child the heroines were dressed in frocks.
Nice Sunday puzzle.
1
Wow. I cannot praise this puzzle enough. Yes, it is a gorgeous grid with those three big diagonals, and yes, it is very clean, but what I cherished most was the care put into the cluing. Too often you can just tell that the constructor, seeing the sheer volume of answers on Sunday, decided to pick a few to focus on and give clever well-thought-out clues, but mailed in the rest of them. Here, Will took delicious care with every single clue. There were very few that we see all the time, where we can just plunk the answer in. Here, there were many original clues -- so the automatic brain couldn't engage -- and many that were sneaky in wonderfully dastardly ways. For evidence of the care that went into the cluing, just look at how "Hog's home" echoes PIGPEN, those two H's and two P's.
Then there are the brilliant theme answers -- how did he come up with them and what eyes he saw them with! Plus lovely answers like MUTABLE and TABLE D'HOTE. Perfect title. Lovely crosses -- DINK/YOINK, SNOW/TOW/ERGO. And opportunities to learn: YOINK, SEXYTIME, HARDA, and POME (I wanted Rome for that apple!).
No, this was one of the very very good ones. Because of the work Will put into it, I had to don my best brain and most rugged work clothes. Will gave me a boulder I could only chip away at, until it revealed itself to be a cruciverbal work of art.
7
I’d like to promote FINIAL for today’s Spelling Bee.
6
Also liana and annal.
Has anyone found a word starting with y?
1
@BM
Doesn't look like there are any today.
@BM: There's at least one Y word.
Very enjoyable - clever themers. Agree with the rest re: yoink and dink. And the "soft g in Genesis" was really almost too much. As for the clues: A rein, of course, is not a bridle strap. Bridle straps are the headband, noseband, chin strap and throat latch. Not all bridles use all straps. Reins are attached to the bridle, not part of it. Thought I might as well muck things up as much as possible. As an equestrian I LIVE for the day the editors will get it right.
5
"...I LIVE for the day the editors will get it right."
Long life, Pris. The oracle does not see a day when rein would not be clued as bridle strap. I bow -- as would the editors, I trust -- to your specialized knowledge that a rein is not one of the straps that *comprise* a bridle. But you also state "reins are *attached to* the bridle," which, in crossword land, qualifies them as bridle straps. Welcome to the "that's not correct in actual usage" club; we have many members.
1
My dear Mr. Ancona, the straps *compose* the bridle!
2
I do not disagree, Treegarden.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/comprise
Not so tough for me, as I got it in about ⅔ of my Sunday average. I remembered TABLE D'HOTE from "The Lonely Goatherd" in the Sound of Music. DINK is more common in volleyball than tennis, but it is pretty much the same - a soft hit (usually while faking a spike or other strong hit) to an unprotected area of the court. I did have PIG STY before PEN, and had a bit of trouble thinking that FTG was going to work out before I "got" the clue and put in the SO. There were a couple other areas where I had guessed correctly, but ended up removing, then reinserting the entries. Fun puzzle, and enjoyed the theme puns.
2
"DINK is more common in volleyball than tennis..."
My wife -- who coaches volleyball and has worked at the U.S. Open -- seconds your observation, JayTee: DINK more often than "tip" in volleyball, but rarely for "drop shot" in tennis. A post-solve dictionary check found it listed as a synonym for drop shot in tennis or squash, with no volleyball mention.
@Barry Ancona
mmm... In squash, I believe that's a shot into a corner that does a tight ricochet off the walls and floor and dies (in the corner). Hard to do well (on purpose) and impossible to get to, but that would be a power shot, nothing light about it.
You'll have to take it up with the dictionary editors, Leapy. I, too, have only heard it in volleyball (often) and tennis (very rarely).
YOINK is not a word in English. Maybe in Brooklyn, or Cockney? Everything else was fine, cute theme.
4
@Alan Young Not in Brooklyn either.
Well, on the plus side I set a record time for Sunday ... too bad it’s for the *longest* time ;-)
I’m still don’t see how Gathering around the campfire? == TALES, that feels awkward (BALES, I can see, and had for quite a while); but in general I found this challenging but fun. Nice job, Will and Will!
2
@mprogers
Never did understand that clue/answer combo.
3
I’ve been watching tennis over 20 yrs, never heard the phrase dink...
12
@puran Bheamsain
70 years for me, and I agree
2
I don't think they dink much in professional tennis, too risky.
Like the theme very much. But the fills and other entries that people complained about are my complaints as well, which made it a slog after most of the puzzle was completed.
Same problem with SEXYTIME/YOINK/DINK (I didn't have problems with DAWG). The K in DINK was changed to T and D and back to K again. TABLE D'HOTE was unknown to me too. And my last correction was LADEN/NEAR BEER - I had LADED and then wondered what was DEAR BEER (which, during Prohibition, could have been very applicable).
Got the theme with MANHATTAN. Really liked all of the theme entries.
THANX was a no for me as well. In my experience, it's either THANKS or THX. Never THANX. It's like people who type 2K18 (the whole point is to save on typing, what are you saving here?)
SOFT G, HARD R, ACT V...sigh.
4
@Wen, on the subject of saving typing, it cracks me up that when my daughter texts, she sometimes types out the word slash. As in, “Let’s grab lunch slash dinner”.
1
@Wen
"2K18" ??
Maybe it’s the year, 2018.
Some tough fill there. I finally worked out the SEXYTIME/YOINK/DINK double natick - well, maybe SEXYTIME isn't quite natick-y but I was hung up thinking about theater with the "play" clue. But, still no joy on solving. My final fix was the C in ILIAC/SCYLLA. My education wasn't classical enough to know the latter, and I had "ILIAL" for "Pelvis related". Finally needed a little Google help on that one.
I did very much enjoy the theme - especially MANHATTAN and REINFORCEMENT seemed clever. I also liked the nearby paring of SOFTG and HARDR - both of which gave me trouble for a while.
1
I am not posting anything (obviously that is a lie). Have a nice evening/morning/afternoon, etc.
1
I keep HALucinating ...
1
I bet a lot of people get hit with that riding crop; Tonto is too adorable to resist!
Caitlin is a surprisingly dangerous caption writer.
2
@Nick Schleppend
It's a bit painful to see the distorted equine conformation ...but it's nice to know this horse has a purpose in life other than being cute. So many 'pets' end up in unhappy backyard situations...
I really wanted 66A to be ROAD KILL, but alas it didn't fit.
This was one of the most enjoyable Sunday themes in a while, many thanks to the two Wills.
3
@Wags
You got one strong stomach there ....
Again with The Simpsons. Apparently constructors watch nothing but or assume we do. Sick of them!
10
@Nobis Miserere
It's the longest-running TV show in American history at around 640 episodes since starting in 1987.
4
Maybe I ran through the puzzle too quickly, but I don't even remember a Simpsons' clue popping up.
That being said, we all come from different places, backgrounds and levels of familiarity with pop (or classical) culture.
I am not very well-versed on Shakespeare, but do not get upset when a Shakespearean clue appears.
While there are clues we may not like, whether it's the Simpsons or Shakespeare, for the time being, it looks as though both are here to stay.
I'm just glad that there aren't a lot of country music clues, because I would be lost.
Oh, now I see how the Simpsons relate to the clue. I hadn't read any of the comments below prior to posting.
Not sure when YOINK was first used on the Simpsons, but it has certainly spread since then. For me, it didn't register as a Simpsons clue at all. Though I can see how the clue could make a lot of people say...
D'oh!
I was stuck in the SW corner...
Finally changed LYRES to LUTES and got the rest of the fill.
Loved SNOOT and SHUTE
4
Me too on YOINK??
1
@Alan J
Yeah, the Y in YOINK was my last fill, too. I didn't run the alphabet, though, the Y was the first letter I tried.
1
Calculatus eliminatus for me too, though I started at B.
Me three. PhysicsDaughter was doing the puzzle, too, and she confirmed Y (since I had to give up B due to the --also unknown--Down.
She also educated me a bit on miniature horses, being herself a horse-owner.
I had the same YOINK problems as other folks, but it wasn't the K at the end, it was the Y at the start. Both YOINK and SEXY TIME are debuts, and in my case, not known. Apparently, the powers that be once again assumed that if it comes from The Simpsons it's a gimme. Not true! I ended up running the alphabet from A to Y to finish the puzzle.
But finish I did, and overall was glad I did. I like the wordplay in the theme. Isn't this kind of wordplay referred as a charade clue in cryptic crosswords? Brings to mind a brain-dropping that I have whenever the name of one of those Law & Order spinoffs crops up:
[Inmate camping out in the prison yard] =
CRIMINAL IN TENT.
Sidebar: My "grain of salt" streak hit 400 with this puzzle. "Grain of salt" has to do with occasional assistance from Across Lite to check letters to fix in the web app.
Four of us Durham Wordplayers confabbed for a couple of hours at Panera today: Liz B, Bob Panoff, Leapfinger, and me. A good time was had by all. We missed the rest o' youse guys.
5
Wish I could have made it. Next time ...
IF my sister ever moves to Raleigh (which is under consideration) maybe I'll visit her and get to attend such a fun event. So cool!
We were remiss in not doing this while David C was still in NC, and we should do again when archaeprof is making a family visit, if he has time and can give us a heads-up.
Again, any and all within driving distance are invited with cordials.
Unlike the posters so far I had no problem with YOINK. It's such a common sound you see/hear in cartoons or other playful mediums that it surprises me that anyone here was not immediately familiar with it. And it's not an age thing; Wikitionary says it's been in use since 1954. I'm pretty sure I got it without crosses.
4
@Tyler
Take another look at that Wiktionary entry. There are two derivations given. The one for the meaning as clued is attributed to writer George Meyer for the TV show The Simpsons. The older usage has several meanings, none of which relate to the clue in today's puzzle.
See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yoink
2
Look at the Wiktionary entry again, Tyler. It does say YOINK dates from 1954, but with other meanings. As defined in the puzzle clue, it is noted as "Coined by writer George Meyer for the TV show The Simpsons." I, too, recall the word from early cartoons, but since I don't watch The Simpsons, the clue didn't do anything for me.
2
LOL. I wasn't with you at Panera, Alan J, but I was certainly with you at YOINK.
I thought this was a GREAT puzzle Because of the oddities....
YOU NO was new to me, too; but now I'll know it.
My biggest problem: I had a mistake and kept staring at TABLEDHOTE thinking that had to be wrong. I just had a typo somewhere else, and now I know Table denote, too...
The theme was terrific and clever.
I'm well satisfied even though I was a full six minutes over my Sunday average!
1
@Patrick Cassidy
YOU NO ??
No DISCONTENT groaning my way through this one. The theme puns were both awful and awesome. THANX, Will and Will.
I was a *theatre* major; I wanted 71D to be DRAMA queen.
THATSALL [folks].
(for now)
2
Didn’t much like YOINK which is a new one on me, or WhOOSH without the initial H. OTOH, I liked the theme a lot, so all in all a fun puzzle. As someone or someones already said, the Y in YOINK was my last letter too. Had PIGsty at first so that slowed me down a bit. Never did get ASS; it just fell out of the crosses. Liked the juxtaposition of SOFTG and HARDR.
2
@David Meyers. - I laughed harder at ASS as an intensifier than I did at the themers.
I still sort of can't believe they did that!
4
@Patrick Cassidy: I enjoyed ASS, too. I just didn’t notice it until reading Caitlin’s comments. David Letterman used to give away Big ASS Hams to audience participants if I remember correctly.
@Patrick Cassidy: I liked ASS too once I saw it after completing it entirely via the crosses. David Letterman use to claim Big Ass Ham as a sponsor and give them away to audience participants.
Along with (I presume) many others - the "(y)oin(k)" "din(k)" "sex(y)time" was the last bit to fill in for me. It turns out that I guessed correctly - but I can't say it was a happy ending despite getting the happy music.
But what did bother me - inordinately - was "soft G" for "first character in Genesis." Character is (in this meaning) something _written_; soft/hard G is (in this meaning) something _spoken_. In the days of Middle English, there were two different characters for hard and soft G: G and Yogh:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh
I understand the interest in misleading clueing for late-week puzzles, but this clue is simply wrong. The first _character_ in the word Genesis is a G, neither hard nor soft.
5
You'll get an indictment for "simply wrong," David, but I don't think a jury of our peers will vote to convict.
2
I very much wanted the first character in Genesis to be a SHORT I, but nope.
This brings me back to a bit of Lewis Carroll:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/zrd/6.htm
FACTOID
That the LOOM is what the original Luddites smashed is not a "factoid" by either of its current meanings. The word was coined in 1973 by Norman Mailer to refer to things that are *not* true but come be accepted as true by repeated media exposure. After the word was misused by cable news networks, it also came to mean a trivial fact. Luddites smashing LOOMs in response to the Industrial Revolution was a fact and hardly a trivial one.
11
They actually smashed frames rather than looms.
Jamie,
Knitters and weavers, [stocking] frames and looms. Agricultural workers and farm machinery too. LOOM is a valid puzzle entry but not the only answer.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/g3/
@Barry Ancona
SABOTage!
Great fun! Boink the yoink, however.
16
105-Across apparently refers to the esters in wine, but they represent only a tiny fraction of that class of compounds, some of which smell horrible, while others have no odor at all. Nitroglycerine is an ester, as are nail-polish remover and model airplane glue. Much of the fat in the human body consists of esters. Solid esters include Cyalume, the stuff that makes glowsticks glow, Dacron, Lucite, Plexiglas, and aspirin.
7
YOINK???
Relying on Urban Dictionary again for validation, are we?
(Collins considers it a “word suggestion.”)
10
The Y in YOINK was my final fill since SEXY TIME was also not in what I guess is my suburban dictionary.
9
Paul — Same here.
Judging from the column, the solver should be a fan of both "The Simpsons" and Borat in order to have heard either of these.
Being neither, I had to guess at the Y.
That didn't entirely help thoutgh, since I guess DING instead of DINK for the tennis thing. At least my guess of DAWGS gave me the correct D.