I hated this puzzle with a burning passion. If I would have know I was going to spend an hour messing around inside old man creepers 1950’s mind vacation—To solve what ended up a deeply flawed puzzle— I would’ve just gone to sleep. No one needs more time with that guy. Nope. This is done.
Bring back the subversive lady puzzle makers!
Rebus! No wonder I was stuck. I got all but the weird gaps in the theme answers. I've stared at the solution and still don't get it. I hate these types of crosswords-they make me feel dumb.
1
Gorgeous puzzle, but broke my streak. My iPad would not let me put a space between “love” and “hate” in the rebus box. I tried “lovehate” and “love/hate” but NO HAPPY MUSIC. Finally I put just “love” in each of the boxes, and got approval. But the incompleteness bothers my tidy soul.
re: vowelless crossword. i found it a not very hard bht fun puzzle to solve, but i was disappointed by the clues. i found many of to be pretty 'iffy". 46 A isnt really correct unless you inset the miising :which is a: 47A isnt quite the right terminology. 42D is just wrong. 55D doesnt feel like' copied' is right. otoh, 48D was great
Do you know there's a whole post to discuss the voweless? But I'm not sure I understand your iffys. "Neuron" doesn't need anything so I'm not sure what you mean. "Quantum leap" has a common meaning quite distinct from it's meaning to a physicist;
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quantum%20leap
One word shy of QB; from the hints I know it starts with B; To be or not to be; I know it's not to be.
You can find excellent hints in Liane’s post of about ten hours ago.
Just realized you already referred to hints. In any case I encourage you to keep plugging away.
@Mary
It's most likely to be that 6 letter word for a kind of spicy stew that originated in Kentucky. I've never heard of it before.
Seems to me your fiancee deserves byline credit--at least a "with," as they say on the covers of ghosted books. Did Laura come up with "bullet bras," too?
I once went to a showing of the film of Bye, Bye, Birdie in NYC. At one point Ann-Margaret, wearing a brassiere of the aforesaid type, entered from the left side of the screen in a most "pointed" way. The audience went wild.
@GreaterMetropolitanArea Me again: sorry; I meant Ann-Margret. From the era of Barbra.
Love a good rebus! LOVEHATE RELATIONSHIPS made for some kind of difficult double rebus situation I haven’t seen before. It was bunches of fun (once figured out)!
I had a near-natick with ISAO and SIR until I realized that after kneeling a knight would be SIR.
Of the names I knew only ARLO Guthrie and BAER, as in Max BAER Sr., father of Beverly Hillbilly Jethro Bodine. Max BAER Jr. was in a few TV westerns in the late fifties an early sixties such as Cheyenne.
Loved THE FAR SIDE clue— the answer couldn’t have been anything else, and the clue painted a great picture!
Nicely done Mr. Moore.
:-)
2
LOVEd it! Like others, I discovered the trick realizing S_NIA at 26A had to be S(LOVE)NIA. (Memories of the 9/1 puzzle!) I didn't get the double-rebus idea until the revealer, though. Aha! (BTW, I entered them (online) formatted as LOVE/HATE, which has precedent in a puzzle long ago which had two clues for each entry.) Next up was, like Caitlin, to add "ate" to CALIPH.
This one proceeded *much* faster than last week's -- just 10 mins. off my best time, in fact. Only real holdups were, like Deadline, being vexed by the double G's in 37A before realizing the rebus, and in the CHATEAU/ADOUT area where I briefly had CHEZ/ADOZE. Didn't know BART, BAER, nor TESSA (barely knew ISAO).
Favorite entry: YESWECAN (Very pertinent in these times.)
BTW, today marked no. 100 in my streak!
6
Hey, Spelling Bee: if a person can be ruthless, doesn't that mean they can also be full of ruth?
1
I wonder where Ruth is?
1
She left and she took the list.
..
@Martin
While riding on my motorbike
With Ruth in back of me
I hit a bump at 85
And rode on Ruthlessly
Never mind, I got it from an earlier comment (to enter just one word or the other in the rebus square online so the app counts it complete).
Help: I solved the puzzle online, using the rebus key to put LOVE/HATE in the four squares. I think the puzzle's complete, but I can't get the app to signal that it's done. Is it because of the rebus squares?
I'm working on a streak here, so how can I get the app to know my puzzle's complete?
1
Try entering just LOVE or HATE in each square instead of LOVE/HATE?
1
@Joan Passarelli
LOVE/HATE is fine. You must have an error elsewhere.
1
@Ron
No, the devices are unpredictable. Things that are "supposed" to be accepted are not. I have to read the comments every time to see what worked for others in a given puzzle.
1
Fine with me: good puzzle.
1
Sorry but I hate Rebus - especially when you put two words into box. Sunday can be very challenging with the clues without the mickey-mouse rebus tricks.
3
I still struggle with rebus .... call me old fashion but I like all my letters to fit in the grid. Am I being too narrow minded?
1
@DLB
You are only being narrow minded if you use too thick a pencil on paper, or ail to use the rebus button on the app! :)
2
I typically don’t mind a rebus, but this doubled up rebus was strange to me. It was fun once I’d figured it out as it made the rest of the “lovehate” entries easy, but I understand your point.
1
@Rin F
"It was fun once I’d figured it out"
By Jove, I think you've got it!
1
I refreshed this page and while waiting for the virtually interminable advertisement hot links to appear I began to wonder ... does Caitlin have an evil twin named Hatinger?
It's just the meanderings of an idle brain and I certainly do not mean to cast any aspersions on our dedicated guide of the day.
3
Enjoyed the puzzle a lot, I'm a sucker for a good rebus. I figured out that there was some kind of rebus element around CALIPHATE, and by then I had enough crossings to guess the revealer, and voila! Had a lot of fun hunting out the other rebus squares. Some of the answers were a little dense/obscure for my taste (SNOW UNDER, for example) but others were delightful; I think the misdirect for ADULT was my favorite.
1
Loved it! Best part, I figured out what was going on without reading this article. Solved faster than usual, what’s not to love. I must have a twisted mind.
very fun puzzle.
1
I agree. But then again, you are slightlycrazy.
5
I agree with Caitlin that my interest never flagged. Before 63A filled in, I could not see how to jam in the correct answers, especially because "caliph" could stand alone. Once 63A filled in enough for me to get it, then it was "Aha" and became easy to match the theme to the four affected squares. I do the puzzle in print, so I just inserted the common letter "E" and circled my clues so I could keep them straight.
I love that Sunday had such a fun and unexpected theme! What fun this was!! It is a pure pleasure in my brain.
3
Busy day. Loved the puzzle, such impressive construction.
1
The theme is all to apt -- I loved discovering the rebus conceit and many of the clever challenges here, but grew annoyed at the obscurity of some clues. "Pair of diamonds" grew on me once I got the syntax, but it was a long time coming. At least this puzzle wasn't as overladen as many NYT crosswords with groan-eliciting sports team/league/division acronyms. I did think that "ad out" was a bit of of a technical foul. Has anyone really ever heard this outside of a crossword puzzle? All in all, like any good love-hate relationship, I was annoyed by many of its little ways, but when looking at it as a finished and perfect whole, had to admit it was pretty all right.
2
"I did think that "ad out" was a bit of of a technical foul. Has anyone really ever heard this outside of a crossword puzzle?"
William,
I gather you don't converse about tennis with anyone who plays or even watches the sport?
5
@William R
Standard tennis terminology.
3
@William R
I play very little tennis, but the term was well-known to me.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but couldn’t figure out where the fourth rebus square was. I do the puzzle with the app so it told me I was finished and correct. It turned out the app had accepted simply the letter H at the end of ‘caliph’ (12d) as apparently enough for ‘hate’. The fact that 37a was filled in as ‘BATTINGGHS’ was something I had left, assuming it was wrong, to be fixed and before I had figured out the key clue. Just wanted to let the powers that be know there might be a glitch.
Eben,
A shortcoming for sure, but not a glitch (as other comments here, and the article on rebuses in Wordplay, will explain).
@Eben Ernstof
Not exactly a glitch, but the fact that HATE came at the end of the word, and that CALIPH is itself a word, gave you a bit of an edge. The fact also that your puzzle was otherwise correct, and that you had understood and established all the other rebuses, meant that you were given the victory despite finishing slightly short. It meant that you missed the aha moment of getting the final rebus, but I think that the designers wanted the greatest flexibility on what could be entered. This way they would avoid the greater disappointment of people who could not finish due to inserting the "wrong" rebus entry. In this case, accepting a single L or H was the problem.
2
@Eben Ernstof
As I commented on earlier, this leniency on the part of the IT guys in allowing single letters or partial completion of complex rebuses like today's is not fair, IMO, to those who fill in the proper rebus. Unless you do the latter, you have not really *solved* the puzzle (again IMO).
The Bee’s dictionary-in-the-making continues to amuse. Yesterday’s oddity: landau. Really, guys?
1
Thanks for reminding me to look that one up from yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landau_(carriage)
Pretty interesting, actually.
@Passion for Peaches
Well, this is how diverse a group we can be. That one was a gimme for me--perhaps one too many early novelists? (Trollope, Dickens, etc.)
4
@Mean Old Lady: Georgette Heyer, in my case.
1
Well today’s Sunday puzzle was extremely challenging, very tricky, but fair. (It also eliminated my need for a workout today, as I reached my target heart rate while solving it!)
Thank you for a clever puzzle.
5
If Bruce Haight had come up with this idea, just think of all the Love-Haight comments there would be!
7
I *love* rebuses, especially when there’s a twist in the rebus itself!!
You may now all throw tomatoes at me...
4
...but please take them out of the can.
5
When the rebus has different fills across and down, how do you enter them so the program will recognize the entries? Some of the unorthodox fills kill my streaks, because even when I've got them solved the program doesn't see that I have. It seems today's is going to be one of them, and it's a little frustrating.
2
Put one or the other in and it will accept.
3
@dogless_infidel
The program accepts just about anything, including LOVEHATE, either word on its own, or even L or H or LH.
Don't forget that sometimes (actually quite often for me) a small error elsewhere is what is causing the problem....
2
Ok, I'll try that. Thanks!
Add me to those who loved this puzzle. Definitely would not want to be warned ahead that we are in rebus territory. Half the fun is the aha moment of discovering that a square contains a rebus answer!
Today I wrestled with how to enter the two words and then get the music, but as I proofread my answers, I finally found a typo that formed another word so that it wasn't immediately obvious. I look forward to more Moore constructions.
12
SPELLING BEE -
QB 44 W, 180 pts.
B-13, G-5, H-3, O-1, R-7, T-15
HINTS WITHIN:
While not quite a clotbur day, as the pangram is easy, there is something doubly "fishy" about today's word list. Ala Will Shortz, decapitate the first letter of one answer and substitute another. I take no pride in admitting it was a random effort to find that last 6 letter word. I even had to look it up after it was accepted!
There was one more "b" word to "stew" over. If you don't cook or eat Middle Eastern as I often do (and even if you do), you could miss this one easily.
Lastly, four spelling variations of one term, including one quite European, account for quite a bit of this puzzle.
5
Adding the letter counts for SPELLING BEE:
4 letters=17
5 letters=15
6 letters=7
7 letters=3
8 letters=1
10 letters=1 (compound)
**you have seen the O word before--yes, one of those--not CLOTBUR but for me, about the same.
2
@Liane
Thank you. Fishy and stew indeed. I knew about the one fish but the other one was new to me as well. Your little "beheading" blurb reminds me of the Frankenstein monster. Especially as I followed links and watched an Alaskan Fish and Game guy skin and fillet one.
Fishy times three, as far as I can see. The rhyming pair plus one other species, great for the crowd that flies the rainbow flag.
Loved it! I filled in 'adout' thinking it was a term for a commercial break, so enjoyed the explanation below about tennis scores. The only clue I disliked was "Pair of diamonds" but since it didn't trip me up at all, that's okay!
I'm troubled by a trend that I think I see. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the proportion of complaints and unkind comments seems to be increasing. That's troubling to me, because I mostly pop into this discussion because it seems to be among the last bastions of civil conversation among people with little in common. I'm not saying that I've seen incivility -- I know that the comments are moderated for that anyway. What I've been noticing is just a trend toward complaint and away from the kind of sincere appreciation for constructors and helpfulness to each other that makes it fun, after solving a puzzle, to drop in and see what others have to say. I'm not saying that it's not OK to say that a particular puzzle wasn't for you or to notify somebody that the comment mechanism remains buggy. I am saying that constant complaints about a minor annoyance that people are working to fix are not helpful and that wholesale denigration of puzzles or their constructors seems to me unkind.
25
@pj Haha-agree. At the risk of people taking my humor seriously--please stop reading if you are easily offended--- I often compose a Mad-Lib style of other forum posts, and here is my Wordplay Comment Satire:
"I finished my puzzle at the crack of (pre-dawn time) and missed my record by (number) (time unit). This puzzle was way too (adjective)! It was more like a (day of the week) than a (different day of the week). There were too many (plural category) included! To (name of other commenter): that word IS correct because in addition to a proper noun it is also a (single digit) century (language) word meaning (obscure horticultural or musical term). Boy do I (love/hate) rebuses but they never work on my (solving format). Your loving friend, BEE CLOTBUR"
PS-- I love you guys! I have written most of these along the way at one time or another.
21
@Healthy Nurse
I think there are two groups of commenters - the speeders (who have streaks and best times) and those who luxuriate in the process and don't give a hang whether it is fast or slow.
Either way, I do think it's nice that people freely comment but it seems ineffective to complain in the comments about the disappearing comments. People might be better off to complain to the tech people at NYT, instead of hoping the complaint is passed on via Wordplay.
3
@PJ - I have been feeling similarly lately, though I’m wondering if I should apply my rule for emails to some comments to posts that I read as snarky: be careful about reading tone into them. I’m hoping one man’s comments that may seem a bit snide are simply an effort at wit. The complaints are another matter, and since I’ve never “lost” a comment, I try to understand the frustration of those who have.
2
I would hve enjoyed making a comment this morning at 5 a.m. CDST....if only they'd been working.
This is a cool puzzle and a lot of fun; unfortunately, LOVE/HATE describes the way some are feeling about the WordPlay Comments....
More Moore! Say I.
4
@Mean Old Lady I really value your insights and comments! Glad you post frequently!!!
2
"...5 a.m. CDST..."
I see what you did there, MOL.
My question is: did you?
@Barry
[bats eyes]
1
I'm still confused.
1
@Kathleen Reilly
What are you still confused about? Are you in need of explanation? Or is that just a general statement?
1
@Kathleen Reilly Hi! I agree today was a real mind-bender, especially for those new to rebuses. They trip me up on the regular.
If you want to expand on what was confusing, you'll find a very supportive and kind community here happy to explain.
I've learned a lot from our fellow commenters.
1
I wish the Times would indicate a rebus puzzle up front. I find them annoying and would not bother to solve if I was forewarned.
@Shar
Alas, part of the challenge of rebus puzzles is to find out that there is one. I used to absolutely hate them....maybe about 2 years ago. Over the last year, I've gone to the dark(-ish) side and have embraced them. I still grumble about them from time to time, but recognized them for what they are - extra dimensions added on top of plain old crosswords. Extra tricky clues and themes are minor versions of the same.
I'm not saying you're wrong in how you feel. I'm simply saying that if you're willing to see past the annoyance, you might one day find you'll be less anti-rebus and maybe find the extra enjoyment that rebus puzzles can provide.
9
@Shar
I sympathize with you, but I think that there are many more solvers who would be annoyed if there were a warning.
Many puzzle solvers enjoy the challenge of looking not only for rebuses but unexpected twists and turns beyond the "traditional" experience. My advice for you would be to avoid Thursdays, and either avoid Sundays, or take your chances with them. By avoiding Thursdays and Sundays there is virtually no chance that you will be hit with a rebus.
1
Across Lite has a rebus indicator that can be turned on or off in the settings.
Mixed Feelings indeed. Can't we save this nonsense for Thursday when we all have fair warning?
@Tim O Can't you think of a kinder way to express your dismay than calling a puzzle upon which the author worked for many hours (and which many solvers did, in fact, enjoy) "nonsense"?
15
@Tim O Rebus puzzles are likely on Thursdays and always a possibility on Sundays.
6
@LJADZ
With a chance of scattered double-entendres possible throughout the week :-)
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
4
Just discovered that I am no solver, after 57 years of thinking otherwise.
Constance,
Please!
It's called "having a bad day."
We all have them.
Or at least I do.
4
What does BATTING GLOVES have to do with PAIR OF DIAMONDS? I'm not usually that thick but this link baffles me.
1
@harperdog
A pair of BATTING GLOVES, one per hand, is used on a baseball diamond.
1
@harperdog "pair of [objects related to baseball] diamonds"
@harperdog
The clue sounds like you are to think of two DIAMONDS, whereas "OF" should be read to mean "belonging to" or "found in".
What a great puzzle. I can’t remember the last time a puzzle had so many clues that caused a good laugh when they “clicked”: YER/OVERTURE; CEES; BBS; METE/MPG; etc.
I got super stuck on the most NW and SW corners. Had to look up a picture of Blofeld, never heard of Bullet Bras, etc. I worked into ISAO, AHN, and BAER with enough confidence to leave them alone, but had no idea who TESSA was, or what an APSE was, and RISE wasn’t coming to mind, so I googled (which I’m allowing myself to do more to preserve sanity.)
Super clever puzzle that I think will stick in my favorites for a while. Bravo!
3
This is not just one of my favorite Sunday puzzles in recent weeks, it's one of my all-time favorite Sunday puzzles.
I really had to hunt for the rebus squares and appreciated the reveal's hint to look for just four squares. And what fun I had!
Also, according to Hal Moore's comment, at least in this case, this puzzle is proof that behind every great constructor is a great woman. I look forward to the day when you two co-construct. I'll bet that puzzle will be a doozy!
7
@Johanna As Hal's Mom, I say "Hear, hear." I am trying to figure out how to share this with my incredibly smart and all-around wonderful future daughter-in-law.
3
The curator of the Spelling Bee word list is neither a carpenter nor a gangster; ergo no ROUGHOUT or RUBOUT. Also, oddly for a NYC publication, still no BORO.
8
@Steve L
How in the world is RUTH not a word?
1
@Steve L The curator is ruthless (literally)
7
@Steve L
Your post gave me a valuable hint for another word. Thanks!
1
Rare for me: Actually got the reveal with only two crosses in place. Enjoyable struggle figuring out where each of the rebuses was going to be, and thought there were some nice longer answers involved in each of them.
Top half came together fairly quickly (for me); bottom a bit more of a struggle. I completely blanked on one obvious (in retrospect) theme answer so ended up in the SW looking over a FOUR LEAF CLOVER that I overlooked before.
In Across Lite I just entered an 'L' in the rebus squares. That always works.
2
@Rich in Atlanta
1= sunshine, 2 = rain, 3 = roses that grow in the lane
As far as what works goes, you'd think that LOVE would be the answer, but No, not for A-L.
1
I had no MIXED FEELINGS about this puzzle. I didn't have a LOVE/HATE relationship with it. I had a LOVE/LOVE relationship with it. So, so clever! So well executed!
My favorite kind of rebus has always been the kind that works differently in the Acrosses and the Downs. It makes the puzzle both more challenging and more interesting. Perhaps my all-time fave of that type was the TT/Pi puzzle of a few years ago. But that only worked with two letters and this works with four. So all I can say is: Wow!
I found it very hard until I got the trick. It could have made been even harder if they hadn't pointed out in the revealer that four squares were affected. I would have left that info out. But a superb Sunday that I found enormously entertaining.
7
I have no intellectual problem with the rebuses, but figuring out how to enter them correctly is a constant annoyance, when they are anything but one word. In this case, I fooled around with slashes, then spaces, then lovehate spelled solid, then went back to slashes before the puzzle was accepted as complete.
3
PuzzleDog,
1. Please indicate what format/system you are using to solve so people can give you an appropriate answer.
-- or --
2. Read through the comments to find people using the format/system you use and see what they did.
I'm with you. I do the puzzle on-line. I entered "love hate" with a space (no slash) into four squares. When I finished, the "machine" told me I had an error in the puzzle, which I could not find until a let the machine check my answers, disqualifying this puzzle from a streak.
I think rebus puzzles are entertaining -- and this one especially so. Playing online is a great convenience, and keeping statistics adds a bit of interest to the exercise. It would be nice, though, to introduce a little more intelligence when answers are more complex. If I did this in pen and checked the answer key, I certainly would have thought I completed this successfully.
2
Jim and PuzzleDog,
If the entire link appears, this article should help. If the entire link does not appear, google rebus crossword and you should find it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-tha...
Online version on my iPad. There were no asterisks. So even tho I knew rebuses were involved, I never got the lovehate clue for them and so the rebuses I figured out were sometimes wrong. Especially
In chateau, which I new was right but could not match with clover, which I also knew was right. A tech glitch, or operator error?
Skeptical1,
There aren't any asterisks in the print version (or any other version to my knowledge). The only reference to asterisks I see is where Caitlin refers to the asterisk in the subhead of her Wordplay column. There is no hint to where the rebuses are; the hint to their content is 63A, the revealer LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIPS.
(Or did I misunderstand your question?)
1
@Skeptical1 It really depends on the difficulty level of the puzzle.. A Monday through Wednesday puzzle may have asterisks for theme clues as a help for solving, as well as the revealer including something like “in the starred clues”. But Thursday through Sunday usually remove some of the training wheels on the easier puzzles and leave it to us to figure out. Practice, practice, practice! :-)
1
Steve Faiella,
This is the 17th rebus puzzle of 2018; I don't recall even one with asterisks in the clues.
(Skeptical1 has been around for a while; I'm really not sure what he was expecting.)
What is ADOUT (114 across)? Computer says it's solved, so the letters can't be wrong...? I'm missing something obvious, aren't I? :)
@Robbie Wilson AD OUT for commercial breaks
1
@Dan Possibly, but it's more likely a reference to Ad(vantage) out, a tennis score for "break" point.
4
@Dan actually Ad Out (short for Advantage Out, a reference to the advantage scoring system) is a tennis term for when, after a deuce point, the server has won the point and is on the brink of winning the game.
What in the world do you have to enter into the rebus square to get the answer to be accepted? Nothing I tried worked and the rest of the puzzle is correct. Had the same reaction to CALIPHATE as adyarblue before I figured out the love/hate rebus.
There cannot be a space between LOVE and HATE in the single rebus square.
I entered either only love or hate depending on which clue I got first and I got the happy dance
3
I entered “LOVE/HATE” in each of the squares (including the slash) and it worked.
2
A very interesting and enjoyable puzzle. I was a bit puzzled at the clue for CALIPH but thought that maybe that was a legitimate (if not OFT used) way to refer to an Islamic state. Didn’t really catch onto the rebus till I wrestled with the 83A/45D cross and till I could see 63A appearing. Nice aha as I grokked that all of the LOVE and HATE are in one square and marveled at the cleverness of the construction feat.
Anyway, after that it went quite smoothly though I did get stuck at a few names if no idea - the BRITA / BAER crossing for instance - but no matter, eventually they were all guessable and I finished in about two thirds of my usual time. Well spent Sunday so far!
One minor issue: I solve and read the blog and the comments mostly on an iPhone, and the links in the comments don’t work at all. I’m not able to get to them even though they look very interesting and I’d very much like to check them out. Can’t even c&p them into a browser! Not sure if others are facing this problem, and if so, I hope a fix is in the pipeline.
2
@adyarblue
Links never work on iPhone if you get to the blog through the app. In the past I have found that they work if you use Safari to get to the blog, though I haven’t tried that lately. (Type “wordplay” in the search bar and find your way from the main blog page to today’s post.)
1
@adyarblue isn’t a CALIPH the person leading the country that is a CALIPHATE?
@adyarblue oops! Forget my last comment.. I went back and read yours and now understand what you meant...
I didn't get to Saturday's puzzle till early Sunday morning, but I wanted to add two comments about it. First, I was sure the that Celine Dion answer had to be QUEBECOISE, which seemed to be the only acceptable word, but of course it didn't fit. QUEBECER struck me as being an awkward mashup, imposing an English spin on a French word. Even at that, it needed to have a Ç instead of a C.
Second, the TAXI SQUAD explanation got a little skewed. The name resulted from a subterfuge. The new league that the Browns helped inaugurate in 1946 had a rule limiting how many players a team could have. Coach Paul Brown wanted more players, so owner McBride hired the additional players ostensibly as drivers for one of his taxicab companies. They never actually drove cabs, instead spending their time on the Browns' practice fields. The phrase gained common usage, though it became obsolete when practice squads became legal.
3
@paulymathI agree with you that Céline would referto herself as Québecoise, even when speaking English.
Deborah: Of course she would, but the clue in the Saturday puzzle didn't ask how she would refer to herself.
Paulymath: I trust you didn't read the Saturday comments, where the Canadians confirmed that QUEBECER was correct for English (and we understand that unless otherwise directed, puzzle entries are to be in English)?
@paulymath
There was a discussion about this in yesterday's comments. Quebecer is a widely used and legitimate term amongst English-speaking Canadians. Québécoise is of course the (feminine) French word, which does hold a certain political association within it. Asserting that one is a Québécois can sometimes imply a certain renunciation of being Canadian. At any rate, as this is a "hard" C, no cedilla is involved.
1
The cartoon with the cows eating grass happens to be one of my favorite FAR SIDEs, which is saying a lot. So a gimmie.
9
This was a devilishly clever rebus that was great fun to solve. I just entered LOVE in all four squares and the computer added HATE and gave me the win.
Caitlin, Wikipedia says IDIOT LIGHTS first appeared in Hudsons in the mid-1930s, but that was an outlier. As far as I know, from early days virtually all American car dashboards contained—besides the speedometer and, usually, the clock—four separate gauges indicating fuel level, engine (water) temperature, oil pressure, and amperes (whether the car's electrical system was charging or discharging). That remained the norm until sometime in the 1960s or '70s, when carmakers, seeking to increase their profit margins, replaced the oil pressure gauges and ammeters with cheap warning lights, which gave drivers only enough information to worry that something might be wrong with their cars. The change was met with scorn and contempt by multitudes for whom a car was more than a mere conveyance. It carried the implied insult that American drivers were too dumb to make anything of actual readings of the goings on under the hood—thus the phrase IDIOT LIGHTS.
7
I don’t expect to find Assam marketed as English Breakfast tea, but Irish. English Breakfast is Keemun.
2
@Brian
Interesting! I drink all three, at various times, and to me they all have different flavors. Wikipedia says that EB tea is a blend of Assam, Ceylon, and Kenya teas, sometimes with Keemun. To my palate, Keemun is the most different of those four. But I do enjoy them all.
Yep, both are blends, almost always with Assam teas included. Irish has a higher percentage of Assam typically, but EBT usually has a fair amount. Keemun is only found in some EBT blends.
For instance, Twinings English Breakfast Tea has no keemun, but their English Afternoon Tea does. All these blends include Assam teas.
I usually use 2 spoons Darjeeling to 1 spoon Assam, and take it with lemon and a little sugar. I was taught by an older Indian diplomat that Assam is needed for color and depth of flavor but on its own it's too strong. On the other hand, my son's Pakistani mother-in-law uses 100% Assam (Tea India brand) with cardamom and lots of milk all boiled together. It's the richest tea I've ever had.
Definitely want to shout out to Caitlin for all the terrific tidbits of trivia in this weekend’s blog! LOVEd the taxi squad bit from Saturday and all the fun stuff from today really added to my solving enjoyment. Thanks!
5
Isao may not be as stale a fill word as ern(e), but it is close. There is more ugly fill, but that is almost a given with such an intricate theme.
1
Only found three of the rebus answers, but the happy music still played with 37 A as BATTINGGHS.
Filled in all the squares, was going back up to fix it, but by then it was moot.
3
I liked this one - a bit tricky in spots, but solved fairly quickly for a Sunday for me - 20 min. under my average. Picked up quickly that there were going to be rebuses, but for exactly what to enter, I wasn't sure until I got the revealer, and after that it was merely a matter of trying to figure out where the other spots would show up.
Also liked the clue for SIR.
1
It was a slow and unconfident solve for me, since I didn’t catch on to the rebus/rebus locations for a long time. I finished in exactly 42 minutes and feel a bit like I just went 14 rounds with 47-Down.
Great construction though!
First time commenter - such an enjoyable solve! I loved SIR and AMPERSAND.
11
@Carolyn
Welcome to Wordplay.
Come back soon and share your thoughts.
3
Carolyn,
What Deadline said
Very fine Sunday rebus puzzle. I found all four LOVE/HATE squares but had something wrong. Turned out in the very lower right corner I had ERA. Changed it to EON, and it was done.
Loved that @Deadline mentioned National Ampersand Day for yesterday's puzzle and here it is today. Technically, the day is today, though the puzzle is for tomorrow. I saw that Barry already mentioned @Deadline's "preveal" (<--loved that too).
Had ROLLOVER instead of ROLL(LOVE/HATE)RIRA. For a while, I was looking to see where it was going. Like Caitlin, I knew of no country near Hungry that was 5-letters, and then, when I got the S_NIA, it clicked.
All that talk about the Open (golf vs. tennis), there was the TEE, IRON and SAND TRAP and then ACER is clued as the Taiwanese PC maker?
Interesting how BBs crossed Bullet BRA. (Really? Bullet Bra? It was before my time but I didn't think 1950's were that...daring). Although, I guess bikini was also around that time?
My favorite of the 4 rebus squares is the last one - FOUR LEAF C(LOVE)R and C(HATE)AU.
Never knew the Crucible was an ALLEGORY for McCarthyism - was never too good about that sorta thing.
Liked very much the clue for SIR. Well done.
2
The bullet bra was not generally worn on top ala Madonna. If pictures of the era are accurate, it went under a sweater to weird, if voluptuous, effect.
5
I went to Google the bullet bra, and it is what I thought it was. Though I knew about them, I didn't know that's what they were called. Some of the images, though, you could poke people's eyes out with those!
1
@Wen
Remember the 50s well -- actually it was in that decade that I first started wearing a BRA -- but I don't remember the term "bullet bra" until Madonna.
But the style was definitely current then, albeit, as Peter said, as underwear, and not quite as extreme.
1
Much fun, and a refreshing challenge to me.
I started looking for tricky wordplay using the puzzle's title in the first long(ish) entries: SNOW UNDER and TOTAL RECALL. Got nowhere.
But 23A really did want to be WHAT ELSE IS NEW, and none of Hungary's neighbors fit into five letters, so I started thinking rebus. What I didn't start thinking was rebus that of two different words depending on A or D.
So my Aha! moment didn't come until I got to the revealer -- I'm lucky it was only halfway down the puzzle instead of at the very end, or I'd have had to do a lot more repair work.
Oddly, having only four rebus squares increased the challenge, with no idea where they would be and a lot of possibilities in entries that I didn't know immediately.
But what a delight that two-way/two-words approach was. And the consistency of LOVE as the across and HATE as the down adds a touch of elegance. Kudos, Hal Moore.
Not that everything went swimmingly once I saw what was going on. I had some serious problems in the upper 30s/early 40s.
I'd had the same problem as Caitlin with CALIPHATE, and I wasn't happy with the GG near the end of 37A, but even after fixing that I was confused. I didn't know BART, never heard of IDIOT LIGHTS, and found NOT REAL a little out there. But TIL that baseball players wear special GLOVES when they are at bat.
About my mileage though: I got all the fun of the puzzle, but the Constructor Notes went way over my head in a couple of places.
3
@Deadline
Did you remember the mnemonic for ISAO AOKI this time? ;D
Enjoyed the LOVE/HATE to finish up the Open. As others have said, it wasn't especially difficult--I finished in a couple minutes less than average for Sundays. I really liked the theme entries, as well as some of the other longish ones--SNOW UNDER, HUNTER-GATHERER, THE FAR SIDE. I didn't know TESSA, but it was easy to get from the crosses. Now I think I'll have a nice cup of ASSAM TEA.
LOVE/HATE all right! I loved the puzzle but hated the rebus!
Had fun till I hit that rebus wall!
2
The one thing it wont take in the rebus is Love Hate. Seems all other formats other than the one i used work.
2
@Paul
LOVEHATE with no space between the words works fine in AL.
Fine on website and iPhone as well.
2
I put LOVE/HATE in on the iPhone and got the snappy ditty (though the letters were completely illegible!).
3
Today's theme definitely describes my relationship with rebuses. I caught on quickly to the theme, but then deciding how to enter the rebus slowed me a bit. Turns out that the puzzle online wasn't picky about how you entered l/h.
That said, I came in under my usual Sunday time by a few minutes. Aside from the rebus aspect, the clueing was not particularly daunting.
1
Judging by some of these comments, I bet you could just enter random letters in the rebus squares and still get credit for the solve.
2
@Irene
I suspect that a minimum of L and/or H in the rebus square is required to get credit. Based on precedence, that is.
Got the theme; threw in the towel as far as mechanically filling it out. Not much fun.
2
After I tried LH and just LOVE in the rebus squares, to no avail, I finally succeeded with typing in LOVEHATE in each one. All you can see displayed is LO.. but MHP arrived and I smiled and went to sleep.
2
@Viv
"MHP" implies you use Across Lite.
According to Jeff Chen on xwordinfo.com, the NYT app accepted just about anything you put in those squares, ranging from L or H to two letters to the whole thing.
1
@Steve L
In the Times online version, I put LOVE in 3 of them and HATE in one, wondering if I'd have to change one (or 3!) of them. But it accepted both ways, and displayed them in the final as LOVEHATE (although the letters are so tiny they're impossible to read).
@Steve L
As I commented earlier, I don't think that's kosher ...
I hate this puzzle.
7
@HALinNY
I love this comment.
8
I love this puzzle.
17
@HALinNY I saw your "I hate this puzzle" comment first and thought to myself, "Well, that's a bit harsh." But then I saw your "I love this puzzle" and laughed out loud.
Thanks.
1
Puzzled for a bit over exactly how to fill in the rebuses, but it turned out I was just over thinking it...
That's a pretty darn good Sunday, even with only four themers!
Is there a "correct" way to enter the rebus squares? I have tried using a space, a slash, a hard return, and a hyphen to no avail.
I just put the single letter "L" in the squares and the puzzle found that acceptable.
1
For the rebus squares, I entered either one word or the other and that seemed to satisfy the app. Hope this helps.
@Joe Olson Thank you! One word worked.
No ambivalence here--I LOVE it! I had 63A before realizing this was a rebus. Finishing up with a Three Stooges-related entry was the icing on the cake.
You'll need to turn up the volume to hear MOE's take on the theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNpWUSVgUU4
1
Tip of the hat to Deadline for her amazing preveal in the Saturday comments of AMPERSANDS in the Sunday puzzle. The cool weather must be working wonders!
Amen to Caitlin's "meta" call on this one, although unlike her experience, I not only felt it went quickly but it actually did. My Sunday solve times -- estimated by water clock as I solve by chiseling stone -- are usually with a five-minute range whether the puzzle is "easy" or "hard" (for me; YMMV). This one was five minutes under the bottom of the five-minute range. That's not a complaint -- I loved this one; no hate at all -- just an observation.
2
@Barry Ancona
No h/t necessary, B.A., but I confess I got a kick out of seeing the word show up in the Sunday puzzle. A day late, yes, but not a dollar short.
2
Caitlin,
You've got 81D backwards.
@Barry Ancona
Ooh! My bad. Thanks Barry -- fixed.
Now get the emus to remove the thread!