I wish every Saturday was this easy. No, I don't. Yes, I do. No, I don't. Yes, I do.
No, I guess I don't. But I'll take it today.
1
Maybe the easiest Saturday puzzle ever. More like a Wednesday, even a Tuesday puzzle. One nit to pick. Maybe a CAPECOD house is a CAPE in the Northeast, but I've never heard it called that in the Midwest.
Dolly Parton recently expanded the mythic power of RUBY SLIPPERS in the movie “Dumplin’ “.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eSpwjKkIfWs
@ADeNA, I had to check out the video you linked, considering that, by and large, I have my doubts that Ms Parton generally can even see her feet.
My apologies, and thanks anyway.
“OBIE”, “OPIE”, “ARTY”, “AUDI”, “OBEY” ... but “ABIE?”
I liked the entire puzzle and got through surprisingly well, except for “LASE” and “ABIE”.
Besides that and a typo from my overly sensitive heat-sensing iPhone touch pad, “SLURP” was my last and most enjoyable answer.
Great puzzle, would recommend.
1
First, thanks to David Connell for his reply to my comment on the symmetry of puzzles. (xwordinfo.com is amazing!)
I must be getting better. I beat my best Saturday time -- which I thought would never happen since it was almost a *fourth* of my average, and recent, times -- even with some really "devious" clues (Caitlin's word): for ITEM, CLUE, STAT, DJS, etc.. Part of my success was due to a minimum of true no-knows: AMAIN, CAPE, and ARLO.
As many others have pointed out, this one seemed much easier than yesterday's (for reasons presented earlier by Wen: no ALAIN RENE LESAGE's, ELOCUTE's, CELESTA's, etc.!).
Always happy to set a PR -- thanks Ms. Weintraub!
You know today is Saturday, right? Not Monday
2
@Alan N. I'm doing these puzzles nany months later, from the archive, and halfway through this one I had to go to the info page to make sure I hadn't been mistaken thinking I was up to Saturday.
For me, the break was the absence of entertainers and sports figures. I'm much happier with wordplay than with pop culture.
1
this was a quick solve for me. I finished faster than Wednesday, let alone the Thursday and Friday puzzle. I had LOVE for 6A for a little too long. The longer answers weren't too difficult. I thought GARBAGE BAG and JUNIOR PROM were clued well.
1
I found this puzzle to be Monday- or Tuesday-level difficulty until I hit the SE, which took multiple checks and a couple of reveals before I could wrap things up. Didn’t help that I wanted MEW for MOM at 49 Across and (again thinking litter-ally) WOMB for MEME at 50 Down. Shoulda known JUNIORPROM (55 Across) off the bat, but JUNIOR seemed too obvious a substitution for “seniors” in the clue. On the other hand, there was nothing obvious about LUNA (“Counterpart of the Roman god Sol”). HELIOS wouldn’t fit, so off I went rooting through my meager store of Norse and Hindu mythology in search of an irrelevant sun god. “Smoother” for SANDPAPER was another clever misdirection.
1
There is a mistake in this puzzle. Save clue should be stet[ an editing term] and not stat, which means immediately.
1
The way I read it: SAVES is a baseball statistic.
9
@Unlearned Hand
The entry is correct. A save is a STAT in baseball.
5
I loved a puzzle I could do without even being tempted to look anything up, and finished at just over 1/3 of my Saturday average, even with the very puzzling ranch/CAPE thing, which I didn't understand even after finding the answer with crosses. I don't think Cape houses are a thing up here in the PacNW.
@Diana Sandberg This refers to cape cod houses, I think.
Ranch
Cape (Cod)
Split (level)
Colonial
Dutch Colonial
Victorian
Queen Anne
Craftsman
...
(And I live in a high-rise)
@Barry Ancona Craftsman houses are well represented around here, as well as a local style known as the Vancouver Special, an unlovely, boxy unit, generally designed to get the most square footage out of a given lot size. I have seen/heard of the other styles you mention, including Cape Cod, but did not connect Cape by itself to an architectural style, even with the Ranch clue. Ranch style houses are also pretty sparse around here, at least in the Big City.
ITEM! i get it now.
easy puzzle 60 minutes.
3
Loved the clues! (And I only had to look up Arlo the dinosaur—is it really Saturday?)
1
Robyn Weintraub is my hero. After yesterday’s killer, today’s puzzle was more than a breath of fresh air. It was redemption. More doable, yes, but maybe not as easy as completion times indicate. Her cluing was brilliant and the fill was fun and known. (Except for AMAIN, which I got through crosses.)
Thank you for RUBY SLIPPERS, POPPYCOCK, GARBAGE BAG, AVIATOR, BALCONY SEATS, and JUNIOR PROM.
You, Robyn, are a gem.
:-D
6
one of the best puzzles in years. fun to solve, clever clues, few rapper names, etc. a few weird answers, like the ranch thing, but mostly a great construction.
4
easy for a Saturday. Pleasant, not thrilling. Yeah, the Ranch alternative was odd. Even after getting the Down answers I didn't understand it.
2
Started out with INDEX and XRAY for digit and beam, and thought Ooooh, we're in for a tricky slog through an X-themed Saturday. But no. Instead it was a frilly and fun puzzle and for me, a new Saturday record. Very pleasant if not the usual difficulty.
Changing MOO to MOM took the hitch out of my giddyup and sent me on my way to weekend chores.
Have a safe week; watch out on the roads.
I have to say that this week’s Thursday and Friday puzzles were relatively challenging and enjoyable. Today’s did not meet those lofty standards.
Two complaints:
1D: Answer is an abbreviation (TGIF), but clue does not indicate that (as is the norm)
43A: My wife who is an architect has only heard the term “Cape Cod house”, never “cape house”
End of rant.
3
David BAbrams,
1D: A weary employee actually says "TGIF;" the clue does not need to signal abbreviation because the entry is not an abbreviation of what would be said.
43A: My wife's best friend who is an architect speaks of Capes, but then, he's in Boston. More to the point, every realtor knows a "Cape."
8
A random thought, apropos of 12D: correct answer should be NANCY, a democratically elected leader. (Imagine a smiley emoji here.)
1
A very quick solve just days before I will reset my stats for the new year. Had this run next week, I'd have spent the next 51 Saturdays trying to get below 24! I was laughing all the way because of the delightful clueing. Thank you to all of the constructors, columnists and commentors for making 2018 a better year. I looking forward to 2019 with great enthusiasm.
7
@Kevin Thanks for the reminder that I can reset the stats. I wandered off and forgot I had a puzzle up on a Thursday a while back, resulting in a time of something over 238 hours.....
1
Very enjoyable puzzle.
41A gave me a run for my money. I had: dreAMeR, creATOR, ideATOR, and then finally AVIATOR. Whew!
1
Here is a recommended read for Wordplayers: contemplating a "disemvowelled" future, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/29/style/vowels-no-more.html. I love the example from Finnegans Wake.
While I seriously doubt that ERIE, ALOE, ARIA, OREO, and OBOE will disappear from puzzles, I shudder to think of a late-week edition where some of the seed entries are "vowel-less" proper names like companies, brands, and bands. And I don't mean MGM or IBM.
At this point I might sign off with a three-letter vowel-less bit of text in caps and punctuated with exclamation points but then my comment might not get past the emus.
3
@Henry Su Great article! He should have written it without vowels.
@Steve Faiella, je vous en prie.
I'm going to be on the lookout for MUUMUU as an entry in a future SB.
1
@Henry Su
"I'm going to be on the lookout for MUUMUU as an entry in a future SB."
It's already happened once before:
2018-11-25 DGMOPR-U
1
Yike! 82 Comments already?
I admit I did the Saturday Stumper after the NYT puzzle, so that slowed me down.
This did not seem hard enough for a Saturday, but then yesterday's was too hard for a Friday, if you ask me. (I never made it here to whine about the obscure crossings (French phrase was a bit too too; square 47 way too specialized, though I guessed the C correctly; and there are MANY spellings for the Russische Holzpuppen!) Sheesh.
Oh, right. That was then; this is now. I assume that at some point Karmic justice will be enacted upon certain persons, and they will end up living in DOUBLE-WIDEs in Tornado Alley....
8
@Mean Old Lady
You made me smile, thanks.
2
Both yesterday's and today's puzzles reinforced my discovery that end-of-week puzzles should be solved with a night's sleep between start and finish.
Today I had 'slump' before before SLURP and 'curly' before CURVY.
I found Friday's harder but both were immensely satisfying when solved. Aerobics for the brain!
8
Not to whine, but AMAIN is not in the dictionary and has never been in my brain. However it seems to have a long crossword history.
Is it a nautical term perhaps?
`scuse! But check onelook.com and you’ll find AMAIN in no fewer than twenty online dictionaries. And - on the positive side - it won’t be a problem the next time you encounter the word.
Cheers!
2
@PeterW
Yes. I used xword which is where I learned the history, but I try to stay away from crossword sources.
The Oxford Dictionary of English (US and UK) do not have it. So I count that as not being in the dictionary
@Ray Salemi
Depends on where you look, I guess. I found a host of definitions for AMAIN, though they’re all ancient and I only got the word through crosses (and I resisted to the end.)
1
OK - - so today was “easier” than yesterday - which was “harder” than most Friday puzzles! Who really cares?!?! They are what they are - - and the correlation between puzzle and day is only a general pattern anyway - not a “contract”. For my part, I’d be happy to read a lot less carping on this topic and more on the character of the puzzles - or the words in them.
For instance:
I’ll give you SEAN, IAN, IIAN, JOHAN, SHAWN, JOHANN and JOHANNES and LOO, BANO, BAGNO, TOILETTE, TOIRE or HEAD for “John abroad” (see 54A) - - but EVAN?? Seems like a perfectly “domestic” name to me.
It was a wonderful puzzle and a nice lead-in to the very-final stretch for 2018. I look forward to the last two. (Maybe we should have a real “grinder” on Monday - just to shake things up a little? You know? - SURPRISE!!!)
3
@PeterW
EVAN is Welsh for John.
1
@PeterW I don't think, for the most part, it's carping. Many of us (myself included) like to read other people's takes on the puzzle to see if it matched up with theirs. I find that I'm usually with the majority, but the occasional times when I found something very difficult and most commenters post that it was easy (or vice versa), I'm intrigued to find out why.
2
@BarbJ
See last line of this quote from Wikipedia.
In Welsh, the name John is rendered as Ieuan (pronounced [ˈjəɨ̯an]), Ifan (pronounced [ˈɪvan]), Iwan (pronounced [ˈɪu̯an]), Ioan (pronounced [ˈjoːan]) or, borrowed from English, Siôn (pronounced [ˈʃoːn]). A pet form is Ianto (pronounced [ˈjantɔ]). Ifan eventually became rendered into English as Evan.
John (given name) - Wikipedia
2
Gimmie for GIVEME. The wages of poor grammer.
Proof there are GODS. About to make an offer on a house and the seller lowered the price to well below what I was planning to pay. Sister claimed I should have haggled but I choose not to anger the aforementioned GODS.
Thanks Robyn
6
@dk congrats on the house!
dk,
Awaiting confirmation that you not only *didn't* make the offer but *did* go to contract on the lower price.
(This was in [single] LA LAND?)
Flew through this late last night and thought I nailed it, but couldn't find my error (LUNE for LUNA) until this morning. Loved BALCONY SEATS!
Marjorie,
Do you think the BALCONY is supported by IBARS?
2
One of the quickest Saturdays ever after a devilish Friday. Now I understand what is meant by a "smooth" solve. I had MOO before MOM for the longest time. That cry gave us another favourite child's cry - ME ME!
I learned BAOBAB as a child from "Le petit prince" and never dreamed it would come in handy in Crossword land one day, (not to mention SB!)
Since I have started a Canadian Clue Corner, here is today's:
6D City across from Québec
2
@Andrew
I too had MOO and not only did I not want to let it go, but when I had to, I still thought MOO a more clever answer than MOM.
2
One of the quickest ever for me too, 1:07 longer than my personal best. And part of that was due to having typed a J for an I that took me a while to find when my puzzle wasn’t accepted as finished.
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this one. It was one of those that seems hard, but then you get a long answer and it begins to open things up, then it happens again, etc. The Northeast was the last to fall for me. Fall in the Northeast is beautiful.
3
@Dkhatt Ditto!
Way too easy for a Saturday puzzle. Back in the day when only Thursday and Sunday puzzles had a theme, this could have been a Wednesday puzzle.
1
I just looked up the meaning of the name Weintraub to see if it means, "Go to one's happy place." Well, no. But it does mean "grape." Maybe referring to a vintner. Who makes wine ... which actually does take me to a happy place.
So in a roundabout way Robin's names does mean "happy place" which is where she takes me every single puzzle.
This was such a pleasure ... thank you, Robin!
6
@Johanna
Whoops! That should be Robyn. My apologies.
1
What a great clue for BALCONY SEATS (5D). And for ITEM (15A). And for MUTT (16D). And for PLUMMET (23A). And for RUBY SLIPPERS (21D). And for JUNIOR PROM. Also, I laughed at the answer SLURP as the fine dining no-no. These are the pleasures that LIT UP this puzzle and that make me want to give it more than one THUMB up. Can we have SMORE soon, Robyn?
Yes, it was pretty easy for a Saturday, but it was also fun, and I found it challenging enough to hold my attention throughout. It serves as a wonderful antidote to yesterday's misery: no knowledge of arcane, arbitrary, forgettable trivia required. Robyn didn't construct this while scanning Wikipedia for the most obscure info she could find about every subject. She constructed it with imagination and playfulness and a focus on wordplay. And I say: Brava.
7
A bit of over-analysis about easy vs. hard. I don't know about others, but on late week puzzles I tend to get very few answers directly from the clues - usually just a few short ones. Beyond that it's looking both ways before I cross and working out enough crosses on the longer answers to see a possibility and going from there. So if a puzzle has a lot of very much in-the-language words and phrases as today's did, it doesn't matter how tricky the clue is; it's going to be a lot easier (at least for me). There were answers in this puzzle that for all practical purposes could have been unclued and I still would have worked them out.
Compare that to yesterday, where the 6 fifteen letter answers included two brand names, an author and a song title.
But wait, there's more. Look at the layout of the two puzzles. Those triple stacks of 15's in yesterday's are an impressive feat, but there is no direct connection between the two stacks, and in fact very little connection from top to bottom at all. Two separate puzzles for all practical purposes. And, aside from the six 15's, there were only two answers longer than 7 letters - two 10's.
Today's puzzle had fourteen answers of 9 letters or longer and look at the layout. This thing is just connected from section to section in multiple ways. With just a couple of exceptions, every long answer is going to lead you somewhere else. I really suspect that that had more to do with making this 'easier' than the answers themselves.
24
Rich,
Well constructed comment (as it were), and spot on.
5
@Rich in Atlanta
“looking both ways before I cross” is brilliant, Rich!
Now if I could take that advice... I’m usually crossing both ways before I look.
5
Shadow president- Putin of course, unfortunately nothing else would work across, but it was worth a try.
25
Love it! (Well, actually hate it)
9
My Saturday time was better than Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week. Maybe this is an end-of-year lesson on keeping an open mind and taking each day as it comes? I’ll choose to appreciate it that way.
6
After yesterday's mind masher, I was very happy to see a Robyn Weintraub puzzle! I'm not saying that Robyn creates easy puzzles, I'm saying that she and I almost always click as solver/constructor. I think that we'd have a lot of fun at cocktail parties! Favorite clues included "First digit" for THUMB, "Beam at" for LASE (am I the only one who wants to spell this as well as taser with a 'Z'?), "Cry over spilled milk?" for MOM, "Starting point" for egg, and most of the rest! Thanks as always, Robyn and Will!
5
@Steve F, MOM and EGG were great and, now that I think about it, complementary!
4
I absolutely love Robyn Weintraub's puzzles! Thank you for using common words in extraordinary ways to create clean, crisp, grounded, creative puzzles that require us to use our right brains.
4
Seemed very easy for a Saturday--I did it in my record time. Thanks for an encouraging quick start to the weekend.
1
I really enjoyed today's puzzle. Thanks!
1
Yesterday, after seeing that the constructor was David Steinberg, I came into the puzzle thinking, "Yay! This is going to take work, but it's going to be worth it; it's going to be a thing of beauty, and have the stamp of high quality." Today, after seeing Robyn's name, I thought, "Yay! Clever cluing, smiles, and snappy answers, fun fun fun." Both lived up to their hype!
8
Tough and edgy v. easy and smooth.
2
I wouldn't say it was the easiest, but I did complete this pretty quickly. I think the important thing was that the crossings were merciful and the quality of fills good. i.e. in her notes, Ms. Weintraub said she was told to re-work corners because the fills were subpar. This one had solid fills. The long entries were obtainable after a few crossings. The puzzle clicked, well, like a pair of RUBY SLIPPERS.
The long entries were all...how should I say this...anti-ALAIN RENE LESAGE. That is to say - they are all part of common parlance, if I may riff on yesterday's very-obscure-for-me long entry. They are all of the pedestrian variety - things that people who might not know who ALAIN RENE LESAGE is would say. I think that's what made this easier for most people. Even POPPYCOCK is well known, thanks to nut-filled candied popcorn and comedies featuring British stereotypes.
Not convinced? What was the hardest word in this puzzle, if you don't count abbreviations lke WPM, DJS, ACCT, TGIF, TSP, EXE, SRO and MBA? Maybe BAOBAB was the most obscure. The longest single word was ARTIFICIAL. Couple of names like MUIR and MIRO that verge on uncommon. Yesterday's? FECUND (judging by the comments), ELOCUTE, CELESTA, etc.
So while Mr. Steinberg's puzzle was a more people-who-(need-to-)know-a-lot Friday, Ms. Weintraub's puzzle more of a fanfare-for-the-common-man Saturday.
11
@Wen
Considering the etymology of "POPPYCOCK", it is an unusual choice of name for a treat especially if one's Dutch.
2
@Wen
Well put!
1
Absolutely smashed my Saturday best today by over 5 minutes, now sub 15…
Wonder what that is in WPM? Slightly better than 4.93, by my reckoning.
Got all but one of the long words almost straight away, they just seemed to pop into my head.
The Bee was also a breeze.
QB = 43 / 124, 1 pangram, no bingo.
Tot 4 5 6 7 8 9
C 10 6 4 - - - -
I 0 - - - - - -
L 5 4 1 - - - -
O 1 1 - - - - -
R 9 5 1 1 - 1 -
T 13 9 3 - 1 - -
V 5 2 - 1 1 - 1
Lots and lots of 4s and several -i plurals.
The last word to drop for me gave me trouble the last time too, it’s a compound verb related to agriculture that is more common in its noun form.
7
There are 6 4-letter Rs, not 5...
I really need to doublecheck these.
@Scott
You did double check...after you posted. :)
Thanks for the grid!
2
@Scott - I have 43 words but 129 points and yet have not achieved the QB screen. I think there are more words sitting around than in your chart.
4
I, too, had dog before LOP and was thinking salad dressing before opting for the house dressing. Definitely easier for me than Friday's puzzle.
1
Loved the puzzle. My first run through was pathetically unproductive but then things fell into place quickly. And nary a proper name or pop culture reference which will please some wordies. Very satisfying. On to the B!
1
@audreylm
"... nary a proper name"? See Wen's reply to suejean just above (earlier).
@Ron okay okay nary was a little strong. but very few, no?
I'm in the easiest Saturday ever camp, but it won't surprise anyone that that is not a complaint. After yesterday I needed a smooth fun solve. I think Mike R. said it perfectly with the "overall quality of the fill" made it a delight.
No one has commented on the lack of proper names, such a common complaint when there are several. I can only see two (but may have missed some) PENCE @12D and ELIA @51A.
Getting RUBY SLIPPERS was an AHA moment for me after struggling to think of a pair of film actors.
Thanks Robyn, I loved it.
7
@suejean
re: names/proper nouns, there was MIRO, MUIR, ABIE, VOLVO, EVAN (right below ELIA). But I'm a little surprised you said PENCE, especially being in the UK. I'd always give names that can also be common words a pass.
@Wen
OK , I missed MIRO & MUIR (knew both those) but don't count the others as they weren't specific people or places.
Our TSP reappears under a different guise. Who knew that 4.39 millilitres was also four thirds of a dram? Is 1/48 of a cup next? Only a mathematician, baker or chemist would know for sure, but for them ITSALIVING!
THUMBs up on a fun and smooth Saturday.
6
@BarbJ Actually, every Registered Nurse knows that a teaspoon is about 5 mLs. John RN
9
@John
I'd argue parents who've had to give their children 5ccs of children's Tylenol probably do too.
6
@BarbJ - bakers need to know the 48 t. = 1 c. correspondence, in order to effectively multiply or divide recipes. 48 is a great number, with so many divisors.
3
Many, though not all, of the clues were ridiculously easy for a Saturday; Wednesday or Thursday clues. What's up, Mr. Shortz?
1
@PaulSFO After Friday's disaster, some of us who are not masochists appreciated a solvable Saturday puzzle. Pain and frustration aren't my leisure-time goals. Thanks, Will.
6
@PaulSFO
I wouldn't describe them as "ridiculously easy." There were many "devious" clues (Caitlin's words). You were apparently on the right wavelength. Easy clues are found on Monday.
1
@Ron. I said "many", not "all". ;) Look at the clues for 11D and 52A. Overall, way too easy for a Saturday. It's the editor's job to insure consistency.
Like many other commenters, I found this puzzle to be relatively easy for a Saturday edition; I completed it during my short subway ride home from work. My favorite clues were 9D (obvious only after I had the terminal G's from 13A and 17A), 15A (my initial thought was SO-SO), 48A (read "cry" as a verb and not as a noun), and 52D (maybe there is someone out there who doesn't say IT'S A LIVING?).
I had the same initial response as Caitlin to the clue for 55A after entering OLD in 56A (solving left to right with the bottom-most stacks). In my view, this is an example of what cognitive psychologists refer to as priming, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/priming, and constructors and puzzle editors should consider this potential mechanism when cluing for misdirection.
Last but not least, I want to comment on what I perceived to be a lament from Ms. Weintraub: "But with each Roman numeral or obscure government agency acronym that I delete, I can’t help but wonder if that’s the bit of unsightly glue that could someday hold together a 54 word masterpiece." I couldn't agree more. Crossword construction is inevitably an exercise in trade-offs because of the constraints imposed by the grid. To feast, as diners, on the choicest gourmet morsels that our chef has selected for the main course, we sometimes have to be content with less-than-imaginative sides that are there to provide the starch and veggies. I for one am perfectly okay with that.
6
Oh, and welcome back, Caitlin! I hope you spotted some cryptids in the Caribbean.
@Henry Su
Can you (or anyone else) explain what's so special about a 54-word puzzle? (54 words *total*?!)
Just thinking out loud - or on virtual paper. 54 words precisely isn’t the point. The fewer words there are, the fewer black blocks there are - at least in general. A 15x15 puzzle has to have at least 30 words, right? 15 across and 15 down. The more black blocks there are breaking up the rows and columns, the more words there are and the shorter they’ll tend to be. Shorter words with fewer crosses are easier to construct, I’d imagine. But then I’ve never constructed a puzzle, so take this with a modicum of NaCl.
1
Perhaps the puzzle gods were with me or this was an easy Saturday but either way I far exceeded my quickest Saturday solve!
2
After working so hard on Friday's puzzle, I was almost afraid to try Saturday's puzzle. Tonight my brain was on the right wavelength so I had no problem with most of the misdirection. I too had DOG before LOP, but decided that I really liked SANDPAPER and knew that PD at the start of a word wouldn't work (unless the clue referenced PD James). And the best part of the evening was completing the puzzle while listening to the Great Performances Tribute to Leonard Bernstein.
3
"...knew that PD at the start of a word wouldn't work (unless the clue referenced PD James)."
Hand up!
2
THUMBs up for this SAND PAPER smooth Robyn Weintraub EXEcution.
I'm not one to make too much of difficulty vs. day of the week, so the impression that it was easier than a typical Saturday NYT puzzle doesn't bother me at all. What I do find remarkable is the overall quality of the fill, with plenty of fresh entries such as TIME MACHINE, RUBY SLIPPERS; all the long stacks, really. "Two stars, maybe" an ITEM? "Highland bodies" are LOCHS? Those are great! I'm still chuckling over the abundance of clever cluing.
Thanks Robyn, let's have S'MORE!
18
@Mike R, yeowtch! I couldn't catch how "Two stars, maybe" = ITEM until I read it in your post, and *still* don't see MOM crying over spilled.... [oh] Never mind. Has to be, um, a fairly wimpy MOM...
Anyway, thanks for your help!!
1
@Leapfinger I think it is the child who's crying "MOM" for help with the spill.
3
A Saturday PR. It would have been even quicker had I not stumbled with TEVAS for LEVIS,which fouled up CRIED and LASE. CAPE was also a hitch. But truly a relief after whiffing on Thursday and Friday this week.
I do love it when a random word like POPPYCOCK comes to mind with no hesitation. And maybe being a native Tennessean made DOUBLEWIDE a no-brainer for me? ;)
4
@BHanck DOUBLEWIDE jumped out at me too - a native Missourian;-)
2
For the native New Yorker in me, DOUBLEWIDE would be a 36-to-40-foot-wide brownstone. But enough time spent in rural America made the "Mobile home designation" a gimme. (My wife's paternal grandparents retired to a single wide.)
I also had TEVAS for LEVIS - pondered both but thought the "kick" in the clue meant shoes. And TASE seemed like a perfectly good answer for "beam at."
3
Cute little puzzle; I agree with earlier posters that it was pitched a little on the easy side.
Thumbs are important to musicians, but their meaning and designation varies from instrument to instrument, hand to hand. For anatomists as well as for pianists and harpists, the thumb is indeed number 1.
Hallux.
3
@David Connell
That'll be 'pollex', Handsome.
3
Today was as easy as yesterday was hard. Your mileage may vary.
12
@Rodzu My thoughts exactly. It is interesting to ponder why they were so different in difficulty. I'm still pondering.
1
@Wags I agree completely. Yesterday was a VERY difficult Friday. Today was a VERY easy Saturday. Happy New Year!
A MUTT of a puzzle; I love mutts. Enough low hanging BAOBABs to go quickly, though it was not an elegant quick. I went slowly enough to avoid a SLURPee headache. My favorite clue/answer was at 21D, made easier by the answer’s recent appearance. Jack stepped back and I liked the answer better that way...
This one was surprisingly easy for a Saturday puzzle.
I also thought it was pretty easy going for a Saturday. Did like CAPE as ranch alternative -- first thought of a salad dressing! Had PLUnged before PLUMMET. was enthusiastically LIT UP at the finish!
Dang. Super quick. And fun. Nice, after some of the slow slogs earlier this week!
2
Nice and easy to close out Saturdays for ‘18. Yes, solve time was way faster than average for this day of the week.
Enjoyed the cluing... especially college division; and the clue for AVIATORS had me thinking of saints
Was I doing the same puzzle as the first commenters? I found this to be much harder than the Friday puzzle! I did pretty well in the west side, but had problems in the eastern half. RIVERBOATS before STEAMBOATS and DOG before LOP were just the start of it. I did have DOUBLEWIDE but was having trouble finding Downs to work with it--didn't know ARLO and was thinking salad dressings instead of houses. Overall, I was only a little slower than my average Saturday time, but it felt a lot slower! So it was a really good workout for me.
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@Liz B
Im split between the early posts and yours..it seemed really really hard..then it clicked one square at a time...and i did it in a fast time. As you said...it felt slow...but i think with long words it wasnt that slow.
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@Liz B
I'm with you...my time on Friday's was just under 12 minutes. At that time today, I only had BOXED, EXE, CUBIT, and STAT! The only thing that got me past that point was managing to guess JUNIORPROM through the I of CUBIT, and then slowly but surely...
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@Liz B
Hand up for DOG before LOP and salad dressing before houses.
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Very easy, 2 standard deviations below average solution time.
@Brian Wow, how do you know your standard deviation? Do you track all your puzzle times? That's some serious dedication!
Yes, I update a spread sheet about every month or so.
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Glad to see someone else does this. I've got a seriously complex spreadsheet with all my times and stats, much nicer than the basic stats provided by the nyt
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One of the easiest Saturday puzzles for me ever, just 17 seconds off my Saturday record. If I’d been at my desktop, I probably would have beaten that time, but I did it on my iPad.
Love those baobabs. BAOBAB seems to be one of Spelling Bee's favorites, too.
I hope everyone is having a great holiday season. I'm having a good time in rainy Seattle, cooking for New Year's and talking off time to hit some of the great restaurants in this city. And lots of family time.
I'll try to check in now and then. Got to get to my shiitake on the stove now.
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too easy for a sat.
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@weinie Agreed.
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