Enjoyable and satisfying, thanks! Though, started off looking quite daunting. Particularly appreciated the intersecting spanners (or, should I say "wrenches" this being Saturday?) and 52A Biggie, 17A Finishing sentence.
I had to traipse 6 blocks out of my way to get a copy of the Times from a newsstand and plunk down $3, because Times Home Delivery didn't deliver today to my entire building. So I'll pay the puzzle the highest praise to say it was worth the schlep. @Mathgent emailed me to say I'd like the puzzle, so I didn't read the email, snapped my computer shut and made the pilgrimage.
Had P------THOME RUN and had no idea what it would be.
Had ScARFS initially at 40A and the C gave me CHASTE for "marriageable, quaintly". A bit TOO quaintly, I thought and was happy to get some crosses that enabled me to see NUBILE instead. So I changed to SNARFS -- as I always am poised to do, or vice versa, when that clue arises.
And I loved VIRTUE SIGNALING. I think it's clued fairly here and I absolutely do think it's a Thing.
Avoided reading the blog all day. Will read it now. I'll also read @Mathgent's email.
2
whew. my first saturday puzzle done and dusted. this felt like a beast! thanks everyone, for your insight with some of those trickier clues!
3
Is there a way to remove an outlier from your stats? One day I left the window open and for some reason the timer kept going, so I ended up with 4 hours plus for my solve time. I realize that this could be abused (grin) but this data point is truly out there.
3
@Margaret I'm betting if you ask the people at the support link they can clear it up for you.
Very hard and commensurately satisfying. This is by far the longest a Saturday has ever taken me. Loved it.
5
I especially liked the way OLE OLE echoes ELOI (ELOI), the latter just above NAIL HOLE. (Interesting that the 3rd, 5th and 7th verses of “Hot, Hot, Hot” end in “O Lord.” No, that didn't come off the top of my head.) Where else but in a well-wrought Saturday X-word can you find the agony of the cross in parallel with the jaunty fever of calypso? Somehow this juxtaposition rang a bell, but I couldn’t quite recall where I’d seen it before. Then it came to me: the old Belafonte album where "Shake, Shake, Shake, Sonora" is followed by the spiritual “Take My Mother Home.”
3
Usually I enjoy a challenging puzzle on Saturday, but today I had a work event that left me mentally exhausted, and my brain just can't.🙃 I think I'll hit the archives and do some early week puzzles instead.
4
After a few early week puzzles, my brain felt refreshed and warmed up, and was ready to tackle this one.
I enjoyed PIZZA DELIVERIES, and was relieved it wasn't another golf reference. IPA for "Hoppy medium?" actually made me groan out loud.
2
Ahhh, the left turn clues of Peter Collins certainly makes for an AMUSing Saturday. My ME TIME was a personally SENSATIONALIZED WANING of post high plains trip STUPOR... no NUBILE VIRTUE SIGNALING here, my friends.
About 3 minutes over my mean Saturday time. Two day streak! Woot woot!
:-)
4
Sitting with my sister who speaks Khmer (the native tongue in Cambodia), the answer for 25 across is the name given to cambodian currency, apparently. the word used for bread type products is typically nom bong.
2
Laura,
"Bread" is slang for currency.
7
@Laura
No wonder you can’t buy any actual Cambodian bread in Texas. A loafsize quantity of anything called nom bong would be a felony in our fine state.
:)
10
@Sam Lyons,
Even in Austin?
Boulder has a restaurant called SNARF Burger. Surprisingly, the name hasn't kept it from being popular
3
@ColoradoZ
I think the snarf vs. scarf discussion is long overdue. I grew up in a state next door to yours. While scarfing was rampant, I never heard the ‘snarf’ variant till I started doing crossword puzzles. How regional is it?
3
@Sam Lyons
I only heard scarf growing up in Iowa
2
Sam,
It may be overdue in *today's* comments, but it's been hashed out here quite a few times before.
CZ,
I only heard scarf growing up in New York (and they were only scarfing when I got to Iowa).
2
I loved the tricky clues such as “things that are brokered, and needed but couldn’t think of METIME.
What a lovely Saturday puzzle to enjoy! Thanks Mr. Collins for the fun puzzle!
*“But it could have been worse. It could have been “The old Ponte Vecchio bridge.”*
Or “The old Il Ponte Vecchio bridge”.
Sorry for the lack of context. This should have been a reply to an earlier comment.
While we are in Italian mode, I didn’t think much of the clue for ERI (5D). It’s an attempt to avoid the overused “___ tu”, but just too vague. Like WAS — form of to be.
1
@Jack Sullivan
5D may be a bit clunky, but I have to give kudos to the constructor and/or editor for not clueing ERI with the ubiquitous “___ tu.” There really is no way to clue it with anything other than Italian or Latin grammar. As it turns out, ERI has no other usage/definition in English except the really obscure, “The name given in Assam to one of the wild silkworms, which feeds on the castor-oil bean, and is more frequently domesticated than the other native varieties.”
Fun fact: how many modern languages besides Italian have ERI as part of their vocabulary? Nine.
These:
Elfdalian
Estonian
Ido
Ingrian
Japanese
Javanese
Karelian
Sranan Tongo
Turkish
2
@Sam Lyons
You are evidently in a good place -- healing well enough to be vigorous and actively inquisitive but still healing enough to have time to indulge. Thanks. I've been enjoying your . . . difficulties?
1
So many mistakes to overcome today. Figured maybe pawnbrokers brokered PAWNS, which didn’t work with INJAIL which also wasn’t right. And RETIRE AND SCARF just had to be but weren’t. Loved NAILHOLE and all the grid-spanners. Tough but fun Saturday puzzle for me.
Figured I was doomed until I looked up Joan of Arc in a history resource and changed rENter to TENANT, and then things started clicking. Not the week's easiest!
Why would Caitlin expect anyone to "remember" SVEN? I thought Frozen was a kiddy movie. I checked Frozen's cast in my favorite reference early on last night.
"Why would Caitlin expect anyone to "remember" SVEN? I thought Frozen was a kiddy movie."
kilaueabart,
Perhaps because some of us here have kiddies or grandkiddies (or know people who do)?
4
@kilaueabart
The four names are an inside Joke:
Hans Kristof Anna Sven -->
Hans Christian Anderson
7
@Robert Michael Panoff
TIL this!
3
Good, chewy puzzle. Interesting cross: the Ecce Homo and Jesus clue. Hey Caitlin, thanks for the Pogo link. I thought I knew all things Pogo but that recording is new to me.
1
@Petaltown --
My family had the record AND the Pogo songbook! I followed Caitlin's link and had a flashback Thursday on a Saturday. The entire album is available in a separate video.
1
I had LEFT HOOK for past hanging but NAILHOLE wasn’t as clever.
5
@James Hamje
LEFT HOOK is definitely second order wordplay.
6
Came together nicely in a faster than average solve time. Enjoyed PIZZADELIVERIES (who doesn’t)!
2
Unfamiliar use throws me off now and again, as "IN STIR" did for "finishing a sentence". I think I know "in the stir" just not "in stir". Cynicsm doesn't help either, as in LAMEST before TAMEST! :) SCARFS before SNARFS. SW corner OLE OLE OLE!
TAIL, deTAIL, TILL, ifaTALL, TILER, TULSA, TENANT, TAMEST, and maybe even sTUPOR. No help to solve, but fun to find!
2
@Robert Michael Panoff
To me, IN STIR is rotting in jail, not getting out.
2
Others have noted Pilate crossing Eloi, near nailholes. Interesting on any day, but today, September 14 is the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, also known as the Exaltation of the Cross, or simply, Holy Cross. Amazing coincidence.
Info from Wiki:
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated every year on September 14, recalls three events: the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena, the dedication of churches built by Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Calvary; and the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem in AD 629 by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius
The feast was observed in Rome before the end of the seventh century
11
There's no better feeling than turning the impossible into a correctly completed Saturday NYT puzzle. Thank you for that, Peter Collins! And, yes, your clue for PIZZA DELIVERIES was super clever.
I loved the long entries today and learned along the way. Don't read "The Other" blog if you are sensitive to rants. A certain blogger went nuts over VIRTUE SIGNALING. That's an expression I learned today.
Again, thanks, Peter, for a most enjoyable Saturday solve.
14
@Johanna where is the OTHER blog?
@Rfm
You'll find it under "Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle".
And fasten your seat-belt; the ride is frequently on the bumpy side.
Overall this was a fine and fun Saturday crossword. That being said, I was hoping to be SPARED the indignity of yet another noun being used as a verb --- in bowling one makes a spare so "picked up a split" would techically be "made a spare." C'MON, grammatical correctness can be boring and puzzles are supposed to be fun, right?
2
8Down was an unknown for me, and after working it out with the crosses, I asked non-puzzle biologist wife, "Are there fish called REMORAS?" "Sure," she said right away, "They're symbiotic with sharks."
"I knew that," I replied.
19
Not a parrothead, obviously, or you’d know remoras from Jimmy Buffett’s “Fins”:
“But now she feels just like a remora, because the school’s still close at hand / Just behind the reef are the big white teeth of the sharks that swim on the land.”
3
@archaeoprof, you wouldn't be wrong if you told Mrs. Archaeoprof that REMORAS are suckers for sharks.
5
@Rick in VA: de gustibus non disputandum. I do like Buffett with Alan Jackson on "Five O'Clock Somewhere." but Jimmy is clearly the weaker link there.
1
Having started my Saturday with a splendidly challenging workout at the Y and an even more splendidly challenging workout with this puzzle, I am ready for anything this weekend. Thanks to the constructor and editors!
2
I keep getting warnings that this is my last article....even though I just paid for the renewal of my puzzle subscription. Sheesh.
MOL,
Deb reported here yesterday that "the team" was trying to get that straightened out.
2
@Mean Old Lady
That sounds, to me, more like you aren’t signed on with your Internet account for the “paper” - - which is how you view WordPlay.
MOL,
Time flies. It was two days ago:
THURSDAY PUZZLE — Administrivial alert! Thanks to all who reported that Wordplay was pulled behind the pay wall. The web team is working on the issue with large amounts of coffee and power tools. We appreciate your patience as we rescue the emus.
But just for the record, Wordplay lives in front of the pay wall so that the conversation about the puzzle can be a continuous one. If you find that you are being asked to subscribe in order to read this column, please send an email to [email protected] and report the issue to our Customer Care team.
4
I had to google a few things, as usual for end of week puzzles, but this is the first week ever that I completed the Thursday, Friday and Saturday puzzles without using any of the electronic “help” options that the puzzle app provides.
Do I get a Citation? :-)
6
Sounds to me like you just earned three gold stars and a three-game streak. Did you complete each one in a day?
@Margaret Unfortunately, I got a late start on Thursday, so I didn’t get three gold stars.
@Roberta, never mind the gold star. Three clean solves of respectably late-week puzzles? DEFINITELY earns a citation -- the good kind!
1
Obscure terms, incorrect definitions, unknown/unheard of phrases.....TERRIBLE crossword!
1
Robert,
I'm sorry for your loss.
17
@Robert
Obscure ≠ terrible.
Obscure = I didn't know, and now I have an opportunity to learn.
Welcome to Saturday!
10
@Robert
Obscure? Yes! It's why Saturday's puzzles are my joy!
All phrases were familar to me, but then again, I've been alive for a long time. Hope the rest of your day isn't so terrible.
5
Relatively easy once one learns to be suspicious of every clue. The Shakespeare play and the symbiotic shark-posse fishes were a big help. DETAILS AT ELEVEN held me up for a while.
I used to type papers (35 cents a page, 50 cents per if you wanted me to correct spelling and punctuation) and UBI supra never ever came up....and I typed for a very broad spectrum of scholars.
VIRTUE SIGNALING, eh? Hmm. Feeling cynical, Peter A. Collins? (I did assign myself some Virtue Points this morning for sweeping up all of the love-bugs that slyly creep into the house via the front door, where they mate and die....but it's a private game.)
2
@Mean Old Lady
True, Saturday clues can be tricky at almost every turn. You get good at them by learning all the possible meanings of a word (sentence, bread, hanging, shadow, flat, puts away, to name a few just in the across clues) and you can do well starting with clues that have only one answer.
Unless there's another Shakespeare I'm unfamiliar with, there's a limited pool of titles to choose from, and once I saw that WELL didn't work, I went for MEASURE.
REMORAS came a little later for me, but they were an anchor, since they were factual.
1
Steve, um....did you mistake me for a NOOB?
I'm doing the Saturday Stumper now-- have 50% (the entire East) completed. Possibly this is all I'll get, but we shall see. For my money, it is more difficult than the NYT Saturday puzzles, and when I have found the Times puzzle too easy, it's a good follow-up. Stan Newman's Newsday puzzle is easiest to access via brainsonly.
4
@Mean Old Lady
Nope. Just piggy backing on your comment for those who are.
1
The clue to 32A drew me out of my “retirement” – temporarily.
Jesus’ outcry: is in Hebrew, not Aramaic, the language commonly spoken at that time, but the extant version, “ELOI, ELOI, lama sabachthani”, contains two transcription errors:
In Hebrew “My God” is either אֵלִי (Eli - pronounced:
ai-lee) or אֶלֹוֹהַי (Elohi - pronounced: e lo hi), whereas “forgotten me” is שְׁבָקְתָני (Shevakthani).
12
@Amitai Halevi
It is always good to check with one who knows.
Toda raba!
2
Amitai,
Good to see you!
2
@Amitai Halevi
Nice to see your ELOIquent comment. You’ve been missed!
3
I enjoyed this Saturday puzzle! Fair amount of crunch, but the old "make-two-passes-leave-it-for-an-hour-and-come-back strategy worked like a charm! It never ceases to amaze me how the brain works away on getting the answers in the background of whatever else you're doing.
Liked all of the long entries, which needed a good number of crosses to figure out, and I found the fill to be perfect for a Saturday. Thanks Peter, Will and team!
9
@Steve Faiella I always wonder about this. Is it really that our brains are working on the answer in the background (like a multi-processor), or is it that we come back to the puzzle with a different perspective that allows us to solve clues we missed the first time.
6
@Roberta
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.
4
I’m sure it’s a combination of the two, but I can attest to the former in the case of the Spelling Bee. Often I’ll put it down and go out to mow the lawn - and in the middle of thinking about other things, answers will pop into my head. The only trick is remembering them long enough to enter them when I’m back in the house!
4
This was an unqualified “SOLVE”, (no column peeking or research in any other form - - as in NONE!!), and on a Saturday too. Haven’t done that in a while. AND I bested my average. I’m just basking in the glow of my self-satisfaction. (And I’m modest too - - have you noticed?)
See previous comment about removing a “blockage” by solving the MINI. It worked!
I too enjoyed your cluing for PIZZA DELIVERIES, Mr. Collins. I also liked cluing for IN STIR and TILER. “Fix a flat?” Was a stretch - - but I got it. Very clever!
So was crossing PILATE and ELOI.
VIRTUE SIGNALING was new to me - but that’s what it HAD to be when the letter pattern started to emerge.
Didn’t “know” RIEL or EDATE but they fell to the crosses.
Enjoyed taking a mental trip to ROUEN and FIRENZA. Don’t think I want to visit the RUHR for the coal though. Maybe wines?
Now - - I’ll read other commentary, probably find out that everyone thinks this one was “easy” - - and my ego will be somewhat reduced in size.
4
@PeterW
Your spelling of FIRENZA evoked memories of one of the worst cars of the 70s-80s, another being the Chevrolet CITATION.
1
@Andrew
Re: Chevy CITATION
Who in the name of General Motors thought it would be a good idea to name a car that had to be coaxed out of first gear after a SPEEDING TICKET?
@PeterW
See? And you were calling me a masochist the other day for pining all week for the wonder that is the Saturday puzzle.
It’s almost as good as homemade cheesecake with your morning coffee.
I renamed the Ponte Vecchio to alte Brücke, moved it to yesterday's capital city of BERN and had it spanning the Aare river
6
@ColoradoZ
Wow! You had a busy day! :)
6
@ColoradoZ
How in the WORLD did you move all that stonework via the Internet???
2
@Steve Faiella
And the bridge is now for sale.
5
Whew! So much to go back and fix today! goON, ScARFS, rEnter, PIZZADELIVERers, mIRrorSIGNALING (I know it doesn't make any sense, but its the only kind of SIGNALING I could think of), and probably more.
This puzzle was a masterwork, what Saturdays are for!
Beautiful photo of Florence! I will be thinking of it all day, and wishing I were there.
2
@Ann
.
Bread before PIZZA and ScARF before SNARF, but that one's always an either/or depending on the constructor's needs. Still haven't looked up what VIRTUAL SIGNALLING means.
Cheers.
2
@vaer
Gee, I really mangled VIRTUE SIGNALING. Still don't know what it means.
2
@vaer
I like VIRTUAL SIGNALING better. It’s what we’re all doing on here, though the gap between VIRTU[AL] and RIEL grows SMALLer everyday.
—Couldn’t resist an 8th comment because VIRTUAL SIGNALING deserves a hand, and
@Ann, I read your comment and sighed (Florence and Venice) pleasantly.
2
WHOEEE!! That was the longest solve time on a mini that I’ve ever produced.
I always “Solve” Mini’s - never “Complete” - so a stubborn answer is never “researched” in any way.
Today, “Apple Press Release” had me hung up for long enough to run through the alphabet. For some reason, I ran through it backwards in my head and barely recognized the answer when I got to “C”.
Not that I have THAT “blockage” cleared away - - - on to the full-size Saturday puzzle - - which, somehow, looks smaller today.
1
@PeterW - you will find today's full sized puzzle quite the fatberg, speaking in blockage terms.
The mini is quite good - loved the theme for CIDER and SOD.
@PeterW
If you always "Solve" minis, you should be able to solve the regular puzzle. It's only logical. Do each corner as a mini. If you always can solve a mini, you can always do a corner. Take a break when you're ready to stop. Once you've done all the corners, move to the middle. You'd be surprised how what teachers call "chunking"--breaking something big down into smaller "digestible" chunks--can make a problem more easily solvable.
4
@Steve L
Thanks. I’ll add “chunking” to my solving routine. It will come right before the “give up and peek” stage.
I may have heeded your advice without having read it (yet) as I also SOLVED the Saturday puzzle.
Good workout today. I had a few gimmes/guessables early on and then working out the 15's one by one was the key to getting the rest. Three of them came fairly smoothly. SENSATIONALIZES took a bit more work and I've never heard of VIRTUESIGNALING so that was the last to fall. I think I'd be perfectly happy if I never hear it again.
Noticed that there are actually 3 OLEs in the SW corner.
Never heard of 10D NOR do I want credit for it, voiced Tom viciously.
Solid solve with only a few errant vowels.
Bowled for SPARED slowed me down.
@dk
“Neither rain NOR snow NOR sleet NOR hail . . . appointed rounds.”
Or something like that.
2
PeterW,
dk was playing with 44A (NOR), which I'm quite sure he understood, to comment on 10D (which you reported you didn't know either).
This had everything for me. First pass desperation. Guesses that panned out. Guesses that didn't. Sudden "Got it!"s. Splat fills after a get. Mischievous clues to brighten the path (for PIZZA DELIVERIES, RESOLE, NAIL HOLE, TSA). One thorny area (NW) that fought me to the last word. An ever-so-satisfying and gratifying victory.
A trek to relish. Thank you Peter Collins. You've earned your A.
9
BOWLED took my MEASURE and SPARED neither SENS(E) NOR PINCH, which shoulda been a gimme as I could see Matt Stairs in my mind’s eye — brawny, goateed, hitting left-hand, dressed in Oakland A’s green and yellow — and yet PINCH HIT just couldn’t fit. Thus, the NW took as long for me as the rest of the puzzle. All in all, I loved it all, with the Dryden quote (FURY) being my sleeper favorite.
I knew that “Evidence of a past hanging” had to be misdirection because playing that one straight would have been too much strange fruit.
Hey, why the need for Italy after Florence in the photo?
OVER.
5
Strange fruit reference is just in bad taste.
2
@Niall H
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to be, but I understand.
1
@Puzzlemucker, sometimes you leave me more breathless than AGOG. The less hardy soul would find it late season for a holiday, I expect.
Coincidentally, I just heard the other day (NPR?) that some police-type official who was always after Lady Day took out an injunction (or whatever the official banning was at the time) against her singing "Strange Fruit" in public venues. Nevertheless she continued, and routinely closed every show with it. And yes, Billie Holiday did spend some time IN STIR.
Anyone not familiar with that song should do just a little background research.
7
Nice puzzle! all went very smoothly until I got seriously stymied in the NE as I was soooo sure that RENTER was right. Finally yielded to the obvious TSA, and things quickly fell into place.
2
@Rodzu
Hand up for not wanting to let go of renter. I should know better - when I dig in is when I get stuck.
2
Well, it wasn’t GOOD ART but it was ART.
This was one of my fastest Saturdays thanks to some shrewd guesswork. With only the side by side Hs in 15A, I figured it was either wrong or it was PINCH HIT. HOME RUN came later. I guessed OMEGA with only the E. I too had BOWLED before SPARED, as well as RENTER before TENANT.
I liked seeing OLE OLE above RESOLE. It gave us a third OLE for free. I didn’t know IN STIR or REMORAS. I also didn’t know RIEL the Cambodian currency, but I knew Louis RIEL, an extremely important and controversial figure in Canadian history.
From the OPENING clue till the WANING moments this was an enjoyable experience.
6
@Andrew, that third one was a hi-RES OLE. The other two were low-RES OLEs.
I should have guessed a real card-carrying Canadian would scoop me on Louis RIEL. I initially entered that as RIAL, so it definitely caught my attention when it changed to the Louis surname.
Which is probably why I noticed that Louis RIEL's name is Currency Currency. Valuable information? In a sense.
1
@Andrew
And a Canadian holds the record for most PINCH HIT HOMERs in America's pastime
3
@ColoradoZ
Yes, 23 of Matt's 262 career homers were pinch hits.
SPELLING BEE
N A G L R T Y
Words: 41, Points: 196, Pangrams: 1
A x 5
G x 13
N x 8
R x 5
T x 8
Y x 2
4L x 12
5L x 9
6L x 13
7L x 4
8L x 1
9L x 2
4 5 6 7 8 9 Tot
A 1 1 2 - 1 - 5
G 3 2 4 2 - 2 13
N 3 4 1 - - - 8
R 2 1 2 - - - 5
T 1 1 4 2 - - 8
Y 2 - - - - - 2
Tot 12 9 13 4 1 2 41
44
@Mari
Thanks, @Mari. Other than the onomatopoetic T-7, which, in my opinion, deserves a fanfare of raspberries, found this reasonable and enjoyable.
3
@PaulyD Yes, me too. Helped by the fact that 5 or 6 of this letter combination have occurred in recent spelling Bees, so the pattern of words was familiar.
2
@Mari --
I'm so excited -- my sleeve style has finally been included! Four words to go....
7
@Caitlin Thanks for all your crossword hints. There were a lot of phrases new to me and my puzzle was sparse before I checked in here.
2
LETTER BOXED
I gor N-S(11), S-T(5).
There are certainly shorter solutions out there.
Neither TUNAFISH nor SHIRAZ were accepted. Anyway it is not a pairing I would particularly recommend!
While I was not surprised that a common four-letter expletive was not allowed, apparently the past tense of the offensive verb is fine!
1
@Andrew
I got the same and also think there is shorter
1
@Andrew
I-A(9), A-S(6)
2
I got Queen Bee, but I’m not allowed to post any hints as someone complained yesterday and 9 people agreed. You’ll have to wait for someone else to post, sorry. I don’t feel like starting a flame war here.
5
@Kevin Davis
Congrats on getting to Queen Bee so quickly! I suggest posting the grid and word counts as others have done, but omit posting obvious hints in your initial post.
3
@Kevin Davis can ngrats on QB! I’m still just trying to get to Genius. That usually satisfies me well enough.
I was surprised to hear there was some trouble yesterday. People often ask for hints and I know I always appreciate them, both the general hints to all and special requests. If a person doesn’t want to see any hints, it seems easy enough to just look at the grid and not involve oneself with the chatter until one is done.......
11
@Kevin Davis
Hi Kevin, I went back and looked at yesterday’s comments, and it looks to me as though no one complained about hints; in fact, as is usual with most Spelling Bee commentary, the comments were mostly people asking for and/or thanking people for clues.
Some people do get antsy if Bee comments stray outside their designated thread (generally the first person to start the thread labels it SPELLING BEE and everyone keeps their replies in that thread). (Makes it easier for non-Bee fans to avoid the topic.)
Meanwhile, please keep the hints (and grids and first two letters lists) coming!
12
Fun puzzle today, and I was happy to see the reference to the excellent Woody Guthrie Centre in my onetime home town TULSA
5
@Barbara
One famous descendant of Okies, Merle Haggard (born in Bakersfield, CA, as opposed to Bakersfield, Italy), singing a song by the greatest Okie of all time, Woody Guthrie, that connects to the puzzle — “Jesus Christ”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e0f78MDOUJw
2
In what sense is "IN STIR" "a specific term from history," any more so than ECCE HOMO or any of the other hundreds or thousands of old terms (slang or otherwise) which have been used in these puzzles?
4
Paul,
I thought Caitlin meant STIR is very close to what the Romans would have said -- "historically" -- for the same thing (see her "example" link).
2
@Barry
Maybe so. That linked article was a bit murky. The OED is uncertain about the origin.
About 25 years ago, I was visiting Cambodia with my wife to be. Nearby one of the sites at Angkor, a little girl, about age seven, asked me if I wanted to buy a postcard. I told her I didn't have any money. She replied, 'Excuse me sir, but if you didn't have any money, you wouldn't be here'. Having been totally schooled by a seven year old and lesson learned, I bought a few postcards. That girl would be in her 30's now. I hope she's having a happy life.
21
@Vincent Poisson
She's probably running a major corporation these days! :)
5
No LIE. Two 15 acrosses crossing three 15 downs in perfect symmetry is an amazing feat of construction
9
@ColoradoZ
Great point, CZ. And PIZZA DELIVERIES almost seems like it could be an announcer’s metaphor for PINCH HIT HOME RUNs.
“Oh boy folks, Matt Stairs just delivered another large pie and this ball game is all tied up!”
5
TIL that golfers either never LIE about their handicap, or possibly do but aren’t concerned that they might get caught, and/or are secure enough in their their golfhood so that other golfers’ potential lack of honesty as to their respective handicap concerns them not.
The LIE angle — therein LIES the angst.
6
@Sam Lyons
My last post of the day (can’t resist given what you have done with LIEs): Golf is a game of LIEs.
And, Sam, don’t think you were around when Deb created a Wordplay t-shirt (and other Wordplay gear) using her daughter’s design, which can be purchased on redbubble.com. Deb was donating a share of the profits to a charity. Can vouch for the quality of the t-shirt (note that there are different colors available). Here’s the link:
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/p/39655794.I57B7.unisex-tee-w
4
@Puzzlemucker
Oh, that’s awesome. I love the crossed pencils. Let the foil work begin! I’m adopting “Plumbum gladio fortiori” for my heraldic motto (apologies to Lord Lytton for the paraphrasing AND the co-opting).
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@Sam Lyons
I had a feeling you might appreciate it! If I can find the original comments she made about it, I’ll try to post a link later. The charity that gets part of the proceeds is called ProLiteracy.
2
For once my suspicion/intuition/whatever caused me to insert SPARED right off the bat, but that was the only easy one until much later. DETAILS TO FOLLOW was another one that came quickly, but then I wanted "Hypes" to be a noun, so SENSATIONALIsms went in first, until OLE OLE corrected it.
The other themers got at least a third filled in before I could finish filling them out.
EGRESS, SVEN, SMALLS, DARIN were gimmes, but there was a lot of slogging through the rest of the puzzle before they were entered.
3
When I looked at this Saturday puzzle I almost closed the app. What a slog for me, but I made it (with help).
7a: I tried all sorts of foppish accoutrements until landing on CRAVAT.
5a: TIL that RIEL is a Cambodian bread.
23d: Did anyone else end up with OMEJA before changing 34a to GIBE? Just me? Oh!
47a: What does the EDATE function do - automatically fill in the date? Just curious.
52a: Loved seeing Biggie SMALLS. This helped with the SE corner. Here’s Notorious B.I.G. in the Hypnotize video with NYT Crossword frequenter P Diddy (Sean Combs). Will Biggie’s murder ever be solved? https://youtu.be/glEiPXAYE-U
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@Pani Korunova
In the EDATE function, you enter a starting date and the number of months from that date and it will return the same day of that number of months in the future ( or past, if a minus). EDATE of 9/13/2019,-1 is 8/19/2019
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@ColoradoZ
Error:will return 8/13/2019
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@Pani
“Bread” here, as often clued this way, refers to money. RIEL is the currency of Cambodia.
4
I tried to force "retire" into the grid two times, once for "fix a flat?" and again for "break from the rat race". Unfortunately neither worked, but fortunately I just did retire myself!
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@Robert Kern
After reading your post you got me wondering what would be involved in retiring yourself!
Geez Louise, this was a Saturday! It took forever and I didn't think I was ever going to finish. Thank goodness for EGRESS, OCTAL, YEMENI, SMALLS, SVEN, DARIN, EGRESS and NOR I had at least one sector to get started.
SPARED didn't spare me - that took forever. None of the long entries came easy. Had DETAILS TOMORROW, but had no idea what a MURY was. Had PRIX before IDEE. PIZZA DELIVERIES was awfully sneaky. PAL UP is one of those expressions that really makes me blanch. EDATE is awfully specialized and obscure, even for someone like me who uses Excel weekdaily. Had PAR before LIE.
Awful lot of place references - ARNO, RUHR, OUEN, YEMENI, TULSA, RIEL.
OLE OLE, RESOLE, and NAIL HOLE talk about the OLE repeats!
VIRTUE SIGNALING - that's gotta be in the same neighborhood as conspicuous consumption. Made ever easier with social media and livesteaming everything these days. Post something, likes and retweets ad nauseam.
7
@Wen
I used Excel a lot in my work, and none of it had to do with bookkeeping. I was a teacher and did a lot of administrative work for the school, including creating class and test schedules. All I knew about Excel was self-learned, but I knew far more than the full-time administrators, who always kept asking me if there was a way to do this or that.
I had never heard of EDATE, either, and looking at the explanation for it on the first website I found, I realize I never would have made use of it, had I known of it.
But the most salient thing about Excel that I learned is that there's no way I was ever going to know everything it was capable of doing. Excel could perform so many mathematical functions that I was never going to use, there was no point in learning them all. Or any of them, aside from simple calculations.
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@Steve L
In creating a template for a note for a loan payable, e.g.,if it is due in 3 months, you can automatically have the due date inserted when you enter the date of the loan
1
UBI Caritas, by Maurice Duruflé
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
https://youtu.be/2-LQve92U1o
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@Alan J How lovely! Thank you, Alan J!
@Alan J
That music was exactly how I got 49A: how many Latin U_I words could there be?
TFW the grid spanners just leap off the screen, and you type them without even counting, because you're just certain, and you're right. Doesn't happen often, but tonight...DETAILSTOFOLLOW, VIRTUESIGNALLING, and SENSATIONALIZE all just fell in an instant, leading to a time well below half my average.
PILATE intersecting ELOI, sitting on top of NAILHOLE...ouch!
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@Larry
Ain't it the truth! For whatever reason, all five long ones popped into my head quickly enough that I managed a very low time -- for me.
Sort of makes up for Wednesday, which was just the opposite. Wish I knew more about why sometimes the answers just come and sometimes they just won't!
@Larry
PINCH HIT HOME RUN, DETAILS TO FOLLOW, and PIZZA DELIVERIES all came to me immediately. This led to a very fast solve.
OLE OLE for this puzzle -- an example of my ME TIME!
3
The U.S. Postal Service doesn't have a motto, official or unofficial. A passage from Herodotus' description of the Persian postal service of 500 BC is inscribed on the outer wall of *one* post office (in NYC), but that doesn't make it the organization's motto. "Unofficial motto" is a game that any number can play. Some people might say that the USPS' unofficial motto is "Close enough for government work" or "Lock and load." I would be more inclined to say that its motto is "Don't put FactBoy's mail in his PO box; send it to the University of Washington instead so he has to make at least one more trip over here to pick it up." "Unofficial motto" is just a figleaf covering up a debunked popular myth.
9
Be that as it may, the clue gave me the answer in an instant.
8
Can't say I love the clue for MINERAL. Yes, iron (which anemics lack) is a mineral, but that's a clunky clue that doesn't quite work IMHO.
23
Dan (and reco's),
"Clunky clue" or "clever misdirection?" I trust we all expected the anemic person to lack the seven letter equivalent of ENERGY; Peter Collins certainly had our MEASURE. C'MON; this one AMUSES.
This way to the EGRESS --->
7
Put “The Ponte Vecchio bridge” (picture caption) in the same basket with “The La Brea Tar Pits” and “The Los Angeles Angels.” But it could have been worse. It could have been “The old Ponte Vecchio bridge.”
3
For that matter, is it really necessary to append "Italy" to "Florence"? Where else would Florence be? Arizona? I believe Americans are the only people in the world who find it necessary to add to the name of a well-known city the name of its country (e.g. "Paris, France").
3
I agree. I feel this way every time I visit Naples, Italy. The real Naples is in Florida.
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@Fact Boy
South Carolina.
(This comment will probably appear again sometime in the future.)
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