Freeze tag doesn't have teams!
Skeins are units of yarn.
1
Make this a note for next time. The Yeoman is the captains secretary or clerk or writer. He or she might be a Petty Officer but that would be unusual.
@Jim in Forest Hills
Having been in the Navy I can tell you that most yeomen are enlisted and are petty officers - that is a rating.
The only Vietnamese holiday I know is Tet. For those who lived at the time of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam and for those who've read the history of that terrible war, the Tet Offensive is a major event. I think that's why the word is appearing in crosswords and why people are solving it easily. A silver lining?: maybe its use will prompt some who are not familiar with the word to look it up and learn about the importance of that 1968 North Viet Nam military offensive and the war itself.
1
Ah, ok, oh, ok ... these should not be accepted answers. They are taking the easy way out.
2
Grrr... I let it go the first time, but a skein is not a ball. They are different things, that’s why they have different names.
2
@Mara Novak,
So many comments, starting with Deb's great ones.
5
I was struggling for a few minutes to find YEO. I initially thought NCO, but that didn't fit well next to MPH or KPH. Not all Petty Officers in the U.S. Navy are yeomans by trade, though. That is why it stumped me. Mr. Guzzetta had to make this sacrifice and others like it to make his theme work which I enjoyed quite a bit. It was nice to see MARINE and RAM'S HORN in the grid. I had just read Exodus last night where the shofar is sounded on Mt. Sinai. The more I do crosswords the more I realize the intersectionality of knowledge and it brings me great peace.
May fast fingers and sharp minds be with you all,
Gabriel
4
Gabriel,
And also with you.
3
I got this Tuesday puzzle done faster substantially faster than Monday’s, which is unusual. Nice timely RAMSHORN reference for Sunday’s holiday amongst all the crosses. Lol.
Now on to yarn. I don’t do yarn activities, but my wife does and she has 10 storage containers of yarn in the family room (overflow from the couple shelves of yarn in a closet) so I’ve picked up some knowledge.
It is not pedantry to say that a SKEIN is not a ball. They are different things. Kinda like how “cow” and “beef” are different. A “skein” is a term for an amount of yarn generally used in commercial contexts, and a “ball” is how one shapes the skein after purchase to make it easier to use. It would not have been hard to make a clue that properly referred to SKEIN, a better clue would have been “Unit of yarn” or “Yarn purchase”.
3
@Mark Josephson
My eyes keep seeing RAM SHORN!
1
@Robert Michael Panoff
Mine too! I didn’t know what a shofar was and, when the crosses revealed RAM SHORN, I thought it was a rather shakespearean wording for whence a sweater comes.
If the first part of the Judeo-Christian tradition did not bring you a shofar, a spiritual from the second part, referencing the first part, offers a RAMS HORN.
(Joshua fought the battle of Jericho)
2
Now I know how many knitters, crocheters, weavers and spinners on Facebook do the NY Times crossword puzzle. All the buzz this morning and continuing into the afternoon.
2
WARNING FOR SOLVERS IN WESTCHESTER, ROCKLAND AND PUTNAM COUNTIES, AND ANYONE ELSE PASSING THROUGH THERE TODAY:
Today's Journal-News has a front-page story concerning Saturday's NYT crossword puzzle and immediately starts out saying that it contains spoilers for that day's puzzle.
However, the headline itself might give away a general idea of what those spoilers might have to do with.
I'm being very roundabout because in its infinite wisdom, this paper chose not to be. I didn't continue reading but I felt I'd already had a semi-spoiler.
So if you might be near a copy of the Journal-News, or go to its website, today, maybe you should avoid looking at either one!
@Steve L
I must admit some confusion, since it's now Tuesday. Which Saturday crossword is your warning for?
Hi @Steve L, If this is for the Thursday puzzle, please don't say anything else. All will be revealed in that column.
Who's on first?
2
IOTA send my congrats on a great puzzle!
(It's Greek to me.)
1
Men in black apparel gathered for a big A.M. managers' meeting. Subject: model tanks. Breakfast menu: leg of lamb daringly cooked in an ergonomic Ronco rotisserie, Pepsi, long-grain rice and peach ice cream.
Double-whammy factoid of the day: pianist Carl Tausig married Seraphine von Vrabely, but tragically died from typhoid fever in 1871, age 29. He was considered one of Franz Liszt's best students.
Moral: a cross Greek is not to be taken lightly.
Happy Tuesday all.
[Combined with the puzzle, which Greek letters are missing?]
3
I was in the Navy as a petty officer for years and I've never heard of "Yeo" as a petty officer in my entire life.
4
@Chris Hinricher
Abbreviations are not "heard." Acronyms and initialisms are. "Thu." is never heard as "thoo;" we say "Thursday."
If you're saying that "yeo." is not an acceptable abbreviation for "yeoman" in the Navy, that's possible, I guess, but there seem to be lots of uses online.
@Martin
YEO, Adrian!!
3
This one seemed very difficult for a Tuesday.
10
The problem with the ball-skein issue is that some people seem to use "ball" as a generic as well as a specific:
https://www.interweave.com/article/knitting/lisas-list-yarn-ball-types/
3
Hello knitters! Does anyone else wind yarn as a figure-eight over thumb and forefinger, so that it can be pulled from the center of the ball and doesn't tension the yarn as winding onto a ball might? My college roommate learned to wind yarn that way as an exchange student in Berlin, and taught me. (l looked for a YouTube showing this, but no luck.)
Would that kind of "ball" be a SKEIN?
2
@catpet. I do that, especially with small amounts of yarn.
“Skein of yarn” And “ball of yarn” are not equivalent. Yarn is sold in skeins; most knitters I’ve known make a ball from the skein to prevent tangles. My mother had a contraption that held the skein so the yarn did not twist and knot as she made the balls. Cats do not bat skeins of yarn around the room.
4
@catpet I figure-eight center-pull balls out of my skeins all the time. Learned it from my mom. Balls of yarn are, however, sadly attractive to cats.
When I filled in SKEIN from the clue I thought, Deb is not going to like this...
Anyway, fun puzzle for a Tuesday, loved the crosses, and would have finished it in record time if I slowed myself down by filling in HEATHEN for 38D. Silly me. Heathens can't get excommunicated when they've never been communicated in the first place.
I think the only clue I really hated out of this was "Naval Petty Officer: Abbr."
Because... a Yeoman isn't a petty officer. A yeoman is a particular job title that can be held by any enlistee, not just a petty officer.
As a former enlisted who pays attention to the distinctions, I think I spent 10 of the 25 total minutes it took me to finish the puzzle trying to figure out what was going on with that one clue.
15
As the once wife of a naval enlisted man, it threw me too. In this case I think it was the puzzle and not me who didn’t get it.
4
@Charlie Same. I was a petty officer and have never heard of that in my life. A yeoman is a rate, and has nothing to do with rank.
2
Hi Deb,
Yeoman and Petty Officer appeared here before fairly recently and received the same reception, so I conclude the editors do not care they are wrong or have reason to think they are not wrong. I am betting on the latter.
Would you like to ask Will for us, or should I just email them this post?
4
Enjoyed this puzzle-perhaps because almost all the words were in my “wheelhouse.” As for “skein,” what else could it have been with the k in the cross?
1
@Ann
The objections is not to SKEIN as the answer, but to the clue. Because a skein is awkward/impossible to work from, every crafter I know converts skeins to balls.
4
I had always assumed that all CROSSES looked more or less like plus signs. Thanks to the puzzle and Google, I now know more cross shapes than I could ever have imagined.
9D gives me a good excuse to link to one of my very first favourite songs (I still have the 45), and one of my first introductions to American culture!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNDSwAZ6V2w
1
@Andrew Reminds me of an old joke: Little Johnny had always had a hard time with math. Someone recommended that his parents might try a parochial school. When he got his first report card, his parents were amazed that he received an A in math. When they asked him what was different he said, "Well, the first day, I saw they had this guy on the wall nailed to the plus sign and I figured I'd better start studying."
4
Today's puzzle was number 3000 for me. I'm just worried about what I'll do for fun when I've done all of the Sunday puzzles in the archive. (Am now doing the 1997 puzzles.) I know--get a life.
9
@Marcia Fidler
Wow! Congratulations! As far as what to do for fun when you've done all of the Sunday puzzles in the archive, how about moving on to the Saturday puzzles?
2
@Marcia Fidler I'm working my way through decades of Thursdays with great pleasure . . . probably Fridays next. Maybe a Saturday thrown in here and there when I'm feeling especially bold.
Wow @Andrew, @Marcia, @Audrey. I’m glad you have this space to be appreciated for your accomplishments. “Out there,” I’m afraid, it might not be a badge of honor.
3000!
2
Nice puzzle - a bit tough for a Tuesday (for me) with some complete unknowns as clued, but the crosses were all fair and I was able to work them all out.
Notable among the unknowns was FREEZETAG, which is a term I don't recall at all. That ended up leading me on an interesting clue history search as I wondered how difficult it must be to embed ZETA in the middle of an entry.
The only options I found in the Shortz era were PRIZETABLE, CHIPSIZETAXI and... BIZETASABEAVER. That last one had me blinking until I saw that BIZETASABEE had appeared in a pre-Shortz puzzle (Sunday, March 21, 1976). That's an... interesting puzzle with entries like HAYDNGOSEEK, BROOMHANDEL, ESKIMOZART, CHOPINGCENTER, MAHLERPICON and OFFENBACHTOBACH.
3
“SKEINS are not balls of yarn.”
I *knew* that but had forgotten. A fond memory of my late wife was holding the skein as she made it into a ball. Then she got a funky hand crank machine to do that and I was obsoleted. (One of several times that’s happened since the start of the internet age.)
4
I knew that someone (or some-many) would quickly take exception to the (somewhat ignorant) mis-identification. We are surrounded by puzzlemakers/clue-writers who just need to get out more--dig in a garden (anyone who harvests carrots with a HOE, per a recent puzzle, is going to have quite a mess and waste a lot of good food); learn to knit/crochet/weave/sew/quilt (no, the latter two are not the same thing); and mind a toddler for a full day (educational activity, heh heh.) And clean and seal grout--what the DHubby and I are up to. Why isn't Maintenance doing it? Because if you want something done right....
4
When it came to the GREEK CROSS, I desperately wanted to fit in Latin CROSS. Of course there was no way that was going to fit with the surrounding words. Had to google the two crosses to find out the difference and, lo and behold, the clue writer was absolutely right. The GREEK CROSS looks like a + sign.
1
What a nice Tuesday! Unusually clever and imaginative cluing for this day of the week, interesting fill and a well-constructed theme. And it looks as though Will Shortz has heeded my complaints about annoying tiny little circles: today he gave me roomy gray squares, which always makes everything SO much better.
Enjoyed the clues for RIOT ACT (36A); PEAHEN (37A); RANSOM (7D); HOME GAMES (39A) and DOTS (49D). Liked the TIRE (56A)/FEE (46A) reversal. Found the puzzle lively and fun to solve.
3
49D? Love it!
Let the SKEIN != Ball of Yarn critique rage. (Pulls up chair; grabs popcorn)
7
@MJ
Yes, it is wonderful to find a place where the biggest problem in existence is that a SKEIN is not a ball of yarn...
6
@MJ. Not rage. Just a fun conversation about yarn and crafting, and maybe a little education for those who don’t work with yarn and are curious.
@Christine Peterson not rage as in anger, but rage as in commence with energy (the storm raged).
Plus, I hope it was clear, my comment was quite tongue in cheek.
1
FREEZE TAG took me back to childhood and reminded me of another game we used to play: we called it "Swinging Statues." If I tried to play either of those games today, serious injury would surely be the result.
1
Great puzzle! Fairly smooth solve despite the aforementioned fluffy fill.
Especially appreciate the revealer which led me to return to the crosses to see what made them Greek - what a lovely surprise!
And Deb, as usual, has made me laugh out loud and start my morning with a smile. Love the VENA CAVA joke.
1
I don't suppose constructors think of a word like LIENEE and think, "What a great word for my puzzle" . Rather as part of a tricky theme and lots of good entries there are bound to be some not so great fills. So to answer Deb's question, those kinds of fills are never "deal breakers" for me.
I noticed the Greek letters early and it did help my solve. I agree with all who loved the 2 flat clues.
We all know different stuff; I think I've always known where the Taj Mahal was and agree with Barry that we should know TET, not just from crosswords.
Lots to like in this fun Tuesday puzzle.
(This may appear twice)
6
@suejean
Seeing some great aerial views of Harrogate during TV coverage of the Cycling World Championships. Hope that you're coping with the traffic disruption.
Al, I'm a 2 minute walk from one of the main routes, so it's been fun to catch some of it. I'm not driving anywhere.
1
@suejean
Harrogate was featured on Michael Portillo’s Great British Rail Journeys tonight on BBC2. Did you see? If not pick up on BBC iPlayer. He visited Betty’s and The Majestic.
1
I liked the idea for the theme, but this has to be one of my least favorite puzzles in recent memory. ALYN, RIAL, SECY, YEO, OED, AGRA, ANSE, ANIS, ARTE, VENA, CAVA, ESSO. It’s just too much. I’m very surprised Mr. Shortz said “yes” to this puzzle with all this crosswordese in it. Also answers like MYRTLES, PEAHEN, LIENEE and SKEINS are very boring. The clueing was a bit annoying as well. All-in-all a real GROANER (i did love the clue for that one, ironically).
4
@Jeremy
With all due respect I can think of nothing *less* boring than a PEAHEN:
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/peahen
7
@Puzzlemucker
I love those things sticking out of their heads! (I'm obviously not an ornithologist).
1
@Steve Faiella
Crest, I believe.
2
Speedy solve. Mertle vs MYRTLE caused a bit of a slow down. Liked the cross of OHIO and OH.
Lived in PASADENA for a time and photographed the Rose Parade more than once. A fun time is volunteering to affix botanical items to the floats.
On to Wednesday.
Thank you John.
2
In some places I had to dig a bit deeper than usual on a Tuesday -- which I enjoyed (and thank you John!) but which may spell some frustration for new solvers. All the Greek letters here end in A save for RHO; it would have been cool if that letter could have been gamma, delta, kappa, or sigma instead.
And speaking of answers ending in A: AGRA, VENA, CAVA, DOHA, CODA, HENNA, PASADENA, and SPCA. Plus their cousins MONO, ESSO, OHIO, and YEO.
Those Greek letters weren't the only items crossing. In the junction of ANSE and AGRA, answers which I threw in without hesitation, I found, with a smile, the joining of old friends.
3
Another solid “Solve”!! NO research in any form. Got the theme after the fact - so it wasn’t needed for the solve.
What’s not to like?? All of the above and I was ONE second over my best Tuesday time! (Had to clean up a mess caused by FINAL STAGE entered at 18A - or I would have blown away my previous record.)
Only no-know was Kirk ALYN. I was “functional” at the time he played Superman - - but I guess I was more worried about what Kindergarten was going to be all about - - or getting the training wheels off of my bike.
3
The discussions around “YEO” reminds me of a passage in The Harvard Lampoon’s excellent parody of Tolkien: ‘Bored of The Rings’. Describing the city of Minas Troney: ‘Each ring was higher than the next, as were the rents. In the lowest, seventh ring dwelt the city's sturdy yeomen. Oft they could be seen dutifully polishing their brightly colored yeos for some idiotic festival or other...’.
5
Shout-out to my beloved OED! Does anyone else subscribe to its free word of the day?
3
@MichelleB No, but I subscribe to the one from Merriam-Webster.
1
@MichelleB, no, but I do subscribe to Wordsmith.org Word of the Day. Anu has weekly themes and interesting commentary.
1
@MichelleB
I am fortunate to have online access to the OED through my University. I also have the original reprinted in two very small-print volumes. Of course those volumes do not keep me up-to-date on more recent additions.
OH,OK, say what you will about FEEs but I stick by my original thought that a RUG is fixed when it's flat. Take it from one who trips. That, and NETTLES before MYRTLES, slowed me up (down). Otherwise fast but engaging puzzle!
1
LETTER BOXED
K-U (8), U-G (9) 😒
The J, K and P make solutions difficult to find today. Still, a cute bear lifted the spirits.
1
@Mari
I was so frustrated by today's letter boxed because there were so many good letter combinations, yet I was completely stymied. I even had a word using 10 of the letters, but could not combine the remaining two at all.
Congratulations for your success!
Yesterday I had the NYT solution which was 14 letters, even though there were several 13s posted here.
1
@Mari
I finally cottoned on to the first word after an enormous waste of time this morning. I knew it had to be part of the solution because every other effort was hopeless. I knew the second word had to be a gerund and yet it still took a while before I got -- let alone felt -- the second word, perhaps because coming up with K-U was so exhausting!
Andrew, this was a frustrating and annoying one. The first word is simply an outlier. TIL that K-U is in fact another term for the U of M mascot. While finding the word was a "bear", it is not an actual kind of one. Its nickname derives from its fondness for stealing honey from the bees.
1
SPELLING BEE
D A B F L O R
Words: 42, Points: 166, Pangrams: 1, Bingo: yes
A x 5
B x 10
D x 10
F x 7
L x 4
O x 3
R x 3
4L x 18
5L x 12
6L x 7
7L x 3
8L x 1
10L x 1
4 5 6 7 8 10 Tot
A - 2 3 - - - 5
B 4 4 1 1 - - 10
D 5 3 2 - - - 10
F 3 2 1 - - 1 7
L 3 - - - 1 - 4
O 1 - - 2 - - 3
R 2 1 - - - - 3
Tot 18 12 7 3 1 1 42
44
@Mari
I don't usually quibble over non-included words but DOBRO?
15
@Mari
I enjoy spelling bee but would love to advance to queen bee using your grid. Would you please explain it to me? Thanks.
3
@Mari
Thanks for the grid! You got me to 151, but the two rather obscure nautical terms deprived me of a true QB! (Had to hang my head in shame and look them up...)
HINTS for the hardy: B7, short vertical post on a wharf, used for mooring boats, and L8, archaic term for a port.
1
SPELLING BEE
I’m stuck at 40 words 160 points, will try again tomorrow. There’s an L8 nautical term I never heard of and I was in the Navy :) It’s similar to a more familiar ship directional term. All the other words have been used previously, even a silly one. An obvious missing O7 is similar to an accepted O7 with an R instead of an L.
1
@Kevin Davis I overlooked a couple 4 letter words that have been used previously, I made Queen Bee with 42 words 168 points.
@Kevin Davis I’ll let someone else do the grid (I’d likely mess it up, but the word count is 5A, 10B, 10D, 7F, 4L, 3O, 3R.
Frequent crossword answer AGRA (used today) was on Jeopardy tonight. I never would have known otherwise.
3
@Kevin Davis what I meant was I wouldn’t have known the Jeopardy answer if not for the crossword.
Good puzzle, but a skein of yarn and a ball of yarn are two different things. Ask any cat.
16
@PfP, I know I shouldn't be telling this, but one of the cats in the family is deeply into gift-wrap, to the extent that, whenever presents are stockpiled for a birthday or holiday, anything with a bow or ribbons has to be stored where Bunter (not his real name) cannot possibly reach it. His pleasure is not only to bat the stuff around and get snarled and tangled with it, but at some point to start chewing on it. We discovered this the hard way, by finding him after present-opening on one festive occasion with some slender pink ribbon hanging out from both ends of the cat. Please not to alert Animal Protection as I can happily say there were no ill effects and it all ended well.
5
@Leapfinger. Funny story!
@Leapfinger, I like the fact that Bunter is using an alias. Cats are devious.
2
All pro teams of all sports play half of their regular season schedule as HOME GAMES. The elite university football and basketball teams have more HOME GAMES than away games. Alabama football this year has 10 HOME GAMES vs 5 away games. The rich get richer
2
“Petty officer” is the Navy’s equivalent of the Army’s “noncommissioned officer,” meaning in both cases someone who is authorized to give orders. “Yeoman” is the *rating* (Navy jargon for "job title"), of a clerical worker; cf. “U.S.N. clerk: Abbr.” = YEO (1/15/09), “Administrative worker on a ship” = YEOMAN (10/4/15). A yeoman is not a petty officer.
9
Fact Boy,
That's certainly true today, and I doubt anyone here is old enough to remember when it wasn't true, but my understanding is that when the rating was introduced in the U.S. Navy (and, as I recall, in the British Navy), a Yeoman was only a Petty Officer.
https://www.navycs.com/navy-jobs/yeoman.html
That is all.
@Fact Boy
As a former enlistee (though in the Army, not the Navy) this clue gave me no end of trouble. I ended up having to look at the answer and did a head-desk when I realized that it was the clue that was in error, not me.
1
Yo, Fact Boy! Yours is not a petty comment either!
It probably wouldn't have helped, but I didn't see the GREEK part of those crosses until after I finished. And then I didn't get the boat business groaner until I read Deb. Sure is taking a long time to get smart.
3
@kilaueabart Ha! You think that's bad? I had to look up FREEZETAG. Not the answer, but how to play it. When we were kids everyone would leave to watch TV whenever I was frozen. (Anyone there?... Are we still playing?...)
I'd like to think I'm smarter now, but....
*G*
4
@K Barrett - ha ha, my mother (also a Kay) was still searching for her brothers after hours of playing "hide-and-seek", when they all walked in the front door returning from the movie they went to. Unfortunately for the boys, my grandmother had got home before them...
5
@kilaueabart I missed the Greek letters until I red @Deb's column.
“Zeta? I don’t remember zeta as an answer?” Scampers off to look at my grid again... Aurora dawns. :)
1
Enjoyable Tuesday, nice job with all those Greek letters! Didn't even notice the short fill, which normally I do.
1
@Rajeev On second thought, the supposedly short fill is mostly 4-letters which doesn't bother me a bit. It's when I see lots of 3-letter words, esp. later in the week, that I start to wonder.
and Elke
The shaded squares LESSENED the difficulty in determining the theme- i.e. the GREEK CROSS.
Thinking there could be more to it , I tried to make words of the letters:
ALPHA, RHO, ZETA ,IOTA ,THETA ,and OMEGA ,but arzito, trazito, zarito, trioza etc. led nowhere.
In this place we call GROANERs actually "leapys" (and keep a list of choice ones).
The Greek letters remind me of a puzzle (>25 yrs. and <30yrs. ) ago that actually used Greek letters. Does somebody remember it ? Had saved it and now cannot find it.
Cannot REST EASY.
3
@Robert and Elke
More than 30 years ago, but does this one ring a bell?
https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/20/1980&g=53&d=D
UPSILONBOAT? BETABETAGUN?
Hi Rich,
As long as you're up...
June 13, 1967, 40D answer is [correctly] IDEAL ... but the clue is also "Ideal."
(That's not ideal.)
@RiA, good find!
DIALMUFORMURDER?
What's a MUFORM?
Oh, I don't know... Maybe a simpering sort of cow-call?
Perhaps back in 1980, I wouldn't have been confused by that MO DELTA UFORD.
@R/Elke, ROZITA phoned, and asked to C U after class; her feelings are hurt.
Perhaps we can be each other's Boswell? or Johnson?
(I see where Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, was quoted as saying: A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.
He was obviously a sagacious Scotsman of significant perspicacity.)
3
Help - what does it mean when the letters turn gray instead of black?
@rfm - You probably clicked on (or touched) the pencil icon at upper right. If you’re in the app, just touch it again and you’ll go back to black “ink”.
2
@Rfm
I think it means you clicked the pencil icon in the upper right corner.
1
Sounds like you clicked on the pencil marks icon.
1
Yes, yes, yes Deb! Skeins become balls, or cakes of yarn: with the aid of a swift and perhaps a ball winder; or with help of another person (often an obliging husband) holding the skein between outstretched arms while the crafter winds; or stretched out between one’s own knees, while praying not to be interrupted and left with a tangled mess; or by hanging the skein over the rings of a chair. Those are the methods I’ve used. I’m sure there are others. Skeins are not balls of yarn! Hanks of yarn, yes. In fact, it would be fun to see SKEINS clued simply as HANKS. I did get Mr Guzzetta’s meaning though. Easy and fun puzzle. I liked discovering the Greek letters. I saw them before I got to the revealer.
13
@Christine Peterson
Time for the dumb question of the day!
If you have to go through all the work of turning a skein into a ball (and with help, it seems!), why don't yarn manufacturers just *sell* it as a ball?
4
Then what would be the point of having a husband? 😄
16
@NYC Traveler
This comment makes my week!
3
Two complaints, in the mini puzzle the clue suggests the focus of Quantum Physics is ATOMS, but in fact, quantum physics is the focus of atoms in the same way that it is the focus of the universe. Technically quantum physics describes reality (though some quantum thinkers think it may actually prove there is no reality) at sub-atomic level. It is a quark of fate this clue bothered me.
My other complaint is one that within a week the NYT and another major crossword used the Greek cross theme. Some times I think the puzzles editors do this coincidental collision of themes and answers to confuse old men.
7
@mike....'a quark of fate',,,teehee!
Maybe it isn't coincidental collision, Maybe it's a self- conducting super collision.
3
Loved the puzzle, but how is a TIRE fixed when it’s flat? Wait, I got it. I thought I was clever for picking TILE. Outsmarted again.
1
@Jeff D
I suppose it is in a "fixed" position because it cannot roll any longer. That's how I justified it.
1
@Jeff D
When your tire goes flat, you take it into the shop where it is/gets subsequently fixed.
1
@Sam Lyons
Or you change it . . . returning home from a wedding, at midnight on the narrow shoulder of a two-lane highway while trying to read your car manual’s tire-changing instructions by cell phone light as the occasional car buzzes past your head at 70 MPH and an icy April wind makes it impossible to feel your ungloved hands which are clasping a cold metal lug wrench that can’t manage to pry loose the last of the stubborn lug nuts and you think to yourself, IF ONLY I had RSVP’d, “Unable to attend”.
16
Nice one... I think...
Hmmm, I didn't know the first Superman. ANSE I knew. I'm glad there weren't a bunch of names. I think I enjoyed the puzzle, but I can't really say why. It was different though there seemed to be a lot of gluey fill.
🤔
2
It seems to me that there is a column on Greek letters and how you have to know them for the puzzle. Or did I imagine it?
Anyway, thank goodness everything became clear so smoothly! It's fun to have clues with long answers! My last fill-in was RIAL, because I wanted to spell it with a Y. So, 55A showed me I was wrong.
1
Clever. Pretty straightforward -- all of a sudden, I was in the FINAL PHASE!
4
Fast Tuesday. Three lines across were mostly filled in before having to start skipping for down crossings. Some pretty nice entries - unusual and lively. Particularly liked the pair of clues for FEE and TIRE. The entries I liked the least were ANIS and SECY. Followed by LIENEE and ANSE.
Quite a few places today - AGRA, AKRON, IRAN EAST, DOHA, PASADENA, OHIO, Also liked the V's and K's sprinkled throughout.
TIL: ALYN. Will have to relearn that because I won't remember.
4
@Wen, guilty of fast reading, and should slow down. I thought you wrote 'Fat Tuesday'... Mardi Gras??
1
@Leapfinger - after a Fat Tuesday, you probably need a Fast Tuesday. How come nobody ever says Fat Thursday referring to the one in November...?
Oops, I didn't notice the Greek letters in the gray crosses until I read the writeup...
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@David me neither. I solved the puzzle fairly quickly and didn't cheat and look anything up, but thought the gray parts were just crosses.
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Good puzzle. AGRA was on Jeopardy! tonight and of course Jason got the answer. The guy is good.
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@Wags
Also saw the reappearance of AGRA on Jeopardy. As usual, the NYT helps when I play Jeopardy, and vice versa. 🤓
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Aside from a mini-Natick for me at ALYN / RIAL (or a mini-brain freeze re RIAL), the puzzle was very smooth. The FEE part of the paired “Fixed when flat” entries was ingenious (thought it might be KEY at first).
There was an underlying feeling of loss that ran through some of the fill: ELEGY, WEPT, HERETIC, FINAL PHASE, VALES (VALE of Tears), CODA, IF ONLY. Although the theme didn’t help my solve, I appreciated its cleverness and visual appeal, and especially its wonderful revealer: GREEK CROSS. By the end, this puzzle had found its way to my heart.
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28D: Hello, beginning solvers! You are not expected to know every holiday celebrated in every culture and country on earth, especially for a Tuesday puzzle. But if you are an American, you should know TET because (based on your age) you, your spouse, sibling, child, parent or grandparent may well have spent at least one TET in Vietnam, and you would not forget it.
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@Barry Ancona. Yes, those of us over 50 likely know Tet from the Vietnam era—mostly because of the 1968 Tet Offensive, the turning point in the war when the North Vietnamese launched surprise attacks on South Vietnam. Some say that’s why Johnson didn’t run for re-election, and why more Americans started turning against the war.
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@Barry Ancona & Susan B
My first clue history search today was on TET, wondering how often it had had an 'offensive' clue. Answer - 18 times (out of 304 appearances).
Susan, it was definitely a major turning point in terms of public perception of the war and the beginning of the major anti-war movement. The offensive was actually a military disaster for the the North Vietnamese and especially the Viet Cong - much like the Battle of the Bulge for the Germans - but that was never the public perception here. And the atrocities committed by the VC against South Vietnamese civilians somehow never quite made it into the headlines.
And yes, it was a factor in Johnson's decision (but so was his declining health). I think it's fair to say that Vietnam is what got Nixon elected twice - first as outlined above and a second time with the phony Paris Peace Accords ("a decent interval") of 1973.
Sometimes I just tell people: Everything you know about Vietnam is wrong.
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@Barry Ancona I completely agree with your assertion that every American should be aware of recent history as well as world cultures!
Respectfully, though, when you use the phrase "if you are an American, you should" ...just please be aware of the impact of your words on American-born children of recent immigrants, whose families may not have been in the country during the Vietnam War.
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