Thanks for the explanation. Will Shortz mentioned "a certain rarity" but gave no explanation of that rarity.
I do these while hiding the title and skipping the long clues. Then I try to "guess" the answers by working the, usually, down clues until I can figure out the long answers. When finished, I look at the title and try to figure out the theme.
Harder brain work for me, at age 63, but more of a challenge. Keep up the great puzzles!
The puzzle was great fun and provided many a chuckle, but...yikes! To my deep embarrassment you really had me going with that darn marshmallow farming video. I nearly "bot" into the botany until I did a bit more research; I just couldn't figure out how the blossoms turned into such a recognizable marshmallow shape. The jig was finally up when I learned that it's the marshmallow ROOT and not the blossom that was used. And then, of course, there was this:
http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/marshmallow_farming
Laughed out loud a few times, and even emailed my dad a picture of the last down clue. One of the answers was also conveniently a really solid Spelling Bee word on the previous page. šš¼ Cross pollination?
I'm a bit late ... really enjoyed this one ... challenging for me, but got it done ... each play on words was a joy.
1
Truly enjoyed all the theme clues including Rockette Science and Semi Cologne. Best of all loved the shoutout to one of my science heroes of all time: Ernest Rutherford. It was a fun and funny puzzle.
The cruise ship I had Baked Alaska on was neither Bactrian or Dromedary, but rather Holland America.
Fun puzzle!
1
Very late, but just want to say Loved this puzzle and laughed hard at ITS NOT ROCkETTE SCIENCE and NOBEL MINDED ( Amy Farrah Fowler and Sheldon Cooper!)
5
@Laura rodrigues In london
Also late - but had to say that this is added to a short list of the cleverest and most fun puzzles! Sometimes puzzles are clever but not fun, but this was both, and I loved it. It took me forever today! I printed it out, and I'd walk away, and then come back, and slowly but surely, it all filled in beautifully. SPEEDER was probably the last tricky one for me to get. And every one of the jokes was hilarious! Thank you, NYT and Tom McCoy!
2
Caitlin, I don't know whether to bless you for introducing us to Plant Delights Nursery, which grows gorgeous mallows and other less COMMONER plants less than an hour away from where I live... or to sue you on behalf oh Ben Yokum, MARSHmallow farmer in NC, who seems destined to keep losing his crop terrain that spoils MARSHmallow with too much water.
Couldn't quite pin down the trick of the theme till late in the game, when the truck-driving SEMI COLOGNE put me on the scent. After I picked myself off who's everfloor and towelled off the laptop, I finally realized it weren't nuthin' but puttin' the ackSENT on a diffRENT syllABULL. As anyone who's ever run across my COMMA TOES remarks well knows, there's little I like more than some good grammar humour. There isn't much'd rule the world better than starting out with some good Grandma-tickle kind of stories.
[I thought we had a SALIVATE in the grid, or I wouldn't have contorted to work in 'who'd rule', but I may have been in ERRor; I've been hitting a few other puzzles].
Anyway. this was 120% my kind of puzzle, and I dont want to have people say "WHO, HER? A PUTTS" when they see the LEAP coming, and besides, it's time to say ALL OY together, so I'm going to give it a WREST and just thank Tom McCoy for the real.
Shana Tovah and all good writing in the Book of Life
7
So many thoughts on this puzzle. I grokked the twist after solving a couple of the theme clues but could not have explained it. The NE corner was the last to fill in, but looking at the solve I don't know why because the answers are not that difficult. Loved the cluing for BINGE (which I got because I am addicted to Netflix watching) and for EELS (which I almost didn't get because I am addicted to Amazon shopping). Answering 116D (what the banker wears in Penny Lane) reminds me to recommend the movie "Yesterday" to y'all. It was lovely.
3
what do annelids and camelids have in common?
1
Can someone kindly explain the first theme answer for me? I learned to make baked Alaska in a middle school foods class and it was subsequently my go-to "fancy" dessert through high school, but I don't understand how it's a ship. Is it meant to be a 'ship, because we're rooting for the ice cream, cake, and meringue to wind up together?
@M - you have to know the reference phrase first...
A camel is sometimes called the "ship of the desert" because it crosses the desert the way a ship crosses the sea.
Change the accent on the last word of "ship of the desert" and you get "ship of the dessert" - jokily clued in the puzzle.
The camel is called the Ship of the Desert.
The cruise ship that serves delectations is another matter.
@M It's a play on "ship of the desert" aka a camel.
Kudos to the author of this puzzle (whose name I shall remember and watch for) He put out a puzzle difficult enough to satisfy my crossword craving but not so esoteric that I had to spend my morning researching puzzle dictionaries. I love puns and think the ones herein were tremendous. Laughed out loud at several of them. Bravo!!
2
Meh
EEK EEL ERR ETE ENO
Also, SEE TO, SET TO
2
Still waiting for "Seniors Down Under? (with 'The')" = WITHEREDOFOZ
17
Started out like a Tuesday, filling in one thing after another. Too bad the online version goes so slow; I might start printing them out and go back to doing them with pen. It was already bed time when I had everything filled in, I thought, except the N and E of BINGE, the Ds of NOBELMINDED, and the Es of ETE (imagine forgetting "verano"!) and nothing was coming to mind. It didn't seem like "75+ person?" SPE___R could have anything to do with age.
Fresher mind this morning made the hop to SPEEDER, but going through the seasons couldn't be a sIeGE, could it? Oh! Not seLLTO on the invoice, but BILLTO, leading to REINDEER and ETE. But Google said there was no such place as "Ete Verano" (would you believe I sort of knew Spanish earlier in life?), so when told I had at least one square wrong I kept wondering about that.
But the error was much funnier than that. On my first pass I had guessed EGAD for "My word!" Had to change the D to Y later for YEAR hanging down. Figured GNAPE was a possibility for a character in Hogwarts. Only when going through the puzzle hunting for the booboo did I wonder how "IgAY" could be "My word!" AHA, ISAY, SNAPE!
4
L'shana tovah!
8
Ahem.
I must defend the integrity of my fellow invertebrates here, and reject the assertion that camels are annelids.
Perhaps what we have here is an autocorrect issue?
I believe the word you seek is "camelid".
None of those bony crania and vertebrae amongst my invertebrate cohort, please!
9
This puzzle got Jeff Chenās POW! Iād nominate this weekās batch as BWOM! Best Week of the Month. A fun run.
6
@Puzzlemucker
That would ignore the previous Saturdayās puzzle, though, and that one was my personal favorite. The past few days have been great theme-wise and today was a real treat, but overall the week has been a bit on the easy side. I need to knit my brow at least once over a Saturday puzzle to start on the road to true weekend fulfillment.
The marshmallow video...too funny
3
@Bcahill, you wouldn't be laughing if you lived in the middle of Marshmallow country. A way of life is at steak; can you imagine the impact on the Smores industry?
Keep in mind that these are gluten-free, NONGMOMALLOWS in the cross-hairs!
2
103, Native New Zealanders: itās unacceptable to put an S on the end of MÄORI. Makes your crossword sound like a politically incorrect white person from the 1950s. No MÄori words take S for plural, since thereās no S in the alphabet.
11
(I mean 103D, of course. Points for pairing it with ERNEST Rutherford next door though.)
@Robbie Ellis
In the Maori language, perhaps. Not so much in English:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Maori
Welcome to the tamale trap.
1
Merriam Webster needs a note because the two are _not_ equivalent in usage. Consult any educated speaker who uses MÄori words day to day and theyāll tell you āMaorisā is not acceptable any more.
5
What a difference a letter makes....or a homophone...
Some themers were better than others, but I had a good time sussing them out, and I would say the fun justified the crosswordese fill...
On with the day...
4
(Regarding the column photo)
How did I miss the soufflƩ pancake mania sweeping the land?
23
My reaction exactly!
1
@Steve L
I learned about them from another one of my NYT subscriptions (I hope this link is not paywalled): https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020120-japanese-souffle-pancakes
2
Love the puzzle and the theme.
Just a minor quibble regarding COLON/COLOGNE. That one seems a bit different to me as the vowel sound in the second syllable changes from short to long in addition to the stress changing. Compare THOROUGH/THOREAU where they both have long o sounds and only the stress changes.
But still very impressive! I would have loved to see JAVANESE/GIOVANNIS.
2
@Bess , you mean that's not co-LOG knee ? I loved this puzzle too, it was a two-star groaner following the Michelin star system for puns.
1
@Bess,
I would gladly CO-LOAN you the price of a bottle of CO-LOGNE for your troubles. I thought that one was uproariously funny, probably exactly because it was so contrived!
1
49A ERR does not mean, except in archaic sense, to GO wrong. If you do something right and it goes wrong you have not erred, you were unfortunate or were judged by an NFL referee.
4
This provided me with all the fun I could possibly want in a puzzle. It's filled with so many clever and tricky clues that @Lewis has referenced so that I don't have to. And then I just loved how the themer puns were clued, "How everyone on this floor is feeling?" being my favorite. I'm pretty sure that Tom McCoy has done at least one other puzzle that I also raved about, although with my dependably fuzzy memory I can't remember what it is. And I couldn't care less what the title is and whether it makes the theme clear or not. The puzzle itself is just great and enormously entertaining.
4
Except.....
The proper pronunciation of Thoreau's name emphasizes the first syllable (see testimony of contemporaries such as Amos Bronson Alcott (Louisa's dad), Edward Waldo Emerson (Ralph's son), and Henry's own aunt). If you visit Concord, you will find that the only people who pronounce Thoreau with the emphasis on the second syllable are the tourists.
5
@CFXK
I'm Thoreauly surprised!
4
Iām having difficulty hearing the emphasis on the second syllable in my head, probably because I went to Thoreau Elementary. I do recall some years later, in another state, explaining to a high school classmate playing the lead in āWalden,ā that the town is CON-curd, not Con-CORD. Kind of like how Thoreau might pronounce 86A, come to think of it.
1
@AL Exactly, "Concord" and "conquered" are virtually indistinguishable, as are "Thoreau" and "thorough."
Puns, REINDEER, and pancakes . . . whatās not love? Happy New Year to those who observe and happy Sunday to all.
6
@Puzzlemucker
"whatās not (to) love?"
SATAN, DEATHSTAR and the Kardashians?
9
@Andrew
Are all of them one and the same? Or is that not fair to Satan?
7
@Puzzlemucker - unfair to the DEATHSTAR. It's just a thing. Remember, DEATHSTAR don't kill people...people do.
Reminds me of someone who recently said "...guns don't pull the trigger..."
2
Loved it! Laughed out loud at my favorite, I CAME, I SAW, I CONCURRED and also loved the THOREAU one.
Many congratulations, Tom; that must have been tough to do so successfully.
14
So much fun! Thanks!
4
Usually on a Sunday I read the title and with my first theme answer I grasp the ātrickā. This was not the case for me today, and with each theme answer I became somewhat annoyed by the seeming lack of consistency of the puns. I finally decided that they were simply similar sounding word replacements. I was disappointed. Thankfully Caitlin and the constructor made things abundantly clear and my Aha! moment was definitely post-solve.
5
@Andrew
Annoyed and disappointed. Me too! Couldn't understand for the longest time after I'd finished why the title was any more fitting than "What's up dock" or "I love ewe". When I finally got it I felt really smart! And really stupid!
Great puzzle!
3
Fun puzzle and good long workout for me. Caught on with THOREAU and then pretty much worked my way up from the bottom. In the end, I was stuck in the NW corner for a bit. Didn't know OLLIE as clued, and had SIS instead of SIB, but my big problem was that my first thought with just S___OF... filled in was SONSOFTHEDESSERT (hi kids!). Of course no version of that was ever going to fit but I kept trying to think of something that might. It was only after I changed SIS to SIB that it all finally came together. I did think it was an odd coincidence to have OLLIE right there with my original thought for 22a (hi kids!).
Didn't read the title until after I finished, but I did think it was odd that the title was a homophone, when that was not the basis of the theme (not really bothered by that - just noting it).
I did like the theme, but I'm generally more of a homophone / spoonerism kind of guy. On that note a bit of a coincidence... I almost always have some song rolling around in the back of my head. Usually it's the last song I heard on the radio while I was driving, but for unknown reasons - this morning it was "Has anybody seen my gal," (hi kids!) and particularly the line:
"Could she, could she, could she coo."
2
@Rich in Atlanta - Mike R's post not far from here does a good job explaining how this theme works, all that's left is to emphasize the appropriateness of the title:
Weight (put emphasis on)
a
Second (the second part of the word)
1
@David Connell I completely understood how the theme worked while I was solving. I was just noting that the title was not consistent with the theme. The title is just a simple homophone.
@David Connell Sorry - I see what you're saying, and yes - I didn't entirely get that.
I have been sitting here puzzling over what's a "LOAD EDDIE"....thinking it must be some obscure mathematical term that my limited education has never encountered before today.
I searched through the comments and found no one else had the same question. Feeling like an idiot i finally read Caitlin's column and felt even dumber :)
6
@Patrick You are not alone. I was totally planning to casually drop my new math term LOAD EDDIE into a conversation to impress my STEMmier friends until I read the column.
3
@Patrick. Don't feel too bad. We all get DOOKed (mis-parse a clue) now and again. Sometimes when your brain latches on to something, it just won't let go!
1
@Stephanie Thank you! Someone has finally defined DOOKed for me. Iāve been reading WP for 3 months and have seen the word pop up but didnāt know what it stood for. (I know I could have probably got it from the context but Iām usually on here after midnight, with accordingly impaired faculties.)
1
Took me a while to realize that the real theme here is: Shift the stress from the first syllable of a word in an unclued source phrase (or word) to the second syllable, and then changing the spelling as required to form a new word in the clued entry. Therefore:
DESERT becomes DESSERT
NOBLE becomes NOBEL
MORAL becomes MORALE
ROCKET becomes ROCKETTE
CONQUERED becomes CONCURRED
COLON becomes COLOGNE
THOROFARE becomes THOREAU FARE
So not quite a homophone, and not just an alternate pronunciation of the original word.
But the theme, now that's original, and quite fun.
Nice work, Tom McCoy.
6
Oh Tom, I've missed ye after almost a year since your last puzzle. Your puzzles are always clever and put together with such care.
My funniest moment was when I was missing the second letter of 46D and wondered if LEAD EDDIE was a slang I didn't know for a weighted die.
Your funniest moments, IMO, in this puzzle were in your playful cluing: YEAR, FIR, OARS, EEL, IGLOOS, REINDEER, and BINGE. Bravo and thank you for turning the corners of my mouth up.
Please, please, don't be a stranger! Come back soon!
7
@Lewis - Would you explain to me why "MIX, for one" translates to "YEAR". I just don't get that one...and just now I realized it is probably a Roman numeral. I was fixated on it being an acronym.
LETTER BOXED
L-B(3), B-R(11).
1
@Andrew
Got the same. Also:
W-R(7), R-S(7)
My first effort was:
B-2(12),S-l(4) - which had a rather nice spiritual Aussie ring to it as a phrase, and would be a good title for an outback cowboy song.
@Andrew and Mari
I have Mariās second solution.
I am not going to make a comment on the appropriateness of the phrase. I am not. No way. Wouldnāt be prudent.
@Andrew
Too many possibilities today. Stopping at the less efficient W-S (8) S-E (7).
SPELLING BEE
44 words, 219 points, 1 pangram, bingo
4 5 6 7 8 9 Tot
A 1 - 2 2 1 - 6
F - 2 1 - - - 3
I - - 1 1 3 - 5
N 4 4 1 - - - 9
R 3 2 1 - - - 6
T 2 4 4 4 - - 14
Y 1 - - - - - 1
38
Sorry, no 9s - my mistake making from reusing a grid...
2
@x thanks just missing one T6. Have Hindu mysticism, Scottish pattern, despot.
2
@X found it. A chemical compound. As for the rest, a lot of unusual words we had a week ago with similar letters. I think the only new ones were a courtroom term and a proper noun thatās also apparently a fabric.
2
I thought for a second what should be Moral was Morel and the theme had to do with mushrooms. Maybe that will be the theme of my first puzzle (It shall be called Fun Guy).
Really enjoyable wordplay: thanks!
6
@Ginger C
If it's your first puzzle you might want to start with a creMINI.
3
@Ginger C. I'd like to solve that puzzle! I hope I wouldn't have too much truffle with it.
1
Favorite clue was 1D. No spoilers from me this early in the comments section, so I wont say. But I cracked up once I got it.
4
@K Barrett,
A favorite of mine as well; sometimes things just click and I was really chuffed when my first guess turned out to be correct.
3
@K Barrett. That was a good one!
I wouldn't consider it a spoiler if you told the answer. I'd think people would have solved the puzzle (or at least tried) before they came here to read the column and the comments.
1
This puzzle put me under a lot of stress, but it was my first official Sunday solve on a streak! Now I'm unstressed.
(And that's no syllabull!)
14
Fun puzzle! Once I figured out the theme, the answers began to fall nicely into place. Groaners, the lot of them, and thatās how I like it!
Another best time, I think after 296 days straight maybe Iām getting the hang of things, lol!
8
im right behind you. 203 is my streak, though this party Thurs was a nail biter for me.
2
Just call me the Grinch but I fail see any attraction at all or fun in clues that have absolutely nothing to do with the answers, such as "How is everyone on this floor feeling" "THE MORALE OF THE STORY". I like there to be some rhyme or reason or logic to the solve - when I get the whole phrase which I inevitably do either because I figure it out from the crosses and read in the missing letters or can figure it out from the general theme but it has absolutely nothing to do with the clue I just feel kind of disgusted. Like "whaaaaat?" I look at what passes for solves and just shake my head.
I'm addicted to the puzzles. I love them and play them day in and day out and the minis and the frequently go to the archives because I love the challenge, but I guess I'm rarely entertained unless the application of the theme or the puns are really clever.
My quibble here is not with the quality of the puns, most of which I thought were quite clever, but with their irrelevance to the clues!
3
@Lin Kaatz Chary
Consider the usage: A five story building is a building with five individual floors.
5
these are all VERY horrid groaners... (think: the morale of the fifth floor aka story.) Ms. Malaprop would be proud.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chary
I got nothing much to add.
P.S. Language. It's fun once you learn it.
6
Easy if you put the accENT on the wrong sylLABle.
3
Iām stealing, āI came, I saw, I concurred,ā for the next faculty meeting.
Priceless.
31
@Sam Lyons
Bring a carpenter's saw. :-)
2
@Dr W
My campus only allows really, really old saws. No other blades.
Concealed carry is of course OK.
1
Great puzzle title: NOW WEIGHT JUST A SECOND! My favorite theme entry is ITS NOT ROCKETTE SCIENCE. Such a clever and fun ideaātalk about word play! I really enjoyed the cluing for PASS GO, LUTES, OUTDOORS, and FIR.
š
15
SUDS ME doesn't have the same cachet as BEER ME
5
@ColoradoZ
Triggers a different mental image, too.
4
@ColoradoZ
Itās good for what ALES you though.
9
I like SUDS R US.
1
not an UPHILL battle! Difficulty EASED UP as more themes became evident!
1
This was a milestone for me. ..I worked the entire puzzle before reading about it. Thank you!
14
Well, *that* was fun! I went through the same sequence with the theme entries as Caitlin: Oh, adding a letter, are we? Oh, changing the spelling, are we? Aha - moral, morale!
It still took me a second or two to get ROCKETTE and COLOGNE, and then I goofed on 118-Down with ELO instead of JLO, but that resolved quickly enough.
Nicely done, Mr. McCoy!
3
It takes a lot to maintain my interest in the large Sunday grid.
But this one had it all: 7 long theme entries, all of which were clever but none of which required anything more than general knowledge; and all promoted by gettable, some charming, crosses; and no baseball, football, Rap or TV tie-in clues.
Purr-Fect, O Per-Fecto!
11
When we get our Saturday weekend paper delivery the magazine section has the puzzle which I copy using our scanning printer, and I was thinking as I did so that I really needed a PANDA (puns and anagrams) fix. Well, lo and behold -- we got one. Thank you, Tom!
Three lookups -- verano, the Beyonce role and the potion prof.
And a question -- is 54D true? Seems like that's for a different strip.
Loved the theme entries. Every single one! Interesting fill answers too, I particularly liked 15D present day deliverers and 97D brick houses. Took a while to understand 67D MIX => YEAR, but it works. Thanks!
4
It was a fun solve. Very Tom McCoy. I caught on to the real deal with the Rockettes, until then I wasn't quite sure how the trick worked.
I came - I saw - I concurred brought me to the infamous
"Why didn't I concur? I should have concurred!" from "Catch Me If You Can"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5j1wWY-qus
Not everyone is cut out to be a medical doctor, I guess.
For almost two weeks, the annoying pop up frame "You have only a few articles left...Subscribe to The NYT...Offer Ends SOON" has been popping up. When is SOON? Will SOON ever get here and I stop seeing this annoying annoying pop up? I doubt it.
7
@David Connell - I had to follow up on the MIX clue - hoping to mix it up with some snazzy historical events from the year 1009 - but, alas, there isn't much to tell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1009
1
@David Connell
1009 BC isn't much help either
1
@Dr W - after I posted the link to 1099, I followed up on a few of them. King Sveyn Forkbeard is mentioned as terrorizing southern England during that year, but it didn't ring any bells. Come to learn, his father was Harald Bluetooth (after whom Bluetooth technology is named) and his son was Knut (after whom the Harry Potter coins are named) also called Canute (king of England and Denmark/Norway all at once). So there was that...oh, and the Cathedral of Mainz burned down just as it was being dedicated...and it has two transepts, two chancels and therefore, crossworders take note...two apses, at opposite ends and for no known reason.
Rabbits? What rabbits?
4
I love a punny puzzle. This one was entertaining, if a little too easy breezy for my ideal Sunday puzzle.
3
Sorry about that! Comments are on!
2