Wow, what a feat! Layers upon layers of marvelousness. Well done!
1
We finished this Sunday puzzle—28m 44s—on Saturday evening, extending our streak to 119 (our record is 123; exciting times, yes?). We didn’t look at the puzzle at all on Sunday, because we’d already completed it, but when we went to do the Monday puzzle first thing this morning we noticed, much to our dismay, that our current streak was back to zero. WHAAAAT!?!? How can this be?? We’ve got the little yellow puzzle icon with the completed time, so it’s not like we forgot to finish it or were “almost there.” Surely completing a puzzle the day before doesn’t mess up one’s streak?? Help!!
Update: it’s fixed! Simply completing today’s puzzle updated the streak. We don’t know why or how...
Dare I say Mr. Agard is the Michael Jordan of crossword puzzles? All budding constructors should aspire to his creativity and skill. Kudos.
1
It’s always a treat to spend Sunday evening with Erik Agard. A 25 minute solve was quite good for me.
I recently wrote an article about the palindrome referenced in 70A - it was originally a winning entry from a contest in Games Magazine. Nice to see it referenced here.
Thanks Mr. Agard for the excellent puzzle.
2
Given the DANISH at last themer's close, I'm surprised not to have seen Laszlo today.
The [loose] connection that struck me the most, however was the way UPANDVANISH seemed to point to the UPAN_ISHads, with the KEY elements of Truth, Law and Order.
Could there be a better time? to not VANISH?
2
I worked at it on and off all day long, between cooking and eating and watching Nit i Dia and napping and texting with family, and so on. What I liked a lot was that that every clue could be solved! There wasn't one that didn't make sense. Very enjoyable!
When I logged on to read WP, I laughed so hard at the corny caption! And loved the dancers! Thanks, Caitlin, for a very fun column!
4
The weekly stats disappear sometime Sunday afternoon or evening, maybe sooner. Can’t they remain longer? Perhaps until the new Monday.
2
Nice puzzle, got almost all the clues, with a rare incomplete for me: I wrote myself into a little hairball at top center not knowing 7A and having "JENNY" for 24A and "SEND" for 29A.
25A conjured up a image of tiny clocks with wings.
Nice to see the actress at 70A.
Kudos!
1
What a fun Sunday theme! But now I’m hungry...
3
I'm not too thrilled with SMAZE. Smog itself is a pormanteau of smoke and fog, and I would imagine that haze and fog are mutually exclusive. Maybe smaze is haze and smoke?
4
Fun solve, but — (you know when I chime in, there”s a “but”) — BARCHARTS aren’t similar to histograms; they _are_ histograms.
@Barb Prillaman They are different. A Bar Graph relates categorical data for comparison purposes, while a Histogram distributes numerical data for statistical purposes (to estimate probability distribution etc). For example, if you wanted to show the relative heights of skyscrapers, you might plot a bar graph with different skyscrapers (Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, etc) on the x axis, and a range of heights on the y axis. But if you wanted to, say, examine height distribution of various skyscrapers in NYC, you would plot a histogram with maybe the x axis being heights in feet (likely bucketed - 0-100, 100-200, etc) and the y axis being frequency.
4
Barb and Jefferson,
Similar = resembling without being identical.
@all
At the risk of adding confusion, I too was recently taken to task for confusing bar charts with histograms by a colleague whose opinions I value highly. He pointed out that both the bar chart and the histogram are graphs of one quantity (a distance measured in the vertical direction) being plotted against another quantity. In the histogram case the "another" quantity is a distance measured in the horizontal direction. In the bar chart there is no horizontal distance measurement -- each vertical bar is a stand-alone item representing an usually unique type of quantity, and can be stacked arbitrarily in the horizontal direction.
As a carb freak, I found this puzzle very satisfying. After finishing it, I had a strong urge to eat a bagel.
1
Keys of some songs? Instead of ALICIA, hmm, Francis Scott, though I couldn't accommodate his family.
Probably because I had just lately read how Key came to be watching the attack on Fort Henry from the British warship Tonnant. I'm late to learning the American history that everyone else knows as elementary.
My good sense UPANDVANISH at the AMY/AMO crossing, and I 'may' have taken umbrage at Ms CAMBAGE (huh?) crossing a month while I was thinking Aries rather than Libra. Too many degrees of freedom for an EVANescent mind...
Liked the SKINNY JEANS and all (*not* a Tom Tobbins book), and a nice little personal boost that came from being part of a joint program in South Asian Health Policy that opened a few years ago. That first summer, I had the pleasure of squiring around the first class, a bevy of providers and government health officials from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, the Maldives, etc. It was great fun on all sides, despite my having helped assemble vast quantities of teaching materials to torment them. I don't believe I ever knew the state the Indian Heath Institute is in, but that was a delightful way to know the fill was JAIPUR today
Noice way EAgard led the circuitous path to have us BREAK BREAD today. Happy to propose a toast!
3
I'm pretty sure that was going to be Tom Robbins.
@Leapfinger
I tried MOMMY JEANS and then GRANNY JEANS. Oops.
2
@MOL, there are clips online of what young persons will commit to in order to wear SKINNY JEANS that no MOMMY or GRANNY of sound mind would entertain for a moment. I was considering a link, but what I found would not meet standards
2
I liked the puzzle but it would have been more interesting and challenging if BREAK BREAD had been clues as an entry in the puzzle itself. That would force solvers to come up with the theme. Otherwise you could complete the puzzle without even realizing there was a clever theme (unless you read notes first which I never do).
9
Unless you read the instructions from the puzzle editor!
@Robert Kern in fact, I, as well as probably others, did complete the puzzle without knowing or caring what the ‘trick’ was. Especially since there was no clue to help ferret out a solution, and most importantly, knowing the ‘answer’ did not add any enjoyment to my completion of the puzzle, likewise not knowing did not reduce my enjoyment of the puzzle. It was a great puzzle with some really good clues - that’s all I need.
2
I had been going to mention that this was two days in a row that had an answer spelled out in the clue but it was 10 minutes past my bedtime when I wrote my note and I forgot. BONET today and DDE yesterday.
1
I *actually* groaned out loud when I figured out ALICIA. I had naively typed in _M___R, until I had enough crossings to realize that Mr. Agard had fooled me once again! My daughter was sitting next to me, and she just rolled her eyes at me and my silly puzzle.
4
I solve in the NYT crossword app, and didn’t see the Note either. So I didn’t get the theme until I looked at Caitlin’s column, which I did because I was stuck in the SW. With the instructions it was easy to find “break bread” but then I still had a blank square at 73A, and TO BE ELECT is new to me, so had to get that from comments. I just couldn’t imagine what would complete —VAD or —OBE (elect), Maybe I’ll remember to-be-elect if it ever appears again.
In the NYT puzzle app, you get to the notes by tapping on the (i) icon. IIRC it flashes any time there is a note to read.
@Shari Coats
I don’t think it’s “to be elect”. Rather, if someone is “[title]-elect”, they are “[title]- to be”. Like a president elect is a president to be. I stared at it for a while before getting it!
2
Yes, I know about the i icon, but I guess it didn’t notice it flashing or know what that indicated. Thanks for the tip.
Despite its lack of difficulty I found this to be a pleasant solve. I would have liked it much better if the only instructions were to find a two-word phrase relevant to "Food Engineering" instead of the detailed blueprint given --- that took all the fun out of finding the meta.
1
Watching the video of Yuja Wang was exhausting.
Being a thoroughly modern Boomer, I had "LEAD" instead of "HEAD" for quite some time, since one talks a great deal about project "leads" these days, and I felt "CLACHA" could easily be some Cuban dance with which I am not familiar. (Insert Boomer Homer: "D'oh!")
I also insisted on misreading "histogram" in the clue for 38A as "hologram," which led to some dithering with various 3D graphic displays.
Had I not been doing the CLACHA, today would have been close to best for me, but fly-specking took about five minutes--I really hate having to check Sunday grids letter by letter.
Still, chalk it up in the AMO-, not the ODI-, column for me.
4
A supremely solid “Solve” today - - and one which required significant effort - - but which came in well under my recently, newly-established average. The puzzle was a pleasure to solve.
Thank heavens the puzzle was solvable without latching onto the “theme”, though. Once again, our “theme” is not one based on wordplay - not unlike “gene splicing” from a week ago. Rather, it’s based on a “gimmick” or “game” - consisting of changing letters to make “foods” and realizing that the changed letters form an expression tangentially related to “food”.
My hat is off to those who can conceive of such “gimmicks” - and/or figure them out - but they are not a match for my tastes. (Pun intended - - very much.)
4
I had no trouble with "odi" thanks to Spanish. A chain restaurant in Costa Rica called Spoons had a very strange ad campaign that had the tagline "Odio Spoons"--I hate Spoons. It was confusing and ubiquitous, thus permanently cementing the word in my vocabulary.
The constructor's notes don't say, but I wonder if COPYPASTE(a) was the genesis of this puzzle. "Skinny beans" and "Time fries" and the rest are nonsense phrases, but Copypasta is a thing--a variant of spam. So I could see someone starting a grid with COPYPASTa but concluding there weren't enough other pairs where both versions made sense. Instead we get the note, external to the puzzle, without which there would be no theme.
2
@Adina Odio Spoons! Haha!
I wanted to make something of whaTASTEal. Nope.
The instructions not being included in the online version made it not so much fun. Also, “to-be-elect” is too weird.
7
I never heard of it, either, but googling suggests it has some connection with religion. (Though I haven't found any hits with the hyphen.)
Marilyn,
Since most online solvers seem to have read the instructions, may I ask which online version you use?
@Marilyn The instructions were included online. In fact it was very noticeable to me. I saw the blue font “Note”beneath the grid and clicked on it immediately. But you had to do that BEFORE you started filling in the puzzle. Afterward I couldn’t find it again.
1
OooooKay. No, I didn't see the Note on ALite; No, I didn't get the theme on my own; but Yes, once I learned there were some directions I deciphered the message. Cute.
Or it would be if I had been able to get more than 2 successive hours of sleep; the DHubby is having a rough time with the pain level, so between the meds and the ice packs and the other necessary services, we are both looking a little ragged around the edges.
More Puzzles:
Llast week's Big Bee: missing words were ninon, pillion, lollop, pinon (since missing tildes are allowed) and the one that I guess is omitted because it's a bit suggestive. ...
Is 'nonlipoid' a word?
I am stumped on two successive Saturday Stumpers (see Newsday).
The new Variety Puzzles include a 'Split Decisions' from Frank Longo; I am one word-pair from solvation! It's driving me mad. Tried to enlist the help of DHubby, but he's too drugged up. Maybe when PhysicsDaughter arrives today she can assist!
3
Non-lipoidal and non-lipid are words, I think.
1
@Paladin
Thanks, Traveler! All that hoopla in the news, and the DHubby on narcotics, and I didn't come up with OPIOD!
@Mean Old Lady, hope that DHubby feels better soon, and that all the ragged edges start smoothing out. I know it'll make a big difference to have Physics Daughter there with you.
Sending you virtual starch for to stiffen ye olde upper lipoid.
For Anne Schultz/ Toronto
Responding to a residual question from yesterpuzzle:
https://images.app.goo.gl/RXcQSbRLiLJZuyMs5
Nil desperandum, eh?
Fun solve, not too stressful. I had a one letter error I couldn’t find, FAME not fate, but I should have looked and thought harder. Didn’t realize puzzle was about food until I read word play.
So...how do you get the 'puzzle solved' message? I entered both standard and altered letters with no luck. Rebus?
Nkane,
No rebus. Unaltered letters. You must have an error somewhere. Zero (0) for Capital O is often the culprit.
My mistake was in the basketball player's name - 57D and 63D were the errant crossings (that sorta made sense while wrong)
1
@Midd American
I'm with you, M-A. That was a bit of a rampage and a tough hoe to row if you didn't know that player by name and run out of months soon after ENERO.
1
Pleasant enough puzzle. But I'm kind of sorry that the gimmick didn't have any effect on solving. As usual I had a heckuva time filling in the last letter, the T of TV ad, because the full entry was not easily pronounceable as a single word, and in this case I haven't yet understood the down entry (to be-elect?). But I shall figure it out (and confidential to Barry: I'm not asking you to tell me).
6
polymath,
Not to worry; other people have already explained to other people what it means.
Pleasant solve, although I hesitated over the Z at the intersection of 66A and 52D. And there I stopped. The further instructions are just too much, esp. when Alexa is playing Dolly, Emmylou, and Linda.
@archaeoprof
No last names needed. To know them is to love them.
And I do.
1
@Steve L
Pardon me if I Harass you a bit, but I need to Run Stats on that last statement.
Clever puzzle! When shall we come over to BREAK BREAD? It was challenging, but fair. I was eventually able to muddle through most of it. I did get naticked, like Caitlin, by AMY since I don't watch that show, and I couldn't guess AMO. Hopefully in the future I'll remember AMOrous vs. ODIous after seeing that Pepe le Pew clip. That should help it to stick in my brain!
That was an interesting interpretation of the Rondo Alla Turca.
1
Mildly puzzled by the points in the report about 70A. As someone from the world of cryptics, I’d first count them as a form of crossword and therefore definitely part of the “crossword world”. I also wouldn’t count this clue as cryptic. Using palindromes and other reversals happens in cryptics, but they don’t mention the palindrome or reversal so plainly. There is some effort to disguise the reversal/palindrome indication, like using “in both ways” to show a palindrome. There are clues in this puzzle that I would recognize as cryptic, like 113A in which “Keys” is brilliantly disguised. In UK cryptics, these “cryptic definition” clues are used, but in US ones, they’re not allowed.
7
@Peter Biddlecombe My thoughts exactly --- as a long time fan of American cryptics and a recent fan of the British ones I couldn't agree more with your comments.
After last week's frustrating puzzle, this one was a joy! Ever since I saw Erik Agard on Jeopardy, I have been a fan of his. I love his puzzles!
4
Erik had to come up with ten phrases in which the last word changed to a food with a one letter switch, and that change had to result in a food and crossword related phrase (which happened to be fun as well). I am so impressed!
11
Totally unsatisfying theme! And what is smaze? I assume smog and haze, but smog is already a portmanteau.
1
Gordon,
Smoke and haze.
(Sorry you didn't like the theme.)
@Gordon
Q. "And what is smaze?"
A. Scorn.
4
@Etaoin Shrdlu
(groan)
2
Well rats! If you missed the note, you missed the boat. At least I did.
When done I frantically looked for food in the theme answers. I found CORN in CORNER BOOTH when I was supposed to be making BROTH.
I did change the E in PASTE to an A to make a food i.e. PASTA, but unfortunately I didn't know why.
Sooo, I missed out today, but I look forward to Erik's next!
2
At the risk of being odiously obsequious, I must draw attention to Caitlin's "2020, the official year of hindsight™ . . . " I passed it by the first time I read it, and failed to mention it in my C-i-C, but imo it deserves highlighting. It's both effortlessly clever and, depending on how things play out, deep.
10
Good stuff! My favorite clue was the one for GRAMMAR POLICE, and the mistake in it is one of my many pet peeves about autocorrect, which wants to change every possessive “its” into “it’s” (not a good look for an editor).
3
Liz CABBAGE really ought to be the name of a character ... whether from Thomas Pynchon or C.S. Lewis, I'm unsure.
2
@Jamestown Ararat ...or Veggie Tales
3
@Jamestown Ararat
Sounds like Dickens to me.
1
@Jamestown Ararat She could be friends with Liz LEMON from 30 Rock.
Even after solved this puzzle I still couldn't see what the trick was. I read the "about this puzzle" column and finally realized I needed to own the extra note. Very clever and innovative.
5
Loved today's puzzle. Few tricky ones but came within 90 seconds of my Sunday best.
My only regret on days like today is that it was over TOO quickly. I didn't even get to my second cup of coffee before I was done.
I agree with the natick issue, but once you had all the fill around it, which wasn't particularly difficult, the M for AMY and AMO seemed pretty obvious (YMMV, of course).
I had never heard of Liz Cambage, not being a fan of professional bball (men's or women's), but congratulations to her for her accomplishments on the court and making it as a clue in the NYT!
2
@Rob
I solved last night, so I didn’t even get to my first cup!
I second your congratulations to LIZ CAMBAGE, although I have to wonder if she would have made the crossword had she not been one letter away from a vegetable!
4
@Andrew That's why I always resist the urge to start the puzzle as soon as the notification pops up the night before. Coffee and crossword go hand in hand for me every morning.
I hadn't heard of ANA de Armos or the movie, so had to google both. Now I need to find someone to see Knives Out with; should be a treat. Oh, and I enjoyed the puzzle too. So thanks!
2
I still don’t get what’s makes “break bread” an “appropriate phrase” in this puzzle. Anyone?
@Roberta
Because changing one letter results in a kind of food.
2
@Roberta As some people have pointed out below, different varieties of bread appear as anagrams or directly in at least some of the starred answers.
Not sure if this holds up, and I certainly didn't catch it, but if true would make BREAK BREAD (BROKEN BREAD?) an amazing addition to today's theme.
@Rob
I think that's a coincidence. My interpretation is that metaphoric "breads," foods, are broken in that they're misspelled.
1
I thought the only part of the car that had a tread was the tire, not the brake.
@twoberry As an explanation for this weird comment, I offer this: Some friends of mine like to pose puzzles on line, and to signal you've got the answer, but without revealing too much, you have to make a statement that signals to the poser you've got it, but not be too helpful to other solvers.
I actually had to do the Meta to figure out LIZ CAMBAGE who was (I thought unfairly) crossed with the Spanish month anagram. That could have been either ABRIL or ARBIL, which could have been crossed with either ARMS or ABMS for the missiles.
Actually, I initially wanted the WNBA player to be LIZ CABBAGE. It sounded so cool. But then I realized that that was her name only after she'd been changed to a vegetable. I already had BREAK ?READ, and so I plunked in the other B.
Easier than most Agard puzzles. Fewer proper names than usual, although SIA and Issa RAE are b-a-a-a-ck -- as though by popular demand. Not my demand, mind you. Anyway, I thought it was a mildly diverting but not terribly exciting puzzle.
1
@Nancy
ABMS wouldn't be allowed because missiles is in the clue and the M of ABMS is missiles.
1
@Steve L -- Bingo! You're right! Thanks.
I am among the many posters here who did not study Latin, but with all the odium expressed in these comments, I'm surprised how little love was shown for the root.
9
I thought the puzzle was very ingenious in its construction and the one letter difference to change the word to a food helped in solving. I also had the missing M in AMY/AMO, so did not complete the solve. Even though a moderately avid sports fan, I never heard of the WNBA star. She must be happy with the new contract they have signed to appreciably raise their salaries.
I don't think this could be a coincidence, so I thank the editors for including references on consecutive days to Scotland. Saturday it was SCOTIA and today SCOTS. Yesterday was a significant day for all of us who celebrate our Scottish ancestry, being the birthday of our beloved bard and rapscallion Robert Burns or "Rabby". And although it is not for everyone, we had the reading of his poem and then dove into the traditional haggis at our Burns celebration last night.
5
Fun puzzle until the ugh. I had blech for the longest time.
9
Question: I further thought that the starred entries would contain hidden 'Breads' - but I can only find CORN, WHEAT and RYE. or an I reading too much into this?
6
Lorraine,
I think you are, but I'm glad you did (and shared it).
2
There’s a BAGEL hiding in LIZCAMBAGE and NAAN in UPANDVANISH.
8
@Hildy Johnson
Fun game. If we are permitted to use the new food word, I've got two more:
BAR GRAPES: AREPA
RIP CURRANTS: PAN
1
Quite enjoyable solve and a good long workout for me. I enjoy being 'puzzled' by the theme, but this one went above and beyond on that score. In Across Lite, my timer is positioned so that it is over the Notepad icon, so i never did read that. I would usually avoid doing so anyway, because I assume that the note should be mostly an 'after the fact' hint. I guess that today's note was in that category, but in this case not seeing it left me completely baffled as to what the theme was.
I also usually avoid reading the title of the puzzle on Sunday, but today I did finally look at it. LIZCAMBAGE was the only answer where part of it was obviously similar to a food item, but that wasn't getting me anywhere either.
No complaints, though. Still enjoyed working through this one.
1
@Rich in Atlanta Oh, dawned on me that maybe somewhere there are a group of youngster who are big fans of the Las Vegas Aces who have decals with a picture of their star attached to their shirts or jerseys.
We could call them the 'CAMBAGE patch kids.'
4
@Open Mouth View Abusive paronym? Cabbage Patch Kids are a brand of toy doll. It was a bad joke, I'll admit, but in what way is it an abusive paronym?
Thanks for flagging my post and thanks to everyone else for coming to my defense. I think I'm done here.
I said aloud multiple times “this is easy!”, but no complaints here. Got my personal best, 29:59. Was very smitten. TOBE was my last fill in, I had POPE before I finally sorted it out.
2
I got it, Naticks and all, but I didn't get it, having neglected to read the note. It sure was fun reading about it from Caitlin, though!
2
The concept is impressive -- ten two-word theme answers, the second word being one letter away from a kind of food. They have to be in order, because the food-making letters spell a two-word phrase that further illustrates the concept. Make the answers symmetrical, so they have to be specific lengths.
So, try even coming up with a concept like this sometime, and then, try executing it! As I said, impressive. There were also those lovely downs -- PRIMARY DEBATES, PIANO SONATAS and GRAMMAR POLICE, along with the fantastic clue [Looks that can be difficult to pull off] for SKINNY JEANS, as many have already noted here.
I liked having a post-solve mini-puzzle as a Sunday crossword chaser, a little pat on the back after the accomplishment of filling in the big grid, which in itself felt comfortable, like joining a group of old friends. All in all, a lovely jaunt through an Agard joint, and I thank you for it, sir.
11
clever! one of the NICEST Sundays in awhile -- ACES!
3
LETTER BOXED THREAD
Jan 26th MMXX
(1) G - C (9), C - S (6)
(2) W - G (8), G - S (8)
YESTERDAY:
MICROWAVE EQUIP (NYT)
2
Lots of smile inducing clues and answers. It may have been a relatively easy puzzle, but it was still a lot of fun.
Thanks, Erik!
SPELLING BEE GRID
Jan 26th MMXX
C A B E H L Y
WORDS: 33, POINTS: 147, PANGRAMS: 1
Starting Letters-Frequencies:
A x 3
B x 7
C x 14
E x 1
L x 6
Y x 2
Word Lengths -Frequencies:
4L x 10
5L x 14
6L x 6
7L x 1
8L x 1
9L x 1
Grid:
4 5 6 7 8 9 Tot
A 2 - 1 - - - 3
B - 4 2 - - 1 7
C 3 7 2 1 1 - 14
E 1 - - - - - 1
L 3 2 1 - - - 6
Y 1 1 - - - - 2
Tot 10 14 6 1 1 1 33
(Y-Axis: Starting Letters, X-Axis: Word Lengths, X/Y Co-ordinates: Frequency/Number of Words for that letter and length)
53
@Mari There are 3 words from other languages with multiple English spellings, but only one spelling is accepted. OTOH, three spellings for “tastes awful” are here, but none of their adjectives.
Speaking of adjectives, try to make one from every noun on the list, as there are a couple not seen in the wild. There are 5 total, if I counted correctly (not a sure thing). Not all of them end in Y. There are 3 nouns that end in Y, to confuse you.
Hints:
Position of cleric in charge of monks (at Downton, perhaps)
Burp
pangram that means complain or need bland foods
Secret political faction
Similar word meaning Jewish mysticism
Taxi driver
Hidden collection
Type of lily
Adjective which I though meant “able to be reached by phone” but means a bond that can be cashed
Slang for famous person
Jewish sabbath bread
Repeating series of events or a thing that you sit on with wheels
To remove something, often liquid
Similar word that’s a blood-sucker. TIL they’re not related.
In between the 2 above is a slang word for a man who’s sex-crazed
Asian fruit with prickly skin and a pit
20
@Mari I posted this once but it disappeared. I should have said above, to remove something, often WITH liquid. This word, the blood-sucker, and the fruit all sound similar.
2
@Mari looking at my hints again, I see that I have a partial spoiler. I apologize as I meant to word it differently but inadvertently revised it to include the spoiler.
SPELLING BEE
33 words, 147 points
3
BTW, in the video, yuja wang is playing arcadi volodos’ “concert paraphrase” of the rondo alla turca / turkish march. here’s arcadi playing it — truly virtuosic (not that wang isn’t, but —): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0qG9PZNJI_k
@a. - I was hoping somebody would point this out...
both on behalf of Volodos' brilliant conception,
and lest people think they were hearing Mozart played there!
1
my time on this was just a couple minutes over my sunday best — very easy, dareisay too easy for a sunday. i’d have enjoyed a bit more challenge.
2
Awfully easy except for 1A and 5D. The phrase stumped me because I was wondering how to get rANISH for disappear, to change to RA(D)ISH but finally saw (D)ANISH.
1
"... those discarded letters from each theme entry, in order."
Those letters are JLHELMOOFV.
What you mean is "... those new (replacing) letters from each theme entry, in order" to get BREAKBREAD.
2
@Leading Edge Boomer - ? on the website the note reads: those replacement letters...
Which version says "those discarded letters..."?
1
David,
While Caitlin quotes the instructions properly at the top of the column, in Today's Theme she writes of "those discarded letters." Those of us who understood the theme and did not proof that part of the column missed the error.
1
@Leading Edge Boomer
Oh I apologize! I thought I checked that more carefully. Yes the discarded letters actually anagram to MOJO HELVE. I’ll fix this when I get a chance.
Count me among the GRAMMAR POLICE. I was freaking out about that apostrophe until I calmed down and realized that "it's" was part of the clue.
10
yet another unnecessarily overly clever agard puzzle. close to a personal best and not all that fun due to the surprisingly weak clues.
7
All-time Sunday PB, in about a year of solving. Same AMO/AMY natick as others but got lucky with my first guess. Never got the whole theme until I read the explanation but had a suspicion that CAMBAGE was somehow going to morph into CABBAGE.
Never having worn SKINNY JEANS I just figured that the clue meant that looking good in them is hard to pull off. Which is also true, but not nearly as funny.
3
I think the SKINNY JEANS clue works both ways.
3
Digicate and Doug,
It's funny *because* it works both ways.
5
I think I was a bit more optimistic than the puzzle author. I had BDAYS for celebration of life, but alas answer was OBITS. I need to do some study on WNBA. Did not get LIZ CAMBAGE until whole clue was spelled out with crosses. Saw the explanation for to be-elect but term was not familiar to me. Enjoyed the long themed clues. I loved the clue for ALICIA Keys. Good Sunday puzzle.
4
If you're going somewhere, ALPACA your things.
(No need to ring the a-llama.)
15
Lots of Agardian delights in this puzzle. Just now noticed the last of them. The theme answer, BREAK BREAD, follows the same logic as the answers in the puzzle. Change one letter to name a food.
26
@vaer
I totally missed that "appropriateness" of the phrase. (I think a lot of us did.) Kudos!
6
@Andrew
:)
@vaer thank you. the only other thing i could think of was that he's religious, and it's Sunday. This makes WAY more sense.
I love the clue for GRAMMAR POLICE. Fantastic! 🤣 I always enjoy an Erik Agard puzzle. 😎
9
@OboeSteph
Yes, its very clever!
1
@OboeSteph
My first guess there was GRAMMAR FREAKS. (And was somewhat relieved that GRAMMAR NAZIS was too short.)
6
It’s not just ancient Greece; in every European country except the UK and Ireland, a ballot box is called an urn: in Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian and Italian, urna, in French, urne, in German, Wahlurne, in Swedish, valurna, in Russian, izbiratelnaya urna, in Polish, urna wyborcza, in Danish valgurne, in Latvian velesanu urna, in Finnish vaaliuurna. This doesn’t mean that they are earthenware vessels. A rectangular cardboard box used as a ballot box is called an “urn” simply because “urn” is the traditional word for “ballot box,” just as “stump” and “soap box” are traditional words for the places from which oratory is delivered, even though politicians don’t actually stand on stumps or soap boxes when they speak to audiences.
9
@Fact Boy
"in every European country except the UK and Ireland, a ballot box is called an urn"
What you mean is that in languages other than English, the word for ballot box is the same word (or a homonym) as the one that means an earthenware vessel.
What you're saying is akin to saying that we (in English) call an event with rides and cotton candy a "cloudless day".
Ummmm. Danish.Danishes
2
@Steve L When I read this, I thought 'Huh? How is a carnival a cloudless day? ' Took me a moment there!
Slightly better than average. Would have been much better but for LIZCAMBAGE, who I never heard of, and TOBE-elect, which I still don’t get.
3
@Mr. Mark
president/mayor/etc-TO-BE = president/mayor/etc-elect
10
I don’t think “to be elect” is a phrase people normally use. If you look it up in Wikipedia, it tries to change it to “to be elected”
2
Layla,
"-elect" in the clue *means the same thing* as TO BE in the answer; it's not intended to be read as one phrase.
2
My favorite mess up was the SW "Diner Choice. From corn fritters to corn and beans. Corner booth took forever. SO happy to see "grammar police" which, as a long-ago english major, I have been accused of being many times. I wear the badge with pride even though it irritates people no end. Great puzzle, Erik, as always.
7
@OboeSteph
Oh that’s fantastic...
I'm so happy! I finished in 80 minutes with only one lookup on the a player, even though the crosses were mostly filled in, and not until the rest of the puzzle was done. Many things popped up that I only just learned during last 3 weeks from doing the daily puzzles and the archives for example: Issa Rae, Riper (was stumped by similar clue earlier today), Aral Sea. Also I'm better at figuring out how to break down words when the combinations make no sense like in MrPibb and TVad. I had VAD filled and got the T, where previously I would have been stumped by the Vad. I had some trouble when Old Peep worked nicely for candy throwaway! I learned my lesson and I didn't resort to Autocheck at all. I have been regretting using that tool because I realize I can get it on my own eventually. I think I can identify now much better when a word I'm "sure" of is possibly wrong. This is a good skill to have! I'm officially hooked! How does one know when there is a puzzle note on the app? I didn't know about it and I've not seen one before.
23
@CALPURNIA (Usually only on Sundays) the little “I” in a circle at the top right is flashing, which means there’s a note. Other days, it may give just the title of the puzzle.
4
(1) These days, *every* Sunday puzzle has a note from Will Shortz.
(2) There may be notes on other puzzles -- watch whatever your online version tells you to watch for -- but only Sunday puzzles have titles.
4
@Calpurnia
I like Old Peep.
4
Nicely constructed!! Thanks
3
I found this one easy but definitely not BLEAH. I saw the foods as I solved but didn't count the asterisks. I should have recalled the symmetry, but I so wanted the Sunday (morning) puzzle to offer us BREAKFAST.
7
@Barry Ancona I agree, particularly when the cross word (Cause of red-eye) could easily be FLUSH, leading to an equally arbitrary BLEUH. I still don't understand how 83A fits FLASH.
1
Barry, I was expecting BREAKFAST too, but was wondering how the odd number of letters would've worked - I did notice the even number of asterisked clues.
@Aaron Eding
Camera flash.
3
As a statistician at 3M, loved BARGRAPHS and LOONS. And as others have commented I enjoyed SKINNYJEANS.
1
Great Erik puzzle as always.
Isn't the clue for 56D a spelling error rather than a grammar error?
1
Wags,
The spelling side says you've spelled it incorrectly; the grammar side says you're using the wrong word.
1
@Wags
Put another way, if you see you messed up as soon as you hit "Submit," it's a spelling error. Otherwise, grammar.
1
Just stopping in to say that this was my first gold star Sunday!
43
@Dylan
Wonderful! May your future be filled with Gold Stars!
6
@Dylan Congratulations! Happy puzzling!
1
Nearly beat my personal best time with this one. It was really fun, especially puzzling through the final hidden phrase.
I posted my C-i-C a while ago, but it seems to have disappeared. I don't know what I could have done that was considered bad by the emus. I said some nice things, and I queried some other stuff.
I'm not going to try to reconstruct what I said. Maybe it will be released from embargo. Maybe not.
@Deadline
I guess not. It had to do mostly with how I had gotten messed up a little with BLECH before BLEAH and never having heard of LIZ CAMBAGE. Of course, there was other priceless stuff, but I give up.
@Deadline How frustrating!
Arrgh. I misread the note and thought it said to "remove" a letter from each last theme word rather than "change" one. That really slowed me down at the end! Oh well.
I Naticked on the AMO/AMY crossing and had to run the alphabet there, although AMO seemed obvious afterwards. I didn't know LIZ CAMBAGE either, but managed to fill in her name from the crosses. So I didn't nearly finish in Wednesday time like some of the early posters, but it was a solid average Sunday time.
1
Those were the two that stumped me, too, but the rest was smooth sailing. Cant have it all, I reckon.
What note?
Mr. Mark,
For about a year now, there was been a note from Will Shortz on every Sunday puzzle.
2
I was pleased to see the proper term, RIP CURRENTS, used instead of the inaccurate RIP tides.
I think this is the first time I've completed a puzzle the night before the puzzle's date. Tomorrow morning's routine is gonna be messed up now.
It is very strange to see so few comments here.
6
"smaze" and "Liz Cambage" were both new to me but I was able to suss it out based on the lack of any other "Li-" names for women.
@Dean - there was Lisa BONET who was mentioned in the puzzle that fits "Li-" name pattern, but I suppose you excluded it from consideration because it was already used.
Wen,
I'm fairly sure Dean meant LI_ as in only one more letter...
Barry, that's only if Dean knew that Cambage was the last name. Could've been...Liza Ambage? Lizzie Bage? Depends on the letters missing. There is also Liv as in Liv Tyler, if we stick with 3 letter women's names beginning with Li-
2
This weekend is the US Figure Skating Championships, so naturally I entered SALCHOW, which has a higher base value than TOE LOOP.
I give Eric a 4.95 Grade of Execution.
10
@RAH
Very casual watcher of figure skating (like maybe every four years when the Olympics are on), but I plopped SALCHOW in there in a flash.
Too bad I was wrong.
1
@Steve L
Concerning figure skating, I always appreciate a well-executed lemniscate.
20
@Andrew
Or a lemni-skate.
1
The puzzle on its own was very enjoyable to solve - fantastic fare from Mr. Agard as usual. Didn't take too long - similar to @David Connell - Wednesday time.
The Lisa BONET one was a toehold/giveaway because the answer was in the clue, backwards. RING THE ALARM looks kind of funny to me. SOUND THE ALARM and ring the bell, no?
SMAZE - really a portmanteau of SMOKE and HAZE, not SMOG and HAZE. SMOG itself is a portmanteau of SMOKE and FOG. But, had it been a portmanteau of SMOG (itself a portmanteau) and HAZE, what would you call that? twice-portmanteau, second gen portmanteau? Portmanteau jr?
The message spelled out post-solve - I backed into it. I had trouble with POPPER and PASTE - I thought of PASTY first - which is a food, after all. But obviously I started from the wrong end of the alphabet. After getting BREAK and BR__D, figured out that they had to be E and A. Oh...PEPPER and PASTA.
Minor nit - I don't know if if I'd say something visually arresting is synonymous was an EYE POPPER. I think of an EYE POPPER as something shocking (think cartoon characters), which isn't always the same as visually arresting. There may be some overlap, but it doesn't feel like they are the same.
3
@Wen
Eye-popping color comes to mind to fit the clue bill. I hear you as to the other idea of an eye popper, though, such as, say a halftime show “wardrobe malfunction.”
3
@Wen
Thought of SMIST first.
Portmanteaux, of course!
2
Not hard, but fun. The clue for SKINNY JEANS was wonderful. I don't usually tell my wife about clever clues (she's not a crossword addict like me), but had to share this one.
4
Clever puzzle! Completed in 40:35 with consulting the hints at the very end.
I didn’t break much of sweat on this one.
Now I can BREAK BREAD.
2
I nominate the SKINNY JEANS clue for the WP Clue of the Week Award. Month? YTD?
Erik Agard’s name on a puzzle always calls for a CHOREO of a happy dance on my part.
10
The main accolade that matters to me for cluing is Lewis's top 5 clues list each week.
I didn't think that deeply about this particular one, but looking back on it because on your comment, I agree with you. I think it'll be a top contender for Lewis's list.
4
@Sam Lyons
For you all all who loved Skinny Jeans, here is Skinny Love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjk_6yCYfXI
2
A rainy night, a cozy fire, a Scottie by my side and an Erik puzzle for a Sunday.
Bliss--
15
@Maeve
No picture of the little Scottie?
Disappointment.
2
@Deadline
http://www.scottiemom.com/2013/
1
“‘Make me one with everything,’ said the Buddhist monk.”
Caitlin: You brought your A game this weekend, puns and all!
Fun. The theme helped me with a few themers, including allowing me to be confident about LIZ CAMBAGE. How Erik could create this thing without filling it with dreck is beyond me (well, there was BLEAH, but CORNER BOOTH was worth it).
Here’s “SAVOIR FAIRE” from Mink DeVille (criminally underrated Mink DeVille):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxpmvy_ffoQ
3
@Puzzlemucker
Merci bien! I, too, do love me some Mink DeVille!
1
@Puzzlemucker the zen master asks the hot dog vendor to “make me one with everything”. when he pays with a big bill and asks for his change, the vendor closes the till and replies, “sorry, but real change must come from within”.
odi really hung me up tonight, reminding me how much i regret not having taken latin way back when.
7
@Laurence of Bessarabia
Latin and Greek and I coulda been a contender.
Musical instrument and I coulda been a contender.
Taken computer science seriously.
Acting lessons.
Astronomy.
Stuck with one sport all year round.
Invested in Apple back in the 80s.
Bought a Bay Area bungalow in the 80s.
Read Ulysses past the first chapter.
RUE . . . RYE
2
Another nice little entry from Erik. Solved in Wednesday time, however - I'm hoping we'll get a good challenge sometime soon!
Caitlin, it isn't just that "odi" and "amo" are opposites. The clue recalls the opening line of Catullus 85, a poem of only two lines that begins "Odi et amo" : "I hate and I love..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_85
11
@David Connell - Oh, and a quick search for "Snoopy bleah images" will show that "bleah" was one of Snoopy's favorite sounds to make!
3
Catullus and this poem were the subject of a recent discussion on Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time"!
2
@BasoMas - Thanks! Here's a link to the podcast:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d1rg
1
Guitarists too! RIP, the late, great Phil Emmanuel, seen here with his brother Tommy, tackling Rondo Alla Turca.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgTfdk2Qn1Q
3
@David Dyte
Huh?
1
Deadline,
David is riffing on Caitlin's Tricky Clues 8D comment and video.
1
@David Dyte
Great musicians, but Yuja Wang is a goddess.
1