I would like to ask Sam Ezersky why the 8.15.20 Spelling Bee (R; O M U L A D) did not allow the pangram Moulard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulard
"The mulard (or moulard) is a hybrid between the different genera of domestic duck: ."
I asked the NYT Puzzle Editor William Shunn. He agreed its a good pangram but told me to ask Sam Ezersky why it was not allowed. I cannot find SE contact info - perhaps he will see my question here ?
Sorry for the late comment, but it's been bugging me... why is OOOO allowed? Isn't the puzzle a cross_word_?
If numbers can substitute for letters, it would cause quite a ruckus? I=1, E=3, S=5, etc? Seems a slippery slope.
3
Meh
3
I thought this was a great puzzle with the exception of course of sciency which was crappy-ish and the just plain wrong “slim up”. In COCA, I found two instances of slim as a verb followed by up and neither of them used in the sense of lose weight. Diet menu was pretty bad as well.
5
This was a tough solve for me! Thank you.
‘Marmalade’ comes from ‘marmelo’ - the Portuguese word for quince, which is very high in pectin and inedible unless cooked down. Quince isn’t just related to marmalade - it *is* the original source of marmalade!
6
Quince is definitely edible raw. Loved them as a kid in Eastern Europe, unfortunately hard to come by here.
I'll bet everyone who's had some experience with a foreign language will have noticed there are words whose spelling BE SAME as English words, but whose meaning be something different. (Thoughtfully practices a few tango steps while humming "BESAME Mucho") Sam E, in particular, showed a good feel for numbers in different languages meaning something else in English.
Had a skosh of trouble with the ELF-ELF finding, I'll admit. I was neither reading nor writing when I spoke GERMAN as a small Leapfinger, so I was dead cert that ELEVEN in GERMAN sounded like and was written as ELV. Had to confirm post-solve that I was mishearing the spellings for both 'elf und zwölf'.
Speaking of hearing things, it was half-past nice to be reminded of a classic that's pushing 70 now. And yes, they really did make movies with NUMBERS like "ABBA DOBBY Honeymoon"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=popB7zEc3Lg
Best of all, I appreciate Mr Essie putting SCIENCY in the grid. Maybe that marks a new era for the HiveMaster.
Thanks for a first-rate Sunday, Sam. Think I'll go spin a Dreidel three or thirteen times.
3
SCIENCY? Come on. Medicine is built on science, of course, but most medical journal articles are mere case reports or, basically, engineering. If you're not following the scientific method, it's just not science. Or SCIENCY.
7
@Gary
It's the unfortunate spawn of things like "adulting" and "I'm going to science the hell out of this." I hope we can stamp it out, but.....
@Gary, I hear you, and don't disagree with the gist of your observation, but you have to admit there are issues with getting deeply sciency and experimenting with human treatments. About the best you can do is get properly statistical with a good model and large numbers of patients, and then of course you wind up being more mathy than sciency.
The reason I was pleased to see SCIENCY in the grid was that I took it as a possible sign that Sam E might be tending a tad more open to SCIENCY words in the Spelling Bee. There 's been close to an embargo on chemical, botanical, zoological and medical terms that I for one think are known to many non-sciency people. I admit I may have overshot the other day when I voiced regret at the rejection of PHTHALATE, but still don't think it needed to be held up as an example of unreasonable expectations.
Boo to ARTOO, DETOO, and OOOO (and SCIENCY, MAESTRI). 😖
6
Dreaded musician! 🤦♀️
4
Loved 102 across: “willing to sell you it’s Soul”
At first I put in “CIA”. Instead of Kia !
3
My objection to "sciency" isn't the word, itself, but the way it's clued. "Sciency" could be translated as "science lite," but most articles in medical journals are anything but "lite" because they are genuinely "scientific." More appropriate cluing would have been something like "Most articles in Discovery or National Geographic."
Liked the puzzle a lot. Very clever and not too difficult.
10
"Science lite" seems to be one of two definitions (that some dictionaries list) for sciency. The other is "pertaining to science."
No, most are really not scientific. Most are simply very brief case reports of the form, "Patient presented with X...". Measurements, perhaps, but no scientific method. Scientific research tends to be published in science journals.
1
Motes and pouf were really tough
3
Late in the day random observation:
I like doing suggested Archived puzzles. Once done, I like reading Wordplay columns and comments about the puzzle. I discovered that an easy way to get to old Wordplays is to go to Xwordinfo.com, enter the puzzle date in the search box on its home page, and then click on “Wordplay” at the top of the page. Sometimes I’ll get an error message, but usually that puzzle’s Wordplay comes up.
I find reading the old columns and comment sections to be endlessly fascinating (three years from now perhaps someone will be reading these comments thinking back to February 2020). They could serve as the basis for a rich graduate thesis.
14
@Puzzlemucker
Not to be disagreeing, but in what discipline would theis thesis be applied.
[If you say 'Communications' i will come over there and snatch you bald-headed]
Hey! That last paragraph identifies me precisely. How did you know?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a puzzlesolver in possession of a limited knowledge of pop culture and esoteric vocabulary -- and even less patience -- must be in want of a less obtuse puzzle.
My worst fear about the puzzle -- that I would come here and find that most of the solvers found this a delightful breeze -- was justified. Reminds me of the one and only mega puzzle that I solved after several days only to come to the comments and find someone complaining that he had solved it in six minutes or some such ridiculous time.
I started out so well at 1A but things went downhill from there with so many clues clouding my ability to think -- to point where I forgot that my beloved DOBBY had belonged to the Malfoys before being rescued by Harry.
I salute the mind that created this puzzle and look forward to tomorrow.
11
Ha! That happens to me All The Time. I wrestle a puzzle to submission after a heroic struggle, come over here to crow about it, and am greeted by a chorus of complaints that the puzzle was way too easy for a (insert day of week here.). Sigh.
1
This is my birthday crossword puzzle :D
12
@Gurdab
Happy birthday.
(Mine was last Saturday.)
5
Deadline,
Belated happy birthday to you!
4
@Gurdab
Hope you were able to SEIZE the day!
1
Relay races did not get me to BATON, but the clue made me think of baton twirlers who really do pass them between their legs. Two routes to the same answer, even if I too the less clever of the two.
4
@JoshSimons “took”
1
So complex, so elegant, and I loved it when I finally finished. Granted, SLIM UP does seem a big stretch, and SCIENCY is unusual but doesn’t bother me. It’s a crossword puzzle, after all, and we expect that there will be some rarities. Like EXEQUY, which was new to me. It that’s why I do the crossword every day. Thank you Sam, for a good workout!
6
Sam you are a prodigy! Grateful for all your myriad contributions to my puzzling world.
5
Fun!!!!! HARD!!! FUN!!!!
4
Since the droid is called R2D2 it would follow that "two" and not "too" would be part of the solve. That corner seemed a bit weak, gotta say.
4
@john schulman I would agree with you except in every novelization, comic, whatever the source, the droid's name is spelled as seen in the puzzle.
12
@john schulman
I agree! And AR for R and DE for D?! 😳
1
@Michael Brothers -- have to admit you're correct: google -- 117K results for "ar too de too" and 9 results for "ar two de two" (!) Well I put in my too sense worth...
3
A lot of people have disparaged sciency. But I haven't read anyone's reason(s) for disliking it. Would the anti-sciency folks care to elaborate?
2
@polymath For me, the -y suffix generally carries a connotation similar to the -ish suffix; that is to say, it implies "sort of." So sciency to me connotes "sort of sciencelike (but not really)." YMMV.
2
Puzzledog (and Polymath),
I think most people are objecting because they don't consider it a "real word," not because the clue is inaccurate or a misdirection.
Your research may vary.
Barry Ancona, are you saying that you are an anti-sciency folk? Because I was actually looking for the opinions of the anti-sciency folk.
For the "Sciency is not a thing" crowd...
https://planetpailly.com/
4
Interesting. I sent that in seven hours ago. When it didn't appear, I sent it a second time with apologies if it duped.
@Barry Ancona
Oh I like that!
I hesitated to write SCIENCY until the fill worked, but it came to this non-GENYER ANON.
I really thought millennials & GEN Y-ERS were a MOTE different.
3
@Barry Ancona
Great find!
SLIM UP? Uh, no. And SCIENCY? Add my voice to the groundswell of dissent there. Not even authors published in the journal SCIENCE would consider their work SCIENCY. Even now, I’m fighting with my spell check to keep it from autocorrecting to SCENIC.
Those gripes out of the way, though, this one had a fun conceit, and it garnered a literal smile from me when the epiphany came.
4
Clever and fun puzzle especially for a student of European languages such as myself. But "sciency" is unconscionable.
8
This crossword reminds me of a record album with a string of great hits interspersed
with some mediocre numbers. I thought the theme and its execution were very clever but some of the fill --- SLIM UP, SCIENCY, GENYER --- seemed awkward. And DIET MENUS would have been better clued by changing "restaurant" to " hospital." I did like the clues for DOOBIE, MARLEY, and OOOO. Overall a B+
6
Sam Ezersky gives us a twofold rarity, a pangram with diagonal symmetry. As he alerts us in his note, there is lots going on here. For starters, not only is this a pangram, but each of the letters with a Scrabble value above 3 (F, H, K, V, W, Y, Z) is used at least twice, which must set a record. Despite this, and the puzzle’s obvious numerical theme, the title “Number Theory” still strikes me as less apt than the alternative title in 90/92A: LOST IN TRANSLATION. Although the puzzle’s symmetry is diagonal, there is lateral emphasis in the positioning of the doubled theme entries at or near the ends of their respective rows. Along with Spanish, German, French and Italian, there is also a hint of Latin: we may recall the original meaning of “translate” as ‘carry across’. Greek, too: The descending CATHODE (29D) near the center of the grid literally means “the path down” and it intersects appropriately with HADES (along with the Latin poet OVID, explorer of the underworld).
8
@Fidelio -- I don't know what the record is for Sundays, but you may find it interesting that on Wednesday, 8/10/16, David C. Duncan Dekker's puzzle was a quintuple pangram, that is, each letter of the alphabet was in the grid at least five times.
3
@Lewis
Thanks. I'll check that one out.
Great puzzle! The doubling of the words was a nice surprise and a neat effect on the grid, esp. at "seize". The pop culture/general knowledge/slang was right in my wheelhouse as someone who is in between being a Gen Xer and a Gen Yer, and I appreciate that the cluing for "Opie" and "Dr IQ" gave me something to go on since they were before my time.
1
ABAFT, EXEQUY, EFT... eww.
12
@Jason ya i agree. seems like too much reliance on computer fill for obscure words
@Jamie/Jason
ABAFT is a nautical term, which along with its cousins, Astem, Astern, Aport, and especially Alee, are found frequently in crosswords.
EFT is frequently clued as newt or young salamander.
If you're going to continue to play in crossland, you will become familiar with them.
No argument that EXEQUY is obscure.
6
"No argument that EXEQUY is obscure."
vaer,
But heaven forfend one might learn a new word from doing the crossword.
8
I couldn't figure out how to fit "shovel the sidewalk" into 23A. Eventually got it from crosses :-)
6
A relatively hard Sunday puzzle with a cute theme that I finally lost patience with because of too many naticks. Ultimately I should've seen that it must be Lori Lightfoot because it had to be Marley (Bob), but still would've been stuck around Dobby and Opie, not to mention be it so. (Really, "Be it so" means "Go ahead" in Shakespeare? I would've thought it meant "In that case." But I am no bardologist.) Oh, well. Most of the puzzle got solved smoothly except for those two areas of difficulty. Was so focused on solving that I did not grasp the "lost in translation" portion of the theme until surveying the puzzle towards the end. Always happy to learn an interesting new word: in this case, exequy. Slim up instead of slim down seems a bit weird. "Miss in the future, perhaps" can be read two ways; I first read it wrong, as if the *answer* was a word for a future miss. (At least I don't think a divorced person is normally called a miss.) On a personal note, since childhood there have been no preserves I've loved more than quince jelly, which these days is very hard to find in stores. Which also suggests the question: What are postserves?
3
@polymath - in Shakespeare's day, the standard rendering of "in that case" was "an it be so" (this is a use of "an" as a conditional conjunction, not as the indefinite article).
see Etymology 2:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/an#Etymology_2
2
Thanks, DC. But I'm still wondering if there's a Shakespeare citation where "be it so" in fact means "go ahead."
1
@polymath - perhaps I've missed the window on replying, but I believe that the quote from Julius Caesar cited in these comments means exactly that. The person who cited it reads it differently.
I read it exactly as meaning "let it be as you have said just now", in other words "you do you" or "go ahead."
Doobie Dobby Doo...
4
@Chief Quahog
I think you meant Due not Doo.
2
@vaer Or, even better, "DEW".
"DOOBIE DOBBY DEW"
I like it!
1
@Chief Quahog
DEW tell.
I'll put it down to a combination of my short term memory and my overly focused mind set, but I never noticed the duplicate words in the puzzle. Well, I did kind of notice SEIZE, but just furrowed my brow, moved on and didn't think about it again. So when I was done, I thought this was kind of a strange and minimal theme and was baffled as to how either the title or the reveal made any sense.
So for once, my 'aha' moment didn't come until I got here and read the column and comments. Nice puzzle; wish I'd caught on to it on my own.
6
@Rich in Atlanta Oh, and while I'm up - I'll go back a couple of days to a much discussed answer. I had posted this that day but it never showed up. My best guess is that the post was too short, which explains my verbosity here.
Anyway, here is Ella with some Schrodinger Scat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrcIsUH6RfI
Hey - makes sense to me.
5
@Rich in Atlanta
Bravo Rich.
And, of course, brava Ella.
2
Loved this puzzle despite being hung up in the center of the grid for a while . Had HERESIES instead of HOTTAKES ; wanted COIF or AFRO instead of POUF. TIL the word EXEQUY -marvelous. Thanks !
2
I'm pretty sure Sam Ezersky is incapable of making a bad puzzle.
I knew something was up at the ELF dupe. But I didn't completely figure it all out until I was done. I'm happy when that happens!
This wasn't fun and bouncy. It was intellectual and perfectly put together.
And I LOVED it!
5
Orcs are not made from slime, what is this nonsense clue?
3
@Katie
Tolkien however proposed several theories for the origins of orcs. In The Fall of Gondolin Morgoth made them of slime by sorcery, "bred from the heats and slimes of the earth".
5
@Katie Please don't tell Tolkien, it'd break him. ;)
Pre-internet I think it would have required a very deep dive to find this info in some appendix (or a quick phone call to Stephen Colbert), but thanks to Google I found this at tolkiengateway.net:
According to the oldest "theory" proposed by Tolkien, Orcs were made of "subterranean heat and slime", and their hearts were stones like granite, through the sorcery of Morgoth.[30] But, Tolkien later changed the legendarium so that Morgoth could no longer produce life on his own.
5
@Deb Amlen
I recall a past Wordplay column in which you mentioned your friend's rage at the inclusion of "non-English" words in the NYT puzzle.
I can't help but think that Sam constructed the Sunday puzzle with him in mind......
5
None of today's crosses for CINEMAX elicited the same grammatical fury as Friday' cross. Whew!!
1
Sailed through most of this one, but no happy music at the end. For 24-A I had QUINOAJELLY. Checked that online when reviewing and it is a thing! Except it seems to be called Jelly Quinoa IRL. That made 'In store' TOOOME. Hmm.. No results when I checked that one. I was hung up on the physical store idea and could not come up with anything else that made sense. I opened the Wordplay site and was just about to click on the answer key when TOCOME came to me. Fixing QUINCEJELLY was easy after that. Happy sounds at last.
2
Regarding 52D: I have located one excerpt from Act III, Scene I of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:
Brutus:
Marc Antony, here, take you Caesar’s body.
You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,
And say you do’t by our permission;
Else shall you not have any hand at all
About his funeral; and you shall speak
In the same pulpit whereto I am going,
After my speech is ended.
Antony:
BE IT SO; I desire no more.
It's a stretch to consider this usage as "Go Ahead", but so be it.
8
Yes, Rah. In Shakespeare, "Be it so" isn't a definitive statement meaning an agreement to go ahead. It's a sort of short-form conditional, meaning "If this is the case, then...", or "If that's the way you want it, then...".
If Antony were not in agreement with the conditions Brutus has set out, he could answer, "Be it so, I won't do it."
But then, I've never heard of anyone "slimming up" either...
3
@jbesen
When I read that clue, I thought the setter might have been in a bit of a state of Star Trek confusion. Picard's iconic order-- "Make it so."-- certainly meant "Go ahead". And Patrick Stewart's Shakespearean delivery is so authoritative that the setter might have thought that "Be it so" is a Shakespearean version of the same thing. Sir Patrick has probably uttered a "Be it so..." or two in his stage career. But it would have been said with whatever sense of doubt about, or resignation to, or acceptance of the conditions presented by the previous speaker that Stewart had chosen to assign to his own character.
3
@RAH - if the key three words be said:
high high low (mid mid mid mid high)
be it so (I de sire no more)
it would have the conditional meaning you read into it
but if they be said:
mid mid high (mid mid mid high low)
be it so (I de sire no more)
it would have the meaning I read there, and that corresponds to the clue.
I input "dobbytheclosetelf" and then backtracked when I was over by a letter. Luckily I figured it out not too long after. Also had "orangejelly" which left the NW blank until I threw up my hands and checked the key.
A lot clicked, especially what I felt were supposed to be trickier/more obscure. DATIVE springs to mind. Other points embarrassed me... I drive a KIA Soul and couldn't figure it out for the life of me.
6
My connotative-y sense tells me "sciency" is more pseudo than real, so I hope that articles in medical journals are "scientific," not "sciency." I'm not big on cutesy words anyway.
I agree with the critics of "SLIM UP." Google points to the spa in NYC, but provides no references to actual definitions or usage in speech. And a DIET MENU" sounds more like something you'd get from Weight Watchers (or perhaps the SLIM UP spa) than from a restaurant.
Tolkien offered multiple explanations for the origin of his orcs (quoting Wikipedia): " In The Fall of Gondolin Morgoth made them of slime by sorcery, "bred from the heats and slimes of the earth". Or, they were "The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape", possibly, Tolkien wrote, Elves mated with beasts, and later Men. Or again, Tolkien noted, they could have been fallen Maiar, perhaps a kind called Boldog, like lesser Balrogs; or corrupted Men."
I fought this puzzle for some reason--refused to believe "QUINCE JELLY" and "QUINCE" would appear in the same puzzle, didn't even notice the other duplicates, fought against "LOST IN" "TRANSLATION" making any sense whatsoever. Everyone has a wheelhouse--I suppose it is good to be evicted from mine every once in a while.
8
Nice to see that so many of us enjoyed this puzzle. That was not my experience. It reminded me of papers I have graded, written by students with great potential, most of which is as yet unrealized. Their work is a little too good for its own good, awkward and clumsy, and you can see the talent, but not yet the maturity. I will be looking forward to more and better puzzles from young Mr. Ezersky.
19
@archaeoprof
All students have great potential. A teacher’s task is to find ways to help each one open the door to it; with the realization that all attempts will not produce a masterpiece, nor should they. As one teacher said to me, to expect that is to inhibit creativity. A puzzle enjoyed by some but not by all has still done its job. Your comments did not offer any specifics, which may have been more useful.
Fun. Especially the number/word/sprechen. But "sciency"?
Terminally cutesy. Were the rest (maugre the literary errors) not so entertaining. Such as Akron?OH!
5
I thought people SLIMmed DOWN, but oh well.
Once I entered ITALIAN and its partner, I was GOOD to go.
Mostly. DOBBY THE HOUSE Cat? Bat? Eel? I never got into the rest of the Harry Potter books, though I enjoyed the first.
JELLY is significantly different from marmalade, preserves, or jam. If you'd ever made them, you'd know that.
Fave part of the puzzle: SEIZE-ures.
6
DOBBYTHEHOUSEELF appears in roughly chapter 1 of book 2, on a somewhat ominous scene that led my eldest child to abandon the tale (we were listening to the audiobook version on a long road trip). (FWIW said child returned to the series a few years later as an avid reader)
2
@Midd American
...which explains my not-knowing...
I understand your eldest...though I never actually got over "Dumbo;" I consider it a horror story (as viewed through the lens of our family life at that time.)
Fortunately, there are so many wonderful stories out there!
My late mother-in-law made quince marmalade, so that gave me a nostalgic and puzzling boost this morning. I have the same quibbles as others (SLIMUP, SCIENCY, etc.), but otherwise I found the puzzle thoroughly engaging. MARLEY was a bit of a groaner for me, but more in the sense of “doh!” than corny...
3
I can’t believe I am the first to point this out, but there is no such place as South Detroit. The story goes that Steve Perry, who wrote the lyrics to the song, liked the sound of it and was oblivious to the actual geography. I was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, the community south of Detroit and I and I get a chuckle every time I hear the song (which is a lot).
8
@Charlie
Are you saying that "South Detroit" is actually VALHALLA?
1
Charlie,
When the song was written, there were also no midnight trains going anywhere from Detroit.
1
Name,
Noting that song lyrics are not literal is not the same as saying they should be literal. Charlie said he got a chuckle -- not the desire to rant and rage -- when he heard "South Detroit."
3
By the way, marmalade was originally QUINCE jam. Found that out on QI.
1
Well, I liked the clue for MAESTRI, but any puzzle that spreads DUE TO THE FACT THAT and doesn’t clue it pejoratively is not going to get my vote.
And MURDER ON THE NILE isn’t the title of the book. I’m sure someone else has pointed that out.
2
Frances,
You are correct; it is not the title of the book.
Murder on the Nile (sometimes titled Hidden Horizon) is a 1944 murder mystery play by crime writer Agatha Christie, based on her 1937 novel Death on the Nile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_on_the_Nile
@Barry Ancona
Which has so much cultural currency today. I can see WS embracing that.
1
Frances,
Irony aside, I'd say fifty-fifty on actually seeing it in a grid.
Loved the QUINCE (etc) x 2; hated the SCIENCY; and was hung up for a long time with ADIEU for 65D. In fact I went to bed with a couple of answers still hanging there - probably spent 20 minutes just on that little piece - and opened it up this morning, within seconds I thought let's try ADIOS and the rest fell into place instantly.
Generally I dislike the pop culture stuff because I ignore most of it. I make an (undoubtedly selfish) exception for Harry Potter based answers such as 46A DOBBY because I have a 27-year-old daughter who has just finished her second Master's degree and for whom I am a veteran of five of those midnight Barnes and Noble or Waterstones (UK) releases. So I know my HP.
11
Thank you, Sam, for keeping my solving chops fit. I liked FRENCH being catty-corner to SNOGS, and the DITZY / WASABI / OPIE / DOBBY / SCIENCY / CITY cluster. I especially loved [Dreaded musician of the 1060s - '70s] for MARLEY.
If you could have squeezed in one more theme answer, it could have been SIX in Latin, with endless possibilities for SEX.
I kept trying to see a hidden message in the theme and it took me into a 44 rabbit hole (44 being the sum of the four theme numbers 15, 16, 11, and 2), in which I learned that there are 44 candles in a box of Hanukkah candles, that 1944 was the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and for a moment there I reflected on how different things felt under President #44.
3
@Lewis - didn't you see the TWO in Latin?
Aye aye...
2
This puzzle had me solve in my “savor the experience” mode, and definitely not for anything close to speed! I had to put it down and come back, knowing that a fresh perspective was needed. And I was right! Plus a Google lookup for one or two items. And then when it was done, I was entitled to “play” with it all - circling all the theme words and savoring the completed experience.
4
If you're losing weight, you're slimming *down*, not up. Sciency sounds a bit truthy, not a real word either. But I enjoyed the multilingual double cues.
7
I loved the way this ingenious theme unfolded for me. I first got ELF , remembered it was 11 in German and was on my way, knowing what to look for. The next delight was getting the SEIZE’s. Having that part of the theme helped with the others.
I never have a problem with a couple of iffy fills when the themes are so much fun.
15
Is SCIENCY related to Stephen Colbert's "Truthiness"? When I think of SCIENCY (and to tell the truth I've never once thought of it till now) I think of writing that is meant to sound like it's scientific, but isn't -- not to actual scientists. Which may be true of medical journals for all I know. So, reader beware.
Moving right along to the theme. I laughed when I got to LOST IN TRANSLATION because cross-referenced clues and answers always leave me lost in the grid. Where IS that pesky 61A anyway? No, not there. No, not there, either. This is why I generally don't like or do Acrostics. So much searching and seeking. I imagine speed solvers don't have my problem locating stuff; if they did, their solving times would be awful.
But despite the cross-referencing, SCIENCY, and DOBBY THE HOUSE ELF (Who??????), I quite liked this puzzle. It was lively and it kept my brain engaged.
3
@Nancy the clue very specifically tells you who Dobby is.
1
@Nancy
It sounds like you interpret SCIENCY to have as much to do with science as ARTSY has to do with art.
3
@Andrew -- Yes, that's it! That's it, exactly! Nice one!
@Jeremy. No it doesn't. In the absence of HP familiarity, it tells me precisely nothing at all. And I don't plan to get any HP familiarity any time soon. Even though I understand that, on this blog, there are people who feel that an unfamiliarity with HP and an unwillingness to Read Those Books, ever, is Life's Greatest Sin -- a sin for which I surely deserve to be sent to HADES.
Speaking of HADES, will I find Draco Malfoy and his family there -- whoever THEY are?????
3
(Maybe a potential spoiler, although I tried to be opaque...)
OK, I have stopped with the top half of the grid virtually solved, because when I got 45 Across after filling in 46 Across, I thought, "Wait a minute...?" And I won't say why here, but I looked above and noticed something I hadn't noticed before about 24 Across...
...and I just had to come here and say "Holy mackerel!" before I continue on...not to mention "Holy jumpin' catfish!"
4
I “F”-ed up. DUE TO THE FACT THAT I don’t know my ABAFT from my EFT. DRAT.
One dang letter off. Ruined my 8 day streak.
Other than that, a fun puzzle. Liked the double answers throughout, though it would have been amusing if “carpe diem” was in there somewhere what with all the SIEZE-ing.
4
I'm a sucker for a good cross referenced clue, so today's solve was lots of fun! I also love multi layered themes... I figured that there had to be more to the theme than the number/language pairs (obviously - since the length of those entries would not a theme set make) and it was fun to see the words appear in the theme phrases and figure out how they related to the foreign language numbers. Great, relaxing Sunday solve. Thanks Sam, Will (and Sam? LOL), and Caitlin for her usual excellent guidance!
4
5 years bartending experience, number of "no ice" drink orders-maybe two. the term is "neat"
6
jon,
Right. We all agree. "Neat" specifies NO ICE.
4
@jon o one of the two!!
@Barry Ancona “Neat” would have been a better/more challenging clue for NOICE, IMHO.
3
ELF is eleven in Dutch as well as German. Dutch words, quite common in English such as boss, ok and snoop are under-represented in NYT crosswords.
@James Hamje it seems like the only languages used are the ones Americans claim to know. The 4 big ones studied in the United States. I would have preferred Dutch, Arabic, Chinese and Russian but I'm a linguist.
3
@Santi Bailor i was hoping for cuig deag ☘️
1
(Sorry if this appears twice; emus appear to be blocking posts)
For the "Sciency is just not a thing" crowd:
https://planetpailly.com/
3
Masterful! As was that picture in Caitlin's column. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
7
LETTER BOXED
A-D(11), D-Y(5)
Yesterday BEAUTIFUL LARKISH. As I mentioned at the time, I tried the second word on a LARK.
2
@Andrew
A - E (9), E - E (6)
second word is a biological catalyst
1
@Andrew. I had the same solution as you. Yesterday FILIBUSTER RAKISH.
1
@Andrew
There are some serious problems with what this game accepts, i.e. NUMP, and what it does not, i.e. UNZONED
Lots of hate today for SCIENCY. Personally, I’ve seen so much of ARTY and ARTSY around here, that I found the counter-balance rather refreshing!
16
@Andrew
I might feel the same way about ARTIFIC.
1
@Andrew
Some doggerel:
While studying SCIENCe near QUINCy
I learned a QUINCE can be SCIENCY;
OPIE and Aunt BEE, neither one DITZY,
But Goober after a DOOBIE —
Why, he tried to set DOBBY free.
6
@Andrew
I'm not sure why.. it's a term that I've heard on many occasions... it's definitely "in the language" to me...
1
My two primary passions/obsessions -- crosswords and baseball -- combined to hang me up. I was smugly sure that the solve for 29D -- Some battery ends -- was CATCHERS. I was a little disappointed when the crosses proved that my brilliance was misguided, and I reluctantly reconfigured until the more obvious CATHODES emerged, allowing me to finish in an unsightly 1:06:36. Streak at 38, closing in on my PR of 41.
6
@NickS I am rooting for you to get there Nick!
2
@NickS
That is a great clue for CATCHERS. Per Xwordinfo, it has never been used and last time CATCHER(S) was clued to “Battery” was in 1974, with “Battery part” (not as good as “Battery end,” imo).
2
SPELLING BEE
23 words, 91 points, 1 pangram
12
@Kevin Davis It's a double dose of Sam today. I still have few words left from today's crossword. The city of Akronoh stumped me until I realized it was Akron, Ohio :)
Speaking of the crossword, there are no X words today in the Bee. No slang or foreign words either, except maybe a cooking term.
I'll post clues when I write them. Hopefully everyone will read them and not ask late in the thread, what's the N7?
10
SPELLING BEE GRID
A C E G H N X
WORDS: 23, POINTS: 91, PANGRAMS: 1
First character frequency:
A x 3
C x 6
E x 5
G x 4
H x 3
N x 2
Word length frequency:
4L: 11
5L: 3
6L: 6
7L: 2
8L: 1
Grid:
4 5 6 7 8 TOT
A: 2 1 - - - 3
C: 2 1 3 - - 6
E: 1 - 2 1 1 5
G: 3 - - 1 - 4
H: 1 1 1 - - 3
N: 2 - - - - 2
TOT:11 3 6 2 1 23
Two letter list:
EA-1 EN-3 EX-1
AC-2 AN-1
CA-4 CH-2
GA-4
HA-1 HE-2
NA-2
58
@Kevin I think this was a very solvable Bee.
11
A fun puzzle although I didn’t get some of the best parts until I read Caitlin’s column. But if SCIENCY were euthanized and buried with a silver stake through its heart the world would be a better place.
19
What a nice way to end the week, after a horrible Saturday. I did have a wEIrd problem with a couple words coming down through 69A as I repeated to myself "'I' before 'E' except ..." and I didn't catch on to that word looking like the French 16 two words to the right until I read Caitlin's column after I finished. Hey, I can only think of so much, if I want to get to bed on time. (How could I have missed that?)
Cute placement and all, but I really hated 59D.
2
PfP.
I don't have any hate left over for crossword puzzles.
5
@Barry Ancona You post...a lot. I know this is not news to you. But this is by far my favorite of yours in like, forever.
4
Thought this was a bit tougher in a few spots than most Sunday puzzles, but I managed to get around some of the misdirections and fill in enough to muddle my way through. Knew Dobby and figured out DUETO… quickly, but didn't catch the fact that the theme words were at the ends of the rows until reading Wordplay.
Liked the music mentions - Marley, cajun, maestri, ABBA, Swift, batons and kazoo. Did not like slim up—I've always heard slim down; and sciency was a bit iffy. Overall, I liked the puzzle.
4
Theme was clever enough, but I was thinking the revealer needed a number or a translation of its own until I realized that the second part of the revealer contains a "translation" of the first part of the revealer and once again everything was right with the world (except maybe for the unsciency SE but I'm just going to mmob about that!)
Guy Quay,
I saw what you did there.
Or to put it another way,
LOST IN + AN ART = TRANSLATION
I liked the puzzle, but was bugged by SCIENCY (really?!), and didn't love GENYER much either. SLIM UP was. . . well, maybe some people say that but I've never heard it, and believe me I have a LOT of experience with SLIM, DIET MENUS, etc. LOL
ABAFT was just hard for me, not being a sailor. But no complaints about it, it was just hard!
I was also really confused by the double SEIZE. I thought the same answer was not allowed twice, and although I realize they mean different things, it was confusing.
Finally, and I am formally entering a complaint to the Cluing Judge powers-that-be:
Where in the heck did CONSAM come from? I googled it and could find no such word. Anywhere. The fill was ultimately not that difficult, but is this the beginning of a new trend? If so, I protest!
Still, an enjoyable Sunday puzzle, not very difficult. It helped if you knew the languages of the numbers but they weren't two hard to figure out and I loved the DOBBY THE HOUSE ELF fill!
2
@Lin Kaatz Chary - try CONSARN - it's the consarned gawldarned sans serif font with bad kerning that led to to see an M where there's an RN!
I protest, too, but my protest is against the font, not the word!
7
@David Connell
Amen, again.
1
"...didn't love GENYER much either."
Love it or hate it, I've heard and read "Gen Xer" many times, so why not Y?
4
Had to put my iPad down to applaud this when I finished. Not infernally tough, but devilishly clever.
5
I appreciate that Sam referenced the OOOO, but I really think it could've been clued better. Representing Os as zeroes just doesn't feel right to me, unless it's a deliberate theme. Maybe something like "sound of gossip among sixth-graders?", because (in my mind, at least - maybe it's not as ubiquitous as I initially thought) would think of that and hear kids doing a long "oooOoOoOOOOOH" (the H doesn't need to be there to make the "ooh" sound). Ok that clue's not great, I'm not gonna spend much time on it and am not a clue writer anyway - I'm sure people could come up with better ones.
Pedantic griping aside, I thought it was quite clever (though I didn't actually catch the cleverness before reading this post bc I'm bad). I wonder how many crosswords have had the same word more than once - SEIZE coming up twice in this one made me curious if this is the first time.
PS I just found out right now Deb's not the only one who writes these. I may have called other people Deb in the past. Sorry.
PPS I loved the beanpole comment
8
clever to have the translated word repeat at the beginning and end of the line! Will DIET MENUS help you SLIM UP (or SLIM Down?)
Didn’t enjoy this one much. Slim up, GenYer, abaft bugged me, and the theme didn’t make me smile or otherwise enjoy figuring it out. Also, repay, remit, and iou all make me wonder if the constructor is has issues with owing or being owed money.
5
@PK71 The constructer is a GEN Y-ER, after all (despite Caitlin's column; I think '96 or '97 is the cutoff for Gen Z.) If there's one thing Millennials know about, it's debt. I should know.
6
Caitlin, you nailed it with your column. “[N]ot as many lobs and cream puffs” as recent Sundays with some “wicked misdirects.” Indeed! At times, it felt like a Friday or Saturday puzzle.
And the transnational theme had a lot of Aha! bang for its euro and pound. Sam even managed to give a shout out to the SB with BUSY BEE. Great job all the way around.
6
I felt a bit behind the ocho-huit-acht ball at the start, not knowing much about Star Wars or Harry Potter, but this did not detract from my enjoyment of the puzzle. I liked the language theme and clever cluing such as new pedometer reading. Was a bit disappointed with myself for writing NEWB instead of NOOB for the second puzzle in a row. Fool me once...
Also loved and appreciated the shoutout to the Almighty ❤️. Thanks for a challenging but fun puzzle.
2
@Robert Kern
I dearly hope you are not referring to 28A.
4
@Andrew
Bite your tongue! But I'm sure if 28A did XWPs -- admittedly not very likely -- he'd have taken it that way.
5
@Andrew
For me there is only one Almighty...
1
it was a slog. but the journey reference was nice.
1
This one was really quick and smooth, even though I know absolutely nothing about Harry Potter, never heard of that funeral ceremony, and had no idea on Erie, PA environs.
On many puzzles, I get stuck with the whole puzzle filled in but something isn't right. I'm very stubborn about finishing, but sometimes I just can't get it and have to give in.
Thanks for helping me thrash my average Sunday time!
1
"New pedometer reading" is my new favorite clue/answer combo ever.
12
I immediately thought of the sport of baton twirling which incorporates gymnastics moves rather than a relay race with a baton between the legs.
5
@Helen Harmon Me too! The thought of relay races didn't occur to me until I read these comments.
I had my aha! thanks. but no thanks for the Journey earworm :-/. 'Just a small-town girl..'
2
@danny try to picture the moment when the screen goes black.
2
I really wanted 93D to be BACI, since they come in a tube in Italy, and especially since SNOGS was near by. Alas, it was not to be.
4
I can always count on these puzzles to cheer me up.
(Or help me number the pain.)
12
@Mike
Have no VIER. Mike is here!
(Excuse my Canada DREI humour.)
6
Well done. I got the number/language connection soon with QUINCE, but was nearly finished before the TRANSLATION phrases connection sunk in. Didn’t know the marmalade QUINCE and knew DOBBY but not the German. It wasn’t until SEIZE POWER that the ooh, aah hit. Very clever with the Seoul Soul Kia, got me on that one.
4
Had a bit of a Natick at EFT / ABAFT. Got it on the - ABCDEF - sixth try.
4
Being plagued with too many annoying food allergies, I kept trying to fit a reference to same before settling on diet in diet menu. Like our columnist, I have never encountered a diet menu, but some restaurants are gracious enough to offer an allergen menu which guides the diner in avoiding unfortunate after effects while dining out. Otherwise I tend to think of dining out as restaurant roulette.
1
G L,
At some (primarily down-market) restaurants and often at diners, I've seen *sections* of the menu for "calorie counters," but never a separate menu.
Has anyone seen one?
(If the main menu does not so note, my wife requests the GF menu.)
@G L
Are there a lot of diners in Iowa? Not diners as people who eat, but rather the type of restaurant that has practically everything on the menu, none of which is especially good?
At least here in the NY area, if you look at a diner menu, you're likely to find a "waist watcher's menu" section of maybe four or five items, which might include a hamburger without the bun or chicken salad with a scoop of cottage cheese. Haute cuisine, to be sure. But there's your DIET MENU.
Steve,
Read the puzzle clue again and read my comment (posted as you were posting).
LETTER BOXED
.
At least, what I found:
B-L(9), L-H(7)
Well, I scanned the puzzle for TWELFTH, as a continuation of the ongoing series of ordinals. While I didn't find that entry, there were enough numerical entries to make up for any lack. The only language of the four that I am weak on is Spanish, but QUINCE, (six letters, Caitlin), is close enough to the French, and I'd heard of the JELLY, so that was quite gettable.
Maybe I was the only one not to have Abie before OPIE. I already had the second letter P in place so OPIE was the obvious choice. My problem was that, having grown up with Andy of Mayberry, I can never think of OPIE as a "man's name". It will always be merely a "boy's name".
Quite a brilliant puzzle by a brilliant young man! Thank you, Sam!
14
@Andrew
Same for me with Opie.
5
@Andrew
I failed to count on both sets of fingers. Yikes. Thank you!
1
@Andrew
I went straight to OPIE, too.
Feels like there's a lot of content in this puzzle that the 24-year-old constructor picked up from a crossword construction program. 1D - radio's first major quiz show DRIQ? 5A - DATIVE case in grammar? Not what I would expect in a 24-year-old's wheelhouse. I guess I like to see a constructor's real personality come through in their puzzles.
2
@retired, with cat
I don't know about DR IQ, but I do believe that a well-educated 24 year-old would be quite familiar with the DATIVE case in grammar.
17
@retired, with cat
Don't forget that Sam works with Will and Joel and Caitlin and Deb, so I'm sure that he gets a lot of exposure to all sorts of clues and answers. And he also does the Spelling Bee puzzles.
4
@retired, with cat
I'd think the 24-year-old would be more familiar with DATIVE than I am. This 78-year-old remembered learning about it 60+ years ago, but not what it is or what it does or how it's used.
But I remember loving DR. I.Q.
6
Not being a Harry Potter reader, DOBBY was bOBBY for much too long. I enjoyed the Spanish/French/German aspect to the puzzle. And I was LOST IN TRANSLATION as I know no German (ELF was fun to learn). DR I Q was a new one for me, and TIL a new word in EXEQUY.
Ahh, the DOOBIE Brothers. Good listening. I only wish that tasty WASABI PEAs were available in the early seventies... mmmmunchies...
;-)
12
NOICE.
And after listening to a lot of Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders earlier, AKRON OH popped right into my head.
8
I'm generally a fan of Sam Ezersky and his puzzles. But what was LOST IN TRANSLATION today was the relationship between the puzzle title, NUMBER THEORY, the revealer, and the theme entries themselves.
I get that the foreign language theme numbers have English language homographs, i.e. words with the exact same spelling but not sharing a common meaning or root.
But how that information relates to a theory, well, that's what's lost on me. So no AHA or even an OH moment for me. More of a hmmm.
Plenty of lively fill, however, and still an entertaining solve.
So I'm glad that Sam and other edgy constructers are willing to swing for the fences with their wild and most often entertaining ideas. Even if they occasionally strike out.
10
Fire in the hole! (That would be “four” in Norwegian). I enjoy themes like this where the second layer of trickery isn’t obvious right away. As for Deadline, it was the quince that gave it away. Is ELF the only one pronounced the same in both languages?
2
@Margaret - not exactly the same - the L is particularly different, and the E isn't identical. Elf caught my eye because it is also eleven in Dutch. (Zwölf and twaalf are quite distinct by contrast).
2
@David Connell, OK, I can hear those L’s as different. Plus, if I had any doubts about your language expertise, you proved your mettle with yesterday’s comment on how to pronounce D.N. Insert wink emoji here.
6
@Margaret - wink back atcha. Gotta chuckle or we'd all be in tears.
4
Not a linguist, but at least I know the names of a few languages. So getting GERMAN etc helped my ignorance as to the actual translated numbers themselves.
Generally in agreement w Caitlin's sentiment (SLIM UP) that some of the answers felt forced, but some post solve search shows that people do actually say SCIENCY and GEN YER. Heck maybe there's even folks who say EXEQUY. Anyway, never hurts to learn new words.
I'm hoping someone will explain why LOST is connected to the theme entries. There's the numbers, and the same words again in adjacent answers, in plain sight. Must not be my day for insight.
3
Rajeev,
Did Caitlin's offering not do it for you?
"These numbers, when used in those English phrases, are LOST IN / TRANSLATION."
@Barry Ancona
Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Sadly, no. IN TRANSLATION fine, but why LOST ? They're right there in plain sight. Maybe I'm being too fussy.
Rajeev,
Their meaning as numbers is lost in translation.
(I'm not championing it, just trying to explain it.)
2
I found today's theme(s) challenging but not particularly entertaining.
Got the part about the number and its language quite quickly. I had filled in the NW corner and was following my nose down the west coast, so I saw ELF and GERMAN right away.
At that point I headed back up north and then east, and ran up against QUINCE. What? A dupe? This must mean something!
After a bit of nosing around, I saw the other dupes, gave it a bit of thought, and caught on. Yes, a challenge. But, as I said, it didn't excite me.
I only knew DOBBY THE HOUSE ELF because I had recently found that one of my favorite fabric designs was called DOBBY, and I'd Googled the word and learned about THE HOUSE ELF.
I certainly didn't know that the handoffs of BATONS in relay races involved any between-the-legs shenanigans.
It would take some convincing to make me believe that SLIM UP is In The Language.
OTOH, I bet there are very few of us who actually remember listening to "DR. I.Q."
Someday I might have an opportunity to taste some QUINCE JELLY. Or maybe just a QUINCE. I think I'll go Google and at least see what the thing looks like.
Thanks all.
6
Deadline,
No shenanigans with the BATONS; in a relay race, each runner on the team runs a "leg."
7
@Deadline each part of a relay is a leg, so a BATON would be passed between the legs... Just not between the runners' legs that they are using (that's just asking to be tripped up).
I don't know that I've ever had a quince, but I just planted a quince tree in my backyard, and the descriptor on my particular one claims that it will taste reminiscent of pineapple! Hopefully we will get to enjoy the fruit before any of our wildlife does...
4
@Deadline - flowering quince is so pretty to see in bloom - though covered with sharp spines. If you like marmalade, quince jelly is worth a taste!
The legs in the clue refer to the legs of a relay race - each runner runs a leg. Between those legs...not the runners' legs.
You won't get this reference, probably, but Dobby the House Elf is Harry Potter's Jar-Jar Binks.
https://www.portlandnursery.com/shrubs/chaenomeles/
2
This is a beautiful puzzle, and I will probably go on at length over the next day about it. A simple beginning: none of the words that are echoed are related etymologically at all. Bravo, Sam!
I write in praise of "exequy." Exequy shares a root with the familiar word "obsequious." Singing the praises of a person, dead or living (in that order). I was immediately transported by seeing that word tonight.
The composer Heinrich Schütz wrote his "German Requiem", actual title "Musikalische Exequien" - "Musical Exequies" - for a noble patron. The nobleman had designed that his sarcophagus should be encased in pewter etched with verses of scripture and hymns, all very meticulously laid out. Schütz set the whole sarcophagus to music of sublime beauty, incorporating chant, hymns, and music of the latest style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikNYP6H7Ilw
(that's the first of three movements)
When I visited Gera in the old East Germany, I sought out that sarcophagus...the church was under renovation, and I learned it was held in another church. There I found an old janitor in charge, who pretended to know nothing about the thing. I stayed all afternoon with him, speaking about that music, and its inspiration. After three hours, he conceded that there was a secret room...he led me in, and there was the sarcophagus of Prinz Heinrich Reuss-Gera! But, best of all - the Prince's wife's sarcophagus was next to it - with the libretto of another unwritten Requiem inscribed on it!
40
@David Connell
Wow! Amazing story!
2
@David Connell
Lovely music, I'm listening to it now. Thank you!
1
@Millie - I just listened to it all over. I own the original CD of that performance, but isn't it nice to have the score scroll by as it is sung? Such a sweet realization of the piece.
I forgot to mention: nearest big city to Gera is indeed LEIPZIG.
4
Wacky includes the "tobacky" at 82D. :)
@K Barrett
I was wondering if it had wandered in from Saturday's puzzle.
2
vaer,
Contact high.
4
Fun puzzle, overall.
As one who generally doesn't subscribe to the "crosswords should never refer to unpleasant world events" rule, I nevertheless had a visceral negative reaction to the cluing of 54A, TIBET. There are so many more uplifting ways to clue it.
7
SEOUL??
Doug,
From Seoul, but Soul.
https://www.kia.com/us/en/soul
3
@Barry Ancona Ugh... Thanks.
Slim up?? Hmm, is this really something anyone says? Otherwise enjoyable puzzle.
16
@Mara Gellman
SLIPUP x PIT would be the obvious groan reducer.
5
Mara,
Perhaps the puzzle constructors and editors frequent this place and actually do say it...
https://slimupnyc.com/
@Mara Gellman Yep, that's not a thing. Ruined the puzzle.
2
Thought for the puzzle date:
SEIZE the day!
19
QUATORZE the fortnight??
3
@Doug and @Kiki
Bravo! Those are real DOUZIES!
2
@Kiki, mon vieux, I VINGT to congratulate you!
Cute puzzle.
3