Yay! Annoying rebus-style missing-letter puzzles, which used to contain their awfulness to Thursday, are spreading like a coronavirus to Wednesday!
5
Maybe I should try writing crossword puzzles. The theme of my first one will be "three secret letters which I hid on a scrap of paper underneath a bench down the street" and if you don't know what they are, then I guess you're just not clever enough!
In all seriousness? "Clever" puzzles like these make me wonder why I still bother with crosswords at all.
17
Crappy puzzle. I thought the object was crossWORDS, NOT part of a word, completed by random letters elsewhere in the puzzle! I’m sure the author felt very clever, but difficulty should not be achieved by violating all conventions
13
meh.
5
I was convinced it had to be the rebus but my daughter set me on the right path.
4
It seems rather odd that groups of both emus AND kangaroos are called mobs. Are you SURE that is right?
@BW
A group of kangaroos can also be a court, herd or troop, but mob is used as a term for both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names
(You'll notice that herd and troop are used pretty widely. This is a handy source available on Wiki, but not nearly as entertaining as the source Suejean has mention on Wordplay in the past, a book called An Exaltation of Larks. Highly recommended.)
1
Thought it was quite strange to see a rebus on Wednesday, but was very surprised that with four “one” rebuses that the crosses ignored the rebus, and that there was no happy sound, so I needed to come here to see the trick today, and as soon as the rebuses were replaced, happy sound.
2
It is a rare puzzle I don't enjoy but this made the list. Feh.
8
1) as someone who is... not the world’s biggest fan of thursdays, let’s say? figuring this out pretty early on (i knew it should be ZONEDEFENSE... tried ZONEFENSE first, then had to change, and between that and HOWOARTH, realized something was up) — and on a wednesday no less! a day we’re not supposed to expect it! — i’m feel pretty chuffed with myself. 🤓
2) a while back, i coulda SWORN that “special” puzzles were generally on wednesdays, not thursdays, which, given the above re: not the world’s biggest fan, i preferred. am i imagining things, or can anyone confirm this?
1
Got the 'one' rebus, the rest of the puzzle was awful
4
Just did https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/ and saw the filled solution grid: headslap here -- had no idea the ONE was *that* way! I was doing a different geometry.
Moomph.
ONE as a rebus solves the puzzle to my satisfaction. Sometimes we just have to accept the fact that gimmicks trump good construction.
4
@Addison Sims
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Addison Sims,
About those four rather strange Down answers...
3
Just when I think I caught a sneaky rebus, turns out I was literally misdirected...
3
The meaning of 33A still eludes me. Help, please!
1
@Cindy, this is one of the four theme entries. The revealer at 69A is ONEUP, clued as “...a hint to entering four answers in this puzzle”. Following the answer to the revealer you need to read the answer as HOW*O*NEARTH or how on earth? At the O you read “up” to include the N and E in the answer. Hope this helps.
5
you need to figure out a way that the squares containing more than one letters (the rebus button) count as correct. otherwise we lose streaks even though we solve the puzzles.
4
@slightlycrazy
Hmmm, agreed, but today there weren't any rebuses. You simple used the word "one" that was entered "up" in the specific cases. . . .or am I missing your complaint?
7
Way too unclear how to write out one or 1. Or O as it turned out was the way.
3
@Ben
See other replies. In the cases where "O" appeared to be entered in the across answer, "NE" was written up and becomes part of the answer, too.
2
I thought I was dealing with a rebus puzzle today. Had to read Deb’s column to realize why that wasn’t doing the trick. After changing GEARs, I found this puzzle quite doable and enjoyable.
I’m liking Women Constructor’s Week.
😀
10
A Thursday puzzle one day early! Does this mean we'll have a Wednesday puzzle tomorrow?
6
@Ron my thoughts exactly.
I started with ONE rebi, then 1 numerals, and then O. I just work my way through the possibilities when I run into issues like that. Had to come here to understand the full glory of the reveal and the puzzle.
A note to people who are moving into the tougher puzzles, with their various forms of challenges: what I do when I run into something curious (like ZODEFENSE) is just continue to work around the oddities and complete as much of the puzzle as I can, while observing and trying suss out what is going on. In general, going with what you know, along with keeping an open mind (plus, obviously experience with the difficult puzzles) will eventually get you where you are going.
I also think it helps to take joy in the puzzles, in your ability to get the wordplay and solve the challenges, and in the artistry of the constructors and editors. If you have a fixed idea about what a puzzle on a given day is supposed to be like, you will inevitably be disappointed.
18
Most of you seem delighted with the puzzle. Great.
It was my worst day since I started doing MTW puzzles a few months ago. I don't do well with film actors or actresses, didn't know a couple of other gimmes for many people on this blog, and could not figure out the trick even though I knew Zone Defense and Claude Monet somehow had to fit. DBStatus (Database Status) meant more to me than FBstatus. It didn't help that I was also checking election results and answering Emails about a time-sensitive project for a non-profit that I work with. But next Wednesday will bring a new puzzle. I'll do better.
12
I counted myself lucky when I realized that by having randomly started the puzzle in the SE corner I came across the clue that warned there be trickery ahead before I had a chance to wonder why some across entries needed a rebus while their down crosses did not.
Then I fly-specked well into the double digits to notice I had HAMILnON for 41D...
And so for her who yelled “Olé!” in the middle of the rodeo arena while the bull still strained the walls of the pen, the winde to her insides sterv’d came not, and SWOLE her sailes not, when she so joyd.
(With apologies to Mr. Donne.)
4
@Sam the Lyons
I don't believe that John ever Donne wrote that.
1
@Leapfinger
I ain’t a-lyon’ about it, though I admit I wasn’t familiar with it. I googled SWOLE and Middle English to see how far back our current linguistic U-turn reaches, and the internet spit out “The Storme.”
I did, er, paraphrase a bit.
2
Tracy's puzzles are anything but gray. Today's was sneakily tricky and totally terrific! And I'll bet it took a lot of Gray cells to create it. Brava,Tracy!
8
I enjoyed today's puzzle! Names that I don't know usually send me running to a web search, but I stuck this one out and there were enough cross clues to see me through.
4
I finished the puzzle, at least the puzzle thinks so, but I can't find the missing e from Tatum O'Neal in the line above.
@Kathleen Craig
You make a left at the O and go up. The N is in TONKA at 42A and the E above it in CARESS at 35A.
3
@Kathleen Craig
I completely missed that this was one of the themers! Since I'm not a cinemaphile, I thought Tatu Moal was a real person! 🤪
2
Ron,
The revealer clue said ONEUP was a hint to entering four answers. If you thought Tatu Maol was real, which was your fourth ONEUP answer?
3
So I'm thinking -- this is a special week and will Thursday's ethos leak back to Wednesday? Apparently it did. I kept thinking rebus and Schrodinger as I neared completion. Yup -- Schrodinger. And nicely [do or done] too!!
To the tune of a song in "Sound of Music":
This is Wednesday going on Thursday
Baby, it´s time to think
Better beware, be canny and careful
Baby, you're on the brink ....
8
You write "SWOLE sounds like the past tense of “swell,” although it’s a noun and means extremely buff and muscular." However, in all the usage I've heard of this word it is used as an adjective and would be closer to the past tense of swell rather than a noun. Could you please enlighten me by using it as a noun in a sentence. Feel free to quote one of your children. Thanks! :)
3
Swole is so common I thought it would be considered old school. When someone is naturally or artificially muscular, they are commonly referred to as “SWOLE” without regard to the word origins of which you speak. Since terms like this become part of the “mainstream” lexicon quickly these days, just put them in the same category as ADO, OREO and ARIA - frequently used (or soon to be) xword words.
After reading the comments, I had visit Rex Parker for the first time. Man, he is one salty B.
My guess is that he felt so slighted that he “struggled” on a Wednesday, that he went ballistic. It’s the puzzle’s fault because he couldn’t think outside the box, that a wed might have a “trick”.
My favorite parts
-literally embeds a map of Syria to “show” how the answer should have been Homs instead of Hama. Thanks for showing us how smart you are!
-he never heard of Miele, so it should not be a valid answer. Miele, Viking, and Thermador are like the trinity of high end kitchen remodels. Dyson vacuums/products are hecka expensive, but no one complains about them being in the puzzle.
Man, I hope I get so good at puzzles, that I feel outrage when I can’t figure one out. Lol.
Yes, I’m stereotyping. But I know I’m right...
25
@Newbie - wow - respect for getting RP to a tee on first sight. There's nothing else there - visit any day and the view is exactly the same!
7
@Newbie Who is Rex Parker, and why should I care that he can't work one of the easiest Wednesdays in a while?
4
Newbie,
I'm not surprised Rex would resent not knowing a city in Syria and a high-end appliance brand, and would blame the puzzle for what he didn't know. After all, he had trouble with the cross of N. C. Wyeth and Natick. Speed solving does always mean smart solving.
5
Whoa! I waaaay overthought this!!!!
I first thought the NE was missing... as in “there isn’t N-E (any) thing there”
Then I thought the NE was hovering above the grid, like UP in the air.
So I wrote to Tracy congratulating her on realllllly thinking “outside the box” breaking the third dimension by having the letters come up off the grid!!!! Very Patrick Blindauer!!!!
But now I read they were there all along, above the word in other words.
I have to learn what Occam’s Razor is, which I see is mentioned below... about simplest solutions...
I congratulate Tracy who always tries to innovate and breaks thru walls, grids, ceilings!!!
HOWOARTH does she do that???!!!
(HOWOARTH seems very Harry Potteresque)
Brava, Tracy, as Women March madness continues!
14
@andreacarlamichaels
I’m so glad people didn’t come after you, like they did ms gray.
I’m also geeked to see a constructor (aka superstar) kickin’ it in the comments section with us mere mortals. Maybe you all lurk, but with aliases, like say, uh, newbie...
3
@Newbie
andreacarlamichaels is astonishingly unpretentious, has an unlimited stock of exclamation points, and is @dk's aka My Dove.
[I have no further information on that latter, but will say I don't think there's anyone who is ever anything but delighted to see her here. In any guise.]
3
@andreacarlamichaels
Occam's Razor can be summarized as "When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras."
Even when I had figured out what was going on in this puzzle, it still took me a while to unEARTH the meaning of one of the four entries. ;)
Where is the irony that a group of EMUs is called a “mob.”?
Thanks
5
@Sgt Schulz
I’d say in the fact that the NYT emus keep the Gray Lady’s comment sections from becoming the mob scenes of their counterparts in other digital publications.
4
In case that first reply didn’t clear it up for you: People who post comments in this section and others on the NYT website/app refer to the gatekeepers who moderate the comments as “emus.” I don’t know how that term came about. If someone else does, please fill us in on the history. It’s insider-speak. The emus don’t allow inappropriate comments to be posted.
3
@JR
Electronic moderation unit, I'm told. The emus are the robocensors that hold back posts with questionable words before humans can get around to taking a look at it.
A post I wrote a couple of days ago which mentioned the etymology of "that sucks" got held up because I referred to the act of fellat---oh, never mind.
4
I had not read Rex Parker's blog until today. I found it humorous all he had to complain about on today's puzzle and it made me wonder how serious he really was. I can't believe folks who are so stuck on this day-of-the-week profile thing. When I know the answer to a clue, and it doesn't fit in the squares provided, I know something is up (or oneup as in today's puzzle), and I don't really care what day of the week it is, unless I need something to complain about.
16
The one time I thought I was finally clever enough to pick up on a rebus puzzle, it's not a rebus.
20
@Emily I think the word rebus takes on its own meaning in the NYT crossword solving world. Really what it means in this context is you need to use the rebus button to enter your answer, which is not always something I would have referred to as a rebus prior to its use in the crossword. I think the NYT crosswords contain gimmicks, which may or may not require the rebus button. After thinking I had solved today's puzzle (not using the app) I had thought it was one you'd need the rebus button for, and sorry to learn that I had missed the boat.
@Emily Same here--I type one into the rebus for each of the themed clues and was surprised to see them marked red. So it goes.
@Jim
This puzzle is not a rebus puzzle. You should not be using your rebus button. The NE's are above the O's, not crammed in the boxes with them.
The revealer was ONE UP.
See other commenters in today's comments for more info.
An enjoyable Wednesday overall, but I have to say MISACTS was a real oof.
8
@E.W. Swan I strongly agree. Don’t believe that it’s even marsupially cromulent.
3
@G. L. Dryfoos
Once opossum time it was -- marsupially cromulent, I mean -- and some would consider it roo'ed to suggest otherwise.
It has been suggested that someone who is miscast will misact.
3
🤦🏼♀️ Finished the puzzle without understanding the theme at all. Thank goodness for the column and this blog. Tracy Gray made a devilishly clever puzzle and I’m hoping my embarrassment at missing the point will help me to remember the concept. Thursday ought to be a humdinger.
4
What the heck man? Now we have to figure out if the "puzzle master" spelld the wrd correcty?
2
@matt I’m with you. This is not true crossword fun, it’s make the rules up as you go along. I’m not a writer or wordsmith but I have a very high aptitude for language. Nonetheless I wish these tricks were confined to another game. Not my kind of crossword solving.
3
You two are giving Illinois a bad name.
11
@Barry Ancona
giving Fisher a Bad name
Honestly using Claude Mot and Tatum Onl as the answers for those 2 clues is ridiculous without including a hint that they are abbreviated.
3
@Kathleen read wordplay and the rest of the comments. That may help your misunderstanding.
3
They aren't abbreviated - there is a hint - it's in 69A.
8
Figured out the reveal only when I got to the “Water lilies” clue, but incorrectly assumed REBUS. That only worked if I ignored the fact that the D answers didn’t fit unless I used just the first letter in the rebus, which didn’t seem fair! I only got the trick when reading the notes.
4
Excellent puzzle for Wednesday. I stumbled and fumbled ’til I saw it in *howoarth*. That smile was a great way to complete this puzzle.
5
@Peter
I kinda thought it was something from the Harry Potter universe.
1
What a fun puzzle! It gave just the right amount of frustration figuring out the theme so the "aha" moment was very satisfying. I really enjoyed solving it.
6
I give an One up for this puzzle. Truly enjoyed solving it.
8
What UP?
ONE UP.
OOH......
A most captivating photo from the Boys Home Industrial School in 1900, @Deb, but I'm not sure I'd call that a 'balancing act'. It looks to me more like 8 or so young lads engaged in a 'Let us see at what point arm-bones and other indispensable body parts crack asunder' experiment. Offers a clear view of the facial expressions which are apt to accompany the prepubescent 'death grip', as well as the moral encouragement that may derive from nearby bulging biceps and long pants. "No, no!" I say. Children, this is not A GAME.
As with Johanna and the LLempel puzzle, I wished Tracy Gray's would goon far longer. Didn't resent for a moment scrapping 2/3 of each rebus. For starters, a ZODEFENSE just sounds as if you have a code ib your doze. Then you get the impression that CLAUDE is ONE exemple of a bon MOT. And the way HOW O[NE] ARTH is pushed up there like a WEDGIE was ENOUGH for me to crack a bi-i-ig smile.
For a while, I was a bit TORN over AGILE not being LITHE ENOUGH for an acrobat, but my final grade for Tracy's WednesPuzz says that MIS ACTS exactly as she should, and thanks MIS Gray for another sprightly pseudo-rebus in disguise. Dis guy's a winner.
6
Odd how a part of me seems to be stuck in the '70s, a part in the '90s, a part in the 00s.
From the 70s, "RYE'd, Captain, RYE'd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqFFjoRnltg
2
@Leapfinger
“Odd how a part of me seems to be stuck in the '70s, a part in the '90s, a part in the 00s.”
Lovely thought and true for me as well. Not sure I’ll allow any part of me to ever step foot in the late teens again.
2
@Puzzlemucker, I hear you and am with you about the late teens. Sufficient unto those years is the evil thereof, and all that.
However, all that has stuck are not lovely thoughts, I assure you. Matter of fact, one of my earliest memories is of 'someplace' perhaps in Romania when we were fleeing from 'someplace else'. I think we were staying in some kind of inn, where there was nothing for children to do. Apparently no sand was available, so my mother asked for some EARTH to be delivered for us to dig in. I can still visualize being there with another toddler, an adorable little girl (white romper) younger than myself, and being somewhat uncharitable about sharing, wondering what she would do if I flicked some of that EARTH at her with my little shovel. I knew she wouldn't like it, but being of an experimental turn, I did it and of course she cried. I remember my mother bending to brush her off with some soothing "There, there, she didn't mean to" while I stood back observing and coolly thinking "Of course I did".
Decades later, when I recounted this to my mother, she said that, based on the pile of EARTH to play in (which she remembered), that incident would have been the summer before I entered my TWOS. So the lovely thoughts probably didn't start till that nasty little kid had a few more years under her belt.
5
One of the worst Wednesdays in recent history. Poorly clued and designed with esoteric/stupid entries. This puzzle is being destroyed on all the other crossword blogs - not here though. You'd think from reading this blog that EVERY puzzle is a masterpiece.
2
@Kenny B - your post led me to visit Rexland, which seems to be where you might feel more at home.
What if - and it's merely a what if - what if a person enjoyed this puzzle, was not blown away by a bit of trickery on a Wednesday, and was honestly appreciative?
What if the people who enjoyed it actually enjoyed it, understood it, and moved on with their days?
Do we give offense? We are mere shades.
Midsummer V/1
35
@Kenny B
Aside from Nancy and Lewis, who also post here, the only commentary on Rex Parker’s blog that I care to read is from Loren Muse Smith, who wrote this:
“A while back, Rex eviscerated one of Tracy’s Sunday puzzles, and it weren’t pretty. As I solved this one, I was awash with relief that he wouldn’t be so hard on this one. So I was truly surprised by the write-up.
I. Loved. This.
. . .
I don’t give a rap about HOWOARTH appearing in the grid. Seeing that ONE going up makes me smile. This is so simple, so clever. If we didn’t allow nonsense answers sometimes, we’d never get to enjoy tricks like this. Rex said, “Your tricks should delight. Even if they frustrate at various points along the way, there should be a playfulness that makes one happy to be along for the ride.” Uh. . . this did delight with Very little frustration. The playfulness made this solver quite happy to be along for the ride.
I try to avoid frustration with Rex’s pans by understanding that what shares is his own subjective reaction and not a blanket pronouncement, an objective Truth, that everyone should recognize. Obviously I never have the same opinions about puzzles, and I’ve been here long enough to be brave about *completely disagreeing* with him.
Tracy – this was fun, playful, clever. The reveal is spot-on. Bravo!”
14
Absolutely agree
Since reading that the sales of Corona beer have dropped in the last few weeks I have been on a campaign to help them out.
15
@Wags The song that's been stuck in my head for the last couple of days is "My Sharona."
Except not as "Sharona."
2
@Rich in Atlanta
Days? Try weeks. :)
1
I’m usually not a fan of Thursday-style conceits, but I think I’m starting to like them more. I’m having to work back through all the Sundays in the archive that I didn’t do, so there’s a lot of that.
Recently people have been posting recommended archive puzzles and here’s one:
Sunday, October 21, 2012
It’s a meta-puzzle and I found I couldn’t solve the last element, when I looked up the answer, I thought it was a neat surprise.
Today’s was fun, not too hard, but stretchy.
2
This seems like a Wednesday with Thursdayish ambitions, which is not at all a bad thing; solving it made me feel both AGILE and SWOLE, at least mentally.
For those scoring along at home, my 1D is a 20A.
1
@Roger
That's a cool pick-up, about your 1D being a 20A, and impressive also.
I now share space with an upright Oreck and its baby brother, but want to report that I once bought an old tank-style Electrolux from a grad student whose mother passed it on to him when he left for college. It has been professionally serviced twice since I bought it for $25 in the early '70s and is still doing a reasonably good job at my daughter's place.
Got all the theme answers, but would not have entered them correctly had I been using the app. If I had, and my solve rejected, maybe I would have noticed the letters O-N-E going upward just as the revealer clue said. Doh!
1
What? Is it Thursday already?
Loved this puzzle!
I wonder if Deb and I went to the same school? I, too, passed a Stella D’Oro bakery on the way to school in the upper reaches of nyc. That aroma! Scent IS such a powerful memory trigger.
3
@Ms. Cat My college psychology professor claimed that this memory/aroma connection is (at least partly) due to nearness of memory and smell centers in the brain. True? Who knows.
@Ms. Cat Are you a fellow Bronx Science alum?
1
@Ms. Cat
Scent doesn't really trigger much for me, except hunger pangs.
But music? Oh man, associated with so many specific memories. Especially high school. Especially new love (infatuation), lost love, bad love, good love, lust love, friend love. You get the picture...
Trisha Yearwood had a great song back in the day. "The Song Remembers When"
I never heard the term SWOLE but wouldn’t it be an adjective? Or does it mean the physique?
3
I too thought it might have been one of the feature entries (for the last letter) -- but 69A says there are only four. (Besides that would have required 2 Ls.)
@Frances Resident 19-year-old answering here. It is used often as an adjective, though I imagine it could be used as a noun. That being said, most often you would hear it as “damn, that person his swole.”
I’d argue that the term is fading out of modern lingo.
Of course I tried the Rebus thing (doing the early-week puzzles on PuzzAzz--great free app) and got the Red Bar of Embarrassment. So I just changed the Rebi back to O's and got the Green Screen of Solvitude, even though I didn't deserve it because I should have noticed the ONE UP device. My excuse is that I've been up since 2:30 a.m., when a big storm blew in (literally.) A lot of bad damage...and more very unwelcome rain...which is continuing.
6
I forgot to cut-and-paste my long comment on the Other Blog. so my comment here will be brief:
I loved this puzzle. I saw the theme at ZO DEFENSE, looked up and saw the needed NE, guessed that the revealer would be ONE UP, but still had a tussle in the HOW ON EARTH section. It would have helped if I'd known SWOLE (I wanted BUILT) and remembered WEDGIE. So I happily had to do a lot of thinking today, which, after the last two days was a Wonderful Thing.
6
@Nancy
Your wish came true.
3
@vaer Ha! I came here to say the same thing.
1
@AudreyLM
Now what else should we have Nancy wish for?
Buzzards Bay is not and inlet. Its a sound, approachable from many directions. An inlet can only be accessed from one location.
Furthermore this puzzle was a waste of time. Whats next, diagonal answers?
3
@Tim And yet, most definitions of "sound" define it as a type of inlet.
The geographic term "sound" is very loosely defined, and some tings that might qualify as bays are called sounds and vice versa.
Given that Buzzard's Bay is a bay (and was named before the Cape Cod Canal was dug) I'd say it is a bay.
I bet David Connell could delve into the etymology of "sound" and nuances of meaning much more productively than I could.
As for diagonal answers: yes, I bet there have been and will be in the future. They are a regular feature of meta crosswords, which are a level above these "normal" crosswords that appear in the NY Times. You should try them some time. The WSJ has a meta crossword contest every Friday. Check it out! Here is last Friday's:
https://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/2020/02/27/225-crossword-contest-february-28/
9
@Tim So, not a Bay, either?
@Chief Quahog - you give me too much credit. Coastal geography is literally (littorally) a fractal subject. I won't wade into this dispute, other than to invite the curious to visit any good website devoted to the terminology. The terms divide roughly according to whether the namer is on land or water.
That said - in terms of etymology, a "sound" is something you can swim across that isn't a stream.
7
With March madness on my mind, my initial thought on the first theme clue was that there might be a particular defensive strategy to counter the threat of Georgetown great Alonzo Mourning. The revealer cleared that up. Would have been neat, but still very nice Wednesday!
2
Loved it! And from Charleston, thanks for the she-crab soup shout out!
2
I wouldn’t mind trickery every day but of course it wouldn’t be fair to everyone.
There was obviously some sort of trick at 18A but a rebus wouldn’t work with ENOLA so I just put in ZODEFENSE and hoped it would all become clear. In fact I didn’t catch on until the reveal. What a great idea for a theme, thanks Tracy.
9
I had Lithe in place of Agile for way too long.
Over thought it.
3
@Larry - hand up for lithe, also for too long.
2
I thought LITHE fit the clue better than AGILE.
Oh well
I didn't mind the rebus. That it worked only one direction seemed unusual but, hey, it's a puzzle. I have a small quibble with the app, though. I do get the logic of not accepting 'one' spelled out because of the directional anisotropy but it took me a while and much crosschecking before I tried replacing the 'one's with 'o'. I know better for next time.
1
AllSmiles,
It's not a rebus.
Allsmiles, look at 69A again for the reveal
@Barry Ancona Maybe not, but I first interpreted it as a rebus and entered the ONE squares as a rebus. I'm surprised that wasn't accepted.
I didn't notice the ONEs going up until I got to the revealer, and then I first tried replacing the rebuses with the numeral 1 and finally got the happy music when I tried the letter O.
1
What the heck is HOWOARTH?
How on earth
2
Very Thursday-ish. And very good. SWOLE is a new one for me.
2
@Paladin I am very familiar with swole. I am swole. Just not in the places muscular people are swole.
5
I was familiar with SWOLE because it's been in the puzzle twice before (and not a decade ago).
1
It took me until I got to the Frenchman before I got the picture. It all came into razor sharp focus after I figured out the hi jinxed theme. Well crafted, Macy Gray...41d reminded me of Mr. Miranda’s post HAMILTON work. At the clip’s 1:50 mark, Mary Poppins Returns sings 33a verbatim.
https://youtu.be/-OqeWW5FMuI
Minding My ONEs And TWOS,
Bru
7
@brutus
Delightful!!
1
I don’t like that the theme entries are disconnected. For example at 18A. You start out ZO, take a hard left to NE, then jump back to finish off with DEFENSE.
I prefer to think of the key square as a rebus which reads ONE going across and O coming down. Previous puzzles have had rebus squares which are interpreted like that.
I solved the puzzle using that interpretation and didn’t notice the piggy-backed NEs.
@Jack Abad - the most recent puzzle that featured a rebus that read differently across and down serves as a great example of the basic principle: the rebus has to work in both directions.
In that puzzle the numeral 8 stood for its sound "ate" in the across words, and stood for two "O"s on top of each other in the down words. It was read differently across/down - but it was read in both directions.
There's no way to read "one" as "o" except wishfulness.
6
@David Connell - Our own daily commenter Lewis composed the puzzle for July 13, 2017. SPOILER AHEAD...
In it, the letter X is read as itself ("x") in the down answers, but as "spot" in the across answers. The revealer is the obvious phrase "X marks the spot". The reading in each direction is consistent and logical and based on the theme phrase. A great example of how, even though it works differently in different directions, it has to work consistently in each direction.
6
Never got the theme, even after getting ONEUP! Finished the whole puzzle, only getting that NE was going to be missing. So glad for the article so I could go back & enjoy the trick. Fun puzzle that would have been even more fun if I were more clever!
3
I knew 'addend' was correct, but then 18A couldn't be 'zone sense' which answer made good sense to me. Water Lilies was my giveaway; I knew that answer but a rebus didn't seem called for so I just called him claudemo until I got more of the crosses. I'm surprised I solved this in 13:56 because it felt difficult but my Wed average is 16:01. After I solved I had to look up the Paper Moon clue because the theme obscured Tatum ONeal (to my eyes) and I thought it must be someone called Tatumo Neal. I've done puzzles where the answers turn corners, etc, but I don't think I've ever done one where the string of letters isn't somehow contiguous.
2
Luckily, I own a Miele vacuum. Otherwise, I'd have been lost. Isn't this more of a Thursday puzzle? Clever, but not what one expects on a Wednesday.
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@msd
We love our snazzy saffron Miele
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@Ann
Should we call you Mellow Yellow? (Ducks and runs for cover.)
https://youtu.be/bb3WpOJvsug
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@msd Agreed. This is the one clue that hung me up, because I had 20 quires = 1 REAL. I had to look that one up.
Nice puzzle.
The grid itself was also a hint that some rebus-like feature was included, as the longest across entry was only nine letters long. This is pretty rare for Monday-Wednesday puzzles. For other nerds among us, this is how some 5000 such puzzles are clustered in reference to the longest across entry:
Longest entry / Frequency
6* --- 0%
7 --- 1%
8 --- 2%
9 --- 6%
10 --- 13%
11 --- 13%
12 --- 9%
13 --- 10%
14 --- 6%
15 --- 39%
16 --- 1%
*There are only six such puzzles, mostly with vertical themers. Funny enough, one of them is by Ms. Gray, the Downward Dog one from last August.
5
Wow! This Thursday-ish Wednesday was a midweek delight. Well done, Ms. Gray!
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Clever theme idea and a fun solve (though not a success for me). If I had any kind of a memory I would have caught on to something going on early as CLAUDEMONET and TATUMONEAL were both absolute gimmes as clued. Just couldn't remember either of them. Finally caught on with enough crosses for MONET and then got the rest, though HOWOARTH was still a tough one.
And... finished with the NW corner completely blank. Couldn't remember what a quire was (I trust I'm not preaching to it) and had no idea on the German brand. Considered VAPOR for 1a but wasn't sure and wasn't getting anywhere with that. The other downs were not coming to me. Oh well. Maybe gonna be one of those weeks.
Answer/clue history search was inspired by 38d, 'Do the Right Thing' being an all time favorite film. Wondered if Radio Raheem had ever appeared in any way, shape or form. RADIORAHEEM? RAHEEM? Raheem in a clue for RADIO? Nope, nope and nope. Ah well.
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@Rich in Atlanta
I had the same experience - had the ONEUP stuff pegged before the revealer, then a slightly less blank NW corner. I had REAM and MIELE (we have one of their washer/dryer combinations which is a brilliant piece of engineering and probably slices bread if read the manual more closely), but I was convinced that 1A was NOTAR which led me down all manner of rabbit holes. A good workout for a Wednesday.
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@Rich in Atlanta
Preaching to the quire -- hah!
3
@Lewis - not to unchuckle, but merely to historicize - "quire" is the historical spelling for both the group of singers and the part of the church where they sing, in British English.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quire#Etymology_2
2
Nope, I didn't get the gimmick, even with the revealer, "ONE UP." Tried the obvious rebus first, then tried "1/0" as a rebus, thinking it was something to do with binary code. So I gave up and read the column, and promptly facepalmed.
I think I've been so focused on Schrödinger's cat lately that I forgot Occam's razor. (The simplest solution is most likely the correct one.)
In my defense, I generally do the puzzle after working a 10-hour night shift of making sure all the smiley-faced boxes arrive on your doorstep on time.
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@Grant: which we greatly appreciate!
4
A rebus on a Wednesday! Tracy your FBSTATUS is now toast, whined Tom wryly.
Always like to see ENOLA in the grid. At age 10 or so when I started doing x-words with my dad this was the first bit of fill he had me look up as I had not a clue. When I suggested this might not be fair he stated: Learning something is always fair. I point out that my reference source was the encyclopedia set that graced our living room along with the black and white TV that got ONE channel - NBC.
Thank you Tracy.
9
I remember my parents doing the NYTimes puzzle searching the encyclopaedias and hauling out the Atlas occasionally. I never thought of them as cheaters.
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I filled in the whole puzzle and got my fanfare and It still took me another several minutes to figure out the trick to the theme answers!
3
Hard to SKATE through this puzzle. Had to be pretty AGILE today!
3
LETTER BOXED
F-S(5), S-H(9)
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@Andrew
Same here.
Yesterday:
BENEFICES SONOGRAM
@Andrew
Q-H (8), H-L (7)
Yesterday:
FIREBASE ERGONOMIC
@Mike today I got S-H 9 H-L 7. Not as succinct as Andrew's but my first 2 word solve in five days!
I caught on at Zone defense. Not that it was my first fill. Or that I was able to get a tie hold anywhere near there. My stumbling block was Enoch and She-crab soup, 2 things I'd never heard of. Googling the soup I dont think I'd choose it from a menu offering either. Roe...[shudder]. But that's just me. Ymmv.
I liked that the one ups were not indicated. Made finding them more fun.
I'm not sure how other people solve a puzzle but I have a tendency to avoid the theme entry areas. I usually need a lot of crossings before I get what they are looking for in terms of the trick or theme.
Thanks!
1
K Barrett,
Next time you're in the Chesapeake Bay area, try the she-crab soup.
N.B. I'd say Chesapeake Bay is more than an inlet.
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@Barry Ancona still [shudder]. I can't even stand sea urchin. (They are going to take away my Californian citizenship for admitting that in public.) However, assuming the bottom feeders haven't biomagnified too many heavy metals I'd go for the soft shelled crab.
Fun solve. Fun to find and figure out the theme answers. And when I discovered the first theme answer, my brain let out a "hah!" because it figured out the reveal and went right to the SE looking for where the reveal went and filled it right in -- that was fun too.
Then there was the mini-theme with it's own reveal: ANIMALS. Its answers were WRENS / MAKO / EMU / FLEA / EEL, and the porcine pair of STY and OINKS.
Plus the little tale beginning with the cross of OOH and HOT, and moving into CARESS and MISACTS, and ending with AGLOW.
Quite a bit of fun packed into a 15 x 15 -- thank you for this, Tracy!
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Really enjoyable puzzle! I love a good AHA moment.
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Seems odd that Rebus ONE is not correct.
Playing on Acrosslite.
I like Wednesday puzzles with tricky combos.
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Clara,
A rebus has to work both ways; downer?
There will always be the crowd that gets a little antsy when there is a trick involved with a non-Thursday puzzle...
Personally, I really liked the elegant simplicity of the "one up" theme; well done, Tracy :) And the clueing was definitely "Wednesday-level" as far as difficulty level.
Finally, as a former D1 athlete in college who had to spend far too much time in weight rooms with meathead coaches screaming at us for hours on end to bring our AGAME, effort-wise, I find the term SWOLE to be wonderfully idiotic. If it were around in the mid-to-late 90s, I have no doubt our strength coaches would have used it regularly and bestowed it upon a chosen few of us as a (ridiculous) badge of honor for motivational purposes.
Oh, Bright College Years . . . I can almost smell the stale AROMA of that hundreds of years old gymnasium :)
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@Dave - I'm just left wondering...Naples? or Vero Beach?
(^_^)
Everyone who has _ever_ used MISACTS as if it were a cromulent word, please raise your hand…
…
Bueller…?
Bueller…?
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I also think that filling in « one » as a rebus should have been accepted as correct!!!!
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@Elaine, but where would you put it? In the full solve it occupies three squares. Also you need the N and E to make the crosses work.
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@Elaine - a "1" or a "one" as a rebus in "zone defense" would make 7D into the "enonela" or the "en1la" - it doesn't work with the crossing words. Rebuses may work differently in acrosses vs. downs, but they have to work in both directions.
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FWIW, I’m pretty sure the “x minutes ago” tag is affected by likes. A simple experiment seems to confirm this. I don’t think it should be so.
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SPELLING BEE GRID
O C D N T U W
WORDS: 37, POINTS: 163, PANGRAMS: 2 (Perfect), BINGO
First character frequency:
C x 13
D x 5
N x 2
O x 2
T x 4
U x 5
W x 6
Word length frequency:
4L: 16
5L: 8
6L: 4
7L: 6
8L: 1
9L: 1
10L: 1
Grid:
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 TOT
C: 1 3 3 4 - 1 1 13
D: 2 2 - - 1 - - 5
N: 2 - - - - - - 2
O: 1 1 - - - - - 2
T: 4 - - - - - - 4
U: 3 1 - 1 - - - 5
W: 3 1 1 1 - - - 6
TOT:16 8 4 6 1 1 1 37
Two letter list:
CO-11 CU-2
DO-4 DU-1
NO-2
ON-1 OU-1
TO-4
UD-1 UN-4
WO-6
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@Doug
Thanks so much for posting every day!
I really appreciate you and @Kevin for helping me to get to QB.
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**S P E L L I N G B E E H I N T S**
37 words, 163 points, 2 pangrams (1 perfect)
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@Kevin - I think the genetics word is really the only tricky one today.
5
Hints:
Several compound words (most from words in this set), 3 UN- prefixes (plus 1 preposition starting with those letters).
Other hints:
Fruit in Mounds candy, yum
Baby caterpillar home
Seq. of 3 nucleotides forming a unit of genetic code
(Above similar to name of Carpool Karaoke guy)
Think up a preposterous story or plan
Owned unit in a shared bldg.
Lead an orchestra or a train
Aquatic bird or foolish old man
Plant for clothes, balls, or ear swabs
A poplar tree with name of above plant, compound
What precedes a rocket launch, compound
Decrease or reduction, compound
What you do to a pumpkin to make a face, compound
Extinct bird
Toric-shaped treat
Happening place in a city, per Petula Clark, compound
Slang word equivalent to a shoulder shrug
Preposition, or to be aware of something
Be more successful than, compound
Animated film, slang
Whistle sound
Attempt to sell, offer race tips, or person doing it
Japanese noodles
Ctrl-Z
Preposition, archaic (“the breach,” Henry V)
Negative way to say “lost” (in the sense of “gained”)
A stopped watch, or thread off its spool
Customary behavior, or refusal contraction
Chinese filled dumplings in soup
Print made from carved image on dead tree parts, compound
Exclamation of triumph, or discount website
Injure, or spooled thread
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1st time it said my comments were too long. I cut this out of my comment:
I’m reluctantly tearing myself away from local & national election results to do the Bee and write these hints.
Yesterday’s obscure word “vegetal” made its way into a Times story today about cooking with plant-based meat substitutes.
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I got “ONEUP” early on, which made helped me finally understand why ZONEDEFENSE didn’t work without a Rebus, but embarrassingly, the thing that took me ages to figure out was how to spell Tatum O’NEAL. (I kept trying to understand why SKITE didn’t work with ONEIL (or totally make sense). When the A finally clicked, I stopped reading “ray” as a ray of light, and got a solve. This was a fun one.
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Way too frustrating for a Wednesday.
2
It felt to me like it should also have accepted a rebus answer of “ONE” in all the ONEUP “O” spots - but it didn’t.
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D. Patrick Ryan,
A rebus has to work down, not just across.
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SAWED? Bible references? Sunset Boulevard, HAMILTON, MISACTS and worst of all WEDGIE instead of SNUGGY?!?!
C’mon ... you had me at “GERMAN APPLIANCE BRAND.”
Salut.
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That was a surprise! Got the music when I was still worrying how I was going to get ONE in some acrosses but just O in the downs. Aha, I just saw the UP! I'm glad I took another look because I'm sure Deb will explain it in the column.
1
I wasn't feeling this puzzle. I solved it but I did not enjoy it. It felt too gimmicky.
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I'm fairly new to these and did Tuesday and figured I'd be fine...ended up having to look it up because I tried using rebus and it didn't work and was kind of confused as to where to put them...turns out the solution is not using them at all. Have to say I'm a bit confused as to the rules for when to use rebus or when not to when a word is correct but not fitting. Still, I had the right things, so I'll take it as a win.
4
Finding the “revealer” clue, (in this case 69-Across), is really key to this style of puzzle.
@Michael Yeah, I had the right answers by the time I checked them, just couldn't find the right way to make it take them since I originally used the rebus tool but even when doing that in the correct spots it says it's wrong...but it took me way too long to get to that point. Spent a while just staring at CLAUDEMOT cause I knew I had it right but it told me incomplete later on because I used "ONE" in the "O" space instead of just putting the "O" in, and I had to look up why it wasn't working to make sure I wasn't going insane. I'm thinking I won't finish Thursday's cause the actual answers themselves took me a bit, but still gonna have a stab at it at least!
2
and Elke
when I saw that ZODEFENSE is a word , I figured that "a garnish for a Corona" could in fact be a "facemask" and that a rebus was in the offing, but CLAUDE MOT finally TUNEd me IN and saved me some SALTY language.
How cute /appropriate that a whole bunch of EMUs are called a "mob". Will they allow this comment ??
Am glad there were no circles or shading. It made for ONE humdinger of a puzzle.
10
Quite the EMUsing puzzle. Thanks Tracy.
7
Pretty sure SWOLE is an adjective.
6
And ORLY only has one L. 😉
Irene and Dave,
It helps readers if you note that comments are about the column, not the puzzle itself.
Thanks.
2
Yup, SWOLE is an adjective, as in “OMG, Frank must spend all day in the gym. He’s prison swole.”
1
I liked that 49A had ONE above its answer, but didn't use it. The answer did indeed behave improperly.
@Dave S. Oops. Not correct. Sorry.
2
OOH, such a nice crunchy Wednesday puzzle. Tracy Gray brings her A GAME today!
Love the rebus-hidden-in-plain-sight-theme. Should drive the rebus haters nuts. But HOW ON EARTH are they gonna quibble with this one?
Bet someone finds a way, though.
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I had CLAUDEMON forever, with the “one up” being the “ET” in INLET. It was just one up and over!
2
The revealer notwithstanding, I never saw the
E
N
upturn until I was dO.....
24
I knew something was up when confident answers ZONEDEFENSE and TATUMONEAL wouldn't fit. Was about to hit the rebus button, but then noticed ENOLA and ENOCH.
One of my best AHA!! moments in a while. Kudos to Ms. Gray!!
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@RAH
The first one for me was TATUMONEAL. I was so sure about this one, having it ingrained in my head that Ms. O’Neal is the youngest Oscar winner at 10 for Paper Moon, but it didn’t fit. Until I figured out 69A ONE UP. Then came figuring out which were the remaining three answers. Being a basketball fan, I knew it had to be either ZONE OR MANTOMAN DEFENSE. I briefly mixed up music and art by thinking CLAUDEDEBUSSY, but knew it had to be CLAUDEMONET when the former didn’t fit. HOWOARTH was the one that gave me the most difficulty. I thought I must have gotten it wrong because upon reading it, it didn’t make sense. Maybe because the other answers make a split between only one word instead of two (ie. ZO-NE DEFENSE vs. HOW ON-E- ARTH)
But otherwise, a fair Wednesday puzzle.
@JH
Tatum was youngest at age 10 until Anna Paquin won for The Piano in 1993 at age 9.
Don't know HOWARTH those TWOS did it.
Ok, I didn’t get it.
9
Ruined my streak because the rebus didn’t count as the answer. Grrr
7
Lynda,
The rebus didn't *count* as the answer because the rebus doesn't *work* as the answer. A rebus has to work in both directions; it would not have worked "down."
3
I also spent some time in rebus purgatory. HOWOARTH was I going to make things fit??
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@danny I'm kind of surprised the online puzzle didn't accept "1" or rebus "ONE" for those squares with the Os.
2
@Michael
Because ONE is already in the puzzle... go up from the O to find the N and E.
E
N
O
4
@danny Even after I filled in correctly, I could only read 33 Across as HOW. ONE. ARTH. (Shakes head sadly).
2
super fun puzzle.
like a thursday lite. great trick, but easier cluing. i hope this kind of "wednesday" catches on.
oh, and personal best.
thanks ms. gray!
16
"i hope this kind of "wednesday" catches on."
Newbie,
The editors will be disappointed that you hadn't noticed the fair number of "tricky-lite" Wednesday puzzles over the past several months.
2
Must say, I got stuck trying to Rebus this thing, but finally let that go. Then I tried to enter the number 1, but after my experience with the rebus attempts, also let that go. Shortly thereafter, I spied the "one up" at Enoki into Claude Monet, and I was off to the races.
13
I wish I was so lucky, but then I stared at __milton for a long time without getting it. For some reason I thought it was related to Evan Hanson. That's my definition of clueless.
1
I’ve read the explanation a couple of times and still can’t figure out what’s going on.
@Alex Kent
i really don't want to give it away for you.
but two things
-pretend today was a thursday puzzle
-take 69across literally
hope you can figure it out. it's clever.
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@Alex Kent
I first thought it was a rebus puzzle, but it turns out it's not. The answer to 69 is "one up", which you should you literally follow on 4 of the across answers.
Fun theme! Like Deb, I knew something was (one-) up when ClaudeMonet didn’t fit. In other news, HandSanitizer didn’t fit for “garnish for a Corona”.
32
@Margaret
dude (ette), too soon. clever, but too soon.
i live in santa clara county (between SF and San Jose). we are like ground zero here along with very, very sadly, Kirkland, WA
3
Newbie,
If you'd ever been in a life-or-death situation, you might understand it's never too soon for humor; it's sometimes all you have going for you. And please go easy with "ground zero." You may be in a hot spot, but this ground zero was in China, I live two miles from another ground zero, and don't forget ENOLA.
N.B. Garnish or no, sales of Corona are off.
4
Thanks to Tracy Gray for getting Will to abandon the circles and shadings. So much more fun to solve without them!
So, a week or so ago, the fill "torn" appeared and I was tempted to tell this one - but now here it is again and I am going for it:
I once had to convince a bride that her choice of "Torn Between Two Lovers" was not an appropriate thing to come down the aisle to. She thought it meant something about how her fiancé and she were so passionate between them. It was not an easy task, convincing her that she didn't understand that song!
43
@David Connell
Not to mention being a terrible song.
10
@David Connell
Oh my goodness! You are a saint. I might have just backed off the whole enterprise!
2
@David Connell
That is hilarious.
3
Not a typical theme type for a Wednesday puzzle. I believe we were ONEUPped by Tracy.
7
Wow, still working, can't say i remember being this confused by a puzzle and/or confident that something must be wrong...
5
Whew! Quick but fun. SWOLE made me smile, too.
7
Unexpected bite. ONE upped most Wednesday puzzles. Loved it.
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In response to Tracy’s request for thoughts on the absence of shading or letters to highlight ONE, much better without imo. Especially because the first themer, ZONE EFENSE, seemed to work by using the D above the E in ZONE, camouflaging for a while what was actually going on.
I didn’t get the “ONE up” theme until I got to the revealer. Feeling perplexed on a Wednesday (Tuesday night) is a treat.
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D above the N (which turned out to be a D). I had:
D
ZONEFENSE
1
The emo being so close to one in Money also wrecked me
3
At first I felt like this was too tough for a Wednesday. Then it all sort of fell into place. TATUM and CLAUDE let me (sort of) know what was going on, but I didn't see the ONEs going up for quite a while. And then my brain blanked out on some of the easy stuff (surely PAN was too simple an answer at 3D??) so I almost outfoxed myself. Also, I was really glad that 45 years ago I learned the four major cities in Syria--it finally came in useful tonight!
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