Jerry Miccolis’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Crossed Words”—Jim’s review
Today’s theme consists of not one, but two word ladders, both starting in the top row, crossing in the middle, and ending in the bottom row. Further, the two words in the top row form a phrase as do the two words in the bottom row with the first words being opposites and the second words having a different (though somewhat tenuous) connection. Got all that? Let’s dive in.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Crossed Words” · Jerry Miccolis · Wed., 11.6.24
1a is HARD, clued [Opposite of 60-Across, and, with 10-Across, close examination] with 10a being LOOK, clued [Old magazine that rivaled 62-Across (and see 1-Across)]. Together, they give us HARD LOOK.
At the bottom, 60a is EASY, clued [Opposite of 1-Across, and, with 62-Across, leisurely existence] with 62a being LIFE, clued [Old magazine that rivaled 10-Across (and see 60-Across)]. Together, they give us EASY LIFE.
These aren’t the most compelling of two-word phrases, but as someone who doesn’t mind a word ladder on occasion, I applaud the extra layer of having a starting phrase with each word “laddered” into different words that become an ending phrase. It couldn’t have been easy to find two phrases that would work together, so I’m happy to give some leeway.
But an involved theme usually puts constraints on the fill and that’s what happened here, mainly with the spate of proper names (similar to yesterday). The stack of ARISTOCATS and FAMOUS AMOS in the bottom right is wonderful, and there are some other nice entries as well, but then we have all the names: SONIA BRAGA, INGRES, BREL, ILENE, LAMONT, RONAN, DONOVAN, and ANDRESS. Plus thorny entries HADEAN, French EN AMI, and the ARU Islands. These really sapped the strength of the grid and probably made the solve frustrating for a lot of solvers.
Clues of note: 54a. [Mischievous]. ARCH. With so many proper names in the fill and thorny entries, why not choose a more common definition for this clue?
TL;DR: Nifty double word ladder theme was enjoyable to suss out, but the fill was compromised for the sake of the theme. 3.25 stars.
Adam Aaronson’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s write-up
Major apologies to Adam, but the NYT tech guild is still on strike so here at Team Fiend we’re not crossing the picket line.
Have a safe evening, everyone.
Zhouqin Burnikel’s USA Today Crossword, “Split Squat” — Emily’s write-up
Time for a super quick workout!
USA Today, November 06, 2024, “Split Squat” by Zhouqin Burnikel
Theme: each themer contains SQUA—T (a “split squat”)
Themers:
- 15a. [About 816, for the Oval Office], SQUAREFEET
- 40a. [Walled venue for a racket sport], SQUASHCOURT
A fun duo for the themer set today with SQUAREFEET and SQUASHCOURT. They both filled easily, which is always great.
Favorite fill: ADAI, FAJITA, GELATO, and YOGURT
Stumpers: FORT (needed crossings), JOIN (needed crossings), and UNCOUTH (needed crossings)
Lovely puzzle with a delightful grid and overall fill. The lengthy bonus fill was a treat and pairs well with the more complicated themer set today—seriously, how many split squats does everyone have in them anyway? Two was just right, then we also got TRUSTFALLS, UNSUNGHERO, THATSSOTRUE, and RAISESHELL.
4.5 stars
~Emily
Jacob Reed’s Universal crossword, “Before Sunrise” — (pannonica)
Universal • 11/6/24 • Wed • “Before Sunrise” • solution • 20241106
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Sala Wanetick’s LAT crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
LA Times
241106
Sala Wanetick’s puzzle features a pretty simple theme. Five phrases are reduplicative with a vowel that changes from I to A, so:
- [Drag one’s feet], DILLYDALLY
- [Idle banter], CHITCHAT
- [Indecisive], WISHYWASHY
- [Mixed bag], MISHMASH
- [Tchotchke], KNICKKNACK
Gareth
NYT: I am not sure the clue 33D “Target” for AIM is valid.
So far I haven’t come up with a phrase where one word can be substituted for the other.
Otoh, “target” and “aim at” can most definitely be substituted for each other.
Yeah, it feels like a bit of stretch. Probably should have been clued “Target (at)” to be more straightforward. I feel that Wednesday difficulty in cluing is the one where I know the least what to expect. Similarly, I wasn’t in love with the “Sweetened beverage” applying to MEAD; while you add sugar to make LIME-ADE, you’re not adding sugar to MEAD—it’s brewed from honey. “Sweet beverage” would be more correct, though if you’re getting LIME-ADE, you’ve already gotten MEAD. The theme felt more like a “oh, that’s cute” rather than something that aids your solving.
I had the same thoughts about both AIM and MEAD.
Agree that the theme wasn’t particularly an aid in solving, but I thought it was more entertaining than the typical Wednesday theme.
Glad you enjoyed! The AIM clue wasn’t one I wrote, but AIM and TARGET are both nouns meaning “goal” so I think it works
Thanks! — that explains it.
Yup – I can live with that.
Perenially banging on about the fact that mead is not necessarily sweet, nor sweetened. (Unless you consider all wine sweetened.) Mead can be dry.
My only exposure is the mead produced by the Oliver Winery in southern Indiana (and that is quite a few years ago). But definitely not dry.
Honey is about 70% sugars.; grapes 15-25%. In the interest of the theme, I think we can allow calling mead sweetened.
Sure, honey has higher sugar content than grapes… but the honey is diluted with water in order to ferment, and then much of the sugar is converted into alcohol. There’s no added sugar involved.
Yes, there’s dry mead. But much (most?) is produced with residual sugar. In this case, the honey is the sweetener. The clue doesn’t say that all mead is sweetened. “Some” is always optional in a clue.
Looks like the ratings of the other puzzles are getting killed by the lack of Times solvers and raters.
I can see how the WSJ ran into strong disfavor. I’m not a huge fan of word ladders as not inducing much of a smile, and I’m really down on cross-references. Here the latter took seriously staying awake to parse.
Still, I enjoyed this one, because of the doubling of word ladders and their shifting place (or crossing) midway.