Ernest Lim’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 1/24/25 – no. 0124
Lots of cool long fill in this breezy debut puzzle. Among my faves: CEDARWOOD, MAKES HEADLINES, FLINTSTONES, ROSA PARKS, PRESSED FOR TIME (aren’t we all?), “THIS IS NOT A PIPE.” Also! Delicious ELOTE.
A couple things took me by surprise:
- 36D. [One paying half for quarters, say] COTENANT. Not sure I’ve seen the word before. It feels so trigonometric! Maybe legalese in a joint lease or something?
- 55A. [Type of question not asked in 20 Questions], OPEN-ENDER. Open-ended, I know. Not this noun form. Something from British quizzing lingo? A Google search only shows me poker open-enders.
Re: EXIT POLLS: The clue is nice and tricky, 14A. [Fall forecasting aids]. But the entry itself? Too soon.
Less of an asset to the puzzle: Plural French color BLEUS, who-uses-this plural UTERI (I know it’s anatomically legit, I just think people say uteruses more?). Also amused by that singular PEC clued as 1D. [Bodybuilder’s pride, informally]. Would that be the right one or the left one? And why is the other one not worthy of pride?
Four stars from me.
Matthew Luter’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 1/24/25 • Fri • Luter • solution • 20250124
I couldn’t see what was going on with the theme entries while solving, nor immediately upon entering the revealer. So I waited until the whole thing was complete, then actually read the revealer’s clue, and eventually GOT (44a [Grasped]) the idea.
- 60aR [Suffer disgrace, or what the starred clues must do as a set to match their answers?] LOSE FACE. Y’see, each of those starred two-word answers contains one word that’s a bit of facial physiognomy, and that word must be ignored, or ‘lost’ for the clue’s answer to make sense.
- 17a. [*Evil eyes] SUPERBAD.
- 24a. [*Stuffy nose] STRAITLACED.
- 36a. [*Smart mouth] WELL-DRESSED.
- 50a. [*Double chin] MIRROR IMAGE.
Together, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin comprise salient elements of a face; bonus for moving from top to bottom, and for it always being the second word. But also the theme doesn’t feel too substantial, right?
- 1d [Guitar-playing “Sesame Street” Muppet] ROSITA, who is a relatively new character. I had thought of JANICE, from the Electric Mayhem band, but I don’t know that they appeared on Sesame Street. Incidentally, Sesame Street is apparently not profitable enough to survive in our hypercapitalistic society and may be on its last legs.
- 7d [Short “We’ll announce this later”] TBD. Having ‘announce’ in the clue eliminated confusion about what the last letter would be, so thanks.
- 25d [School space that’s full of drawers] ART ROOM. Instantly grasped the misdirection, but waited to confirm that ROOM was the ‘space’ being referenced.
- 42d [Gooey sandwiches] S’MORES. Not what I first think of as ‘sandwiches’ but certainly fitting the definition.
- 45d [Seattle’s airport-sharing neighbor] TACOMA. Hence Sea-Tac.
- 51d [Sublease] RE-LET. Aren’t lease and let etymologically closely related?
- 5a [National Pizza Mo.] OCT. It seems that so many such abbreviated month clues end up being OCT, with maybe APR being a close second. Has anyone done a frequency ranking of three-letter month abbrevs. in crosswords?
- 8a [Stay behind] SHADOW. Subtly tricky clue, as it seems to indicate ‘remain’.
- 21a [Word with cat or power] NAP. iswydt
- 27a [Story that might be dark and creepy] ATTIC. This one fooled me good.
- 31a [Closest pals] FAM, as the kids say.
- 58a [Ride for a few days] RENTAL. ‘Ride’ is a slangy noun here.
Ryan Mathiason’s Universal crossword, “Break It Up!”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar two-word phrases where the second words are synonyms of “pieces”. The first words need to be re-parsed into multiple pieces to match the clues.
Universal crossword solution · “Break It Up!” · Ryan Mathiason · Fri., 1.24.25
- 17a. [Expert and each?] PROPER FRACTIONS. An expert is a PRO and “each” is a synonym of PER therefore “expert” and “each” are fractions of “proper.”
- 29a. [Tally and hosp. center?] COUNTER PARTS. Tally = COUNT; hosp. center = ER. I’m not really a fan of themes like this that end up relying on abbreviations.
- 47a. [Oxygen symbol and span?] ORANGE SLICES. Oxygen = O; span = RANGE. Same comment as above but this one’s even harder to swallow, relying on a one-letter abbreviation as it does.
- 62a. [URL ending, cooking vessel and charged particle?] COMPANION PIECES. URL ending = COM; cooking vessel = PAN; charged particle = ION.
Perhaps if the theme entries didn’t rely on abbreviations I might’ve liked this more, but then again maybe not. It inherently depends on short words which are generally less interesting than longer words. On the whole, re-parsing just felt like work for little reward. YMMV of course; this one just wasn’t for me.
Conversely however, the fill is quite nice. Highlights include: LAVA LAMPS, CROSSROAD, EARDRUMS, EXCERPTS, and AGE-OLD.
Clue of note: 4d. [Misteak in this clue]. TYPO. Sorry. Intentionally misspelling a word is not a TYPO.
3.25 stars.
Easy NYT, except for OPENENDED/OPENENDER. OPENENDER isn’t really in the language, IMO. Also, BOD/PEC tripped me up a bit
I agree. I put in OPENENDED but then checked SDS and realized it wasn’t right. And I waited for some crosses before deciding on PEC. A very straightforward puzzle otherwise.
NYT: I had no problem with OPENENDER. It could have been clued, like Amy mentions, as a poker clue “Alternative to a gutshot”, but probably most people wouldn’t be familiar with that.
I really don’t think anyone uses UTERI or even UTERUSES in a sentence. Women only have one. In what practical sense would you ever need to pluralize it?!?
Nice solid Friday, IMO.
When talking about more than one woman?
Although some rare people have two:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/alabama-woman-born-two-uteri-expecting-baby-both-rcna125209
Wow! You learn something new every day!
NYT: I wondered, not as a Francophone, if the plural of BLEU ended in an X or S. Is there a rule for this? I think the plural of milieu is milieux, e.g.
It’s “bleus.” France’s national soccer team is nicknamed “Les bleus” and I’m very surprised it wasn’t clued that way instead of the more contrived clue that we got here.
Good question about -s or -x. I think the rule is you just have to remember which one goes with which word. Maybe Huda knows better. Although ‘bleu’ is an adjective, so ‘les bleus’ is different from milieux, chateaux etc.
NYT: As a self proclaimed math nerd and former HS math teacher, I really loved Amy’s comment about COTENANT (“It feels so trigonometric!”). I confess to having the same thought 😎. Thanks Ethan for a very smooth (debut) Friday puzzle.
LAT: 64a SESTET is a fine word, but not as clued (“Insect’s legs, e.g.”). That’s a SEXTET. SESTET is a more specific group of six things.
I did like the theme in this one.