Emet Ozar’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “On All Fors” — Eric’s review
Emet Ozar’s WSJ Crossword — 3/15/25 (first 18 rows)
A pretty basic theme here: Common phrases centered around the word “for” that are given jokey clues. Whether you enjoy the puzzle depends almost entirely on how much these clue and answer pairs amuse you:
- 22A [Really eager to meet Dracula?] DOWN FOR THE COUNT
- 35A [Charity donation?] CHANGE FOR THE BETTER
- 53A [Volunteer work?] GOOD FOR NOTHING
- 78A [Ironed a shirt at a magazine’s photo shoot?] PRESSED FOR TIME
- 90A [Nudge your partner to take you ring shopping?] REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
- 109A [Renovation work remittance] CHECK FOR UPDATES
Emet Ozar’s WSJ Crossword — 3/15/25 (last four rows)
Except for 35A, the answers completely change the meaning of the phrases, which I liked. I got a bit ahead of myself after the first two theme answers and assumed that all the theme answers would incorporate “for the” and not just “for.”
The grid design doesn’t leave much room for long Down answers, but the fill is solid, and a couple of the clue/answer pairs entertained me:
88A [Subject of a famous Hokusai print] WAVE
神奈川沖浪裏
Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
102A [Deep-fried pocket] GORDITA Yum.
12D [Place unlikely to have an American?] CHEESE TRAY American cheese was about the only thing my mother bought, and I never liked it. It wasn’t until college that I discovered how tasty cheese can be.
13D [Jaguar protector] HELMET Nice clue; my mind went first to big cats, then English luxury cars; only after I had the answer did I make the NFL connection.
71D [Wind instrument of Australia] DIDGERIDOO A straight-forward clue, but it reminds me of the agave we had in Austin. A neighbor harvested the bloom spike to turn it into a didgeridoo.
Ryan McCarty’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 3/15/25 – no. 0315
Ryan’s got one of those bylines I look forward to seeing. This 66-worder’s got a good bit of lively fill:
Nigella LAWSON of foodie TV/cookbooks, SONICARE toothbrushes, a DARK ‘N STORMY cocktail, Irish actor BARRY KEOGHAN (he was also in The Banshees of Inisherin; I’ve not seen Saltburn yet), the film BIRDMAN, 1970s-style BANANA SEATS, “WHY WORRY?”, RARE DISEASE (I claim a couple-three of those), BAND T-SHIRTS, and MOSH PITS.
New to me but gettable: 28A. [Was eco-conscious with tech waste, in modern parlance], ECYCLED.
Clue that amused me: 19A. [Something you might shield your eyes from, in brief], PDA. Do other people’s public displays of affection make you so uncomfortable that you must avert your eyes?
Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 3/15/25 by Zhouqin Burnikel
I’m not sure what was missing in this puzzle for me (besides difficulty; it was indeed a bit easier than I like). There were a decent number of long entries that I enjoyed (RETRO COOL, WINE TASTING*, GIANT TORTOISE, POSES NUDE) and others I wasn’t crazy about (SURE NO PROBLEM, ALTO SOLOS, RUNS AMOK, IT’S SCARY). I think maybe a more liberal sprinkling of punny clues would help.
*WINE TASTING: On the one hand, [Activity that raises spirits?] is clever and deceptive. On the other hand, there’s a reason they’re called “wine and spirits” shops: The dictionary definition of a “spirit” in the alcoholic sense is a distilled alcoholic beverage, which wine is not. So this clue would’ve been better for WHISKEY TASTING or something like that. Yes, I am being pedantic. But aren’t crossword solvers on the whole more pedantic than rest of world?
Kate Chin Park’s Newsday “Saturday Stumper”—Amy’s recap
Newsday crossword solution, 3/15/25 – “Saturday Stumper”
More pliable than most Stumpers, but not in the Les(ter) Ruff/”less rough” category. Under 10 minutes with nary a google? Calling that a win.
Toughest section for me was the northwest corner. 1d. [Brief boundary], LIM? Abbreviation for limit, I guess. Tried HEM there first, envisioning tighty whities leg holes being characterized as hems.
Fave fill: COMMON CAUSE, STOLEN VALOR, PLUS-ONES, SMART MOVE, FINAL BOSS, TIME TRAVEL.
New to me:
- 64a. [Crafty ploy originated by a Lithuanian NBAer (1989)], EURO STEP. Here’s the Wiki.
- 43d. [Hidden pin in bowling], SLEEPER. I’m outraged. I took a bowling class in college (P.E. credits were graduation requirements) and did not learn this term.
- 32d. [Ex-___ intrapartum (type of delivery)], UTERO. Per Johns Hopkins, it’s a complex and vital option for delivering a baby who won’t be able to breathe, allowing the medical team to establish an airway before the placenta and umbilical cord are no longer providing oxygen to the baby.
Clues of note:
- 1a. [Way to throw shade on pouty types], LIPSTICK. Although “pouty types” is a weird way to refer to lips and lipstick isn’t a “way” (“applying lipstick” is a way), I still enjoyed the mislead.
- 16a. [Plan or power], REGIME. I hate hate hate it when people use REGIME in place of regimen for a plan.
- 3d. [Broker’s binder], PACT. As in brokering a deal, a PACT, to which all parties are bound. A toughie for sure.
Four stars from me.
NYT: A good puzzle, but I had no idea how to fill in the ’60s president, since (after I had to google the Irish actor) LIR made no sense for [Release, in a way] — and I nevcr heard of J-CYCLED.
Laid it aside and sure enough it made sense five hours later. Aha! it’s *those* ’60s!
I started with IKE (assuming the actor’s first name was KARRY?!) but IIR was obviously not right. Then changed to KERRY and tried to think of a different ending for IAC that made sense. Finally saw ABE and had the same a ha moment. Would have been more pleasant without the random Irish man’s first name issue, though IMHO.
“Random Irish man” who received an Oscar nomination! Poor guy. He thought he’d arrived with that nom, only to learn he’s naught but a rando.
JFK, LBJ, RMN. All my 60s presidents. Oh wait — the 1860s! At least I needn’t know any from the 1760s.
BANANA SEATS brings me back to the 1970s. Are they still a thing? No kids in my neighborhood have one.
Fun Saturday!
It later occurred to me to wonder when the “prez” of [Prez in the ’60s] was first used to mean “president”. OED sez:
“The earliest known use of the noun prez. is in the 1910s. OED’s earliest evidence for prez. is from 1919, in the writing of James Joyce, writer. prez. is formed within English, by clipping or shortening.”
Very slow start on NYT, with a few ‘S’s here and there and vast open white spaces— but made reasonable progress eventually. Looked up both actors, though I knew Bardem was in that Coen movie. Good puzzle despite some obscurities.
I hadn’t heard of LAWSON or BARRY KEOGHAN… felt like a lot of proper names going on, including the ones I did know. Not my favorite Saturday…
NYT was way easier than yesterday’s for me. Nothing held me up, even the cutesy clue for ABE. TAKESAPHOTO and CASINORESORT seem green-painty, and BANDTSHIRTS isn’t very exciting either.
“Bum wrap” for DIAPER is bit confused — British clue for an American term.
TIL I have a RAREDISEASE. Yay me.
M-W, at least, does not tag “bum” as British usage.
But it surely began there, no? A lot of things have wafted across the pond.
A good deal of English began there.
Fair enough (:-❩)>. But I mean recently.
PS Fwiw, Wikipedia says:
“While bum is most common in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, in Canada, bum is mainly used when speaking to young children, as in Everyone please sit on your bum and we’ll read a story. In the United States, bum is not often used in this sense (though this may vary from dialect to dialect) except in conscious imitation of British English.”
And fwiw, Google’s AI Overview says:
“The word ‘bum’ to mean ‘behind’ or ‘buttocks’ in the United States likely emerged in the late 1800s, with the earliest evidence suggesting its use around the 1880s, though it may have been around as early as 1855.”
I haven’t heard Americans using ‘bum’ in that sense, except jokingly. Maybe younger people have taken it up.
Wiktionary says American usage is limited to imitating British usage and certain American dialects. M-W removed the Brit. tag fairly recently, implying it has become more common.
In any case, the lack of the tag gives the crossword editor cover to clue it accordingly. I would imagine it would be tagged earlier in the week.
So yesterday I was catching up on some recent Fireballs and was filling in Double Features which was published on March 5th. 46A was “Athos, Porthos, et Aramis, par exemple” which I confidently popped in AMIS for. Eventually had to backtrack and replace it with NOMS for the rest of the grid to fall into place.
Today’s NYT has the exact same clue at 8D. I’ve learned from my mistakes, so I put in NOMS and move on with the grid. Nope, it’s AMIS this time. Just can’t win!
I found the Stumper fairly straightforward until I got to the SW corner, which I couldn’t get into at all. I wanted 29D to be MINUTEHAND but I couldn’t see how it works with the clue, and still don’t. And I thought 63A was ORANGE, which didn’t work. I always thought the expression ‘getting a bead on’ something for aiming was some sort of metaphor, but apparently the BEAD in question is real. And the ABBA clue — no idea what it refers to. I stared at the blank section for a while, then gave up.
That SW was the last to fall. “Shrine” finally opened it up.
ABBA Voyage.
From Wikipedia: “[ABBA] manager Simon Fuller announced in a statement in October 2016 that the group would be reuniting to work on a new ‘digital entertainment experience.’ The project would feature the members in their ‘life-like’ avatar form, called ABBAtars, based on their late 1970s tour and would be set to launch by the spring of 2019.”
I couldn’t make myself read much more of the Wikipedia article, but I gather the ABBAtars were delayed, hence the “2020s” in the clue.
That band’s music never appealed to me, and their popularity baffles me. But I’m baffled by the popularity of a lot of music, movies, TV shows, etc.
(Martin’s much more succinct comment wasn’t showing when I originally posted this. And having skimmed the linked article, I now remember that I had read something about this before.)
LAT … I made the same comment about the clue for WINE TASTING in my post-solve notes. Just letting you know that you’re not alone in your pedantry, Stella.
+1
NYT: Felt hard to me, but I finished in a more-or-less normal Saturday time. I pay very little attention to movies, so BARRY KEOGHAN and BARDEM required just about all the crosses. After about half the letters were in, I dredged up BIRDMAN. That’s life.
None of CASINO RESORT, BAND T-SHIRTS or AGE-MATE seem particularly in-the-language to me. I understand what each of them is, but don’t know that I’ve ever heard them called that.
Liked the clues for DIAPER and AMNESIAC.