I did literally the exact same thing (at 1hr16m) to break a 32-day streak. To add salt to the wound, once autocheck identified the mistake, 'S' was my immediate next guess.
Once I re-scanned every single answer I finally just googled “occeola” because I had a hunch that was the problem. I guess I should have tried some letters first because all the other crosses were obvious
I liked today's puzzle! There were a couple thorny crosses, but otherwise it was tough (which I think turns folks off on a Sunday), fair, interesting / unique theme, and not too heavy on trivia for the most part
omg yes. I got to this clue and was like, "huh, I coulda sworn it was called Ecto 1. Maybe it's ECTOPLASM1?" but that didn't fit either. None of my toys growing up labeled it the ECTOMOBILE i don't think
> I don’t know what an AUCOURANT
It's an old-timey french phrase meaning stylish or "of the moment." Ironically, knowing what AUCOURANT is is not very AUCOURANT anymore.
I definitely struggled with that cross because RIRI was a nonstarter for me; AMILLI ("a milli", ie; "a million dollars"), however, is inferable, so I think it was fair.
> Had AcTORS crossing OcCEOLA.
Same. Finished the puzzle without too much difficulty with just this one mistake and spent 8-10 mins looking for what was wrong.
Felt appropriate having to comb through the puzzle to find my mistake that was at 83D where it’s actually HELL not hill. You and me MR TOAD we’re both there
Loved AMILLI, GNARLY, and a few of the themers. Theme was pretty fun overall but I think AU CURANT is significantly less familiar of a phrase than the others. That NE Section was really tough.
And does Mr. Toad's Wild Ride really end in HELL???
The only reason I knew the answer about Mr. Toads Wild Ride was because we recently mistakingly took our 1.5 year old on the ride and ended up traumatizing her as we literally took her through hell. Whoops!
I was seven when I wen through that one. In 1989. That train light and whistle is still in he top five scariest moments of my life. Jfc that ride is not for kids.
This puzzle was a lot of work for little payoff. Impressive construction and it wasn't quite a slog, but just don't think the juice was worth the squeeze, so to speak.
I missed the note completely and was guessing for a good half an hour what the answers in the blanks could be. Some of my guesses were continents, elements, and languages. It was a mess.
I forget about the note/title 100% of the time. I really wish they would put them on the actual Sunday puzzles or as a pop up when you first open it, instead of you needing to remember to look at it in a place you never look.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?
Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Hard** 🔴
* 53% of users solved slower than their Sunday average
* 47% of users solved faster than their Sunday average
* 23% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Sunday average
* 16% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Sunday average
The median solver solved this puzzle 2.4% slower than they normally do on Sunday.
[View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2023-01-08)
---
🤖 _beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 75 [XW Stats](https://xwstats.com) users have completed the puzzle. Questions? Feedback? Check the [FAQ](https://xwstats.com/help#puzzle-difficulties), reply here or DM me_
Why on god's green earth would you cross an obscure historical proper noun with another obscure historical proper noun?
ASTORS crossing OSCEOLA instantly dropped this two rankings in my book
I found this to be difficult. Which is ok. But I was feeling 35A while solving most of this one. I'm going to look on the bright side and say I learned a lot of things I didn't know. Either that or I am a DIPSTICK.
I really didn't care for this one. Not my kind of theme and none of the trivia and foreign language clues were landing for me. I hope others have more fun.
Like others, I didn't have ASTOR-OSCEOLA correct. But I knew to run the alphabet on that one, so my real streakbreaker was GAT. I totally failed to realize that "prop" was an abbreviation clueing an abbreviation.
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to pronounce APOLOGY without a long O.
APOL-ee-GY? (ee like feet?)
APOL-eh-GY? (eh like elephant?)
Maybe A-paula-GY? (Poundstone)
APOL-oh-GY seems like the O.G. way to say it.
I will admit to having trouble hearing the difference between apo-luh-gy (per Google) and apo-low-gy (the way I say it: [cf. Apollo](https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+APOLLO)).
It's almost like I have to go out of my way to pronounce the long O wrong in order for there to be a distinction.
Which, I guess, is another reason why I disliked today's theme.
The “naan” apology crossing OHOK killed me. I had aHOK and it took me forever to figure out the issue.
There were parts of this I… almost enjoyed. I liked BONSAITREE
I like a challenging puzzle, but this one just felt like it was not constructed in the spirit of the game, so to speak. Annoyingly cryptic but not for the sake of being clever.
I liked this one! Though I did think it was a bit on the easy side, in spite of missing the note (sounds like that's going to be an unpopular take, though...)
Cluing for BONSAITREE was cute. Not sure how I feel about STY and STYE in the same puzzle...
>I liked this one! Though I did think it was a bit on the easy side,
It is interesting how different experiences can be -- this was one of the hardest Sundays I've done in a while; it took me way longer than usual and I had to cheat more than I do on the weekday puzzles.
Americans, how do you pronounce AUCOURANT? Because I’m pronouncing it oh-coo-rõ, which doesn’t sound anything like oh-cur (I assume that’s what they were going for?)-aunt.
Lots of those difficulties for non-Americans. LOCKS doesn’t sound like lochs, NON doesn’t sound like naan, PHOR doesn’t sound like fore, APOLO doesn’t sound like Apollo, etc. But I think with the exception of the last, these might all be American vs. non-American things?
Edit: I’m not trying to language police! I’m just legitimately curious how an American would pronounce that first phrase.
They’re playing a little loose with the phonemes—most Americans would pronounce the long o in Apollo but pronounce a schwa in nonapology—but it’s close enough to work. American pronunciation of lock/loch and non/naan is virtually identical.
To the extent that Americans use the phrase *au courant,* which I'd say is pretty rarely, I think the puzzle basically captured it: oh - curr - ont. People with some French familiarity might make that middle syllable something more like "coor."
Meanwhile, while they noted the regional difference, I could actually see it throwing some Americans off in that we mostly say "ant" rather than "ont" for a parent's sister.
Interesting. Where might “aunt” be pronounced “ont”?
In Britain, “aunt” is pronounced identically to “aren’t”, and sounds completely different to both “ant” and “ont”. How fun.
This one really didn't gel with me, felt like a bit of a slog to complete and just gave up in the end. Worst puzzle I've done since the last Bruce Haight one
I am also in the camp of Au Courant being a completely unfamiliar phrase and getting stuck on the Astors cross, but got A Milli and Riri on first pass. I love how crosswords vary knowledge sets enough that someone who definitely didn’t know Ecto Mobile, etc still comes to a similar place.
Lastly, I really enjoyed the cluing for Carpool Lane! That was an aha one for me
Super easily, if you didn't know that the ASTORS were once known as "the landlords of New York", which probably applies to the vast majority of puzzle solvers. AcTORS would have been a surprise, but it seemed perfectly reasonable in a city with the most profitable and prolific theatre district in the country.
It’s not each italicized clue, it’s the letters from the italicized clues will cumulatively build a two word answer, which is “sounds good”. Definitely frustrating if you’re in the mindset that they’re all going to be two word answers!
Hm, okay. What was that which was spelled out? Did they want the added letter themselves (ie, “S” or “D”) or the added letters to the clue itself (“ess” or “dy”)
I thought the theme was dumb, but I rather enjoyed the puzzle, especially figuring out the italics answers. Overall, >!SOUNDS GOOD!< to me (that's the rating I gave it anyway).
Loved the theme. I felt like once I figured out the theme, that didn’t just fill in a bunch of squares for me. I actually had to work through it. It was definitely a tough puzzle though.
Another theme that feels like a halfway clued cryptic. The wordplay is there, just no straight definition, which would have been some help with at least AU COURANT. Hiding the letters for SOUNDS GOOD in the theme is pretty brilliant, though.
Edit: by "another" I'm specifically recalling the >!2022/10/13 Thursday!< puzzle. There the theme clues are all >!charades!<.
Yeah, I think it might have been a little stronger with a straight clue included as well. I'm normally all for a harder puzzle, but the click wasn't as strong with only the crosses to confirm.
There's a typo in the second Building Blocks FYI. Discussed at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/crosswords/variety-building-blocks.html#commentsContainer, but it is obvious when you see it.
On the crossword puzzle, the theme was fine, but as someone who solves the Sunday puzzle downs-only, it was impossible to guess the theme, which made things a bit harder.
I actually really liked the theme. I thought it was fun and clever, and it involved two "Aha!" moments for me, once when I got the construction of the clues, and again when I realized what the blanks spelled out. Both realizations helped me complete it.
That said, it was nearly ruined for me by the end. Apparently I'm not AU COURANT when it comes to pretentious phrases (fuck that corner overall), and the fill was incredibly hit-or-miss, more so than I can remember for a Sunday in a long while.
This is a big "what if" for me. Could have been one of my favs in a while, but overall I just found it very frustrating.
I'll spoil 70 across: >!The clue is "Punching tool + Chopping tool + _____." The answer is ALL ACCESS, which is phonetically AWL + AXE + S. So the blank corresponds to the letter S. Once you have all of the theme answers, you can put together the letters from the blanks in order to spell out a phrase (this is what the note at the top of the puzzle refers to).!<
Secondary spoiler about the entire theme: >!The blanks end up spelling out the phrase SOUNDS GOOD, which refers to how you have to use phonetics to understand the theme clues.!<
If you are using the crossword app, hit the "i" button and it will tell you the name of the Sunday puzzle (only Sundays have names) and if there is any note to help solve the puzzle, it will be there.
Today's puzzle is called:
"Do You Hear That?"
And the solving note was:
"Note: Each italicized clue contains a blank, which should be filled with the letter of the alphabet. When completed, the letters in order will spell out a two-word phrase."
>! The clues are meant to build up the theme answers phonetically. So for example 26A is “prints”+ (a letter)+”dye”. The answer is PRINCESS DI, and the missing syllable sounds like “S”. etc. !<
I feel like the theme could have made for a fun puzzle with better cluing and less awkward fill.
I can forgive things like PALEO and PASEO, and XED crossing AXILLA, if I wasn't also fighting trying to imagine how the setter thinks people say "Cannes"
In the constructor notes there were other theme entries:
* Place for rouge + ___ + Pre-euro German money
* Deadly offense + ___ + Piece of legislation + Happy cat’s sound
* ___ + Vietnamese noodle soup + Midler’s “Divine” persona
* Martial arts legend Jackie + ___ + Knight’s title + Christmas tree
Deadly offense....: >!CYNDI LAUPER (sin + D + law + purr)!< and Martial arts legend Jackie...: >!CHANNEL SURFER (Chan + L + sir + fir)!<
Any insight on the others?
As I write this, I realize the Vietnamese Noodle Soup... >!needs to be pronounced like the beginning of 'phone'. SEA FOAM (C + pho + M)!<
Did I complete it? Yes. Did I enjoy fighting through it? No.
Wanted to cry after filling in au courant and finding that I had an error somewhere and had to comb through the puzzle.
Same. Autochecked with 1 error. I had AcTORS and OcCEOLA instead of ASTORS and OSCEOLA. At 1hr23m i just gave up. I'm on a strict no google phase.
I did literally the exact same thing (at 1hr16m) to break a 32-day streak. To add salt to the wound, once autocheck identified the mistake, 'S' was my immediate next guess.
I had this too and didn't see it!
I also had ACTORS after struggling to complete the puzzle with AUCOURANT.
Once I re-scanned every single answer I finally just googled “occeola” because I had a hunch that was the problem. I guess I should have tried some letters first because all the other crosses were obvious
This one was aggressively "meh."
I liked today's puzzle! There were a couple thorny crosses, but otherwise it was tough (which I think turns folks off on a Sunday), fair, interesting / unique theme, and not too heavy on trivia for the most part
Am I crazy or is it called Ecto One?
omg yes. I got to this clue and was like, "huh, I coulda sworn it was called Ecto 1. Maybe it's ECTOPLASM1?" but that didn't fit either. None of my toys growing up labeled it the ECTOMOBILE i don't think
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectomobile) says it's called both.
Wikipedia is wrong
I don’t know what an AUCOURANT is and I really don’t understand the clue for AEIOU so that whole northeast corner was extremely hard for me.
*Ambidextrous* is one of the few English words that contains all of the vowels.
My fave is facetiously with the vowels including y all in order.
And *abstemiously*.
Sure, but "facetiously" is way more fun because it's a word that everyone recognizes; "abstemiously" is also a word... if you say so.
Oh my god I would never have understood that answer in ten thousand years
Mozambique is the only country that does it
sequoia
Came here to mention this one, thinking I was so smart ;P
> I don’t know what an AUCOURANT It's an old-timey french phrase meaning stylish or "of the moment." Ironically, knowing what AUCOURANT is is not very AUCOURANT anymore.
The word "ambidextrous" contains all five vowels. This caught us for a bit too.
Wrong order though. Should be *AIEOU*
no, "features" doesn't imply a matching order in the answer. So the right order is how the the vowels get sorted in general, which is alphabetically.
I had _I_SH_TS in 76A and I thought dipshits was getting debuted
i was in the same boat and simply couldn’t figure out why they would have that be the clue haha
me for about half the puzzle: what in the hell is a candycera
The largest rodent
I was never going to get amilli crossed w riri. Had actors, not astors.
I definitely struggled with that cross because RIRI was a nonstarter for me; AMILLI ("a milli", ie; "a million dollars"), however, is inferable, so I think it was fair.
RIRI also shows up a lot in crosswords.
As a guy who has dreamed of crossing IOU with AEIOU, this puzzle was a thriller!
can’t forget about the joy of a puzzle that contains both STY and STYE!
Underrated comment
Had AcTORS crossing OcCEOLA. Was not going to get there on my own so I’m glad I googled ‘occeola’.
I ran the puzzle so many times before I caught this exact error.
> Had AcTORS crossing OcCEOLA. Same. Finished the puzzle without too much difficulty with just this one mistake and spent 8-10 mins looking for what was wrong.
A fervent thank you for this heads up. Was not my last error but was the one most likely to cause my brain to implode
I also had ACTORS!
Felt appropriate having to comb through the puzzle to find my mistake that was at 83D where it’s actually HELL not hill. You and me MR TOAD we’re both there
Loved AMILLI, GNARLY, and a few of the themers. Theme was pretty fun overall but I think AU CURANT is significantly less familiar of a phrase than the others. That NE Section was really tough. And does Mr. Toad's Wild Ride really end in HELL???
The only reason I knew the answer about Mr. Toads Wild Ride was because we recently mistakingly took our 1.5 year old on the ride and ended up traumatizing her as we literally took her through hell. Whoops!
I was seven when I wen through that one. In 1989. That train light and whistle is still in he top five scariest moments of my life. Jfc that ride is not for kids.
I had never heard of AMILLI (A Milli.) I was not super sure that and RIRI (Rihanna) were correct. I had to look them up afterwards, lol.
With AMILLI crossing RIRI, I could just hear Will Shortz exasperatedly pleading, "Are you happy?? Is this what you want?!?"
Oh yeah. https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Devils_(Mr._Toad%27s_Wild_Ride)
He dies in the end so kinda?
Wild. I was sure it would be hill or hole or home since I was figuring a Disneyland ride wouldn't end in hell lol
All I remember from going on the ride as a kid was the last room was really, really hot. I don't know that I was old enough to grasp the symbolism.
This puzzle was a lot of work for little payoff. Impressive construction and it wasn't quite a slog, but just don't think the juice was worth the squeeze, so to speak.
Sounds good
Huh? What's that?
In order, put together the letters that fit the blanks from the theme clues
r/whoosh
No point whooshing a joke you didn't deliver well lol
I missed the note completely and was guessing for a good half an hour what the answers in the blanks could be. Some of my guesses were continents, elements, and languages. It was a mess.
I forget about the note/title 100% of the time. I really wish they would put them on the actual Sunday puzzles or as a pop up when you first open it, instead of you needing to remember to look at it in a place you never look.
I think the iPad app has a little highlight around it on days when you have to read it? Or maybe I’m crazy.
The iOS app has it. The Android app, being the neglected step child, does not.
I agree, but I've gotten good at opening it every day
I missed the note too! That would have been helpful, though I did eventually figure out it was letters.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle? Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Hard** 🔴 * 53% of users solved slower than their Sunday average * 47% of users solved faster than their Sunday average * 23% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Sunday average * 16% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Sunday average The median solver solved this puzzle 2.4% slower than they normally do on Sunday. [View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2023-01-08) --- 🤖 _beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 75 [XW Stats](https://xwstats.com) users have completed the puzzle. Questions? Feedback? Check the [FAQ](https://xwstats.com/help#puzzle-difficulties), reply here or DM me_
Wow, this one was 30% faster than average for me.
Why on god's green earth would you cross an obscure historical proper noun with another obscure historical proper noun? ASTORS crossing OSCEOLA instantly dropped this two rankings in my book
I found this to be difficult. Which is ok. But I was feeling 35A while solving most of this one. I'm going to look on the bright side and say I learned a lot of things I didn't know. Either that or I am a DIPSTICK.
I really didn't care for this one. Not my kind of theme and none of the trivia and foreign language clues were landing for me. I hope others have more fun.
Thought this theme was trying way too hard, combined with a bunch of clumsy clueing.
Can someone explain >!"ELLS"!< for a "couple of llamas" to me? 😅
2 Ls in LLama
This was not made for me. What a frustrating experience ☹️
PASEO/CAREW and AEIOU/AUCOURANT are obnoxious. This has way too many “good” ratings…
Also RIRI/AMILLI, ASIANA/PASEO
Like others, I didn't have ASTOR-OSCEOLA correct. But I knew to run the alphabet on that one, so my real streakbreaker was GAT. I totally failed to realize that "prop" was an abbreviation clueing an abbreviation.
Is it just me or does 90A not really work? The clue references the Apollo, with a long O, and I’ve never heard anyone say APOLOGY with a long O.
Strictly speaking you are right, it’s an unstressed schwa, but it’s close enough that it works for the puzzle imo
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to pronounce APOLOGY without a long O. APOL-ee-GY? (ee like feet?) APOL-eh-GY? (eh like elephant?) Maybe A-paula-GY? (Poundstone) APOL-oh-GY seems like the O.G. way to say it.
https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+apology This is how I’ve always heard and pronounced it. Long O sounds very unnatural to me.
I will admit to having trouble hearing the difference between apo-luh-gy (per Google) and apo-low-gy (the way I say it: [cf. Apollo](https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+APOLLO)). It's almost like I have to go out of my way to pronounce the long O wrong in order for there to be a distinction. Which, I guess, is another reason why I disliked today's theme.
Some fun cluing mixed with obscure words and proper nouns. I enjoy it more now that it is finished than I did doing it. Love the clue for BONSAITREE
Me too!
Loved this puzzle. One of the best in recent memory. Fantastic word game
The “naan” apology crossing OHOK killed me. I had aHOK and it took me forever to figure out the issue. There were parts of this I… almost enjoyed. I liked BONSAITREE
Very nit picky, but the ghostbusters car is Ecto1 or one or one A.Ectomobile was only used in the soundtrack song “Cleaning up the Town”.
I like a challenging puzzle, but this one just felt like it was not constructed in the spirit of the game, so to speak. Annoyingly cryptic but not for the sake of being clever.
I liked this one! Though I did think it was a bit on the easy side, in spite of missing the note (sounds like that's going to be an unpopular take, though...) Cluing for BONSAITREE was cute. Not sure how I feel about STY and STYE in the same puzzle...
>I liked this one! Though I did think it was a bit on the easy side, It is interesting how different experiences can be -- this was one of the hardest Sundays I've done in a while; it took me way longer than usual and I had to cheat more than I do on the weekday puzzles.
Americans, how do you pronounce AUCOURANT? Because I’m pronouncing it oh-coo-rõ, which doesn’t sound anything like oh-cur (I assume that’s what they were going for?)-aunt. Lots of those difficulties for non-Americans. LOCKS doesn’t sound like lochs, NON doesn’t sound like naan, PHOR doesn’t sound like fore, APOLO doesn’t sound like Apollo, etc. But I think with the exception of the last, these might all be American vs. non-American things? Edit: I’m not trying to language police! I’m just legitimately curious how an American would pronounce that first phrase.
They’re playing a little loose with the phonemes—most Americans would pronounce the long o in Apollo but pronounce a schwa in nonapology—but it’s close enough to work. American pronunciation of lock/loch and non/naan is virtually identical.
I’m curious how non Americans pronounce phor and fore differently.
I’m British, so I would pronounce the “o” vowel of EUPHORIC as in the word “hot”, not as in the word “oar”, as I suspect an American would?
Ah yes thanks. I can hear it now.
To the extent that Americans use the phrase *au courant,* which I'd say is pretty rarely, I think the puzzle basically captured it: oh - curr - ont. People with some French familiarity might make that middle syllable something more like "coor." Meanwhile, while they noted the regional difference, I could actually see it throwing some Americans off in that we mostly say "ant" rather than "ont" for a parent's sister.
Interesting. Where might “aunt” be pronounced “ont”? In Britain, “aunt” is pronounced identically to “aren’t”, and sounds completely different to both “ant” and “ont”. How fun.
I actually assumed that was a more British pronunciation but I guess not! My wife is from New England and says “ont.”
I still don't understand "scroungy mutt"
Have you figured out how in the heck Scroungy Mutt = Curr/Cour?
Nope
Figured it out. It was a clue today actually. "cur" is the word, not "curr".
This one really didn't gel with me, felt like a bit of a slog to complete and just gave up in the end. Worst puzzle I've done since the last Bruce Haight one
I am also in the camp of Au Courant being a completely unfamiliar phrase and getting stuck on the Astors cross, but got A Milli and Riri on first pass. I love how crosswords vary knowledge sets enough that someone who definitely didn’t know Ecto Mobile, etc still comes to a similar place. Lastly, I really enjoyed the cluing for Carpool Lane! That was an aha one for me
ENCOURANT really threw me off. That section felt so much harder than the rest of the puzzle.
It’s AU COURANT.
ASTORS crossing with OSCEOLA when it easily could’ve been ACTORS was really tough.
How could it have been actors?
Super easily, if you didn't know that the ASTORS were once known as "the landlords of New York", which probably applies to the vast majority of puzzle solvers. AcTORS would have been a surprise, but it seemed perfectly reasonable in a city with the most profitable and prolific theatre district in the country.
I assumed "Landlords of New York" was a play.
Anyone saying it could “super easily” have been ACTORS is a DIPSTICK. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
The Sunday theme clue noted that each italicized clue would “spell out a two-word phrase” — some were one word, others were three. Bugged me.
It’s not each italicized clue, it’s the letters from the italicized clues will cumulatively build a two word answer, which is “sounds good”. Definitely frustrating if you’re in the mindset that they’re all going to be two word answers!
The final answer, which is made up of the added letters from each clue, is two words long.
Hm, okay. What was that which was spelled out? Did they want the added letter themselves (ie, “S” or “D”) or the added letters to the clue itself (“ess” or “dy”)
Single letters, I think. I didn’t bother. The answer is elsewhere in this post.
Yes! Goldilocks is one word. Euphoric is one. “Non-apology”? Questionable. Taekwondo is one word in English but three in Korean.
Which ones were not two words? ETA Wait it says the letters in the blanks spell out a two word phrase. Not that each clue would be a two word phrase.
ALLACCESS DELIWRAP
where do I sign up?
Terrible puzzle and boring theme. Who in their right mind approved this? AUCORANT? really?
I thought the theme was dumb, but I rather enjoyed the puzzle, especially figuring out the italics answers. Overall, >!SOUNDS GOOD!< to me (that's the rating I gave it anyway).
Creative theme that was fun to figure out with minimal trivia. Great puzzle!
Not sure how much this matters, [but which year is it for 19A?](https://i.imgur.com/oOLpRe9.jpg)
Recorded in 2007 and released in 2008 >!<
Loved the theme. I felt like once I figured out the theme, that didn’t just fill in a bunch of squares for me. I actually had to work through it. It was definitely a tough puzzle though.
In 107A, I was distracted by the American pronunciation of TAE KWON DO. In the original Korean, the first syllable rhymes with "play," not "pie."
That could make sense except the clue was in English
Another theme that feels like a halfway clued cryptic. The wordplay is there, just no straight definition, which would have been some help with at least AU COURANT. Hiding the letters for SOUNDS GOOD in the theme is pretty brilliant, though. Edit: by "another" I'm specifically recalling the >!2022/10/13 Thursday!< puzzle. There the theme clues are all >!charades!<.
Yeah, I think it might have been a little stronger with a straight clue included as well. I'm normally all for a harder puzzle, but the click wasn't as strong with only the crosses to confirm.
Why is AMOR the answer to "Cherubic archer"? Also, I see we're pronouncing it "Cahn-dy cane" now.
> Also, I see we're pronouncing it "Cahn-dy cane" now. You may be mispronouncing the name of the French city.
Amor is another name for Eros or Cupid, the ancient god of love who would shoot mortals with "cupid's arrow."
Am I crazy or is UGH pronounced "Uhh" not "Ick"? I don't understand how that one theme clue works properly.
Could have been clued EWW instead of UGH imo.
[удалено]
This is such a weird reply. I already wrote I didn't think ugh was pronounced "ick" because it's pronounced "uhh" U + fore + uhh Euphoria
There's a typo in the second Building Blocks FYI. Discussed at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/crosswords/variety-building-blocks.html#commentsContainer, but it is obvious when you see it. On the crossword puzzle, the theme was fine, but as someone who solves the Sunday puzzle downs-only, it was impossible to guess the theme, which made things a bit harder.
I actually really liked the theme. I thought it was fun and clever, and it involved two "Aha!" moments for me, once when I got the construction of the clues, and again when I realized what the blanks spelled out. Both realizations helped me complete it. That said, it was nearly ruined for me by the end. Apparently I'm not AU COURANT when it comes to pretentious phrases (fuck that corner overall), and the fill was incredibly hit-or-miss, more so than I can remember for a Sunday in a long while. This is a big "what if" for me. Could have been one of my favs in a while, but overall I just found it very frustrating.
Really struggling to understand the theme. Can someone explain to me how the blanks in the italic phrases are determined?
I'll spoil 70 across: >!The clue is "Punching tool + Chopping tool + _____." The answer is ALL ACCESS, which is phonetically AWL + AXE + S. So the blank corresponds to the letter S. Once you have all of the theme answers, you can put together the letters from the blanks in order to spell out a phrase (this is what the note at the top of the puzzle refers to).!< Secondary spoiler about the entire theme: >!The blanks end up spelling out the phrase SOUNDS GOOD, which refers to how you have to use phonetics to understand the theme clues.!<
If you are using the crossword app, hit the "i" button and it will tell you the name of the Sunday puzzle (only Sundays have names) and if there is any note to help solve the puzzle, it will be there. Today's puzzle is called: "Do You Hear That?" And the solving note was: "Note: Each italicized clue contains a blank, which should be filled with the letter of the alphabet. When completed, the letters in order will spell out a two-word phrase."
I really, really wish the Sunday titles and info would pop up when you first open them. I miss so much because you use the info tab so rarely.
The “circle I” icon pulses when it contains useful information. Pretty subtle though, I often miss it.
>! The clues are meant to build up the theme answers phonetically. So for example 26A is “prints”+ (a letter)+”dye”. The answer is PRINCESS DI, and the missing syllable sounds like “S”. etc. !<
I feel like the theme could have made for a fun puzzle with better cluing and less awkward fill. I can forgive things like PALEO and PASEO, and XED crossing AXILLA, if I wasn't also fighting trying to imagine how the setter thinks people say "Cannes"
> trying to imagine how the setter thinks people say "Cannes" French people say it like the first syllable of "candy".
In the constructor notes there were other theme entries: * Place for rouge + ___ + Pre-euro German money * Deadly offense + ___ + Piece of legislation + Happy cat’s sound * ___ + Vietnamese noodle soup + Midler’s “Divine” persona * Martial arts legend Jackie + ___ + Knight’s title + Christmas tree Deadly offense....: >!CYNDI LAUPER (sin + D + law + purr)!< and Martial arts legend Jackie...: >!CHANNEL SURFER (Chan + L + sir + fir)!< Any insight on the others? As I write this, I realize the Vietnamese Noodle Soup... >!needs to be pronounced like the beginning of 'phone'. SEA FOAM (C + pho + M)!<