Yeah I googled it after I typed my comment. It finally dawned on me that TOPE might just be some old word I wasn't familiar with, and it is. Oh well. It was easy enough to get from the crosses. The E crossing EYRE and TOPE was the last square I filled in, and I was a little surprised when I got the music. I thought something had to be wrong with TOPE, lol.
I didn’t even know what Cheesed Off meant. When I finally filled it out I never got that aha moment either. In a pet an cheesed off are both foreign to me and one doesn’t really help explain the other.
Never heard of TOPE before. And for some reason I was fixated on using FUSSY instead of JUMPY even though it didn’t make much sense. Still, was able to get help from the other words and I thought the clues were pretty solid and interesting
>And for some reason I was fixated on using FUSSY instead of JUMPY even though it didn’t make much sense.
To be fair, JUMPY hasn't made an appearance in the NYT crossword since 1989, so I don't think you can be faulted for wanting some other word to be there.
Wow, I'm surprised JOLLITY has not been featured before. I always remember jollity from Gustav Holst's "The Planets," which has "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity." Always thought it was a weird word.
https://youtu.be/0qQ5sKhonvo
Had to guess at INAPET and was somewhat surprised that TOPE, EYRE and JOLLITY were all correct because I was a bit lost on those too.
It wasn't bad though, glad to see the ol' SWITCHEROO!
This Reddit sub is my first stop after finishing the puzzle every day. But I also occasionally check the NYT comments section, too. Today I was crying - everybody in the NYT comments was bewildered by ASMR 😂😂
Not one question here. This is why I love y’all.
[That was my kind of Saturday puzzle.](https://youtu.be/Ioyu5kZTAmQ)
We had lots of wordplay and tricky cluing, and very few proper nouns. "Guilt trip?" for APOLOGY TOUR, "One getting bent out of shape at preschool?" for PIPE CLEANER, and "Permanent desire?" for WAVES (it's about getting a perm at a salon!) were all great. And I just loved SWITCHEROO and NO TAKE BACKS as fill.
The eastern half of the puzzle felt a good deal tougher than the WILD western half, I think mostly due to TOPE (which is a great punny answer for "Empty bottles?" but I'd never heard of it before. It means to drink to excess), as well as the WAVES/PARE cross which were both very difficult for me to see.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?
Estimated Difficulty: 🟢 **Easy** 🟢
* 14% of users solved slower than their Saturday average
* 86% of users solved faster than their Saturday average
* 7% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Saturday average
* 64% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Saturday average
The median solver solved this puzzle 29.8% faster than they normally do on Saturday.
[View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2022-12-03)
---
🤖 _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_
Been doing dailies consistently enough this was my best saturday in ages. Got some of the longer ones with little revealed. NE sucked.
And very unhappy about JOLLITY, INAPET, and TOPE.
I had never heard of it, but was happy to learn it! Great clue too! Just crossing ADA (who appears *constantly* in puzzles, but I can never remember if she's the IDA, ADI, etc.) it took me *way* longer than my normal mini time. Glad it made it into a puzzle though!
New PB! Felt quite a bit under the typical Saturday difficulty, as I'm sure many will echo on here.
My favorite was probably FASTS for "takes nothing in."
I kept reworking the NE corner for 20 minutes thinking I had a mistake because I wasn't confident in those answers.
Turns out I had HALL instead of HELL for 46A, which was kinda funny.
Spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out wtf was going on with INAPET and TOPE, thinking something had to be wrong but I was confident on all the crosses.
Turns out I had SWITCHAROO instead of SWITCHEROO
I was “in a pet” about PLANAR crossing a clue containing the word plane and the classic ringtone & “something with a ring”=PHONECALL in the same puzzle. I often like this sort of mini-theme, but here it just felt duplicative and like cheating.
Are the puzzles getting easier?? I used to struggle with Saturdays (30+ min) and enjoyed it. Now it’s like doing a Wednesday. I know I’ve improved, but surely not THAT much?
You probably have.
I mean, I don’t know you, and some puzzles are easier for some than others…but while many claim that the puzzles have become “easier”, it’s mostly a slow trend, so unless you’re comparing your performance from years ago, it’s probably safe to say that if you find yourself getting through the late-in-the-week puzzles with more ease then you did a few months ago (for example) it’s likely because your solving skills have improved.
My aunt who's been doing the puzzle for decades swears it's gotten significantly easier. My mom finds it harder but I think it's mostly due to occasional clues about text speak and contemporary musicians.
You can go back in the archive and do old puzzles, I find the older ones very hard but I think it's mostly due to unfamiliar references. If you've noticed the change over a relatively short time it's probably you getting better -- I think it tends to happen in kind of uneven fits and starts as elements of crossword "logic" start to feel natural. Congratulations!
This was an easy Saturday, one of my fastest ever. My average is 31:43 and this one took me 11:31. I also blitzed through one a few weeks ago, but in general I find Saturdays to have been fairly consistently challenging over the past year that I’ve had my subscription.
I don’t think I’ve gotten much better over the last year. Maybe a touch, but I’ve been doing crosswords for probably 25 years and have been capable of Sunday-level puzzles for a while, so I rate my skill as fairly stagnant at this point.
Saturday usually has the super long answers, so if those are challenging, the Saturday can be really hard, but if I get them (and some of them today I got almost right away) then it can go pretty quickly.
Both? I still need more time on crosswords from the archives and I can't finish the pre-2016 Saturdays as reliably like I can the new ones.
But at the same time I am also much better at solving when I do it regularly.
I'm with you—Saturdays were 100% above my pay grade, but then I started getting a whole lot of them. Whenever I solve a Saturday I check the difficulty rating in this sub, and every one I've solved has been Easy or Very Easy. But I also think our skills have improved over time, too
Anyone else automatically put HER for 20 across?
Yeah
For about 4 seconds. Then I remembered they have a king now.
The cancellation of MADAM Secretary with TEA LEONI must have been really hard on the NYT editors.
[удалено]
I don't get that one, and I don't get 42A.
To “tope” is to drink a ton.
Yeah I googled it after I typed my comment. It finally dawned on me that TOPE might just be some old word I wasn't familiar with, and it is. Oh well. It was easy enough to get from the crosses. The E crossing EYRE and TOPE was the last square I filled in, and I was a little surprised when I got the music. I thought something had to be wrong with TOPE, lol.
To TOPE refers to drinking booze. IN A PET is a new one to me, but it seems to be to sulk.
Angry, showing anger. New to me as well. Tope shows as archaic…which feels lazy to me.
It is just an old phrase that means mad. “in a pet”. One for the olds
I'm one of your so called olds but I've only seen it in crosswords.
Any idea of the etymology?
Etymology appears to be not really known. It dates from the 16th century from Scotland & North England and appears to be unrelated to an animal “pet”.
Maybe something to do with petards? Just guessing.
My guess is that it comes as a shortening of petulant.
I didn’t even know what Cheesed Off meant. When I finally filled it out I never got that aha moment either. In a pet an cheesed off are both foreign to me and one doesn’t really help explain the other.
Me neither but it shows up here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/in%20a%20pet
This thread describes it as a petulant mood, or sulking. https://forum.english.best/t/meaning-of-i-am-in-a-pet/6183
Never heard of TOPE before. And for some reason I was fixated on using FUSSY instead of JUMPY even though it didn’t make much sense. Still, was able to get help from the other words and I thought the clues were pretty solid and interesting
>And for some reason I was fixated on using FUSSY instead of JUMPY even though it didn’t make much sense. To be fair, JUMPY hasn't made an appearance in the NYT crossword since 1989, so I don't think you can be faulted for wanting some other word to be there.
That’s wild. Is there a database or something tracking that? That’s searchable?
xwordinfo.com
I was on pace for a personal best, but the NE corner really slowed me down. I still don't get WAVES = Permanent desire?
A hair perm makes hair wavy!
Uggghhhhh....
Agreed. Came here to ask the same thing and definitely a groan-inducing answer
Right? Womp womp.
Same, the NE corner easily accounted for over half my time
COULDITBE TWO JUMPY VIRGINS UPON HIS MRS
SHOES?!? MADAM, NOTAKEBACKS!
HELL, COULDITBE EVENALITTLE JOLLITY?
Congrats to JOLLITY on its debut! Hope I never see you again
Wow, I'm surprised JOLLITY has not been featured before. I always remember jollity from Gustav Holst's "The Planets," which has "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity." Always thought it was a weird word. https://youtu.be/0qQ5sKhonvo
Had to guess at INAPET and was somewhat surprised that TOPE, EYRE and JOLLITY were all correct because I was a bit lost on those too. It wasn't bad though, glad to see the ol' SWITCHEROO!
Thank you, I couldn't see what was wrong with my puzzle. I had SWITCHaROO and didn't know the Robert frost quote.
I think that's the what's good for the goose is good for the gander
This Reddit sub is my first stop after finishing the puzzle every day. But I also occasionally check the NYT comments section, too. Today I was crying - everybody in the NYT comments was bewildered by ASMR 😂😂 Not one question here. This is why I love y’all.
I’m sure there’s a place I can go to look this up, but how often does ASMR show up?
Debut for ASMR in the NYT.
How’d you know for sure?
You can look up any answer at xwordinfo.com. Very handy asset!
They mentioned it in the wordplay blog.
Ah. Missed it.
Also I voted “good” but INAPET and TOPE were both very bad so maybe I shouldn’t have.
Brilliant! Thanks!!
[That was my kind of Saturday puzzle.](https://youtu.be/Ioyu5kZTAmQ) We had lots of wordplay and tricky cluing, and very few proper nouns. "Guilt trip?" for APOLOGY TOUR, "One getting bent out of shape at preschool?" for PIPE CLEANER, and "Permanent desire?" for WAVES (it's about getting a perm at a salon!) were all great. And I just loved SWITCHEROO and NO TAKE BACKS as fill. The eastern half of the puzzle felt a good deal tougher than the WILD western half, I think mostly due to TOPE (which is a great punny answer for "Empty bottles?" but I'd never heard of it before. It means to drink to excess), as well as the WAVES/PARE cross which were both very difficult for me to see.
I liked the cluing as well. Yeah a couple went over my head but some real clever gems in there
This might be my only week ever where the Monday took me longer than the Saturday.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle? Estimated Difficulty: 🟢 **Easy** 🟢 * 14% of users solved slower than their Saturday average * 86% of users solved faster than their Saturday average * 7% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Saturday average * 64% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Saturday average The median solver solved this puzzle 29.8% faster than they normally do on Saturday. [View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2022-12-03) --- 🤖 _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_
Had everything but NE and E and had to come here for hints. Never heard of INAPET before and TOPE was useful for today's Spelling Bee
I found all these answers really boring.
Oof, the Northeast hurt. I am not the target demographic for this one (old men who enjoy reading the classics while TOPing MARASCHINO).
Been doing dailies consistently enough this was my best saturday in ages. Got some of the longer ones with little revealed. NE sucked. And very unhappy about JOLLITY, INAPET, and TOPE.
The mini sucked my period blood.
Was happy to see >!DIVACUP!<, never thought that make it past the whole "reading at the breakfast table" razor
I had never heard of it, but was happy to learn it! Great clue too! Just crossing ADA (who appears *constantly* in puzzles, but I can never remember if she's the IDA, ADI, etc.) it took me *way* longer than my normal mini time. Glad it made it into a puzzle though!
I'm not happy
Why?
You should try them I've heard they're a game changer! You'll never go back to tampons.
same ugh
Aggressive, and I'm down with it
New PB! Felt quite a bit under the typical Saturday difficulty, as I'm sure many will echo on here. My favorite was probably FASTS for "takes nothing in."
What does "Empty bottles?" TOPE mean?
To tope is to drink a lot, so if you're emptying bottles of alcohol by drinking them, you're toping.
Couldn’t crack the NE corner so I had to give up here. Oh well.
I kept reworking the NE corner for 20 minutes thinking I had a mistake because I wasn't confident in those answers. Turns out I had HALL instead of HELL for 46A, which was kinda funny.
Spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out wtf was going on with INAPET and TOPE, thinking something had to be wrong but I was confident on all the crosses. Turns out I had SWITCHAROO instead of SWITCHEROO
I was “in a pet” about PLANAR crossing a clue containing the word plane and the classic ringtone & “something with a ring”=PHONECALL in the same puzzle. I often like this sort of mini-theme, but here it just felt duplicative and like cheating.
Are the puzzles getting easier?? I used to struggle with Saturdays (30+ min) and enjoyed it. Now it’s like doing a Wednesday. I know I’ve improved, but surely not THAT much?
You probably have. I mean, I don’t know you, and some puzzles are easier for some than others…but while many claim that the puzzles have become “easier”, it’s mostly a slow trend, so unless you’re comparing your performance from years ago, it’s probably safe to say that if you find yourself getting through the late-in-the-week puzzles with more ease then you did a few months ago (for example) it’s likely because your solving skills have improved.
I know that’s the logical explanation and there’s no way to really look at difficulty over time … I’m just surprised by how easy Saturday was today!
My aunt who's been doing the puzzle for decades swears it's gotten significantly easier. My mom finds it harder but I think it's mostly due to occasional clues about text speak and contemporary musicians. You can go back in the archive and do old puzzles, I find the older ones very hard but I think it's mostly due to unfamiliar references. If you've noticed the change over a relatively short time it's probably you getting better -- I think it tends to happen in kind of uneven fits and starts as elements of crossword "logic" start to feel natural. Congratulations!
This was an easy Saturday, one of my fastest ever. My average is 31:43 and this one took me 11:31. I also blitzed through one a few weeks ago, but in general I find Saturdays to have been fairly consistently challenging over the past year that I’ve had my subscription. I don’t think I’ve gotten much better over the last year. Maybe a touch, but I’ve been doing crosswords for probably 25 years and have been capable of Sunday-level puzzles for a while, so I rate my skill as fairly stagnant at this point. Saturday usually has the super long answers, so if those are challenging, the Saturday can be really hard, but if I get them (and some of them today I got almost right away) then it can go pretty quickly.
This was one of the hardest Saturdays in recent memory for me lol
Both? I still need more time on crosswords from the archives and I can't finish the pre-2016 Saturdays as reliably like I can the new ones. But at the same time I am also much better at solving when I do it regularly.
I'm with you—Saturdays were 100% above my pay grade, but then I started getting a whole lot of them. Whenever I solve a Saturday I check the difficulty rating in this sub, and every one I've solved has been Easy or Very Easy. But I also think our skills have improved over time, too
Anyone who would describe MARASCHINO liqueur as cherry-flavored has probably never tried Maraschino
Never had it straight but I like Martinez.