this is the thread where we complain about the new york times crossword puzzle

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and also where we name people whose retain a curious celebrity on the crossword page, by dint of having a slightly strange name.

example of the former:

1. "some burger toppings" are not "slaws," at least at any cookout i've been to. i would be shocked if handed a burger outfitted with "slaws."

example of latter:

1. susan dey
2. lori petty

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:08 (twenty-one years ago)

i had slaw on a burger, it is more common on a dog though.

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

oh tracer.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:12 (twenty-one years ago)

complaining on the easiest day of the week? but maybe you're talking about yesterday's one, i hope.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:16 (twenty-one years ago)

The only slaws I know of are carrot & cole, and they're not toppings. Is relish considered a slaw? Because it's not.

― andy --, Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:29 (twenty-one years ago)

slaws was in last thursday's, the otherwise very cool internet-themed one

lori petty was in yesterday's i think

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:30 (twenty-one years ago)

cole slaw is too a topping. you haven't lived if you haven't had it on a hot dog.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i coulda just opened your magazine and looked, tracer, but i'm lazy.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:31 (twenty-one years ago)

rye (new york ville) is far more famous than it deserves

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:31 (twenty-one years ago)

to be

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:31 (twenty-one years ago)

hey i've got a cousin in rye! be nice!

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:32 (twenty-one years ago)

is rye slang for rikers?

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:33 (twenty-one years ago)

RYE PLAYLAND

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

hey blount be nice!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost cutty exactly

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

they never say "home of playland"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Am I right in thinking the American papers don't do cryptic crosswords? In which case, what's the point?

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:40 (twenty-one years ago)

will shortz is a cryptic motherfucker!

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:41 (twenty-one years ago)

they're cryptic.

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.lisarein.com/8-20-03-willshortz-sm.jpg

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay. Soz. I've seen lots of non-cryptic US crossword compilations.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:43 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.crosswordtournament.com/2004/photos/shack/images/WillShortz2.jpg

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:43 (twenty-one years ago)

noodle, the ny times x-word is known for being difficult on monday to impossible on sunday.

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:44 (twenty-one years ago)

shortz looks like a badass on that daily show screencap

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

How does it compare to the UK Times? Cos for all its rep, I don't think that's a particularly tough crossword.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Mom (before leaving on week-long vacation): "Please keep the magazine section of the Times so I can do the crossword."
Me: "Well, I might want to do it. But I'll probably have trouble and wind up leaving most of it for you."
Mom: "Yeah, I bet you will."
Me: "What's that supposed to mean?"

Of course, I never got around to it.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I can never do the Fridays, and only 60% do the Thursdays.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

But seriously though, so much of it is practice and all those stupid words that people like my mom know because they've done them for decades. My grandfather could blow through the NYT crossword in minutes sometimes. He didn't know any of the pop culture answers but got everything else. The exact opposite of me.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:57 (twenty-one years ago)

saturday is the hardest puzzle, not sunday. sunday is supposedly somewhere close to thursday edging towards friday in average difficulty.

― andrew s (andrew s), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:02 (twenty-one years ago)

THAT'S what Will Shortz looks like???

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Roy Blount used to do a cryptic corssword in SPY.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually don't find the Mondays very hard, but there's a precipitous increase in difficulty so that by Wednesday I'm already less than 50% likely to finish.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah saturday's way harder.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I've finished Saturday like five times in the past year. It's embarrassing, actually.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

"Rocker Brian" to thread.

― Curious George Finds the Ether Bottle (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

what gets me are when they want you to solve the puzzles rebus style. So, "Heartache" becomes a five letter answer 'cuz you draw a little heart in the first square.

BASTARDS!

― Austin S (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 01:35 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah the internet one was like that, you had to fit "edu" into one square, ditto "net" and "com" and "org", it was like a handwriting challenge just to cram all the letters in!

the new york times crossword is NOT "cryptic" in the way that UK ones are, it's a synonym puzzle, and it's very strictly constructed, essentially each clue could replace its answer in a sentence and still be grammatically correct

one could draw inferences about cultural differences represented by these respective x-word hegemonies and possibly parlay it into a tiresome article for the nyt magazine, or an actually interesting one for the guardian

the nation used to run a cryptic crossword on its back page, i suspect it still does.

we could also talk about what kind of person the nytimes crossword imagines its solvers to be, and complain about that, which would delight me

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 02:13 (twenty-one years ago)

with respect to the second part of my question, a respect i'm not sure it deserves, i think a key consideration for any prospective member of the screen actor's guild should be to reflect on a snappy three- or four-letter last name with at least two vowels in it, which apellation will ensure crossword slebdom for years to come, and keep that name slumbering in some remote and bespectacled national consciousness in order that it might one day reawaken

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 02:17 (twenty-one years ago)

cutty, monday's is no sweat, don't put it about that it's hard, because believe me it's not.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 02:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I can generally kill it in 10 or so. I rarely finish friday's, and haven't seen a saturday in years (I get the NYT puzzle from a student paper that only publishes weekdays.)

― Austin Swinburn (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 02:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Monday very easy. Thursday, Friday a little challenging but fun for experienced solver. Wednesday is sort of a swing vote- sometimes easier, sometimes harder. Saturday difficult, as pointed out up thread. Sunday time-consuming.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I like the diagramless puzzles every few Sundays. Like yesterday. The clues aren't hard at all, it's just figuring out where to put the words.

I've never gotten even half of a Saturday puzzle.

Is it also true that the puzzles increase in difficulty as the month progresses?

― mte22 (mte22), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 03:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Shortz isn't cryptic! He's kinda a hybrid between cryptics and normal clues... They are hard and great, I wanna do them again.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 03:44 (twenty-one years ago)

mte22 i'd never thought about that! maybe they do. eight days ago i did the entire sunday one solely on the subway! (L to 8th ave, then A train to washington heights, and all the way back down to clinton/washington, G to lorimer) this sunday though i was agitated and then my magazine got wet and i ended up throwing it, with the rest of the paper, into one of those big construction dumpsters. my jeans are still drying on the stairs.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 04:28 (twenty-one years ago)

desi arnaz

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 04:28 (twenty-one years ago)

The new Chicago Reader crossword a few weeks ago had as a clue: "Kings of Convenience singer Erlend"!

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Tracer, your complaints about the NYTimes puzzle ring suspiciously pre-Shortz.

The Atlantic Monthly (right? not Harper's?) runs cryptics by Ravathon and Cox, who are hands-down the best cruciverbalists in this country.

I've never heard anyone talk about them getting harder as a month progresses, though. What do you do when the end of a month is on a Tuesday? Seems like madness.

I can do Saturdays about 33% of the time but it takes a few hours and usually a breather in between solving attempts. I am bringing some for my x-country train trip tomorrow.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 07:34 (twenty-one years ago)

The new Chicago Reader crossword a few weeks ago had as a clue: "Kings of Convenience singer Erlend"!

Did they want the correct letter Ø in the answer?

― OleM (OleM), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 09:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe. The clue that crossed it was "______ Kierkegaard"

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 11:20 (twenty-one years ago)

The Atlantic Monthly (right? not Harper's?) runs cryptics by Ravathon and Cox, who are hands-down the best cruciverbalists in this country
Right. Rathvon and Cox in the Atlantic, Richard Maltby, Jr in Harpers. Rathvon and Cox are the best-after all, they wrote the book- but these days I like Maltby a little better. He works in musical theater as his day job, like the man who brought the cryptic puzzle to the US, Stephen Sondheim.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 326 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I think the bad things about this app and its games can be summed up by the fact that the subtitle for wordle is “untangle terms”

― Boris Yitsbin (wins), Saturday, 23 December 2023 18:34 (two years ago)

four weeks pass...

otm

there are so many extraneous and useless words and i hate them

Good morning. New puzzles are waiting for you.
(at other times of day it displays even worse things about ‘winding down’)
Crack the clues in today’s puzzle.
Fill the grid with answers. Ready?
Untangle terms
Group words
Connect characters
Match motifs
Decode digits
Go fuck yourself

― mookieproof, Saturday, 20 January 2024 08:04 (two years ago)

you are being interpellated as an extremely basic aspirational dimwit

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 20 January 2024 09:48 (two years ago)

one month passes...

wtf

― mookieproof, Thursday, 7 March 2024 16:29 (two years ago)

that is bewildering

― symsymsym, Thursday, 7 March 2024 16:40 (two years ago)

Sucks

― The SoyBoy West Coast (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 7 March 2024 16:48 (two years ago)

I still don’t think that makes it “modern.” The puzzle column seems to imply its “colloquial” but those words don’t mean the same thing to me

― The SoyBoy West Coast (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 7 March 2024 16:54 (two years ago)

It’s not worse than that twee “story” but it is very lame

― cozen itt (wins), Thursday, 7 March 2024 17:42 (two years ago)

Okay today has some major mindfuckery.

I filled everything in fine and was like, "huh?" Then "oh HELL no." Then "whoa."

― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 17 March 2024 10:28 (two years ago)

Yeah v elegant

― cozen itt (wins), Sunday, 17 March 2024 12:12 (two years ago)

it's like a sfw version of the freud nyer one

― 龜, Sunday, 17 March 2024 15:37 (two years ago)

what a great puzzle. probably shouldn't have started in the middle

― symsymsym, Tuesday, 19 March 2024 05:37 (two years ago)

ffs lads

Synonym found after deleting half the letters of EXHILARATE

Pulitzer-winning author whose name is found in nonconsecutive letters of “page turner”

― mookieproof, Thursday, 28 March 2024 12:40 (two years ago)

i mean i’m sorry that ~~james AGEE~~ is inevitable fill several times a month but try harder

― mookieproof, Thursday, 28 March 2024 12:45 (two years ago)

for all of the grid embellishments, that puzzle was kind of dull in general.

― jaymc, Thursday, 28 March 2024 13:01 (two years ago)

57A was brutal clue and answer.

― Astarion Is Born (Leee), Thursday, 28 March 2024 17:20 (two years ago)

not really a complaint, but it’s weird to go six years without ARHAT then get it on back-to-back days

― mookieproof, Friday, 29 March 2024 03:50 (two years ago)

I learned it from the NYT Spelling Bee!

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 29 March 2024 10:41 (two years ago)

three months pass...

a. bass guitars are not required to have FRETS
b. wtf @ STENOG

― mookieproof, Thursday, 11 July 2024 19:59 (two years ago)

okay lol at today’s 61A

― mookieproof, Thursday, 25 July 2024 19:17 (two years ago)

three months pass...

breaking my streak at 670 : /

― mookieproof, Tuesday, 5 November 2024 19:13 (one year ago)

nine months pass...

Weekend puzzles seem too easy lately. Can't tell if this is an editorial shift or just due to randomness.

― Josefa, Friday, 8 August 2025 12:58 (one year ago)

although connections today was really weird. even looking at the solution i couldn't square what they were trying to do

― Ray Cat Strut (dog latin), Friday, 8 August 2025 13:05 (one year ago)

There’ve been a couple that were so ingenious recently that I looked around the room to find somebody to whom I could express my excitement and satisfaction— thinking of the “ten ants” one a few days ago

― you have to be avant-garde and stupid at the same (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, 8 August 2025 13:36 (one year ago)

eight months pass...

I don't solve in print but ngl this would probably have ruined my day too

https://www.vulture.com/article/new-york-times-crossword-error-reactions.html

― Roz, Thursday, 23 April 2026 03:42 (four months ago)

kinda want to see the best efforts tho

― mookieproof, Thursday, 23 April 2026 03:49 (four months ago)

I do the Sunday in the magazine on paper and this broke my brain after a rough workday

― symsymsym, Thursday, 23 April 2026 05:04 (four months ago)

I thought the title "nuclear fusion" could explain why all the numbers were in the wrong places. the actual puzzle was a great toughie though

― symsymsym, Thursday, 23 April 2026 05:06 (four months ago)

one month passes...

I did the online version of that nuclear fusion puzzle, without errors, and HATED it so much. I can’t remember any recent crossword I’ve disliked more.

Anyways, I have a running personal joke that I’d name an nyt crossword thread “ORCAs with EPEEs” so thought it was funny that yesterday’s puzzle had both of those words

― ed.b, Thursday, 4 June 2026 02:59 (two months ago)

two weeks pass...

for some reason my completion of sunday's crossword was not registered as completed on sunday, fucking my 400+ streak

annoying

― mookieproof, Monday, 22 June 2026 23:39 (two months ago)

i believe you can reach out to the times to fix that

― 龜, Tuesday, 23 June 2026 00:32 (two months ago)

thanks but that would be the lamest act of my entire life

(not sure what currently holds that position, thankfully)

i heard there were ppl who 'reached out' to fix their streaks after the one-day wirecutter strike 18 months ago and jfc

― mookieproof, Tuesday, 23 June 2026 01:24 (two months ago)

it's been glitchy lately. wouldn't accept my Wednesday solve last week as completed - it kept saying there was a mistake even after I turned on the checker and confirmed there were no errors

― Roz, Tuesday, 23 June 2026 01:47 (two months ago)

probably my fault for solving on an ancient iPad that won't run the app, so i have to do it in safari

― mookieproof, Tuesday, 23 June 2026 01:55 (two months ago)

holy macaroni, did i find today’s tough (and i clocked the rebuses)

― doctor barf (remy bean), Thursday, 2 July 2026 15:12 (two months ago)

one month passes...

36D (more sassy) is unfair and not a word

― doc (soda), Saturday, 29 August 2026 12:44 (five days ago)

I rolled my eyes so hard I think something snapped

― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 29 August 2026 13:27 (five days ago)

not a word used much in the last 100 years anyway

― symsymsym, Saturday, 29 August 2026 18:45 (five days ago)

there were some clues/fill I liked but 1d annoyed me too

― symsymsym, Saturday, 29 August 2026 18:47 (five days ago)

1. Forward
2. Saucy
3. Impertinent
4. Presumingly free in speech
5. Unconcealed
6. Brisk
7. Perky (Shakespeare)
8. Jaunty
9. Flourishing
10. Adroit (obsolete)
11. Objectionable (obsolete)
12. Open (obsolete)

Sassy fits what eight of those? & it’s a word (iron law, it’s always a word when someone posts that a word isn’t a word in these word puzzle threads)

― Karmic posing as I always do 🧘 (wins), Saturday, 29 August 2026 20:52 (five days ago)

I thought the objection today would be about the "Sweet dreams are made of cheese" clue, which I'd never heard in my life but apparently it was some viral internet/RPG type of nonsense from a few years ago.

― Josefa, Saturday, 29 August 2026 21:45 (five days ago)

I believe the objection is to the answer, not the word "sassy"

― symsymsym, Saturday, 29 August 2026 22:08 (five days ago)

Those definitions are for the answer, a word

― Karmic posing as I always do 🧘 (wins), Saturday, 29 August 2026 22:16 (five days ago)

Those are definitions of the root of the answer, not the complete answer. The problem is people don't use that root with that suffix in real life.

― Josefa, Saturday, 29 August 2026 22:31 (five days ago)

That’s a fake problem is the thing, the complete answer is a word in the dictionary! imo it is exactly as fair to expect ppl to know what ariosi means as it is to expect them to remember that the suffix “-er” means “more ___” when applied to most English adjectives

― Karmic posing as I always do 🧘 (wins), Saturday, 29 August 2026 22:56 (five days ago)

there are a lot of words in the dictionary that would be poor crossword fill. you can add re- to any verb or -er to (most) adjectives, but modern crossword writing/editing aims for less of those "roll-your-own" words along with fewer archaic terms or uninferrable proper nouns.

― symsymsym, Saturday, 29 August 2026 23:36 (five days ago)

anyway we shouldn't be arguing about perter when this puzzle is trying to turn AI doctor into a thing

― symsymsym, Saturday, 29 August 2026 23:38 (five days ago)

true, true

― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 30 August 2026 01:01 (four days ago)

can i complain at having looked at the answers and not knowing what anybody here is talking about because the clue number in the revive message is just plain wrong?

― koogs, Sunday, 30 August 2026 10:33 (four days ago)

(28d, not 36d)

― koogs, Sunday, 30 August 2026 10:35 (four days ago)

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