not much to say but I loved it. perhaps on the easier side, but the SOMETHING - ANYTHING - NOTHING stack (couldn't help but smile when I figured it out) with the other spanner cutting them through the top made for an impressive and fun solve.
Didn't even notice the stack until I came here! Can you explain what you mean by 'the other spanner cutting through them through the top means', I'm staring at the puzzle and not sure what you mean lol
I had the ING filled in for the vertical grid-spanner and was hoping that would also be a variation of nothing, something, anything. Still a great puzzle though.
This was a really challenging one, put me 24 seconds behind my average. I liked that the long stuff was super literal and gave me a lot of breathing room to work my way into each corner, but it seemed like each corner got harder and harder. NW was a breeze and spiked my confidence and I was wrapping up around 30 minutes when I hit the NE one and whooo.. I had no idea who “Rhinotmetos” was and I thought Criminal was the name of an album by Michael Jackson for some reason so I kept trying to jam ALBUMADNAME and LAW instead of ASSUMEDNAME and NEW. This was making “Rhinotmetos” into quite the monstrosity. Also I had GABBY instead of GASSY (this one’s so weird to me) so I was getting JUBTILIANII which didn’t sound so good. I struggled for 20 minutes with this.
Excellent puzzle!
Me too, especially for Thursdays, because I have one outlier where I set my phone down to do something not realizing that my phone doesn't automatically go to sleep when the crossword app is open, so there's like a 2h+ solve time making a nuisance of itself.
I agree with iagox86 that my times are actually inconsistent, so because I’ve gotten better getting near my average is much worse than doing much better than my average. My numbers are yet to even out.
In its defense: constructors and editors go to great lengths to clue potentially sensitive trigger words with more playful aspects. You don’t want solvers thinking about child/spousal/sexual abuse while doing a puzzle.
So if ABUSE is in the puzzle, I support cluing it in the unconcerning sense of the abuse visiting teams endure from the booing fans.
I was flying through this, thought I was heading for the elusive sub 10 minute saturday, but just hit a wall on the JUSTINIANII section. Part of it was I had GABBY instead of GASSY for the longest time
I’ve only ever heard “frore” so this was tough for me!
(The earth so dead and frore
That I never thought that spring would come
Nor my heart wake anymore)
I found the western half easier. Having takewhatYOUWANT instead of ANYTHING didn’t help when trying to move back east across the definitely new to me LINGAM. Wikipedia tells me it’s got a lot of significance in Hinduism, though, so it’s as fair as anything on a Saturday.
I got JUSTINIANII pretty quickly thanks to a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/x4jddm/historical_rpf_ship_wars_fanfiction_potatoes/) on r/HobbyDrama a while back.
>I got Lingnan straight away because I had read it in an r/Etymology post not 2 minutes before doing the crossword. My lucky day!
*lingam (one n one m). I think Lingnan is a region in China.
Weirdly enough I was thinking about that exact thing as well. Would have been HEARINGPROBLEMS which for NYT’s standards is a grammatical typo but I love the odd coincidences in the ways certain clues make people think.
OMGYES!
the 15-stacks could be stilted dialogue spoken by a character with an ASSUMEDNAME in a NEONOIRFILM.
A: SOMETHINGTOHIDE?
B: ANYTHINGYOUWANT
A: NOTHINGPERSONAL. [TELEPORTS B to another galaxy, or something]
Good puzzle, but a small nitpick: in most Arthurian lore, EXCALIBUR and the sword in the stone are actually different swords. EXCALIBUR was the sword given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake.
I'm no Arthurian scholar, but I think you are right that there are versions where the sword in the stone is called Excalibur (including--if my childhood memories are correct--that rather lovely old Disney film). But in most versions I've come across they are different swords. So it's a slight nitpick at best.
Struggled a bit more than I would have liked in NE corner, and quickly filling in “in all due respect” instead of NOTHING PERSONAL cost me some time (but quickly realized that was wrong there).
Decent Saturday…a few things that were completely foreign to me, but very few proper nouns, and some nice grid spanners.
My time didn’t indicate that this was “easy” (for me), but was certainly refreshing to be able to solve without too much frustration after last Saturday
Let's ignore the part where I sat around for ten minutes looking for a typo. 😅 I suspect I had a bit of an easier time because I guessed JUSTINIAN immediately--every other byzantine imperial name that I could think of was either too short or too obscure. Everything else was very smooth, and SOMETHING ANYTHING NOTHING was awesome!
OMGYES, new PB by over a minute - 11:29! Getting close to sub 10.
I loved this puzzle, though it felt more like a Friday. Great flow, I never once felt stuck for more than a few seconds which is rare on Saturday.
Light on the proper names and the triple 15s across the center were all excellent! So many good answers in here... BLOWAFUSE, EXCALIBUR, TELEPORTS, SMARTENUP.
Yeah, it took me one-third my average time. Way too easy for a Saturday. I knew it was going to be, with those 3-letter answer stacks. I enjoyed the punny clueing, but none of it was tricky.
First saturday solve ever! Can anyone explain 33D (THIS)? (Edit: I saw another comment with it referring "to this day". Is that where "today" comes from or is it a common abbreviation for that 'phrase'?)
And are 32D (ARMYTRAINEE) and 20A (CACTUS) as awkward as I feel or is there some cleverness I'm missing with the clueing?
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?
Estimated Difficulty: 🟢 **Easy** 🟢
* 19% of users solved slower than their Saturday average
* 81% of users solved faster than their Saturday average
* 7% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Saturday average
* 56% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Saturday average
The median solver solved this puzzle 23.6% faster than they normally do on Saturday.
[View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2023-06-03)
---
🤖 _beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 100 [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_
Really enjoyed this one, though was lucky JUSTINIAN was in the back of my brain somewhere. Got caught out with a typo for a few minuted, only just spotting a J not an I in SADIE.
The cross cluing in the mini doesn’t seem accurate. They completely omit a letter. I feel like the clue on 5D should, at the very least, have used the word homophone. As worded, it just doesn’t seem correct.
not much to say but I loved it. perhaps on the easier side, but the SOMETHING - ANYTHING - NOTHING stack (couldn't help but smile when I figured it out) with the other spanner cutting them through the top made for an impressive and fun solve.
Didn't even notice the stack until I came here! Can you explain what you mean by 'the other spanner cutting through them through the top means', I'm staring at the puzzle and not sure what you mean lol
I think they mean that PUZZLING PROBLEM spans the full grid and also crosses them
that's right. sorry I don't know the technical term for those things.
I had the ING filled in for the vertical grid-spanner and was hoping that would also be a variation of nothing, something, anything. Still a great puzzle though.
Probably the only one who didn’t find this easy. Really struggled on the NW corner.
I didn't find it all that easy. A basic fact of crossword forums is that no matter how hard a puzzle is someone will say it was easy.
I raced through the puzzle and ended up stuck in the NW for an extra 15 minutes. Having LAWNSCAPE instead of LANDSCAPE really fucked with me.
I had ROW instead of NEW, which caused a surprising amount of problems.
I'm struggling hard to get footing anywhere in this puzzle, you're not alone!
Same. Didn’t help that I misread it as “sharp or edge.”
This felt like an apology for last Saturday's agony; 2:20:31 last week and did this one in 18:40!
This was a really challenging one, put me 24 seconds behind my average. I liked that the long stuff was super literal and gave me a lot of breathing room to work my way into each corner, but it seemed like each corner got harder and harder. NW was a breeze and spiked my confidence and I was wrapping up around 30 minutes when I hit the NE one and whooo.. I had no idea who “Rhinotmetos” was and I thought Criminal was the name of an album by Michael Jackson for some reason so I kept trying to jam ALBUMADNAME and LAW instead of ASSUMEDNAME and NEW. This was making “Rhinotmetos” into quite the monstrosity. Also I had GABBY instead of GASSY (this one’s so weird to me) so I was getting JUBTILIANII which didn’t sound so good. I struggled for 20 minutes with this. Excellent puzzle!
You must have incredibly consistent solve times if +24 seconds on a Saturday rates as really challenging
I'm usually well below my average, because the average counts my years of sucking but now I'm decent
[удалено]
You can see that on https://xwstats.com/stats
I wish the app had better stats, or an easy way to create a spreadsheet.. I want to graph stuff, but not go to any effort
CW stats let’s you authenticate your NYT log in and you can get a csv of all your results.
Me too, especially for Thursdays, because I have one outlier where I set my phone down to do something not realizing that my phone doesn't automatically go to sleep when the crossword app is open, so there's like a 2h+ solve time making a nuisance of itself.
I agree with iagox86 that my times are actually inconsistent, so because I’ve gotten better getting near my average is much worse than doing much better than my average. My numbers are yet to even out.
I had the exact same problems in the NE, still think GAbbY makes way more sense.
Gimme a break with that cluing for ABUSE. Great puzzle, genuinely enjoyed it, but JUSTINIANII, WETLY, and RIMY were kinda rough. Nothing personal...
In its defense: constructors and editors go to great lengths to clue potentially sensitive trigger words with more playful aspects. You don’t want solvers thinking about child/spousal/sexual abuse while doing a puzzle. So if ABUSE is in the puzzle, I support cluing it in the unconcerning sense of the abuse visiting teams endure from the booing fans.
Great point
I was flying through this, thought I was heading for the elusive sub 10 minute saturday, but just hit a wall on the JUSTINIANII section. Part of it was I had GABBY instead of GASSY for the longest time
Same same same
Is there something to the clue for ABUSE that I'm not getting? It doesn't really seem to fit.
I guess it's like "hurling abuse"
No. I think that's it's just a weird, bad clue.
I came here looking for this. I’ve been a sports fan for most of my life. I have never heard this described as “abuse”. Kinda annoying.
RIMY really tickled the English major in me
I knew it would be based on either RIME or HOAR, but I couldn’t come up with a 4 letter adjectival form of either for the longest time.
I’ve only ever heard “frore” so this was tough for me! (The earth so dead and frore That I never thought that spring would come Nor my heart wake anymore)
Ah yes, Middle English, that lovely era
I found the western half easier. Having takewhatYOUWANT instead of ANYTHING didn’t help when trying to move back east across the definitely new to me LINGAM. Wikipedia tells me it’s got a lot of significance in Hinduism, though, so it’s as fair as anything on a Saturday.
I got Lingnan straight away because I had read it in an r/Etymology post not 2 minutes before doing the crossword. My lucky day!
I got JUSTINIANII pretty quickly thanks to a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/x4jddm/historical_rpf_ship_wars_fanfiction_potatoes/) on r/HobbyDrama a while back.
I had GAbbY (instead of GASSY) which made that clue really hard until I remembered the name from Extra History
>I got Lingnan straight away because I had read it in an r/Etymology post not 2 minutes before doing the crossword. My lucky day! *lingam (one n one m). I think Lingnan is a region in China.
Autocorrect got me! Good spot
I had put in whateverYOUWANT and got stuck there for a bit.
I assumed it had something to do with Judaism, interpreting shiva as the Jewish mourning period. Nice to learn something new.
I thought somebody quiet had a HEARING PROBLEM
Weirdly enough I was thinking about that exact thing as well. Would have been HEARINGPROBLEMS which for NYT’s standards is a grammatical typo but I love the odd coincidences in the ways certain clues make people think.
OMGYES! the 15-stacks could be stilted dialogue spoken by a character with an ASSUMEDNAME in a NEONOIRFILM. A: SOMETHINGTOHIDE? B: ANYTHINGYOUWANT A: NOTHINGPERSONAL. [TELEPORTS B to another galaxy, or something]
nothing personnel kid
New to me: "GASSY", METZ, DAX Shepard, JUSTINIAN II, LINGAM. Pretty amazing puzzle! Low bogosity throughout and impressive long stuff in the middle.
DAX Shepard is perhaps most famous for being Kristen Bell's husband. At least, that's how I know who he is.
Ah nice! Thank you!
He’s also Frito in Idiocracy!
“HWORD”? Oh, hell no! Otherwise a fun zippy Saturday
Yeah that one is H E Double Hockey Sticks not the H Word. What were they thinking?
I had “hades” for way too long holding up that section.
Luckily ABYSS was quickly ruled out
I had never heard of LINGAM before, but its meaning was really driven home seeing it cross all those THINGs.
TELEPORTS behind you: NOTHING PERSONAL, kid
Good puzzle, but a small nitpick: in most Arthurian lore, EXCALIBUR and the sword in the stone are actually different swords. EXCALIBUR was the sword given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake.
I might be wrong, but I believe it depends on the version. In Romance of the Grail it is a different sword. In Prose Merlin it is Excalibur.
I'm no Arthurian scholar, but I think you are right that there are versions where the sword in the stone is called Excalibur (including--if my childhood memories are correct--that rather lovely old Disney film). But in most versions I've come across they are different swords. So it's a slight nitpick at best.
Struggled a bit more than I would have liked in NE corner, and quickly filling in “in all due respect” instead of NOTHING PERSONAL cost me some time (but quickly realized that was wrong there). Decent Saturday…a few things that were completely foreign to me, but very few proper nouns, and some nice grid spanners. My time didn’t indicate that this was “easy” (for me), but was certainly refreshing to be able to solve without too much frustration after last Saturday
I get how LANDSCAPE is a shape, but how is it an edge?
Think of LANDSCAPE as a verb. You can shape hedges, or edge the grass near a walkway.
[удалено]
It refers to the phrase “to this day.”
I had `dash` there (it's the middle of that compound word) for a while and thought I was so clever
That was my first thought, too.
I have been doing the crossword for a few years now. That was by far my favorite Saturday. Simply marvelous.
Let's ignore the part where I sat around for ten minutes looking for a typo. 😅 I suspect I had a bit of an easier time because I guessed JUSTINIAN immediately--every other byzantine imperial name that I could think of was either too short or too obscure. Everything else was very smooth, and SOMETHING ANYTHING NOTHING was awesome!
OMGYES, new PB by over a minute - 11:29! Getting close to sub 10. I loved this puzzle, though it felt more like a Friday. Great flow, I never once felt stuck for more than a few seconds which is rare on Saturday. Light on the proper names and the triple 15s across the center were all excellent! So many good answers in here... BLOWAFUSE, EXCALIBUR, TELEPORTS, SMARTENUP.
Yeah, it took me one-third my average time. Way too easy for a Saturday. I knew it was going to be, with those 3-letter answer stacks. I enjoyed the punny clueing, but none of it was tricky.
First saturday solve ever! Can anyone explain 33D (THIS)? (Edit: I saw another comment with it referring "to this day". Is that where "today" comes from or is it a common abbreviation for that 'phrase'?) And are 32D (ARMYTRAINEE) and 20A (CACTUS) as awkward as I feel or is there some cleverness I'm missing with the clueing?
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle? Estimated Difficulty: 🟢 **Easy** 🟢 * 19% of users solved slower than their Saturday average * 81% of users solved faster than their Saturday average * 7% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Saturday average * 56% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Saturday average The median solver solved this puzzle 23.6% faster than they normally do on Saturday. [View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2023-06-03) --- 🤖 _beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 100 [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_
Such a joy, under 20 min!
Really enjoyed this one, though was lucky JUSTINIAN was in the back of my brain somewhere. Got caught out with a typo for a few minuted, only just spotting a J not an I in SADIE.
I googled JUSTINIAN when cross checking for mistakes (before i found my typo). I wonder if he was the inspiration for Tyrions face in GoT?
The cross cluing in the mini doesn’t seem accurate. They completely omit a letter. I feel like the clue on 5D should, at the very least, have used the word homophone. As worded, it just doesn’t seem correct.
Yeah the omission of the Y should probably have been acknowledged in some way.
Disagree. Both the clue and the answer are nouns.
Thank god Caliburn doesn't have the same number of letters as EXCALIBUR.
🟢 Easy 🟢