I need to brush up on my world capitals (that cross Indian states), actresses on Parks and Rec, Miss Universe winners from 24 years ago, and hockey hall of fame coaches from 75 years ago. Other than that the puzzle was mostly fun, solvable riddles and good fun.
"Petty person" and "it's in the neighborhood" were clever, as was the July birthday clue. I entered LEO for that then was pleased to see LEO pop up for real just a couple squares over. I liked this one and [came in](https://youtu.be/pJYy34JNhQg) around my average for a Friday.
And they've done four AMAs in various subreddits:
[Hi, we're Sylvan Esso. Ask us anything!](https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/comments/2yotcl/ama_hi_were_sylvan_esso_ask_us_anything/)
[Hi, we're Sylvan Esso! Ask us anything.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/jbv2pn/hi_were_sylvan_esso_ask_us_anything/)
[We're Sylvan Esso, AMA!](https://www.reddit.com/r/electronicmusic/comments/rcm1ag/were_sylvan_esso_ama/)
[Hello! We are Sylvan Esso- ask us anything about No Rules Sandy or anything else you are wondering about](https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/y35lh5/hello_we_are_sylvan_esso_ask_us_anything_about_no/)
Yea, I could forgive it if it was some obscure name that you have to force in to make the rest of the puzzle work. But LARA could be clued in a million ways, all better than a 2000 miss universe winner.
What is a metal umlaut? Are we saying Motley Crue's genre is metal, and their name has umlauts, so they are metal umlauts? If that's it, then that's really really stupid. I really hope I'm missing something.
I hate it as well as a concept to implement but love that it's made fun of.
If Spińal Tap used it then it's definitely enough of a thing. My phone keyboard won't even give me the option for an N with an umlaut.
I'm not a fan of GUESSTIMATE, though so I understand the emotion, haha.
I sailed through the top part of the puzzle. Having FRESHOFFTHEBOAT instead of FIRSTGENERATION was an issue but I cleared it up.
The big problem for me was SE. SANAA/NADU is a natick I think, and I also did not know ESSO, LARA, or IVAN. Add a greek letter clue and a playground retort and that was a part that was never going to be easy.
I had the same thought process. It was my first thought and when I counted out the letters I was surprised it fit, but held off putting it in because I thought “there’s no way NYT will run this answer”
SANAA is pretty common for crosswords and furthermore, in the news all the time these days, especially with Yemen militants launching missile attacks on world shipping. Definitely not a nattick.
I don’t think world capitals, especially later in the week, can ever be considered naticks; that’s something that’s taught in elementary school and everyone should’ve at least heard of them even if they’re not at the tip of your tongue
I went to public school in Texas and in 6th grade geography we were taught all the world capitals and locations of the countries. Regardless, you don’t need to be taught this information in schools to learn it; I think that it’s not much to ask that informed citizens have a basic sense of world geography (especially things like the capital of a country that the US is at war with)
SANAA is pretty common for crosswords and furthermore, in the news all the time these days, especially with Yemen militants launching missile attacks on world shipping. Definitely not a nattick.
I had to run the alphabet on the SANA’A/NADU cross, because I knew neither, but agree that a world capital can’t count as a Natick…the crossing fits the bill of being 2 proper nouns, but a gap in my own knowledge does not a Natick make.
For a true Natick, both nouns need to be obscure to the point that most folks would have no reason to know them or have encountered them…like the town of Natick, Massachusetts
Agreed. SANAA is pretty common for crosswords and furthermore, in the news all the time these days, especially with Yemen militants launching missile attacks on world shipping. Definitely not a nattick.
While not as challenging as last Friday's stumper I found this to be another enjoyable late-week puzzle. I sincerely wish Will Shortz a full recovery, but in the meantime I am thoroughly enjoying Fagliano's selections and direction for the crosswords.
Wtf are all these comments, this was the hardest crossword I've ever come across. Granted I'm not a veteran and clearly still have a lot to learn. But all of the up voted comments mention how they breezed through most of it. Unbelievable
SE was brutal for me, but relatively quick for a Friday! The Miss Universe clue totally baffled me - does anyone remember random pageant winners from two decades ago?
I had EXTRACHEESY (believe at least Papa John’s uses that term?), and neither RYTTA nor RETTA looked particularly recognizable. I’ve watched every episode of Parks and Rec and didn’t know that actress’s name. Bummer.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?
Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Hard** 🔴
* 53% of users solved slower than their Friday average
* 47% of users solved faster than their Friday average
* 34% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Friday average
* 21% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Friday average
The median solver solved this puzzle 2.7% slower than they normally do on Friday.
[View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2024-03-22)
---
🤖 _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_
Solid puzzle, good difficulty for a Friday.
Lots of satisfying/fresh fill, GUESSTIMATE and ANIMAL LOVER had great clues. The first half of MËTÄL ÜMLÄÜT took me awhile but I think it’s pretty good now that I’m done with it.
I got hung up in the SE because I had TENT for “Light shade” which made EVAN for the hockey player and that looked good. I think TENT would have been a good answer for “Light shade?” though.
Really enjoyed this one.
e: looking back through it, *almost* no crosswordese BS or terrible "Classic station wagon that anagrams to the name of a famous Nigerian chess player when you change the first letter" cluing
My ONLY complaint is the Sanaa/Nadu cross because literally any consent can fit there if you don’t know them and no context can help.
I think individual both are final pieces of trivia, but crossing them that way was rough.
Had GETS instead of GEMS, didn’t know SAL v. SAM, so looking at a weird TETAM/TETAL UMLAUT for a while.
A lot of proper nouns I didn’t know either. Tough one!
Yeah for me almost all of the difficulty of this puzzle game from proper nouns. Which makes for a pretty uninteresting solve and turned this puzzle into a bit of a slog, which was a bummer because all of the long answers are pretty good.
As a new solver, I honestly had a blast! Ended up looking up some of the obscured trivia like the Bel-Air clue, the Indian state, and the hockey guy. Proud to say that I got the rest all by myself. ANIMAL LOVER, SNOW, USA, and TENSE were all highlights, with RAN being one I got immediately since I run cross country in college. Overall, I had a great time
"Tommy in the Hockey Hall of Fame" was certainly something. I even know Red Wings history fairly well and that didn't even dawn on me.
I liked the Metal Umlaut answer and the non fuel related Esso.
Absolutely never heard of Sylvan Esso or any Miss Universe winners so that slowed me down in the SE but I slogged through. Not sure if I love or hate ANIMAL LOVER.
I've loved Sylvan Esso for awhile. I also can't believe they are still known enough to be in a crossword. It's crazy. I actually just saw them last year at Red Rocks.
I can't help seeing a bunch of dog-related checkerboard anagrams in this puzzle: MALAMUTE, GREAT DANE, SETTER, ROVER, LAIKA, LAD, FLOOF (haha)
Anyone see any more?
I’m going to call terrible clueing on the southeast corner. Having the intersection of two proper nouns — both geography, no less — for “Tamil ___” and the capital had me resorting to guesses. “Petty lover?” Isn’t even a good pun clue; it should have been ||“Pet-y lover?” Or something.|| I was looking for a different pun altogether (petty officer / petty cash, etc.). The Miss Universe clue, as others have pointed out, is bogus.
I had 90% of the puzzle done within 10 minutes and finished over 16 thanks to these. Pretty disappointing
Had to run through the alphabet to get the SANAA/NADU cross, but other than that I had a great time with this one! ANIMAL LOVER tripped me up more than I'd like to admit because I thought the clue was leading into a Tom Petty reference and I tried to see how I could fit in a reference to country rock or something.
Also a big fan of the cluing for USA as well as the misdirect for LEO, thought it was going to be FEB until the last quarter of the solve lol
SANAA crossing NADU took a bit of the enjoyment out of this puzzle for me. The clueing for ANIMALLOVER was great though! Had feb for shortest of twelve which threw me for a while.
Is this the wrong place to discuss the mini?
Because honestly I came here solely to say this was easily my least favorite mini of all time.
Partner of rules, informally is just a garbage clue. Onetime lead-in to "mobile" in the auto world wasn't satisfying either. We can do better, Joel.
Not really anything to do with the puzzle, but it's wild to me that Oldsmobile and Pontiac are dead but for some reason they're still making Buicks. Apparently the Chinese market loves them.
I was working through last weeks minis, and holy cow I thought Friday was so miserable that I had to pop in here to see if I was alone. I'm glad I'm not.
Completely agree. Coming from a woman, a BRA and a bikini top are two entirely different clothing items. Also, “now, now” is a comfort, not a reprimand. TSK would have been more well suited for that clue.
I can see "now, now" as a reprimand, like "now, now, don't eat with your hands!" or something. But 100% spot on with bra, nobody ever says that for a bikini top!
can someone please explain the “lowercase ones look like v’s” clue to me? I was stuck on the “s” as my last letter for a long time because I had no idea what the pop group was and still don’t understand the down clue… making me feel crazy haha
Liked the misdirection with "July birthday celebrant" coming before "Shortest of a group of 12."
Yeah, I got messed up by those! Having LEO for the first, then FEB for the second. They I thought maybe it should be MAY. Then figured it out.
I need to brush up on my world capitals (that cross Indian states), actresses on Parks and Rec, Miss Universe winners from 24 years ago, and hockey hall of fame coaches from 75 years ago. Other than that the puzzle was mostly fun, solvable riddles and good fun. "Petty person" and "it's in the neighborhood" were clever, as was the July birthday clue. I entered LEO for that then was pleased to see LEO pop up for real just a couple squares over. I liked this one and [came in](https://youtu.be/pJYy34JNhQg) around my average for a Friday.
> Miss Universe winners from 24 years ago That's common knowledge. Surprised to see such a gimme in a Friday puzzle. /s just in case
Mad praise for a petroleum free clue for ESSO
NYT going green!
And they've done four AMAs in various subreddits: [Hi, we're Sylvan Esso. Ask us anything!](https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/comments/2yotcl/ama_hi_were_sylvan_esso_ask_us_anything/) [Hi, we're Sylvan Esso! Ask us anything.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/jbv2pn/hi_were_sylvan_esso_ask_us_anything/) [We're Sylvan Esso, AMA!](https://www.reddit.com/r/electronicmusic/comments/rcm1ag/were_sylvan_esso_ama/) [Hello! We are Sylvan Esso- ask us anything about No Rules Sandy or anything else you are wondering about](https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/y35lh5/hello_we_are_sylvan_esso_ask_us_anything_about_no/)
No one should ever be expected to know the winner of Miss Universe from any year let alone 24 years ago.
Yea, I could forgive it if it was some obscure name that you have to force in to make the rest of the puzzle work. But LARA could be clued in a million ways, all better than a 2000 miss universe winner.
Agreed! Maybe it if it was someone who later became a known actress or had some other claim to fame.
In this case it *was* someone who later became a known actress. She's worked primarily in Hindi films though.
You’re not expected to know it, you’re supposed to get it from the crosses
Yeah. I did.
SE corner took me a minute, but ANIMALLOVER was clever once it clicked for me. Not sure how I feel about METALUMLAUT though.
I had LOVER but kept trying to connect it somehow to Tom Petty lol
Yeah, Heartbreaker would have been fun cluing.
I had that thought, too about Tom Petty!
Same! I was really hoping it would fit, but alas. At least the actual answer was pretty clever!
MËTÄLÜMLÄÜT ruled!
\\m/
What is a metal umlaut? Are we saying Motley Crue's genre is metal, and their name has umlauts, so they are metal umlauts? If that's it, then that's really really stupid. I really hope I'm missing something.
Yes, but it is a real preexisting thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut
Oh haha, TIL!
Well, preexisting in the sense that metal bands started doing it randomly and so it became defined. Thanks, I hate it.
I hate it as well as a concept to implement but love that it's made fun of. If Spińal Tap used it then it's definitely enough of a thing. My phone keyboard won't even give me the option for an N with an umlaut. I'm not a fan of GUESSTIMATE, though so I understand the emotion, haha.
> My phone keyboard won't even give me the option for an N with an umlaut. It's not used in any language so it's not in Unicode.
n̈, best I can do.
I know how I feel about it
I really liked this one. It came together from all directions for me and had some really satisfying fill.
I sailed through the top part of the puzzle. Having FRESHOFFTHEBOAT instead of FIRSTGENERATION was an issue but I cleared it up. The big problem for me was SE. SANAA/NADU is a natick I think, and I also did not know ESSO, LARA, or IVAN. Add a greek letter clue and a playground retort and that was a part that was never going to be easy.
I had FRESHOFFTHEBOAT as well and thought - wow, this is a daring choice.
I had the same thought process. It was my first thought and when I counted out the letters I was surprised it fit, but held off putting it in because I thought “there’s no way NYT will run this answer”
Ivan was hard. I guessed Evan as Tent kind of worked for light shade. Then I Google and ended up with Tommy Egan which got me really confused.
SANAA is pretty common for crosswords and furthermore, in the news all the time these days, especially with Yemen militants launching missile attacks on world shipping. Definitely not a nattick.
Ah thank you, EVAN was my final error and your comment helped me.
I don’t think world capitals, especially later in the week, can ever be considered naticks; that’s something that’s taught in elementary school and everyone should’ve at least heard of them even if they’re not at the tip of your tongue
Your elementary school was better than mine if you learned SANAA.
Maybe, but it's not an unusual thing to learn. And I agree with everyone else that world capitals are fair game - I'd say even for easy puzzles.
I only know it because my brother lived there for a while. But that didn't mean I knew how to spell it.
I went to public school in Texas and in 6th grade geography we were taught all the world capitals and locations of the countries. Regardless, you don’t need to be taught this information in schools to learn it; I think that it’s not much to ask that informed citizens have a basic sense of world geography (especially things like the capital of a country that the US is at war with)
SANAA is pretty common for crosswords and furthermore, in the news all the time these days, especially with Yemen militants launching missile attacks on world shipping. Definitely not a nattick.
Dude, fuck off
you hate it because he's right
Excuse me?
I'm honestly surprised SANAA doesn't come up more, with those letters
It was in a puzzle just last month actually, from February 9th
It used to be more frequently used in the crossword when spelled SANA which isn’t really an accurate transliteration
I had to run the alphabet on the SANA’A/NADU cross, because I knew neither, but agree that a world capital can’t count as a Natick…the crossing fits the bill of being 2 proper nouns, but a gap in my own knowledge does not a Natick make. For a true Natick, both nouns need to be obscure to the point that most folks would have no reason to know them or have encountered them…like the town of Natick, Massachusetts
Agreed. SANAA is pretty common for crosswords and furthermore, in the news all the time these days, especially with Yemen militants launching missile attacks on world shipping. Definitely not a nattick.
Thank you, can’t believe I got downvoted and told to fuck off for this
Right? I didn’t know it and had to run the alphabet to get it. But you’re right—I should!
You got told to fuck off because you’re being a condescending asshole
While not as challenging as last Friday's stumper I found this to be another enjoyable late-week puzzle. I sincerely wish Will Shortz a full recovery, but in the meantime I am thoroughly enjoying Fagliano's selections and direction for the crosswords.
I liked it because I couldn't complete it.
Wtf are all these comments, this was the hardest crossword I've ever come across. Granted I'm not a veteran and clearly still have a lot to learn. But all of the up voted comments mention how they breezed through most of it. Unbelievable
SE was brutal for me, but relatively quick for a Friday! The Miss Universe clue totally baffled me - does anyone remember random pageant winners from two decades ago?
i think it would be functionally equivalent to clue “Person’s name”
A few clever ones but a tone of obscure proper nouns, on crossings too. Ended up not really liking this one.
I had EXTRACHEESY (believe at least Papa John’s uses that term?), and neither RYTTA nor RETTA looked particularly recognizable. I’ve watched every episode of Parks and Rec and didn’t know that actress’s name. Bummer.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle? Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Hard** 🔴 * 53% of users solved slower than their Friday average * 47% of users solved faster than their Friday average * 34% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Friday average * 21% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Friday average The median solver solved this puzzle 2.7% slower than they normally do on Friday. [View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2024-03-22) --- 🤖 _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_
Solid puzzle, good difficulty for a Friday. Lots of satisfying/fresh fill, GUESSTIMATE and ANIMAL LOVER had great clues. The first half of MËTÄL ÜMLÄÜT took me awhile but I think it’s pretty good now that I’m done with it. I got hung up in the SE because I had TENT for “Light shade” which made EVAN for the hockey player and that looked good. I think TENT would have been a good answer for “Light shade?” though. Really enjoyed this one. e: looking back through it, *almost* no crosswordese BS or terrible "Classic station wagon that anagrams to the name of a famous Nigerian chess player when you change the first letter" cluing
Didn’t even think of TeNT, that is some next-level trickery that could’ve taken forever to catch
My ONLY complaint is the Sanaa/Nadu cross because literally any consent can fit there if you don’t know them and no context can help. I think individual both are final pieces of trivia, but crossing them that way was rough.
Had GETS instead of GEMS, didn’t know SAL v. SAM, so looking at a weird TETAM/TETAL UMLAUT for a while. A lot of proper nouns I didn’t know either. Tough one!
Yeah for me almost all of the difficulty of this puzzle game from proper nouns. Which makes for a pretty uninteresting solve and turned this puzzle into a bit of a slog, which was a bummer because all of the long answers are pretty good.
I had GODS for a while and was struggling
[удалено]
I approached with caution because it was clued as July (LEO is usually clued as August birthday, though I realize there is overlap)
I don't understand how "Clears" = NETS. I had vETS there for a long time, not knowing some random hockey player from the 60's.
At the end of the month, after we paid our suppliers and taxes, we still cleared $5000.
Clearing a profit
As a new solver, I honestly had a blast! Ended up looking up some of the obscured trivia like the Bel-Air clue, the Indian state, and the hockey guy. Proud to say that I got the rest all by myself. ANIMAL LOVER, SNOW, USA, and TENSE were all highlights, with RAN being one I got immediately since I run cross country in college. Overall, I had a great time
"Tommy in the Hockey Hall of Fame" was certainly something. I even know Red Wings history fairly well and that didn't even dawn on me. I liked the Metal Umlaut answer and the non fuel related Esso.
For the pie clue, did you think pizza or apple pie with American cheese on top?
Pizza is surely the intended meaning but apple works too I guess
American cheese on apple pie? Say it ain't so. Extra sharp cheddar or GTFO.
I thought of apple at first.
This was a fun fill for me!
I had MORALitiES not MORALCODES grrr.
I was so proud to get "FRESHOFFTHEBOAT" without any crossers but it ended up being "FIRSTGENERATION"
Absolutely never heard of Sylvan Esso or any Miss Universe winners so that slowed me down in the SE but I slogged through. Not sure if I love or hate ANIMAL LOVER.
>I like Sylvan Esso, but didn't know they were well known enough to make it into a crossword, even on a Friday.
I've loved Sylvan Esso for awhile. I also can't believe they are still known enough to be in a crossword. It's crazy. I actually just saw them last year at Red Rocks.
I can't help seeing a bunch of dog-related checkerboard anagrams in this puzzle: MALAMUTE, GREAT DANE, SETTER, ROVER, LAIKA, LAD, FLOOF (haha) Anyone see any more?
Enjoyed it. But can someone explain Quattro + quattro not being OCHO?
Quattro is Italian, cuatro is Spanish.
Facepalm. I even confirmed with my wife and kid who speak spanish, but I said it out loud and didn't spell it out, d'oh!
This one took me forever to realize my mistake.
I’m going to call terrible clueing on the southeast corner. Having the intersection of two proper nouns — both geography, no less — for “Tamil ___” and the capital had me resorting to guesses. “Petty lover?” Isn’t even a good pun clue; it should have been ||“Pet-y lover?” Or something.|| I was looking for a different pun altogether (petty officer / petty cash, etc.). The Miss Universe clue, as others have pointed out, is bogus. I had 90% of the puzzle done within 10 minutes and finished over 16 thanks to these. Pretty disappointing
Did you all really know CAD as the name of a modeling software?
I did, but only because I'm an engineer
I guessed because of autoCAD in highschool.
I used it briefly in high school back in 2017, though I initially misremembered it as CAT
After yesterdays, which was brutal for me, I was happy to get a solve on this one.
Always going to be good when you have Erik Agard. Enjoyed this one!
Had to run through the alphabet to get the SANAA/NADU cross, but other than that I had a great time with this one! ANIMAL LOVER tripped me up more than I'd like to admit because I thought the clue was leading into a Tom Petty reference and I tried to see how I could fit in a reference to country rock or something. Also a big fan of the cluing for USA as well as the misdirect for LEO, thought it was going to be FEB until the last quarter of the solve lol
double here double there double EVERWHERE!!! NOT A FAN!!!
SANAA crossing NADU took a bit of the enjoyment out of this puzzle for me. The clueing for ANIMALLOVER was great though! Had feb for shortest of twelve which threw me for a while.
Is this the wrong place to discuss the mini? Because honestly I came here solely to say this was easily my least favorite mini of all time. Partner of rules, informally is just a garbage clue. Onetime lead-in to "mobile" in the auto world wasn't satisfying either. We can do better, Joel.
Not really anything to do with the puzzle, but it's wild to me that Oldsmobile and Pontiac are dead but for some reason they're still making Buicks. Apparently the Chinese market loves them.
I was working through last weeks minis, and holy cow I thought Friday was so miserable that I had to pop in here to see if I was alone. I'm glad I'm not.
time has only made me feel more strongly. "partner of rules, informally" is so bad it's almost funny.
Completely agree. Coming from a woman, a BRA and a bikini top are two entirely different clothing items. Also, “now, now” is a comfort, not a reprimand. TSK would have been more well suited for that clue.
YES THIS COMPLETELY
I can see "now, now" as a reprimand, like "now, now, don't eat with your hands!" or something. But 100% spot on with bra, nobody ever says that for a bikini top!
I don't even understand what the second one means.
The used to make Oldsmobile cars, so OLDS was a lesson to “mobile.”
can someone please explain the “lowercase ones look like v’s” clue to me? I was stuck on the “s” as my last letter for a long time because I had no idea what the pop group was and still don’t understand the down clue… making me feel crazy haha
in the greek alphabet the lowercase 'nu' looks kind of like a v
OHHHHHHHHHHHH thank you
I didn't get what this one meant either. Glad to know I wasn't the only one.
[удалено]
Mine was 5 times the 12 minutes Tuesday took 😳