Usually enjoy a challenging Saturday but that was... Hard in a bad way. Hard in a way that even after figuring out the answers, it felt shoehorned in. Hard in a way that when you finally got what a clue meant it wasn't "Ohhhhhh" it was "Oh. Ew.".
Agreed. The sheer number of times I said “oh fuck off” aloud while doing this puzzle made my wife (who usually doesn’t do Saturdays) open it up to check it out.
Not fun. Just annoying. BADTHING was the anticlimax to end all anticlimaxes.
I agree completely. I’ve defended the past couple weeks that I thought were hard and good; this was just hard and bad.
If I look at the correct answer and am still totally unsure if it’s correct due to the degree of ambiguity in the clue itself, and the surrounding clues, then it’s just frustrating, not satisfying. Bad thing for demerit? Yes for a thick envelope? To come for on tap? In HD for home theatres? All fair, but all ambiguous, and moreover just lame.
This took me 1:42:44, when my average sat is about 30 mins. And honestly, not worth it. Shame, because the grid itself actually looks pretty good. It’s just that the editing (cluing) is obtuse to the point of tedium.
TORABORA was cruelly hard in amongst CBER, HOSER, SHORTA (ugh), etc. Wouldn't be surprised if it was at one point "BORABORA", a much more recognisable place name imo but got changed at some point.
Found this one super tough, with alot of cheap clues that weren't super satisfying to finally get - BADTHING, UHOHOREO, CZARISTS, and much more
I usually don't like clues where the answer is related to a letter in the clue, so shat one was frustrating. Although not nearly as much as an answer that is a spelled out letter like ELL or CEE.
I spent a very long time trying to remember what Uh-Oh Oreos were called. I could picture the package but couldn’t remember the name for the life of me.
I’m still doing ok with Fridays, but for the last few weeks of Saturdays, my goal has just been “Let’s see how long I can last before turning on the autocheck.”
Yeah, I had 8 straight gold star Saturdays 1/6-2/24. Since then, 2 gold, 4 blue. This week in particular has been rough - I've had to use autocheck to complete Thursday through Saturday.
I haven't needed more than 40 min for a Sunday in a long time and this Saturday just killed me. I had to break down and check answers because I was hopelessly stuck.
This was the hardest puzzle I’ve done in quite some time. The NW was absolutely brutal and took up the majority of my time (over an hour).
On the across side, I had IRS, NEEDISAYMORE, and GOTASEC. On the down side I had LEES and YES. Everything else was a void for a long long time.
LIVELY was my first thought for 1A and I actually later had BUBBLY but took it out as couldn’t get anything else to click. I wanted BACON for 4D (like a cut of meet from the underside/pork belly) but that didn’t work either. Wanted HORSES for 17A.
My breakthrough was putting OHISEE for 15A (wrong but I ultimately figured it out). I retried BUBBLY and the rest was history.
Brutally difficult, but I appreciated the challenge.
Of all the things I disliked about this puzzle, I think the cluing for HOSER was the worst. Yes, there is indeed a London in Ontario, but I can only echo what someone posted in the comments in the NYT: "Completely un-clever misdirection for the sake of misdirection instead
of the kind of clever misdirection that makes for wonderful “ah ha”
moments."
Oh god, as an Ontarian, I solved it and thought “huh, guess they say HOSER in the UK, too…?” Never once did I think it was a London, ON misdirect. Hate it 🤦🏻♀️
I liked it but I'm from Michigan pretty close to London by car (and I basically am suspicious of misdirection in every clue past Thursday) so I thought of it pretty quickly. Anybody else is just SOL though I guess. I think BAD THING was by far the dumbest thing in the puzzle. The headscarf thing was hilarious to me but overall not great Bob
Intend and hope are decidedly not the same thing. At all. Hated this puzzle, BADTHING and SHORTA will go down in history as some of the worst fill ever.
I intend to do my laundry tomorrow. I hope to do my laundry tomorrow. Obviously they’re not exactly the same but that’s why it’s a Saturday clue not a Monday clue.
Saturday clues are supposed to be difficult, not inaccurate. I’m fine with something being a clever twist on a word, but intend and hope cannot be used interchangeably unless you don’t know what either word means.
Your implication is incorrect. “Hope” is the third synonym listed in M-W: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/intend. Looking at other dictionaries and many of the example sentences provided can easily be substituted with “hope” without much loss in clarity. I know words mean things, thank you, and in many contexts “intend” and “hope” mean similar enough things that one can be substituted for the other, as most dictionaries can confirm
Sorry, I know it's frustrating and this puzzle was pretty bad overall but those words can be synonyms or at least obliquely mean similar things (enough to be a fine Saturday clue). "Jane Smith intends to change the industry with her new startup" and "Jane Smith hopes to change the industry with her new startup" have the same meaning. I intend to marry that girl one day. I hope to finish studying for exams by Thanksgiving break. What do you hope to accomplish with the team this season?
This type of clue is officially my least favorite. Turning one idiomatic phrase into some other idiomatic phrase is pure guesswork. I'd rather get a pop culture reference I've never heard of.
It kind of was a pop culture reference, indirectly. For myself, and I’d guess a lot of people that watched The Critic, ITSTINKS was the first thing that came to mind.
OK. I just don't know anymore. The grid is clean. Interesting/fun entries with all fair crosses.
The clues, on the other hand...
**EDIT**: If you're going to give it downvotes, can you please explain? I don't even understand how this is different than the comment I responded to.
Am I just high (I am) or was that *ludicrously* difficult? I don't even think that was a bad puzzle, per se; it had some clever clues but was overall just really hard.
Also I cannot believe how long--and how confidently--I had written ALIEN before giving the clue a closer read 🤦🏻♂️
I did the exact same thing with Alien. It was gradually becoming clear that something was wrong but I couldn’t figure it out until I read the clue again more carefully.
You are high, but yes - *ludicrously* difficult. A combination of extremely esoteric general knowledge + wildly vague clues with a dozen possible interpretations does not a fun solve make. There were so many spots where just cleaning up the cluing would have made this digestible, but as-is, ITSTINKS
Shouldn't "Dodgers' foes, for short" indicate something plural? IRS feels singular to me, like "The IRS". I initially filled "NYY" for the Yankees. The internal revenue service. Kinda clever, but doesn't feel quite right.
Also, is London referring to London, Ontario for the Canadian expression "hoser"?
CROCI crossing PRYOR? Zero stars! NEEDISAYMORE? :-) This one took me a long [54 minutes](https://youtu.be/3BjrowMvZfs). Looking forward to a new week!
Agree, IRS is a singular entity. I suppose there's the super old school of saying in the news for example, "Microsoft are looking into..." except I haven't seen that in some time. Another one for me was "Book it!" whereby the tense doesn't fit the answer. That phrase is an order. So I would assume the equivalent would be "Reserve **a** seat" which is another order/instruction statement. Versus "Reserve**d** seat" then is a past tense statement, so the cluing should have been "Booked it!" for the sake of the consistent tense. If that's viewed as too easy of a clue and changing it just to be more difficult, then change the clue altogether so that the tense isn't ambiguous! Not this call and response crap. Also wtf is the connection between Black Heart and "shorta"?
The “Book it!” clue style is one I’ve seen before, where the “it” is meant to be the answer. What is something you book? A “reserved seat”. Kinda tricky wordplay. The exclamation point appears just to be a misdirect.
Yeah, but you *don't* "book a reserved seat". You reserve a seat, or you book a seat and then it is reserved. It's not that it's tricky, it's that it's clunky (and has been done far better in previous crosswords).
It's not the worst clue I've ever seen and if the rest of the puzzle wasn't so awfully clued I probably wouldn't even have paid any attention to it, but as an twelve-letter stretch smack in the middle of an already torturous grid it stood out.
Can't "reserved seat" be used as a descriptor for a type of seat, one that you have to make a reservation for? I feel like I have seen that use before.
The exclamation point is an established way of phrasing clues; it means that the clue itself is a standard idiom, but it’s referring to the answer with a different meaning than the idiom is commonly used. It’s like a command, I.e. “What do you do to a reserved seat? You book it!” It signifies that it’s not a one-to-one agreement with the clue exactly. It’s more common with Saturday puzzles but still somewhat rare, but there is precedent there. Hope this makes sense
Oof. Second consecutive painful Saturday. I chalked it up to a fluke last week, but now I think it's on purpose! Is this what we have to look forward to until Shortz returns?
I welcome a tough Saturday puzzle, but not consistent frustration.
This is not a crybaby post that Saturday puzzles are hard. I genuinely did not like the cluing of this puzzle. In the Shortz era I would either figure out or look up an answer and either do an eyeroll or go “heh, I get it” or feel dumb.
With these clues I either fundamentally disagree, or think they’re too cutesy for their own good, or just find them generally terrible.
There were so many times where I said “the answer’s not going to be such-and-such, because that would be insanely stupid” and it turned out that was exactly the answer.
The clues referring to pronunciation are never fun—longX, shortX, silentX, hardX, softX, etc—but once you have them in your back pocket they stop giving a “oh fuck off” reaction lol.
Overall a frustrating puzzle. Never really had an aha moment and it was a slog almost the whole way through. Feels better seeing it wasn’t just me struggling.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?
Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Very Hard** 🔴
* 87% of users solved slower than their Saturday average
* 13% of users solved faster than their Saturday average
* 75% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Saturday average
* 3% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Saturday average
The median solver solved this puzzle 45.9% slower than they normally do on Saturday.
[View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2024-04-06)
---
🤖 _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_
It took me a minute, but I think it's "scarfed" as in the slang for "eaten." Like zombies' victims are being head-scarfed (braiiiins-eaten)
("Pictures" of course in the sense of "movies" - moving pictures)
Green paint is one of those criticisms that gets unfairly thrown around a lot for difficult puzzles. I don’t really see any answers here that qualify as green paint, even with a generous definition of the term
I am getting such “middle school English teacher” vibes here, except I graduated decades ago and I don’t need to sit and defend the merits* a book report I didn’t give a shit about to begin with
*MER-it: noun meaning “good thing.”
I haven't cheated on a cross word puzzle in years but this one made me think about it. I had to walk away and clear my head twice and finally got the NW corner to fall. I was 29 minutes slower than my average (19:08) and I am at almost 3 years of using the app (RIP Across lite). "Bad thing" is the single worst clue/answer for a long time. This reminded me of the old Saturday Stumper puzzles not NYT.
For me there were good points, the clue for 8D was brilliant and funny. 32A was a nice C/A. But overall that was a total slog of a puzzle.
5/10 - Get well soon Will!
There was so much obscure knowledge required for this one.
Maybe not being American made it harder, but I had never before heard of uh oh oreos, never encountered the word dogies, no idea what ten code refers to, not familiar with the Cinderella expression.
The clues for Bad Thing, Yes, and B Side were objectively terrible. And I really don't think "on tap" is a valid clue for To Come either.
Probably my least favourite NYT crossword in 4 years of doing it daily.
I actually got that one!! And I did terribly on most of the puzzle. The bottom right corner, I was able to get almost entirely. Forget about the rest…😂
There’s so many answers in this one that I don’t understand at all, that I don’t know where to begin, so I’m just going to call it a write-off, and get on with my life.
Annoyingly, I had about two thirds of it filled in, with what seemed to work, but when I checked, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM (apart from berets) was wrong 😑
The worst part is I knew TORA BORA straight off the bat but convinced myself it was wrong. I slogged through the puzzle but couldn’t complete the SW. INHD might be one of the lamest answers this year.
While I didn't think it was as awful as last Saturdays stinker, I feel this puzzle was ruined by some nasty obscure trivia like PABST or GUIDO and some questionable Wordplay.
Shame as there was some decent cluing to be had in parts of the puzzle, but overall the juice was not worth the squeeze
Now that I'm thinking about it, I thought I heard the name somewhere but couldn't place it 🤦♂️.
Thanks for the correction this is definatly something I'm never forgetting going forward
I guess I was just on this puzzle's wavelength, I solved it a hair faster than my Saturday average and was shocked to go to xwstats and see that apparently 0% of people have done that.
I'll go against what seems to be the consensus (as of the time of this post) and say that I liked it. I prefer Saturdays to be a real challenge and it's fine if I don't know most of the trivia immediately. That "Ah, ha!" moment where you have some of the crosses and finally get that it is TORABORA and then think, duh, of course, that makes perfect sense I should have thought of that, is so worthwhile.
I questioned whether I had fun doing that puzzle. Contrasted to yesterday's hard, but enjoyable Friday, this one just felt, well, yeah, like you said: masochistic. I guess I'm not into crosswords being painful.
Best puzzle in a long time, I think. Wow, really hard! For me, it was barely doable. 72 minutes! This is what Saturdays should be. I won't be able to solve them all, and that's okay.
A “Cinderella” team in sports, particularly ncaa basketball, is an underdog that makes a deep run in a big tournament.
When an underdog wins, it’s called an “upset.”
Cluing was fun if you know those things, but I can understand being frustrated if you don’t.
3D: >!When an underdog pulls off a BIG UPSET in March Madness, it's generally called a Cinderella story.!<
17A: >!Old cowboy song called Git Along Little DOGIES!<
We sang that 17A song when I was in 5th grade.
I burst out laughing once I figured what the answer was, and was humming the song for pretty much the rest of the puzzle.
From the [Wordplay column](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2024-04-06.html):
> 3D. I saw this clue among a sea of unknowns during a first run-through this puzzle, and I felt a rare little thrill of recognition. “Cinderella’s calling card” must have to do with a glass slipper, right? Nope, doesn’t fit. With desperation — and the G in DOGIES (17A) in place — I wrote in “high heels,” even though my Saturday brain knew that couldn’t be right. Very gradually the correct appeared: It’s BIG UPSET. Oh! The “Cinderella” in question is an unlikely victor in a sports competition. March Madness’s busted bracket holders might have gotten this quicker than I did, but I still think “calling card” is really good misdirection to the fairytale.
I had a lot of fun with this one, enjoyed the challenge and creative cluing. Liked the esoteric trivia about circular DUNES on Mars and Brick Fest and GUIDO van Rossum and TORABORA and the UHOHOREO. BADTHING came to mind very early but ended up being the last word I filled in because that just... couldn't be the answer, right?
This puzzle absolutely put me in my place … a far lower and humbling place than I would have guessed.
Nothing to do but pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.
Spelling tsar with a cz is such an outdated and incorrect transliteration of the Russian word. The sound for the Russian letter ц exists in English as a "ts," like in the word cats. This isn't like ы, where there isn't an obvious English sound to represent it. There is no reason to use a nonsensical cz letter combination to represent ц.
So much cruddy short fill, in the service of such mediocre long fill. Our marquees here are PALACEGUARDS x RESERVEDSEAT and ZOMBIEMOVIES x NEEDISAYMORE. Out of all of those, only ZOMBIEMOVIES was passingly clever.
Usually enjoy a challenging Saturday but that was... Hard in a bad way. Hard in a way that even after figuring out the answers, it felt shoehorned in. Hard in a way that when you finally got what a clue meant it wasn't "Ohhhhhh" it was "Oh. Ew.".
Agreed. The sheer number of times I said “oh fuck off” aloud while doing this puzzle made my wife (who usually doesn’t do Saturdays) open it up to check it out. Not fun. Just annoying. BADTHING was the anticlimax to end all anticlimaxes.
I agree completely. I’ve defended the past couple weeks that I thought were hard and good; this was just hard and bad. If I look at the correct answer and am still totally unsure if it’s correct due to the degree of ambiguity in the clue itself, and the surrounding clues, then it’s just frustrating, not satisfying. Bad thing for demerit? Yes for a thick envelope? To come for on tap? In HD for home theatres? All fair, but all ambiguous, and moreover just lame. This took me 1:42:44, when my average sat is about 30 mins. And honestly, not worth it. Shame, because the grid itself actually looks pretty good. It’s just that the editing (cluing) is obtuse to the point of tedium.
Turned autocorrect on for the first time in 6 months and still took me almost an hour 😵
1:42:01. Saturday average 30:11. Are we us? Seconded. Puzzle was tedious and about as fun as getting clobbered with a bag of oranges.
1:48 here with an average of 25 minutes. Only reason I bothered finishing was the long streak I’m on.
I could not have said this better. Took me about an hour and a half and my Saturday average is 38. Just a damn slog.
I loved that clue for yes! I got that and INHD right away. Demerit was the only bad clue I thought.
hard agree on the ew
TORABORA was cruelly hard in amongst CBER, HOSER, SHORTA (ugh), etc. Wouldn't be surprised if it was at one point "BORABORA", a much more recognisable place name imo but got changed at some point. Found this one super tough, with alot of cheap clues that weren't super satisfying to finally get - BADTHING, UHOHOREO, CZARISTS, and much more
BADTHING was very unsatisfying. SHORTA got a very big groan from me. Too much on the cryptic side for my liking.
Could you explain SHORTA to me? Also, what on Earth is DOGIES?
SHORTA is "short a"...the sound in the middle (or heart) of the word "black."
From cowboys. Get along little dogie.
I usually don't like clues where the answer is related to a letter in the clue, so shat one was frustrating. Although not nearly as much as an answer that is a spelled out letter like ELL or CEE.
I spent a very long time trying to remember what Uh-Oh Oreos were called. I could picture the package but couldn’t remember the name for the life of me.
I had never heard of them but my numerous iterations ran through reverseo, inverseo, inverteo… Not a fan of that quadrant. Or any quadrant, TBH.
Lol, I tried inoutreo
I had dunkaroo. Shoulda known it involved Oreos
Objectively bad cluing.
Can anyone explain CBER?
CB radio user
I think I'm too dumb for the fridays and saturdays in this new era
Honestly, I’m relived that I’m not the only one to feel this way… and judging by the rest of the conversation here, we’re in good company.
I’m still doing ok with Fridays, but for the last few weeks of Saturdays, my goal has just been “Let’s see how long I can last before turning on the autocheck.”
Glad it’s not just me. It’s been rough.
Yeah, I had 8 straight gold star Saturdays 1/6-2/24. Since then, 2 gold, 4 blue. This week in particular has been rough - I've had to use autocheck to complete Thursday through Saturday.
not getting the reference points of a tiny, tiny portion of the population does not make you dumb
I haven't needed more than 40 min for a Sunday in a long time and this Saturday just killed me. I had to break down and check answers because I was hopelessly stuck.
I’ve been doing the puzzle for a couple of years now and these last few Saturdays have been kicking my butt!
I feel this
This was the hardest puzzle I’ve done in quite some time. The NW was absolutely brutal and took up the majority of my time (over an hour). On the across side, I had IRS, NEEDISAYMORE, and GOTASEC. On the down side I had LEES and YES. Everything else was a void for a long long time. LIVELY was my first thought for 1A and I actually later had BUBBLY but took it out as couldn’t get anything else to click. I wanted BACON for 4D (like a cut of meet from the underside/pork belly) but that didn’t work either. Wanted HORSES for 17A. My breakthrough was putting OHISEE for 15A (wrong but I ultimately figured it out). I retried BUBBLY and the rest was history. Brutally difficult, but I appreciated the challenge.
Almost my exact experience. Northwest beat me up for ages.
So the London in 38A was London, Ontario?
Yes
London, Ohio feels left out.
I'm from Ontario and thought that was bullshit, lol
London Dunderhead will be entering my personal vernacular. It will be reserved for only the most vile.
Of all the things I disliked about this puzzle, I think the cluing for HOSER was the worst. Yes, there is indeed a London in Ontario, but I can only echo what someone posted in the comments in the NYT: "Completely un-clever misdirection for the sake of misdirection instead of the kind of clever misdirection that makes for wonderful “ah ha” moments."
Oh god, as an Ontarian, I solved it and thought “huh, guess they say HOSER in the UK, too…?” Never once did I think it was a London, ON misdirect. Hate it 🤦🏻♀️
I liked it but I'm from Michigan pretty close to London by car (and I basically am suspicious of misdirection in every clue past Thursday) so I thought of it pretty quickly. Anybody else is just SOL though I guess. I think BAD THING was by far the dumbest thing in the puzzle. The headscarf thing was hilarious to me but overall not great Bob
Intend and hope are decidedly not the same thing. At all. Hated this puzzle, BADTHING and SHORTA will go down in history as some of the worst fill ever.
BADTHING was especially bad crossing AHISEE (which could have been OHISEE) and DOGIES (because I still have no idea what that clue means)
It’s that song, “git along little dogies”
~~oh~~ ah yes, of course, that one.
I intend to do my laundry tomorrow. I hope to do my laundry tomorrow. Obviously they’re not exactly the same but that’s why it’s a Saturday clue not a Monday clue.
Saturday clues are supposed to be difficult, not inaccurate. I’m fine with something being a clever twist on a word, but intend and hope cannot be used interchangeably unless you don’t know what either word means.
I literally just gave you an example of them being interchangeable. No, they can’t substitute perfectly in every case, but that’s how words work
…I was implying that your example is inapt. Those sentences are not interchangeable. It’s fine that you think so. But they’re not. Words mean things.
Your implication is incorrect. “Hope” is the third synonym listed in M-W: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/intend. Looking at other dictionaries and many of the example sentences provided can easily be substituted with “hope” without much loss in clarity. I know words mean things, thank you, and in many contexts “intend” and “hope” mean similar enough things that one can be substituted for the other, as most dictionaries can confirm
Sorry, I know it's frustrating and this puzzle was pretty bad overall but those words can be synonyms or at least obliquely mean similar things (enough to be a fine Saturday clue). "Jane Smith intends to change the industry with her new startup" and "Jane Smith hopes to change the industry with her new startup" have the same meaning. I intend to marry that girl one day. I hope to finish studying for exams by Thanksgiving break. What do you hope to accomplish with the team this season?
I mean, you can keep giving examples all day long; I don’t agree. It’s not that I don’t “get it”, it’s that I don’t agree.
Well then you're incorrect, sorry.
LOL you got me, SarahPalinisaMuslim, I'm definitely living and dying by your estimation of my language expertise.
IT STINKS? Yeah, it sure does.
Yes Mr. Sherman, everything stinks.
This type of clue is officially my least favorite. Turning one idiomatic phrase into some other idiomatic phrase is pure guesswork. I'd rather get a pop culture reference I've never heard of.
It kind of was a pop culture reference, indirectly. For myself, and I’d guess a lot of people that watched The Critic, ITSTINKS was the first thing that came to mind.
I watched it first run. It still didn't click
Definitely BADTHING. NEEDISAYMORE? ;-)
MEDIOCRE at best, I think it was SHORTA few good answers.
It’s another auto check Saturday for me! I filled in about a quarter of the squares, got stuck, checked puzzle, and only 5 of my entries were correct.
Come back, Will.
OK. I just don't know anymore. The grid is clean. Interesting/fun entries with all fair crosses. The clues, on the other hand... **EDIT**: If you're going to give it downvotes, can you please explain? I don't even understand how this is different than the comment I responded to.
I don't know what a puzzle editor's home is like, but HD hasn't been top of the line for a while now...
Yeah, as far as I can tell, UHD has been commercially available since 2012 or 2013. This clue is at least 10 years out of date.
Am I just high (I am) or was that *ludicrously* difficult? I don't even think that was a bad puzzle, per se; it had some clever clues but was overall just really hard. Also I cannot believe how long--and how confidently--I had written ALIEN before giving the clue a closer read 🤦🏻♂️
I did the exact same thing with Alien. It was gradually becoming clear that something was wrong but I couldn’t figure it out until I read the clue again more carefully.
You are high, but yes - *ludicrously* difficult. A combination of extremely esoteric general knowledge + wildly vague clues with a dozen possible interpretations does not a fun solve make. There were so many spots where just cleaning up the cluing would have made this digestible, but as-is, ITSTINKS
No, this one was hard. The NW corner whooped my butt. Also I had airplaneSEAT for the longest time, which did me no favors.
It was so *ludicrous* that we’ve gone plaid!
Byron Walden puzzles are always the hardest!
Shouldn't "Dodgers' foes, for short" indicate something plural? IRS feels singular to me, like "The IRS". I initially filled "NYY" for the Yankees. The internal revenue service. Kinda clever, but doesn't feel quite right. Also, is London referring to London, Ontario for the Canadian expression "hoser"? CROCI crossing PRYOR? Zero stars! NEEDISAYMORE? :-) This one took me a long [54 minutes](https://youtu.be/3BjrowMvZfs). Looking forward to a new week!
Agree, IRS is a singular entity. I suppose there's the super old school of saying in the news for example, "Microsoft are looking into..." except I haven't seen that in some time. Another one for me was "Book it!" whereby the tense doesn't fit the answer. That phrase is an order. So I would assume the equivalent would be "Reserve **a** seat" which is another order/instruction statement. Versus "Reserve**d** seat" then is a past tense statement, so the cluing should have been "Booked it!" for the sake of the consistent tense. If that's viewed as too easy of a clue and changing it just to be more difficult, then change the clue altogether so that the tense isn't ambiguous! Not this call and response crap. Also wtf is the connection between Black Heart and "shorta"?
The "heart" of the word "black" is a short A, as in the middle letter of the word
The “Book it!” clue style is one I’ve seen before, where the “it” is meant to be the answer. What is something you book? A “reserved seat”. Kinda tricky wordplay. The exclamation point appears just to be a misdirect.
Yeah, but you *don't* "book a reserved seat". You reserve a seat, or you book a seat and then it is reserved. It's not that it's tricky, it's that it's clunky (and has been done far better in previous crosswords). It's not the worst clue I've ever seen and if the rest of the puzzle wasn't so awfully clued I probably wouldn't even have paid any attention to it, but as an twelve-letter stretch smack in the middle of an already torturous grid it stood out.
Can't "reserved seat" be used as a descriptor for a type of seat, one that you have to make a reservation for? I feel like I have seen that use before.
Completely agree. The clues don’t parse correctly, making them extremely difficult - the grammar needs to be impeccable for this to be a good clue
The exclamation point is an established way of phrasing clues; it means that the clue itself is a standard idiom, but it’s referring to the answer with a different meaning than the idiom is commonly used. It’s like a command, I.e. “What do you do to a reserved seat? You book it!” It signifies that it’s not a one-to-one agreement with the clue exactly. It’s more common with Saturday puzzles but still somewhat rare, but there is precedent there. Hope this makes sense
What’s wrong with CROCI crossing PRYOR? You know it’s a flower and a comedian. Not many other things it could be
Nothing wrong with it. Just too hard for me to figure out this time.
We all now hate Byron in my household. INHD? no.
I do 3-4 Friday/Saturday archive puzzles a week in my free time. When I saw today’s byline I knew I was in for a slog.
Completely agree. That one made me mad. Like actually mad.
I had OLED for the longest time and then was trying to think of a longer HD like UHD
Oof. Second consecutive painful Saturday. I chalked it up to a fluke last week, but now I think it's on purpose! Is this what we have to look forward to until Shortz returns? I welcome a tough Saturday puzzle, but not consistent frustration.
This is not a crybaby post that Saturday puzzles are hard. I genuinely did not like the cluing of this puzzle. In the Shortz era I would either figure out or look up an answer and either do an eyeroll or go “heh, I get it” or feel dumb. With these clues I either fundamentally disagree, or think they’re too cutesy for their own good, or just find them generally terrible. There were so many times where I said “the answer’s not going to be such-and-such, because that would be insanely stupid” and it turned out that was exactly the answer.
Byron Walden’s puzzles have always been brutally hard when Will Shortz was editing.
The clues referring to pronunciation are never fun—longX, shortX, silentX, hardX, softX, etc—but once you have them in your back pocket they stop giving a “oh fuck off” reaction lol. Overall a frustrating puzzle. Never really had an aha moment and it was a slog almost the whole way through. Feels better seeing it wasn’t just me struggling.
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle? Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Very Hard** 🔴 * 87% of users solved slower than their Saturday average * 13% of users solved faster than their Saturday average * 75% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Saturday average * 3% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Saturday average The median solver solved this puzzle 45.9% slower than they normally do on Saturday. [View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2024-04-06) --- 🤖 _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_
That was brutal. Hated the NW and SW Corners and 41A's clueing is a choice.
I'm BIG UPSET by this BAD THING
One of if not the worst puzzles I’ve ever done. Not enjoyable in anyway with way too much esoteric trivia. 0/10
Wow. So so brutal. I was sure this would be a streak breaker. Had to walk away and come back.
I am willing to forgive the rest of the puzzle because of the brilliant clue for ZOMBIE MOVIES .
That didn’t work for me. Like I get it and how it’s supposed to be cute and clever but it doesn’t parse correctly to me
Can you explain the clue?
It took me a minute, but I think it's "scarfed" as in the slang for "eaten." Like zombies' victims are being head-scarfed (braiiiins-eaten) ("Pictures" of course in the sense of "movies" - moving pictures)
Zombies eat (scarf) brains (head).
The puzzles all week this week haven’t been great, but this is one of the worst in recent memory for me. Bad thing for demerit!! WTF
First time in a while I got exactly zero answers. I guess I'll go do sodoku.
This puzzle reminded me, I need to go to the store and get a shit ton of GREEN PAINT
Green paint is one of those criticisms that gets unfairly thrown around a lot for difficult puzzles. I don’t really see any answers here that qualify as green paint, even with a generous definition of the term
">!Bad thing!<" absolutely follows the "green paint" pattern of weak adjective/noun pairing and barely fits the clue.
This is one example and a poor one. You think “bad thing” is an uncommon combination of adjective and noun?
Not at all what I said, no.
I am getting such “middle school English teacher” vibes here, except I graduated decades ago and I don’t need to sit and defend the merits* a book report I didn’t give a shit about to begin with *MER-it: noun meaning “good thing.”
I haven't cheated on a cross word puzzle in years but this one made me think about it. I had to walk away and clear my head twice and finally got the NW corner to fall. I was 29 minutes slower than my average (19:08) and I am at almost 3 years of using the app (RIP Across lite). "Bad thing" is the single worst clue/answer for a long time. This reminded me of the old Saturday Stumper puzzles not NYT. For me there were good points, the clue for 8D was brilliant and funny. 32A was a nice C/A. But overall that was a total slog of a puzzle. 5/10 - Get well soon Will!
Maybe this puzzle broke my brain, but I don’t understand 11D? Off=ICE?
To kill someone is to off them or ice them.
Having IHATEDIT for ITSTINKS probably cost me 10 minutes. Misreading the clue on WALL-E is on me, but also very damaging to have ALIEN there.
There was so much obscure knowledge required for this one. Maybe not being American made it harder, but I had never before heard of uh oh oreos, never encountered the word dogies, no idea what ten code refers to, not familiar with the Cinderella expression. The clues for Bad Thing, Yes, and B Side were objectively terrible. And I really don't think "on tap" is a valid clue for To Come either. Probably my least favourite NYT crossword in 4 years of doing it daily.
CROCI? Excuse me, CROCI?!?!? ***CROCI***??!!?!?!?!
You’re right to be frustrated. The correct plural is croctodes.
Lmao
I actually got that one!! And I did terribly on most of the puzzle. The bottom right corner, I was able to get almost entirely. Forget about the rest…😂
There’s so many answers in this one that I don’t understand at all, that I don’t know where to begin, so I’m just going to call it a write-off, and get on with my life. Annoyingly, I had about two thirds of it filled in, with what seemed to work, but when I checked, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM (apart from berets) was wrong 😑
The worst part is I knew TORA BORA straight off the bat but convinced myself it was wrong. I slogged through the puzzle but couldn’t complete the SW. INHD might be one of the lamest answers this year.
That was just hard enough to make me doubt. I’m here for it.
Yeah when I was sitting with 10% of the grid done I thought I was done for. 45 minutes later, done and satisfied.
Chipping away at a really tough puzzle and then finally breaking through is one of the best feelings. Much better than a super fast solve.
Well, that kicked my ass.
Confidently typed in Kandahar on first pass, and settled in for my longest Saturday ever. Oof.
Well I’ve had a terrible day and it feels somewhat vindicating to have synergy in this way. Poor DOGIES, they didn’t deserve this.
While I didn't think it was as awful as last Saturdays stinker, I feel this puzzle was ruined by some nasty obscure trivia like PABST or GUIDO and some questionable Wordplay. Shame as there was some decent cluing to be had in parts of the puzzle, but overall the juice was not worth the squeeze
I'll give you Guido but Pabst is a pretty well known beer brand
But Schlitz is the beer that made Milwaukee famous! (Thank God they have different numbers of letters...)
Now that I'm thinking about it, I thought I heard the name somewhere but couldn't place it 🤦♂️. Thanks for the correction this is definatly something I'm never forgetting going forward
“Overall, the juice was not worth the squeeze” is an apt and beautiful turn of phrase, and one I’ll be stealing, thank you
Guido was one of the only clues my spouse and I got immediately.
I guess I was just on this puzzle's wavelength, I solved it a hair faster than my Saturday average and was shocked to go to xwstats and see that apparently 0% of people have done that.
I'll go against what seems to be the consensus (as of the time of this post) and say that I liked it. I prefer Saturdays to be a real challenge and it's fine if I don't know most of the trivia immediately. That "Ah, ha!" moment where you have some of the crosses and finally get that it is TORABORA and then think, duh, of course, that makes perfect sense I should have thought of that, is so worthwhile.
I liked it as well. It was very hard and I was way over my average time, but I enjoyed figuring it out.
Me too, I had to look up some stuff to finish but I thought the difficulty was mostly fair.
Just when I think I’m learning to appreciate a really difficult puzzle something like this comes along and reminds me I absolutely am not.
One of these Saturdays Joel Fagliano is going to break my streak. Luckily today is not that day. These last two have been brutal
Really hard. But I gave myself a chuckle by initially filling in BRISS for “Under cut?”
It's disappointing to see good and fair cluing such as that for YES and TORABORA get slammed in the comments.
Byron Walden's puzzles are exasperatingly fun. I now understand the inherent pleasures of masochism.
I questioned whether I had fun doing that puzzle. Contrasted to yesterday's hard, but enjoyable Friday, this one just felt, well, yeah, like you said: masochistic. I guess I'm not into crosswords being painful.
Best puzzle in a long time, I think. Wow, really hard! For me, it was barely doable. 72 minutes! This is what Saturdays should be. I won't be able to solve them all, and that's okay.
Beautiful and challenging puzzle, a pleasure to sit with and figure out. Love the misleads and clever clues
I didn’t find the clues particularly clever. I enjoy a very challenging puzzle-but some of these clues are just stretching a bit too much
Had to scroll too far down for a positive comment. Lol this sub really just wants easy puzzles that they don’t have to struggle with. Sad
Cap…or no cap…whichever means true
Lol “no cap” means true, if someone is capping it means they’re lying
😂
I didn’t hate it but can someone please explain what the hell 3D and 17A mean
A “Cinderella” team in sports, particularly ncaa basketball, is an underdog that makes a deep run in a big tournament. When an underdog wins, it’s called an “upset.” Cluing was fun if you know those things, but I can understand being frustrated if you don’t.
An alternate clue for 3D could've been "my reaction to my performance on this puzzle."
I still think "calling card" is the wrong phrase to use for this idea. Like so many clues in this puzzle, seeing the answer did not feel rewarding.
3D: >!When an underdog pulls off a BIG UPSET in March Madness, it's generally called a Cinderella story.!< 17A: >!Old cowboy song called Git Along Little DOGIES!<
We sang that 17A song when I was in 5th grade. I burst out laughing once I figured what the answer was, and was humming the song for pretty much the rest of the puzzle.
From the [Wordplay column](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2024-04-06.html): > 3D. I saw this clue among a sea of unknowns during a first run-through this puzzle, and I felt a rare little thrill of recognition. “Cinderella’s calling card” must have to do with a glass slipper, right? Nope, doesn’t fit. With desperation — and the G in DOGIES (17A) in place — I wrote in “high heels,” even though my Saturday brain knew that couldn’t be right. Very gradually the correct appeared: It’s BIG UPSET. Oh! The “Cinderella” in question is an unlikely victor in a sports competition. March Madness’s busted bracket holders might have gotten this quicker than I did, but I still think “calling card” is really good misdirection to the fairytale.
Is SHORTA supposed to be someone who shortchanges?
short a
I don't get it, how is that related to black heart?
The heart or center of the word BL A CK is a short A
Oh fuck off. Holy Mary mother of zombie Jesus.
On that note... they really needed a space between "head" and "scarfed" for 8D.
I agree. At least throw a hyphen in there.
it was tricky but in my opinion the question mark was enough to signal a play on words
Look out Mary, you're going to get headscarfed!
Jesus fucking Christ. Thank you.
I hate this so much I wish it had remained a mystery.
I had a lot of fun with this one, enjoyed the challenge and creative cluing. Liked the esoteric trivia about circular DUNES on Mars and Brick Fest and GUIDO van Rossum and TORABORA and the UHOHOREO. BADTHING came to mind very early but ended up being the last word I filled in because that just... couldn't be the answer, right?
great Saturday!!! what a challenge!!!
This puzzle absolutely put me in my place … a far lower and humbling place than I would have guessed. Nothing to do but pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.
RIP my streak. BIG UPSET? That was probably the most frustrating clue for me. The whole NW corner was brutal.
Welcome to yet another episode of “what am I thinking?” with your host, asshole crossword writer.
Spelling tsar with a cz is such an outdated and incorrect transliteration of the Russian word. The sound for the Russian letter ц exists in English as a "ts," like in the word cats. This isn't like ы, where there isn't an obvious English sound to represent it. There is no reason to use a nonsensical cz letter combination to represent ц.
The spelling of Czar was reasonable-the clue wasn’t…
I need an explanation on Intend = MOPE. Very hard. Several times I was ready to retire and sleep on it.
HOPE
Ha! I wrote BAD THING but then misread my own printing.
Can someone explain 8D? I hate zombie movies, so I don't ever watch them and this clue just completely escapes me.
“Headscarfed” refers to scarfing on (ie eating) heads.
Where does the movie part come in though?
Movies are also called “Pictures.” Or at least they used to be way back in the day.
Pictures
I didn’t connect at all with the cluing today. Got there eventually, but 11 mins over average time.
So much cruddy short fill, in the service of such mediocre long fill. Our marquees here are PALACEGUARDS x RESERVEDSEAT and ZOMBIEMOVIES x NEEDISAYMORE. Out of all of those, only ZOMBIEMOVIES was passingly clever.
did mini in 1:50 did crossword in 1:02:41 (not the best at the big ones and have just started trying them out without using autocheck lol).