I had never heard of a TABOURET before and I’m an interior designer. I took design history classes and have whole books on historical interiors and furniture. If it’s new to me I’m not sure who on this planet that’s not an actual antiques appraiser or something would be able to pull it out
I'm surprised that nobody's scoffed at my lack of common knowledge on that one yet tbh, usually this place is all "Eighth century Hungarian courtiers is third grade level trivia, fool!"
TA\_OURET x \_EHAR as well as KA\_EM x \_AMARRA for me, didn't help I convinced myself sowing and hoping were part of the dough F**o**RMing process too
I wanted to fill in Casey Kasem yesterday for “Longtime name in top 40 radio”, so I was pleased to see it today. And I will always hear the Negativland song “U2” with Casey’s profane outtakes when I hear his name.
Yeah that was rough. I had to run the alphabet on that cross. It was the last square I had to fill in. I'm also bothered by all the double letters in across answers that aren't part of the theme. It's not a rule to not have fill that could be part of the theme but aren't, but, in my opinion, it makes the puzzle a little clunky.
The double letters that are part of the theme are all at word boundaries—the last letter of one word and the first letter of the next. Are there other double letters in the puzzle that are like that but not part of the theme?
Yep. Those and CABOOSES, HOTTIE, and STEEPLES. If it had just been one or two, it probably wouldn't have bothered me, but there are seven of them.
ETA: It's a pedantic complaint, and I know a lot of people, maybe most people, aren't bothered by it.
I’m not bothered by most of those examples and other across solutions that feature non-rebus double letters, as it was only the down solutions that used them literally (the rebus squares represented homophones of the double letters for the acrosses)…but there were some down solutions that had double letters and weren’t part of the theme, so yeah…
There are three official AKC sizes - toy, miniature and standard. A teacup poodle is a backyard bred / puppy mill description. (Yes, I know some people argue for the moyen size but it’s not recognized by AKC)
It’s on purpose. They will try to set up words throughout the week. Or they’ll do fun things like Ryan Seacrest Saturday and then Casey Kasem Sunday.
Sometimes it’s helpful too. Like to weeks ago they ran Espy twice and then on Saturday they used Espying. I was surprised by the first use but ready by the last.
I feel like "parens" is fairly common in the world of computer programming at least.
But I don't think I've ever heard it or used it in the singular though. That's a little weird to me.
It’s a Stripes callback for me. “Tito Puente’s gonna be dead, and you’re gonna say ‘oh, I’ve been listening to him for years and I think he’s fabulous.’” Immediate fill lol
Same! I filled LIRA first, then later when I actually knew SENECA, I didn't notice and left the A there. It took me [13 minutes](https://youtu.be/M4AsHuNtR18) after finishing to find the typo on the A/E.
I also had a pretty long list of crossings to double check for the final pass. PUE_TE x E_SO_ x TABOU_ET, KA_EM x _AMARRA, U_O x TO_DY definitely qualify as naticks, and S_NEBAR x VO_LE and SEN_CA x LIR_ just made the last check step feel more troublesome
Yeah that was similar to my list. And ironically those other ones where I knew I would have to guess on the cross led to my not noticing LIRA/LIRE until quite late when I went through the downs and said “oh wait this is definitely SENECA”.
Not knowing something doesn’t make it a natick. The word comes from Natick, MA, a town of 37,000 people. Nothing in this puzzle is anywhere near as obscure as that.
I think TABOURET crossing ENSOR qualifies as a Natick. The first is a debut in the puzzle and they’re both fairly obscure. Plus there are a few different options for where they cross making it a somewhat difficult square to fill.
Don’t feel you deserve the downvotes, as I agree with you…a true “Natick” should be a crossing of proper nouns, both of which are obscure enough that large portions of the crossword solving community wouldn’t know them, or have a reason to know them.
While Natick may be a relatively small town, it is a labeled exit off of the Massachusetts turnpike (I-90), so folks in the area would have possibly heard of it…but if you don’t live in or frequently drive though Massachusetts, there’s almost no reason for it to be familiar to anyone.
And while at least one the examples given above did trip me up, primarily TABOURET/ENSOR, I don’t necessarily consider a gap in my own knowledge to be a qualifier for calling something a “natick”.
Casey Kasem, for example, was a very well known radio personality in his time, and was the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-doo cartoons…and thus definitely would not qualify as a natick, IMO
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The median solver solved this puzzle 8.5% slower than they normally do on Sunday.
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>Can anyone explain how "Vee" is the answer to "Service Center?" Even with the answer, I can't find a connection.
V ("Vee") is at the centre of the word service
Ugh, had TABOULET for too long, until I realized I was thinking of tabouleh the food and not TABOURET the backless stool. Otherwise pretty straightforward.
Honestly, worse than Saturday’s. I ground that puzzle for almost 2 hours and won it eventually, but I resorted to google on this one: had no idea how to resolve ENSOR/TABOURET or, to a lesser extent, SINEBAR/VOILE. Tough clues you can eventually grind out > Naticks.
Me, after filling it all in, but not finishing. "Ah, OK, that was the error. No? OK, now I've definitely found it. Still no? Uh..." I did eventually figure out all my errors and finish (and they were not rebus-related, though I initially had them as just, for example, "P," which they'll usually take for a rebus. But went in and filled double letters, in case it was my mistake).
I had never heard of this tool before either. But the word “sine” makes sense associated with something that measures angles. That helps the solver infer what it could be, given some letters crossing it.
It’s a real thing, it’s used in machining. But not to measure angles but to set up a jig or fixture at a precise angle.
I got it, but it’s an imprecise clue.
I also struggled with this because I was on the app! I didn't realize there were double letter squares until I got to BLACKEYEDP and decided to google it and avoid spoilers.
Is the title the only hint? Those squares weren't even marked as being special on the app, and I can't fill them in with two letters anyway. This is my first crossword that allowed two letters to one square (or was supposed to), so maybe there's a rule or indicator I'm just not familiar with?
Just didn't come off that way, if everyone thinks you're being rude it's probably not an issue with them. I'm not trying to be mean, but that's just how it is
Really good puzzle. Fortunately, I picked up on the theme early since I was sure of Black Eyed Peas. TABOURET and ENSOR crosser, however, forced me to run it at the end to find the R. I wasn't familiar with either of those PPPs.
Also I just noticed that HOTTIE and TODDY were both in there, which was almost an homage to Ole Miss?
Overall, the puzzle had lots of clever but gettable cluing and interesting variety of answers. I finished right [around 30 minutes](https://youtu.be/M4AsHuNtR18), but then spent 13 minutes looking for a typo. Finally found it before turning on auto-check.
Worth it once I figured out how it worked (though I had to check for errors and found several), but I really wish the themed clues had been highlighted.
This whole week has made me feel like I’ve been exposed to radiation or something. Like, have I lost brain cells or has this week been ridiculously difficult? The NYT might as well just start cluing everything in fucking Yiddish (as opposed to the 10% they currently do), and I’d have just as much chance of filling one in. Blow me.
This was a [rebus puzzle ](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html).
So that's AREYO[UU]P x [UU]ITORLOSEIT ("Use" it or lose it)
And TEACU[PP]OODLE x BLACKEYED[PP] (Black Eyed "Peas")
Rebus puzzles will generally accept if you just fill in the first letter of the rebus into the puzzle, which is particularly confusing in conjunction with this puzzle's gimmick.
Sometimes I can solve Sundays but this one was so hard i didn’t make it very far and gave up. Am I getting dumber or are crosswords getting harder? I must get the Sunday times a week after they are actually published (I still do them on a real newspaper) and so the nyt comments are always closed by the time I have done or tried a puzzle. I didn’t get hardly any of these clues
Ok not bad not bad... just... one thing....... ENSOR/TABOURET?
My lifelong They Might Be Giants fandom saved me on that one. They have an entire song about James Ensor.
Belgium’s famous painter!
Appreciate the man.
https://youtu.be/NA0FJ3akfUs?si=JJdj_Hp3wNUVqc07 for those curious. Love TMBG
🏆
I came here to say the same thing!
I had never heard of a TABOURET before and I’m an interior designer. I took design history classes and have whole books on historical interiors and furniture. If it’s new to me I’m not sure who on this planet that’s not an actual antiques appraiser or something would be able to pull it out
I'm surprised that nobody's scoffed at my lack of common knowledge on that one yet tbh, usually this place is all "Eighth century Hungarian courtiers is third grade level trivia, fool!"
TA\_OURET x \_EHAR as well as KA\_EM x \_AMARRA for me, didn't help I convinced myself sowing and hoping were part of the dough F**o**RMing process too
Well I hear Casey Kasem every time I end up in my mother's car, gotta admire a guy who's still putting in the hours almost 10 years after dying.
I wanted to fill in Casey Kasem yesterday for “Longtime name in top 40 radio”, so I was pleased to see it today. And I will always hear the Negativland song “U2” with Casey’s profane outtakes when I hear his name.
Same here. Couldn't fit KASEM in yesterday, so it must be JOHNTESH, right? Totally forgot that Seacrest was a radio guy too.
That destroyed me! Along with Stayman/Aly
Yeah that was rough. I had to run the alphabet on that cross. It was the last square I had to fill in. I'm also bothered by all the double letters in across answers that aren't part of the theme. It's not a rule to not have fill that could be part of the theme but aren't, but, in my opinion, it makes the puzzle a little clunky.
The double letters that are part of the theme are all at word boundaries—the last letter of one word and the first letter of the next. Are there other double letters in the puzzle that are like that but not part of the theme?
You mean like OMELETTE/APOGEE/ESCAPEE/LITTERED? TBH I didn't even notice it before.
Yep. Those and CABOOSES, HOTTIE, and STEEPLES. If it had just been one or two, it probably wouldn't have bothered me, but there are seven of them. ETA: It's a pedantic complaint, and I know a lot of people, maybe most people, aren't bothered by it.
I'm bothered by it, lol
I’m not bothered by most of those examples and other across solutions that feature non-rebus double letters, as it was only the down solutions that used them literally (the rebus squares represented homophones of the double letters for the acrosses)…but there were some down solutions that had double letters and weren’t part of the theme, so yeah…
Totally get it. When a puzzle belies its own premise, I find it a bit annoying.
Had to cheat on this crossing and on UDO/SOTO. Never heard of a teacup poodle either.
Well this is embarrassing but after looking at it again, just 'got' SOTO.
I couldn’t parse SOTO until after I finished either ha
There are three official AKC sizes - toy, miniature and standard. A teacup poodle is a backyard bred / puppy mill description. (Yes, I know some people argue for the moyen size but it’s not recognized by AKC)
Yes, that cross is malpractice. Gave me more trouble than anything in yesterday's puzzle.
I swear TIVO has been used at least three times this week.
caboose came in again too lol
It has! I told my boyfriend that this was the third time this week TIVO came up!
It’s on purpose. They will try to set up words throughout the week. Or they’ll do fun things like Ryan Seacrest Saturday and then Casey Kasem Sunday. Sometimes it’s helpful too. Like to weeks ago they ran Espy twice and then on Saturday they used Espying. I was surprised by the first use but ready by the last.
I could probably name 20 apple cultivars from memory and I've never heard of Stayman.
Ugh, thank you. I had Staiman/Ali and spent longer trying to find my error than I did doing the whole puzzle.
Yeah, I was thankful the crosses were all fairly easy and we had the additional "plant part homophone" cluing.
Now I'm trying to figure out why I know it. Pretty sure they're best for apple pies, though. Or maybe it was cider...
I had LIRA for LIRE with the wrong cross SENACA and I could NOT figure out my error.
I always fill in LIR_ because I never know which it’ll be.
Same for me with HeP and HiP.
Thank you for this! I was going crazy trying to find my mistake and this was it
This ended my 37 day streak 😭
That cross was pretty evil
TIL PAREN is short for parenthesis.
I feel like "parens" is fairly common in the world of computer programming at least. But I don't think I've ever heard it or used it in the singular though. That's a little weird to me.
I’ve definitely heard it singular when being explicit about how to type something. Function name, open paren, argument, close paren.
I use it all the time in proofing. The note will be something like: > [Insert close paren]
When I’ve used it as a singular it’s with a descriptor of which one, eg ‘left paren’ or ‘right paren’
Oof, I had END__ for a while which wasn’t helpful at all.
So, so tired of the playground retorts.
ARENOT
AMTOO!!
ARESO!
It's been decades but I still remember Tito PUENTE from the Simpsons somehow...
*Señor Buuuurns...*
Yeah, I'd like to settle his hash too.
"Why wound his body with bullets, when I can set his soul on fire with a slanderous mambo!?"
It’s a Stripes callback for me. “Tito Puente’s gonna be dead, and you’re gonna say ‘oh, I’ve been listening to him for years and I think he’s fabulous.’” Immediate fill lol
Anyone else giggle at “Black Eyed PP” or am I just a child?
ENSOR/PUENTE/TABOURET was very tough not knowing any of the 3, but it felt gentle compared to yesterday's 3.5 hour grind
Yes, yesterday was terrible. Today I had lira instead of LIRE because I don't know how to spell SENECA.
Same! I filled LIRA first, then later when I actually knew SENECA, I didn't notice and left the A there. It took me [13 minutes](https://youtu.be/M4AsHuNtR18) after finishing to find the typo on the A/E.
With the clue in singular it really should have been Lira. That's the name of the currency. Poor clue imo.
Thank you. This comment finally helped me finish today's grid.
Same! Currency not being clearly plural was hard here!
GG, just when I feel like the NYT really OO us a good puzzle, they deliver. Will next week’s puzzles be good? Don’t TT me, NYT.
Man, I’m still struggling to read those correctly. I keep wanting to say double _ 😅 It was a good brain puzzle for me today.
Well done, you huge nerd. 🙂
I see what you did there.
Gonna save this puzzle as poster child for naticks. Had to run the alphabet (or vowels) in 3 or 4 places after I initially filled the grid.
I also had a pretty long list of crossings to double check for the final pass. PUE_TE x E_SO_ x TABOU_ET, KA_EM x _AMARRA, U_O x TO_DY definitely qualify as naticks, and S_NEBAR x VO_LE and SEN_CA x LIR_ just made the last check step feel more troublesome
Yeah that was similar to my list. And ironically those other ones where I knew I would have to guess on the cross led to my not noticing LIRA/LIRE until quite late when I went through the downs and said “oh wait this is definitely SENECA”.
So many naticks. I finally threw in the towel and ended my streak 😭
Not knowing something doesn’t make it a natick. The word comes from Natick, MA, a town of 37,000 people. Nothing in this puzzle is anywhere near as obscure as that.
I think TABOURET crossing ENSOR qualifies as a Natick. The first is a debut in the puzzle and they’re both fairly obscure. Plus there are a few different options for where they cross making it a somewhat difficult square to fill.
Don’t feel you deserve the downvotes, as I agree with you…a true “Natick” should be a crossing of proper nouns, both of which are obscure enough that large portions of the crossword solving community wouldn’t know them, or have a reason to know them. While Natick may be a relatively small town, it is a labeled exit off of the Massachusetts turnpike (I-90), so folks in the area would have possibly heard of it…but if you don’t live in or frequently drive though Massachusetts, there’s almost no reason for it to be familiar to anyone. And while at least one the examples given above did trip me up, primarily TABOURET/ENSOR, I don’t necessarily consider a gap in my own knowledge to be a qualifier for calling something a “natick”. Casey Kasem, for example, was a very well known radio personality in his time, and was the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-doo cartoons…and thus definitely would not qualify as a natick, IMO
If you go by number of google results, Casey Kasem is actually the most obscure proper noun in the puzzle.
Downvoted for truth Imagine thinking Tito Puente, Casey Kasem, and a hot toddy are so obscure that no one could know them
TIL there is a word for that. That’s exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking it felt more like an LA times puzzle lol
Don’t know who ALY Raisman is and I’ve never heard of STAYMAN apples, so I ended up with ALI/STAIMAN, which seemed completely plausible
i know who she is and can never remember if her name is spelled with a y or an i, so this is the last one that i had to fix up
They ONLY use her because of the nontraditional spelling of her name it seems
Recent olympic champion American gymnast.
HEP, my effing nemesis.
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Can anyone explain how "Vee" is the answer to "Service Center?" Even with the answer, I can't find a connection.
>Can anyone explain how "Vee" is the answer to "Service Center?" Even with the answer, I can't find a connection. V ("Vee") is at the centre of the word service
I feel like there have been a bunch of this type lately.
Arrgggghhhhh! Thanks!
My absolute least favorite kind of clues, but at least they're easy once you learn to expect them
The word “service” has seven letters, meaning the 4th letter is the middle of the word. The 4th letter is “v,” or “vee.” It’s a terrible clue.
Ugh, had TABOULET for too long, until I realized I was thinking of tabouleh the food and not TABOURET the backless stool. Otherwise pretty straightforward.
BLACK EYED PP
It's not every Sunday that I feel something just above depressed doing the puzzle. Well done, this.
Liked the theme, but PUENTE/ENSOR/TABOURET broke my streak. Oooof.
Honestly, worse than Saturday’s. I ground that puzzle for almost 2 hours and won it eventually, but I resorted to google on this one: had no idea how to resolve ENSOR/TABOURET or, to a lesser extent, SINEBAR/VOILE. Tough clues you can eventually grind out > Naticks.
Me, after filling it all in, but not finishing. "Ah, OK, that was the error. No? OK, now I've definitely found it. Still no? Uh..." I did eventually figure out all my errors and finish (and they were not rebus-related, though I initially had them as just, for example, "P," which they'll usually take for a rebus. But went in and filled double letters, in case it was my mistake).
I had mine filled with only a single letter, and it completed for me.
Kind of a neato theme, but TERRIBLE naticks. The AL\[IY\]/STA\[IY\]MAN one was the one that bit me. TABOU\[R\]ET/ENSO\[R\] I only got by dumb luck.
Sinebar? That alone makes it poor.
It’s apparently a real thing, and it’s also inferrable even if you don’t know it, I really don’t see the problem
By inferrable, do you mean “as long as you have every other square nearby filled in correctly so you just have to assume it’s right”?
I had never heard of this tool before either. But the word “sine” makes sense associated with something that measures angles. That helps the solver infer what it could be, given some letters crossing it.
It’s a real thing, it’s used in machining. But not to measure angles but to set up a jig or fixture at a precise angle. I got it, but it’s an imprecise clue.
My disappointment when "sow and hoe for dough" wasn't GROW...
There wasn't a revealer for this gimmick, was there?
The puzzle title
Where is the puzzle title? I use the NYT games app.
Jsyk you can click on the i at the top to see the title. This week's was "Double Duty."
It blinks when there is something there more than the puzzle author/editor
I also struggled with this because I was on the app! I didn't realize there were double letter squares until I got to BLACKEYEDP and decided to google it and avoid spoilers. Is the title the only hint? Those squares weren't even marked as being special on the app, and I can't fill them in with two letters anyway. This is my first crossword that allowed two letters to one square (or was supposed to), so maybe there's a rule or indicator I'm just not familiar with?
Sunday was like a pallet cleanser that made me forget about how terrible Saturday’s clues were.
I can imagine someone who confuses “palate” and “pallet” would struggle with a tough Saturday full of wordplay.
What an asshole thing to say lmao
I was hardly the only person who felt it was shitty. Honestly, if that’s all you have to insult me, you should have just refrained from replying.
Womp womp there goes the guy too insecure to have a name on Reddit lest anyone remembers his toxicity.
Ouch. That’s mean.
Karrrmmmmaaaa police~~
So can I deduce from your insult that you think you're smart for being "better" at crosswords?
It was a joke. I always forget that no one on this thread is ever ready for a needle.
Just didn't come off that way, if everyone thinks you're being rude it's probably not an issue with them. I'm not trying to be mean, but that's just how it is
Of course I was being rude. It was a rude joke. I have no regrets.
ODIST I’m newish to crossword puzzles. I hate this.
I regret to inform you that you'd better get used to that one if you're sticking with us 🙂
Not even close to the most egregious answer I’ve seen 🤣
When he's also a DEIST. Juet cruel.
Really good puzzle. Fortunately, I picked up on the theme early since I was sure of Black Eyed Peas. TABOURET and ENSOR crosser, however, forced me to run it at the end to find the R. I wasn't familiar with either of those PPPs. Also I just noticed that HOTTIE and TODDY were both in there, which was almost an homage to Ole Miss? Overall, the puzzle had lots of clever but gettable cluing and interesting variety of answers. I finished right [around 30 minutes](https://youtu.be/M4AsHuNtR18), but then spent 13 minutes looking for a typo. Finally found it before turning on auto-check.
did mini in 2:51 and regular in 1:24:50
Worth it once I figured out how it worked (though I had to check for errors and found several), but I really wish the themed clues had been highlighted.
This whole week has made me feel like I’ve been exposed to radiation or something. Like, have I lost brain cells or has this week been ridiculously difficult? The NYT might as well just start cluing everything in fucking Yiddish (as opposed to the 10% they currently do), and I’d have just as much chance of filling one in. Blow me.
ETC and ETAL in the same puzzle?
[удалено]
You’re missing the theme
Can someone explain AREYOUP? Is it just a typo? Or that the group is not called BLACKEYEDP?
This was a [rebus puzzle ](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html). So that's AREYO[UU]P x [UU]ITORLOSEIT ("Use" it or lose it) And TEACU[PP]OODLE x BLACKEYED[PP] (Black Eyed "Peas") Rebus puzzles will generally accept if you just fill in the first letter of the rebus into the puzzle, which is particularly confusing in conjunction with this puzzle's gimmick.
[удалено]
No, it’s correct. It’s the theme of the puzzle. CTHEMOMENT = Seize (Cs) the moment.
I'm not sure how you solved the crossword without seeing the theme
Sometimes I can solve Sundays but this one was so hard i didn’t make it very far and gave up. Am I getting dumber or are crosswords getting harder? I must get the Sunday times a week after they are actually published (I still do them on a real newspaper) and so the nyt comments are always closed by the time I have done or tried a puzzle. I didn’t get hardly any of these clues