This is the crossword puzzle thread

Egregious misspelling in Tausig's Ink Well puzzle in the newspaper yesterday. I know Amy R. test-solves this puzzle, so I check her blog to see what she has to say about it, and to my surprise the grid in that corner has been completely redone. I guess the mistake was caught too late to change it in print?

haha, i caught that, i was like wtf?

northwest corner, right? only now i can't remember what the error was.

TUSCON instead of TUCSON.

ah yes

Think you should volunteer to be a test solver, jaymc.

Really.

What I really came to say is, here's a hint: If it ever says "Random movie-or-TV-show's Morales," the answer is always ESAI.

i've given up on "NYC house DJ Morales" ever being a clue

Enjoyed reading bbeyond's blog about the Chicago tournament.
And I see from reading AmyR's blog that he did pretty well. Kudos!

Was tricked today into doing the ****SPOILER ALERT*** Bono birthday puzzle.

Arrgh. Signed up for Lollapuzzoola which is tomorrow but haven't really done a single puzzle in the past month.

I've fallen off myself. Though I did one of Peter Gordon's themeless Fireball puzzles the other night and enjoyed it.

TBH, for a few months I tried to do too many puzzles to keep up with the blogs and got bored by it. Well bored is not the right word, it was messing up my mind, my ability to think, trying to do something faster than I am wired to do. I couldn't retain anything (It was like the first year of grad school) and was left was a really shallow knowledge of things that didn't lead to other things and wouldn't come up in conversation. Doing them all the time was a form of overpracticing. I like the cryptic puzzles in Harper's or the WSJ (which used to be in the Atlantic) and I like the old Sun and the Fireball puzzles and I like certain constructors but there is a diminishing return after that.

But they are probably going to have some good puzzles tomorrow, so I still might go.

Contest yesterday looks like it was pretty good:
http://bemoresmarter.squarespace.com/lollapuzzoola-3

Hopefully I will reach some kind of xword equilibrium again by next March.

I submitted my first query to the Cruciverb mailing list yesterday, on the appropriateness of the word KAFFIR in a puzzle. I only knew it as a variety of lime used in southeast Asian cuisine and was not familiar with it as a racial slur used in and around South Africa.

Anyway, it sparked an interesting debate about appropriate language in crosswords, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that even if the puzzle were published in the U.S., where most people are unfamiliar with the racial slur, those who *do* know the word would most likely find it highly unpleasant to come across in a grid (even it were clued in a non-offensive manner), and therefore it should be avoided.

Maybe because NFL season just began, but the subject of my e-mail was "offensive lime?"

Interesting.

Constructing a puzzle this week, and I've finally got a grid that I like, with the exception of one fill that I'm having doubts about: CAULI.

I thought it could be clued cleverly as "Flower head?" -- but for some reason it doesn't feel like a prefix that can stand on its own in the same way that something like AERO can. But it does come from "caulis," which is Latin for stalk or stem.

I guess part of why I'm having doubts is that it doesn't appear to ever have been used in a NYT or other major crossword before.

I dunno, what do you think?

As I type our friend Beyond is presumably at a tournament in Will Shortz's hometown of Pleasantville.

Don't know what you did about CAULI, seems kind of dodgy to me, although you could probably get away with it in a cryptic by saying something like "6D is rare."

"What may encircle a rising chopper" = GREENBELT

This appeared in the NYT crossword last week & is the most insane clue/answer combo I've ever seen in that journal.

Was this in the regular puzzle or Mel Taub's puns and anagrams?

OK, I see.

Blogosphere says it has to do with karate. AH SO!

Another potentially dodgy bit of fill:

Has minimal brain function: ISAVEGETABLE
(Or "Have minimal brain function: BEAVEGETABLE")

It's a little clunky, but mostly I'm worried about the so-called "breakfast test." The word COMA shows up in NYT puzzles, but usually clued fairly innocuously (like "Deep sleep").

Possible alternative: "Has no awareness." More vague, perhaps, but less morbid.

I'm guessing this sinks it (from a medical journal I found online):

There is nevertheless a dislike, especially amongst relatives of brain-damaged people, of the term ‘vegetative’ mainly because of its association with the word ‘vegetable’. Sadly, the medical profession is not immune to talking about patients as being ‘permanent vegetables’.

"Condition for plug-pull?"

"V-8 candidate"

Or maybe I go with something like "Lie around in a stupor."

"Condition for plug-pull?"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 11:29 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"V-8 candidate"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 11:29 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, the first definitely fails the breakfast test. The second reinforces the clunkiness of "be" phrase.

"Constitutes V-8 candidate" then

"What a V-8 candidate must do."

If I encountered "Flower head" = CAULI, I would groan and smile.

If I encountered ""What may encircle a rising chopper" = GREENBELT I would groan and then get very angry.

Oh, I wasn't criticizing the *syntax* of your clue, Tracer, I just think that the general idea of it highlights the awkwardness of a phrase beginning with ISA or BEA. Since "V-8 candidate" would be a perfectly appropriate clue for just plain VEGETABLE, the extra letters in the fill look sort of clunky/ugly.

I should probably just go back to the drawing board with this one.

yeah

"flower head" = cauli is demonically brilliant, i agree

the extra letters in the fill look sort of clunky/ugly.

Even with a clue like "Constitutes a V-8 candidate" or "What a V-8 candidate must do," I should note.

Also, for what it's worth, I'd like to avoid straightforward references to vegetables, since this would be a theme entry.

Thanks for the feedback on CAULI, though! That makes me feel a bit better about it.

trying to come up with some thing like "not a mineral or animal" but it's a tough one

There are three ways around this, as far as I'm concerned:

1. Clue it more innocuously, i.e. "Lies around in a stupor."
2. Come up with another phrase that ends in VEGETABLE, is playful/idiomatic rather than literal (i.e., ROOTVEGETABLE wouldn't work), and contains 15 letters or less. (I couldn't.)
3. Replace VEGETABLE altogether.

I don't want to get into the theme here, but I think #3 might be my best bet.

Flower head for damaged ear or 180 in the Golden State (5)

Don't know what you should do about VEGETABLE exactly, but if your audience was ILM, maybe you could mention that Beach Boys song.

oh oh! how about something like "ketchup _____ (Reagan claim)"

Ha. That's a good one. Kind of a long partial, though!

Actually kind of like where Jordan was going upthread: "Is not animal or mineral" = ISAVEGETABLE

At least I don't dislike it more than GREENBELT...

Ken, did you happen to do this week's Fireball crossword? It was a vowelless crossword from Frank Longo. I'd never done of those before, but it was pretty fun!

Haven't done it yet, but I did a sample one before and then bought the book and did the first few. Yeah, it's a whole different animal from a regular crossword.

I wonder how easy they'd be to make. I imagine there's a bit more flexibility, i.e., SCP could be SCOPE, SCOOP, ESCAPEE, etc.

Yes. As a solver, even after you've filled it in from the crosses you might not know what the answer is supposed to be. Or if you have a mistake it's harder to see it. I finally did the Fireball and I messed up the cross of 20A and 21D.

As of this week, you don't need to wait a day to unlock the NYT puzzle to check your solution. Which is a good thing.

Today's Halloween puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski is very nice and features a few answers that classical music fans may enjoy and one that will make jazz d-bags very happy.

Did a Fireball called "Crossword Show-Off" that was a lot of fun.

Was that the most recent one, Ken?

No, the most recent one is called "Swap Meet," which I haven't done yet, but for a second I thought it was the most recent one because for both of them PG recommended .pdf over .puz.