This is the crossword puzzle thread

Natick is still a funny term to me since I’ve lived in Boston for a long time and have always known about Natick. Used to pass the train stops for it all the time.

The pandemic has given me a lot of time for puzzles. Out of seemingly nowhere, I got hooked on variety crosswords and cryptics back in January and I don’t know if I can go back to a normal crossword again. There seems to be more online versions of these types around too.

Which cryptics are you doing?

I do mainly North American ones. I read fifteensquared and appreciate the UK ones for their difficulty/creativity, but I actively dislike their heavy reluctance to modernize their vocabulary/references/slang. I haven't done the ones in Australian papers as they all seem to be behind paywalls.

My favorite free daily one is Lovatts from Australia though. I do the weekly puzzles by Cox/Rathvon, Kosman/Piciotto, and the archival ones by The New Yorker. Monthly I do the ones by Aries puzzles, NYT, and WSJ. A bunch of other places occasionally run a cryptic like the Incubator, AVCX, and Outside The Box.

There are lots more links to personal sites if you go to The Puzzler group on FB. Also the Fill Me In podcast does a live stream where they solve cryptics.

Thought Cox/Rathvon did a Monthly Cryptic these days for the WSJ and the weekly was a regular Sunday-sized puzzle.

The Sunday crossword was recently revived on Patreon, but they’ve been doing a weekly non-variety cryptic for The National Post in Canada since 1998 I think. There’s a blog that has a post about each one since 2010, including the blank grid.

are there any good profiles of Cox & Rathvon out there? They've been doing this for decades.

My friend - and neighbor! (no, not the one you are thinking of) met them once, think they live out in Hershey, PA, and told me Emily was really shy, that's all I know.

I've only seen little blurbs here and there, like these: https://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/acrostic/ or https://www.the-scientist.com/contributors/contributors--64959

Hard to believe they've been doing it since the late '70s. (See http://chall.us/hex/hex_puzzles.html for the complete list)

I've been meaning to ask if you've tried the cryptics in the Enigma and now I just got a message from a B finalist crossword guy about my
expired NPL membership.

And I'm back in. Am I the only one?

I tried that book of NPL cryptics and had little success. Maybe I'll try again another day. I sort of associate NPL with people who do puzzle hunts and are constantly in search of puzzles that they find difficult. I know that's not 100% the case, but for me its more fun to watch them solve those impossible puzzles then it is to actually do them.

NPL cryptics do very wildly in quality. Many of them are insanely difficult.

Yes, I've seen Kevin Wald's cryptics! EEK.

Coax troubled cry (3)

Seems simple, but still can’t get that one, sorry.

Came to post that I just heard a WBGO DJ talking about the crosswordese word ONER.

HI DERE.
Redd's Roster of Crosswordese: Do not read if you hate DRNO

Letters that cross two name clues can go fuck themselves

yah, especially when it's olympians and monarchy

blind crossings

https://crosswordfiend.com/2011/09/20/mgwcc-172/

anybody else participate in lollapuzzoola? it's just wrapping up (all online this time). my only goal for these is "don't come in last" and mission accomplished! i'm something like 341st out of about 1200.

I'm doing it! it's pretty fun, I'd never be able to participate in person

oh yay! yeah, i was bummed i missed the boston-based one boswords (also all virtual) but this has been fun!

No, but I paid for the puzzles, it'll be perfect for a camping trip in a few weeks. :)

I struggle at best of times with cryptics, but can usually parse the answers in hindsight. However can’t make head nor tail of the single letter clues in yesterday’s Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28218 What am I missing?

Ooft, way beyond my capabilities. I don't know if maybe someone here can give a pointer rather than jumping to the answers, but fifteensquared.net has explanations, if you do want to go that route.

I can confirm that they're impossible to get by themselves - if you have all the crossers then 23 down might be the easiest to start with?

Also 21 Across could be viewed as (3-5)? I mean not really but as you'll see it's important that each answer is in at least two parts.

They almost look like the question is the answer and the solution is the clue. As you say can’t see how you could get them without having the other answers to fill in the gaps.

Dan, it’s funny that you posted that you can’t make “head” or “tail” of those clues :)

The G clue is one I’ve seen a couple times (although usually as part of a charade), but I probably would have been tripped up on it if it was the first time I saw it.

at some point in the not too distant future, i'll need to learn how to do cryptics

That's been on my to do list, too, but the feeling of getting in on the ground floor is really too humbling for me to keep at it.

What first got me into cryptics was 1) this introductory post/video by the New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/cryptic-crossword/reintroducing-the-new-yorkers-cryptic-crossword

And 2) doing this Crypto Quiz over at Lovatts, which concisely lists all the clue types and presents cryptic clues with multiple choices answers:
https://lovattspuzzles.com/online-puzzles-competitions/crypto-quiz/

The daily Lovatts cryptics are also very accessible (although they lean more towards British/Australian English).

I finally learned how to do them in the past few months (using my free time wisely) but I still need to do a lot of cheating/checking to complete a puzzle. The explanation linked here really made it clear how cryptics work:

https://www.ariespuzzles.com/2018/10/introducing-aries-cryptic.html

and doing those puzzles and then reading the explanation in the answer key also helped a lot.

I could actually do that Lovatts puzzle without cheating, they are nice and simple!

Nice theme today.

So a few puzzlers have been playing NYT's Spelling Bee.

Here are some of the observations I've assembled:

1. You'll get at most 3 vowels (not counting Y, though I'm not sure if I've seen a set of letter with 3 vowels and also Y).
2. The only letters or combination of letters that I've yet to see appear are S (obviously) and ER. (Until recently, I hadn't seen ING or ED.)
3. If you're going for the Queen Bee, I've found that the genius level threshold is 70-75% of the total possible point value.
4. Humans are fallible, and almost certainly decide what is and is not accepted as words. COPE wasn't accepted yesterday, and one of METONYMY/METONYM wasn't accepted while the other was. I'm also pretty sure that ANNAL wasn't accepted at one point.
5. So much for words that aren't obscure: PENTANE and HEPTANE have both been accepted answers, as has PHILHELLENE.
5a. DILDO, ANAL, and PORN are all accepted.
6. A set of letters can have multiple pangrams.

that cope thing was driving me nuts yesterday

I settle for Genius, and accept the feeling of shame that comes with discovering the obvious words I missed when I hit “Yesterday”

I do enjoy the red herrings that come about whenever ING or ITY or ED or DOM etc. are presented as options. It turns into a fun little sci-fi/fantasy word generator.

I heard points for Queen Bee was 2X points for Amazing level.

I feel like a dunce when I get stuck on Amazing.

I do the Spelling Bee most Sundays - tbh I didn't realize there's one on every other day too - and it's good to hear that their judges are fallible. I think it was the Sunday before last when I found at least five legit words in it that weren't accepted by the website. I was expecting to be classed some kind of mega genius, but the rejections humbled me back down to a more average level.

I only play the Bee occasionally, partly because all I ever hear about it is ckmplaints about what it will and won't accept.

I mean, I empathize on COPE (or whatever) but the continual lawyering about the word list is (a) boring and (b) a disincentive to play the game.

* complaints

I agree, everything I hear about Spelling Bee is complaints about the word list

I play it every day and enjoy it, shortcomings and all. Even if I chafe against its word list (AARGH and YECCH and YECH are all accepted), it's broadened my vocabulary (tomtit, lanai).

I’m past bitching about the spelling bee word list; all games have arbitrary rules or else they wouldn’t be games. I don’t have enough time in the day or brains in my head to ever reach “queen bee” but as long as I hit Genius and get a pangram I’m happy.

I do wish they let you play through past spelling bees like the regular puzzle and track stats. I’ll assume that’s coming if enough people keep playing it.

Today's Spelling Bee is brutal.

I just barely managed genius. I hate that E sitting in the middle ruining all the easy -ing options

Exactly!

weekly themeless tournament starting in October, looks cool:

https://www.boswords.org/