This by you is a crossword?

[tahnan]

I've been doing, off and on, the New York Sun crossword. Last night I printed out a week's worth of NYTimes crosswords, and oh, there's a world of difference in quality. And it's not in Will Shortz's favor.

To take one crossword from the week:

"What a leader may give": THE NOD. What a terrible part-of-a-phrase entry.

"Grand finale?": OLE OPRY. What an even more terrible one. If I never again see "...follower?" or "...tail?" or the like to indicate "this is like a suffix, only we broke up the word strangely", that'll be fine. But OLE OPRY is even more egregious, I think.

"Homeland to Hadrian": TERRA. Correct me if I'm wrong, cnoocy, but that isn't even right. "Terra" is land, "patria" is homeland.

And of course, the theme wasn't anything to write home about. The center of the diagram had five circled letters, diagonally, that spelled out SLANT; the theme entries were POLITICAL BELIEF, NEWS ANGLE, and PERSONAL OPINION. Which is OK, but not really great; they're all kind of the same basic meaning, so there's nothing really that clever going on.

Not that I yearn for the days of Maleska. Just for the early Shortz.

Comments

[jangler-npl.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Check out xword_critique if you wish...I rate each week's puzzles on theme and fill; so far, the Sun invariably outranks the Times by a significant margin.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Ah yes! I knew you'd started that, but forgot where it was--I've been sufficiently out-of-the-habit that I didn't add it at the time, figuring I wouldn't have much to say (or indeed to read).

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I *think* it was the Times crossword I was doing this week, where the big themed clues were anagrams of famous people (Ivan the Terrible, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, etc) and they misspelled Elvis Aron Presley.
Of course, I can't blame them since even his gravestone made that mistake.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

Huh! I *thought* it was Aron, but thought I must be wrong, since an error like that could never make it past the proofreaders.

I would do the Sun crosswords if I could figure out a way to print them out from the website. It is hard to find a newsstand that sells them. I wish they would offer the pay subscription on the website and then allow printing, the way the Times does.

I have to go find the puzzles I wanted to bitch about so I can post in the critique lj.

[qaqaq.livejournal.com]

I get the Sun puzzles via Will Johnson's page, where you can get all sorts of current puzzles. Just download the dates you want and print 'em out via AcrossLite.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've bookmarked that.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Only partly right. In fact, Elvis's parents misspelled "Aaron" on his birth certificate. See: http://www.elvis.com/elvisology/faq/faq.asp?qid=11 (http://www.elvis.com/elvisology/faq/faq.asp?qid=11).

[cnoocy]

You're correct. If they want to put in a false clue for ITALY, they should do something like "Hadrian's land" (Or, you know, use some other Roman who isn't most well-known for a landscape feature in Britain.)

[q-pheevr.livejournal.com]

Hey, Hadrian was an Earthling, wasn't he?

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

Oh, you poor, naive soul....

[q-pheevr.livejournal.com]

You mean he wasn't?

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

I've said too much already.

Puzzle

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished that puzzle (reprinted in Chicago Sun-Times) and it says it was by Manny Nosowsky.