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.