Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: January 23, 2019

My time: 7:22.

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Amanda Chung and Karl Ni teamed up to bring us a GENDER NEUTRAL puzzle.  I didn't understand the theme even after solving a couple of themed answers.  Then it hit me: phrases that end in the usually feminine ending -ress have been replaced by the ending -er.

So "maternity ward worker who counts each day's births?" is DELIVERY ADDER.  "Dairy item thrown in a food fight?" is FLYING BUTTER.  And "dynamite?" is BLOW-UP MATTER.  Ha!

If you don't laugh at that, you're a CRAB ("grouch").

For "Miller ____" I wanted to put *TIME but it's LITE.

The Great pope ST. LEO last appeared, as Leo I, on August 11, 2017.

LET ON was clued as "pretend" on February 1, 2018.

And... that's it?  No new information?  It was only the pretty abstruse theme that held me up?  SADLY, yes.  Well, poo.   LEMME try again another day.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't laugh at the theme, but that's only because I never twigged to it. It's pretty good... once you parse it.

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