I laughed out loud and also rolled my eyes at the clue “One who loves to shred some gnar pow” for SKI BUM. I don’t know enough about geology to say anything else about the rock, but it does look cool.Ĥ7D. Today I also learned about the existence of a particular type of “Crystalline rock” called SCHIST. Today I learned that a “Cover for the bed of a pickup truck” has its own special name, which turns out to be TONNEAU. The “Abbr.” at the end of the clue lets you know that you need to shorten “corporal” to CPL.ĥD. A corporal is a “Two-striper in the Army” because the rank’s insignia has two stripes. Personally, I don’t mind the END piece, but I’m not sure I like it, either.ġD.

“Like-it-or-loathe-it bread piece” as the clue for END is a nice callback to Monday’s puzzle, which featured “_ it or _ it” phrases. “Colosseo locale” uses the Italian word for “Colosseum” to let you know the answer is ROMA, while “Opéra division” uses the French term for “opera” to signal that the answer is ACTE, and “Réunion, for one” is the French name for a particular island, or ÎLE.Ħ7A. Here’s a three-fer: All of these clues are in a non-English language, which is hinted at by the inclusion of a non-English word in the clue. Try telling that to my cat Oliver Wendell Jones Fabi when he’s in trouble (which is more “often” than “rarely”).ģ6A/58D/63D. I object to the clue “They’re often used with people, but rarely with pets” for LAST NAMES. I’m not sure if companies that make PALEO products really believe that cave humans ate PALEO macaroni and cheese, but there sure are a lot of options for it at my local grocery store.ġ7A. “Low-carb ‘stone age’ diet” is the clue for PALEO, a diet supposedly based on the types of things that were available for cave humans to eat.

At that point, it just becomes a recitation! I much prefer my puzzles to be puzzling, and today’s definitely delivered. It’s necessary, of course, to have some entries you are sure about, but if you were sure about all of them, it would hardly be a puzzle at all. On top of that, consider how boring a crossword would be if you knew every single entry. What other hobby, aside from pub trivia, offers as many opportunities to expand your knowledge of this fascinating, ever-changing world we live in? What a gift to be able to learn about things you might otherwise have no reason to encounter in your daily life (such as, for me, the existence of the object named at 5D). I know not everyone is thrilled to encounter new words or proper nouns when they work on a crossword, but for many solvers, learning from puzzles is at least a third of the reason they enjoy them so much. Today has been truly educational: I encountered several names that were new to me, as well as my new favorite slang term (see “gnar pow” in the clue for 47D).

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE - Congratulations to Brianne McManis, who is making her New York Times Crossword debut with this puzzle - one that taught me more new things than I typically learn from a Wednesday grid.

Crossword light truck type