Phrase Used by Many Easy Listening Radio Stations

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New York Times, Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Phrase used by many easy-listening radio stations

Author:

Samuel A. Donaldson

Editor:

Will Shortz

Total	Debut	Latest	Collabs
35	10/2/2008	6/30/2022	10

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
8	2	5	7	6	1	6

Rebus	Circle	Scrabble	POW
1	3	1.63	5

This puzzle:

Rows: 15, Columns: 15 Words: 76, Blocks: 36 Missing: {JQ} Spans: 1 This is puzzle # 33 for Mr. Donaldson.

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Samuel A. Donaldson notes:

With this puzzle, I intended to have a bit of fun with that convention that says you can stick an E in front of something and suddenly ... read more

With this puzzle, I intended to have a bit of fun with that convention that says you can stick an E in front of something and suddenly you've coined a hip, modern term. We see them a little too often in crosswords: E-CIG, E-ZINE, E-TAIL, et al. The first theme entry that came to mind is still my favorite of the litter: REFERENCE LETTER for [E-mail?].

I'm sad that the editorial staff had to work harder than usual in tweaking the clues. I can only take credit for the theme clues and eight others. That means 61 clues (81% of the total) had to be altered. I aspire for a much higher batting average. Hopefully next time my clues will be good E-NUF. (My favorite clue on the cutting room floor: [Fife player?] for KNOTTS.)

Great concept, e-words playfully hinting at descriptive phrases containing no vowels except E. E-sign usually means to complete an ... read more

Great concept, e-words playfully hinting at descriptive phrases containing no vowels except E. E-sign usually means to complete an electronic document, but today it clues ENTER HERE.

Fantastic range of themers, too. I liked that Sam ended with an insider's nod to constructors, who have to sometimes resort to gloopy bits like EMAG. Funny to see it in a featured role today, as a clue for SEVENTEEN.

Although many long words and phrases contain no vowels but E — Cathy Allis did an entire Sunday puzzle like this — it's brilliant to link them to e-words. Bravo!

Not so laudable was the choice to squeeze in seven of them. As much as I appreciate the wide range, it's too much to pack into a 15x15 grid. The biggest problems come in areas where down answers must cross three themers, like ECHOES. It creates grid inflexibility and leads to horrible things like OOX. When you have to resort to random strings of letters, it's time to rethink grid design.

Entries like HOBNOB and ROSITA are great bonuses, and any grid needs to sport a few sparkles to keep up solver interest. How I 'ate to see things like 'ENRY, though. It didn't make that corner a total ABYSS, but it'd have been better to have just one bonus down there while keeping things smoother.

It would have been a different case if there hadn't been so much AS NEAR, DNAS (Will Shortz called this out as a near puzzle-killer once), and a slew of incidental e-entries: EDT EERO ERN ESTD.

Sam is one of my favorite people in the crossworld, and he comes up with some of the most entertaining themes of any constructor. Today's hit the mark again, but the gridwork sadly dragged down the puzzle as a whole.

1 C

2 H

3 A

4 L

5 K

6 E

7 O

8 S

9 O

10 R

11 C

12 A

13 S

14 R

A

N

I

N

15 S

C

H

16 P

A

U

L

A

17 E

R

A

T

O

18 T

H

E

19 S

E

C

R

E

T

20 D

E

L

E

T

21 E

D

S

C

E

N

E

22 F

T

C

23 A

T

F

24 B

25 A

26 G

27 T

28 E

29 R

M

S

H

30 E

31 E

T

32 I

33 N

U

S

E

34 E

V

E

35 O

O

X

36 F

R

E

S

N

O

37 R

E

F

38 E

39 R

E

N

C

40 E

L

E

T

T

E

R

41 E

N

U

R

E

S

42 O

D

E

43 L

A

G

44 S

I

E

N

A

45 E

N

T

E

46 R

47 H

E

R

E

48 A

F

L

49 R

50 A

M

51 C

O

O

52 M

E

R

C

53 E

54 D

E

S

B

55 E

56 N

57 Z

58 S

59 E

60 V

E

N

T

E

E

N

61 I

N

N

I

E

62 A

W

A

R

D

63 E

R

A

64 T

O

R

T

E

65 G

E

N

E

S

66 D

O

S

67 A

B

Y

S

S

© 2019, The New York Times 8/21/19 ( No. 25,488 )

Across

1

6

Greek counterpart of Aurora : EOS

9

Black-and-white swimmers : ORCAS

14

Took for booking : RANIN

15

Brown, for one: Abbr. : SCH

16

Comic Poundstone : PAULA

17

Muse of lyric poetry : ERATO

18

20

22

Do Not Call Registry org. : FTC

23

Justice Dept. division : ATF

24

27

32

34

Time for preparations : EVE

35

It's for naught in noughts-and-crosses : OOX

36

City south of Yosemite : FRESNO

37

41

42

Dedicated work : ODE

43

Closed-captioning problem : LAG

44

Tuscan home of St. Catherine : SIENA

45

48

Org. in a 1955 merger : AFL

49

Farm mate for a 59-Down : RAM

51

Pigeon's sound : COO

52

58

61

Certain navel : INNIE

62

Gold or silver medal : AWARD

63

Chapter in history : ERA

64

Layered dessert : TORTE

65

Trait transmitters : GENES

66

Beehives and buns : DOS

67

It's no miniature gulf : ABYSS

Down

1

Reputation on the street : CRED

2

Wonderland tea party attendee : HARE

3

Fastidious to a fault : ANAL

4

Phrase used by many easy-listening radio stations : LITEFM

5

___ Berry Farm (California attraction) : KNOTTS

6

Cornerstone abbr. : ESTD

7

Protest singer Phil : OCHS

8

9

10

11

Ill-tempered dog : CUR

12

Adam's ___ (water) : ALE

13

Stayed on the shelf : SAT

19

Finalized : SET

21

Bounces off the wall, say : ECHOES

24

Flurry of activity : BUSTLE

25

26

One of the Beatles : GEORGE

27

Sainted "Mother" : TERESA

28

Regardless of whether : EVENIF

29

Make a pit stop, say : REFUEL

30

Gazillion years : EON

31

Parolee, e.g. : EXCON

33

Rim attachment : NET

36

38

Southwest terminal? : ERN

39

40

N.Y.C. summer hrs. : EDT

45

Made some introductions : EMCEED

46

Bilingual Muppet on "Sesame Street" : ROSITA

47

Pal around (with) : HOBNOB

50

Prints, e.g. : ART

52

53

Gateway Arch designer Saarinen : EERO

54

Forensic IDs : DNAS

55

Professor 'iggins : ENRY

56

Trivial objections : NITS

57

A lot of pizazz? : ZEES

58

59

Farm mate for a 49-Across : EWE

60

Ryder rental : VAN

Answer summary: 4 unique to this puzzle, 1 unique to Shortz Era but used previously.

Analyzing...

Analysis

There are 15 rows and 15 columns, with 0 rebus squares, and no cheater squares.

The grid uses 24 of 26 letters, missing JQ.

It has normal 180-degree rotational crossword symmetry.

Average word length: 4.97, Scrabble score: 292, Scrabble average: 1.54.

Puzzle has 3 fill-in-the-blank clues and 2 cross-reference clues.

This puzzle has 4 unique answer words.

It has 0 words that debuted in this puzzle and were later reused:

These words are unique to the Shortz Era but have appeared in pre-Shortz puzzles:

These 36 answer words are not legal Scrabble™ entries, which sometimes means they are interesting:

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Day of week comparisons

The green highlighted squares show which daily puzzle average is closest to this puzzle for each statistical category.

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Distribution of answer words by length

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Letter distribution

Scrabble Score: 1

2

3

4

5

8

10

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Thumbnails

Various thumbnail views are shown:

• Standard view shows the grid pattern most clearly
• Open Squares (those which don't touch any block, even diagonally) are blue
• Vowel distribution
• Scrabble score uses the same color key as above
• Freshness view shows unique answers in red (see colorized grid below)

With answers

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Puzzles that may be similar to this one

Crosswords that share the most words with this one (excluding Sundays):

Unusual or long words that appear elsewhere:

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Identical grids

Other puzzles with the same block pattern as this one:

Topologically similar grids

Other crosswords with exactly 36 blocks, 76 words, 72 open squares, and an average word length of 4.97:

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Colorized grid for Wed Aug 21, 2019

The next two sections attempt to show how fresh the grid entries are.

In this view, unusual answers are colored depending on how often they have appeared in other puzzles.
Unique answers are in red, red overwrites orange which overwrites yellow, etc.

Unique

1 other

2 others

3 others

4 others

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Freshness Factor

FF: 8.4 – 11.0 percentile, 15.2 Wednesday percentile

Freshness Factor is a calculation that compares the number of times words in this puzzle have appeared in other Shortz Era puzzles.
Click here for an explanation.

The chart below shows how many times each word has been used across all NYT puzzles, old and modern including Variety.

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Source: https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/21/2019

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