# New York Times Sunday Crossword... how hard? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 23, 2009, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433 "2009-03-23T05:08:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/21 "2009-03-27T13:06:42Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > I believe that, back in the days of **Eugene T. Maleska** , brand names were also not allowed. Perhaps **Will Shortz** changed that? Yes, Will modernized the puzzle in several ways, having it rely more on most people’s actual knowledge and vocabulary (brand names and pop culture good, Bulgarian rivers and Uruguayan coins bad). ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/22 "2009-03-28T15:04:44Z")
[http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/](http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/) a friend sent me this site. rex Parker does the NYT crossword. He gives his thinking and criticism. He is rated no. 40 in the competitive world. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/23 "2009-03-29T00:52:52Z")
I got to the discussion late, but I’d agree that the Sunday puzzle is on the level of a Wednesday or Thursday, except that it generally has a cleverer theme, and of course it’s in a bigger grid. One of my favorite things in life is to sit on the couch on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee and doing the NYT puzzle with a football game on. Saturday NYT puzzles are the killers; they’ll sometimes take me an hour or more. By the way, there are a number of puzzles available on-line: [ul] [li]The LA Times puts its puzzle on-line every day [here](http://games.latimes.com/index_crossword.html?uc_feature_code=tmcal), and you can do the past 30 days’ worth as well. Their Sunday puzzle is usually pretty good.[/li][li]The Yahoo! daily puzzle, which was the standard we used when we had the SDMB crossword challenge a few years back, is [here](http://games.yahoo.com/playcw).[/li][li]The syndicated puzzle that runs in the Memphis paper is [here](http://www.uclick.com/client/mca/fcx/), but (a) the puzzle’s not usually very challenging, and (b) the little Flash or Java or whatever app that they use is terribly clunky to use. [/li][li]Ben Tausig is a great constructor who writes a puzzle that appears in the _Village Voice_ and other papers each week. They’re interesting because he goes beyond the subject of a typical daily paper’s puzzles; he’s used internet/sex/drug terms that you won’t find in the NYT puzzle, and I remember at least once when he had a question about the band Gwar. The archive of 2008’s puzzles, in [Across Lite](http://www.litsoft.com/across/alite/download.htm) format, is [here](http://www.fleetingimage.com/wij/xyzzy/08-vv.html). (Ben is also a friend of mine; I met him at the 2005 tournament, when they were shooting _Wordplay_.)[/li][li]Finally, the Onion’s AV Club runs a puzzle weekly, but their Flash/Java/whatever thing is also pretty unwieldy and so I never do it. [/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/24 "2009-03-29T02:03:34Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Yes, Will modernized the puzzle in several ways, having it rely more on most people’s actual knowledge and vocabulary (brand names and pop culture good, Bulgarian rivers and Uruguayan coins bad). But there are still Bulgarian rivers! And MVPs from 1963\*! But I love it. The sole reason I still subscribe to the newspaper is so I can spend Sunday racking my brain and asking my husband the hard questions (“Who was MVP in 1963?”) \*Or Rookie of the Year ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/25 "2009-03-29T03:39:50Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > By the way, there are a number of puzzles available on-line: Thanks! Here are some more: The latest Sunday puzzle by Merle Reagle (mentioned upthread) can be found [here](http://www.sundaycrosswords.com/index.html) [The Newsday crossword](http://www.pzzl.nl/newsday/crossword/), edited by Stanley Newman [A site](http://www.macnamarasband.com/) with a number of puzzles by Fred Piscop Another edgier puzzle is by Matt Jones, which can be found [here](http://thephoenix.com/boston/Authors/MATT-JONES/) (and possibly elsewhere as well) And for anyone who wants a real challenge, [Matt Gaffney’s Weekly Crossword Contest](http://www.crosswordcontest.blogspot.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/26 "2009-03-29T17:09:52Z")
Another vote for Thursday-ish level of difficulty of the Sunday NYT crossword. Friday and Saturday NYT crosswords are much more difficult than the Sunday puzzles. I can rarely finish a Friday or Saturday puzzle in one sitting, and many times I can’t finish them at all. I have to go away and come back to it a couple hours later. Sometimes I have to do this several times. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/27 "2009-03-29T19:41:16Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Actually, that puzzle was about a month ago. The gimmick isn’t very tricky and the title is definitely related. The NYT puzzle would suggest that it is a person who creates puzzles. But when I finished, I looked on line and puzzle doers are claiming the definition. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/28 "2009-03-29T22:42:58Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The NYT puzzle would suggest that it is a person who creates puzzles. But when I finished, I looked on line and puzzle doers are claiming the definition. Frikkin’ amateur wannabes. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433/29 "2009-03-30T01:24:34Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Yes, Will modernized the puzzle in several ways, having it rely more on most people’s actual knowledge and vocabulary (brand names and pop culture good, Bulgarian rivers and Uruguayan coins bad). Bulgarian rivers and Uruguayan coins, I could deal with. Grudgingly, but I could. However, all the opera clues and answers that Maleska used–those drove me crazy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-sunday-crossword-how-hard/490433.md?page=1)