Actually, one of Shortz’s innovations was to try to avoid using such “crossword puzzle words.” And if they were used, they would have unusual clues. I much preferred the Times crossword after he took over because he got rid of most of those trite and hackneyed words.
Really? It seems no better to me than when Maleska was the editor. I’ve seen all the words I cited within the past week or two.
And Rex Parker, the guy who blogs the puzzle, is constantly calling Shortz out on shit fill.
Granted, the constructors are at fault, but Shortz is supposed to be a guiding light.
To quote, ¿Qué?
The ultimate is the end. The penultimate is the first from the end. The antepenultimate is the second from the end, i.e. the second from last. It is not the third from the end, unless you live in a world in which the end is past the ultimate.
You forget the Maunas KEA and LOA. I put in the __A and then go back to search for a clue to get one of the other letters, since having one I have the other. Note that the K in KEA and the L in LOA are the antepenultimate letters. They are not third from the end unless you’re counting from a punctuation mark, normally missing from crossword puzzles.
The Chicago Manual of Style says, IIRC, that 's is normally added to biblical names - Jesus’s, Moses’s - but that it can be left off other words. Probably just a sop to tradition.
The end of the sequence is #10, the ultimate. The penultimate is #9. The antepenultimate is #8, unless you live in a world where the end of the sequence is not the end of the sequence.
Others I’ve looked at say DO NOT use with Jesus, which just plain baffles me. :mad:
What if it goes to 11? :dubious:
Well, they’re wrong. It’s become convention, but, holy heck, it drives me nuts.
That would be the transultimate.
Not about shit fill per se, but there was a big controversy last Friday (July 1) over the Shortz-approved clue, “Teasers, in older usage” for the word LOLITAS. Rex Parker basically refused to blog about that puzzle in protest.
nm
I UN-heart it all the time.
Lazy-ass fuckers. :mad:
Rex Parker has a wild hair up his ass.
I agree that the NYT crossword skews old, male, and white. Probably because that reflects its audience. It COULD try to be more up-to-date, but I personally am more likely to get an answer for a Rudy Vallee or Clark Gable clue that one for a contemporary singer or actor.
And when I think of a “harem” I am more likely to picture a classic cartoon out of THE NEW YORKER or PLAYBOY than to think of sex slavery.
LOLITA is a brilliant modern novel. Sixty years ago, social conservatives said not to read it because it was about a middle-aged man having sex with a pubescent girl. SEX. Today, leftists say not to read it because it is about a middle-aged man having sex with a pubescent girl. RAPE.
Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me?
The mentality that causes someone to get bent out of shape by something like that LOLITA clue is a mentality that I’m afraid I will never relate to for the rest of my life. It seems to come down to an unbridgeable generational difference. Although I appreciate the millennial generation for their progressiveness on many social issues, there always comes a point at which I think they’re acting like ninnies. I don’t know how old Rex Parker is, but I associate his attitudes with millennials.
Is #8 the third from the end?
Actually, for the current discussion, we don’t even need the first 7. So #3 is the ultimate, #2 is the penultimate, and #1 is the antepenultimate.
And regarding Rex Parker: Crossword clues are CLUES, not complete definitions or exhaustive sociological treatises.
Well, it’s an older convention. The modern style guides generally don’t do it, so you should be seeing less and less of it.
Yes, “next to next to last.” I was thinking: last, first from last, second from last, but I see how that could be ambiguously phrased.
Oh, come on Exapno, don’t leave us hanging!
I *think *you guys are saying the same thing but appreciate the approach you both are taking.
Hilarious that the OP is about Shortz’s’s’s’s favorite word, but has become a gathering place for general crossword- and grammar-geekiness.
There’s gotta be a word for that. 
ETA: from upthread, yes, callipygian. a fine word. I am also big on snood. For very different reasons of course. But a callipygian Rosie the Riveter WW2 type wearing a snood could work, right?
Then there’s words I like for the little nuggets of trivia or just quriks about them. For example, I like “facetious” because it has all the vowels in order in it (or “facetiously,” if you want to include “y.” There’s also “abstemious/abstemiously” that fits the bill.) Or how “bookkeeper” has three sets of double letters in a row. Or “queueing” for its five vowels in a row.