Crosswords of the Day: 8/6/09

Today featured a very rare feat: Dan Naddor constructed both the NYT and the LAT puzzles today! They were also both very good, although I definitely preferred one to the other.

The NYT had a semi-bizarre theme today. It featured common misspellings/mispronunciations of words, and was funny but quite difficult, if only because the spellings could really be anything. For example, there were things like SUPPOSABLY instead of supposedly. I enjoyed it, but wasn't that wild about the experience. However, for some inexpliciable reason, on the most popular NYT crossword blog, Rex Parker's, the commenters were incredibly venomous towards the puzzle, including several calling it their least favorite puzzle in YEARS. Um, what? C'mon now people. What was funny is that one of the commenters pointed out that Rex had put down the puzzle, and that a lot of the negative comments seemed to be reactionary agreements to Rex's opinion, and the negative comments stopped being as vehement almost immediately after. Hmmm.... :) ***1/2.

The LAT had a great theme that revolved around slangy synonyms for male pals. So there was everything from BUDDY HOLLY to MAN EATING to DUDE RANCH. There were an incredible SEVEN theme entries counting the explanatory one, which is just amazing. It was also a smooth puzzle with a lot of great fill. This is an easy ****, and maybe even ****1/2. Very impressive puzzle.

Winner: The LAT. Very good puzzle today.

Best clue: Virgil described its "roar of frightful ruin" for ETNA. I can't tell if it's sad or not that I instantly got this without any letters. Great, very different clue.

Worst clue: Nothing particularly bad today either; Dan Naddor knows what he's doing. However, there was a weird pair of clues in the NYT that read "Informal byes" and "informal bye." The answers, respectively, were CIAOS and ADIOS. I don't think of ADIOS as informal; I mean, what else would you say that was more formal and didn't sound awkward? It's the equivalent of "Goodbye" in English, which certainly isn't informal. Not necessarily bad, but just odd.