Ink Pen by Phil Dunlap for August 15, 2009

Just another adz for the daily crossword

Is that awl?

Awl is exactly the word I would have have thought of.

Well he did axe …

I’ve been doing the Sunday New York Times crossword for about 30 years now and someone recently told me it’s the Saturday puzzle that’s the real toughie.

Anyone out there care to comment?

…What’s a two letter word for ‘laughing’?…

ha!

@pschearer: I’ve been told that the Saturday puzzle is harder because there’s no theme to it. The theme on the NYT Sunday puzzles apparently makes solving it easier.

The Sunday puzzle is harder because it’s larger, but while there will be more clues you DON’T know in absolute terms, there are also more clues you DO know in relative terms, and of course filling in the ones you know helps with the ones you don’t.

The Monday-Saturday puzzles increase in difficulty over the week, and by Saturday the ratio of what you don’t know to what you do is very high.

By the way, “awl” would be a “piercing tool”, for leatherwork. Awls aren’t much use on wood.

“Wood-shaping tool” COULD be “axe”, but then again it could be “saw”, and either of those are more for “cutting” or “hewing” than “shaping”. I’d agree that the most likely answer given the specific wording of the clue is “adz.”

He’s negating the heck out of the empty spaces in that crossword puzzle! World class villainy.