NYT Sunday Crossword of May 11: Power Grid

May 17, 2025

The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle of May 11, 2025 was by Brendan Emmett Quigley and titled Power Grid.

I may have missed something, but the puzzle didn’t have an apparent theme. It felt like a standard themeless grid, despite the title.

The one row that spanned the entire grid was the clue [“Whoever did this has it coming!”]. I was expecting SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAY but it turned out to be SOMEONE IS GETTING FIRED. That felt like a slightly different scenario than what the clue implied, but I guess it works.

Other interesting ones:

• [Lass]: COLLEEN, a young woman, from the Irish word cailín. First time I saw this.
• [School whose sports teams are known as the Golden Flashes]: I could see it started with K so I considered a school starting with Kentucky or Kansas. The answer: KENT STATE, a school in Kent, Ohio.
• [Fish that passes the “mirror test” of self-recognition]: From crosses, I’d guessed STING RAY, but the answer turned out to be MANTA RAY, another type of ray.
• [Beasts with enormous tusks]: It looked like MAMMOTHS but it didn’t fit, so I thought it might be a different spelling variation or the genus name. The answer: MASTADONS.
• [Shopgirl in a Paris boutique]: MIDINETTE, a French term for a young seamstress or shopgirl. I’ve never heard this.
• [Step on a scale?]: MUSICAL NOTE. This had me stumped for a while since I could see it ended with NOTE but still couldn’t get it. It was a nice ah-ha moment when I realized it.
• [Spinal cord membranes]: PIA MATERS. The pia mater, arachnoid mater, and dura mater are the membranes surrounding the spinal cord and brain. I didn’t know this.
• [Candy brand with a crown in its logo]: SKOR, a chocolate toffee bar produced by Hershey. I’m not sure I’ve had these.
• [Let’s eat]: SOUP’S ON. I’ve never heard this phrase.
• [Beers from Bremen, informally]: ST PAULIS. Refers to St. Pauli Girl, a brand of beer from Germany, but produced for export and not sold in Germany. I haven’t seen it in Japan.
• [Cake with a distinctive swirl]: SWISS ROLL. Also called a jelly roll, it’s a rolled sponge cake with filling. I didn’t know the name Swiss roll. In Japan these are just called ロールケーキ (“roll cake”).

People

The puzzle also asked about some people I wasn’t familiar with:

• Joy Behar is an American comedian and co-host of The View.
• Yolanda Hadid is a television personality known from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
• Paul Klee (1872-1940) was a Swiss-born German painter.
• Marta Vieira da Silva, known as Marta, is a Brazilian footballer considered one of the greatest female footballers of all time.
• Lynn Swann is a former American football player, sportscaster, and politician.

Final thoughts

Overall this was a challenging but fair puzzle. No clear theme stood out to me, but it packed a power punch of versatility.