Where'd You Go?: NYT Sunday Crossword of March 23

March 24, 2025

Here are my notes from solving the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle of March 23, 2025.

This puzzle by Andrew Colin Kirk was titled Where’d You Go?. The twist in this puzzle was that for six Across clues, a common phrase containing the letter U had that U replaced with ME to produce a different but still-legible phrase that answered the clue.

A hint was provided in 115-Across: [Classic breakup excuse … or a phonetic hint to 23-, 36-, 47-, 67-, 86-, and 93-Across]. I was lucky to get ITSNOTYOUITSME without many crossings, which helped me understand the scheme, though with some difficulty—as we’ll see.

Staying in your lane

The first theme clue I got was 23-Across’s [Stay in one’s lane?]. Here I had it starting with RESI___, and the phrase resist the urge came to mind. With a few more crossings near the end, I landed on RESISTTHEMERGE, which looked correct. Noting the “it’s not you” hint, I observed the U of urge was replaced with ME of merge, but somehow didn’t apply this to the next few clues.

D’oh!

For 67-Across’s [Best impression of a Springfield patriarch?], I realized it was going to be about Homer Simpson, and managed to reach FI___HOMER where it sat unsolved for a while. Eventually the epiphany hit me: doing your “finest Homer” would match the clue perfectly and I filled FINESTHOMER.

I’m not sure why I didn’t make the connection with URGE and MERGE, but my first thought here was that “finest Homer” makes perfect sense and it’s not replacing any U word. With some disappointment, I concluded that the “it’s me” hint just meant that the fill should include ME in it.

Of course, the phrase is a spin on “finest hour”, by replacing the U with ME.

Detective work

For 36-Across’s [CliffsNotes version of Holmes and Watson stories?] I had worked out MYSTERIES at the end. Going along with the CliffsNotes, I tried ELEMENTARY—as Holmes is fond of saying, and which also contains a ME—but it didn’t fit in the beginning. I eventually worked out MEN_____MYSTERIES, and finally it clicked that these answers are replacing U with ME. From UN_____MYSTERIES, I could think of UNSOLVEDMYSTERIES leading to the answer MENSOLVEDMYSTERIES, which actually works as a “dumbed down” title.

Didn’t quite nail it

The hardest theme clue for me was 93-Across’s [Delivered a nasty insult with perfect timing?]. Crosses gave me O_EN_ at the end, which made me think of MOMENT. I eventually got to ___EDTHEDISMOMENT but couldn’t fill it in. Before I knew about the U for ME trick, I guessed seized but it didn’t work. After learning the trick and noting dismount, I tried landed the dismount, but that also didn’t fit. Only when I nailed down NOMAAM for [Polite “I’ll pass”] did I discover the starting N and arrive at NAILEDTHEDISMOMENT—a warped version of nailed the dismount.

Voters and menders

The other theme clues:

For 86-Across, [Headline about a falsely incriminated person casting a ballot?] it was VOTERFRAMED, a play on voter fraud.

For 47-Across, [“When do you need this patched up?” “Do you have the missing button?” etc.] the answer was MENDERLINES—what a mender says, and a play on underlines.

Here are some points I’d like to note for future reference.

Arts

• Aida is an opera about Aida, an Ethiopian princess. I actually noted Aida in a previous entry, but not in enough detail to help for [Doomed Ethiopian princess]. I’ll have to remember Aida for any opera-related clues.
• REO Speedwagon was an American rock band that reached its heights in the 70s and 80s.

Business and technology

• OTIS is an American company that develops elevators and escalators.
• The V10 engine is a ten-cylinder piston engine used in heavy duty cars and trucks, and less common than V8 and V12 engines. The answer to [Powerful engine] was VTEN. I mistakenly filled it with VTEC, an engine system developed by Honda. This made for an awkward cross with [Common conjunctions], first resulting in MCDS which I thought was a play on McDonald’s. After I discovered another incorrect cross—I had guessed Norm instead of Nora for a director named Ephron—this became ACDS which still didn’t make sense. Finally I figured it should be ANDS, allowing VTEN.

Food

• Farro is a grain used in Italian cuisine.
• Panzanella is an Italian salad with soaked stale bread, onions, and tomatoes. The answer to [Like bread more suitable for panzanella] was STALER, which required a careful reading of the part of speech of the clue.
• A spritz is a wine cocktail with bitters and soda water. Common bitters are Campari and Aperol. In this case, APEROL was the answer to [Liquer in a spritz].

Institutions

• Dartmouth is known as the Big Green.
• Yale’s informal nickname is Old Eli from Elihu Yale, who the school was named after. The answer to [Yalie] was ELI.

People

• The Astor family is a wealthy American family that came to be centered on New York real estate and were prominent in the Gilded Age (1865–1902).
• Nora Ephron (1941–2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker, famous for romantic comedy films (When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail).
• Esai Morales is an American actor.
• Leslie Odom, Jr. is an American actor.
• Peter O’Toole (1932–2013) was an English actor.

Places

• Enid is a city in Oklahoma.
• The Terra Nova National Park is in Canada.

Tricky clues

• [Planks can build them] was ABS, referring to the exercise.
• [They fill up a lot] was CARS, referring to a parking lot.
• [Crude cavity] was OILWELL.
• [Higher in rank?] was SMELLIER.
• TAKEIT for [“Here!”] was non-obvious to me.
• [Straightens up] was TIDIES—hard to find as I was looking for something about one’s posture.

Words

• Canary can also mean a vivid shade of yellow, resembling the bird.
• A panoply is an extensive or impressive collection.
• Peat is a brown deposit resembling soil, found in bogs and fens.
• To rule the roost is to have hegemony over something.
• To scald milk (or another liquid) is to heat it to near boiling point.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed this one. The theme was clever but accessible, and I appreciated how the scheme doesn’t result in random nonsense with U turned into ME—the answers actually make sense even without knowing the replacement technique.

While I’m still not close to solving the New York Times Sunday puzzles without help, I feel like I’m picking up on words commonly used as crossword fills: I remembered at least EPEE, TALC, TRI, OARED, and ODE from several previous puzzles, which would have otherwise given me more difficulty.