Worst Crossword Ever
You're going to need six highlighters for all the issues the editors had with this embarrassing first draft.
| ACROSS |
| A big Scorsese movie starring Robert De Niro and Ron Dickles that takes place in a casino. (6) |
| A Broadway play – written by Lin Manuel Miranda – that dramatizes the life of Alexander Hamilton. (8) |
| A period of childhood where telling your teacher to spell I—C—U—P every day may land you another year in kindergarten. (12) |
| A personality type characterized by the following traits: having a strong desire for social stability, being amogusly sus, and totally acting like a Taurus. (6) |
| A prefix that comes from a German word. It sounds like the car service Uber. (4) |
| A spicy sauce with a Spanish name that might include jalapeño peppers (or even habañero, if one wants a really picante salsa). (5) |
| Although Grog'u has no confirmed relation to this character, that didn't stop fans from calling him Baby Yoda. (4) |
| As a first line of defence against one of these British scallywags, get a bright-coloured sign that says "No loitering! Stand back a few metres" to detre a ciggie seller. (6) |
| In contractions, apostrophes connect one of these head-to-tail to another word. (4) |
| "In London lies a knight a pope interred," Is one of these from The Da-Vinci Code. (4) |
| In Moore's Proof of an External World, acknowledging this body part delivers a coup-de-gras to those French postmodernists, summarized by the proclamation "This is one hand." (4) |
| It's something you both have to decide on In order to go out on a date. (4) |
| It's that which leads the shark straight to it's prey Between this pair of options: sight or scent. (5) |
| It's what a parent feels after seeing the children chewing the doors and breathing a sigh of relief. (6) |
| One common breakfast food, enjoyed by most (This may include Sir Francis Bacon). (5) |
| The number you would have to guess if told its value is between one and one. (3) |
| The particular shape of the Big Dipper and Little Dipper is the subject matter of this field, which is practiced in departments of astronomy. (9) |
| The person in control of the cute sheep, When solving logic puzzles in Baba Is You. (3) |
| The real first name of popular hip-hop artist Usher, who was named after the final word of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Hall of the Fouse of Usher." (5) |
| The Shape of Dash, an unsuccessful sequel to The Shape of Water, didn't form any of these on opening night outside theaters, as audiences got bored fast by a bunch of horizontal lines. (5) |
| The surname of the author of the multi-part quote “'You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky' - Michael Scott.” (5) |
| The titular kind of body of water featured in Dawsons Creek, which does not take place in the Canadian city of Dawson Creek. (5) |
| This is what you'd fail to hear at church, if some parent fails to brush their hat during the sermon. (6) |
| This model named Bianca on the cover of a June—July issue of British Vogue revealed her secret to success is her diet of pure roe. (3) |
| This word is the past tense of the word 'will.' You use it subjunctively, as anyone would. (5) |
| What you shouldnt eat while on the altar for your wedding, if you don't want to elicit snickers. (8) |
| When saying 'lingerie' in France, do this. Remember you must lime with 'raw degree.' (5 4 3 6) |
| DOWN |
| 7h15 k1nd 0f 'f1' 74k35 p14c3 d33p 1n 7h3 5ky. 7h1nk 451m0v 4nd 1377325 5-C-1. (3) |
| A get—out—of—jail—free—card for any wrongdoing whatsoever, although you'll first have to inform the judge, "I was just being ironic." (5 6) |
| A kind of Texan stew that you might make using beans, tomato's, and a chili. (5) |
| A meme that causes some to laugh uproariously at six vertical lines and one horizontal one, while everyone else is at a loss. (4) |
| A Shiba Inu might describe this as a wow amaze such puzzle very clue. (4) |
| A word that elicits one's updoots from every wholesome 100 Keanu chungus. (7) |
| After years of moonlighting as a baristo, this Italian actor finally made it big in Leaving Las Vegas, starring Nick Cage. (4 4) |
| Er Mah Gerd Thert Ferlin Whern Yer Kers A Hert Ger Ernd Ferl Ser Herper. (5) |
| Even the most intelligent octopi never beat the Latin grandmaster José Capablanca at this game, on account of them being unable to play chess. (5) |
| Here is another clumsy crossword clue: The starting letter of the word 'a.' (1) |
| I also couldnt believe it, but these are literally the final words of If on a winters night a traveler, by Italo Calvino. (2 2 1 7 5 1 8 2 5 7) |
| If you don't want to seem like one of these people, just publicly say Thomas Hobbe's quote "Words are the counters of wise men, but they are the money of fools." (5) |
| In Zelda, Link does this with Ganon's blights. The room is filled with water in one such fight. (5) |
| Medieval profession featured in such Spanish and/or English works as Don Quixote d' la Mancha and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (6) |
| One whose speech upliftingly fills your hole with soap, as is custom for a good orator. (6) |
| Some German loanwords like 'doppelgänger' are perfectly fine English, but sometimes we write them without the ümlaut. (6) |
| The number 🔢 of tracks 🔥🔥 with 'Crocodile' 🐊 💦 😱 in their title in David ✡️ Wise's 🤔 soundtrack 🎶💯 😩👌🏻 for 🙈 Donkey Kong Country 2. (3) |
| The part of speech of the first word of the sentence "I enjoyed 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.'" Incidentally, I don't think Tlön is pogchamp since I'm very pro-noun. (7) |
| The place one's web browser will store data from the Wikipedia page on scansion after solving this puzzle, if you don't clear your cache. (5) |
| This '90s show will teach you one good thing— It's how to make a posse of friends. (7) |
| This character put up a big façade for our heroes in L. Frank Baums' classic tale The Wizard of Oz. (3 6 2 2) |
| This golden chest sought by a man named Jones Was the MacGuffin of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (3) |
| This is a common mistranslation of 'hoi polloi' for Spanish speakers (admittedly, its true the general public does want chicken today). (7 5) |
| This is an alternate name of the devils. It is also the namesake for the nickname of the Dragon Ball Z character Mr. Satan. (5) |
| This is not a property of candles, so it'd be unusual to receive a package of candles that says "Candle with hair: fragile." (7) |
| This language may not be your true forté, But say "oui oui" to act like you speak French. (6) |
| What one typically is looking for while assigning words in a jumble to European countries; what to do is a question that basic geography answers. (7) |
| Yo dawg, I herd you like self-reference, so I put self-reference in this puzzle, so you can self-refer while solving the crossword. (9) |
| NOT EVEN IN THE GRID? Editor's Note: These might give you insight into the types of errors you're looking for and how many of each you should expect. |
| A confusing reverend who confused at least seven of his parishioners. I would not recommend attending the services of Spooner. (7) |
| A language-busting viral internet phenomenon. Try not to use them, as your mom was complaining eight times about English-breaking memes! (7-8 5) |
| A punctuation mark sometimes used to denote possession (e.g. "John's eleven bad clues"), which is not to be confused with the rhetorical device called apostrophe. (10) |
| In his plays, Shakespeare famously used this word form, which normally has ten syllables per line. For instance, Hamlet employs iambic pentameter. (6 10) |
| There were six conflations between the en and em varieties of this symbol in the text adventure version of the Crash Bandicoot level "Crash Dash." (4) |
| This is a phenomenon in which people mistakenly misuse a foreign language rule. If you're a diplomat, you should definitely avoid making seven countries mad with a hypercorrection! (15) |
(Note: the original puzzle contains an image here.)