Tackling Today’s NYT Crossword
Alright, sat down with my coffee this morning to do the New York Times crossword, like I usually try to do. It’s a good way to get the brain going, you know? Anyway, I was cruising along okay, filling in some of the easier ones, and then I hit this clue: lacking the wherewithal.
My first thought was, “Okay, what does ‘wherewithal’ really mean here?” It’s usually about having the money or the means to do something. So, lacking that… hmm.
I stared at the grid. I had a couple of letters already from the crossing words, but they weren’t immediately sparking anything obvious. Let’s see, I think I had a P and maybe an R somewhere in there. The clue needed four letters.
- My brain first jumped to things like “broke” – too long.
- Then maybe “short”? Like, short of cash. That fit the letter count, but didn’t quite feel right with the ‘P’ I thought I had.
- Considered “needy”, but that also didn’t fit the letters I had penciled in.
So I went back to basics. Lacking the means, lacking money. What’s the most straightforward word for that? Especially one starting with P and maybe ending in R?
POOR. Yeah, that clicked. P-O-O-R. Fit perfectly with the letters I had from the down clues. It seemed almost too simple after I’d been puzzling over it, but it made perfect sense. Lacking the wherewithal is just a slightly fancier way of saying someone’s poor.
Felt good to finally get it. Sometimes the simplest answer is hiding right there. Filled it in and moved on to the next challenge. Always satisfying when the pieces fall into place like that.
