Er, In Other Words – The New York Times

Er, In Other Words – The New York Times

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Jump to: Tricky Clues | Today’s Theme

SUNDAY PUZZLE — Will Shortz, in his print introduction to this grid, writes: “John Kugelman is a software engineer and musician from Gainesville, Va. He has worked in cybersecurity for many years. John says, ‘I like anything that’s complicated and puzzle-y. Any engineering problem is fascinating to me.’ (And what is crossword construction, after all, but the engineering of words?) This is John’s second crossword for The Times — both Sundays.”

Mr. Kugelman’s debut, which ran last July, engineered its terms via a swapping of letters known as a Spoonerism, after the Oxford don and minister who famously jumbled up his words. Today’s theme uses a mumble to construct its series of riddles and responses, also to excellent effect.

There are seven entries in the theme set today; six are at 20-, 22-, 37-, 60-, 71- and 95-Across, and the seventh and final example is a two-parter at 113- and 117-Across. They are all clued with questions that solve to pun answers, all of which include at least one two-letter interjection adding another meaning to the entry.

A clear example is at 60-Across, where the clue is simply “Farmers?” and the answer is CHICKEN TENDERS. The term could apply to the tending of poultry, but is more familiar as the name for those crunchy, boneless little meat morsels that don’t much resemble actual chickens at all (unless you buy the ones that look like dinosaurs). The important ingredient to modify the meaning is the ER in TENDERS, which makes the title of the puzzle a beautiful tip-off: “Er, In Other Words …”.

A few of the other clues are subtler. “Erotic artist?” at 22-Across solves to JUNK DRAWER, a place where you might find tape, loose screws and old packets of soy sauce, if you haven’t moved recently. But erotic? Ah, but this “artist” is going to “draw” your “junk”: Think “Titanic,” for example. 71-Across — “Switch hitter?” — is particularly graceful. The answer is FLICKER OF LIGHT; instead of baseball, think of the motion used with a wall switch.

52A. “Anthony Hopkins won this with only 16 minutes of screen time” solves to BEST ACTOR and refers to his role as Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs.” Apparently even the movie’s director, Jonathan Demme, was surprised by Hopkins’s nomination for best actor rather than supporting actor, but years later, the moments with Hannibal Lecter are frighteningly memorable.

55A. “One hitting the space bar?” made me think of one of those typewriter monkeys working on Hamlet (can you imagine seeing one produce a perfect version, exceptallthewordswarestrungtogether?) Instead, this clue solves to an ALIEN, which means it’s a reference to the Mos Eisley Cantina, I imagine.

14D. Um, did anyone else start seeing “er” everywhere? I did, here, and it makes for a fun coincidence — this clue isn’t part of the theme set. But the “Indigo Girls song with the chorus ‘Adding up the total of a love that’s true / Multiply life by the …’” ends in POWER OF TWO, which when altered using the rule of this theme becomes “pow of two.”

70D. This entry mirrors 14D and contains another “er,” one that I found conspicuous as I struggled to solve “Not open to appeal, as a court decision.” I needed a lot of letters from crossing entries to come up with PEREMPTORY, which derives from the Latin for “final” or “decisive,” and makes its Times crossword debut.

79D. A “Law enforcer in the Harry Potter universe” is an AUROR, which is also a first-time entry; noted AURORs include Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt, neither of which has been in a puzzle yet. (You might wonder if we’ll ever run out of new Harry Potter trivia, and the answer is, apparently, never.)

86D. This entry has appeared 16 times since 1959, always with roughly the same two clues — “All together,” as in this puzzle, or “As a whole.” At first that clue included “Fr.” to indicate French, but that hint has since dropped off, indicating that EN BLOC is considered common enough to be part of English conversation.

There’s a Discord server for crossword folks (join us!). I’ve learned from discussions there that not everyone loves wacky themes with long, tortured clues. Coming off several such puzzles — hey, I like them! — I figured it’d be smart to switch gears. Here is the result: an exercise in restraint. What can be done with the simplest, most economic clues?

A big shout out to Bob Weisz and Ken Stern, who came up with the final two theme entries. Aren’t they great? They’re the closers for good reason.

I am also tickled by the grid design with black pyramids on the top and bottom. The stacks of long entries ought to add a little extra zest to the beginnings and endings of people’s solves.

Subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.

Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.

What did you think?

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