Jump to: Tricky Clues
FRIDAY PUZZLE — When constructors fill themeless puzzles, they usually start with a seed entry, a word or phrase that has tickled their fancies and is likely to tickle yours as well.
After finding a good place for that entry in the grid, the constructors then tackle the job of filling the grid around the seed with the most interesting words and phrases they can find. It’s not an enviable task, but it can be a fun challenge as long as they can harden their hearts and delete some of their favorite fill if it has backed them into a corner. That’s the basic rhythm of filling a crossword: Fill, tear back, fill, tear back.
Kate Hawkins has succeeded in her mission, with a fabulous central seed entry that she mentions in her notes. That seed anchors some really nice Across fill, and the clues are fun yet approachable.
Tricky Clues
İçerik Tablosu
16A. If someone is a copy cat, they imitate everything you say. (If someone is a copy cat, they imitate everything you say. Cut it out, Deb!) With the question mark (“Copy cat?”), the clue must be read “copy a cat.” The answer is MEOW.
17A. If this puzzle had been the annual Puzzle Mania Super Mega crossword — which comes out again next month — I would have liked to see the answer to the clue “Drives around in circles, perhaps” be “Tries to find a parking space in New York City.” As this is a regular Friday puzzle, the answer is DOES DONUTS.
40A. If you are just joining us in solving the Friday puzzles, the “Start to …” clues (like “Start to charge?”) want solvers to think of a letter or prefix that can precede the word in the clue. In this puzzle, the prefix is DIS-, as in “discharge.”
22D. Ah, English. How perturbing you must be to new language learners. The “Rooster, but not a rooster” is a HEN, or one who roosts.
33D. What do you like to do when you visit Manhattan? Do you like to discover new restaurants or perhaps see a Broadway show? Good stuff, but in this puzzle, the Manhattan is a drink, and the “Manhattan options” are RYES.
Constructor Notes
I started this puzzle by crossing YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE and BALL PIT, and then built scaffolding with the partnered phrases MORE TO COME / BE LIKE THAT and HIT THE BOOKS / TOURIST TRAP.
Looking at this puzzle today brings me back to the time when I wrote it. I was reading “Y: The Last Man” (see the entry AMAZONS), rewatching “The Comeback” (my original clue for 54D was “I don’t need to see that!”) and, as always, eating lots of CAESAR salad.
Shout-out to my high school English teacher Michelle Discher for assigning “House of Games” in sophomore English class, and to my high school orchestra teacher Vicky Greenbaum for selecting music that taught me the names of woodwinds in every romance language. (I played the basson/fagotto/fagot. …)
My favorite clue that didn’t make the cut was PERNICIOUS: “Bad, in a creepy way.”
I hope you enjoy the puzzle!
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Improve Your Crossword Solving
Work your way through our guide, “How to Solve The New York Times Crossword,” for an explanation of most of the types of clues you will see in the puzzles, and then test your skills with some fun mini crosswords.
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