From my Unix coding days, not only was an exclamation point a "bang," also an asterisk was a "splat." Likewise: period = "dot," hyphen = "dash," number-sign = "hash," ampersand = "and." The Bell Labs folks tried to name a # an "octothorpe" -- it has 8 prongs -- but, seriously? I suppose an advantage of these is they can be said aloud in a single syllable.
@Michael Weiland - octothorpe should be reserved for the true orthogonal mark (two parallel verticals crossing two parallel horizontals) - the tic-tac-toe grid. The pound sign / number sign # has two parallel slashes crossed by two parallel horizontals; the sharp sign in music has two parallel verticals crossed by two parallel slashes. # is used as a substitute but would never be workable on a staff.
@Michael Weiland. Great comment. I do remember splat but star seems more common for asterisk now.
@Michael Weiland , BANG was also used in journalism to mean an exclamation point. (Yeah I guess I’m that old.)
The documentary about punctuation was a period piece. (I had to dash off to see it!)
In the days before digital printing, one way of proofreading was two people checking galley proofs—one reading aloud from the original and one checking the typeset proofs, and there had to be a way to read aloud the punctuation. An exclamation point was read as “bang.”
@Rachel R. I didn’t know this even though I used to do legal proofreading. I guess there aren’t too many exclamation points in legal documents. 😆
@Rachel R., came here to say the same. Guess those days are long gone. Emus?
@Rachel R. My first job was with a small academic publisher. I was the staff proofreader and spent many hours with editors, taking turns reading the manuscripts aloud and proofing the typeset galleys. We didn't come across BANG very often, but it was always fun to say. I still have the old Chicago Manual we used back then. By the time I left that job I'd memorized whole sections of the manual.
About twelve years ago, I had occasion to meet Mrs. Spekter when she was in her mid-nineties. She lived on 23rd St. in Manhattan, in a nice apartment filled with artifacts and her late husband's collection of miniature cast iron printing presses. She and her husband had invented the interrobang -- ‽ -- a cross between a question mark and exclamation point, for emphasizing a rhetorical question, say, or expressing angry consternation, or exclaiming in wonder after witnessing something miraculous. Last time I talked with her, over the phone, she had just finished reading "50 Shades of Grey" and that she had thought it a total bore. "You what‽" I shouted, and heard her chortle. Hope she's still among the living. She had real mirth. Never really thought about MOIST as a widely hated word. I looked into it a little. Yes, a Buzzfeed article dissing moist got 4 million views and in 2012 "moist" was voted the most hated word in a landslide in a poll conducted by the New Yorker. Another survey done at Oberlin found that almost 20% of the population hated the word, associating it with unwanted bodily emissions, and that the majority of the people who most hated "moist" were highly educated young women. Others associated it negatively with sex and all that, its chthonic overtones, its Dionysian undertones, and the chief quality of the environment that produces disease, pestilence, corruption and rot. Personally, I like all that stuff, as well as moist German chocolate cake. Yeah.
[Juvenile rebuttal] held me up for a while because there are so many of them! ARE SO, AM NOT, AM TOO, IS NOT, etc etc. And I didn't know the English town or the fantasy sports or the voice coach in and of themselves. I finally just picked a rebuttal and worked out crosses around it, and it all worked out. And that was an interesting PETER LORRE fact.
@Liz B The juvenile rebuttal is one of my least favorite clues for that reason and I had trouble for all the reasons you named. Finally, EPSOM came to the surface of my brain and I was able to work off that.
@Vaer Same! I've been working through the archive and groan every time I see this clue, which means I do a lot of groaning!
@Liz B That northeast corner stumped me for 45 minutes at least... had BALL not MATS (I doubted the plural), had GWEN not REBA (I have no what the voice even is, thought Gwen Stefani) had ESSEX not EPSOM, guessed ULTRA! not YAHOO! and (embarrassingly) GANG. Getting ATSEA and APERS finally let me make progress.
Someone not named Willa Cather could write a book called OPINIONEERS! (With the ! obviously) It would describe the struggles of opinionated folks to get through this world: The ones who think BEIGE, not MOIST, is the most hated word. The ones who feel there should not any SILENT letters. The ones who insist on the present TENSE when relating past events. The ones who think STONE is a unit of weight, not mass. It would be quite a long book.
Typesetters will get a BANG out of this puzzle! I did too. California case
I wish the rules of rebus entries were consistent.
@Matt Apparently, you're just supposed to know.
The OED has “bang”, as referring to an exclamation point, in the field of typography in examples going back to 1923. Not only a comp sci thing.
Damon is clever, tricky, and there’s ever a twinkle in his eye. He has one of those minds made for making crosswords, always finding wordplay connections, always on the alert. This is something I could have said it at any point in his 20 years of making NYT puzzles, today’s being his 47th. I can just imagine his brain shifting into “on” mode upon coming across the phrase GOES OUT WITH A BANG – whirring, conjuring possibilities, taking this, rejecting that, fully absorbed until… “Bang! Got it!” Terrific theme that he came up with before anyone else. Meanwhile, lovely rub in clue and answer to escort us into the latter part of the Crosslandia week. Lovely memories for me among the answers – PETER LORRE, the taste of LORNA Doone cookies, the mirth that the exclamation point after JEB gave me back then, the song ALOUETTE. Lovely answers to enhance the grid’s scenery: TABOO, SLAM BANG, MOCHA LATTE, SCEPTERS, PLEBE, RIOJA. Even that answer EDGES sitting on the border. You’ve once again entertained, Damon. I am so grateful for the good feelings, the loveliness you’ve splashed my way over the years. Thank you!
I don’t mind a rebus now and again. Or an obscure clue that can only be figured out from the crosses. Or a trick like a box that’s read differently across and down. Seems a bit cruel to have them all simultaneously, though. Oh well, Thursday. If that novel *were* titled O Pioneers Bang, it would probably be good for sales.
In the '96 primaries, my friends and I got a kick out of all the LAMAR! signs, which we would pronounce as "Lamar Factorial." Twenty years later when Jeb began his campaign, the group chat lit up with nostalgic mirth. Has anyone whose political brand is just their name plus an exclamation point ever won a party's nomination, let alone the presidency?
@Dan I doubt it. Can you imagine if Lincoln has lowered himself to using Abe! Small wonder it's difficult to take modern politicians seriously, especially those of a certain kind, given their utter lack of knowledge about anything other than winning elections (or, more appropriately, buying them). They are utterly ignorant. For example, Louie Gohmert (R-TX) thinking we could solve climate change by "changing the moon's orbit". (The US at this stage can barely get a human-sized capsule into orbit. And what the hell does he think that would do for global warming--does he think our heat comes from the moon?) Another (can't find the name) joked that someone testifying before congress was so stupid as to think that continents could move (plate tectonics and continental drift are settled science). Then, the recently late Jim Inhofe who thought that bringing a snowball onto the floor of congress disproved "global warming" because it snowed in D. C. (The district gets snow fairly frequently, and has been for at least a couple of centuries.) Gone are the renaissance men and women who served in the federal government, at least on one side of the aisle. Thomas Jefferson, for all his faults, was interested in many fields of endeavor. So was Lincoln. They had curious minds. Hamilton was a genius at finance, and infrastructure building. John Adams managed a farm after his presidency, demonstrating an interest in, and mastery of, agriculture.
Maybe it’s the computer scientist in me, but I found the theme extremely easy to catch — and I defaulted to writing “!” because it seemed like the only clean way to do it. New Thursday record for me!
Great fun and I'm not complaining that it was pretty easy. BANGles are the only rigid bracelets I know of (except for handcuffs?), so starting at the bottom and working my way up was a super advantage. The revealer confirmed that, and revealed a lot more. I filled in Peter Lorre, because he was filling himself in, but until just now, after the puzzle was done and I looked up the first Bond villain and found him in a TV version of Casino Royal, I was completely ATSEA. When I first looked at 15A, [Pike relative] I thought the clue might be a bit fishy, so calmly wrote in "spear," then [Symbols of sovereignty] made me C the light, I regained my baLANCE and got back on track. Good job, Damon Gulczynski. Thank you.
Very clever Mr. G.! Lots of fresh fill, a cool theme, and rebuses to boot! Well done!
What could possibly be wrong with MOIST? Who wants dry cake? a MOIST and tender crumb See? It's a good thing. I wish more bakers knew that.
@Nancy J. I do recall a bunch of headlines a while back declaring how hated the word MOIST is. (Made that answer a gimme for me.) But you are completely spot on about baked goods! So now I'm curious: what proportion of the surveyed respondents who helped determine that factoid were also bakers?? (Call me a tough ole NY broad, or just self-righteous -- but I always felt that people who dislike the word MOIST are prudes! Or at the very least, a bit too precious and squeamish...)
My first gimme was MOIST. I don't share that distaste for the word, but younger friends on FB made me aware how how hated that word is. My entry for one of the most repulsive words in the English language is one that many younger solvers may never have encountered, and that is MUCILAGE. When I began elementary school, Elmer's glue had not yet been invented. Instead, we had bottles of Lepage's Mucilage for our projects, which came in a little glass bottle with a rubber top that had a slit for the glue to be dabbed out. Once Elmer's became a classroom staple, we bid adieu to Lepage's. I just did some research and learned that it is still available, though not in it's original form or by the original company. Here's a link to the history and current usages. I think you'll find it fascinating! <a href="https://justuseglue.com/history-of-lepages-glue" target="_blank">https://justuseglue.com/history-of-lepages-glue</a>/
@Times Rita hmmmm, maybe that’s why muesli sounds so 🤮 to me…. Yet I eat it most everyday
@Times Rita Thanks for the link! I wouldn't have known to what you were referring from text alone, but the images of those angled, slit-tipped rubber tops brought back childhood memories! I recall having great difficulty getting the glue to dispense, but otherwise no adverse reaction to it. Rubber cement, on the other hand -- yuck!! Even writing the words, I can almost smell that sharp, toxic odor when the cap was unscrewed. Yesterday, Nudie Cohn, today William LePage and his glues. Fascinating stuff in the comments this week!
@Times Rita Ha! I’m with @G on this one. I had a sense of the stuff you were talking about, but when I looked at your link, it all came back to me. How much time I spent with those little bottles of Mucilage….you just opened up a bunch of synapses that have been dormant for sixty years. Before reading @G’s comment I said to my partner, “Do you remember that glue in the little bottle with the red rubber tip with a slit that let you spread the glue?’. She goes, “Kinda. But what I really remember is rubber cement!” Then she shows me this picture….how funny! <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yh2arjba" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/yh2arjba</a>
For those who don't like the way Thursday puzzles play with the rules, I say, This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a ! but a whimper. Whimper away, if you must.
@The X-Phile This is the way the word bends This is the way the word bends This is the way the word bends Not so mundane... Yay, a rebus!
My computer career/math background/chocolate chip cookie eating paid big dividends on this puzzle as I was well aware of the Bang ! Convergence. So the northeast corner revealed the whole SHEBANG I play a lot of fantasy sports so all I needed was the Y in YAHOO My only real problem was Jeb! As I have blocked that whole election cycle from memory
Finally a Thursday I liked! Maybe because I was able to solve it without any, uh, “research”. After 686 straight days of solving I’m finally getting to Thursdays and Fridays without apprehension.
Whew. Quite a puzzle and a tough workout for me. Probably cheated a bit more than I should allow but a nice 'aha' moment when I finally caught on. One sort of appropriate 15 letter answer that dawned on me today: THEWHOLESHEBANG. That was an answer in two puzzles, but most notably in a Wednesday from February 13, 2008 by Elizabeth C. Gorski. The clue for that answer was; "From 1- to 67- across." And... 1 across was: SOUP 67 across was: NUTS Just thought that was quite clever. Some more puzzle finds that I'll put in replies. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: First, a Sunday puzzle from March 21, 2004 by Roy Leban with the title: "Movie sequels that were never made." Some theme answers in that one: THIRTEENANGRYMEN BANGTHEDRUMFASTER DOGDAYEVENING AFEWBETTERMEN SOMELIKEITHOTTER And some others. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/21/2004&g=43&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/21/2004&g=43&d=A</a> And then... a Wednesday puzzle from August 6, 2014 by Brendan Emmett Quigley. The 'reveal' in that one was: "Summer event, briefly ... or a phonetic hint to 19-, 26-, 47- and 53-Across :" BBQ And then... some theme answers: CORNONTHECOQ (crossing the down answer SHAQ) THEFAQFOUR (crossing QBS) JERRYQUILT QUEENSIZEQED Here's the link to that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/6/2014&g=53&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/6/2014&g=53&d=A</a> I'm done. ..
Well, despite how overly enthusiastically I use exclamation marks in my informal writing, I had no idea about the ! and BANG connection until I read the column! I suspected the rebus at what I thought might be SHEBANG, but being a woman of a certain age, HEAD BANGS clinched it! In the '80s, I had the perfect hair for HEAD BANGing! And big BANGs abounded! My BFF was fondly referred to as Liberty spikes because of her extremely high and stiff bangs... Perhaps one day I will write an ode to Aqua Net! Yes, perhaps we put the ozone in great peril, but dang our BANGs were fine!! Needless to say, my puzzle was full of BANGs, not !s. I'm grateful that either was accepted because I never would have thought of putting in exclamation marks! Fun puzzle, and for the second night in a row, my taking a break and shaking up a martini helped me fill out the NE, which was again my last section. Clearly this is a case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc!!! 🍸🍸 Cheers, friends!
As promised/threatened, here's my stab at a few theme entries of my own: I realize two crossing words is much easier than fitting them in the context of a puzzle but here it is anyway. Once I realized the double-meaning of the word "bang", I immediately thought of two of my favorite though very different screen works, one small-screen, one big-screen. Here 'tis: ------ 34D - This is the way the poem ends, this is the way the poem ends, this is the way the poem ends, __________ but a whimper 64A - Critically lauded 1960s TV war drama co-starring Vic Morrow, which utilized lots of untranslated French & German native speakers, & half of whose first-season episodes were directed by up-and-coming director Robert Altman ~ ~ ~ N O T W I T H A COMBAT[bang] _____ 73D - Things may not end this way as per T S Eliot, but according to many astrophysicists, this is how it all began 82A - Wacky much-beloved 1980 film spoof which spawned many catchphrases like "And stop calling me 'Shirley'", "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking", & which featured Ethel Merman in a cameo as a delusional hospital patient who believed he was Ethel Merman ~ ~ ~ T H E B I G AIRPLANE[bang]
@Becca Nice! I was a regular viewer of Combat! (I had forgotten about the bang) when it was on, but what does a ten year old know about directors? I do think that was probably where we learned that "Mach schnell!" was German for hurry.
@Becca Ha ha, nice ones! One of my large quilts is "Big BANG Theory"....it's on the wall in PhysicsDaughter's living room.
I agree with Mr. Gulczynski: Nice work, younger you! Quite fun, and funny to see how emotional solvers can become over rebuses and punctuation ;-). Today I learned that a UK "stone" is a unit of mass rather than weight, even though the folks there weigh themselves in stones. Filing that away in case I ever want to bore people to death at a cocktail party...
Loved it! Now onto one with interrobangs!?
@Arie - I can imagine the complaining in these comment were that to happen, especially if the ‽ had to be entered into the puzzle. What -- are you out of your mind‽
Long time Unix geek here. Solving the puzzle I was like, “oh, the rest of the world knows that ! Is bang too? How am I just now learning this? “ Sounds like from this column that’s not necessarily the case, though. Drat (bang)
When I read proof for a publishing firm, we spoke the entire text aloud, one reading out and one following by eye. The punctuation marks and formatting information were all part of the exchange: cole : sem ; pren () bang ! quest ? allcap NATO N-A-T-O block indent justified opening double quote et cetera abbrev e-t-c peer But I am guessing not many of our solvers will have known “bang” for ! before this solve. Oliver! Airplane! Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! Oh! Calcutta! Tora! Tora! Tora! Absalom, Absalom! Yukon Ho!
@David Connell Love! Valour! Compassion! the emus are coming! the emus are coming!
A BANG-up job, Mr. Gulczinski! TIL about the exclamation point and BANG being one and the same in computing, so I didn't mind having to correct the way I put in my rebus entries, with the slash. This little piece of knowledge was what gave me the "a-ha!/now I see!" of the creativity of this puzzle. I had come to the column looking for some help, but the tricky clues weren't the ones I needed. The NE wasn't coming to me, mainly because I put in "ball" for the Pilates equipment, especially because "machines" didn't fit. I completely forgot about mats. Still fuzzy end-of-flu brain. (Shhh, please don't tell anyone I thought of SCEPTER and wrote in "specter". Oy vey.) I also didn't remember having to work this hard for a Wednesday puzzle since going off auto-check. It took me a while to say, "Oh, it's a Thursday!" Yes, I told you I'm a little confused. Thank you, Mr. Gulczinski!
I was not familiar with the use of BANG as a substitute for "!", so I was a bit perplexed by the theme clues until the puzzle was done. I should have remembered the interrobang, which would have given me a bit of a hint. Other than a bit of difficulty with the NE, I got through this one pretty well. And I'm old enough to remember SASEs. Thanks, Damon!
Got a ! out of the puzzle. First encountered BANG for ! in Dorothy Sayers' novel,"Murrder Must Advertise" It was used as the printer's name for the symbol.
@Phishfinder Read all of her novels....just did not recall that!
Easily my favorite part of solving the crossword is spending several minutes trying to suss out which "juvenile rebuttal" we're supposed to use today. I wish they could include that clue in even more puzzles.
A bang-up job. Thanks, Damon. Alouette, gentille alouette Alouette, je te plumerai, emus.
@Linda Jo I've been singing this song as I put out peanuts for the crows that visit our balcony. But I changed the lyrics from "je te plumerai" (I will pluck you) to "je vais te nourire" (I will feed you). Just seemed nicer :-) (Still learning French, so not sure if there's a more appropriate way to say that sentence.)
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen oui ! « je vais te nourrir » is correct in all the ways it should be. :) Well done! If you wanted to use the same tense (futur simple) in your substitution as in the original, you would say, « je te nourrirai ».
I didn’t realize the exclamation point connection until I was very near the end. I couldn’t figure out how BANG worked on the across entries. But, as always, I knew the connection would eventually become clear, so I kept plugging away. And, when it finally dawned on me, it was a very cool moment. I really had a good time with this puzzle. Alright, so maybe I had to look up IVOR. I had IVOn, and AnK seemed vaguely acceptable from the Egyptian sorta vibe it gave me. But, other than that, I solved this relatively quickly considering the mischievous rebus. Thank you, Damon Gulczynski[bang]
Fond recollections of the film Throw Momma from the Train where Billy Crystal plays a writer who struggles to find just the right word... "Do you say the night was humid or the night was MOIST? That's writing!" !
I honestly really really loved this Rebus! Smart use of the square, with the double meanings of ! and BANG - I genuinely didn't get it even after getting the revealer at first, not until JEB!, at which point I went 'oh WOW, that is clever'. Very fun Thursday, and a delight to solve!
I liked this puzzle and enjoyed the theme. Somehow I didn't cop to the exclamation-point factor till the column! Now, I've eaten my share of those cookies but was probably too occupied stuffing them into my maw to note the exact nuances of the brand name, and I forgot the exclamation point in the campaign slogan cuz it feels like about 20 years ago, I recalled the Willa Cather title after a couple crosses but wasn't aware of the exclamation point, and somehow I forgot all about Yahoo's "!" even though I've seen it a million times. Before I read the column I'd wondered about the lame redundant 'bang' following the Acrosses with no connection or need for it going across. Ha. Now I see, and remember the "!'s"!! My stab at a few theme entries of my own in a sec. >>
I solved it without ever realizing the across clues ended with an exclamation point (until I read the column). Clever idea though, my bad. Since my first name is Sheldon I should have at least had a big BANG theory.
Our columnist Deb deserves top explanation marks for her attempts (again) today to prevent pointless BANG and howling over rebus realities. I found this puzzle to be fun, in that eyebrow-scrunching way that hurts but builds character, and respect for other minds. Crosswords are worth it kaboom
The 21-across and 8-down crossing clued me to the bang or ! possibility. I hadn't thought of "bang" as a substitute for an exclamation point, but I remembered that several (maybe a lot of) years ago there was an attempt to introduce a question mark and exclamation point combo as an "interrobang."
@Mary A. Your reference to the interrobang was very relevant to my solve today. Just recently I was working in the archives on a puzzle from 1/16/2015 and the 1A clue was [?!] with the answer INTERROBANG. I know I had run across this in the past, perhaps even in this column, so I looked it up to get some history. Many people have suggested it was coined by Martin Speckter in 1962. He asked his readers to suggest a name for the new punctuation mark and he received suggestions such as the “exclarotive”, and the “exclamaquest”, but finally settled on the interrobang. The interesting history is encapsulated below: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/nhaud4aw" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/nhaud4aw</a>
HEADBANGS (!!) makes it all worthwhile.
Hmmm...well, to start with, there's a star missing in the clues. Srsly? How hard is it to check that? Then we have USPS for "Org. that delivers." Hah! Got a Christmas card on March 13th (mailed Dec 05, '23). Your tax dollars at work under Louis deJoy. My thanks to Howard Pyle for referring often to Robin Hood's 'trusty YEW bow.' I drew a much superior BANG in the appropriate boxes, BTW. Best gimme: 16A ORTHO... I'm off to see the hand guy this morning, to get the staples out of my elbow. I'll be giving some feedback. Have you tried bandaging an elbow? ORTHOtics were a part of our lives beginning in 1981, so....thanks for the freebie!
Hi, MOL(bang) Hope all is well with you. Did you see my recipe for shortbread, which I finally posted in the comments this past Sunday? If properly baked, the result is crisp, yet still MOIST. Emu!
MOL, Where in the clues do you see (or not see?) a missing star? I see the correct number online and in all of the printable versions. SRSLY!
@MOL I replied to your reply elsewhere, copying here: None of the Down clues are starred. (At least in the browser version I use.) It certainly made "tricky Thursday" that much more tricky for me! Time to feed the emus... 🍩
I’m only 8 minutes into the puzzle, but had to stop after filling in the Bond answer and say “Bravo!” My favorite piece of movie trivia is this forgotten production. Hoping people look for it now and enjoy it, too.
I had a real ! solving this puzzle. Thanks so much, Damon, especially for the Jeb! memories. Those were the days, when a certain party still had candidates interested in democracy.
@Jim Also a bit sad to confess that for the longest, I thought the answer to 17A, "some accounts," was lies.
At first annoyed, then humbled. ! Bang was not a simple rebus gimmick, but a gap in my rusty wheel house. Big thank you to all the coders, proofreaders and math whizzes who shared knowledge.
@Sempermutabilis They needed some 'proofers' for this grid...which is missing the star for 57D. Figured it out, of course, but really....
@Sempermutabilis Now I wish I'd used "Rusty Wheelhouse" as my name for these comments.
As a former Unix admin (decades ago now), I had the “aha” moment after completing about 50% of the puzzle. I smiled as I recalled using this punctuation in operating system commands to re-run the last command. My epiphany didn’t ease my solve, but it helped to better understand Damon Gulczynski’s grid. Kudos to Damon(bang).
When the “aha” moment hit me, (clue:The whole she——)I literally laughed out LOUD! Good Thursday puzzle!!
@Rich Treta That was when I 'got it' as well. LOL I had left a blank at the end of Willa Cather's novel, but of course as it's a Thursday, there was bound to be some trickery. Such fun to have a SLAM-BANG success! (Had a lot of time logged at Easter Seals in Dallas for PT with our daughter. Don't think we ever made it as far as Grapevine.)
I got the theme right away, starting with SHEBANG. Breezed right through the rest of the theme answers, simply writing in BANG with my fine-point gel pen on paper. However, I never did realize that all of the across answers ended with an exclamation point, nor did I realize that it was called a bang. And I have no recollection of Jeb! as a campaign slogan. That's what helpful columns are for!
My first way-pre-computers advertising job required me to spec type for the typesetters That's where I learned that bang is old typesetting lingo for an exclamation point. After that, the puzzle fell into place for me.
Like someone else commented, SHE! connecting to CHIPSAHOY! was where I figured out the key to this one. I knew that interrobangs are (were?) a thing, so I assumed that exclamation points were called "bangs" at some point in history. I gather I was sort of right! Also, is there a German word for the feeling when filling in an answer makes you realize what a connecting answer is and that repeats until you've solved a corner or more of a crossword? What a rush!
@JonathanT I love that feeling! When all you need is one flash of insight, and all of a sudden a whole corner of the puzzle falls into place. Especially satisfying when it was completely or mostly blank until you figured out the one answer you needed to help your brain unlock the rest.