Wggwg

@Art cmon dude.

@Eli Edwards Why does this have to be explained every single time there’s a non-rebus trick… the puzzle doesn’t make sense if you fill it in as a rebus. If you thought it was a rebus, you didn’t solve the puzzle. Once you deleted the rebus and deleted the extra t’s, you understand the puzzle, and thus solve it. Why would anyone want it to accept the rebus when that’s not the solution?

@Patrick J. This complaint doesn’t make sense to me on a number of levels. Most obviously, this is an English crossword, and in English, the loanword llama is obvious spelled with two els. Secondly, digraphs are definitionally two letters, so I don’t understand your point of difference there. Finally, while I can see that ll used to be considered a distinct letter in Spanish, it seems like that is no longer the case, and in modern Spanish dictionaries you’ll find it under “l” and not “ll” as a separate letter.

@Derek Yep, also MD, have never heard of derma as a standalone word. Did a lit search and only recent paper I could see using the term had exclusively Italian authors, and it appears to be the translation of dermis in Italian

@Edward This seems to be more a complaint about difficulty than quality. Of course most answers in a NYT Friday should be solvable only once you have a few crosses… that’s the point of a CROSSword. It would be a rather dull affair if you could simply deduce every single answer from the clue alone… the vagueness is a feature. HTTP is a pretty odd example too: once you have HT, what else is it going to be? The same is true of the rest of your examples too… just because something is nebulous doesn’t make it bad… again, this should be a feature of late-week puzzles. Fairly harsh assessment, given the cluing is largely excellent, and there are plenty of AHA moments. I think this really just reflects that people have become too used to the simplistic cluing that has begun to characterise late week NYT crosswords the past 5 or so years, which is a shame.

@Barry Ancona I had Rosalind, because PSU is another proper noun I didn’t know

@Patti Yeah it’s a burg, because the r is “INSIDETHELINE”, like all the rest of them. It’s the whole theme, the colour is inside the line. This isn’t a rebus puzzle, because otherwise the downs make no sense

@dvdmgsr It’s not a rebus puzzle. The answer doesn’t make sense as a rebus.

@Shrike I’m pretty sure the circles spelling salsa are the dip and the triangles spelling chips are the chips. I don’t know why the writers of these articles frequently make errors explaining the clues or themes… can’t they just ask the editors/writers?

@Barry Ancona Yeah but this doesn’t service the theme, it’s just sloppy. If the crosses had the animals only it would be passable, but the animals + 1 random unchecked letter is terrible.

@Thomas Really? I thought the theme was a pretty funny meta-joke about quip themes… ie. the fact that this isn’t one. If anything I thought that the circled letters made it too obvious, but apparently a lot of people missed the theme entirely somehow despite that.

@John H probably should have just increased the difficulty with the cluing. All pretty straightforward and trivial for a Saturday.

@Hoffmanspa This isn’t a rebus puzzle there. Usually in rebus puzzles they seem to allow you to just put the first letter or some plausible answer and give you the benefit of the doubt to solve it. This isn’t a rebus puzzle though, if you put in a rebus you’re unambiguously wrong. The “missing letters” are INSIDETHELINES, as the revealer spells out. Plus, the downs don’t make any sense if you have a rebus there.

@SP I mean you could try ngram at least. I dunno, I expect some reasonable degree of editorial ability, rather than just using obsolete words and calling it good.

@Heidi Because derma isn’t a body layer, the dermis is. Derma is an obsolete synonym for dermis.

@Patrick J. Yeah, I’m aware, but it can also be I for institute, eg. RPI.

@Grumpy Meh. I figured it all out from Aus easily enough

@Steve They mean 96A/87D

@Javafiend Which motorsport refers to the final lap as the “bell lap”?

@Steve L I suppose power supply unit is what i think when I see PSU. I’d rather clue it generically than yet another proper noun in that area. Three letter college acronyms are so boring. I suspect cluing it as Psi/rosalind/reel would have made more sense had they not already had movie reel on the east side.

@Kate Dermises or dermides would be the plural

@Steve L Also found the Geneve one odd, because it’s not Lake Geneve in French, it’s Lac Léman. Very easy as you say though, 53% faster than my average - 6:37. Would have been sub 6 if I hadn’t had to unpick putting in “en banc” on 7A - apparently on crosswordese autopilot.

@Steven M. As in the language group.

@SP It says “your mind’s eye”, so unless they’re assuming I’m not human then yeah it does

@VN I figure I couldn’t solve it if I had to look something up.

@Karl depends on the context right? Pretty clearly they are words in that sentence.

@Doug yes, but they don’t use a white flag, no? This is my point… what sport would you wave a white flag on the “bell lap”?

@john ezra what do you think a technocrat is

@john ezra in no way is Elon a technocrat hahaha

@Andrzej Yeah, dermides. Same as the octopus

@Steve L The word is obsolete. It’s simply not used to mean dermis in modern English… just look the ngram examples you’re attempting to use to justify it. It’s not even found in several dictionaries any more. If they had to use and clue the word in this way, then using a “once”, or “var” to indicate it’s no longer a term in English is necessary.

@Barry Ancona Yeah okay… the definition of a proper noun is a name of a particular thing, so I don’t really see your point. PSU is another specific name in the vicinity of two other names.

@Steve L yeah sure, but I already had PS, so I seemed as likely as U given that Rosalind is a much common name than Rosamund, and a debut in the Shortz era. Honestly I can think of better ways to clue PSU as well, hence why I was thinking Reel was more likely than reel haha

@Francis Did you read about what a gene set actually is, and why it’s inapt for this clue? It doesn’t mean genome. Sure, you could argue that they actually just mean a set of genes, but that’s extremely green paint.

@Ιασων Dermata is not a correct pluralisation of dermis in English

@Francis Yeah sure, but then we have the NYT whose job is to edit these crosswords that we’re paying for. Those are the people that should correct poorly fitting clues like this.

@SBK if you’re using “gene set” to just mean set of genes separate to its technical definition, it’s a pretty weak answer. As I said above, would you also accept “bone set” as a valid answer to that clue?

@Heidi Har har. It’s just pretty gratingly wrong, and annoying to have it twice in as many weeks

@Barry Ancona In the sense of 1e in Merriam-Webster.

@Steve L Ah okay I see. Still doesn’t seem too neat for me, because now the same “character” is used for both answers… seems like it would be better if you clued the whole row as a single clue then so the water isn’t doing double duty. Like having “standing watermark” as an answer.

@Patrick J. Which events?

@Patti It’s plural because there are multiple coloured lines The latter interpretation is correct because the omitted letters are included within that coloured line, as the revealer reveals. The other interpretation doesn’t work because of the downs.

@SP google it I guess? seems fairly trivial. This is a paid product. Probably better ways to clue derma anyway

@Barry Ancona Derma is completely obsolete and not used by anyone anymore.

@Matthew Derma is also singular, albeit obsolete