Dan Solovay

@Steve congrats! Warning: those gold stars are addictive.

@Mimi I think it’s defensible in this case. The theme is word pairs where the first word has this pattern: ABCDefgh (where capital means shaded) and the second word has AeBfCgDh. (Too subtle for me to totally get while solving, but that’s why I read these comments!) So if you posit that as a special rule for this puzzle (and IMO that’s how themes work—they are one puzzle distortions of expectations), then GOOFoffs and GoOfOfFs are different words. And where the composer appears to be goofing off, he’s actually pulling off a card trick. I found that self-descriptive bit of irony and showmanship delicious, once it clicked.

@Nancy J. We are indeed living in the age of AQUARIUM.

@Lewis thank you for sharing this explainer. Now that I understand the theme, I like the irony of the self-descriptive GOOFOFFS, as clearly the composer did anything but. I admire how deeply these people think about words and word relationships.

@Jeff Wilson it’s legit because the theme justifies it. See this: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4gs26k" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4gs26k</a>

@Barry Ancona Technically correct, but we use it the way we use other Latin expressions like “etc.” and “et al.”, that are abbreviations. And it seems unlikely that “In re:” would have become so established as an expression if it didn’t align with “regarding”. So a permissible description in my view. It certainly wouldn’t confuse anyone, even if slightly imprecise.

@Barry Ancona If we are going to engage in the noble act of picking nits, she said it was “used” as an abbreviation, not that it *was* an abbreviation. And she is, without any doubt, correct.

@RSA agree. A cluing miss.

@Patrick J. Bingo! Felling smarter now. Crossword brain was failing me.

And I must say, 31D is a fabulous clue. Bravo!

@Barry Ancona thanks, I see the comments now. I scanned earlier, but without comment search it takes some commitment to find things.