Jez

@Jamie I don't think you were really meant to know the sixth verse of the song - that's a misdirection of sorts. Basically the idea is the clue tells you it's a word in French, and you figure out the rest from the crossings.

@Stephen the term "rebus" outside of the crossword world refers to those word puzzles where there's a little icon or drawing to refer to a word. That's akin to what's going on in this puzzle, with the punctuation marks being replaced by their names written out. The word rebus itself, like many words in any crossword puzzle, can have multiple meanings depending on context.

@Dave eh, it's a bit of poetic license in order to best serve the misdirection. These are "clues" not strict definitions.

@Pani Korunova I think it's worth pointing out that the "two if by sea" quote comes from not actual history, but rather a famous poem written in 1860, nearly 100 years later by one Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow penned "Paul Revere's Ride" without much references to any sources; perhaps it might be called "historical fiction." Specifically of relevance here, Revere was more the sender rather than the recipient of lantern signals.

@Jack it's more common in British/Commonwealth English, from the 1920's to 1950's as per ngram. Example - Graham Greene's 1938 novel "Brighton Rock," where the character Ida Arnold refers to private investigators as "tecs." So not unheard of but certainly "trivial."

@Andy One thing to point out is that 91A is referring to the vowel sound which starts the hymn, i.e., a LONG O. I do think Jaguar XKES was highly esoteric, but it was easy enough to figure out from the crosses as TREX/TREK was a gimme once you figured out the trick. In difficult crosswords, not every clue needs to be very solvable as long as the crosses are.

@Rodzu yes, but that's just "(state)" not "(U.S. State)" which is what the clue said.

@SusanEM From the sporting world in American parlance, a "bye" is a round in a tournament bracket where a top seed (higher ranked) team doesn't have to play a game, hence it's a perk as they get more rest.

@Sam I'm not sure that's really fair, it's pretty universal for "Chinese" by itself (in English) to refer only to Mandarin, in the same way that "Romanian" applies only to that one language and not all Romance languages. It's all about context.

@suejean. Yeah more like a Wednesday for me, but I could see it as a tricky Tuesday. Way too many naticks for a Monday- even the columnist had trouble which should have been a clue this was put on the wrong day.

@wuumyn I just typed a dash (hyphen, technically), on my phone using the normal keyboard. Why is there all this talk of recuses and such, doesn't everyone have a standard way of typing "-" ?

@Xword Junkie how can solving a crossword faster than normal ever be "unpleasant?" Unpleasant is like yesterday when there are too many proper names, or when the fill is all OREO, EON, and EEL. Neither applies here....

@Sam most Americans would know "Roo" as the child kangaroo in the AA Milne children's series, Winnie-the-Pooh.

@Lex so right! I thought I was so clever for remembering that IKE was prez until 1961, and therefore the answer wasn't JFK... but no, not *those* '60's...

@feyev it's a common idiom in American English though upo looking it up I see it was also used by Shakespeare. It apparently refers to the cheap cost of sheet music or alternatively the small amount tipped to street musicians , Dates to the late 1500's.

@Mr Dave I knew someone would come here to complain about this. But in fact it was a gimme for me, and the very first down clue I managed. (It was only likely to be EVEN or ODD and only one of those is three letters.)

@kilaueabart a Poke bowl, like several Hawaiian dishes, is influenced by Japanese cuisine - there's long been significant immigration from Japan to Hawaii.

@Daily-Solver I never understand why people make it so hard? Why not just enter NO into each square ? It did say it's a "double negative."

@Heidi sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but why wouldn't you just zoom in (pinch gesture) to make it more readable?

@Kay it was mentioned in the column!

@Sam just because they are less common usages of the words doesn't make them "wrong." They are clues, not dictionary definitions. You have to expect this kind of thing later in the week.

@Shimmer that's why it said "for example". A royal flush is a type of flush, no?

@jes cake-style donuts are absolutely baked.

@Bryony Yep this was a gimme! I should note that in the show's official terminology, the host provides "clues" and the contestants "responses" (which are phrased as a question).

@Andrzej straightforward rebus puzzles have appeared on Wednesday before, it's not absolutely guaranteed they'd have to be Thursday.

@Anonymous but you need to follow the hint in 62 across and "take" a penny (ONE) while leaving ONE behind.

@Wggwg I googled "bell lap white flag" and the only relevant hit is a reddit post complaining about this very same NYT crossword. So I think we know the answer ...

@Ed sawing up a tree sounds perfectly normal to me? Might be regional, I'm from the U.S. southeast and also speak Australian English, so I sometimes can't remember which is which.

@Erin Besides the other comment, in that you'll have more fun with crosswords without being so pedantic, there are certain situations where beta versions of software are "designed to reveal bugs." I have one on my phone right now - it has special features to report bugs which are not in the production version. Not all beta software is exactly the same as the final production rev in this regard.

@Francis agreed, I had multiple naticks in that corner too and blew out to a Tuesday time as a result. Rest of the puzzle was a nice Monday though!

@Asher the Utah Jazz are a basketball team. It was certainly a slower than average puzzle, but but you didn't need to know the super obscure ones to solve.

@Apurv not sure I understand your complaints about those last two - aren't they simple synonyms?

@Francis To be pedantic the "number" is an agent that numbs (like a worker who works) not a comparison.

@Max Nicks As a springbok is a variety of antelope, is that not fine?

@Lynda what kind of phone do you have that doesn't show colour? Certainly the coloured circles show fine on my iPhone.

@Lauren is a grade not a form of variety? Crosswords have "clues" not strict technical definitions. Don't think this sort of pedantry gets us anywhere...

@Rigel I think since it's Wednesday it makes sense to circle the rubs squares. Thursday rebuses typically don't get that hint.

@Andrzej yes, "Ta" and "Tata" are totally different words! "Ta" (thanks) is very common.

@Brendan you need to press the Rebus button which is in your app for this purpose!

@N.E. Body it means your guess isn't a valid solution because it's something like a plural, or is considered too esoteric a word. There are two dictionaries, a larger one allowed for guesses and a smaller one that the Worldebot considers possible answers.

@Lpr. Liane was a gimme as the Moriarty Sisters are literary royalty here in Australia. MUKBANGS was unknown to me but I did know that Korean words often contain "ng," so after I had all the other crosses, IGA seemed an okay guess. It was my 2nd or third guess so I don't get the hat tip, but either way this worked out for me at least.

@Lidarlady yes exactly, at first I put "fix" but then was like, that's not actually what a datum is in GPS context , then remembered it was a general audience crossword! It does make me intrigued as to how "datum" got the definition now used in spatial contexts, compared to its original Greek meaning.

@Thomas I think the reference is an initialism - HACE meaning High Altitude Cerebral Edema - but this is extremely obscure.

@A there's instructions on the web site on how to enter a rebus. When it's not the same for both across and down, you enter the across first, followed by a slash, followed by a down. Which of course was part of the wordplay here since it reads KIT/KAT in this case.

@Daniel that's what's great here , you can have a TEA or CHAI if it's early, and something a bit harder as the day goes on... :)

@B lye sounds like "lie" which is a problem, I guess?

@Pani Korunova personally I always used IM's and was not aware of "DMS" until solving these crosswords. There must be some regional or generational difference going on here. But both occur frequently in the puzzles.

@Alexis I had heard of Barq's root beer (but never heard of Mug) but thought it was Bark's, so yeah this took a while. I was a regular in '80's and '90's arcades and never heard of Q*BERT - was I living under a rock?

@Liz M, I figured that couldn't be the answer due to the "Certain" qualifier.