Erin

@Eric Ressner I agree. I figured out the trick before I caved and lost my streak, but it’s very frustrating that keeping the rebuses in doesn’t solve it. Yes, the butt being “out” could mean physically removing the letters; but it could also mean that one would have to imagine the letters being taken out for the words to make sense. Either way, it fits the theme, so either way, it should be granted a successful solve. I lost about 30 minutes of my life staring at this thing trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong before I realized I hadn’t interpreted the “out” part as literally as the puzzle writer. Ugh. Incidentally, you can always complain to tech help and they might restore your streak.

@Hugh LIMN was a familiar word to me, and the intersecting clues didn’t leave much room for doubt anyway. But it’s clear from the comments that people are unhappy about ABYSM, because the intersecting letter isn’t terribly obvious either. It’s been a while since I’ve done calculus so “maximus” seemed just fine to me. What would’ve been a record-setting Wednesday time for me ended up being a failure- I gave up and turned on hints after staring at what I thought was a completed puzzle for twenty minutes.

@Oikofuge having recently moved to Cape Town, I’m loving this new-to-me fact. Thanks!

@Erin + Erin, hello fellow Erin. If Apolo Ohno is before your time, you must be quite young, or maybe 2010 is even further away than I’m ready to admit. As for Dragnet, that should be before my own time, but the glories of Nick at Night meant I was watching that 1960s show as a kid in the 1990s, and I was excited to see my weird youthful obsession pop up in a puzzle. :)

@Sarah I agree with that theory. I had a 47-day streak and was desperate to complete one perfect month. I breezed through the first few weeks and they kept getting harder but I kept plugging away. March 30 took me nearly 3 hours spread over 3 days to solve- and when I finally did, it didn’t count as part my streak, I assume because the date had passed. I wanted to cry.

@Kevin if this caused you to lose a streak, you can write to the game help email and they will work with you to restore it. I had a similar experience once with a puzzle ages ago, something about blank spaces expected to be left blank and I had written a rebus of “blank” into them. I sent a screenshot of my puzzle and they kindly restored my streak.

@BL a beautiful description of their many benefits. As an American living overseas, I absolutely adore traffic circles, and every time I’m home for a visit I wish the US had more of them!