Sean McGowan

@Lewis Nice catch! You are correct — BRINGS UP THE REAR has appeared before, in the pre-Shortz era. Thanks for calling it out and I appreciate the kind words about the column.

@Grumpy Guilty as charged. Thanks for letting me know, next time I'll get it right! I have too much respect for Looney Tunes to not report on them with 100% accuracy.

@Rachel Thanks for the puzzle! Also love that your mom dropped in to say hey. We gotta add a "Constructor's Parent Notes" section to the column.

@Tom Now I'm curious too! According to XWordInfo (a great resource if you're interested in answer frequency), NYT has appeared 47 times in the New York Times Crossword.

@Barry Ancona Not at all! I don't consider it a fault of puzzle construction, just an uncommon entry that I thought others might also have difficulty with (though reading these comments, I may be in the minority of not knowing about NO SEE UMS). Either way, whenever there's word I don't know, I'm always glad to learn it. It's a major reason why I solve in the first place! Still, thank you for this reminder — that is important to keep in mind when we're analyzing crosswords.

@James E Welcome to the party! Glad you liked the puzzle

@Grant Great question! Anecdotally, I know co-constructors who have divided the labor this way before, so it's definitely not unheard of. Just like solving a crossword, there are many different ways to build one. Glad you enjoyed the puzzle!

@Michael Dover By penalizing icing, the defending team can't easily stall the game by sending the puck to the opposite side of the rink over and over — they're forced to actually regain control of the puck and bring it to their opponent's side of the ice (which makes for much more interesting hockey).

@Lewis Best of luck! Wishing you a speedy recovery.

@Peter Someone has already posted this, but I'll confirm that this clue is referring to vocal runs, where one syllable is sung across multiple notes.

@E G Keep at it! You can read the column before, during or after your solve, and remember that there's nothing wrong with looking things up. The more crosswords you do, the more you'll see the same entries appear again and again. Five answers will turn into 10, then 15, and so on. It takes practice to be sure, but as you know from the Minis and Midis, it's a great feeling to complete it. Happy solving!

@Jim I can only speak to my own (limited) constructing experience, and while this is frequently intentional, sometimes it is just luck — some solvers make associations and fill in answers I never would've considered when cluewriting.

@Petrol So many TILs here — this is great stuff! Love the nickname Ethel for a ligature. Thanks for sharing!

@kkseattle That's a very fun way to know Sun YAT-SEN, and an excellent example of the subjectivity of Naticks! For me, SHOWER BEER was the gimme and Sun YAT-SEN was an unknown.

@Lewis Thank you! You're right — I had incorrectly counted SQUARE UP as a debut, but it has appeared before (way back in 1960!)

@Anita TIL! Great bit of etymology, thanks for sharing. Enjoy your trip!

@Agent86 Congrats on the solve, and seconding @XWord Junkie that this is a great tip. Picking up on vowel-consonant patterns and ruling out unlikely letters when cracking an unknown word are both good skills that solvers develop over time — kudos!

@Whoa Nellie Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the puzzle and column.

@Me Nice find, I didn't catch that! Very fun symmetry.

@Andre Garcia Interesting! Always cool to see how many different ways solvers arrive to the correct answer.

@Amy Congratulations!

@Ward F Welcome!

@J Burns Great question! LSD has appeared in The Times Crossword 331 times (including Variety puzzles). That's a lot, partially because "LSD" is a short entry that's only consonants — many English words alternate between consonants and vowels, but when filling a crossword, sometimes constructors need words like this to help them when the only letters that work are consonants (similarly, you might sometimes see shorter vowel-only entries, like EEO). I suspect another reason is that the letters L, S, and D are all very common in English words. An answer like "PCP" (another all-consonant drug abbreviation), has only appeared 31 times.

@Julie With rare exceptions, The Times runs themeless puzzles on Fridays and Saturdays. On every other day of the week, puzzles almost always have some sort of theme, but these vary in complexity. You are right that Thursday themes tend to be the trickiest! Friday and Saturday puzzles, while themeless, are also difficult. But Friday puzzles have an Easy Mode if you'd prefer a kinder themeless grid — you can sign up for that here: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/easy-mode" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/easy-mode</a>

@SP Others have already answered, but I'll confirm that constructor notes are optional! Glad you enjoyed the puzzle, and great point about MEWS and FRATS.

@Steve L Very nice! I especially like [Tears for Fears, e.g.] — big fan of the band.

@Mary Congratulations!

@ED Welcome!

@Mikey That's great to hear! Congrats on the solve, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

@Wyra "Mickey Mouse" started to take on the meaning of TRIVIAL sometime in the early or mid 20th century, depending on whom you ask. I imagine it's fallen off a bit in usage since then — it looks like many solvers hadn't encountered the term before.

@KK I can't speak for Mal, but my interpretation: [ ] is a blank clue, so it shows nothing for NO SHOW SOCKS. This would be very difficult. Without a clue, you'd have to only rely on crosses. Maybe you could get NO SHOW and make the leap to SOCKS, but still — very tricky!