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.

@ted When you create a king in a game of checkers, you stack two checkers on top of each other!

@David Valid opinion and I thank you for sharing it! Though I will note that a computer program did not generate these clues — NYT crosswords clues are written or edited by the puzzle editors, who are very much human! What the constructors are referring to in their notes is using a program to find the theme answers: In this case, phrases with 4 of the same letter that, when removed, still make a word. It's not unusual for constructors to write a script to help them find theme answers like this. In those cases, it's the curation of the fill and the cluewriting where they add their human touch to each puzzle.

@Ιασων It's getting there! For the stat fans: OREO has appeared 523 times in the Crossword, SARI at 466. 468 if we include SARINOTSARI from that fun Tuesday puzzle earlier this month :)

@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.

@Karen Totally understand the frustration, rebuses can be tricky! To answer your question, you enter J, A and M in the extra square for the puzzle to make sense — JAM completes the Across answers and creates a "jam-packed" treat for the Downs. If you're interested in learning more, I've linked a guide to rebuses below. Happy solving! <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html</a>

@Peter I didn't catch that! Nice find, and glad you enjoyed the puzzle.

@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

@Lewis Looks like my “higher than usual” guess was a lowball! For the uninitiated: in crosswords, a pangram is when the grid contains every letter of the alphabet. A quintuple pangram is a pangram, five times over. So, a puzzle with (at least) 5 A’s, 5 B’s and so on. Wild stuff.

@Elena Congrats! Love seeing all the support from the Wordplay community.

@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).

@Cherry Sure thing! Each of the starred clues are missing its last letter. For their answers to make sense, we have to suss out what that last letter is. For example, 5A's [*Dallas Cowboys stat] solves to TEXAS, because the clue is missing the letter E at the end. The Dallas Cowboys stat*e* is TEXAS.

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

@A. Young TIL! Thanks for sharing. I think it's fascinating when misunderstandings or misuses of words end up coining new ones, or even changing their meanings. "Literally" being used as an emphasizer (and effectively taking on the meaning "not literally,") comes to mind as a well-known (and maybe controversial) example. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally</a>

@Mackenzie That first entry going from M to L definitely adds another touch of trickiness for top-down solvers. I also thought we might be shifting letters one notch back in the alphabet.

@Lisa Gotta love her Tempo tantrums :)

@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!

@Dana Scully Congrats! Here's to many more.

@Stefan That's a great reminder that solvers shouldn't be afraid to guess. Even if it's wrong, it might be right-ish.

@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.

@G. L. Dryfoos Think of "waffles" as a verb! If you're waffling, you might be saying uhs, ums or ERS.

@Henry Welcome to the party, come back soon!

@Hevani Congrats! Glad to hear you had fun. They're definitely tricky, but with practice you'll be a pro in no time.

@Aidan Deshong Great find! Well done

@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!

@Shari Coats Thanks for reading and I'm glad you liked the video! And thanks for sharing your solve — great point about clues often needing several reads before the answer arrives. And I'm always glad to hear when solvers set their own rules about lookups. As Will Shortz says, it's your puzzle.

@lucky13 Interesting! Never considered a theater "prop" as a shortening of something before, but that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing.

@Jenny Let's go! Congrats on a well-earned victory.

@Elena Love to hear it! And those are great solving instincts, they'll serve you well in future Thursdays.

@dcy Congrats! Love a good streak-saver story.

@Bradley All fair points, and a good reminder that, like puzzles, trivia's difficulty can be very subjective. The ones I felt I should have known cold, but needed some crossing help: KUROSAWA (I'm a fan), ARAMAIC (I'm sure this was taught to me in Sunday school), and Champs-ELYSEES (I've walked it, but I couldn't remember how to spell it!)

@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.

@Ιασων Hat tip to you as well! Didn’t see your earlier comment. Thanks Barry!

@Susanna Congrats! That's a great feeling. Here's to many more.

@Meghan In the $4,000 suit! Come on!

@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.