Isa

@NYTXWorderSince2020 True, however, the names of the holidays are transliterated from Hindi (other languages have other names for the same holidays), so it still works :)

@Elaine Wilson If you tried PHI in all rebus squares, then that means you got some o‌ther square wrong.

@Nancy Colfer's Artemis Fowl series netted over 21 million sales, not to mention the scads of people familiar with Irish names (Colfer being an Irish surname). It's hardly a natick, and I've never heard of TENET.

@Kate P Prepositions in most languages are, in fact, quite arbitrary.

@Barry Ancona Cats are stereotypically known seek after MICE, and the puzzle claims that MICE are a cat's scan; therefore, the puzzle clue implies that "that which is sought after" could be considered a "scan", which I've never heard of before. The pun is obvious and not under discussion here.

@Amanda "lay into" per merriam-webster has been around since 1838 (at least), and wiktionary has a quote for "lace into" from 1963. Never heard of the latter, but I got it from the crosses, so whatever.

@Grumpy I'd take the marine biologist's opinion on marine biology over that of an astronomer's any day. But point taken.

@susansavestheworld eh kinda? But the roundabout implies shared letters, it actually made the trivia easier to solve once I caught the gimmick.

@NanuNanu Naturally, your narrow experience does not speak for all Anglophones. "have [noun] out" is a phrasal verb, and verbs can generally take whatever they want. I can't take your side here, since that was one of the first clues I solved.

@sonnel You'd have to be aware of current events to know 15D; the song is 4 years old in any case.

@SP Funnily enough, those very three "naticks" were the first three solves I got in this puzzle. Though, calling those naticks seems ungenerous; SUS, for example would be common knowledge to anyone younger than, say, 35 years old with an internet connection. SASHA is also more obscure, but given her wide audience, not massively so. HIRAGANA, well, is an easy one if you know the language, and tough if not; still, I imagine it far less obscure than some of the other clues in this puzzle...

@mlpse repo can also mean repossession (the standard meaning).

@Susan K carbo-loading is a very common topic among atheletes and particularly runners (though its benefits are specious).

@Chris RECTO/VERSO and RIO show up a fair bit in the NYT. Haven't seen CLIO before but I didn't need to solve that.

@Grant I can find "oil gun" on my search engine just fine. Perhaps "grease gun" might be more common.

@Steve She appears in Super Mario Odyssey (which is the only reason I guessed it correctly), which sold over 27 million units.

@CCNY Me too... though I suppose a recipe would just say "knead" rather than "knead it".

@Bennett agreed, it would be appropriate for a cryptic, but not in a regular crossword

@I'm Outa They're gimmicky but still require you to have an intuition of which squares are "wrong". The rebus hint tells you how many squares to watch out for. They will also tend to appear in longer across clues (though this is more of pattern and not a requirement) or italicized/stylized clues. Ultimately they are still a core feature of crosswords, and you should adapt to them if you want to enjoy more puzzles.

@deeb "pet shelter" is rarer still; i've only heard "animal shelter".

@CarlosM How is "Spanish for amateur" incorrect? What word would you use?

@Jay The thought did cross my mind, although I'd think it'd be closer to WADO or WAOH. Oh well, seems like a lot of the cws lately have at least one questionable cross, I'll have to get used to it.

@Jackson Given that the majority of English words come from French, and "serviette" is an English word, I don't think your desire is reasonable.

@Gareth Fortunately, some of us learn things outside of what our parents tell us. I know nearly nothing about Passover and got both clues early on.

@Chet SAWSUP/WAWA cross was the natick for me. I still have no idea what they're referring to, though I haven't been to Wawa in a few months.

@Jefferson Ogata I don't know any sports, but I didn't catch any naticks in this puzzle... quick saturday in my opinion.

@Charles Only 26D was a non-English clue; all others were English. That was a crazy clue to be fair, but the only such.

@Andrzej niche words are surely a core feature of crosswords

@Anonymous it just seems odd to specify "movie" in the clue if it's unnecessary information.

@Jeff P. I'm sure you think that "pollyanna" is a common word in your circles, while others (myself included) have no idea what it means (other than an obscure insult)

@laura t That's quite a stretch to assume that any mention of a location must be related to you personally. Puzzles take months to construct and edit.

@T There's a difference between "challenging" and natick.