Keith

@Kathleen Henry I think the question mark makes it fair. That tells me there's something askew. In this case it's representing a committed abstention as a habit. Not how you'd normally characterize it, but with a couple of crosses in place I think it's guessable and within bounds for a ? clue.

This is my personal best which, along with the comments from others, might have convinced me that it’s too easy. Or maybe we all got immensely better at the same time.

@Sarah this kind (or some kind) of gimmick is commonly deployed in Thursday puzzles. Most of them have some kind of twist you have to decipher. This was a tricky one for me but fun.

@Fidelio this was probably my fastest Saturday solve too. But it FELT like a challenge all the same. Really fun puzzle.

@M It used to be frequent but now I rarely don’t finish without help. If you keep solving you learn some trivia and (more often the case for me) just learn to chip around the edges until it falls.

@Dave exactly my experience too.

@Grant 1=1 1!=2 It negates the “equals” operator to “does not equal”.

@Jim I think that's often right, but sometimes the vitriol comes from people who describe themselves as veterans, and even from people who have a considerably long streak. Well, I understand that breaking a streak is frustrating (I avoid the frustration by not paying attention - I'm sure I would never get to triple digits anyway). But the sense of anger on display, sometimes, is confusing. To be sure, it's probably rarely as seriously felt as it might appear in writing, but even so - sometimes the comments seem quite hurtful, and based on an expectation that the puzzle should always be the right level of challenging and solvable *to that particular solver*, which is an impossible standard.

@Mike S. An involuntary movement could be both.

@Wayne I feel the same way on all counts.

@Joe P I feel the same! I wonder what I am missing. Are people using different vowel sounds?