Total | Debut | Latest | Collabs |
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17 | 4/26/2017 | 11/23/2019 | 1 |
Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Variety |
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1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 1 |
Scrabble | Rebus | Circle | Pangram |
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1.77 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Trenton Charlson is a 2018 graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in English and a concentration in creative writing. "Sadly," he says half-jokingly (I think), "there is no crossword-puzzle major at Ohio State." Five of Trenton's previous nine crosswords in The Times were named "Puzzle of the Week" by the blog XWord Info.
This is his first Sunday puzzle.
As a constructor, I never know what will spark the idea for a puzzle; the only consistent factor seems to be the rewarding feeling of having that breakthrough that makes a puzzle possible. Here, the tiniest seed of an idea was planted while I was pre-editing clues for a themeless. I was trying to think of an interesting clue for DELTA, then suddenly realized that it is a letter in both the Greek and NATO alphabets. This connection must have lying dormant in my brain, waiting for its next big moment, because seeing the clue again some time later immediately gave me the idea of replacing individual letters in phrases with letters of the NATO alphabet.
This seemed like it might have potential, but I had difficulty coming up with theme answers. I reflected that using homophones for letters instead might allow for better themers, and then eventually realized I had inadvertently found the perfect way to tie my theme together— by replacing words of a "phonetic" alphabet of sorts with the letters of an actual phonetic alphabet! And just like that, I had the theme for my first published Sunday puzzle. TOO EASY, right?
The title I proposed was "Forming an Alliance", but I think the new title, "Code Switching," works remarkably well. I also had originally clued NATO and PHONETIC ALPHABET separately to explain what is replacing / replaced in the theme answers, but the new clue simplifies things. My revealers did seem a bit convoluted, and hopefully it will be enjoyable for solvers to piece together the inner workings of the theme without as much assistance. After all, epiphanies should be not just for constructors, but for solvers too!
It was interesting to have the opportunity to incorporate so much 7 and 8 letter bonus fill into a themed puzzle— enough to fill a themeless!— and I'm proud of how it turned out. I was pleased to work in entries like BEAR PIT, JAKARTA, JUJITSU, OOH LA LA, PROSPERO, and SISYPHUS, and I think the puzzle is pretty clean overall. I also like a lot of the clues of mine that survived— my favorites here are those for 19-Across, 33-Across, 67-Across, 120-Across, 88-Down, 99-Down, and 107-Down, along with the clue echoes of 15- through 17-Down.
It's exciting to be making my Sunday debut today, and hopefully it will be the first of many. Until next time, happy solving!
The NATO / PHONETIC ALPHABET has been tapped for many a crossword over the years. Of all the types of themes I get pinged with, it's in the top five. (The most common is homophone-based themes.) I liked Trenton's take today, combining NATO and homophones to result in something I haven't exactly seen before. BOSTON TANGO PARTY (from Boston Tea Party -> Boston T Party) brought up fun images of people doing the sultry dance while yapping in Beantown accents.
The others didn't make me laugh much, but there were good efforts in the cluing. Amusing to think of THE PRINCESS AND THE PAPA as a king bringing his daughter to work one day. What exactly that means, I don't know — what do kings really do as work, anyway? But an amusing-ish thought.
My first impression of the gridwork was that there wasn't much crossword glue. Excellent! And all too rare for a Sunday 140-word puzzle. Trenton took great care; much appreciated.
My second impression: there wasn't enough bonus fill to entertain solvers who didn't connect to the theme. I liked what Trenton mentioned (although OOH LA LA isn't that interesting anymore), but what else? DOORPOST isn't going to do much for anyone (except maybe carpenters). Less than a half a dozen great bonuses to see a solver through a 21x ...
Third impression: maybe the puzzle didn't need any more bonuses in the fill, because there was a torrent of fantastic wordplay in the clues. I ticked off about 10 clues that were wickedly clever or genuinely novel. My top three:
It all made me think about my own constructions. I tend to spend the majority of my time brainstorming themes and building grids. But seeing the impact of such cluing greatness today reminds me that I ought to dedicate more of my time to coming up with clever clues.
1 B | 2 E | 3 A | 4 R | 5 P | 6 I | 7 T | 8 S | 9 T | 10 A | 11 S | 12 H | 13 E | 14 S | 15 S | 16 P | 17 U | 18 D |
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19 A | L | S | O | R | A | N | 20 D | O | O | R | P | O | S | T | 21 H | O | P | E |
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22 B | O | S | T | O | N | T | 23 A | N | G | O | P | A | R | T | Y | 24 E | A | T | S |
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25 E | P | E | E | S | 26 S | A | G | E | 27 N | A | E | 28 N | A | C | R | E |
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29 L | E | T | 30 P | 31 E | 32 A | K | 33 Y | A | 34 N | K | E | E | 35 B | O | T | H | E | R |
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36 S | E | N | D | S | 37 S | I | S | 38 E | T | H | E | N | E |
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39 J | 40 A | 41 K | A | R | T | A | 42 G | 43 O | Y | A | 44 A | 45 S | T | I | 46 D | D | T |
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47 U | N | I | F | O | R | M | 48 B | E | T | 49 G | 50 E | L | C | A | P | 51 S | ||||
52 J | O | S | E | 53 L | O | T | 54 H | A | R | I | O | 55 T | 56 A | 57 T | 58 I |
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59 I | T | S | 60 I | 61 F | 62 S | O | 63 A | R | I | 64 T | 65 H | 66 R | O | W | O | N |
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67 T | H | E | 68 P | R | I | N | C | 69 E | 70 S | S | A | N | 71 D | T | H | E | P | A | P | A |
72 S | E | R | R | A | N | O | 73 T | A | T | 74 A | S | H | Y | 75 S | L | R |
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76 U | R | S | A | 77 O | 78 U | T | L | A | 79 W | 80 E | D | 81 S | H | I | A |
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82 T | 83 I | 84 L | T | S | A | T | 85 B | R | A | 86 V | 87 O | 88 S | T | I | N | G |
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89 I | 90 O | 91 S | 92 T | O | Y | S | 93 A | 94 G | A | R | 95 A | L | I | E | N | E | E |
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96 N | O | T | 97 B | A | D | 98 C | I | A | 99 A | V | A | S | T | |||||||
100 C | H | A | R | L | I | 101 E | 102 W | O | R | L | 103 D | 104 N | A | V | Y | 105 R | 106 A | 107 W |
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108 E | L | R | O | Y | 109 T | R | U | 110 A | R | 111 M | Y | 112 P | 113 R | A | D | A |
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114 N | A | T | O | 115 P | H | O | N | 116 E | T | I | C | A | 117 L | 118 P | H | A | B | E | T |
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119 S | L | E | D | 120 H | A | T | T | R | E | E | S | 121 C | R | U | M | B | L | E |
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122 E | A | R | S | 123 O | N | E | Y | E | A | R | 124 D | O | S | S | I | E | R |
Answer summary: 9 unique to this puzzle.
Found bugs or have suggestions?