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Will Shortz & Joel Fagliano edit a crossword puzzle
Will Shortz sometimes provides comments to XWord Info about individual puzzles. For the Saturday December 20, 2014 crossword by Kevin G. Der and Ian Livengood, he wrote this fascinating, detailed explanation of his editorial thought process.
Pro Tip: Click each answer word below to see all the other ways that word has been clued.
Joel Fagliano
Will Shortz
Comments from Will Shortz:
Most people have no idea what editing a crossword involves. Even my bosses at The Times are clueless, I'm sure. So I thought solvers might find it interesting if I explained my changes on a particular puzzle clue by clue. I chose today's puzzle, because Kevin and Ian are both good clue writers, and the changes touch on a lot of different points.
To set the scene: I work in my home office with my assistant, Joel Fagliano, who has become a crackerjack clue writer himself over the past few years. We're surrounded by dictionaries, two computers, and a wide array of reference books. Generally speaking, Joel and I have the same likes and dislikes in clues. [They even tilt their heads at the same angle! — Jim] When we decide to change one in a manuscript, we brainstorm, throwing out ideas to each other in rapid succession, listening to reactions from the other person. Usually we both have to like a clue in order for me to use it.
| Grid | Original clue | Answer | Comments from Will Shortz | Published clue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 A | Where much grass grows | POT FARMS | Lovely. Great start for the puzzle. Ten years ago I probably wouldn't have allowed this, because I eschewed drug references. They felt unseemly for The Times, given that marijuana was universally illegal. But now that marijuana is legal in several states, and some of its stigma has dissipated, I think an occasional pot reference is OK, especially when it's clever. | |
| 9 A | Currency from which "shelling out" originated | WAMPUM | Didn't care for this, as it felt vague. Using a slang term with the same general meaning: | Moolah |
| 15 A | Strongly rhythmic jazz offshoot | AFROBEAT | While I let this pass, Frank Longo, my chief test solver and backup fact-checker, couldn't verify that Afrobeat is an "offshoot" of jazz. Dictionaries define Afrobeat as a fusion of jazz, soul, and funk. | Jazz/funk fusion genre |
| 16 A | One with a crest and shield | IGUANA | Since almost no one knows what the "shield" of an iguana is (it's a tiny spot on the side of the head), I didn't feel comfortable throwing this at solvers. New clue, slightly more helpful, and more understandable: | Creature with a crest |
| 18 A | Select | CALL ON | Not on-target enough. New clue (just as tough): | Tap |
| 19 A | Arm of the sea? | TENTACLE | Good, but I've used this clue five times already, most recently in November. | Place for a sucker |
| 20 A | Mass recitals | CREEDS | Didn't like this, because I felt there is only one creed that's recited at Masses. Multiple recitals of the same creed are not "creeds." | Faiths |
| 25 A | Plato portrayer in a 1955 film | MINEO | Too vague. Many solvers wouldn't know the film reference. | Plato portrayer in "Rebel Without a Cause" |
| 26 A | Org. catching some 11-Down | DEA | (11-Down = MULES) -- Slight change, with more accurate wording: | Org. seeking to catch 11-Down |
| 27 A | Safe cracker? | POPGUN | Nice idea, but I couldn't justify the word "cracker" here. A popgun pops; it doesn't crack. | Cork's place, maybe |
| 31 A | Breeder's objective | DOCILITY | Maybe ... or maybe not. It depends on the breeder and the type of animal. | Tameness |
| 35 A | Teeming | APLENTY | Since "aplenty" usually follows the noun it modifies, it doesn't substitute well with the given clue. Generally you want a clue and its answer to be interchangeable in a sentence, be in the same part of speech, and have the same meaning. | In abundance |
| 38 A | Delish | REAL GOOD | Joel and I thought this was OK, but Frank objected, saying the clue was too specific for such a general phrase. | Positive response to "How ya doin'?" |
| 42 A | Recipients of a 2009 Congressional Gold Medal | WASPS | I had no idea what this meant, and I hate, hate, hate clues like that. So we spelled it out. (Incidentally, it's very hard to clue this meaning of WASP without repeating any part of the acronym -- "women," "Airforce," "service," or "pilots." Try it yourself!) | Flying female fighters in W.W. II |
| 44 A | Ghanian food staple | YAMS | Too obscure. Also, fwiw, the usual adjectival form of "Ghana" is "Ghanaian." | Orange side dish |
| 46 A | Like most puzzles | CLUED | Too vague, and maybe not even accurate, as many types of puzzles don't have clues. | Hip, with "in" |
| 51 A | ___ Bullet (Calvin & Hobbes alter-ego) | TRACER | Too trivial. | Kind of bullet |
| 53 A | Before making one's debut | PRENATAL | Good. It just needed a question mark, because of its stretchiness. | Before making one's debut? |
| 57 A | Warnings that come in five colors | ALERTS | Too specific. Only the warnings from the Department of Homeland Security come in five colors. Besides, you don't even need the clue's last five words. | Tip-offs, maybe |
| 60 A | Enterprise figure | NET SALES | Too vague. This could refer to any business-related figure. The new clue doesn't change much, but is more accurate and a little misleading besides: | Important figure in business |
| 3 D | One delivering a knockout | TRANK | Good. It just needed "informally" at the end. The slanginess of the answer needs to be signaled somehow. | One delivering a knockout, informally |
| 5 D | Ones repeating "I do"? | ABBA | Nice, but too vague. We added the year "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" was a hit in the U.S. | Ones repeating "I do" in 1976? |
| 6 D | Draw from, perhaps | REACH INTO | Not exact enough. You can reach into something without intending to draw from it. The new clue avoids repeating "in" in the answer, which is not easy: | Access, as a pocket |
| 7 D | Film critic Janet | MASLIN | Janet Maslin has been primarily a literary critic since 1999. She was a film critic for The Times before that. | Literary/film critic Janet |
| 8 D | Ready | STEELED | Not on-target enough. You can be ready for something without being steeled for it. Steeling suggests filling oneself with resolution or determination. | Girded |
| 10 D | Stabilizing lab supply | AGAR | Agar, as a stabilizer and thickener in food products, is used much more in kitchens than in labs. | Stabilizing kitchen supply |
| 12 D | Modern way to lose | PALEO DIET | First, the primary purpose of the Paleo diet is to eat in a healthy way, not to lose weight. Second, clues about diets that mention "losing" have gotten old. | Faddish food regimen |
| 13 D | Paragon of ease, in Italy | UNO DUE TRE | Cute, but it's not clear that "One, two, three" has the same usage in Italy as it does here. The new clue has been used twice before in The Times, in one wording or another, but long-enough ago, I think, to be used again. | Italian count? |
| 14 D | Great white, say | MANSLAYER | Too vague. | Murderer |
| 23 D | Dr. ___ (nemesis of the Fantastic Four) | DOOM | Good, except for the word "nemesis," which, strictly speaking, means "a formidable and usually victorious opponent." Since Dr. Doom is not usually victorious in the comic books, we changed "nemesis" to "archenemy." | Dr. ___ (archenemy of the Fantastic Four) |
| 27 D | Holder of some wheels | PARTY TRAY | Too vague. | Caterer's preparation |
| 28 D | Iago or Cassio, e.g. | OPERA ROLE | Kind of mean, because Iago and Cassio are much better known from Shakespeare than opera. The new clue is still deceptive: | Figaro, e.g. |
| 29 D | Ones with recess appointments? | PLAYMATES | Stretchy, but Joel and I liked it. And there is a question mark. So we kept it. | |
| 32 D | Result of extreme volatility | COUP D'ETAT | Too vague, and not very interesting. The new clue is all Joel's, btw | Power outage? |
| 36 D | Queen's complaint | YOWL | Too remote. What queen is this? | Caterwaul |
| 39 D | Soft French cheese named after the crown prince | DAUPHIN | The French cheese seems to be quite obscure. It's not listed in most dictionaries, so that part of the clue was not particularly helpful. | Heir apparent of a French king |
| 43 D | Part of a recurring Eastwood ensemble | SERAPE | Nice, but vague. We made the clue more specific: | Wear for Clint Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" |
| 48 D | Cyber Monday activity | ETAIL | Nice, and relatively timely. We kept it. | |
| 49 D | Where Deer Isle and Moose River are located | MAINE | As the population of Moose River, Me., is 218, according to the 2010 census, this seemed too obscure a reference, even if the town's name does scream "Maine." | Home for Deer Isle and Moosehead Lake |
| 50 D | Dock who claimed to throw a no-hitter on LSD | ELLIS | First, it wasn't clear to me if the name was Dock Ellis or Ellis Dock. I wanted to clear this up for anyone who doesn't know. Second, the verb tense seemed off. And third, I thought a little more information would give the answer context. | Dock ___, Pirate who claimed to have thrown a no-hitter on LSD |
| 54 D | "What's in ___ Head" (children's board game) | NED'S | Too obscure. This game gets fewer than 7,000 hits on Google. Also, fwiw, names of games don't get quote marks in The Times. | "___ Declassified" (old Nickelodeon show) |
Well, there you have it. Feel free to quibble over some of Joel's and my changes. I hope, though, that you think the edits as a whole are an improvement. Btw, almost all the clues not discussed above are Kevin's and Ian's. Joel and I are big fans of them both.
— Will Shortz