Beth Rubin author page
1 puzzle by Beth Rubin
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 5 answer words debuted by Beth Rubin.
| H | A | R | M | N | O | M | S | G | E | A | S | E | ||
| O | R | E | O | A | R | E | N | A | G | R | A | M | ||
| M | I | N | D | R | E | A | D | E | R | G | E | R | I | |
| E | S | T | E | E | S | E | T | S | B | A | I | L | ||
| Y | E | S | L | E | T | S | Z | E | T | A | ||||
| S | L | E | E | P | E | R | A | G | E | N | T | |||
| A | A | A | T | E | A | M | E | T | E | R | ||||
| A | L | L | O | V | E | R | T | H | E | P | L | A | C | E |
| H | I | P | P | O | I | O | S | S | K | Y | ||||
| S | T | O | P | I | T | Y | O | U | T | W | O | |||
| O | C | H | O | R | A | I | N | M | A | N | ||||
| B | A | D | S | E | E | D | S | L | E | O | N | I | ||
| A | C | A | I | G | U | T | F | E | E | L | I | N | G | |
| L | I | N | T | A | D | I | O | S | A | R | I | E | ||
| E | D | G | E | P | E | R | O | T | P | E | E | L |
I was sure I'd crack "Name That Theme" after spotting DREAD in MIND READER. Over the years, I've gotten tons of emotion-based theme queries, so it had to be one of them: FEELING UNDER THE WEATHER? Nope, no weather phenomenon above DREAD.
MIXED EMOTION? No — DREAD isn't anagrammed, and anagrams would be too tough for a Monday.
UNEMOTIONAL? Hey, calm down! It was just a guess. I'm not overthinking things, you're overthinking things!
FEELING DOWN? Ah! DREAD is a form of FEELING DOWN! It would be perfect if it ran vertically, but—
RAGE? Well …
LOVE? Uh. Love hurts?
GUT FEELING is a perfect revealer, expressing that an emotion is hidden within a phrase. HIDDEN EMOTIONS would have worked, too, but it's not nearly as snazzy.
"Hidden words" are commonplace these days, so they have to feature outstanding finds. Length can help — DREAD's five letters is strong, although common letters like A E R take away from the neatness.
Spanning across multiple words can also elevate. PITY in STOP IT YOU TWO (which I unconsciously shout every ten minutes) is a winner.
Wonderful gridwork. You can almost always work in a couple of long bonuses — EGG BAGEL and OPPOSITE would have sufficed, but SETS BAIL, RAIN MAN, BAD SEEDS = YES, LETS! To incorporate all that with only ESTA sticking out on editors' specs sheets is exemplary. There's no trick except hard work: testing a layout, reconfiguring black squares, iterating ad nauseam.
A "hidden words" theme has to have something exceptional to stand out, and while this doesn't have tightness (so many other possible feelings left this one not quite sparking joy), the quality of finds and strong gridding make it a solid Monday debut.