Christopher Youngs author page

The initial idea for this puzzle involved removing -LAND from country names and finding phrases that ended with the remaining letters. But the archetype of "the end of each themer can be followed by X" is rather passé, so the idea evolved into demonyms and homophones. My apologies to the Danes, but DEIGNS isn't a noun and doesn't have any good phrases.

Though I'm satisfied with this grid, there's room for improvement. Forty blocks is too high for my tastes. TUE is gluey. The collision of ANKA/DIOS/KOLN is rough. The longest non-theme answers are only some 7s and 8s. After the grid was accepted as a Monday puzzle, I tried redesigning the grid with fewer blocks and some longer bonuses for practice. I succeeded, albeit with not quite Monday-friendly fill, and the reworked grid lost ETHNIC which feels apt as a secondary revealer.

If it seems like the clues are leaning heavily on country names or their adjectival forms, that's a deliberate attempt to underscore the theme. Thanks to the editing team for changing my rambling clue for KOLN: German name of a German city whose English name is actually French.

Regarding LESS, when I submitted the puzzle, I was unaware of the debate over this, but Weird Al, renowned grammarian of "Word Crimes" fame, agrees with the clue.

About ALL, Dante's original Italian phrase ("Lasciate ogne speranza…") suggests ALL should precede "hope," but its placement differs depending on the translation, possibly for meter.

Anyway, happy solving.

Although I'm happy to be back in the NYT, I can't say I'm too proud of my work this time around. Ideally, a puzzle featuring wacky phrases would have all of them land well, but my thoughts on some of these themers have changed since the puzzle was accepted. Perhaps some of the fill might help improve the solve, but with some overly familiar short stuff, my hopes aren't too high.

Shortly after I started constructing, I wanted to do a theme focusing on the elements, just to practice filling a grid. The idea transformed into adding IUM to the ends of phrases after I saw the "add some letters" trope appear in various crossword outlets when I first started solving. As a rookie constructor, I struggled with the fill and shelved the concept. Later I revisited the idea, but instead, tried inserting IUM in the middle of familiar phrases. I developed a set of themers, filled a grid around them, and sent in the puzzle.

Based on rejections of my previous submissions that I thought were better than this one, I didn't expect a positive response. But to my surprise, the concept was appealing enough to get a conditional acceptance, so what do I know? Not much, apparently. However, the grid needed some revisions and theme entry changes before getting the nod. Thanks to the editing team for their suggestions that helped push this one across the finish line. I'm pleased my clue at 65A survived.

Shirley Surely weave we've awl all winced inn in grammatical discomfort upon seeing a homophone written in place of the correct word, write right? Oar Or maybe it's just me.

Themes based on a set of homophones and themes making related puns based on homophones are nothing new, but had the two ever crossed paths to form a theme based on a group of eggcorns? If they had, I must have missed it, though maybe I just haven't been solving crosswords long enough.

In my brainstorming for this theme, I felt like there couldn't be too many possibilities since the requirements are pretty limiting: four words that sound similar, appear in crossworthy "in the language" phrases, and can trade places between those phrases while still making grammatical sense all while leaving room for some wacky but reasonable cluing opportunities. Oh, and matching pairs for symmetry, too. But maybe I just didn't brainstorm hard enough.

I thought I had a decent set of themers with AIR / HEIR / ERR / EYRE, but I wasn't sure my puzzle would get accepted because of an inelegance: two of the original phrases use AIR and none use EYRE. But in the end that wasn't a problem; the grid got the green light. The notes that mattered were the ones I did play, not the ones I didn't. I'm pleased to finally be making my NYT debut after plenty of failed attempts. I hope you enjoy this comedy of airers errors.