Lucy Howard author page
2 puzzles by Lucy Howard
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 17 answer words debuted by Lucy Howard.
| N | E | W | B | T | K | O | D | M | C | J | O | B | ||
| Y | O | H | O | M | I | N | I | O | H | A | R | E | ||
| U | N | I | O | N | I | S | T | S | N | E | M | E | A | |
| S | T | U | H | O | C | K | E | Y | M | O | M | |||
| O | K | E | Y | D | O | K | E | E | P | E | E | S | ||
| R | A | J | G | P | A | S | T | A | N | D | ||||
| E | N | U | R | E | S | F | L | O | W | N | ||||
| S | E | G | O | H | A | Y | E | D | G | E | ||||
| B | T | E | A | M | A | B | S | O | R | B | ||||
| D | O | U | B | T | M | I | A | N | A | B | ||||
| M | E | T | R | O | T | U | R | N | K | E | Y | S | ||
| J | O | C | K | E | Y | F | O | R | E | E | K | |||
| A | V | O | I | D | E | M | M | A | S | T | O | N | E | |
| D | I | C | T | A | D | E | U | S | E | N | O | S | ||
| A | N | T | S | Y | S | I | R | S | L | G | B | T |
★ Innovative twist for a Thursday!
If you didn't get that, we've highlighted the four KEY words below. Rotate those four KEYs 90 degrees to make sense of each Down entry.
Amazing that Lucy and Ross found enough different ways to incorporate KEY, too. The old kids' joke asks, what three keys open no locks? Answer: donkey, monkey, turkey. If I only had a shot of WHISKEY for every time I heard that!
Solid finds in OKEY DOKE, HOCKEY, and JOCKEY to flesh it out. Others I could think: JOKEY Smurf, MIKEY Day, RICHARD LEAKEY, RICKEY Henderson, and a toadying LACKEY. Crikey!
MONKEY PAW instead of MONKEYS PAW made me hitch. That is, until I saw the creepy picture Peele's production company uses. W.W. Jacobs's story seems like a nursery rhyme compared to this!
I found it confusing that UNIONISTS and EMMA STONE stole the headlines, along with ROBOT KITS and CHEYENNES. I usually dig long bonuses, but these muddied the waters. An alternate layout where the KEY themers are the longest entries would be difficult, but not impossible, especially if you went up to the max of 78 words. Minor point, though.
I've had many editors give me the stink-eye for KOD, TKOD, even KOS, saying that they look so weird. I avoid them now because the editors are the gateKEYpers, but they still seem fine to me.
Innovative, POW!-worthy idea, with a great (WARNING, PUN ALERT!) spin.
| T | O | S | H | I | B | A | R | A | C | Y | B | M | W | O | R | G | ||||
| A | R | C | A | N | U | M | I | S | H | E | C | R | A | M | B | A | M | |||
| N | E | R | D | S | R | I | N | G | P | O | P | F | A | D | D | I | E | T | S | |
| K | L | E | E | U | B | E | R | S | O | I | L | N | Y | T | ||||||
| U | S | E | S | B | A | B | Y | R | U | T | H | S | N | I | C | K | E | R | S | |
| P | E | N | T | O | N | I | S | U | E | B | U | M | R | A | P | |||||
| W | H | I | S | K | A | S | R | E | S | T | R | A | S | P | Y | |||||
| C | R | U | N | C | H | N | O | W | A | N | D | L | A | T | E | R | ||||
| E | R | I | N | S | P | I | N | Y | E | T | I | K | F | C | ||||||
| L | A | T | K | E | S | U | S | G | A | E | E | L | Y | A | O | K | ||||
| A | Y | E | W | H | O | P | P | E | R | S | S | P | R | E | E | N | Y | U | ||
| N | O | R | E | A | S | E | D | I | S | C | R | A | F | T | E | R | ||||
| N | S | A | L | A | P | S | L | E | A | F | O | A | S | T | ||||||
| M | I | L | K | Y | W | A | Y | S | T | A | R | B | U | R | S | T | ||||
| S | A | L | A | D | A | S | E | C | S | C | A | R | E | D | Y | |||||
| A | L | O | T | O | F | A | T | S | A | R | A | Y | S | A | C | |||||
| L | I | F | E | S | A | V | E | R | S | P | A | Y | D | A | Y | W | E | L | L | |
| B | T | U | J | A | Y | S | E | P | E | E | A | R | L | O | ||||||
| H | A | I | R | L | I | N | E | M | A | R | S | S | M | A | R | T | I | E | S | |
| A | B | E | U | T | E | S | A | K | I | N | P | R | O | T | E | G | E | |||
| M | A | R | G | A | S | O | S | L | O | G | E | T | S | S | E | T |
Tracy Gray and I made a puzzle like this years ago. It wasn't the first time I'd heard the idea, so I wasn't too surprised when Will Shortz said that he liked it, but some of the candy names weren't well-known enough. Given all that history, I had a strong inkling what SUGAR, SUGAR meant.
I was hoping for something different, something more novel. Perhaps a double OSE addition, playing on CABO to CABOOSE, PROP to PROPOSE? Alas, we chem nerds can't always get what we want.
I enjoyed some of the themers. MARS SMARTIES is a fun one, assuming you know what SMARTIES are. And NERDS RING POP does a nice job of changing RING into a different meaning.
Most of all, today, I appreciated the clean gridwork, such a pleasure to get in a Sunday debut. Granted, Ross was on board, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but creating a Sunday 140-word grid at your first go is like picking up a baseball bat for the first time and facing Randy Johnson. I did notice how many extra black squares they used — it's impossible to overlook 12 of them — but I'd much rather have a flood of cheater squares plus a smooth grid than a clunky solve.
Nice to get some bonuses in SCREENWRITERS and FANTASY SERIES, too. I'd love to get a couple more, but again, not at the price of a painful solving experience.
I want more creativity out of my Sunday solving experience, but I understand that's not the case for everyone — probably a majority of solvers, realistically. Most might simply want something that they can complete. Assuming they've heard of all these candy types, this puzzle might be right in their (warning: terrible pun ahead) sweet spot.