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Hi Stu,

Thanks for your nice note.

Usually when we'd like extensive changes in a grid, we return it to the constructor to make them.

In this case, though, your puzzle had already been on file for a year. We selected it to edit the clues. In looking over the grid, we thought it could be improved. Entries that felt overly crosswordy or subpar included REVE, ENATE, OMS, ILONA, DAREST, ALOP, LENYA, and SCAG. At this point we didn't want to return the puzzle, which would have delayed its appearance even longer. So Joel made the changes himself.

One important thing to keep in mind is that the standards for fill keep rising. Puzzles that we accepted in the past might not make the grade today. And your puzzle, whose fill we thought was not bad at the time of acceptance, we thought by today's standards could benefit from a brush-up.

I hope this explains a little further — and that you're happy with how the puzzle turned out.

– puzzle by Stu Ockman

(copied from Wordplay)

I'm very sorry for the distraction about BEANER (2D) in today's fine puzzle by Gary Cee.

Neither Joel [Fagliano] nor I had ever heard the slur before — and I don't know anyone who would use it. Maybe we live in rarefied circles.

In researching this puzzle, we discovered the other meaning of the word as a slur. Later, Jeff Chen over at XWord Info brought it to our attention as well.

My feeling, rightly or wrongly, is that any benign meaning of a word is fair game for a crossword. This is an issue that comes up occasionally with entries like GO O.K. (which we clued last April as "Proceed all right," but which as a solid word is a slur), CHINK (benign in the sense as a chink in one's armor), etc. These are legitimate words.

Perhaps I need to rethink this opinion if enough solvers are bothered. I want your focus to be on the puzzle rather than being distracted by side issues. But I assure you this viewpoint is expressed with a pure heart.

Meanwhile, for any solver who was offended by 2-Down in today's puzzle, I apologize.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

Will Shortz posted a correction at nytimes.com reproduced here:

SPECIAL POST — Lots of complaints about the answer LENE (16-Across — "Voiceless consonant like "b" or "p") in today's crossword.

In short, those who wrote in are right: It's a poor answer, and the clue is wrong to boot. Here's what happened:

In the late stages of editing, we noticed that the grid contained both CRIERS (5D) and FAR CRY (53A). While this doesn't officially break my rule about duplications, which I can discuss sometime, it seemed inelegant. The simplest "fix" was to change CRIERS to PLIERS, making PLAY and LENE reading across. LENE is an old bit of crosswordese, used 90 times in the Times crossword before I became the editor, usually clued as "Unaspirated" or "Unaspirated consonant."

Because I figured few solvers today know what LENE means (the last dictionary it seems to have appeared in is Webster's Second New International in 1934, where it was already labeled "rare"), I decided to spell it out with examples. Unfortunately, the example "b" is wrong. That is a voiced consonant, not a voiceless one.

In retrospect, as the commenter Byron suggested at Crosswordfiend.com, I should have left the semi-duplication FAR CRY/CRIERS as it was. That would have been preferable to the obscure and ugly LENE.

The online version of the puzzle has now been restored to CRIERS/CLAY/RENE, which all future solvers will see. Of course, nothing can be done now about the print version of the puzzle. A correction on the clue error should appear shortly.

– puzzle by Stu Ockman

There is an old joke that prisoners make good crossword constructors because they have a lot of time on their hands.

In my 23+ years at the Times, I haven't found this to be the case. I've rarely gotten submissions from people in prison, and Lonnie Burton is the first one I've ever accepted a puzzle from.

Lonnie's theme of 007 actors is straightforward and unremarkable. I'm sure it's been done before. What tickled me about this version was the grid number "007," as well as the elegance of crossing the answer there with one of the theme entries. That's brilliant.

I asked Lonnie to tell me about himself and how he makes crosswords — which can't be easy to do in prison. A condensed version of his response appears below.

I'm a strong believer in redemption and the capacity of people to change. No matter what Lonnie has done in the past, which landed him in prison, I admire him for what he's doing now.

– puzzle by Lonnie Burton

Before scheduling today's puzzle, Joel and I gave a lot of thought to the answer GHETTO BLASTER (33A), worrying that some solvers might object. Certain sources, such as Wikipedia, say it's pejorative, and it's not my goal to disparage or hurt anyone.

But after a lot of discussion, soul-searching and research, we decided it's fair game.

First, an online search shows thousands of recent uses in BBC News, Slate, GQ and other respected media. An article last March in Rolling Stone magazine used the term in its very first sentence. And the entry on "political correctness" in the style manual for The Economist — after declaring "Do not labor to avoid imaginary insults" — specifically mentions "ghetto blaster" as an example.

We also asked a prominent African-American crossword constructor about the term, who personally had no problem with it.

The Times itself has used the phrase 15 times, including in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2012.

On the plus side, GHETTO BLASTER is a lively answer that has never appeared in a New York Times crossword before. It did appear last year in a diagramless puzzle in The Times. It also appeared in a 2010 crossword in The Los Angeles Times, indicating that another quality venue has also approved it.

All things considered, I think it passes muster.

– puzzle by James Mulhern

[Continuing from yesterday] My assistant, Joel, taped us editing yesterday's and today's puzzle, and he transcribed a bit of our discussion each day. It illustrates our process as well as our back-and-forth, which sometimes goes off on tangents. Below, we're working on the clue for 61-Across, BREAKFAST. The constructor's clue was "Morning meal ... or what this puzzle's theme entries do?"

Will: Hmm, well, that's awfully easy. Shouldn't we hide the revealer a little bit?

Joel: Right.

Joel: "IHOP speciality."

Will: "24-hour McDonald's offering, now."

Joel: That's kinda fun.

Will: Yeah. That's like an ad for McDonald's, though.

Joel: Well, I think they're doing okay.

Will: [laughs] You don't think they need us? Their stock price won't go up because of us?

[long pause]

Will: Morning ritual?

Joel: Ritual … hmm.

Will: Comb your hair, shower, breakfast.

Joel: I was looking up quotes about breakfast. Steven Wright: "I went to a restaurant that served 'Breakfast At Any Time.' So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance." [laughs]. All right, I thought there might be some quotes about breakfast, but, wasn't meant to be.

Will: Morning tradition? Morning staple?

Joel: Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast. Well … waffles, cereal, oatmeal, pancakes ...

Will: "Oatmeal or waffles, e.g." You think those equal breakfast?

Joel: Let's keep thinking. Breakfast … [pause] It's sometimes skipped in the morning?

Will: Rope.

Joel: Yeah, I don't know what the hell else that could be.

Will: I really don't mind "IHOP specialty," except it feels so commercial, especially because it's a theme answer. The whole puzzle hinges on this.

Joel: Hmm. This bothers you more than it bothers me. Because in my minis all the time, there's just brands left and right. I never feel like I'm selling out to them or doing them a favor or anything. It's just something me and the solver share in common. We both know what this thing is, so it's like a touchstone.

Will: There's a lot of brand names in the main crossword, too. I just try not to put too much attention on them. They should be incidental. And here, since it involves the key answer in the puzzle, it's sort of like throwing IHOP in your face.

Joel: That's why you don't like the McDonald's thing either?

Will: Yeah, even more so, 'cause that's new, so it's even more of an advertisement. "Hey guys, McDonald's has this new thing ..."

Joel: "After this commercial break, you can continue solving …"

Will: At least with IHOP, breakfast there is part of our long-standing culture.

Joel: Could say … "Coffee go-with"?

Will: "It follows a shower"?

Joel: It might not. I usually eat something before I shower.

Will: How's this for an ad … "Free Hampton Inn offering"! [laughs]

Joel: That's not a terrible idea, actually. We could do something like "Motel freebie."

Will: Uh-huh. "Motel freebie, nowadays." "Freebie" is weird, though. Freebie's like a mint on your pillow.

Joel: … "amenity"?

Will: That's better. O.K. … "Modern motel amenity." [scribbles it down]

Will: You know, when I started at the Times in '93, and I introduced commercial names into the puzzle, a lot of people really hated that. There were complaints for a couple of years, especially from older solvers. But I knew people would eventually come around. Either that ... or they'd die! Now maybe I'm on the conservative end of things.

Joel: Maybe it's just that brands are part of my … they're just everywhere, and they connect with people on Twitter and stuff. So I don't really think twice when I see one in the puzzle.

Will: Yeah, times have changed.

– puzzle by Neville Fogarty

In case anyone is curious about how crossword clues are fact-checked and edited, my assistant, Joel, taped us editing today's and tomorrow's puzzles, and he's transcribed a bit of our discussion each day. It illustrates our process as well as our back-and-forth, which sometimes goes off on tangents. We work together at a desk in my office. I'm on an iPad, surrounded by dictionaries and books. Joel sits next to me at the main computer. Below, we're working on the clue for 2-Down, VERDI. The constructor's given clue was "'Rigoletto' composer."

Will: Verdi. Hmm. [Reaches for the Oxford Dictionary of Opera]

Joel: How many people do you think own the Oxford Dictionary of Opera?

Will: Not many, not many. You know, I was thinking the other day ... I have not updated my reference library in a while. I think it's because ... I don't feel I need to. Just about everything is online. I wonder if most of these books are even being produced anymore. If I go to the bookstore and look in the reference section ...

Joel: [pointing to another book on the shelf] Well, you're not going to find Milton Cross's "Complete Stories of the Great Operas," probably.

Will: That's out of print. Great reference, though.

Joel: When was this made … oh, two dollars, good for you. Oh, 1952. It smells like an old book.

Will: It's still worth having, because I feel, first of all, I can trust it. And, second, I know my books so well that sometimes I can look things up faster in books than I can online.

[pause]

Will: [Thinking back to the constructor's clue for 1-Down, "When Carmen dies, in 'Carmen,'" for the answer ACT IV] Is there any operatic character who dies in Act IV in a Verdi opera?

Joel: Phew, jeez, what a question. What a question to make me go and research …

Will: [newscaster voice] Over to you, Joel!

Joel: Okay, Verdi operas ... [sound of typing]

Will: Let's see … how many acts are there in "Rigoletto"?

Joel: Well, Verdi did do "Otello," and definitely a bunch of people die in "Otello," so ...

Will: "Rigoletto" has only three acts, so that's not going to work.

Joel: So when do, like, Desdemona or Iago, when do they die? [muttering] Act IV, Act IV …

Will: Ah! "Otello" has four acts.

Joel: Yeah, Desdemona dies. And then everybody dies in the last act as per Shakespeare's every other play.

Will: Hmm.

Joel: So we can say "When Desdemona dies, in 'Otello,'" and then we can say "'Otello' composer" for VERDI.

Will: Yeah. Actually, I like your first idea for ACT IV, or the first thing you said: "When everyone dies, in 'Otello.'"

Joel: [laughs] Well, I don't know if that's true, if everybody dies.

Will: Well, obviously not everyone.

Joel: It looks like in the opera, Otello is about to commit suicide and then they do a fade-to-black thing.

Will: [quoting the book] "Otello stabs himself, kissing Desdemona as he dies." Huh. How about "When Otello dies, in 'Otello'"?

Joel: Yeah, that's snappier.

Will: [laughs] Yeah, it's got that echo. Nancy [Schuster] will love us for back-to-back opera clues.

– puzzle by Jason Mueller

As John indicates, we spent a lot of time working to get the best set of 10-letter names of famous people with the initials A.M. Ethnic diversity and gender balance were serious considerations, as always, but other factors are just as important.

ANNE MURRAY was on our short list for this puzzle, but we didn't consider her to be nearly as famous as ANDY MURRAY. Anne Murray's last hit was in 1981, 34 years ago, whereas Andy Murray is a current tennis player who won Wimbledon as recently at 2013. ALICE MUNRO was also considered — but for a Monday puzzle we judged Andy Murray to be the best known.

Also, as a general matter it has to be acknowledged that there are a lot more famous men than famous women. In the "Noted Personalities" section of the World Almanac, for example, men outnumber women by more than 5 to 1. So naturally themes based on famous people's names are likely to have more men than women.

My main goal in a puzzle like today's is to have a broad range of generally familiar names, and I think today's set achieves that. To expect 50/50 gender balance is unrealistic, and insisting on such a balance in every puzzle would lead to inferior work.

– puzzle by John Westwig

Roy constructed this puzzle shortly after American Pharoah won the Preakness in May. We had an understanding: If American Pharoah wins the Belmont (and, thus, the Triple Crown) on June 6, I will then rush the puzzle into print. If not, his beautiful work will go to waste.

In a sense, Roy had a $300 paycheck riding on the outcome!

Fortunately, American Pharoah did win. The race took place on Saturday evening. I edited and typeset the puzzle on Sunday morning. The testers solved it and got me their comments by afternoon. I polished the clues. Ellen Ripstein went to the Times on Sunday night to prepare the files in all the formats for both print and online. Et voilà! Done with time to spare.

Conceivably, we could have rushed the puzzle into print on Monday, bumping the puzzle that was already scheduled then. But the Times crossword now appears in so many formats that a last-minute swap isn't easy. There would have been a serious chance for a screw-up somewhere besides. So Tuesday was safer, and the puzzle's theme and fill felt more Tuesdayish anyway.

A couple of notes on the clues:

• While the puzzle has no specific mention of the "reveal," the Triple Crown, the clues for 22A ("Home of the Belmont Stakes") and 10D ("Louisville and Baltimore") do suggest all three legs of the title. I was pleased with that.
• For 1D, WAR, I debated a long time about using the clue "___ Admiral," referring to the Triple Crown winner of 1937. I finally decided not to, as that would have muddied the theme. But I did include a backhanded reference to War Admiral's sire, and a great racehorse in its own right, with the ship reference "Man-o'-___."
• One other semi-thematic clue was "Infield, for one" (AREA), referring to the interior part of a racetrack.

Altogether I think this turned out well. Thank you, Roy (and American Pharoah)!

The previously scheduled June 9 puzzle will now appear on June 30 instead.

– puzzle by Roy Leban

Is today's theme consistent? It depends on how you interpret it. By spelling, no ... but phonetically, yes, it works.

KATYDIDN'T, MATHISN'T and BUSHWASN'T are pretty tight. These all add -N'T to familiar words/names to turn a verb at the end into a negative contraction. So far so good.

CATSCAN'T is slightly different, but not in a bad way. Because CAN already ends in an N, you only need to add -'T to complete the contraction. Probably not many solvers will be bothered by that.

The sticky example is ANIMUSTN'T, which adds -TN'T. That would be a deal-breaker — reason for instant rejection — if the theme's consistency were judged solely by spelling. But since the first T of ANIMUSTN'T is silent, this theme example works likes the others when said out loud. So the whole theme is consistent in that way.

Some solvers may object to the puzzle's loose phonetics. Technically, MATHIS ends in an "s" sound, which turns into a "z" sound in ISN'T. Also, the "a" sounds in BUSHWAS ("ah") and WASN'T ("uh") aren't quite the same. You have to say these two examples quickly for them to work.

I'm willing to do that for such a fresh, amusing, and otherwise super-specific theme.

– puzzle by Jim Quinlan

As I wrote for yesterday's Beatles-themed puzzle, the stacking of 15-letter entries at the top and bottom adversely affected some of the fill. Not too badly, but still. It definitely had some non-Mondayish and subpar answers.

Today's puzzle has a different issue with the fill. The "stunt" of constructing the grid using only eight different letters of the alphabet resulted in a blander, more crosswordy grid than usual. Nothing truly awful, I think, but you've probably seen most of today's entries dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of times.

On the plus side, every answer here of eight or more letters is good to great. Bruce chose these with care. The puzzle's girders are genuinely strong, which is important even for a stunt. Having the simultaneously thematic and explanatory EIGHT smack-dab in the middle of the grid is a nice bonus.

Then, above everything else, there's Bruce's feat of producing a pretty-clean grid using only eight different letters of the alphabet.

Wow. I doff my hat.

– puzzle by Bruce Haight

Crossword constructing is a little like writing a palindrome. You want to write something as sensible and natural as possible. Still, there's the constraint that the thing has to read backward and forward the same, and chances are it's going to sound a little awkward.

Straw? No, too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts.

No one writes this way normally. But I look on a long palindrome like this and I marvel. It's a stunt, of a sort, and a very cool one.

Similarly, the Monday and Tuesday crosswords this week are "stunt puzzles," in which the constructor has started with some peculiar thematic constraint that compromises the fill.

The constraint in today's debut by Alex Silverman is the stacking of names of 15-letter Beatles songs at the top and bottom of the grid. I don't remember seeing thematic stacking like this before, and it bowls me over . The puzzle's subject, the Beatles, gives me good feelings besides.

The downside of the constraint, of course, is some non-Mondayish or less-than-stellar vocabulary. You can list it as well as I can.

For any stunt puzzle, I weigh the amazingness of the theme, and the difficulty of the constraint, versus how compromised the vocabulary is as a result. It's a balance. For an amazing stunt, I may make major allowances. For a smaller one, not so much. Both today and tomorrow, I think, the compromises are fairly modest and well worth tolerating to get the wow.

I won't spoil tomorrow's puzzle, but will say only that it involves a different sort of stunt with a different issue with the fill.

In both puzzles I hope you can make the same allowances I do to appreciate what's cool.

– puzzle by Alex Silverman

I remember when I accepted my first triple-triple-stacked crossword for the Times. It was by the illustrious, triply-named Martin Ashwood-Smith back in 2000. I rushed it into print on May 19 of that year, because I thought it was so cool.

Over time, though, I've become a little less enchanted with triple-triple stacking, partly because, well, it's been done multiple times now (22 times, including today, according to XWord Info). Also:

1. Today's grid design is inherently flawed, because there's so little connection among the three parts of the grid. Just two letters link the top to the middle, and two others link the middle to the bottom. An elegant grid provides greater flow among the sections, giving the solver more options for how to proceed.
2. This grid has an oversupply of three-, four- and five-letter words. Of the 70 entries here, 56 (or fully 80%) are of these short lengths. And almost necessarily there's a lot of crosswordy stuff, like EHS, ITEA, USM, EDUC, ENES, SETT, EAR TO, POA, EDT, SO HOT, EFS, ADAS, IAL, LESE, OREN, etc. Altogether these don't make for lively solving.

What sold me on this puzzle, when I accepted it in April 2012, was the liveliness of the nine 15s. Every one of them is a gem, in my opinion. So the puzzle does provide some genuine pleasures, and I give Fred Healy major kudos for these.

But this is to report ... today's crossword is the last triple-triple-stacked puzzle in my files. And it's likely to be the last one I publish.

I'm still a sucker for elegant construction challenges, including crazy stacking, but it's time for this design to be retired.

– puzzle by Frederick J. Healy

Hi Jeff,

Your description on XWord Info today sounds about right. When Joel and I look at submissions, we mark them up with our reactions — check marks for entries we like, minus signs for ones we don't, x's for things we won't accept, question marks for entries we have to think about (like, hmm, is this really an in-the-language phrase?), and "ck" for stuff we need to check.

The size of these marks indicates the strength of our feelings. For example, OONA might get a small ding for being crosswordese, whereas E LEE would get a big demerit for being something we really, really don't want to use.

When we're done, we look over the manuscript as a whole, weighing the pluses and minuses, in deciding whether we want to accept the puzzle or not.

As for Elizabeth's puzzle today, we liked CALL A CAB, MANGANESE, SCULLERY, and WOODSY. On the minus side, PIELIKE gave us pause, and the grid has a modest amount of crosswordese. Joel revised the lower-left corner to remove the crosswordy ZASU and ANAS. He also looked at improving other areas, but didn't see a way to do this without making wholesale changes in the construction, which we didn't want.

The theme is really what sold me on this puzzle. I thought it was different and amusing. Of course, we timed its publication for the release of the movie "Fifty Shades of Grey."

I believe Elizabeth constructs without a computer (her grids are hand-drawn), so I give her big props for that.

--Will

– puzzle by Elizabeth A. Long

Somehow over time, Thursday has gotten the reputation of being the "trickster" day for the Times crossword. This is when you're most likely to encounter a rebus, answers that read in unorthodox directions, letters getting entered onto black squares or outside the grid, etc.

In truth, though, at least to me, Thursday is just supposed to be harder than Wednesday and easier than Friday. That is all.

Today's puzzle has about as untricky a theme as you'll find — three 15-letter song titles Across intersecting three other 15-letter song titles Down. Amazing. How did Mike find this?! All are titles of truly big songs that are familar to me (although 4D, just barely — that's a little before my time). The construction is pretty damn clean, too.

What makes this a Thursday? Partly it's the puzzle's 72-word word count, which is low enough to meet themeless Friday/Saturday standards. And partly it's that not everyone may know all these titles, in which case they're not so easy to fill in. Naturally, the cluing level has been pitched to a Thursday level to keep everything in sync.

If you like your Thursday themes trickier than this, hang on for future weeks. I've got some doozies on the way. But sometimes a Thursday theme can come in a straightforward variety, too.

– puzzle by Mike Buckley

By my count David's grid has 19 proper names out of 72 answers — a higher percentage than I like, honestly — and it's tricky to know exactly how hard to write their clues. Most proper names involve either-you-know-it-or-you-don't trivia. If the clues for SUSIE, ELIE, CECE, EDWIN, RENEE, and VALERIE, for example, reference obscure people, then you probably have to piece them together letter by letter from the crossings. That isn't much fun, especially when you have to do this repeatedly. On the other hand, if their clues all involve well-known people, then the puzzle becomes too easy. I hope I struck a happy balance here. But hitting just the right difficulty level for solvers on a name-heavy puzzle is an almost impossible task.

With that said, David's puzzle is still excellent work. Besides 1A, I like EXCUSE YOU, PATS DRY, BREZHNEV, DROID RAZR, ZEPPO MARX, REDDI-WIP, OSSO BUCO, WIIMOTES, and PFIZER, and other things. And there's very little in the grid that's bad. That's expert puzzle-making.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

This 17x17 crossword (a first for the daily Times) has a curious history. It was originally slated for Puzzle #5 at last March's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. By tradition, Puzzle #5 is the killer of the event — the one that separates the champion solvers from everyone else. Trip sent me the puzzle by email on Jan. 8. I loved it, printed it out, and, because it was early, set it on top of my office printer.

A few weeks later the website Business Insider came to interview me at my home. We'd agreed beforehand they would interview me in my living room, but after wandering around my house, they asked if they could set me up in my office instead. At that point I had forgotten all about Trip's puzzle, which was nowhere near the desk where I sat anyway, so I said yes.

Well, wouldn't you know it, during the course of the interview the cameraperson panned around my office, including the printer, stopping, in fact, to dwell for four seconds on Trip's puzzle, which just happened to say across the top: "2014 ACPT Puzzle 5." Sometime after the interview was posted online, a friend who'd seen it emailed me, "Can that possibly be Puzzle #5 at this year's ACPT?" Arrrgggh!

At that point Trip didn't have time to make a new Puzzle #5 for the tournament, so Brendan Quigley stepped in instead. Meanwhile, I still loved Trip's puzzle. Since it was spoiled for the ACPT, I asked him if I could run it in the Times. He graciously agreed. It's probably better suited for the Times, anyway, because this way you have more time to appreciate the theme. It's not something meant to be raced through.

– puzzle by Trip Payne