I’ve been doing the NYT crossword regularly the past year or so.
NYT crosswords often have tricks, either in the clues themselves or patterns in the puzzle. Will Shortz commented on one of his favourite clues Q: “It may turn into another story” A: Spiral Staircase.
There are others I’ve found sneaky, eg Q: Greek Leader. A: Alpha
Today’s puzzle had for example Q: Whopper Junior A: Fib
2. Some puzzles have rebus answers, where more than one letter will fill a single square. It’s not obvious when this is the case
3. Sometimes there is an overall pattern to the puzzle. One recent example was a rebus where several squares had double O rebuses in single square. If you connected these squares together they formed the shape of a 7, ie 007. A few clues on the puzzle related to James Bond and would be meaningless without this context, eg the clue would mention a range of years and the answers were Sean Connery or Daniel Craig.
NYT crosswords often have tricks, either in the clues themselves or patterns in the puzzle. Will Shortz commented on one of his favourite clues Q: “It may turn into another story” A: Spiral Staircase.
There are others I’ve found sneaky, eg Q: Greek Leader. A: Alpha
Today’s puzzle had for example Q: Whopper Junior A: Fib
2. Some puzzles have rebus answers, where more than one letter will fill a single square. It’s not obvious when this is the case
3. Sometimes there is an overall pattern to the puzzle. One recent example was a rebus where several squares had double O rebuses in single square. If you connected these squares together they formed the shape of a 7, ie 007. A few clues on the puzzle related to James Bond and would be meaningless without this context, eg the clue would mention a range of years and the answers were Sean Connery or Daniel Craig.