Nancy Stark and Will Nediger serve up a delicious Wednesday puzzle.
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — What a joy of a puzzle we have today! This is Nancy Stark and Will Nediger’s fifth collaboration, and they clearly have a formula that works. There were so many standout clues in this puzzle, but I especially wanted to point out the symmetrical IRISH PUBS and SPORTS BAR at 10-Down and 32-Down, which put a big smile on my face when I filled them both in.
Full disclosure: I had a slightly tougher time on this puzzle than I would on an average Wednesday. I say that not to discourage, but instead to encourage you to stick with it. This puzzle will require you to deploy all of your crossword skills to solve and will make you a better solver for it.
Tricky Clues
24A. MESHUGA is a Yiddish word meaning crazy or foolish.
28A. “Wrangler” in this clue refers to Wrangler jeans, so LEE refers to the clothing brand.
34A. “Sting,” in the clue refers to being stung by a WASP, not to an operation designed to catch criminals. It also does not refer to the musician.
43A. I had to read this clue a few times before the words stopped looking like a disconnected collection of nouns. “The Persistence of Memory” and “Lobster Telephone” are paintings by the artist Salvador Dalí. The use of “and” in the clue makes it plural, so the answer is DALIS.
2D. Peter O’TOOLE holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations for acting without a win. He was nominated for his roles in films like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Becket.” In 2002, he was awarded an honorary Oscar.
36D. The answer here is SLAT, as in a thin, narrow strip of something.
47D. A HEIFER is a young female cow that has not given birth to a calf.
Today’s Theme
Ms. Stark and Mr. Nediger offer us three theme answers and a revealer. Let’s start by taking a look at 20-Across. We have the answer “TOO MANY COOKS,” which is clued as “Start of a saying about getting in the way.”
Now, before revealing the end of the saying, we must give a SPOILER ALERT, or a warning that the plot or end of something is about to be revealed. Each theme answer is the beginning of an idiom about spoiling something.
If you need a little help with the theme answers, click or tap on the clues below.
20A. Start of a saying about getting in the way
TOO MANY COOKS
The full saying is “TOO MANY COOKS spoil the soup (or broth, or stew).” It means that if too many people try to work on the same thing, the final product will be worse.
29A. Start of a saying about negative influence
ONE BAD APPLE
This is the start of the saying “ONE BAD APPLE spoils the bunch (or barrel),” meaning that one person’s negative behavior can influence or reflect poorly on a larger group.
45A. Start of a saying about parental discipline
SPARE THE ROD
The full saying is “SPARE THE ROD, spoil the child,” and is often misattributed to the Bible. It’s an old-fashioned saying that promotes corporal punishment.
This was such an enjoyable puzzle. I got tripped up by the theme at first because I didn’t know all the idioms, but once I got the revealer, it was smooth sailing to the end. I look forward to more collaborations from Ms. Stark and Mr. Nediger.
Constructor Notes
Nancy Stark:
I initially had an idea for a puzzle about “spoilers,” but my theme answer ideas were all over the map. Nor did I have a really good method for cluing them smoothly. I think that I had a lot of cross-referencing between the clues and the answers, and that the clues tended to be overlong.
Enter Will Nediger. First, he whittled down my theme ideas to come up with the three that were the strongest and the most internally consistent. And then he found this incredibly elegant way of cluing them: brief, clear, simple and completely fair. Provoking curiosity but giving absolutely nothing away. When I saw his solution — one I don’t think I would have thought of on my own — I may have actually shouted “Eureka!”
My second “Eureka!” was when SPOILER ALERT turned out to have the same number of letters as TOO MANY COOKS. From such serendipitous occurrences comes the untrammeled joy of the puzzle constructor :)
Will Nediger:
I’m really proud of the construction and the tightness of the theme here. In retrospect, though, I regret including “spare the rod…” in a wordplay theme (my responsibility entirely, not Nancy’s!). I tend to think of it as a quaint saying because it’s now widely understood that corporal punishment is harmful and wrong, but of course it’s not entirely a thing of the past — I apologize to anyone whose solving experience was soured by its inclusion.
Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?
The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.
For tips on how to get started, read our series, “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.”
The Tipping Point
Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.
Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
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