Today's Monday puzzle (answers) is an NYT debut for Gary Disch and it's all about NECKING. As the note points out, four theme clues hide articles of neckwear within the full answers. That additional note is what I've recently been calling a metaclue. We'll see if that one catches on.
The clue for 58 Across is an example of the NYT style guide oddity I mentioned earlier. Most people would refer to TLC without the periods. The Times insists otherwise.
I wondered about "many conundrums have them" as a clue for PUNS. Aren't conundrums just puzzling problems of any sort? What have they to do with word play, per se? (Gratuitous Latin but I liked the rhyme so I'm leaving it in!) It turns out that Mr. Disch and Mr. Shortz have this exactly right. According to the American Heritage Dictionary definition #1, a conundrum is "a riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun." I've been using this word incorrectly for years.
INPEN, meaning "permanently," is one of those clues that I imagine may reflect the influence of computers in crossword construction. Let me explain. It's not a real word, of course, and back in August 2006, Trip Payne used it to get out of a jam in a Saturday puzzle. All of a sudden it's a legitimate answer and, thanks to computer databases, it's now available for fill software to use. Sure enough, we're up to five occurrences now.
Similarly, yesterday's Sunday puzzle with the intentional misspellings makes me wonder if millenium (sic) might start showing up in future puzzles since it's been "legitimized" in an NYT crossword now, or at least some dumb computer might think so. We'll have to wait and see.
There was a post to the Cruciverb-L list reminding constructors who add current puzzle answers to their database that they should be sure to zap the misspelled answers (which should be tagged as theme answers in the cruciverb.com database). And if that doesn't work, I'm skeptical that things like "millenium" will make it into high-quality published crosswords. You don't think editors and test solvers would notice?
Are you suggesting that INPEN is somehow inferior crossword fill? NASCARFAN ain't a word either, and it's still good fill.
Posted by: Orange | April 27, 2008 at 10:05 PM
m-w.com says that the etymology of "conundrum" is unknown. it certainly looks like a weird word. now i'm very curious how it came into being.
speaking of etymology, i'd like to second bill's suggestion from the other day that "metaclue" be repurposed for what we (well, some of us) have been calling a quarfoot. i don't really think it's an apt description of the special instructions, since it's not really a clue. more to the point, i don't think we really need a word for that.
we do still need a word for multi-word answers where one or more of the "words" is a single letter. but i've had my go at this and it went over poorly, so i'm just going to wait for somebody else to suggest something brilliant.
Posted by: joon | April 28, 2008 at 08:21 AM
@ Orange: yes, I do think NASCAR FAN is a geat clue while IN PEN strikes me as awkward. A common adjective-noun phrase always seems ok to me while preposition-noun seems less elegant.
Posted by: JimH | April 28, 2008 at 08:43 AM
@joon: the good things about "quarfoot" are that it sounds word-related and is easy to remember. Though its adaptation would be unfair to those who had used the trick for years (let alone the brave soul who first thought of it), it just seems to work. I agree that calling an answer "----Clue" ain't so hot. What I would love is if we could work the term "humecronym" into the mix somehow.
Posted by: KarmaSartre | April 28, 2008 at 09:50 AM
That's brilliant! From now on, a humecronym is my favorite kind of clue. The fact that it's undefined is, I admit, a little inconvenient.
Posted by: JimH | April 28, 2008 at 10:17 AM
For some reason that made acrobatonym pop into my head, which I suppose is a clue where you really need to twist the meaning of the words to get the answer to fit.
Posted by: SethG | April 28, 2008 at 10:45 AM