NYT Crossword Answers for Feb. 6, 2024

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

TUESDAY PUZZLE — Those who know me have learned that I tend to involuntarily vocalize. I yelp during suspenseful movies; I sigh while reading an emotional book; and I chuckle when I discover particularly clever crossword entries, a hearty handful of which can be found in today’s puzzle by Victor Barocas.

This is Mr. Barocas’s 20th crossword for The New York Times, and you can be certain that my colleagues were treated to periodic cackles while I solved it. It’s nice to know that, even as constructors become more experienced, they never tire of keeping puzzlers on our toes.

Today’s Theme

I was giddy about discovering today’s revealer because, while I didn’t know exactly what was going on with the themed entries, I could see that they were common expressions that had somehow been altered.

The “Gist of a Dear John letter?” (21A), for example, is LOVE DONE, as in a breakup note. But since there are no spaces in the grid, my brain also read it as the more natural phrase LOVED ONE. Ditto with “Tinkling racket on a windy day?” (54A). That’s a CHIME DIN, though I’d normally read this string of letters as CHIMED IN.

62-Across reveals there’s more to this game than just a few clever punchlines. Parsed in a certain way, “Change a map of southern England?” tells us what we “need to do to the answers to the starred clues.” It’s MOVE DOVER — which can also be read as MOVED OVER, in the style of the other odd entries, but cracks the formula when read as MOVE “D” OVER.