NYT Crossword Answers for March 26, 2024

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TUESDAY PUZZLE — A handful of clues in today’s crossword, which was constructed by Laura Dershewitz and Katherine Baicker, share almost identical wording — a nod, perhaps, to a different kind of matching contained in the puzzle’s theme — so, let’s take a minute to talk about twin clues. Actually, since the wording of pairs in this puzzle isn’t completely identical, we’ll call them fraternal twin clues.

Newer solvers may wonder why, if a clue like “Fairy tale monster” (36D) solves to OGRE, a later clue reading “Fairy tale monsters” (47D) doesn’t solve to “ogres,” but to GIANTS. The answer is anticlimactic, but I’m going to say it anyway: “Ogres” would be too easy. Clues never repeat by accident, and repetition exists only to misdirect you or to add variety. In the case of “Get moving” (1A) and “Get moving?” (6A), we have to interpret the same words in two different ways. To “Get moving,” as in to travel with some urgency, is to SCOOT. But “Get moving?” uses a question mark to indicate an unlikely, more forceful use of the phrase: to PROD someone — a cow, perhaps — to go somewhere.

Now, shall we get solving?

Today’s Theme

Whether you learned about the art of “fallacious argument” (34A) on your high school debate team or by listening to American politicians speak, I hope you were able to employ it here as a phonetic “hint to the answers to the starred clues.”

At 17-Across, a “Mint on a pillow, maybe?” is our first of these clues. We find such an amenity most often in a HOTEL SUITE — and it happens to be a SWEET. That makes it a HOTEL SUITE SWEET, for those following along. And wouldn’t you consider “Pippi Longstocking” (27A) a kind of PIGTAIL TALE?

I trust you’re liking the sound of this. Ms. Dershewitz and Ms. Baicker have deployed an AD HOMINEM (34A) attack on our senses by adding homonyms to each starred entry. My favorite of these was the spanner at 57A: “Mother superior?” is a SECOND-TO-NONE NUN.