NYT Crossword Answers for May 31, 2024

Jump to: Tricky Clues

FRIDAY PUZZLE — When Will Shortz became crossword editor at The New York Times in 1993, he vowed to freshen up what had been largely seen by the public as a stodgy, über-intellectual endeavor. To do that, he encouraged younger constructors to submit puzzles with contemporary entries and clues. In fact, he has published the work of more teenage constructors than the three puzzle editors before him did — 63 out of the 70 whose puzzles have run since The Times began offering crosswords in 1942.

Make that 64 out of 71, as Aidan Deshong joins that illustrious club: He will graduate a week after his Times debut and will be headed to college in the fall. Congratulations, Mr. Deshong. That’s what I’d call a big month.

Tricky Clues

Those who solve the Crossword regularly know that the puzzles increase in difficulty as the week goes on (more or less), but that difficulty is sometimes about vocabulary rather than wordplay or misdirection. Here are some of the clues and the entries that stood out to me.

1A. A CAPTCHA is a program designed to distinguish between human users and bots. “One might read ‘Select all images with bicycles’” — and clicking on the correct images would allow the user to proceed to a web page, for example.

8A. Some companies GAMIFY, or incorporate fun ways to navigate, their apps or websites in order to make the experience “more fun and addicting, in a way.” Waze, the automobile navigation tool, is the first app I have encountered that does this, or at least used to. When it was introduced to the public, users could win points for reaching certain milestones, and the cars on the screen could be customized.