Finding your way into Jacob McDermott’s puzzle may be a challenge.
Jump to: Tricky Clues
FRIDAY PUZZLE — Here at the Wordplay headquarters, we usually give beginning solvers two pieces of advice: Start with Mondays and solve your “gimmes” first. Gimmes are those entries you definitely know.
By the time solvers work their way to the Friday puzzles, finding those gimmes becomes harder because the clues are considerably more opaque.
You don’t believe me? Let’s look at an example, RAYON, a fairly common entry in puzzles. (RAYON is a random choice to avoid spoilers; the word is not in Jacob McDermott’s puzzle.)
Some early-week clues for RAYON include [Synthetic fabric] and [Synthetic fabric that feels like silk]. With those clues and one or two crossing entries, most people would probably be able to figure it out. When the word has appeared on Fridays, however, some of the clues have included [So-called “laboratory’s first gift to the loom”] and [Chardonnet’s invention]. You can see how finding a way into some late-week puzzles might be difficult.
That’s how I felt when I read the clue list for Mr. McDermott’s puzzle. On my first pass, I was able to fill in a bit of the eastern section of the grid, starting with 33A. (Don’t judge, I never said I was classy.) And that was it. I was stuck.
My heart sank a little, which I actually consider to be a good sign for a Friday puzzle. It means that there is going to be a hopefully fun tug of war between me and the constructor. But the sinking feeling is also a signal to put the puzzle down and come back to it later. No sense in getting frustrated, right?
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
