NYT Crossword Answers for Dec. 4, 2024

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Have you ever panicked in a corn maze? That’s the best analogy I can think of for the experience I had while solving Daniel Raymon’s crossword: I got a little lost, then very lost, and for a minute there I worried I’d never find my way out.

Mr. Raymon’s puzzle features some truly impish cluing, and his theme is, to use a pet phrase of Prue Leith’s from “Great British Baking Show,” a little triumph. But there’s a whole lot to do before figuring out what that theme is. The challenge begins at 1-Across, with [Cry in a pool game] — a pool clue that has nothing to do with billiards, for once — and it doesn’t let up until the very end, at 65-Down.

Today’s Theme

Four of today’s clues are simply bits of punctuation: [”] at 20A, [.] at 26A, [–] at 48A and [/] at 56A. These marks can hold several meanings: The symbol at 48A, for instance, could be a minus sign or a hyphen. In this case, it means “dash” — in other words, to MAKE A RUN FOR IT.

The quotation mark is sometimes simply called a “quote,” which is a PRICE ESTIMATE. The “period” indicates STRETCH OF TIME, and the forward slash is just Slash, the ROCK GUITARIST of Guns N’ Roses.

These plays on punctuation left me speechless, so I have no further comments — or rather, commas.

Tricky Clues

1A. This clue refers not to the game of pool but to a game played in a swimming pool, so the [Cry in a pool game] is MARCO.