Jill Singer makes her New York Times Crossword debut.
MONDAY PUZZLE — Happy Monday, solvers, and welcome to a new week of New York Times Crossword puzzles! Today’s offering comes from Jill Singer, a debut constructor whose theme is sure to make you smile at the weird ways humans use metaphors to express emotions.
Ms. Singer’s puzzle comes on a Monday, which means it’s one of the gentlest crosswords of the week. It should challenge new solvers with a few clues that use crossword conventions (like question marks) while still remaining accessible.
The Wordplay column is here to help solvers learn those conventions, and the language of crossword puzzles generally, so they can gain the confidence to tackle the puzzles as they become harder through the week. My goal, and that of my fellow columnists Deb Amlen and Caitlin Lovinger, is to help solvers make the jump from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday and so on by explaining each puzzle’s tough clues and (when applicable) theme. Hopefully, with practice and regular engagement with Wordplay, new solvers will encounter a type of clue that had previously stumped them and say, “Now it makes sense!”
Tricky Clues
7A. “Clothes line?” is a wordplay clue, as indicated by the question mark. Instead of looking for a synonym for “clothesline,” you’ll need to identify a literal line found in clothes: a SEAM.
21A. Clues that take the form “(Word) with X or Y” are looking for a word that can be found either before or after the words in the clue to create two new terms. In this case, “Word with jerk or joint,” the word is KNEE, which can go before either word in the clue to create KNEEjerk or KNEE joint.
42A. The “Prefix with sphere” is IONO: The IONOsphere is the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere found 50 to 400 miles above sea level. It has a high concentration of ions, which are useful for radio transmission purposes.
57A. I’m intrigued by the clue “What hips don’t do, per a Shakira hit” for LIE. Per my understanding of the lyrics, it’s really just Shakira’s hips that don’t LIE. I wouldn’t put it past other people’s hips to fib every now and then.
65A. I admit that the clue “6-3, 6-2 or 7-6” meant absolutely nothing to me at first. I filled in SET from the crosses, but it was only after I did an internet search that I realized these were potential scores in a tennis SET.
35D. A “Kind of phone signal that’s nearly obsolete” is a BUSY signal, which (for you young’uns out there) is the sound you’d hear if you called someone whose phone line was already in use. This clue sent me down a rabbit hole of thinking about what else about phones could be considered nearly obsolete. For one thing, it is a little weird that the phone call icon on our cellphones is still an image of a hand-held landline phone! For another, we still say “hang up” to mean “disconnect from a call,” even though most people do not literally hang up a handset to end a call anymore. Is there a word for this phenomenon?
48D. Finally, we have another wordplay misdirect in the clue “World record?” (Note the question mark!) We don’t need to identify another word for a feat that could make the Guinness World Records; instead, we need a word for a record of the world: an ATLAS.
Today’s Theme
Something’s bugging me about this puzzle that I can’t quite put my finger on … Oh! It’s the theme! As the revealer in the middle of the grid explains, the theme of this puzzle is WHAT’S BUGGING YOU (“‘Why the troubled look?’” … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 48- and 58-Across). The grid contains three expressions for emotional states that refer to bugs, each of which completes a sentence that could explain WHAT’S BUGGING YOU.
The first theme entry is split across 17A and 58A, completing the sentence in 17A’s clue: “I’m so nervous! There are …” BUTTERFLIES / IN MY STOMACH. The second theme sentence, found in the clue and entry at 24A, reads: “I can’t stop thinking about it! There’s a BEE IN MY BONNET.” Finally, our nervous and single-minded interlocutor announces: “I can’t sit still! There are ANTS IN MY PANTS.”
This certainly seems like an exhausting and uncomfortable combination of emotions to experience all at once — it would bug me, too! But the theme itself is lovely and smoothly executed, making this puzzle a fun and approachable way to kick off the solving week.
Kudos to Ms. Singer on this excellent debut! Let’s hear from her about this puzzle’s origins.
Constructor Notes
This theme came to me on a hike in Bryce Canyon, Utah. It’s not that there are a lot of bugs there, but on a long hike, my mind wanders and then empties, which seems to create fertile ground for theme ideas. Once I started thinking about bugs, I was delighted to realize how many good expressions there were, ones that I have often used myself. Ants in my pants for when I sit at a desk working on theme ideas too long — check. A bee in my bonnet for when I am trying to find a grid that works — check, check. Butterflies in my stomach for when I open an email from the New York Times Crossword editors to see if this might finally be an acceptance — check, check, check!
Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?
The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.
For tips on how to get started, read our series, “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.”
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