NYT Crossword Clue: Rework Making use of Cell Know-how

41D. Bear in mind when I stated — some time in the previous — that Monday puzzles had been easy to make them easy to clear up, and that you possibly wouldn’t see excellent illustrations of wordplay (lowercase “w”) until eventually you had pushed more into the 7 days? Yeah, forget about about that. One way to have “Brought up the rear?” is to have TWERKED.

Today’s Concept

A simple, Monday-degree concept that really should be excellent for newer solvers. It’s uncomplicated to resolve, when also that contains an element that should pique solvers’ interests.

If you have never ever noticed circled squares in a crossword, they are ordinarily there to indicate that those squares spell out a word contained within the entry by itself. (Occasionally they can point out a rebus, but you will not see that in a Monday puzzle). Those people words and phrases within just the topic entries will have one thing to do with the over-all topic of the puzzle. I understand that seems apparent to seasoned solvers, but it is not usually clear to another person finding up a crossword puzzle for the initially time.

Mr. Christian features us four phrases that consist of these circled squares, and each established of circled squares spells out a region on the continent of AFRICA (the revealer at 62A). Though we are at it, let us just consider a minute to bless the rains there, so that the earworm we all created courtesy of 18D (TOTO) goes absent.

Oh ideal, the topic. At 17A, the solution to the clue “Song lyric before ‘short and stout’” is I’M A LITTLE TEAPOT. The next as a result of fifth squares are circled, and people spell out MALI. Equally, the circled squares in THROWING A BONE TO at 43A spell out the state of GABON.

Constructor Notes

This puzzle started out as a collaboration with fellow constructor Gareth Bain. I arrived up with 3 of the four topic solutions. Gareth arrived up with ALBERTO GONZALES as a 15, which I preferred substantially much better than any of the other *TOGO* solutions that I experienced arrive up with. Mine ended up all a thing TO GO, TO GOLD, or TO GOD. Some of them may well have been Ok, but none of them really struck my fancy. So thank you Gareth for that.

A person of the turned down topic answers was A HUG AND A KISS (12) for UGANDA. I appreciated that just one, but I didn’t have a further good 12 to pair with it. Also, I finished up liking the thought of acquiring 4 15’s for the topic solutions, so nearly anything that was not a size 15 reply obtained tossed. Other turned down theme answers were Achieve A Dead Stop (13), Arrive at A Determination (14), TO These kinds of A Diploma (13), or PATCH ADAMS (10) for CHAD.

I wanted to finish the puzzle as a collaboration with Gareth, but he dropped out. Gareth is a veterinarian in South Africa. He said he was functioning a whole lot of prolonged hrs, experienced also numerous functions to accomplish and pretty tiny time to assemble. Gareth treats dogs that have suffered stab wounds, amid other items. I imagine we’d all concur that that’s critical work, and he was right to aim on his animal patients, alternatively than keep on to participate in this crossword puzzle collaboration task.

I could have attempted to position AFRICA (6) someplace in the grid as the expose in the Down direction, but I made a decision it would be cooler if I could get it to function in the Throughout way in the bottom proper corner. I tried using all 24 alternatives to see which yielded the cleanest fill in the lower ideal corner. There are 24 techniques to do it mainly because there are 4 opportunities for the theme remedy at 43-Throughout, 3 opportunities for the concept remedy at 56-Across and AFRICA can be at both 62-Across or 65-Across. 4 x a few x two = 24.

Once I’d put THROWING A BONE TO (15) at 43-Across and Chicken YAKITORI (15) at 56-Throughout, there ended up two techniques to spot the other two concept responses. I place I’M A Minimal TEAPOT (15) at 17-Throughout and ALBERTO GONZALES (15) at 26-Across, for the reason that that made it achievable to set UBERIZE at 10-Down, which is an entry that I definitely liked. It also assisted with TOTO at 18-Down, which did not have to be in the grid, but it was entertaining to contain that as an excess small theme tie bonus.

I have a 17-12 months-previous daughter named Kate. “Africa” is just one of her preferred songs, and she and I have witnessed Toto in live performance together. I like you Kate.

Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Instances?

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