New York Times, Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Hi everyone! I'm from Woodcliff Lake, NJ, and soon to begin my second year at the University of Chicago, where I study philosophy. Other than crossword puzzles, my interests and hobbies include performing stand-up comedy, playing fantasy football, and making my own board games.

I'm not exactly sure where the idea for this puzzle stemmed from. At first, the theme only included the sound change in the answers, not the Boston-related clues. MISSING THE MOCK, for example, was just clued as "Late to the roast?" Though I had to cut a few theme answers I liked, I'm glad I could add in that second layer. I think PICK A COD ANY COD is my favorite theme answer for its evocative image. Some others that didn't make the cut include CRIMINAL AT LODGE and CREATIVES POCK.

My favorite clues I wrote are 18-Down, 54-Down, and 57-Down.

Finally, apologies to my brother Noah, the most avid New York Yankees fan I know, for such a Boston-centric theme.

Hope you all enjoyed the puzzle!

Boston, Mass, our fair city — the memories of Car Talk bring me such joy. Even decades later, I'm still MISSING THE MOCK that the humble duo brought. Such amusing self-deprecation.

The Northeastern dialect has been done many times in crosswords. Searching for commonly played-on words is an easy way to dig up examples. If you enter *COD into our Finder, you'll get a ton of "bogus" listings (where the entries are struck through), meaning that we don't add these entries to our Word List because they shouldn't be reused. In this case, GREETING COD, BIRTHDAY COD, and DISCOVER COD all come up. If you're not seeing these words on the Finder page, make sure "Show bogus entries" is checked.

That isn't to say there's no room for more, though. PICK A COD, ANY COD is a great entry that makes for a hilarious image. And MISSING THE MOCK is funnier than ACCENT MOCK or PASSING MOCK.

When dipping into a well-fished well, it's more important than ever to work in great fill. ICE ICE BABY, IN CRISIS, NICE SHOT, I SUPPOSE SO make for a fantastic quartet. Neat to get some mid-length bonuses, too — I RESIGN, and FERNERY aren't entries you see in every other crossword, and LIL KIM, MUMBAI, and KRONOS make the product even shinier.

I'm no geography buff, so STAFFA looked bizarre, but it's a place. Perfect clue, too, making me want to read up on the auspicious-sounding Fingal's Cave, written about by such luminaries as Verne and Keats. And, of course, it inspired Mendelssohn's popular Overture.

Other excellent cluing touches, too. I've seen HORA a hundred times, but I've never heard it clued with a "chairlift." And such beautiful repurposing of a common phrase, too, with [Got the point?] used to describe SCORED.

I've solved many Boston accent puzzles, but this debut still did enough to keep me interested.