New York Times, Wednesday, January 6, 2021

My original seed for this puzzle was PRIDE and PREJUDICE, but unfortunately, I couldn't build a grid around that pair. I tried to prioritize phrases that could be clued differently from their across and down entries. The clue for PRIM and PROPER can also be applied to PRIM or PROPER, whereas the others need to be solved as pairs, which I think is more fun. I also had hoped to include a phrase with a repeated word like OVER and OVER, NECK and NECK, or HALF and HALF, but again, the constraints of the uniclue puzzle limited my options.

I hope you enjoyed figuring out the theme and solving the puzzle!

When the uniclue first hit the crossworld, it was mind-blowing. I remember leafing through a book of Will Shortz's favorite crosswords, stopping when I hit one that had a single list of clues. Stupid reprint publishers, you left out the Down clues! Writing an angry email: Dear morons, how could you be so idiotic to leave out an entire set of clues? Are you so uneducated that such a simple thing as Across and Down … oh. Wait, what? WHAT?! It felt brilliant.

It's a more mature category now, enough so that we have a full page dedicated to it, so uniclues need something to help them stand out. One from a few years ago had a nice twist, employing ENGLISH and ESPANOL. Neat to see the creativity in the variations.

Using X AND Y phrases is a solid approach. It didn't give me that much of an a-ha moment, though, since once I cracked STOP (AND) STARE, all the other instances became too easy.

Maybe if the first letters had spelled out something … that would have been mind-blowing, but that's also too much to ask since incorporating seven pairs of crossing answers is already tough — some will necessarily cross, like SANDALS and TRIED.

You might think, what's the problem since you can sort of separate the pairs of answers? Not true! (Unless you use many fewer pairs, of course, but having three themers would make for a terribly thin puzzle.) Any time you have two crossing answers, a constructor's job gets tougher, and when you start forcing these regions to interact, it can get ugly, quick.

It's even hard to predict where the problems will crop up. WASA is more typical, as are TROI/ROI, because they're in directly constrained areas. However, something like FOMO crossing UOMO is only an indirect result of the constraints.

Not a standout uniclue, but it's a solid one to add to the list.