New York Times, Wednesday, March 10, 2021

NANCY: I initially had an idea for a puzzle about "spoilers" but my many theme answer ideas were all over the map. Nor did I have a really good method for how to clue them smoothly. I think I remember that I had a lot of cross-referencing between the clue and the answer and that the clues tended to be overlong.

Enter Will Nediger. First, he whittled down my theme ideas to come up with the three that were the strongest and the most internally consistent. And then he found this incredibly elegant way of cluing them: brief, clear, simple, and completely fair. Provoking curiosity but giving absolutely nothing away. When I saw his solution — one I don't think I would have thought of on my own — I may have actually shouted "Eureka!"

My second "Eureka!" was when SPOILER ALERT turned out to have the same number of letters as TOO MANY COOKS. From such serendipitous occurrences comes the untrammeled joy of the puzzle constructor :)

WILL: I'm really proud of the construction and the tightness of the theme here. In retrospect, though, I regret including "spare the rod..." in a wordplay theme (my responsibility entirely, not Nancy's!). I tend to think of it as a quaint saying because it's now widely understood that corporal punishment is harmful and wrong, but of course, it's not entirely a thing of the past — I apologize to anyone whose solving experience was soured by its inclusion.

I say, "I'm probably overthinking this, but …" so often that I'm surprised it's not a meme. Jim Horne and I chat every week by phone, and I can always see him sitting up and rubbing his hands together every time I utter those five magical words. This week:

JIM: What confused you?

JEFF: It's probably clever, a SPOILER ALERT. But aren't the TOO MANY COOKS the spoilers? So they've already been spoiled?

JIM: No, the word SPOIL is what comes next in each saying. The very next word. Thus, a SPOILER ALERT is perfect; such devilish wordplay.

JEFF: But in that case, it should be SPOIL ALERT. It doesn't make sense as—

JIM: (hysterical laughter)

Once I solved SPARE THE ROD, I had that vague sense of unease that I would receive a flood of irate emails. I appreciate that Will Nediger acknowledged this landmine. I don't know that it's considered universally harmful and wrong, though — there are people with strong opinions on both sides.

Fantastic grid, amazing extras in IRISH PUBS / SPORTS BAR (although I wondered if there was a secondary theme in here), HOT TAKE, and fun mid-lengthers like OEUVRE and SVELTE.

I botched MESHUGA, guessing MESHUSA (sounded like Methuselah? Wasn't he a little crazy?), but that's the clue's fault, not the grid's, since both SLOB and GLOB aptly rhyme with "blob."

There's a fine line between clever and stupid, and this puzzle falls well toward the side of clever, with me heading the other way. It's such a great concept and presentation (once you stop overthinking it), but a shame that SPARE THE ROD is a lightning rod of controversy.