Jack Murtagh author page

Such a funny image, ABRAHAM Lincoln LINKIN to web pages. I wonder what he would have linked to after having his accomplishments trumped? Great spelling change, too, much more interesting than a simple EN to IN replacement.

Today's theme wasn't as interesting as other elision themes, though. For example, FOUR AND TWENTY to FOREIGN TWENTY had such a creative leap. Interesting to refresh my memory that David considered WARREN PEACE, echoed today.

When it comes to the trade-offs between color and cleanliness, there are opposing schools of thought. Patrick Berry leads one side, eschewing any sniff of glue even if it means his bonuses aren't that snazzy. He more than makes up for it in clever cluing.

The other approach is much more lenient with short answers that are clearly called out on editors' specs sheets, like ECU, ELO, RMS. I used to like SYSOP long ago, but so many IT people have criticized it recently that I lowered its score in our XWord Info Wordlist. Are all these dings worth the haloed ARCHANGEL, MR FREEZE singing on his ice skates, a fortune brought on by a MONEY TREE?

As with so much in crosswords, there's no objectively right or wrong answer. I tend more toward the Berry camp, but I also ironically loved NITPICKY.

(Note that you can make the grid much easier to fill cleanly by breaking up ARCHANGEL at the NITPICKY crossing. Eliminates ARCHANGEL, though, and we at XWord Info love our ANGELs.)

★ A while back, a friend asked me for feedback on a theme, with Aground = Ag round = SILVER BULLET. There are some periodic table haters out there, but I'm definitely not one — I loved the find, so impressively apt. I told him if he could find three others that worked so perfectly (elemental symbol + exact synonym = regular word), he'd almost definitely be on his way to an acceptance.

Jordan racing Jack reminded me of Edison jockeying with Tesla; Jack winning this War of the Crosswords. Sorry Jordan! Ah well. It's a great concept, even if you both came up with it in the same time frame.

I'm glad Will Shortz pushed back on COPPERTONE since it's not nearly as strong as something like ration = SUPPLY. Maybe if you bent over, squinted, and hummed "la la la!" while standing on one foot, you could make the case that ring = tone ... nah. Going the extra mile paid huge dividends — the final product is much better than the original set.

I was just as impressed with Jack's gridwork, lovely job with his adjacent downs, YOGI BERRA / SMELL TEST delightful entries, with no glue necessary to hold the region together. That's not difficult since both long downs run through only one themer, but so many constructors get impatient and call it good enough. The cleanliness of the entire grid shows Jack's attention to detail.

A year ago, I complained to Will that Thursdays were going downhill, with a slew of non-tricksy puzzles that were only hard for hardness's sake, tough in non-entertaining ways that didn't have a strong payoff. He disagreed, but when I gathered and presented five years of Thursday data, he didn't argue. With three consecutive Thursday POW!s now, I'm applauding Will's efforts in this area. Kudos to both Will and Jack!

What a debut! I enjoy letter homophones, and although I've seen similar plays on ESPY = S P AWARD, the rest felt fresh. I started at [Euro, Zloty] as I slowly uncovered the entry EASY ____. I got a great a-ha when EASY MONEY = E Z MONEY fell into place.

It was a little too Euro Zloty to fill in the rest after that, though since the [I C] entry had to start with ICY, M T had to start with EMPTY, etc. Such solid themer examples, though, that I didn't mind breezing through it all.

Jack impressed me with all the wonderful bonuses he wove in. That's not an easy task when you have five themers — many experienced constructors haven't gotten the hang of offsetting long downs (alternating BASTILLE DAY / SPIT IT OUT / PARTY HATS / LIBRARY CARD up/down/up/down with proper spacing). The overlaps of these bonuses create difficulties, so getting some PBA and ACCTS in those west/east regions isn't surprising.

What is surprising is that Jack kept his dabs of glue so minimal. There's no secret to it, simply an unwillingness to say "good enough."

I did find it odd to get EAZY E in the grid, both because it (sort of) duplicates EASY MONEY, but also because it's another two-letter homophone in E Z. I'd have asked for a revision there, especially since if you don't know your Keebler crackers, ZESTA might feel wildly incorrect. Experienced solvers might also think to themselves that, of course, Will Shortz wouldn't allow an EASY / EAZY dupe, so they might go with EATY E or EAVY E instead.

Overthinkers of the world, that's my tribe.

A debut rarely gets POW! consideration, but this one was right up there.

ADDED NOTE: Some readers have been confused by ESPY AWARD — it's referring to the Satellite Awards and the Pultizer Prizes. I know, that last one is much more a "prize" than an "award," but it still works.