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Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen, who is remapping his keyboard shortcuts.

Saturday puzzles ask you to dig up facts you may have forgotten (Rachel DRATCH left SNL in 2006), figure out terms at you that you may have never heard (NOSE ART?) ,or decipher what some non-English words might mean (Saya for a katana?)

But the pleasures of a Saturday puzzle can also derive from how common short words are clued. As the Inchworm song reminds us, two and two ARE (make) four. Here are some more that remind you that you're working on a late-week themeless:

• SEC: Tick or tock
• EAT: Verb whose past tense form is an anagram of its present tense
• ACE: Game 1 starter, typically (oh, it's baseball!)

Then there are some less famous names:

• ALI: Tony-winning actress Stroker
• SAL: Comedian Vulcano of "Impractical Jokers"

And some misdirections:

• USB: Port letters (not VSOP or some such)
• HAT: Hi-___ (not RES)

ROE is clued carefully these days to avoid sensitive political associations. Fortunately, it's Saturday, so we can get away with "Tobiko or masago." (You got that one right away? Well, fine.)

A TANKINI combines a tank top and a bikini bottom. You get the modesty of a one-piece, but you don't have to remove your entire swimsuit to use the toilet.

– puzzle by Evan Kalish

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen, who is flitting here and there.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat...

I memorized that poem during my childhood Edward Lear phase so I was ready to slap the right color into 41-Across immediately. Only PEA-GREEN doesn't fit. PUTTING GREEN fits "Where golfers practice short strokes" from the set of random Notepad clues, but what does that have to do with either owls or pussycats?

Tom McCoy is one of the more creative constructors. Click his photo to see his Author Page, select any of his 34 other puzzles, and you're likely to think, "I've never seen a gimmick quite like that before." He's a deep thinker about math and words, which comes through in his themes. Watch his fascinating video in the notes to his previous puzzle.

In case today's theme didn't click for you, it's a homophone initialism puzzle. Read PUTTING GREEN as P GREEN, and it sounds right. CHARLEY HORSE (which fits "Leg cramp") becomes C HORSE which, when sounded out, fits "Fish with a prehensile tail."

In a sign of cruciverbal professionalism, his long Downs are fun too. LET'S GET ON WITH IT, and WHAT'S YOUR SECRET are outstanding.

FALSE TRUTH at 53/54 Across is an interesting phrase. I presume that's something like alternative facts?

They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

They don't write poems like that anymore.

– puzzle by Tom McCoy

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is washing down his Rhode Island CLAM CAKE with a DRAFT BREW.

Not knowing either ZAZIE BEETZ or Željko IVANEK made this puzzle challenging for me. But now I know. Two extraordinary actors.

Crossword clues always allow a certain flexibility. "Flexible musical tempos" will consternate purists who insist that "tempos" should be "tempi." It's Italian, after all. But that allows the answer RUBATOS to be similarly non-snooty. I mean, it's the common way many musicians speak.

On the other hand, ask any singer what "Voi, che sapete" is, and they'll tell you it's an ARIA from Marriage of Figaro. Is it really an ARIETTA (a small aria)? Well, technically. Maybe. I suppose. This precision is the opposite of RUBATOS fuzziness. All's fair on Saturday. You may already know this tune, even if you don't recognize the name. If not, Cecilia Bartoli is the perfect singer to introduce you.

Constructor Kevin G. Der knows more about both music and the world than I do, but it was fun to remember that the Plain of Jars is in LAOS, and learn that Nollywood is Nigerian. 2,500 films a year! Lagos isn't the capital, but it's the largest city in that country.

What is the "Business of the Dutch East India Company"? I know this one! It's got to be something about spices or coffee or sugarcane. Oh, it's SEA TRADE. Generic, but ok. It's Saturday.

HIZZONER? Huh? From Political Dictionary: "William Safire has said that the term was first popularized during the mayoralty of Fiorello LaGuardia; LaGuardia, as Safire says, was definitely not a formal figure, so a nickname which played with his office's formal title sat well with him."

Oh, here's one I know for sure. Holden Caulfield's brother is, uh, D.B. something, right? Not right. He had another brother ALLIE who died before the story even started. Did I mention it's Saturday?

PS for Pool Side: Stripes and SOLIDS are the two sides in the game of pool.

– puzzle by Kevin G. Der

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is ROFL.

Sunday NYT puzzles have titles. (With rare exceptions, other days do not.) Sometimes the title gives away the trick, and for that reason, many solvers avert their eyes. Today, I was able to guess the gimmick from the title alone. Fortunately, I guessed wrong, and the real trick is more fun than just shifting ON within a word. Here's how it works:

• In the bottom half of the grid, common phrases have their terminal ONs expurgated.
• Following Conservation laws, those ONs have to go somewhere. They float up to the ends of the answers immediately above.

These theme types work best when the modifications completely change the meaning of the base text, and that's where this puzzle shines. 3-Down transmogrifies BAT to BATON. That ON was stolen from SEASON in the answer below. Oh, Cap'n, 'TIS THE SEAS is the perfect answer to "Why art thou queasy?"

Entertaining themes only get you so far on a big Sunday crossword. You also need a sprinkling of outstanding clues.

• "God whose name sounds like the ammunition he uses" is Eros (aka, Cupid) whose ammunition (!) is ARROWS. Do they sound the same? Very close!
• "Takes a car, in a way." In a way gets us thinking that this must be either something about REPO or maybe GRAND THEFT AUTO. Wrong. When one UBERS, one takes a car. I love clues that I know I could never have thought up.

This is the second recent puzzle where a word got transformed into COUP. Perhaps the next one will run on January 6.

– puzzle by Christina Iverson and Scott Hogan

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is auditioning for a solo part in "The Nutcracker."

When I saw the clue "Words on a jacket" at 22-Across, I had a horrible flashback which, of course, I now share with you:

Late-week themeless solving requires constant questioning of your assumptions. You'll find a BIO on a book jacket. (Kindle users can look up "book jacket" on the Internet. It used to be a thing.)

I should have guessed it had nothing to do with that former model. Kameron Austin Collins is a conscientious constructor who wants entries that reflect his personality, his experiences, his taste, his values. Crosswords is a game but, for better or worse, it's seen by many as outlining which areas of knowledge are important, and even what might be worthy of celebration. Crosswords should be Funshine, not yucky.

Well, DOG SLOBBER is yucky, but affectionate yucky. DEAR OLD DAD, DREAM LOVER, and CARE BEARS contribute more warmth. THOTH looks creepy, but I'm sure he was a swell guy. Er, God.

• "Emergency device in DC" refers to DC Comics or now, the DC Extended Universe.
• "Salome" is the go-to play or opera for "one-act", just like Beethoven's 6th is the de facto crossword clue for IN F.
• 1-Across reminds me of that jokey answer to Lewis Carroll's "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Because Poe wrote on both. DESK fit "something you might write on" but not for long.
• Crossword constructors often consult Google NGRAMS to determine the popularity or relative usage frequencies of words or phrases. Here's one comparing METHUSELAH, Oscar Wilde, and Salome.

– puzzle by Kameron Austin Collins

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who knows when to hold 'em, & etc.

I think I understand this one.

Step one is to figure out there's a rebus trick going on related to playing cards. Each rebus square has two parts corresponding to the value and suit of a card. The Across answers define the value (TEN, QUEEN, etc.) and the Down answers define the suit (CLUB, HEART, etc.)

For example, 1-Down and 8-Down will use the suits. 1-Down [Pop culture sister site of The Onion] refers to the web site AV CLUB, and 8-Down [Aplenty] means IN SPADES.

But 22-Across will use the values, so [Plant with clusters of tiny white flowers] is QUEEN ANNE'S LACE.

The square at the start of 22-Across will be QUEEN reading across and CLUB reading down, so the card is the Queen of Clubs. Similarly, at the end of 22-Across, it reads ACE going across and SPADE going down, so the card is the Ace of Spades.

Look at the grid. It explains this better than I can.

In Texas hold 'em, each player is dealt two cards face down, and then (eventually) five more cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table. (The detailed rules and terminology aren't important for this puzzle.)

The four Across answers near the top and bottom with two cards each represent hands dealt to four players sitting around a table. The top-left player has a Queen and an Ace. Combining with the center cards nets a pair of each. Two pair isn't bad.

The top-right player has a Two of Hearts and a King of Clubs. Not much going on here.

The bottom-left has an Ace of Clubs and a 10 of Spades. With the center cards, this player gets a Full House — two Aces and three 10s. Great hand.

Unfortunately for the others, the bottom-right player has a Jack and King of Hearts. Combining those with a 10, Queen, and Ace of Hearts from the center cards makes a Royal Flush — the best possible hand.

Over the years, there have been many attempts to combine crosswords with games like Chess or Pool or Clue or even Bowling. I admire the audacity of this attempt to combine with Poker. It's a lot of work to figure out that some random squares represent playing cards. Let's hope you love card games.

UPDATE: We've been asked how to enter the rebus values into the grids. We're not the NYT but I took a look at what their code accepts. For the Queen of Clubs, you can enter any of these options: "QUEEN", "QUEENOFCLUBS", "Q", "CLUB", "C", "QUEEN/CLUB", "CLUB/QUEEN", "Q/C", or "C/Q". The easiest would just be either Q or C, both of which work.

– puzzle by Greg Slovacek

I know what you're thinking: "Jim, is there any way that, without doing any programming, I can use the OneLook search button on the XWord Info Finder to discover more phrases that match Jeff's ?? X AND Y pattern?"

Your instinct to try the OneLook button is dead on. The standard Search button knows a lot about words but doesn't understand phrases. That is, it doesn't know where words break. The best you can do is ??*AND* which, if you'll click there to see, produces mostly crap.

OneLook search words better for this task. Click the query ?? * AND * (notice the spaces) which means start with a two-letter word, follow that up with anything, then the space-delimited word AND, and then something else.

The search does find all three of today's theme answers. Other interesting results include IN DRIBS AND DRABS, OF MICE AND MEN, IN BLACK AND WHITE, IN FITS AND STARTS, IS PART AND PARCEL, AT BECK AND CALL, TO CUT AND RUN. Not all great, but they demonstrate when our OneLook search can be handy.

Most constructors will never care about these details, but for some of us, WE LIVE AND LEARN.

– puzzle by Phoebe Gordon

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is out for a quick drive, informally.

David Steinberg is a young man with a passion for both crossword history and for advancing the artform. You may know that he led The Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, which is the only reason we have digital versions of pre-1993 NYT crosswords. You might not know that it's an ongoing concern. We get regular reports from users who spot bugs. An amazing woman named Jane Foley has found hundreds of mistakes, and she's but one of many who continue to contribute. Each error is then carefully researched by David before being updated here. It's a huge job, all for the benefit of getting history right.

Does WHOOPEE CUSHION advance the artform? Pre-Shortz editors would never have used it, but admit it, you smiled. And, yes, David passed a FART right underneath. Kids nowadays.

What are some "things people do in bars"? Do they RAWR to express appreciation for someone's level of sexual attraction? I wouldn't know, but what they do do is SHOTS.

Maybe they're looking for "Latin lovers"? Imagine their surprise when they end up going home with POPES. I hear the bedrooms at the Vatican are RAWR.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen, who will be back mañana.

John Lieb is the co-director (along with Andrew Kingsley) of the Boswords crossword tournament.

Boswords has only been going on for a few years, but it has quickly become one of the most important tournaments in the game. Like Lollapuzzoola (August 27) or ACPT (next March 31 to April 2), they have great puzzles from excellent constructors, but they stand out by having several tournaments a year and for absolutely nailing the online experience. This year you can participate virtually or in person, alone or in pairs. The summer tournament is tomorrow, July 24. Not sure if you should jump in? Go for it!

We have alternating current at our electrical sockets today because TESLA outmaneuvered Edison, who advocated for direct current. The consequences have shaped how electronics work ever since.

Marion COTILLARD is an outstanding talent with equal success in both her native French and in English. Keep an eye on her. DAR es Salaam (or just DAR) is the largest city in Tanzania. LEES is an old word for the sediment at the bottom of a wine barrel.

Slang in crosswords is controversial, AM I RITE? I'm not sure how I feel about that one.

– puzzle by John Lieb