47 a. Contrary to the formula above, “Get some yards?” He uses a question mark to indicate his deception. No great mathematical feat here – the input is SODS. I suspected SOwS at first, but my error was revealed when the transit entry for “to the point” was less than “direct”. (It was “live”).
1D. Although confusing clues scare me to solve, I always appreciate their answers. “A female name that consists of the first four letters of a Central American country” is ELSA, which stands for El Salvador.
35 D. Although that “kitchen counter?” No flat surface to cut and grind, you can find the right answer there: egg timer.
41 D. If a room is “isled” you can call it AISLED. I didn’t. But I’m not one of the four creators of Times Crossword History who had to include this entry in the puzzle and make it clear to solvers, so I sympathize.
Notes about the creator
There are many phrases that use the form “___ED ____” – but some of them still make sense if you remove the D at the end of the first word and add it at the beginning of the second. I ended up liking the subject entry. The move “D” over had to do double duty as a regular entrance – move over/move over – and detector. I decided this was a good thing, although I think it might annoy some people. The grid seemed a bit odd with two eight character entries and two nine character entries at the top and bottom and then a 15 character entry in the middle row. It took a few tries to find a combination that combined all five.
I think the underlying message of a puzzle should be “Look how clever the person who solved this puzzle is” rather than “Look how clever the creator is to create this impressive puzzle.” So I hope solvers get an “Aha!” moment to get into the subject, and I enjoyed doing it as much as they enjoyed solving the puzzle.
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