A Puzzle With A Porpoise (New York Times 11/24/2020)

Try this puzzle here. (NYT subscription required). Answer key below.

 I know what you’re thinking, and no, my spell check is not on the fritz. Today’s NYT Crossword, by Caitlin Reid, is built around aquatic animal puns, and I was so enamored with it, I thought I’d give one a go myself.

Admittedly, Ms. Reid’s were far superior.

The Tuesday puzzle just happens to be my weekly favorite, and today was no exception. Starting with the first themed clue: “An orca is actually a dolphin!?” I knew I was in for a treat. But it wasn’t until I read the next one that I truly understood what the author wanted. Far and away my favorite answer of the day, 37A’s clue: “Wow that’s a giant sea cow!” gave me what I needed to start solving these tricky clues.

More on that in a moment.

The puzzle started easily enough with gimme clues at 13A (Immature insect… LARVA) and 23A (Director Anderson… WES). On the down side of things, 13D produced LAWN from the clue “What a sprinkler may sprinkle” and 30D offered some light humor with “Lift provider” which ironically turned out to be UBER. A few clues later at 36D I was treated to BATSIGNAL from the clue “Summons in Gotham City.” 

What sets a Tuesday NYT puzzle apart from a Monday (and puzzles like the USA Today which maintain a flat difficulty through the week) is the inclusion of clues that seem easy but actually have more than one ‘correct’ answer that fits. 39D asked me to solve “Dream disrupter, perhaps” while 45A puzzled “Turquoise and Topaz.” At first I had APNEA for 39D which was incorrect, being instead ALARM. For 45A, either GEMS or HUES would fit both the clues and the spaces. Thankfully the clue at 45D (Panama, e.g., … HAT) cleared that one up quickly.

Today also had one of my favorite styles of clue, one that separates the answer between multiple lines across the puzzle. At 1D and 61A, I was tasked with “With 61 Across, former White House girl” both 5 word answers. Having already solved LARVA at 2A I was left with ?A??? which could work with either OBAMA daughter, SASHA or MALIA. The former was the answer this time.

The upper left and middle of the puzzle offered fairly standard clues which quickly started revealing the first of the three themed answers. Taking my first crack at “An orca is actually a dolphin!?” I had WHA??ILL?EDARNED. 

I’ll just leave that one there for your figure out on your own!

The third themed clue offered an even better answer. I had revealed the end of the answer ...ALMIGHTY, and seeing that made it click. “This is the best fish I’ve ever had!” became GREATCODALMIGHTY, a worthy pun if I’ve ever seen one.

But nothing compared to the middle themed answer. Possibly one of my all time favorites, and the one of the few times a crossword answer has made me literally laugh out loud.

 If you haven’t taken a crack at today’s puzzle, give it a go before reading on. It’s a worthy puzzle, and the satisfaction of decoding this answer for yourself is well worth it.

Done?

Ok.

37A. “Wow, that’s a giant sea cow!”

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OHTHEHUGEMANATEE

Just typing it has got me laughing again. I’ll admit it, I’m a simple guy. I’m easily amused. But it still takes a special kind of humor to make me laugh at a crossword. I thoroughly enjoyed combinations in today’s puzzle like “Light wind?” … OBOE, and “Bobs and weaves” … DOS, both of which require a certain satisfying crossword logic. But nothing beats a well thought out, truly funny pun.

Only bad thing I can say about this puzzle is that I’m disappointed it wasn’t a Sunday. I would have loved to see this humorous theme stretched out across a 21x21 grid. I wonder what other devious clues Ms. Reid could have concocted with more space.

Oh, the humanity….

 

How did you handle today's aquatic puns? Let me know in the comments! 

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