Thursday puzzles are what makes solving NYT Crossword puzzles worth the bother.   Few unfathomable clue/answer combinations and an interesting twist.   Sometimes their just puns that just, well, ok, but it does help to understand the possible things that happen to puzzle on Thursday.  What’s called a rebus in crossword-puzzle-land can be simply described as when you put more than one letter into a single square.

A “rebus” is, well, this is one of the more fun possibilities for a Thursday NYT puzzle theme.   Today’s puzzle makes wonderful use of a rebus.

As a solver, the first thing that makes you wonder if there’s a rebus in the puzzle, is simply the fact that it’s NYT Thursday’s puzzle.  Rarely they’ll pop up on a Wednesday and often they come up on Sundays, but they’re real home is Thursday.

If you’re lucky you’ll run into an answer you’re confident of, but it doesn’t fit unless you put more than one letter in the square.

I remember a puzzle from years ago that worked out if you put a suit of cards in each corner.   So each corner had a heart or spade or club or diamond in it.

Today’s puzzle is a real gem of this species.   My hint:  Sometimes a pair of letters, when said aloud, is more than a pair of letters…and sometimes a pair of letters is simply that pair of letters.   Sometimes the same pair of letters can be both.

 

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