Intellectual Conformity (Published 2022) (2024)

THURSDAY PUZZLE — Even after all this time, I still get tripped up by the occasional theme. That’s normal. We are supposed to fight our way through a Thursday crossword, and we can’t always be the victor.

The only difference between you (the reader) and me (the one who got bamboozled by the puzzle but who very conveniently works for the company that published it) is that I have relatively unfettered access to Joel fa*gliano and Sam Ezersky, who edit the puzzles. I can ask them questions galore, and they are usually happy to help me. Mr. fa*gliano and Mr. Ezersky are amazing people, and I would happily adopt both of them if it didn’t violate a few ethics policies here at The New York Times.

My point is, don’t feel as if you have to go it alone when you’re solving. It’s OK to ask for help, even if it’s from your DoorDash delivery driver. (The delivery drivers’ union has asked me to inform you that letting them help you solve does not count as a tip.) A puzzle solved with help is still a puzzle solved.

Congratulations to Andrew Linzer, who not only makes his debut with this puzzle, but who now holds the record for the first debuting constructor who has flummoxed me.

Wordle Is a New Game Taking the Internet by Storm

If you like word-making games, I highly recommend Wordle, a game its creator, Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, originally designed for his partner.

Tricky Clues

The clues really stood out to me in Mr. Linzer’s puzzle. There is a lot of great wordplay here, and, if I had to take a guess, I would say that one of the puzzle editors helped him polish the clues to a shine.

1. To “Go over” something may mean to review it, but in this puzzle it means to SPAN two points, as a bridge does.

21A/22A. I liked seeing SAME-SEX marriage and PRIDE MONTH in close vicinity.

54A. Heteronym misdirection! When you read the phrase “Water tower?” you probably envisioned a tower that holds the water supply for a community. But if you read “tower” with a long O sound, as in one that tows, the answer would be a TUGBOAT, which tows other boats through the water.

8D. I chortled at this one. A “Boat going back and forth?” is not the tugboat above. This clue is really asking for a name of a boat that is a palindrome, or spelled the same both forward and backward. That would be a KAYAK.

27D. Tricky one! “Time period, or an anagram of one?” sounds as if we are supposed to be thinking of a three-letter word for a time period, as well as an anagram for that period. We’re actually supposed to be thinking of an anagram for the word “one,” and that would make the time period an EON.

29D. Clue of the Day, in my opinion. When I think “cup holder,” I think of the kind that is in the middle console of my car, which currently holds my keys, some loose change and a receipt from CVS, but no cup. Wrong, Deb. This “cup holder” is my DOMINANT HAND.

53D. “Country songs?” are a whole musical genre, but these are national ANTHEMS, not tunes about losing one’s truck, one’s dog, one’s love, etc.

Today’s Theme

First and foremost, here is an explanation of how to enter more than one letter in a square if you are solving online. You can also enter just the first letter of each rebus and still be counted correct, but I think it’s clearer and more fun to enter the whole thing.

The 60A revealer in this puzzle is what I would call “stretchy,” in that it does not exactly fit the interpretation of the theme answers. That’s not a bad thing, but it did require a good deal of thought on my part to figure it out, not to mention the extra time spent hunting down Mr. Ezersky so I could ask him about it.

A good example of a revealer that fits the theme answers exactly is this puzzle by Dylan Schiff from 2021. The revealer, DOUBLE DOWN, precisely explains what is going on in the grid: The theme entries are all Downs, and the grayed squares inside them need to be doubled to complete the entry.

Mr. Linzer’s revealer is not difficult to get — the “Intellectual conformity” is GROUP THINK — and I knew that there were rebuses in the puzzle, as evidenced by my shouty frustration. Those rebuses are all animals — LION, CROW and ANT — and these are grouped together in threes. So we have a group of LIONs, a group of CROWs and a group of ANTs (not shown).

I just wasn’t sure where the “THINK” part came in. Mr. Ezersky’s take on this is that we have to THINK in terms of GROUPs to get the answers that lie in wait for us at 17-, 22- and 51A.

Oh yes, my friends. There’s more to this than just figuring out the rebuses. Those groups of animals each have a name, and that name helps us complete that Across entry.

For example, a group of CROWs (17A) is called a “murder.” If you swap out CROW CROW CROW for “murder,” you get the MURDER MYSTERY genre for which Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle were famous.

Similarly, a group of LIONs (22A) is called a “pride,” which gives us PRIDE MONTH for the terse clue “June.”

Have you figured out the answer to 51A’s PENAL ANT ANT ANT?

Constructor Notes

So excited to make my New York Times debut! I grew up in Pittsburgh and recently moved to Oakland, Calif., where I work in health care analytics. Outside of crosswords, my passions include board games, basketball and public staircases.

This idea was inspired by this cool 2015 puzzle by Jacob Stulberg. My main construction challenge was to squeeze in three sets of animals that have relatively recognizable group names. I considered an ESCAPE POD of SEALs for some versions, but ultimately CROW, LION and ANT proved the easiest to work with. For the revealer, I also considered HERD MENTALITY and the pop band ANIMAL COLLECTIVE.

The PRIDE MONTH of LIONs is my favorite theme answer, and I had fun bringing in some longer rebus entries like CROWD NOISE and DOMINANT HAND. Meanwhile, I wish I could’ve avoided PENAL COLONY, MICROWATT and ANIM.

A big thank you to Sarah, Mike and Avery for their great guidance on early versions of this puzzle.

P.S.: I also want to give a shout-out to this similar Fireball puzzle by Paolo Pasco, which I learned about in the lead-up to publication. It’s disappointing to know I wasn’t the first to this idea! It also seems highly fitting that the theme for both puzzles is GROUPTHINK (and an honor to be in any kind of group with a legend like Mr. Pasco).

Hope everyone’s having a good Thursday!

Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?

The Tipping Point

Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.

Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.

Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.

Your thoughts?