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I'm just a casual, very infrequent crossworder, but I've noticed that many of the more punny or clever clues for NYT Crossword end in a question mark. If you se

I'm just a casual, very infrequent crossworder, but I've noticed that many of the more punny or clever clues for NYT Crossword end in a question mark. If you see "It may turn into another story?" as a clue in a NYT crossword you know from the question mark that there's probably some wordplay or a pun involved in the answer.

tzs 6y ago
Yup. There are several rules for how clues relate to answers in the NYT puzzle, and that's an import one. Here are some more [1]. Another thing casual or infrequent solvers should be aware of: day of week matters. NYT puzzles are easiest on Monday, getting progressively harder throughout the week reaching a peak on Saturday. The Sunday puzzle is midweek difficulty, but bigger. This article [2] gives an example of how the same 4 letter word might be clued on Monday and Saturday: Monday: “Nabisco cookie”, “Cookie with creme filling”, or “‘Twist, Lick, Dunk’ cookie” Saturday: “Snack since 1912”, “It has 12 flowers on each side”, or “Sandwich often given a twist” [1] https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/tips-and-tricks https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/tips-and-tricks [2] https://www.nytimes.com/guides/crosswords/how-to-solve-a-crossword-puzzle https://www.nytimes.com/guides/crosswords/how-to-solve-a-cro...