Literally So

The Ellis Island Immigration Museum. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)

The last time Ashish Vengsarkar and Narayan Venkatasubramanyan collaborated on a puzzle, the result was one of the most maddening crosswords of 2008. I loved it. If today’s puzzle appealed to you and you missed their first one, you need to click these links: Across Lite, Solution, blog with interview.

The ingenuity of crossword constructors continues to amaze me. I don’t usually talk about the themes in puzzles, but I’m going to explain the first theme answer today in case you’re stuck. (They’re not all as tricky as this one.) You can get the rest on your own after that. 23 Across is “-IRC-MS-ANCES.” IRC is Internet Relay Chat, MS is Microsoft, and ANCES are … No, I’m kidding. A common word is hidden in the clue with some letters missing. The only word that fits is “circumstances,” but CUT has been removed. “Cut” means “take,” as in your agent will get his 10 percent cut or take. Circumstances are what define “context.” Cut removed from circumstances. In other words, TAKE OUT OF CONTEXT.

Don’t start booing now. This is fun. If you’re still stuck, the easiest theme answer is also the longest. I bet it seeded the rest of the nonsense in the puzzle. The only other really tricky one is “WHAT A -ANDA DOES IN -EIS-RELY FA-HION.” You’ll get the answer before it makes sense. Stare at it for a while and the aha moment will come. Since you love crosswords, if you’re not familiar with the answer to this question, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Don’t click here unless you either know the answer or have really given up. If you still don’t get it, concentrate on the shortest word in the answer.

Favorite clues include “It’s music to a musician’s ears” and “Alternative to satellite.” The longest clue is for one of the shortest answers. “Company name that becomes another company name if you move its first letter to the end” is worth the trouble because it’s another fun fact. It’s a gift just for word lovers like us. That describes the whole puzzle.

Update: Enough people have expressed consternation over the Panda clue that I’ve decided to add this additional explanation which I first included in a comment. I hope this makes sense.

The clue at 98 Across is “WHAT A -ANDA DOES IN -EIS-RELY FA-HION.” Without the missing letters, the phrase would be “WHAT A PANDA DOES IN LEIS URELY FASHION.” The word PLUS has been removed from the phrase. To say it another way, PLUS has “left” the phrase. PLUS, by the way, is a synonym for AND. So, when we say PLUS has left the phrase, that’s equivalent to AND has left the phrase.

So, the answer is “EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES.” What a panda does is “eat shoots” of bamboo. To describe the clue, the rest of the answer says that AND (i.e., PLUS) LEAVES (i.e., is now gone.)

Got it?

Here’s the JimH note I added at XWord Info to try to describe this all as succinctly as possible: “CUT removed from CIRCUMSTANCES = take out of context, GORE removed from GOVERNMENT UNREST = bloodless revolution, TIE removed from ARTICLE describes “the” (the article) missing “tie” (the link), RIMS removed from PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIANS = doctors without borders, FEE removed from FIFTH WHEEL means a spare (tire) but with no expense, WHAT A PANDA DOES IN LEISURELY FASHION minus PLUS means “eats shoots” (what the panda does) but “and” (that is, PLUS) leaves or is taken out, WORTHLESS ROADSTER is a lemon so with OREO cut out it’s lemon, drop cookies.”