Yeah, it was a bit of crosswordese that I wasn't really happy with, but I hoped the crosser would make it gettable. Do you think the clue would benefit from a quick addition of "(Var.)" to the end? I debated it when I was cluing it, but ended up not putting it because none of the suggested NYT clues had it, even though Wikipedia clearly shows it as ETH, with EDH as an alternate spelling.
Sims 18:11 · 2022-02-18T19:51:45.576Z
Yeah probably, tbh it took me a bit too long to get 9A so if I had that I maybe would have understood it better. Crazy that NYT use EDH too haha, doesn't come up very much in conversation haha
Fun puzzle! The minute I saw the circled squares I knew what the theme was going to be. Loved the breezy, conversational tone of the clues in contrast with the event memorialized by the theme.
Thanks, and I enjoyed being able to have that same reaction when I opened your puzzle! I appreciate your comment regarding the clues; I definitely made an effort to put more time and thought into writing them, since I'd felt it wasn't my strong suit in my January puzzle. Good cluing is definitely still more challenging than I thought it would be, but I'm glad to hear it paid off!
Thanks! The side of me that loves patterns felt that it only made sense to use all four possible ways of breaking them. And trimming my amount of crosswordese like AITCH (and TOR and TOC and ECH and EDH and... you get the idea, I used a lot, which I didn't really like!) is definitely something I really want to focus on next month, but I tried to at least have decent crossers to make them more gettable.
Thank you, I appreciate the feedback! I'm definitely still learning the ropes, but I don't disagree at all with your comments; cleaner fill and fewer three-letter answers is what I want to focus on improving next time around.