{"id":45659,"date":"2022-08-15T03:59:49","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T03:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nyt-crossword-answers-rb-singer-with-the-2012-hit-let-me-love-you\/"},"modified":"2022-08-15T03:59:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T03:59:49","slug":"nyt-crossword-answers-rb-singer-with-the-2012-hit-let-me-love-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nyt-crossword-answers-rb-singer-with-the-2012-hit-let-me-love-you\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT Crossword Answers: R&B Singer with the 2012 Hit \u201cLet Me Love You\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MONDAY PUZZLE \u2014 If you’re a longtime solver of crossword puzzles (or even if you’re only a short-time solver), you probably know that there are certain words that show up in the grid more often than others. Perhaps the most famous of these is the humble OREO, that delicious vegan snack comprising two chocolate cookies sandwiching a layer of cr\u00e8me. Indeed, OREO has appeared in the New York Times Crossword a whopping 457 times since the puzzle’s inception in 1942, although its clues have changed significantly in the intervening 80 years.<\/p>\n

For its first 106 appearances, OREO was clued only as a prefix or combining form meaning \u201cmountain\u201d (as in \u201coreography,\u201d the study of mountains). When the \u201cShortz Era,\u201d named for the crossword editor Will Shortz, began in 1994, the \u201cmountain\u201d clues nearly stopped altogether \u2014 there was one in 1999, as well as another in 2016 that joked that OREO was a \u201cDessert item that was clued as ‘Mountain: Comb. form’ in old crosswords.\u201d This shift in the way OREO is clued is indicative of a larger shift in the kinds of things that are acceptable fodder for crossword puzzles \u2014 brand names and popular culture references are now perfectly acceptable, while obscure prefixes have faded from use.<\/p>\n

I’ve got two points here. One is that the things that make for acceptable crossword entries are always changing, and I think that’s a good thing. (I certainly don’t want to have to memorize scientific prefixes!) The other is that OREO appears so often as an entry in the puzzle that I was absolutely tickled to see if it feature in a clue for once \u2014 head to 46D for some Oreo trivia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n