Tuesday

The Sun puzzle by Shannon McDowell (newcomer?) and Ben Tausig has a theme that's well explained by the title, "Oh, It Really Becomes You!"—an O becomes a U (in each case, actually, the O-into-U follows another O). Looking past the theme, this one's rich. There's CZAR instead of the more common TSAR, AKIMBO (long a favorite word of mine), the vowel-free MCDLTS, DARWIN, TWEEZES, and the "dinner table faux pas," BURP. Fun puzzle, as I'd expect from anything with Ben Tausig's name in the byline.

Jay Leatherman's NYT felt like it had more 6-, 7-, and 8-letter entries than a typical Tuesday puzzle, and they were good ones (NATHANS hot dogs, NEMESIS, NOUVEAU, DOGTAG). Seemed like more theme squares than usual, too (though not as many as last Tuesday's remarkable SNL puzzle).

NYS 3:42
CS 3:27
NYT 3:16
LAT 2:51