Double Digits

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SUNDAY PUZZLE — In his print introduction to this grid, Joel Fagliano writes: “David Karp, of Victoria, British Columbia, works for the B.C. Ministry of Finance. This puzzle was built around 107-Across, which makes its debut as an answer in the Times crossword. David was also happy to include 92-Across — in addition to neatly fitting this theme, it was one of his favorite shows as a kid.”

This theme plays with a modern problem that plagues me on a daily basis, particularly when I solve puzzles online, but not on paper. If anyone out there among the speedy solvers is somehow immune, share your secret, because I always feel as if I’m a car that can go only 40 miles per hour next to a Lamborghini when I see someone bent over a touch-screen typing fast enough to make it smoke, figuratively.

Today’s Theme

There are five entries in the theme set, at 22-, 35-, 48-, 76- and 92-Across, as well as a revealer at 107-Across. They’re all substantial, and two of them span the grid, which always impresses me on a Sunday; one of those is a trivia question that I was sure I knew the answer to but could not make fit, and that’s how I ultimately figured out the trick in this puzzle’s theme.

It teased me for a while, though! The very first theme clue at 22-Across, [Admit one was wrong], gave me the right inkling; it might be something eaten, either “crow” or “humble pie.” The entry is far too long for either of those choices, and after a spin through the down entries I was more confused. I had two letter U’s next to each other, for example, and a P at the third-to-last square, which would indicate “pie.”

Nothing really clicked, though, until I got to 92-Across, [Lab mice in a 1990s cartoon]. This had to be “Pinky and the Brain,” an animated buddy series that was very popular in its day, and I was positive it was the only possible answer. There were too many squares in this grid for that title, but I could see a pattern in the letters from completed down entries, and, this time, a pair of duplicated letters helped me out. The entry is PPIINNKKYY AND THE BRAIN; every letter in “Pinky” appears twice.

Aha, I thought; that must have something to do with the puzzle’s title, “Double Digits,” which originally struck me as an indication of numbers in the theme. Revisiting 22-Across, it turns out that the entry solves to EATT HHUUMMBBLE PIE.

So, now we have a PPIINNKKYY at the bottom, and a TTHHUUMMBB at the top of the grid. The “Digits” are fingers, and the theme entries are all illustrations of the phenomenon named by the revealer at 107-Across, [Excuse for texting errors, jocularly … or a hint to this puzzle’s theme]: FAT-FINGER SYNDROME. This affliction has grown more common as technology speeds up and keyboards shrink; the result can range from a texted miscommunication to a billion-dollar trading mistake. This gives me perspective when I become frustrated looking for an errant letter in a crossword on the New York Times Games app.

I love how the fingers appear in this puzzle in the same order as they do on your hand, and I find it quite funny that the doubled double letter in the answer to 48-Across, [Royal whose wedding had a whopping 1,900 guests], gave Mr. Karp a fit (as he explains in his notes). I got it wrong myself while trying to fill in the correct entry, but it was because of miscalculation, not my fat fingers.

Tricky Clues

27A. A puzzle like this, whose theme manipulates the length of words, makes me paranoid about any entry that I can’t immediately parse. An example is this clue, [Clear to see, maybe?], which solves to IN HD. I looked every which way for wordplay before I realized the “HD” was simply high definition, like a modern TV where you can count the freckles on someone’s face.

59A. This is another clue that hit me differently because of the puzzle’s theme, but in this case I’m sure it’s intentional. [Writing wrongs?] is a terrific clue for TYPOS in any setting.

103A. I was certain that this [Display at a school show] would be “science,” but the right entry is clever: TALENTS.

11D. This is a tiny entry, but I learned something new: “Guitar sheet music, for short” solves to TAB, an abbreviation for tablature.

60D. [[I know it’s wrong]] solves to SIC, which intersects with TYPOS at 59A and stands for “sic erat scriptum,” meaning “thus it was written.” It would be pretty snarky to use this on obviously fat-fingered phrasing, but I’m sure it’s been done.

89D. One more fabulous pun that went over my head, at first: [Rate of return?], in this puzzle, is RANSOM.

Constructor Notes

I solve the New York Times Crossword every day, and I often get ideas and inspiration from other crossword constructors. This one was inspired by Rebecca Goldstein and Rafael Musa’s July 2, 2023, crossword, which (spoiler alert) featured different types of shoes stretched vertically across two squares, with the wonderfully charming revealer BIG SHOES TO FILL. It occurred to me that FAT-FINGER SYNDROME might also be a fun, slangy phrase that could work in a similar way.

Some other notes:

• My original working title was “Let’s Have a Big Hand for This Puzzle.”

• I got thrown off by my own gimmick. I had a completed, clued crossword that I was very close to submitting to The Times. It was only when I went to hand-write in the “fat fingers” to stretch them across two squares that I realized I needed a quadruple D and not a double D for KATE MMIIDDDDLLEETON. I needed to redo the entire grid to fix my mistake.

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