Every so often a puzzle asks us to notice that two things we assumed were the same are not, and in this week's Weekender crossword, the Globe's constructor Will Nediger does exactly that with four pairs of phrases. The column that takes the grid apart each week treats the work as both a game and a small lesson in how language misleads us when a near-match passes for a match. What makes the offering memorable is less the cleverness of the idea than the labor of building it, since a stacked, mirror-symmetric grid of this kind leaves little room for ease. In a corner of the Weekender, a familiar
Breaking Down the Globe's Weekender Crossword: Stacked Synonyms That Aren't, Plus a Cryptic Container Clue
Pairs that seem like they should be synonyms, but aren't
Mark
Why does stacking the theme pairs matter so much?
Mimi
Long entries limit what can cross them. Nediger put each pair directly on top of the other anyway, and still kept the Down words fair.
Mark
And the repeated words? I thought crosswords avoided that.
Mimi
They do. COURSE appears more than once, which is normally forbidden. The columnist says the theme justifies it.
Luke
Worth noting that's the columnist's judgment, not a universal rule. Nediger himself admits the grid had trickier answers than usual.
Mark
Where did the idea come from?
Mimi
A Discord server where people trade double-doubles, like BOOTY CALL and BUTT DIAL. He wanted pairs where one word is literally identical.
Luke
Fair, though the column doesn't say how many solvers found the harder fill a problem. That's unknown.
Mark
What about the cryptic clue?
Mimi
At 18A, [Chemistry class topic is catching on (4)]. The surface reads smoothly, but the definition is only at the start or the end.
Luke
And the column doesn't give the answer, so we can't check the container logic ourselves.
The Pulse
- Four stacked phrase pairs crash into each other on a 21x21 grid, each sounding like a synonym yet quietly refusing to be one.
- Stacking the pairs so tightly choked the grid, forcing the constructor to reach for trickier answers and repeat words that good grids usually avoid.
- Solvers must navigate fair, gettable crossings and freshly angled clues, from ARIA as a track on an opera album to PLEASE RISE as a standing order.
- The week's cryptic clue at 18A hides its definition at one edge, tempting solvers with a plausible surface reading before the container mechanism resolves it.
Every so often a puzzle asks us to notice that two things we assumed were the same are not, and in this week's Weekender crossword, the Globe's constructor Will Nediger does exactly that with four pairs of phrases. The column that takes the grid apart each week treats the work as both a game and a small lesson in how language misleads us when a near-match passes for a match. What makes the offering memorable is less the cleverness of the idea than the labor of building it, since a stacked, mirror-symmetric grid of this kind leaves little room for ease. In a corner of the Weekender, a familiar pleasure is revived by a puzzler who trusted his own ear for almost-sameness.
This week's Weekender crossword in The Globe and Mail, titled We Are Not the Same, rests on four pairs of phrases that look as if they should mean the same thing and do not. Its constructor, Will Nediger of London, Ont., is a prolific editor and a speed solver who can finish a hard 15x15 in a few minutes. The pairs are CRASH COURSE and COLLISION COURSE, SPEECH THERAPY and TALK THERAPY, LEADING LADY and FIRST LADY, and TECHNICAL CHALLENGES and TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, each second clue carrying a note that the entry is surprisingly not a synonym of the one above it.
The columnist finds the real feat in the construction. Every theme entry has an odd number of letters, so Nediger could stack each pair perfectly down the middle of a mirror-symmetric 21x21 grid. The stacking sharply limited which words could cross, and COURSE even sits on top of itself, breaking a cardinal rule. Nediger's note traces the idea to a Discord server's "double-doubles," pairs whose matching words are synonyms even when the whole phrases are not. He chose elegance over ease, and the grid grew hard to fill, but he kept the Down crossings fair and softened the clues that needed it.
The columnist's favourite moments are the fresh angles on familiar entries: ARIA as a track on an opera singer's album, EYES as the only features of a cartoon character visible in the dark, and [Standing order?] answered by PLEASE RISE. The column also reads the week's cryptic clue at 18A, from Fraser Simpson's Weekender Cryptic, which uses a container mechanism after last week's anagram. Its surface reading is plausible, but only part of its wording is the definition, found at one end of the clue.
The theme of this week's Weekender crossword in The Globe and Mail rests on four pairs of phrases that look like they ought to mean the same thing and don't. The puzzle is called We Are Not the Same, and it was constructed by Will Nediger of London, Ont. The column that dissects it, Puzzle Pieces, runs weekly. It examines the latest Weekender, passes along a note from the constructor, and picks apart one clue from Fraser Simpson's Weekender Cryptic.
The columnist introduces Nediger as a prolific constructor and editor who has filled in when the columnist is busy constructing. He is also a champion speed solver, with times of two or three minutes for a hard 15x15 onscreen crossword. The Globe ran a feature on him last April.
The four theme pairs are CRASH COURSE and COLLISION COURSE, SPEECH THERAPY and TALK THERAPY, LEADING LADY and FIRST LADY, and TECHNICAL CHALLENGES and TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. In each pair, the second clue carries a parenthetical note saying the entry is, surprisingly, not a synonym of the one above it. The columnist says that note guided the discovery and made it fun.
The columnist argues the construction matters as much as the idea. Every theme entry has an odd number of letters, so Nediger could stack each pair directly on top of the other, perfectly aligned down the middle of a 21x21 grid. The grid is also mirror-symmetric left to right, which is somewhat unusual, since crosswords are more often rotationally symmetric.
The columnist calls the stacking the real feat. Long stacked entries sharply limit which words can cross them. Nediger could have spread the pairs apart for easier crossings but chose elegance. He still filled the Down crossings with fair, gettable words, and he wrote easier clues for those that might otherwise be tougher. The theme also breaks a cardinal rule of grid-making, no duplicate words, since COURSE appears more than once, even directly on top of itself. The columnist says that is acceptable when it serves a great theme.
Nediger's own note traces the idea to a Discord server about crosswords, where people share "double-doubles." These are pairs of two-word phrases whose first words are synonyms and whose second words are synonyms, though the phrases as wholes aren't, like BOOTY CALL and BUTT DIAL. He liked the thought of phrases that seem even more synonymous because one word in each pair is not merely a synonym but the identical word. He stacked them to heighten the effect. That made the grid very hard to fill and left some trickier answers than usual, but he hopes it is still fun.
Among the columnist's favourite moments is Nediger's habit of finding fresh angles on familiar entries. At 8D, ARIA is clued as a [Track on an opera singer's album]. At 10D, EYES is clued as [Only features of a cartoon character visible in the dark, often]. At 21A, [Standing order?] turns out to be PLEASE RISE, not a bank instruction. At 80D the columnist learned that OOLONG TEA means "black dragon." TSN appears in the grid, and clues reference The Great Canadian Baking Show and Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel.
The cryptic clue of the week, from Simpson's Weekender Cryptic, uses a container mechanism, after last week's anagram. At 18A it reads [Chemistry class topic is catching on (4)]. The columnist admires how plausible its surface reading is, while noting that solvers know only part of the wording is the definition, found at the start or at the end of the clue.
Notable Quotes
Stacking the pairs made the grid super hard to fill, with some trickier answers than usual, but hopefully it's still fun.— Will Nediger, constructor (paraphrased)
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