But our constructor has one more play to make. 67-Across’s clue is [The two most valuable Scrabble tiles]. Though they’re nominally worth zero points, the BLANK tiles in Scrabble can represent any letter and are therefore extremely powerful. 67A is crossed by 51-Down, [Forgot what you intended to say], which solves to WENT BLANK, and 52-Down, [Didn’t fill in, as a field on an application], which is LEFT BLANK. To enter these online, use the rebus function and type in the word “blank” (or just hit the space bar). Alternatively, you can leave those two squares empty — the puzzle accepts it as a solution.
Tricky Clues
42A. The clue [Full of vivid detail, as a memory] solves to EIDETIC, the technical term for what’s more commonly known as a photographic memory. I certainly don’t have one, and I can only imagine the time I would save if I didn’t have to constantly refer to the puzzle while writing this column.
3D. This puzzle may celebrate letters, but the word “sentences” in this clue, [Ones who have trouble finishing sentences?], doesn’t refer to language at all. They’re prison sentences, so the answer is ESCAPEES.
15D/32D. [From one tone to the next adjacent tone, in music], at 15D, describes STEPWISE; a step is the interval between two sequential notes. It reverberates in 32D’s clue, [Some scale members], which solves to RES, as in the notes of the solfège scale: do, re, mi and so on.
31D. I read the clue [Hamburger connection?] and thought of a shady figure illicitly dealing beef patties in a back alley (if you need a plug, I know a guy). But this clue has nothing to do with fast food. Rather, it serves up two principles you’ll see again and again in crossword clues. The first is a foreign-language indicator: A clue with a non-English word solves to a non-English answer. The second is a misdirection technique called veiled capitalization, in which a word that appears to be a common noun is actually a proper one (or vice versa). This sly clue combines the two. A “Hamburger” is someone from Hamburg, Germany, and the “connection” is the conjunction “and,” which in German is UND.
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