WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Before Ben Zimmer was a crossword constructor for The New York Times, he was the writer of its column On Language. These columns investigated wordy curiosities such as the perils of autocorrect and the prevalence of “Fail!” as an interjection.

In today’s crossword, Mr. Zimmer is flexing his language savvy in more playful ways. The theme uses a colloquial phrase almost like a mathematical function. Let’s see how it all adds up, shall we?

Today’s Theme

Everyone solves crosswords differently, and there’s no specific order you’re meant to solve in; do what works best for you. For today’s grid, you might even find it helpful to look at the revealer clue, at 36A, first: [React with exaggerated surprise … or how to form the shorter shaded answers from the longer ones]. We’ve got four sets of shaded crossing entries, and the revealer hints that the difference between the answers in each set has to do with word length.

At 20A, [Staunchly loyal] solves to TRUE BLUE. The shaded crossing, at 4D, is one [Knob on an amplifier] — TREBLE. Note that the Down entry is two U’s short of the Across. 24A’s [Popular date night], SATURDAY, crosses a shaded term for [Durable], at 11D: STURDY. Here, again, the Down entry is two identical vowels short of the longer Across one.

There seems to be a pattern here. You can choose whether to confirm that by solving the other shaded entries or by revealing the answer at 36A. I prefer the second option, personally, because it helps me appreciate the constructor’s cleverness as I complete the puzzle. To [React with exaggerated surprise] is to DO A DOUBLE TAKE — as in, to take out double letters (not consecutive ones, mind you). Thus, RAIN GEAR at 48A becomes RINGER at 45D, and ATLANTIS at 53A becomes ALANIS at 47D.

Tricky Clues

1A. A few months ago, a friend asked me to help settle a debate between her and her brother: Was the [“No seats” sign] S.R.O. a common abbreviation? She thought not. I told her that I sympathized because this abbreviation — “standing room only” — had been unfamiliar to me until I started solving crosswords, where S.R.O. is all too common.

28A. I’m tempted to add “bygone” to the clue [Event-planning platform], which refers to the website EVITE. I don’t know anyone who uses it, but if it’s popular in your circles, feel free to shout me down (nicely!) in the comments.

64A. You rarely hear a heavy drinker described as a [Lush] in casual speech. I think of the synonym SOT as equally old-fashioned.

3D. This is one of a handful of witty entries in Mr. Zimmer’s puzzles that are Times Crossword debuts. The [Sly reply to “You can’t possibly know that!”] is OH, BUT I DO. It makes me laugh just to imagine the possible contexts for this exchange.

12D. [Shin guards protect them] refers to TIBIAE. Unfortunately, shin guards cannot protect our solve against the unexpected Latinate ending — though, to be fair, “tibias” has appeared only a handful of times more than the “-ae” version.

37D. The word “regalia” summons images of velvet robes, glittering crowns and orbed staffs, but in this case, [Regalia for some queens] alludes to dressing in DRAG.

Constructor Notes

This puzzle came together from musing on the expression “do a double take” and then trying to come up with the most elegant way to make it the basis for some wordplay. When I settled on the “remove two of the same letter” mechanic, I spent a long time grappling with where to place the before-and-after pairs in the grid. After generating enough possible pairs of the right lengths, I saw that the before and after entries could actually cross each other, and that there was room to squeeze four such pairs into the grid along with the central revealer. That’s an ambitious amount of theme content, but I was glad I’d found a way to make it all work without making the fill too clunky!

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