NYT Sunday Crossword of May 18: Halving the Last Word

May 23, 2025

The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle of May 18, 2025 was by Garrett Chalfin and titled Halving the Last Word.

This time I solved many of the theme clues before I realized the theme. The clue that tipped me off was [“The co-star of ‘Duck Soup’ has to be sore after that!”?]. I could see it had the form _UCHO_____STACHE, which I figured probably ended with MUSTACHE. Despite having no idea what Duck Soup was, what era it was from, or who was in it, I managed to guess GROUCHO MARX MUST ACHE, figuring it was a pun with MUSTACHE and MUST ACHE.

Later, during an idle moment, I found myself thinking back on the clue and the puzzle’s title, and realized the theme: splitting the last word of a phrase into two words to form a new meaning different from the normal parse. Here are the other theme clues:

• [Remove from the champagne bucket?]: TAKE OFF ICE (TAKE OFFICE). This was one of the first ones I got without realizing it was a theme clue. I didn’t understand why the clue had the question mark, since I didn’t even notice the pun with the OFFICE reading.
• [Casting a total brat in the school play?]: MAKING AN IMP ACT (MAKING AN IMPACT). I also got this without realizing the wordplay, which was difficult because I didn’t know imp was a word for a brat.
• [“How long have beavers blocked this river?”?]: WHAT’S THE DAM AGE (WHAT’S THE DAMAGE). Again, one I got without realizing the pun, and I thought it was amusingly bizarre.
• [Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.?]: LOVE HOT ELS (LOVE HOTELS). This had me stumped until I understood the theme, since I didn’t know the Chicago L train system.
• [Metric in a competitive family business?]: SALES PER SON (SALESPERSON). This one also required using the theme, though I first tried MONEY PER SON (MONEY PERSON) before finding the correct answer.
• [Hip-hop’s “Puba” and “Daddy I.U”.?]: GRAND RAP IDS (GRAND RAPIDS). Not knowing these rappers, I had no idea until I figured out the theme, after which I could solve it by making use of the vague pun involving “rap” and “rap IDs”. I figured “grand” referred to their status as acclaimed rappers, but it actually comes from their names: Grand Puba and Grand Daddy I.U.

Some notes from the solve:

• [Jai ____]: ALAI. Jai alai is a court sport.
• [Son of Aphrodite]: AENEAS, one of many of her children.
• [Wading birds]: AVOCETS, a type of bird.
• [Much in quantity]: BEAUCOUP, a word I haven’t really seen in English outside the usage in Full Metal Jacket.
• [Alternative to an onion bagel]: BIALY, a bread roll with chopped onion, originating from Polish Jews.
• [Bouts]: JAGS. I hadn’t seen this usage: a jag is a period of uncontrolled emotion or behavior (e.g., a jag of laughter, crying, or drinking, like a bout of laughter, crying, or drinking).
• [Earthenware vessels]: OLLAS, ceramic pots.
• [“Oh geez, the answer was staring me in the face!”]: I’M A MORON. I was a bit surprised to see that word show up in the grid.
• [Station near Madison Square Garden, for short]: PENN, for Pennsylvania Station, which I didn’t know.
• [Verso’s counterpart]: RECTO. Recto is the front side of a leaf (single sheet of paper) of a bound book, and verso is the back side. I’ve not heard of these.
• [Harum-_____ (reckless)]: SCARUM. Harum-scarum means cheerfully irresponsible.
• [Ship propeller]: SCREW, I didn’t know it was called this.

As usual, some people I didn’t know:

• Baiul Oksana is a Ukrainian retired competitive figure skater.
• Saweetie is a rapper.

Final thoughts

This was a solid puzzle with a satisfying theme of punny reinterpretations, cleverly playing on the ambiguity that comes from omitted spaces in fills. Kudos to the constructor.