Some thoughts on Sun NYT and Fri WSJ puzzles

[rhu]

Cute theme by Patrick Berry, but was it necessary to omit the numbers for the thematic entries? That seemed like a gratuitous deviation from the norm -- it's not like the recent puzzle where, for example, 1A took a southerly turn at one point and that down entry wasn't independent. These could have been clued as "See 58A" just fine. If the theme were less clever, in fact, what would have been 15D would have been clued as "Crosser of 20A" (well, it would have been 20A) --- both words are first-class entries. So why omit their numbers?

I'm curious -- does AcrossLite allow for omitted numbers? If not, did the folks who solve online get a litzed puzzle anyway (or Ennie-way) with different numbering? Or did they get a PDF?

Meanwhile, over in the WSJ, a more substantial nit to pick with Mr. Berry. Those are registered trademarks, dagnabit, and these companies are fighting at great expense to protect their brand. Instead of cluing them as "Possibly redundant term for such-and-such" (or something like that --- I don't have the puzzle at hand) he could have called them "Legally correct designation of such-and-such" --- or done what I would have expected from Berry and actually put the "R" or "TM" into the grid. Imagine solving and getting "QTIPRCOTTONSWAB!"

This reminds me of an ad I saw in Columbia Journalism Review's annual trademark issue about ten years ago. Frigidaire had taken out an ad whose headline read: "Frigidaire(R) is spelled with three Rs."

I guess the common theme is that in both cases something about the mechanics of the puzzle kept distracting me and detracted from my enjoyment of an otherwise clever theme, well executed.