“Ones calling the shots, for short?” can be figured out if you slow down and think. We know it’s a plural because of the plural clue, so drop that S in there at the end. The associate puzzles editor Sam Ezersky and I have an ongoing argument about whether GIF should be pronounced with a hard G or a soft one. I am more likely to use a soft G, he insists that it’s a hard one. “Illustration for an ill tourist?” does not mean that someone is drawing pictures to make a sick tourist feel better.

Source: New York Times December 18, 2019 03:00 UTC