{"id":6058,"date":"2026-08-16T19:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T19:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/08\/16\/just-this-once\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T19:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T19:49:12","slug":"just-this-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/08\/16\/just-this-once\/","title":{"rendered":"Just This Once!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><em>We hope you don&#8217;t get bent out of shape by this puzzle!<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/08\/16\">SUNDAY<\/a><\/span><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/05\/24\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/08\/16\">PUZZLE<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/05\/24\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a><strong>\u2014<\/strong><\/span> Hello everybody! We are Tobin and Kiran and we are so excited to share our first collaboration with you! We\u2019ve known each other for almost a year now \u2014 having met when we both joined the games section in Fall 2025 \u2014 but the time was never quite right for both of us to work on a puzzle together, until now! We can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:tobinsax@umich.edu\">tobinsax@umich.edu<\/a> and <a href=\"mailto:kvparekh@umich.edu\">kvparekh@umich.edu<\/a> respectively, or you can email <a href=\"mailto:crosswords@umich.edu\">crosswords@umich.edu<\/a> for any general questions or concerns. Huge thank you to the copy desk and we hope you enjoy the puzzle!<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tricky Clues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">14A: Every crossword usually includes one random geography clue. One of this puzzle\u2019s is the SINAI peninsula, which connects Asia to Africa!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">32A: I (Tobin) am a huge sitcom fan, so any opportunity to include a reference is a win for me! \u201cActor Braugher of Brooklyn Nine-Nine\u201d is ANDRE Braugher, who plays my favorite character, Captain Raymond Holt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">47A: I am not one for epic poems, and if you aren\u2019t either, you might not know that the difference between the Aeneid and the Odyssey is that the Aeneid is ROMAN, while the Odyssey is Greek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">51A: One type of wordplay crossword clues are ones that use a common phrase or idiom to indicate something else. In this case, \u201cIt\u2019s a small world!\u201d refers to a GLOBE, which is literally a small version of the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">66A: One thing I enjoyed about making this puzzle with Kiran was that, since he created the puzzle fill, I got to clue some first-time crossword entries. If you don\u2019t always read the constructor notes for our puzzles, that\u2019s okay, but you should definitely always read the BEST BY DATE on your food!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2D: A SITREP is a jargon term to describe one\u2019s status in the military, being shorthand for situation report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">33D: If you aren\u2019t a math buff, don\u2019t worry! An \u201cordered list of values in math\u201d refers to a N-TUPLE.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">40D: Firstly, if you don\u2019t know what portmanteau means, it refers to a word that is created by blending the sounds of two other words together. For example, brunch is a portmanteau of breakfast and lunch! Anyway, this \u201cportmanteau for an ideal society that prioritizes the environment\u201d is ECOTOPIA, which combines ecological and utopia.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Today&#8217;s Theme<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For this collaboration, I came up with the revealer BENDING THE RULES at 39-Across, but the wonderful Kiran came up with the revealer words: edict, command, mandate and bylaw, which are all synonyms for rule and are bent into a \u201cZ\u201d shape in the puzzle\u2019s four corners.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Answer Key:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" width=\"780\" height=\"781\" data-attachment-id=\"614789\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/constructor-notes-2026-08-16\/attachment\/image-686\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.michigandaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-2.png?fit=1078%2C1080&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1078,1080\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"image\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.michigandaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-2.png?fit=780%2C781&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.michigandaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-2.png?resize=780%2C781&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-614789\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/constructor-notes-2026-08-16\/\">Just This Once!<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\">The Michigan Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We hope you don&#8217;t get bent out of shape by this puzzle! SUNDAY PUZZLE \u2014 Hello everybody! We are Tobin and Kiran and we are so excited to share our first collaboration with you! We\u2019ve known each other for almost a year now \u2014 having met when we both joined the games section in Fall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6059,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058\/revisions\/6059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}