Variety: Puns and Anagrams

I can anyone answer a question about this Mel Taub Puns and Anagrams puzzle? I solved the puzzle, but I don’t understand the answer, which is "ten", to 6D vis a vis the clue “Clear up”. The only thing I could come up with was PAC rule as the anagram and ten as the rule for the PAC10. Have no idea if I'm right. I loved the puzzle BTW. Very chewy!

I really liked this week's p & a .. keep em coming! Signed, a big p & a fan

I am disappointed with the New York Times for continuing to publish Puns & Anagrams puzzles, when cryptics are a much better version of a similar idea.

Puns & Anagrams puzzles are to modern cryptic crosswords what early crosswords (think 1930s) are to modern regular crosswords. The paper does not continue to publish 1930s-style crosswords because the developments since then (and especially since the advent of Will Shortz as the puzzle editor) have been almost entirely improvements.

Likewise, the developments in cryptic crosswords since they were more or less Puns & Anagram puzzles have also been almost entirely improvements. It is a shame to not present Puns & Anagrams fans with a series of lessons about how to do cryptics (since with rare exceptions, it is most helpful for solvers to have them explained). But if that were to happen, I predict that most current Puns & Anagrams fans would become fierce fans of cryptic crosswords.

But it is of course easier to just stick with the status quo. Thank goodness that is not the case with regular crosswords!

P&A are far and away my favorites. I collected as many as I could from the archives and re-solved them just for the heck of it. Keep them coming Mssrs. Taub and Shortz. They are the most entertaining and fun of all.

It's a shame this article could not have come up with new examples instead of spoilers for the current puzzle.

Mel Taub's puzzles are always entertaining. I don't understand ADO as the answer to "said goodbye."

By the way how do you "edit" a P&A?

Please please please do not ever get rid of these puzzles, especially the ones by Mel Taub. I look forward to these more than any other type of variety puzzle on Sunday, and Mel's puzzles outshine other P&A's by far.

Not the toughest, but satisfying nonetheless.

Thanks Will, for saving the PandA.

Thanks for the interesting comments, Will! I've always questioned whether P&As were a kind of "watered-down cryptic," as you say. While I do love the P&As, and appreciate what the clues do, there is something really satisfying about the absolute rigid rules governing cryptics. That said, cryptics kick my butt.

I usually trek pretty steadily through P&As until I suddenly realize that I'm done, but not today. The SE corner stopped me dead. Couldn't see OLIVER, so I didn't have any starting letters there. VERONICA, DONAT, EDOMITE, and ARECAS might as well be gibberish to me. I still don't understand the clue on DOVE. I figured the answer was EME but couldn't bring myself to put it in because I was hoping it was a more legit word (you know what I mean). Calling that S in "M U S" a "late" S would have been impossible for me to get. Really really tough clue. GNOMIC, while I get it, is totally foreign to me. And the clue on REBATES was so long that I couldn't decide which words to try anagramming.

Whew. Yeah. Lots of troubles down there.

Having a 1955 Mel Taub P&A in my collection has made me wonder about his age and activity explained here. Now I know that he's 88 years old and currently still constructing puzzles.

I have an uncle who at 93 loves solving cryptograms. I'll have to ask him if he's ever constructed one. Construction is easy. Coming up with the right quip is the difficulty there.