It has been my observation that in a NYT rebus puzzle when the rebus answer for the “across” clue is different than the rebus answer for the “down” clue, the NYT preferred entry is first the “across” rebus, and then the “down” rebus, separated by a backslash. Alternatively, the NYT seems to accept either the “across” rebus or the “down” rebus,, but generally will not accept the two rebuses written out as one word.
The way I read this theme was that the puzzle was "turning" lead into gold, such that, if one simply entered PB on the across answer (as I did, and you ended up doing), the 90-degree rotation of that square for the down answer would "turn" it into AU.
In a sense I can understand why just PBAU wouldn't work - I can see the reasoning that you would read it as the four letters all fit for both answers. I entered it as PB/AU because it was one or the other, not all four letters.
I’m glad you got stuck in the exact same way I was. I had PBAU in all of my spaces as well. I guess the expectation is WE enter the PB portion and the PUZZLE does the alchemy by changing it to AU to solve the crossing clue? I wish they had set up the puzzle to accept any combination.
It has been my observation that in a NYT rebus puzzle when the rebus answer for the “across” clue is different than the rebus answer for the “down” clue, the NYT preferred entry is first the “across” rebus, and then the “down” rebus, separated by a backslash. Alternatively, the NYT seems to accept either the “across” rebus or the “down” rebus,, but generally will not accept the two rebuses written out as one word.
The way I read this theme was that the puzzle was "turning" lead into gold, such that, if one simply entered PB on the across answer (as I did, and you ended up doing), the 90-degree rotation of that square for the down answer would "turn" it into AU.
Found it a bit difficult today.
In a sense I can understand why just PBAU wouldn't work - I can see the reasoning that you would read it as the four letters all fit for both answers. I entered it as PB/AU because it was one or the other, not all four letters.
I only made it half way through yesterday's puzzle but was able to finish this one. Difficulty-wise i think Wednesday was harder.
Ohhhh. If you only put in the lead it turns into gold.
While certainly other variations should probably be accepted, the slash is consistently accepted when a cell has multiple fills.
I’m glad you got stuck in the exact same way I was. I had PBAU in all of my spaces as well. I guess the expectation is WE enter the PB portion and the PUZZLE does the alchemy by changing it to AU to solve the crossing clue? I wish they had set up the puzzle to accept any combination.
I entered the rebus answers the exact same way as Chris did and agree with him entirely that all possible ways to enter a rebus should be acceptable.
I just finished the puzzle and it accepted "pbau." So I think it was either a bug or they just recently added "pbau" as an acceptable solution.
That didn't work for me. 😕