Tackling that “Bad Blood” Clue in the NYT Crossword
Alright, so today I sat down with the New York Times crossword, same routine as always. Coffee brewing, pen ready. Flipping through the clues, I saw one asking for “Bad blood”. Okay, I thought, this could go a few ways.
My first instinct, you know, was thinking about common phrases. What means “bad blood”? FEUD popped into my head right away. It’s short, punchy, fits the vibe. I checked the number of letters required. Let’s say it was four letters for this example. Okay, FEUD fits. I tentatively penciled it in.
But then I started working on the crossing clues, the ‘Down’ ones. And the letters just weren’t matching up. That ‘F’ didn’t work for the word going down, the ‘U’ seemed wrong too. So, FEUD was out. Had to erase it. A bit frustrating, you know, when your first solid guess bites the dust.
So, back to the drawing board for “Bad blood”. What else? ANIMOSITY came to mind. That’s a longer one. Checked the squares again. Yeah, this one needed a longer word, maybe nine letters this time. Okay, ANIMOSITY fits the length. Let’s try that.
I started looking at the crossing clues again with ANIMOSITY in place.
- The first ‘A’? Maybe it worked with the down clue.
- The ‘N’? Seemed plausible.
- That ‘I’ near the middle? Hmm, maybe.
It felt a bit more promising this time. I filled in a couple of the crossing words that now seemed to make sense with the letters from ANIMOSITY.
It wasn’t a sudden flash, more like chipping away at it. Getting one crossing clue confirmed a letter, which helped confirm another crossing clue. Slowly, the letters for ANIMOSITY started looking solid. It’s like building something block by block. You put one piece down, see if it fits, then try the next one that connects to it.
Eventually, after filling in maybe two or three of the crossing words, it was clear ANIMOSITY was the one they were looking for. That feeling when the letters just click into place? Yeah, that’s the good stuff. It unlocked that whole section of the puzzle for me.
It’s funny how one clue can be a real gatekeeper sometimes. You stare at it, try different angles, get nowhere. Then you solve something else nearby, and suddenly the answer seems obvious. Just needed those extra one or two letters to see it clearly. Anyway, got it done. On to the next puzzle.
