February Bonus Puzzle
Every month, The New York Times publishes a bonus crossword puzzle for subscribers. The puzzles are designed to have the difficulty of an early-week puzzle and to use the theme throughout. The theme of this month’s puzzle, by Patti Varol, is the singer Taylor Swift. If the ocean of concert videos didn’t already tell you, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was a cultural cornerstone that will be remembered as a central event of the 2020s. Her effects on language, music and the economy have been written about at length. When I saw this month’s bonus puzzle on our schedule, I knew I would have to answer an important question for puzzle fans: What has Ms. Swift’s effect been on the New York Times Crossword? The first appearance of her full name that I could find was in a puzzle by Caleb Madison from May 2, 2011, with the clue [Country-pop star with the 2008 six-time platinum album “Fearless”]. TAYLOR SWIFT has appeared a total of seven times, and the most recent clue, from March 17, 2025, reflects her rise to the peak of superstardom: [Only person in the arts ever to be named Time’s Person of the Year]. For TAYLOR on its own, four of the last five appearances have been references to the singer. SWIFT references Ms. Swift in only three of its last five entries — it otherwise refers to a type of bird, an adjective for “fleet-footed” or, in earlier entries, to Jonathan Swift, the 18th-century writer of “Gulliver’s Travels.” SWIFTIES has been in the crossword twice, most recently as [Fan base added to the O.E.D. in 2023]. As Ms. Swift’s fame grows, the words in her orbit expand, too. For example, ERA is one of the most common answers in crossword puzzles, having appeared more than 750 times since 1993. In the early 2000s, it often referred to the pitching stat or to bygone times. More recently, though, you might see a clue like [A Swiftie might have a favorite one] or [“The Life of a Showgirl,” for Taylor Swift]. RED, another very common answer, has referenced Ms. Swift’s album of the same name only once, equal to Red Pollard, the name of Seabiscuit’s jockey. In the grand scheme of crossword puzzles, Taylor Swift will probably never have the same level of inclusion as someone like Mel Ott or Brian Eno, whose names are short and feature letter combinations that are friendly to constructors. For puzzle editors and constructors seeking new cluing angles for familiar entries, she has made her mark: The question isn’t if we’ll see her again in a puzzle, but when. Solve the puzzle.
Try This Clue17-Across: Eras Tour city that dedicated a bench in Centennial Park to Taylor Swift
How are we doing? Thanks for playing! Subscribe to New York Times Games. If you like this newsletter, you can tell your friends to sign up here. The answer to the clue is NASHVILLE.
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