Okay, so I was tackling the NYT crossword earlier today, just working my way through it like usual. Things were going okay, filling in some of the easier stuff, you know, getting a feel for the theme, if there was one.
Then I hit this clue: “vein contents”. It was just three little letters. My first thought, like probably everyone’s, was blood. Right? Veins carry blood. But B-L-O-O-D is five letters. The space was only for three. So, nope, that wasn’t it. Had to toss that idea out straight away.
Thinking a bit harder…
Alright, what else has veins? I looked at the letters I already had crossing it. I think I had the middle letter, an ‘R’. So it was something like _ R _ . Still wasn’t immediately obvious.
I started thinking about other kinds of veins. Not the ones in your arm. Like, veins in the earth, you know? In rocks. What do you find in those veins? Miners are always looking for them.
- Gold? Nope, 4 letters.
- Silver? Too long.
- Minerals? Way too long.
Then it clicked. Just the general stuff they dig out. O-R-E. Three letters. ORE.
Checking the fit
Looked back at the grid. _ R _ . Putting ORE in there made perfect sense with the ‘R’. And the ‘O’ and ‘E’ looked like they’d work with the down clues I hadn’t solved yet, but they seemed plausible. Felt pretty confident about that one.
That’s how it goes sometimes
It’s funny how your brain can get stuck on the first meaning of a word. “Vein” just screams “blood” initially. But crosswords love to play on those double meanings. You gotta switch gears sometimes. Think geology, not biology. I try pretty hard not to just google answers, feels like cheating myself, you know? Maybe if I’m completely stuck on the last square, I might check a dictionary or something, but I prefer to wrestle with it. This time, just thinking about rocks did the trick. ORE. Done. Onto the next clue.
