Mister magus, when you write a columns about Sunday puzzles, why do you always omiT A COlumn about the Los Angeles Times puzzle? (See what I did there?)
SPOILER ALERT---Anyone who has not completed today's Times puzzle should stop reading now. Merl Reagle has included the names of nine Presidents and other political figures who "spent time at the backup position." The nine names appear in reverse order within longer words and phrases. ASMADASAHATTER includes ADAMS in reverse. RELYTOOMUCHON includes TYLER in reverse. KRISHNAMURTA includes TRUMAN in reverse. I'm amazed that Reagle came up with the idea. I'm even more amazed that he could find nine phrases with a name in reverse.
A nonce word is a word that is coined for a specific occasion. Often there are nonce words in puzzles. They aren't real words but the crossword maker can't find legitimate words to fill a certain area of the puzzle so he has to come up with clues for words that don't exist but technically could exist. In today's puzzle, Reagle was stuck with REROB. To make it into a word, he clued it as "Hit again, as the stage." We likely will never see REROB again.
