There are spoilers ahead. You might want to solve today’s puzzle before reading further! Girl, So Confusing

Constructors: Shannon Rapp & Will Eisenberg

Editor: Amanda Rafkin

Comments from Today’s Crossword Constructors

Shannon & Will: In November, editor Amanda Rafkin wrote a USA TODAY puzzle titled “Secret Crush”. That inspired us to look for a hidden anagram theme. We were also inspired by USA TODAY‘s frequent use of song titles as puzzle titles in recent months. So we began by looking through recent popular albums for songs that would lend themselves to this kind of theme and when we located “Girl, So Confusing” from Charli XCX’s Brat we knew we had a winner. We used Wordlisted and Spread the Wordlist to find our theme entries. The puzzle-worthy options were fairly limited, so we got a little lucky in finding a set that we all loved. Our favorite thing about this puzzle is all the fun animal content we included. Isn’t the COATI adorable? Thank you so much for solving! See you again soon. 🙂

What I Learned from Today’s Puzzle

• IRAN (17A: Country home to Chogha Zanbil) Chogha Zanbil, also seen spelled Tchoga Zanbil and Čoġā Zanbīl, is the ruins of an ancient city. Chogha Zanbil was a holy city located in Elam, a civilization centered in the area that is now southwestern IRAN from 3200-539 BCE. The construction of Chogha Zanbil is thought to date back to 1250 BCE. The city was abandoned around 640 BCE. Chogha Zanbil is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1979 when it received the designation, it was the first site in IRAN to be placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
• COATI (18A: Cousin of a kinkajou) A COATI is a member of the raccoon family. It has been described as looking like “a combination of a lemur, raccoon, and monkey with possibly a bit of piglet thrown in.” COATI live mainly in South and Central America, but can be found in Arizona and New Mexico. I knew about the COATI, but I did not know what a kinkajou was, so needed the help of crossing answers here. A kinkajou – which as the clue informs us is related to the COATI – is a tree-dwelling mammal that lives in tropical rainforests. It is native to Mexico and Central and South America.

Random Thoughts & Interesting Things

• DIGITAL RIGHTS (20A: Freedoms fought for by the Electronic Frontier Foundation) DIGITAL RIGHTS are those RIGHTS related to accessing, using, and creating DIGITAL content. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit group founded in 1990 and based in San Francisco, California. According to their website, “EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.”
• LEECH (23A: Bloodsucking worm) Last month I wrote about the use of the LEECH in certain medical situations.
• GENERAL GRIEVOUS (39A: “Star Wars” character who dueled Obi-Wan Kenobi) In the Star Wars universe, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi Master. He trained Anakin Skywalker to be a Jedi. (Spoiler alert: Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.) GENERAL GRIEVOUS is a Kaleesh cyborg. During the Clone Wars, he was the Supreme Commander of the Confederacy of Independent Systems’ Droid Armies. GENERAL GRIEVOUS and Obi-Wan Kenobi were rivals. Their final confrontation occurred in the 2005 movie Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
• EMUS (43A: Australian birds that lay green eggs) EMUS lay eggs that are dark green in color and can weigh up to two pounds.
• OAR (52A: Sculler’s implement) A scull is a long, narrow boat. A sculler is the person who rows the boat using OARs.
• RUPEE (67A: Gem in a Legend of Zelda pot) The Legend of Zelda is a video game franchise. The original Legend of Zelda was released by Nintendo in 1986. RUPEEs are the main unit of currency in the Legend of Zelda games. They resemble hexagonal gemstones and come in a variety of colors.
• ORCA (5D: Whale with a saddle patch) An ORCA has gray or white markings across its back, which is referred to as a saddle patch. The pattern of white and gray in the saddle patch is unique to each ORCA and can be used to identify individual ORCAs.
• ROAR (7D: Sound from a lion’s den) and NAPE (59D: Where a cat picks up her kitten) My cat, Willow, approves of this pair of feline-related clues. At the moment, she’s sitting on my lap “helping” me write this.

• URDU (26D: Language related to Farsi) URDU is a language spoken mainly in South Asia. It is the national language of Pakistan. Farsi, which is predominantly spoken in IRAN, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, played a significant role in the development of URDU, resulting in URDU having a large number of loanwords from Farsi though they are distinct languages.
• NOVA (34D: Cosmic event with runaway fusion) The astronomical event known as a NOVA causes the appearance of an apparently new star, a bright light in the sky that slowly fades over time (weeks or months). A NOVA occurs when a white dwarf star (a collapsed star) absorbs gas that eventually ignites through nuclear fusion, causing the star to brighten and become more visible. Hooray for science in the crossword.
• ARLO (36D: “Hope” singer ___ Parks) “Hope” is a 2021 song by English singer-songwriter ARLO Parks. It contains the reassuring lyric, “You’re not alone like you think you are.”
• GENA (39D: “Hope Floats” actor Rowlands) GENA Rowlands (1930-2024) had an acting career that spanned seven decades, from the early 1950s to the 2010s. In the 1998 movie, Hope Floats, she played the mother of Sandra Bullock’s character. It’s a nice choice to choose the movie Hope Floats to echo the song “Hope” in the 36-Down clue. More hope is always a good thing.
• EMIR (40D: One of seven leaders in the UAE) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country on the Arabian Peninsula. The UAE is comprised of seven emirates, each of which has an EMIR. The UAE uses the title of Sheikh to refer to the leader of each emirate.
• ULTRA (56D: Race that’s over 30 miles long, informally) An ULTRAmarathon, or ULTRA, is a race that varies in length from 31 miles to up to 3100 miles.
• ONLY (58D: “___ Murders in the Building” (Hulu show)) I’m always happy to see a reference to ONLY Murders in the Building. The show, which stars Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, has been renewed for a fifth season, which will (hopefully!) air later this year.

Crossword Puzzle Theme Synopsis

• DIGITAL RIGHTS (20A: Freedoms fought for by the Electronic Frontier Foundation)
• GENERAL GRIEVOUS (39A: “Star Wars” character who dueled Obi-Wan Kenobi)
• SOUVENIR GLASS (57A: Piece of collectible drinkware)

GIRL, SO CONFUSING: An anagram of the word GIRL is found in each theme answer: DIGITAL RIGHTS, GENERAL GRIEVOUS, and SOUVENIR GLASS.

In today’s title, the words “so confusing” are the hint that this is an anagram theme. The letters of the word GIRL are scrambled – or “confused” – to give us the letter patterns LRIG, LGRI, and IRGL. As Shannon and Will mentioned in their note, “Girl, So Confusing” is the title of a song by Charli XCX. In the past, it’s sometimes taken me a bit of time to spot a hidden anagram theme, but today I made a guess from the title that a hidden anagram was in the works, and it was satisfying to discover I was correct. Thank you, Shannon and Will, for this enjoyable puzzle.

For more on USA TODAY’s Crossword Puzzles

• USA TODAY’s Daily Crossword Puzzles
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