I loved orienteering in school, so I figured today's NYT crossword clue would be a piece of cake since it asks for shortened clues. Boy, was I wrong.
What is over and down?
"Direction that is down and a little to the right: Abbr." is one of the clues from the August 13 NYT Mini Crossword puzzle. If you know little about using a compass or the cardinal directions or are not good with directions at all, then this clue may seem impossible unless you use these hints to help.
The answer to the clue "Direction that is down and slightly to the right: Abbr." is "SSE." SSE stands for South-Southeast, meaning that the location is south, but slightly to the east. This abbreviation would instead be SE (for Southeast) if the location had been further east.
When I first read this clue, I had to read it again because I wasn't entirely sure what it was asking. When I realized that it meant giving directions in the cardinal directions, I thought it had to be southeast. But that wasn't entirely correct. I had to imagine myself giving directions to someone and think of how I would say, "Oh, it's south, southeast of here," to get the answer. But even then, I wasn't sure of my answer until I had finished the entire crossword puzzle. So, unless you're used to giving directions and know the cardinal directions and how to use them, this would have been a difficult clue to crack. Therefore, I would give it a difficulty rating of four out of five.
