VARIETY PUZZLE — This species of Sunday Variety puzzle is growing on me, I guess, like a fungus. It is gratifying to encounter something in life and realize after several iterations that somehow you are getting better at it, without really “putting your shoulder into it,” as it were. Like moving to a walk-up apartment and realizing after a few months that you do not even notice the hike upstairs. Anyway, consider this encouragement if you are struggling with today’s Fred Piscop construction — trust me, if you keep at it you will get the hang of it too.

If you have never done one of these before, you are looking at a series of paired words that share every letter except for the two that you are given. Your job is to complete each pair with those shared letters, and come up with shared letters that allow you to complete the entire grid — in some cases, you can make several logical combinations, but only one set of letters for each entry will work over all.

Here are some “easier” example to get you started, all of which appear today and will provide some additional crosses and hints for other word pairs: SPICY/SAUCY; RIVER/ROGER; COVE/CUBE; SPRAT/SPURT; PROF/PUFF; TESLA/TETRA. There were a few small tough ones like TOLD/TEND that had other possible answers; these add to the difficulty of actually finishing a Split Decisions, as I have never seen one with more than one possible solution, so those alternatives will always come back to get you in the end.