Thank you ever so much! This makes sense now. Your middle paragraph made it much clearer.

This had my office mates and I all stumped. I work in an open office with 3 or 4 other people, and we try to solve the NYTimes puzzle together every day. I am relatively new to all this, but have worked my way up to the point where I can make it through Monday and Tuesday puzzles most weeks, and get some of the Wednesday puzzles! I am slowly learning all the jargon.