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NYT partial phrase... guideline?

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sdgorrell1:
I'm restarting this from a previous discussion. The rule in the NYT spec sheet is:
"Do not use partial phrases longer than five letters (ONE TO A, A STITCH IN, etc.)"

However I see many examples in recent NYT puzzles that violate this rule, for ex:

This means _ (9 leading-letter partial phrase, 7/7/16)

What I don't see (at least in my limited sample) are examples of partial phrases with more than five trailing letters. An example here would be "_ _ _ pray" (Now let us)

And since the examples are all leading, I'm not sure if it applies to trailing ones at all.

This is starting to feel like more of a guideline. If anybody has any insight on this, I would appreciate it.

mmcbs:
The five-letter limit applies to what's in the blank (not the clue). This means WAR.

mmcbs:
And just to clarify further, the five-letter limit only applies when it is a partial phrase (not a single word). So ___ pray, would be OK if the answer is LET US, but not OK if it is NOW LET US.

For a single word, there is no restriction. Washington ___ (MONUMENT)

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