Old Puzzle

[wd9999]

Hi,
I hope this is the right place to post this, and I don't know where else to turn.

I was doing an old NYT Sun puzzle in an Omnibus Edition. I tracked it down as July 9, 1995, by Nancy Nicholson Joline. The title is "Cross References." It has a number of clues (not extra-long ones) that are two added numbers. For example, the clue and then the answer in parentheses:
109+77 (ALI)
89+41 (FOP)
98+6 (BIGMAC)

It's driving me crazy because I can't figure out what the theme or meta is here. Can anyone help?

[SJS]

Never seen the puzzle, but based on the title you might try this:

The numbers may refer to Across and Down answers. So the clue for 109+77 could be the answer to 109-Across plus the answer to 77-Down.

That's my guess.

[wd9999]

Thanks for the reply. And you were correct! I had thought of something like that, but couldn't get it to work. But after your reply I tried again. Turns out the across clues for 109 and 77 were CASSIUS and CLAY, which comes out to ALI. The others work in a similar fashion. Thanks again!

[SJS]

Lucky guess!  Glad to help.