"Splitting Hairs"

[Schmeel]

Good morning! Happy Super Bowl Sunday to one and all.
In the past 5-10 years I was usually able to name at least one player on at least one team – Brady, Mahomes or Manning. This year, it seems, that's not the case. I even had to look up which teams are playing. Since the dreaded Covid caught up with me a couple of days ago and I'm home anyway, I may even get up at an unearthly hour and watch the game. If I do, it also seems that I'll get to see some worthy crosswordese for the first time at halftime, such as DR DRE and EMINEM. May the game be good and the better team win. I'm sure I'll hear about it tomorrow in any case.

The solution to 'Splitting Hairs', as reached by about 75 solvers:

Taking the title of the puzzle into account, while looking through the grid you can find 4 symmetrically placed hairstyles split by a black square:
20A+21A – COMBOVER
29A+31A - SIDEBURNS
46A+48A - HORSESHOE
57A+59A - DUCKTAIL
You can also see 8A+68A providing direction as to how one can split hairs – ACROSS ORDOWN.

Since you're looking for an 8-letter adjective and there are 4 'split hairs' going across, chances are you'll find that each split provides 2 letters to the answer, which is indeed the case. The letters above and below the black squares that split the hairs across yield the answer - 'pedantic' - splitting hairs down as well.

A few solvers commented on red herrings. I put none in, and I don't know what they could have been. As a newbie constructer it was hard enough getting all the words and letters I wanted into the grid with passable entries filling the rest.

A few solvers also learned about a horseshoe haircut – so did I while googling to research hairstyles to use in creating the puzzle. I also learned about a ducktail haircut as well. But my original intention was to build the puzzle in order: a comb-over on top, then sideburns, lower down a horseshoe mustache, and a ducktail beard at the bottom. I tried to get my son to create a cartoon to match, but I wasn't pleased with the result. So see my rudimentary illustration:

Thanks to all for solving and for all the nice comments!

[MikeyG]

It was literally right there, and I couldn't see it past the haircuts. I use the word all the time too, haha.

That was amazing.

[woozy]

So the Rabbit's Chin was not an intentional red herring?

Never heard of a duck Tail beard but assumed everyone had heard of the Duck Tail haircut (also known as the D.A. haircut).

Very good puzzle. Took me a long timeto get that you only look at *two* letters down. Which is totally fair and nicely hinted at.