I’ve been working on crossword puzzles lately and have been meaning to ask a bunch of questions here. However I have been too lazy to actually start the thread, so over time I have managed to answer most of my own questions.
One thing that I am still wondering is related to abbreviations. When multiple puzzles ask for a four letter abbreviation for anatomy, is it always the exact same abbreviation? In other words, it won’t be ‘anat’ one time and ‘anto’ another time? Are these abbreviations considered ‘correct’ in the sense that a dictionary would list them as official abbreviations? Or can they be ad-hoc?
Another question is about dobbin. Dobbin is just used as a clever way to refer to a horse, right? So ‘What Dobbin eats’ is the same as ‘What a horse eats’, right?
Thanks Sigmagirl!
I didn’t realize there were other code names for animals.
But harder puzzles won’t ask for “an abbreviation for anatomy”. They’d more likely ask for “sci. class” or “branch of medicine, for short”.
I didn’t know Reynard was a fox either. Sly one!
Yes, when a abbreviation is in the clue, that’s your hint that the answer is an abbreviation.
Similarly, when a foreign word is in the clue, the answer is foreign. “Capital of Italia” is Roma, not Rome.
When they use a first or last name in a clue, the answer is the same class. “Newman role” is Cassidy, not Butch.
If the clue seem poorly worded, try saying the clue out loud, and you may find that “leads” and “leaves” are not a verbs but objects.
Really? I didn’t know this trick and it will help a lot!
I’ll have to remember this one too.
Just to clarify the OP a bit: I know the tricks for identifying if something is an abbreviation, but it wasn’t clear how to identify what the actual abbreviation is. For example, yesterday I had a three-letter answer that was ‘manuscripts’ abbreviated. I ended up with ‘mss’, but this doesn’t feel like a ‘good’ answer. How am I supposed to know if it is ‘mss’, ‘mas’, ‘mns’, or ‘mts’? Obviously, I can get the answer by solving the clues in the opposite direction, but in that case, this ‘mss’ clue/answer is mostly useless. I suppose figuring out it is manuscripts (abbreviated) narrows down the possible letters and helps me figure out the opposite direction clues a bit easier.
And how does anyone keep track of all the four-letter rivers?
Edit: I should mention that my puzzle book kept giving me the clue ‘Asian nurse’, so I finally broke down and googled it. As you can imagine, it took me a while to narrow it down and find ‘amah’.
Ugh! And the edit window times out before I can add my punchline…
Abbreviations used as grid entries should definitely be standard abbreviations, not just random jumbled collections of letters.
twickster, professional puzzle editor for many, many years
Yeah, the standard abbreviation for “manuscripts” is definitely “mss”, though it’s not seen much any more. Some things, though, have more than one standard abbreviation (many US states, for instance-- “Where you’d find faces on a mt.” could be “SDAK”), though those are usually different numbers of letters.