Fucking crossword puzzles

The BBQ Pit
21

Well, if a constructor is lucky, VERY lucky, pop culture or changing times will give him a new way to clue an old chestnut.

Examples? Well, for ages, constructors would use ANI, which is some kind of bird related to the cuckoo. Today, of course, a slightly hipper contructor can make the clue refer to Ani DiFranco.

Among current celebrities, we’re really grateful for:

ELLE Macpherson (hope she stars in a hit movie soon)
ENYA
Brian ENO
UMA Thurman

But frankly, there are some very useful celebrities who COULD be useful, but who’ve faded from the public eye, or have become crossword cliches. Like:

UTA Hagen and ELI Wallach. I mean, it would be nice if some othger famous people would give their kids those names, so we could have new clues. UTA’s been dead too long, and Wallach hasn’t played a high-profile role in too long. And it would be nice if there were another famous ELIE besides Wiesel.

Lance ITO was a godsend during the O.J. trial, but now? He’s forgotten. We need a new ITO.

ELO was one of my favorite bands, but they havben’t had a hit in decades. Come on, Jeff Lynne, how about a reunion?

I can’t wait for the “Matrix” sequel so we can use NEO again.

And poor IDA Lupino… can’t thjere be a new celebrity named Ida?

ARA Parseghian hasn’t won any games lately, either.

And, much as I hate her music, I hope Yoko ONO stays in the spotlight a long time.

22

What about YMA Sumac?
TERI Garr?
Bert LAHR?

One of my favorite recent celebrity clues is “Rapping Doctor.”
And there’s not only OLEO but OLIO to be found up there, in the right corner.

23

Ah. Dre.

24

I do prefer the clever clues instead of the obscure answers myself, but there was that one time I was stuck for days trying to figure out the answer for “Bashful Roommate.” 3 letters.

Doc

25

Try the puzzles in the Atlantic Monthly, then. Not only are the clues cryptic (“I complain about one of the Judds.”, “Oddly chintzy town.”), but there’s usually something odd about the construction of the puzzle, too. If you can solve that one in a month, you’re making pretty good time.

26

Yes, I think the Times puzzle is much improved over Maleska’s day. The funny thing is, it takes me nearly the same time, on average, to complete (or nearly complete) a Sunday puzzle. But back when Maleska was editing it, I would almost always end up with one or two blank squares or wrong letters where two obscure words crossed each other (and I refuse to use a dictionary). With Shortz, I can almost always fill in every space.

A puzzle is hardly “eductional” if all it does is teach you words only used in crossword puzzles.

(The one that always pisses me off is ern/erne. I’m an ornithologist, and I still have never been able to figure out what particular species of eagle that’s actually supposed to refer to. “Ani” and “emu,” on the other hand, are no problem>)

27

It’s the White-Tailed Eagle/European Sea Eagle, Haliaeetus albicilla. You won’t see one anywhere near Panama.

28

Yeah, I know about Haliaeetus albicilla. However, I’ve never seen any modern ornithological reference that called it an erne. The word is completely archaic, now existing only in crossword puzzles.

29

Well, not only in crosswords - it’s in the dictionary too.

The link I posted shows its range and mentions the fact that it was hunted to extinction in Britain by 1916 (and I guess know about the reintroduction attempts since). The word itself is Old English, related to Old Norse, and the only bird that would fit that explanation is that bird. When you find a one-to-one match is there any need to find a written reference to confirm the inevitable?

Presumably the reason modern ornithological references don’t mention the old fashioned name is because we have other names for it that are in common use, not because nobody knows which bird it used to refer to. My previous post was intended to help, by the way, not to suggest that we should still be calling Haliaeetus albicilla the erne (or to hijack this thread).

30

astorian

Do constructors always write the clues? Have you ever submitted a CWP and had the editor change the clues? I’ve always had a hunch that Shortz writes the clues in the NYT puzzles. Am I way off? Thanks!

DOC

31

I’ve probably had about 15 puzzles published in the Times. On average, Will Shortz changes about half of my clues.

In the beginning, about 10 years ago, I was a rank amateur. All I did was photocopy grids from various newspapers, and fill them in with a pencil. When I got my nerve up, I submitted some to various publications.

I’ll say this for both Stanley Newman and Will: they couldn’t have been nicer. Let’s face it, NO editor at ANY publication is delighted to get unsolicited work from amateurs. But both of them looked at my work, and… well, they both rejected my first few tries, but they gave very detailed, elaborate criticisms of precisely what they didn’t like in my work. And that was something I appreciated greatly. Neither sent form letters, though they’d have been perfectly within their rights to do so.

Anyway, MOST of the better editors change about half of my clues. Usually for the better (Will HAS saved me from embarrasing errors a few times), but occasionally for the worse.

Biggest example? Will is a very smart guy, a very erudite guy, and he has a million reference books on every subject… but he’s not much of a sports fan. That proved a LITTLE embarrassing to me a few years back.

See, I had submitted a puzzle with the entry RUPP. My clue was “Legendary Kentucky hoops coach.” Will apparently didn’t think that clue was punchy enough, so he looked up Adolph Rupp in a reference book, and saw him described as the winningest NCAA basketball coach of all time. So, he changed the clue to “All time winningest NCAA basketball coach.”

Problem is, that HAD been true at the time the reference book went to press, but it WASN’T true at the time I wrote the puzzle. I was enough of a sports nut to know that Dean Smith of North Carolina had recently passed Rupp. But Will didn’t know, so my puzzle was published with that error.

The error did NOT go unnoticed! In fact, the next issue of Sports Illustrated made a big point of correcting “my” error! I forget the exact phrasing, but they sarcastically pointed out that the venerable NY Times puzzle had goofed big time.

Sigh.

Anyway, I admit freely that 70% of the time, when editors change my work, they improve it. And about 29% of the time, they don’t improve OR hurt it. But every so often, they make a change that really screws things up!

32

astorian, how does one get started publishing such things?

I’ve been a crossword fanatic since I could read. I don’t bother with any daily puzzles except late-week NYT and WSJ, and I quit subscribing to the New Yorker when they quit running a cryptic crossword in the back (though I started up again, thanks to Adam Gopnik’s totally blinding brilliance). I subscribed to GAMES magazine at age 12 or so, though I would skip the articles on DragonCon and go straight to the World’s Most Ornery Crossword Puzzle (hard clues, of course).

I used to send the New Yorker a cryptic crossword about once a month. They would send me a kind, pre-printed rejection notice stating that they didn’t accept unsolicited puzzle “manuscripts.” I’d send a response saying I’d broken their code and figured out that they were trying to dissuade newcomers and that their rejection was actually a veiled solicitation, and include another puzzle. Same damn pre-printed card. I’d find some other half-witty notion to write a letter about (“You didn’t actually SAY my puzzle was unsolicited”), &c., &c.

So how does one start? Where do I send them? I don’t have any on-hand, thanks to an unplanned hard-drive meltdown (literal meltdown, that is), but I can crank them out should it come to that.

Please help out a lonely cruciverbalist!

33

Just for fun (if that’s allowed in this forum.)

Base intent (3)
The alcoholic part of the engine (3)
The man sounds sincere (6)
AWOL soldier sounds ideal (7)
Racists in Phoneboxes(10)

1)Ten (Ten is a mathematical base that’s found ‘in’ tent)
2)Gin (hidden in the word ‘Engine’)
3)Ernest (Sounds like Earnest, meaning Sincere)
4)Paragon (An AWOl soldier is a ‘para’ gone, and paragon means ‘ideal’)
5)Xeonphobes (anagram of Phoneboxes)

astorian, in your opinion, do you feel these clues are of a publishable quality? I’ve been sending in the odd crossword to a few papers for ages now and have never gotten any response.