I do crossword puzzles everyday.

[CookingWithGas]

I have never once heard a person who is confused say they are “at sea.”

[CookingWithGas]

Gene Weingarten wrote a column a few years ago on what would aliens conclude if they analyzed crossword puzzles for information about our culture. The Post is behind a paywall but I think you a couple of articles for free.

[Maserschmidt]

@pulykamell

I hated those old puzzles where you needed a crossword dictionary by your side. They are so much better these days. Those types of puzzles were always a slog to me. To me, the fun is in minimizing crosswordese and amping the difficulty through the clever cluing rather than obscure words and phrases.

But, yes, after going back in the NYTimes app (you can go back to the beginning of the Shortz days in 1993), I definitely find today’s puzzles significantly easier than the ones even 10/15 years ago under his direction. Granted, I do have a lot more practice now and clues that may have been current in the old puzzles no longer are current today so might be tougher to get but, still, there is definitely a feeling that they are easier now.

I’m going to go with pop culture being a big part of the difference - I didn’t know they went back to 1993, so I just did the first Thursday - Friday - Saturday sequence and significantly bettered my records on all three days. Or maybe that’s too small a sample?

12/3/1993 puzzle spoiler alert: “41. Writer Cecil of “The Straight Dope”.”

[CookingWithGas]

This gives me an idea. If I were a crossword constructor, I would make a puzzle with the theme “Not the usual suspects,” but the answers would be different and won’t fit.

Black and white treat: Hydrox
Lennon’s love: guitar
Fencing weapon: sabre
MAS*H medico actor: Rogers

[pulykamell]

@Maserschmidt

I’m going to go with pop culture being a big part of the difference - I didn’t know they went back to 1993, so I just did the first Thursday - Friday - Saturday sequence and significantly bettered my records on all three days. Or maybe that’s too small a sample?

12/3/1993 puzzle spoiler alert: “41. Writer Cecil of “The Straight Dope”.”

Yeah, for me, I just tried one: the Monday Dec 6 puzzle. For example, for this month in 2019, I averaged solving a Monday in five to six minutes (fastest time at just under 5 minutes.). The 1993 one took me fifteen, I had an error, and I had to look up two answers, where I never look up answers on Mondays in the last few years. OK, I tried another, the next week’s. I clocked in at twelve and a half minutes. Felt a lot easier, but I still got snagged up a few times in a way I simply don’t with today’s puzzles. Looking at my stats, those times are basically Wednesday averages for me today.

I won’t even dare a Friday or Saturday from that era. Chances of me solving it are probably next to none. These days, I can at least actually solve about half of them without any outside help.

[Voyager]

@pulykamell

I hated those old puzzles where you needed a crossword dictionary by your side. They are so much better these days. Those types of puzzles were always a slog to me. To me, the fun is in minimizing crosswordese and amping the difficulty through the clever cluing rather than obscure words and phrases.

But, yes, after going back in the NYTimes app (you can go back to the beginning of the Shortz days in 1993), I definitely find today’s puzzles significantly easier than the ones even 10/15 years ago under his direction. Granted, I do have a lot more practice now and clues that may have been current in the old puzzles no longer are current today so might be tougher to get but, still, there is definitely a feeling that they are easier now.

The new ones require your brain rather than a book. I’ve done Sunday puzzles since 1975, in Will Weng days IIRC, and daily ones since the mid-80s, when Shortz was still at Games.
I find the new ones easier, but I do cryptics, so tricky clues and themes are no problem.

Another problem with the book is that I’m not up on 1960 vintage books. Kind of like my problem with London Times puzzles is that I did not grow up with an English Classical education, so some of the clues which are meant to be obvious require research.

[LurkMeister]

@Voyager

I just finished a book of Times puzzles from the very early '60s. Emeer would be trivial in them. They were full of obscure words and places and variants of obscure words. My mother-in-law solved these kinds of puzzles with a crossword dictionary close at hand. Thanks to Shortz, I can solve Times puzzles with no assistance except maybe looking up an obscure (to me) song in a Saturday puzzle once a month or so.

I don’t remember how I came across it, but I have a link to online reproductions of The Saturday Review which ran double-crostics which I was able to print out and try to solve. “Try” being the operative word, as they used literary and cultural references which pretty much required online research to figure out. (It was also interesting to come across references to Hitler in the 1930s as the German Chancellor.)

[Voyager]

@LurkMeister

I don’t remember how I came across it, but I have a link to online reproductions of The Saturday Review which ran double-crostics which I was able to print out and try to solve. “Try” being the operative word, as they used literary and cultural references which pretty much required online research to figure out. (It was also interesting to come across references to Hitler in the 1930s as the German Chancellor.)

The later ones were by Thomas Middleton, who also did acrostics for the Times (every two Sundays) and who had books of them which I gobbled up in grad school. Yeah, sometimes I had to dive into my Bartlett’s to solve.
But it sounds like the puzzles you found were by Elizabeth Kingsley, who invented them for the Saturday Review in 1934.

In his books Middleton included a few puzzles with cryptic clues. Even more fun.

[LurkMeister]

Yep, I was doing puzzles by Elizabeth Kingsley, starting with her first ones in 1934 and working them sequentially. It’s been a few years since I’ve done any; it’s possible that I had gotten as far as the Thomas Middleton ones.