I’ve really been enjoying The Week’s crossword since they started running it a few weeks ago, with its interesting entries involving up-to-the-minute references to current events.
Could someone check the byline and tell me who’s credited as constructor and/or editor?
Yes. There are certain “filler” words that they use over and over again because they begin or end with vowel letters (often both). It’s like they have them in stock only to make other solutions fit:
epee (any clue about fencing)
elate (any version of a term to make some very happy)
emote (anything about acting)
oboe (usually a reference to an instrument and the context where it’s heard)
Ilsa (any reference to the film Casablanca)
egad (any kind of “oath” in quotation marks, especially an old fashion one)
Alamo (any clue about San Antonio, TX, or Santa Ana, or a car rental company competitor)
alas (any reference to “woe” etc.)
ami (French, “friend,” usually implied by mentioning a city in France)
agua (Spanish, “water,” usually implied by mentioning a city in Mexico or Spain)
este, esto, esta (Spanish, “this,” “that,” usually implied by mentioning a city in Mexico or Spain)
Asia (usually a reference to a city or county in Asia, and the clue “continent”)
ache (any reference to soreness or discomfort)
And so on.
But there’s another question, and I don’t mean to high jack (perhaps it deserves a new thread), but no one has been able to answer it for me:
Why is it that the crossword puzzles from various daily newspapers will often have many of the same solutions on a given day? Is there some kind of network whereby the writers agree to use some of the same solutions? Do they have a “word of the day” calendar? Do they distribute a secret list, that says, “On Wednesday, include these three solutions.”?
What?! Is that legal?
Now that is clever. Took me a second to get it even after reading the spoiler.
Never heard the expression, “he’s a grower, not a shower,” huh?
esne used to be as big as oleo in the crossword filler realm.
It’s a mistake to conclude that something is not a word because it doesn’t have an entry in the dictionary. There is a verb “air” and a suffix “er” that are both well-known, and you can stick that suffix at the end to form a noun that means someone or something who airs. The same goes for “show” and “-er”.
+1,000, preach it.
It’s “by Peter Gordon.”
I recently read Matt Gaffney’s book Gridlock. He devotes several pages to Peter Gordon who, as editor of the New York Sun crossword, attempts, quite possibly successfully, to produce a better crossword than Will Shortz’s New York Times.
Along the same lines, I’ve seen the puzzle clue “Largest tower in the U.S.”
The answer is “AAA”
That is, “tower” is referring to tow trucks that pick up damaged cars. Triple A is called regularly to tow away cars.
At least twice in the past couple months, the NY Times Sunday crossword has had a clue referring to a “number”. Both times, the reference was to a dentist (a numb-er).
There’s a whole book on this, Four-Letter Words: And Other Secrets of a Crossword Insider by Michelle Arnot. It might be useful for the OP or other newcomers to pick up.
Coincidence. Really.
Oh, Lord, yes. Those are my favorite kinds of puzzles.
I remember one where phrases and words including the letters HOLE were featured, and you actually had to draw in, or punch, a hole in place of those letters in the grid. Another did similar things with old-fashioned slot machine symbols. And it’s not just limited to individual grid squares; you can make entries run in different ways, twist them around, do whatever.
It’s a lot of fun.
I don’t buy that. It happens too often, with some more obscure words–not the ones they always have.
Yeah, the NYTimes does this sometimes, usually on Thursdays, if I’m remembering correctly. I remember one puzzle in which they used card suits (heart, club, spade, diamond) in one square. So, the answer may be something like HEARTBREAKER, but the actual squares were filled in (symbol of heart)BREAKER, for a total of eight spaces. I also seem to remember one where the answers would snake around in a weird way, so that the answer might start going forward across, but will wind down and backwards on itself in the next row. These sorts of tricks can be unfair if you don’t know to look out for them as a possibility. Like I said, I think it’s a peculiarity of Thursday puzzles only in the NYTimes, but I may be wrong about that.
Got that one right away, but it was easy when you know it’s going to be a trick. If you’re stuck on a crossword clue, especially the NYTimes, it pays to step back for a second and see if there’s another way the clue can be read. Show-er/shower, Flow-er/Flower – these are very typical examples of the way crossword puzzle makers deliberately (but fairly) try to misdirect you. A crossword wouldn’t be fun if it were merely straight definitions. It’s exactly this sort of wordplay that makes crosswords an enjoyable time waster.
Sorry, but I think the mundane answer is the correct one: coincidence.
Peter’s a first-class constructor.
Whoever writes these is really lucky I don’t do crosswords. Really fuckin’ lucky.
If you’ll forgive some self-promotion, this thread might be of interest.
I remember one puzzle in which some of the squares needed to be filled with colors, e.g. a word like “bared” would cross a word like “redraw,” and one square took care of the “red” in each word.
I love stuff like that.
Believe it. I’ve seen it happen with a 2 month old Games Magazine puzzle and the current Times one.