… or they’re all a bunch of cheats and copycats. I’ve been somewhat addicted to crosswords for over a year now, and regularly do the NY Times, New York magazine, and the New York Daily News puzzles and (think) I have noticed a disturbing trend. Now, anyone who does CWs knows there are certain answers to clues that pop up all the time, such as Eero Saarinen, the great architect, or aper for one who imitates (i.e. apes). However, practically every week I’ll find a relatively obscure clue in one of the above puzzles, and a few days later it will pop up in a slightly different form in another. Or an idea will be co-opted: there was a clue in, I think, the NY Times which was “Advil competitor”, with the answer of “Aleve” and then in the next New York magazine, the was a clue of “Advil competitor”, and the answer was “Aleve”. So whats up? Are all those different names in the NY Times CW made up? Is Will Shortz (the NY Times CW editor) the only true creator of CWs? Has anyone else noticed this?
As an avid cruciverbalist, I can tell you that this is a common occurence. There are only so many ways to clue certain words, and some of those words are bound to show up over and over again.
You noticing the phenomenon is really no more than selective memory. How many relatively obscure clues pop up one week that don’t show up in a different puzzle next week? You remember the one that does; not the 100 that don’t. Besides, I think that crosswords have to be submitted a few weeks (if not months) ahead of time.
That second clause should read “…‘Aleve’ competitor and the answer was ‘Tylenol’”.
Yeah, this week ‘oro’ showed up a few times - last week I think it was ‘oater’ or something. I had an idea Mr. Shortz purposely places the puzzles that way so we have a kind of motif going, a small bit of continuity. But I could be wrong.
If you, and Opus1, like solving puzzles, I invite you both to this thread. We only have until Saturday night to solve it.