Songs were written, such as Crossword Mama, you puzzle me, but Papa’s gonna figure you out. The Broadway show, Puzzles of 1925, included a crosswords sanitarium scene: people seeking cures for puzzle mania.
Enthusiasts wore black-and-white-squared patterned clothing. By the end of the year, 375,000 crossword books had been sold, Simon and Schuster publishers solidly established - and the crossword craze ignited. To everyone’s utter shock, orders flooded in. They so doubted their project, they attached a pencil to each book to entice buyers. Reluctantly, the young men took on the project, hiring Petherbridge, and publishing 3,600 copies of The Cross Word Puzzle Book in April, 1924. Simon’s Aunt Wixie, a huge fan of the World’s crosswords, offered a radical suggestion: a book of her favourite puzzles. In the early 1920s, two young New Yorkers, Richard Simon and Max Schuster, set up a small publishing office and needed something to publish. “Because it is prettier,” she explained, according to newspaper accounts. She redesigned the grid into a symmetrical pattern of black-and-white squares. No two-letter answers permitted and good taste was de rigueur. The frustrated Sunday editor told his secretary, Margaret Petherbridge, a young Smith College grad, to proofread them.īy all accounts, the enterprising Petherbridge took over, making up rules. The typesetters hated the difficult-to-print puzzle and mistakes were rampant. The New York World’s crossword could have died quickly, strangled on typos. “I’d say we live in the golden age of crosswords.” “The audience has never been as broad as it is currently,” says the New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz. While the puzzle still flourishes in print, the online version has spread to the far reaches of cyberspace: Not only are newspaper crosswords available, but so are edgier and bawdy puzzle sites, blogs, supportive and snarky reviews, crowdsourcing projects and a chatty community of avowed addicts. With sophisticated software, constructors create more complex crosswords faster. The annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, focus of the 2006 documentary Wordplay, is a sort of X Games for word wonks.īut most importantly, computer technology has given the old puzzle new buzz. And elite solvers have turned it into competitive sport with rankings and trophies. Health-conscious boomers believe in the power of the puzzle - although neuroscientists cast doubt - to keep their minds sharp in old age. In recent years, the humble crossword has taken on fresh cachet. The name got transposed and the grid got squared, but 100 years later Wynne’s puzzle is still a winner, evolving through the decades to reflect the language and culture of the times. He designed a word game involving clues and answers - “What bargain hunters enjoy” (sales) - that fit into a diamond-shaped grid. He needed something fresh to fill space in the New York World’s games section for the Sunday before Christmas. Same principle here.Newspaperman Arthur Wynne had a puzzling problem. No one thought a quad jump in figure skating was possible - until it was. Constructors push each other as do competitors in any sport. More possible entries mean you have more choices in a tight spot -> longer average word length.Ĥ. Phrases (WHAT'S UP), slang, pop culture were frowned on prior to him.
#NYTIMES CROSSWORD ARCHIVE EMPTY SOFTWARE#
Constructors who use software must add those in.ģ To the latter point: Shortz has greatly expanded the realm of acceptable entries. Nor would a dictionary contain, I don't know, BILL DEBLASIO (mayor of NYC) or NO WAY JOSE or MMA FIGHTER or REDDIT. No dictionary list would contain, say, FAKE NEWS in it yet but it's a terrific answer. Moreover two hallmarks of the Times during Will Shortz's tenure as crossword puzzle editor have been fresh topical words and natural language phrases. It takes enormous amounts of work to build decent lists. The computer can't on its own distinguish between a terrible but valid word, say a minor genus of South Asian beetles, and a good one, say VW BEETLE. The various packages come with built-in word lists from dictionaries and the like but they're of limited use. The software helps but on its own cannot create a Times-quality puzzle grid. I would fill most of it myself because of I haven't written a puzzle in several years but when I last did I used the computer to just confirm that a grid WAS fillable so I didn't waste time on an unfillable grid. They cannot yet create a Times-quality crossword. However it's important to note they just aid. Computers absolutely aid in filling wide-open grids (with fewer black squares and hence longer average word length). I have created three puzzles for the Times over the years.
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