Talk:Crossword

Dutch "cryptograms"

As to the popularity of 'cryptics': in the Netherlands these puzzles are called cryptograms. They are hugely popular among the puzzle solvers for whom normal cross-words have become too easy. Especially the cryptograms of the Volkskrant are very popular, but the Volkskrant is (or rather claims it is) a high-brow news paper—I am not sure if the 'working class' news papers carry a daily cryptogram.--branko

In the UK, the 'working class' papers ("tabloids") tend to just have a normal crossword; "broadsheets" (the allegedly high-brow ones) have both. --Bth

It depends what you mean by "tabloid", but certainly the Daily Mail and Daily Express have both "quick" and cryptic crosswords. I don't know off-hand about the Sun and the Mirror. AndrewWTaylor 15:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

---

Oh, also notice that the letter games entry refers to cryptograms as a separate category of puzzle.--branko

Dealt with. (Hope you don't mind that I've used the UK phrase for the main article with cryptogram as a redirect, given that this is the English language Wikipedia.) --Bth

I removed the HTML comment?does that help?--branko

Yes, thanks! Could you tell me what browser you're using? (so I can make a sensible sounding bug report) --Bth

Internet Explorer 5.0 Win--branko

Thanks. And thanks for the "blah" fix ... (very sloppy of me) -- Bth

Variants

Some crossword grids don't have black squares -- instead some gridlines are bold.

Then they're not really crosswords, imho, they're a slightly different form of word puzzle. I've also seen circular ones, with clues that go radially and tangentially. Perhaps a more general "variants" section is needed... -- Bth

Just what I was thinking. I wrote a comment to this effect the other day - it must've somehow not got saved. But I see someone's started on a variants section. I'll work on it a bit more when I've time. But I'm particularly surprised nobody who's worked on this piece so far appears to have heard of the crossnumber (or '"Number Word" as the Daily Mail Weekend used to call it inappropriately). -- Smjg 12:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

BTW, naming policy is for singular, not plurals -- so other articles can say "solving a [ [crossword] ] puzzle" (for example). I'll do an admin move -- Tarquin 08:56 Aug 9, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks. --Bth

page moved. all sorted. :-) Tarquin

Conventions

There are other aspects of crosswords that ought to be discussed, probably. In particular, American style crosswords have some conventions, among them: 180-degree rotational symmetry (which is mentioned), no two-letter words, no "unches" (an "unch" is an unchecked letter, i.e. a letter appearing in only one word). Almost all crosswords that appear in serious fora (e.g. the New York Times and other major newspapers) are square, and are in fact an odd number of squares--15x15 is fairly standard for a daily newspaper crossword.

This is for standard American-style crosswords. Variants exist, of course, such as the spiral (mentioned above), marching bands, labyrinth, and so forth. --Tahnan, passing through

Perhaps also mention the convention of using each letter of the alphabet at least once? Of not repeating words? (Back in the day, Roy Blount, Jr. in Spy created a crossword in which "intersection" intersected with "intersection", and another without 180-degree rotational symmetry, which last prompted at least one letter of complaint.) Robertd

Outline on article page

I removed the following outline from the main page -- it's not generally considered appropriate to put unfinished outlines on article pages. Once it's fleshed out, feel free to add the relevant information to the article. (I left the paragraphs themselves in the article -- I only removed the outline itself.)

(to be added, when I've checked my facts)

Outline:

• evolved from "word squares"
• diamond shapes
• dates (find them out)

In 1913, Arthur Wynne published a puzzle in the New York World which embodied most of the features of the genre as we know it. This puzzle, which can be seen at this website, is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor.

Crossword puzzles became a regular weekly feature in the World. The first book of crossword puzzles, however, did not appear until 1924, published by Simon and Schuster. The book was an instant hit and crossword puzzles became the craze of 1924.

• tradition of pseudonymous compilers
• D-Day landings

In 1944, Allied security officers were disturbed by the appearance, in a series of crossword puzzles published in the London Daily Telegraph, of words that happened to be secret code names for military operations. "Utah" (the code name for one of the landing sites) appeared in a puzzle published on May 2nd, 1944. Subsequent puzzles included the words "Omaha" and "Mulberry" (the highly-secret artificial harbors)

On June 2nd, just four days before the invasion, the puzzle included both the words "Neptune" (the naval operations plan) and "Overlord." That was the last straw, and the author of the puzzles, a schoolteacher, was arrested and interrogated. The investigators finally concluded that the appearance of the words was just a coincidence. The event has been so described in histories, and has even been used as an illustration of how seemingly meaningful events can arise out of pure coincidence.

According to National Geographic magazine, though, in 1984 the schoolteacher revealed that one of his students had picked up the words while hanging around army camps. When the teacher had asked his students to provide unusual words as ingredients for his puzzles, he had innocently passed them on.

About that National Geographic bit...first of all, is the crossword stuff even true? (Sounds kind of urban legend-ish.) If so, how could some kid hanging around army camps (assuming some kid would even be allowed to do so) be able to pick up those words? From random soldiers? Would random soldiers know those codewords at that time, or at all? Adam Bishop 00:26, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

That part of the article is mine. The stuff about the code words appearing in the crosswords is true, or at least I've read many different accounts in books on World War II, codebreaking, etc. At the time I'd read about it, all the sources just regarded it as a truly amazing coincidence. I probably should have cited the sources I googled for when I wrote that section, but I just felt it was well enough known not to need it. (I just now tried Googling on "crossword overlord neptune" and got a pretty good bunch).

I hadn't known about the 1984 explanation of how it supposedly happened. I regard the National Georgraphic as a pretty credible source, but mentioned them specifically because I hadn't seen this account anywhere else.

I see there's now a new account of the whole thing, including the "schoolboy" explanation, written in 2004 in The Daily Telegraph, where the puzzles originally appeared. Oh, and http://safariexamples.informit.com/0130320722/amazing/forgetful.html#Ford mentions it, credits the "schoolboy" explanation to the Daily Telegraph, and the story about the codewords appearing in the crossword to two sources: "The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan and "Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown. The latter is probably where I first read about it. Dpbsmith 01:47, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

There was a film made about this incident in which a schoolboy was forced to create the crosswords as punishment. The schoolboy was friends with an officer who was connected enough to have the secrets in his office... the schoolboy sneaked a look at the office and used the words he saw there.

POV?

Does the following sentence meet the NPOV criteria?

"In 1968 and 1969, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim published an astonishingly inventive series of crossword-like puzzles in New York magazine."

Has it been previously claimed that they were "astonishingly inventive" and if so who claimed this? Alternatively is it the POV of the contributor? TigerShark 01:03, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, but that doesn't really warrant the use of a POV tag, so I removed it. POV tags should be reserved for things which the reader might want to be warned about, and not for things as trivial as to whether these crosswords were inventive or not. --Fastfission 05:30, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have put the tag back, I don't see what harm it is doing. I placed a tag there rather than just edit the text so that I could get the opinion of others first. Which criteria are you using for deciding that it doesn't warrant a POV tag? TigerShark 13:32, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Man, I just took the tag out and took out the word 'astonishing.' Inventive can still be neutral, but astonishing isn't all that neutral. Simple, no? (UTC)

should thisarticle mwtion wn:crosswords?

Should this article mention the wikinews n:crosswords (n:Crosswords/Current) since its a sister project of wikipedia? Bawolff 00:33, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Chances are that if someone looks up this article he's interested in things like this. So, yes, why not? Shinobu 07:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

How much does a crossword puzzle writer make a year? Helmsb 21:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Cruciverbalism

From the introduction: "The creating of crosswords is called cruciverbalism, and a creator is called a cruciverbalist." I've always thought that these were slightly facetious coinings, and I'm sure they're not universally used. "Compiler" and "setter" are much more common names for a creator of crosswords. I'll (boldly) change the sentence. AndrewWTaylor 16:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

History seciton

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that linking to a "history of crosswords" website is a lousy substitute for actually entering the information on WP? I mean, is WP outsourcing its material now? I suggest that these links be moved to the end (along with the translation crossword link, escpecially since it's a paid site), and that information actually be provided in the article. - RealGrouchy 06:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The sample cryptic clues

I figured it'd be a good idea to discuss these so we can discern each other's criticisms and develop ideal examples:

• 1 Across: the new "sounds woolly?" clue is genius. I think that's a keeper.
• 3 Across: I don't get the current clue. For starters, it's not an "&lit" clue, so that exclamation point shouldn't be there. I'm guessing some corruption of 'soiled' was intended, but indirect anagrams, especially those further altered, are seriously frowned upon. I admit, however, that on second examination of my own clue, the "'s" is extraneous. We need something better here.
• 5 Across: the question I ask myself is, would it make sense to me if I saw a standard crossword with a three-letter entry clued as "Wilde's"? Would I think that a fair and accurate clue? Your mileage may vary, but I don't like that. I thought my clue rather smooth-flowing for a simple container.
• 1 Down: The word "sees" is extraneous. My version doesn't have extraneous terms.
• 2 Down: Forget word flow; the current clue is backwards - it describes 'owall', not 'allow'! In a vertical clue, 'on' as a locator is unambiguous. My clue's word flow is bad, hence why I'm not just outright replacing the erroneous one, but we can't let that sit there.
• 4 Down: This is okay as is; I just didn't realize it was a container at first ('t' for "time" is a standard scientific variable, so I was erroneously wondering where the wordplay of 'do' was). I wonder if perhaps some other punctuation than the question mark would still read sufficiently smoothly; I believe a dash would work.

I'm curious to know what criticisms others have for my own examples, especially for those believed to be worse than the ones I replaced. Let's get this section sparkling clear! Zotmeister 19:41, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Zotmeister. Thanks for opening up the debate. My main criticism of your clues was they seemed to be just an alternative set of clues, without being any particular improvement on what was there (with a couple of clues that were, imho, not as good as the originals). Given that we could spend the rest of time replacing the examples with completely new sets of clues, I think a better approach would be to gradually evolve what we have here until everyone is more-or-less happy. For example, the changes made by Barnabypage, and then the later changes by myself all evolved the original clues, rather than rewriting from scratch, which is how I think we should continue.

Some specific replies:

• 1ac - thank you!
• 3ac - probably the weakest clue. It is a little too obscure for the purposes of this article, though I don't think your comment about indirect anagrams applies. Have amended it - see what you think.
• 5ac - I think this is fine. The 's is an abbreviation of "is", rather than a possessive. The standard clue would therefore be "Wilde", rather than "Wilde's", which I think is fair. You might put "e.g. Wilde" or something similar, but I don't think that would be a requirement.
• 1dn - Maybe, but your clue also doesn't read very well. How could a sandwich rise or clear a table? The current clue is better because it makes sense in its own right as well. Also 'clear a table' does not quite equate to 'bus', which additionally is quite an obscure word on this side of the Atlantic.
• 2dn - Agreed. I have amended.
• 4dn - A hyphen may work.

--HappyDog 08:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

D'oh! Didn't think of 5 Across that way; I fell for a classic trap. Regarding 1 Down, maybe if we swapped it around so that we can use a proper connector rather than 'sees': does "Rising submarine becomes ferry" sound too contrived? As for 3 Across, though, I think an entirely new clue is warranted - I think it's just too much to be fair, and I also think the letter 'e' as "drug" is a major shot-in-the-dark. (Incidentally, I thought "for real!" was better than "real" as a definition for 'solid' - the latter loses the colloquialism that makes the connection.)

I openly admit that logic-based puzzles are more my forte, but I still have an instinct for wordplay, and it has reservations here. Hmmm - I have an acquaintance who is a linguistics student at MIT who adores cryptics; maybe he can be persuaded to provide some input for us. ...Actually, he'll probably tell us all of our suggestions are terrible, but maybe it'll be educational for us all. It's a bit of Pandora's Box, but the article will be better for it in the end... - ZM

Zotmeister 21:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Japanese Crosswords

Japanese crossword grids have two rules guiding their construction: black cells may not share a side

This statement is not generally true; I have confirmed it with people living in Japan who were able to check out Japanese crosswords. It should be removed unless somebody can cite evidence for it. Unfortunately, somebody has reverted my attempt to remove this statement without any confirmation of the facts.

Mysteronald 21 January 2006

I have strong evidence, but not conclusive evidence. The problem here is twofold:

- Websearching on "Japanese crosswords" is unhelpful - all you get is Paint by numbers references;

- All other references I have are either in the context of puzzles other than Japanese crosswords (as a pair of rules to be applied to a logic puzzle, the "dynasty" rules) or are written in Japanese.

Off the top of my head I have two websites to point to.

This page is in Japanese, but details what is and isn't legal in Japanese crossword grid construction; the penultimate sentence explains that it applies to crossword puzzle construction as well as "dynasty" puzzles:

http://www.nikoli.co.jp/puzzles/renkuro.htm

This information is duplicated in their publications, and their crosswords and crossword variants do indeed follow those rules unfailingly (I have visually confirmed this - I've imported many of their books). Nikoli is apparently the largest publisher of pencil puzzles of all kinds in Japan, much like Penny Publications (Dell/Penny Press magazines) in the United States.

Buried in this other page (search for "Black-cell Handling") is an off-hand reference to those rules, but what makes it significant is its source - Wei-Hwa Huang is a former World Puzzle Champion:

http://www.mathpuzzle.com/Sudoku/WeiHwaSudoku.htm

The colloquial presentation implies that this is common knowledge.

Certainly, not all Japanese-language crosswords constructed in Japan follow these rules, just as not all English-language crosswords published in the United States follow the symmetry, entry-length, and letter-checking rules our article prescribes (I direct the morbidly curious to the crossword in each issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly). However, I believe professional grids follow those rules in both cases. You won't see a Dell grid that doesn't follow the U.S. "rules"; you won't see a Nikoli grid that doesn't follow the Japan "rules". I believe this professional requirement is a sufficient basis for including the descriptions of both in our article as "general rules". The actual truth can only be stronger than the evidence I have, and I believe this is already enough. I am, however, open to counter-evidence, if there is any. - ZM

Zotmeister 15:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

It is plainly misleading to describe these as "Japanese crossword rules". My friend who is actually in Toyama confirms she has checked three different nationally published crosswords on my behalf, and none of them conform to these rules. Even if Nikoli publish crosswords with these rules (where?), then they are Nikoli's rules, not rules which define Japanese crosswords.

I would argue that this is better evidence than a throwaway phrase used on a single occasion by someone in the language-free-logic-puzzle community (who might be mistaken), and by the (poorly evidenced) style of a single publisher. It is a convenient idea within the puzzle community, but it is not universally correct.

I have still not seen a Japanese-language crossword which does follow these rules, constituting no verifiable evidence. The paragraph should at least be edited (I would still suggest that it should be removed) to make it clear that not all Japanese crosswords do follow these rules, and that it is not necessary for a crossword to follow these rules just (or only) because it is Japanese.

Mysteronald 18:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Why did I not think of this? I'll give you a link to Japanese individuals corroborating those construction rules:

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AD%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%91%E3%82%BA%E3%83%AB

This is Wikipedia's own article on the crossword - the Japanese Wikipedia, that is. It should have been the first place we looked. In fact, it also adds that the corners shouldn't be black cells either, something I know the "dynasty" rules do not adhere to. These rules are explained in the article as being desirable; although exceptions are possible and on occasion acceptable, puzzles are considered more professional if they are adhered to - placing those rules at the same level of pertinence as the rules of American and British grids in our article.

For the record, I have seen Japanese-language crosswords that adhere to those rules - quite a few in fact. I have not seen any that do not adhere. I have seen them in print and online. Ultimately, however, what you've seen and what I've seen doesn't compare to what Japanese Wikipedians have seen, and I am certainly willing to defer to them on this. - ZM

Zotmeister 04:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

While I cannot read Japanese, I will place it on trust that you can, and I have updated the article accordingly.

Mysteronald 11:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Most common in the world?

"The crossword is the most common variety of word puzzle in the world"

Can anybody verify this as a fact, or is it just assumed? If somebody can't, then shouldn't we change it to something like "The crossword is one of the most common varieties of word puzzles in the world? It communicates the same message. That is, unless there actually is proof that the crossword is most common, in which case it would be worded perfectly.

Hmmm... actually, such a statement is nearly impossible to confirm or deny. However, change "common" to "frequently published" and we have something to work with; in fact, I'd suspect we could then delete "word", although I have no statistics to point to. It must certainly be the case that the crossword is the most frequently published puzzle in the United States (Sudoku hasn't completely conquered us yet), but I could not speak for other countries (although I hear it's true for Japan as well, and I'd expect that nation to be the only exception if there were any). - ZM

Zotmeister 13:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Types of grid

The last paragraph in the "Types of grid" section says:

Answers are printed in upper case letters.
This ensures a proper name can have its initial capital letter
checked with a non-capitalizable letter in the intersecting clue.

I don't understand what's this all about. Could anyone provide an example of this situation, or at least of some letters that are 'non-capitalizable' (and yet ought to be 'printed in upper case')? TY. -- Jokes Free4Me 12:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, across answer = 'butter'; down answer = 'Thames', linking at the second 't'. Without all-caps, this would make the across answer 'butTer' -- but we don't capitalize in the middle of the word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.228.40.142 (talk • contribs)

Thank you. -- Jokes Free4Me 16:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Common Clues sub-section

The "common clues" sub-section, which lists words "generally accepted" as common in crossword puzzles, smacks very strongly of original research to me. Can this be backed up by sources? If not, I don't think it (or its recently-created spinoff article, List of words frequently used in crossword puzzles) can be kept on Wikipedia. ~Matticus ^T_C 22:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - in any case, I greatly doubt that these words are actually more common than random others across the totality of crosswords. Barnabypage 12:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Clean up elinks

WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a collecton of links to external sites. Please categorize this giant list, or prune them (or do both).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The links are getting too long, why don't we just take all of them off? if people want to do the crossword puzzles they can look for them on yahoo or google.