My first New York Times themeless puzzle ran today. I submitted it quite a long time ago, several years ago, so it was interesting to look back on it recently, when I received a sneak-preview copy a few days ago. My thoughts, being as impartial as I can, are that it has too much short dross -- ARY, RELO, OOP, OTO next to UTE, OTTOI, IDA, DECI, OLEO, and ALAR aren't good, and in fact, I've made it a priority to reduce this type of fill in my more recent themeless submissions (several of which have already been accepted) -- but the medium and the long entries rock. Seriously, there's not a bad one in the bunch and there are a few legit gems (BELIEVEYOUME is my favorite answer and it was my first "seed" entry).
The critics mostly agree with my assessment. Jeff Chen of XWord Info liked it the best. (I was quite pleased to get a POW rating.) Rex Parker of Rex Parker Does the NY Times Crossword Puzzle said, more or less, what I did above, as did Amy Reynaldo of Diary of a Crossword Fiend. However, the public -- or at least the commenting public -- was much more down on my puzzle than were the critics. Both at Rex's blog and at the NY Times WordPlay blog, there were a decent amount of negative comments and the overwhelming percentage of them came from people claiming it was too reliant on proper nouns and too trivia oriented. In fact, the number one "Readers' Pick" comment at the WordPlay blog is:
Not impressed with this puzzle. It's just a game of "How many obscure proper nouns can I Google and put in a puzzle."I understand the sentiment of this comment. As I mentioned in my constructor comments at XWordInfo, I sometimes forget that people don't love all the things that I love. I've had many a puzzle rejected, in part, because entries I thought were awesome Will Shortz did not think were awesome at all: VERBALKINT, THEGOOGLE (based entirely off a joke from The Onion), and JIMMORA (he of "Playoffs?!" fame) all come to mind. Constructing, I do tend to get caught up in my own little "crossworld" and not think about the broader public. That's a fair critique.
On the other hand, to say I crammed the puzzle full of obscure proper nouns is absurd (and it's even more absurd to say that I had to Google them -- those answers are pure Gulczynski [tapping my head]). For one thing, take a look at the grid -- ICECOLDBEVERAGE, BELIEVEYOUME, LAPDOG, TEAPARTY, FIREPLACE, SOUNDSLIKEAPLAN, OHCOMEON, HOWNICE, BOOKEM, OEDIPAL, VULGAR, BABYSIT -- there's a slew of decent-to-very-good, longish, common words and phrases for a solver to get a foothold. If you can nail this stuff, the proper nouns, even if they aren't up your alley, will mostly fall into place.
For another thing, here are some of the proper nouns in the puzzle commenters said they didn't know, along with the number of Google hits they get:
- THECLASH: 16.7 million. Only the most well-know punk band ever (arguably).
- PANTERA: 30.9 million. Heavy metal might not be your bag (it's not mine), but you can't argue with the massive popularity of Pantera.
- ECKHART: 9.3 million. "Aaron Eckhart" (what I entered into Google) was in all the recent Batman movies and Erin Brockovich. Even if you have never heard of the movie in the clue (Thank You for Smoking) he is a pretty big star.
- DIRKDIGGLER: 380 K. I really wanted the clue, "1997 film character who finally reveals himself in the end." I suppose that would have really thrown people for a loop.
- RAINES: 225 K. "Ella Raines" was an old-timey actress, but apparently still one who is pretty well-known.
- TSR: 526 K. I Googled "TSR" + "D & D". Admittedly bad fill, but not that obscure. There are a lot of D & D nerds out there.
- NED: 631 K. "Ned Flanders" is the guy who says "okely-dokely" on that little-known TV show called The Simpsons.
- DIAS: 380 K. "Bartolomeu Dias" was the first known European to sail around Africa. That's kinda a big deal, right?
- LINA: 43 K. I Googled "Lina" + "Singin' in the Rain" -- not a ton of hits.
- CHET: 67 K. I admit "Chet Lemon" was purely self-indulgent. I love the '84 Tigers. They started the season 35-5. They only lost five of their first 40 games! Five! (And then they got swept by "my" Seattle Mariners who lost 88 games on the season. Baseball is weird.)
- CRACKOS: 936. This is a late entry. I forgot about the biggest offender of them all. "Graham Crackos" gets a whopping 936 hits -- not 936 K, just 936. So that one is super obscure. But also super inferable.
So, OK, I'll give you Lina, and I'll give you Chet [late entry: and Crackos], but that's about it. Everything else is fair game. Some of it (e.g., The Clash) I'd say is even common knowledge. Perhaps you didn't know it, but that's the way it goes. It doesn't make it obscure or unfair fill. The flip side of "not everybody loves what I love" is "just because I don't know it, doesn't mean everybody doesn't know it." And Google, although admittedly not the ultimate arbiter of popularity, suggests that a lot of people know most the proper nouns in my grid.
So, Solver, I offer you a proposal: I'll agree to cut back on the self-indulgent proper nouns in future submissions, if you agree to not get sour because you happen to not know something that many others do know -- deal? Great.
Oh, and also, buy my book. Thanks.
Until next time ...
8 comments:
As I said on Rex, northern Cali was too too. Aside from the Simpsons, we seem to share lots of common knowledge, but this is a case where less would be more.
Still, a fine tussle. There was a lot to like.
If I were Puzzle God (or Will Shortz, which comes to more or less the same thing), I wouldn't allow ANY proper names -- even proper names of people who actually did something worth remembering, like DIAS (which I spelled Diaz, btw.) Puzzles should ideally be about wordplay and clever, interesting phrases and while you had many of these in your puzzle, you didn't have enough to offset the humongous number of proper noun/pop culture references. What it comes down to is the Who Cares? syndrome. For example, from my era: You might think it worthwhile to remember, say, BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, but should you be expected to know who sang RICOCHET ROMANCE (It was #1 for quite a while) or what was on the B Side? It has long since faded into the obscurity it richly deserved and so, too, will much of your fill from yesterday's puzzle, I regret to say. Sorry, but you asked for a comment. Bet you're sorry about the whole thing!
@Z -- Fair enough.
@Nancy -- Not sorry at all. I love hearing from people who think differently than me. And we apparently think quite differently about crossword puzzles. I think disallowing proper nouns in xwords would make the product substantially weaker.
For one thing, you would be taking away a huge amount of fill for constructors. Without proper nouns there would a lot more "Genus of African beetle" and "Letter of the Hebrew alphabet" type of clues because constructors would need these to fill in grids. What's better ALOU or ANOA? I'll take the former.
For another thing, it would be incredible dull, in my opinion, to exclude proper nouns. One of the best xword innovations by Will Shortz is the inclusion of pop culture phrases and people in everyday grids. Puzzles were way too dry for my taste back in the Maleska era. (Even though I didn't start doing puzzles until the late '90s, I've gone back and done some early stuff.)
As to your comment about "Who Cares?" One answer is clearly "not Nancy," which is fine. But -- and this is my main point -- another answer is "somebody!" Pantera gets 31 million Google hits -- that's 8 digits -- clearly somebody cares about them.
And probably many answers in my grid will fade into obscurity -- what doesn't? And what's the time frame? The Simpsons and Pantera began nearly 30 years ago, Boogie Nights is almost 20 years old, The Clash is almost 40. These aren't flash-in-the-pan fads. They are legit pop culture staples that have proven they have staying power. Your example of Ricochet Romance simply isn't apt.
With all this said, I am going to try to cut back on proper nouns in future submissions. Enough people have indicated their dislike for them that I should take heed if I want my puzzles to have broad appeal -- which I do.
That (less trivia) would be much appreciated by this old-timer. Regards.
It wasn't the number of proper names. It was the number of proper names crossing other proper names and then cross-referenced (NED crossing DIRK DIGGLER, in particular). I knew LINA, I knew CHET and I enjoyed CRACKOS. OKELY-DOKELY was inferable. I'm not saying Simpsons info isn't fair game. Of course it is, and although I've never watched an episode, I have learned a lot from doing crosswords and that's fine. A Simpsons cross-reference that then crosses a character name from a movie - that was my objection.
I tend to roll my eyes at quibbles about popcult entries, since a lot of what we consider "classic" was popcult in its day (Mozart, anyone? Or, more recently, Rodgers and Hammerstein?) I don't complain about rap or metal or indie bands. I do expect to be able to figure things out from crossings.
@Jay -- That is a fair criticism. I completely missed the Natick potential with the DIRKDIGGLER answer.
Damon, I think I've read almost everything that Asimov wrote about robots, starting with the original "Robbie" short story. Granting that most of this happened a lot of years ago, it made me nuts that I had no clue about the I, Robot clue. So how is it significant??
I admit major deficits in Simpson lore, pop music of the recent decades, and some sports' figures (of which I'm not at all ashamed, because I know lots of other s***, which I use to solve on the basis of knowledge, not on account of familiarity with 'crosswordese'). Despite those deficits, I was able to solve with the crosses, so the fairness factor had to be operating. The notable exception to fairness [for me] was NED --- at both ends, since PA_TERA and _IGGLER could both have been filled in several'reasonable' ways, by the non-initiated.
Despite the latter, I think problem was not altogether the number of proper nouns/pop culture, but more that too many clues seemed to come out of left field. There seem to be too many things that aren't as much mindstickers in the general pop as they are for you.
So. What about the "I, Robot" quote?
@Leapfinger
I don't have anything to say about the "I, Robot" quote. You will have to take it up with Will Shortz, New York Times crossword puzzle editor :) In general, he changes about half the clues in my puzzles.
As to the larger point, I completely understand unfair crossings and cluing, and, in this case, I own up to not recognizing this potential with the DIRKDIGGLER entry and its crossings. I take this criticism to heart -- sincerely.
My main point of this post is to illustrate the fallacy of a solver claiming something is obscure or unfair on the basis that he or she personally did not happen to know it.
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