Ten Things I Like and Don't Like about Crossword Puzzles

Another crossword puzzle of mine dropped this evening in the New York Times puzzle app (will appear in tomorrow's print edition), meaning I have an excuse to post something new on this blog. Inspired by Zach Lowe's "10 Things" basketball column, which I used to enjoy reading before it moved behind the ESPN+ paywall*, I decided to write my own such post about crossword puzzles.

*I'm not an ESPN+ subscriber on principle. The principle being I feel as if I've given (and continue to give) more than enough money to ESPN (and their parent company Disney) by way of subscription fees and advertisement consumption. I shouldn't have to pay even more to read their best writers, especially considering an ESPN+ subscription doesn't even come with regular ESPN programming.

1. Word Ladders

I like them. I think they are kinda cool and wouldn't mind seeing themes utilizing them every now and then. Relatively recently, I had a word ladder puzzle rejected by the NYT partly because "We’re just not doing many word ladder themes anymore. They tend not to be too popular with solvers." Why is this the case? What's wrong with word ladders?

One thing I've always wanted to do, but almost certainly will never do because there are too many other things I want to do more, is build a digital graph, in which the nodes are the entries in my word list and the edges represent differences of a single letter. Using this graph, you could do cool things like find the optimal word ladder between any two words and find the most connected puzzle entry (the Rod Steiger of crosswords).

So, yeah, I like word ladders, and I have another confession: I don't mind quote puzzles either.

2. Word Lists

I don't like how reliant constructors are on their word lists and automation. This is probably just me misremembering "the good old days," when my only construction tools were a pad of graph paper, a sharp pencil with a good eraser, and a big-ass dictionary, but I do miss the feeling of satisfaction of filling in grids "by hand."

This is similar to my old-man gripe about the ease with which unknown things can be easily looked up online. Sometimes when I'm watching a movie and I know I know an actor from something else but can't place them, I intentionally won't look them up, just so that I can have that great a-ha moment when it finally comes to me. It's annoying and distracting to not know, but when it finally clicks that the dad from Towelhead is the art teacher from Six Feet Under, it's so worth it.

I don't do this with crossword construction, however, because I would never get a puzzle published if I did. I can barely keep up with the competition using huge word lists, commercial software, and my professional-grade coding skills.

Speaking of huge word lists, I use four: All, Monday, XwiWordList, and Hybrid Master. All is my personal word list curated solely by me over the past 15 years; Monday is All with a bunch of non-Monday-level entries eliminated; XwiWordList is the XWordInfo list, which I purchased; Hybrid Master is All and XwiWordList combined. I will gladly give All and Monday to anybody who wants them for free. The other two aren't mine to give, so I can't do that.

3. Asymmetrical Grids

I don't hate hate them, but I definitely don't like them. USA Today will sometimes publish grids with no black-square symmetry, and I'm surprised by how off-putting I find this as a solver. Symmetry doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but for some reason it is for me. In general, I find that when you eliminate rules you often detract from creativity, rather than enhance it, because removing obstacles removes clever solutions around them. But before I saw an asymmetrical grid, I would have thought I would not have even noticed it was different. Maybe this is another curmudgeonly take, but I do notice it, and, unless it directly ties into the theme somehow, I don't really care for it.

4. Dupe Pointing-Outing

I don't like it when dupes are used as a demerit against a puzzle. I rarely notice dupes as a solver, and I don't care about them when I do notice them, even when they intersect. If you want to put DO UP, UP TO, and TO-DO all in the same section, fine by me (as long as the rest of the puzzle is good). I get more annoyed by solvers pointing out dupes than I do by actual dupes.

5. Aspirations for Theme "Tightness" 

This falls into the same category as dupes. I don't like it when theme tightness, or lack thereof, is used as a criterion in evaluating a puzzle. (See this XWordInfo entry for an example of what I'm talking about.) After I finish a puzzle, I almost never go back and see if I can find other entries that fit theme. But if I do, and I find a lot of them, I don't count this against the puzzle. What difference does it make? Why are themes with only a few possible theme entries better?

If anything, having lots of theme entries makes construction more impressive to me, because it adds another layer of difficulty -- judicious decision-making. All constructors who have pored over a massive list of theme candidates knows how nerve-wracking it can be to try to pick the best ones (i.e., the ones you think the editor will like the best). Aspiring for theme tightness makes little sense to me.

(On a similar note, I couldn't care less if "hidden" words span all parts of an entry of not.)

6. When People Label All Boring/Common Fill as Crosswordese

I don't like this. To me, a defining characteristic of Crosswordese (which I once wrote an entire post on) is that it is specifically overused in crosswords vis-à-vis the real world. Not all boring or common fill qualifies. OREO, for example, is a word that appears often (arguably too much) in grids, but I would never call it Crosswordese, because every solver knew what an OREO was before they started solving. Contrast this with something like OREM, and you see what I mean.

Tangentially, are we sure Crosswordese is even bad? It probably is, and I don't like it now, but when I first started solving it was a fun code I had to crack. Is OLEO S-shaped molding or is that OGEE? This was a part of the draw for me -- learning a new weird language. There's a prevailing thought that Crosswordese is a turnoff for most new solvers -- and maybe it is -- but for what it's worth, it was the opposite for me.

7.  The "If I Don't Know It, It Must Obscure" Attitude

I call this the Priyanka Chopra Principle, so named because a person in a blog comments section once insisted, over several increasingly stubborn posts, that the international movie star/model, getter of over 75 million Google hits, and wife of a frickin' Jonas Brother is not a well-known celebrity.

Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to this, because solvers have criticized my puzzles for using too many proper nouns (I remember this one particularly getting called out), but this is one of my least favorite attitudes among solvers. Even the best trivia knowers among us have big gaps in their knowledge, and you probably aren't one of the best trivia knowers among us. If you do enough crosswords you are likely to come across things and people -- important, famous things and people -- that you don't know. It doesn't mean that this thing or person is obscure or unworthy or that their inclusion in the grid is unfair. If the crosses are inferable, then it's fine.

Hot take: Even if the crosses aren't inferable, it's still fine. I'm not that bothered by the occasional "Natick." If you get a square wrong once in a while because you guess incorrectly, so what? 

8. ANOS Hate

I'm not down with the ANOS hate. ANOS appears sometimes in grids clued as something akin to "Spanish years." But the word in Spanish is actually AÑOS, with the tilde-N, so every time it pops up, somebody will complain about it and point out that it actually means anus, not years. But I don't get this because ANOS is completely in line with other foreign words in Crossword puzzles. The default convention is to transliterate non-English words using the standard, 26-letter English alphabet. In grids it's RENE, not RENÈ; it's NINO, not NIÑO; it's BRONTE, not BRONTË. Why should ANOS be treated differently?

Also, the fact that ANOS translate to anus is irrelevant to me. A lot of solvers don't know that, and even if they do, who cares? There is nothing inherently untoward or lewd about an anus. It's just a body part -- one used mostly (but certainly not exclusively) for pooping, sure -- but a body part nonetheless. Actually, this brings up another thing I don't like about crossword puzzles...

9. The Prudishness

Would it be so bad if mainstream puzzles could have anatomical words like ANUS and PENIS and VAGINA in them? I don't think so. In previous posts, I've made pretty clear my dislike of censorial guidelines in crossword puzzles, and this sentiment extends to private parts. We've just taken it as a given that such words are no-nos, but it doesn't have to be this way. And maybe it won't be someday. If G-SPOT can make regular appearances in the NYT, why not CLIT? I mean, the latter is shorter, has more convenient letters, and is an actual term people use, outside of article writers asking if it's real.

10. This Puzzle

I really like it, and it makes me super jealous I didn't create it. I used to be a big BOGGLE guy, unbeatable in my heyday,* and I've brainstormed so many different ways to make a BOGGLE-themed crossword puzzle over the years, but I never hit the jackpot. Trenton totally nails it. Coming up with a grid that can fit three synonyms of BOGGLE (an angle I never considered) in a BOGGLE board and as regular entries in the grid is brilliant in both its conception and execution. Kudos, Mr. Charlson; Kudos indeed. 

*I probably was beatable, but I don't remember ever actually losing. One of my finest moments came at a party, many years ago, when somebody randomly busted out Boggle and got a big game going. All the participants but me were close friends who had played each other before, and it was just assumed that one guy would win, as he was clearly the resident champion. I played it cool, like I was some normy bro and not a huge word nerd, and then proceeded to unseat the king in spectacular fashion. All the shorties in the house were flocking to me afterward, I assure you of that.

Until next time...