The JimH Crossword Blog

Who is the most Scrabulous constructor?

I admire all the crossword constructors, but who is the most Scrabulous? I updated my stats site to try to find out.

Before you start your email of indignation, yes I know that there's nothing inherently valuable about a puzzle with an unusually high or low Scrabble score, but it can be an indication that something interesting is going on. I'll be discussing several puzzles in this post which NYT subscribers can solve by clicking the Across Lite link, or anyone can view by clicking my answers link.

So, which puzzles have the highest Scrabble scores? There are different ways to parse the data. Total score rewards puzzles that not only have high average values but that also have few black squares, but average letter value seems to be what people focus on so I'll do the same. Going strictly by the numbers, the clear winner is Nancy Salomon for her Jan 30, 2007 puzzle (Across Lite, answers) which scores an amazing 2.49.

I'm not quite ready to give her the crown, though. The theme is frequent repetition of one particular high-value letter. It looks like a Guiness Book of Records attempt. Next on the list is Michael Shteyman's 2002 effort scoring 2.27 (Across Lite, answers) which I have to disqualify on the grounds that none of the theme entries are actual words. Next, scoring 2.16, is Brendan Emmett Quigley's April 24, 2007 puzzle (Across Lite, answers) which is similar in approach to Ms. Salomon's.

There are only seven puzzles with average letter values over 2.0. Two of them are from Michael, and two, including the next on the list, are by Peter Gordon. He came up with this 2.14 puzzle (Across Lite, answers) in 1998 and, although it includes a killer foreign word and a card game I'd never heard of, it looks and feels like a regular puzzle rather than an overt attempt to game the system. Just behind at 2.13 is another Michael Shteyman construction from 2003, and this one is absolutely amazing. I don't want to give it away, but try it (Across Lite) or if you insist check out the answers.

It's harder to score high on the larger Sunday grids. The top scorers in this category are Brendan Emmett Quigley at 1.78 (Across Lite, answers), Charles Deber at 1.77 (Across Lite, answers), and Rich Norris at 1.76 (Across Lite, answers.)

If you recall, a couple of days ago I blogged about the Lowest Scrabble score and that came from Peter Gordon as well (Across Lite, answers.) In fact, if you've done the puzzle, he nails the theoretical minimum. His low score cannot be beat.

So, for owning the low score and for having one of the best of the high ones, the JimH Crossword Blog hereby declares Peter Gordon the Scrabbliest Of Them All. Your trophy will be coming in the mail, C.O.D. of course, direct from Shanghai. Just pay the additional Import Tax and it's yours to keep.

If you're interested in exploring more, I've added a new page on my stats site where you can look at more high and low, daily and Sunday puzzles.

No time left for comments on today's Monday puzzle by Ken Bessette but the answers are posted and the other bloggers can give you details.

Lowest scrabble score

Since I plan to spend my evening watching Shakespeare (hey, he's a word guy!) rather than solving a crossword, I thought I'd leave you with a story of a memorable past puzzle. Barry Silk and I have been exchanging email and he wondered which puzzles in my database have the lowest and the highest scrabble value count. What a great question! I don't know the highest but I'll look into adding that calculation to my stats site. In the mean time, check out this minor masterpiece from Peter Gordon published June 5, 2001.

Click the link, scan the answer words, and try to figure out what makes that puzzle so special. When you've got it, you can confirm your answer by looking at 65 Down.

In case you've missed it, the post that started with Anne Erdmann's email continues to garner fascinating comments from the actors in the drama. They're well worth reading.

I'll update this post with Saturday answers anon.

Leap Day and other gimmicks

Happy Leap Day. Short post today. To answer my question from yesterday, the NYT did not in fact celebrate this rare day in puzzle form, but Patrick Berry's puzzle (answers) was up to his usual high standards.

Amy pointed out that if it were gimmicks I wanted, there were others to be had. The Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, also by Patrick Berry, is masterful and delightful. The NY Sun crossword by Pete Muller is incredibly difficult. I would have given up without Amy's recommendation, so I'm passing it on with my encouragement as well. In the end I couldn't finish, but I did well enough to uncover the theme and get it mostly done myself. I usually hate puzzles I can't finish, but not this time. You can find them both from the Puzzle Pointers link in the left column. Give yourself plenty of time.

Trip the light fantastic puzzle

Yes I know I wasn't going to blog so soon but I love today's Thursday February 28 puzzle by Matt Ginsberg (answers.) Seriously, I haven't derived as much pure glee from a puzzle in ages.

I distinctly remember waiting at a stop light with my father when I was ten years old. There were two tanker trucks stopped in front of our car. One announced in large red letters that its contents were FLAMMABLE. The other right next to it insisted with equally compelling typography that its contents were INFLAMMABLE. That might have been the moment when I fell in love with English, and Matt's puzzle brings that all back to me. If you're curious, here's the usage note from the Random House Unabridged:

Inflammable and flammable both mean “combustible.” Inflammable is the older by about 200 years. Flammable now has certain technical uses, particularly as a warning on vehicles carrying combustible materials, because of a belief that some might interpret the intensive prefix in- of inflammable as a negative prefix and thus think the word means “noncombustible.” Inflammable is the word more usually used in nontechnical and figurative contexts: The speaker ignited the inflammable emotions of the crowd.

Mr. Ginsberg's puzzle looks at the opposite problem: words or phrases that can have bipolar meanings. It's surprising how many of them there are. It's even more surprising how many he was able to cram into a 15 by 15 puzzle. TRANSPARENT means "easy to see or impossible to see." "Remaining or gone" is LEFT. He has eleven such examples! Did I mention that I was impressed? If you've done the puzzle you know how cool it is. It even includes a favorite Jefferson quote that's especially appropriate for an election year. If you haven't solved it yet, quit reading blogs and go figure it out. Here's the NYT link if you're a paid subscriber. No excuses.

I've already included a photo of Lenin in this blog so it was nice that the "Jiang's husband" clue let's me now include MAO.

Looking ahead, tomorrow's puzzle has an opportunity to celebrate a rare occurrence — Leap Day. Will we again be treated to something amazing and delightful? No pressure. There's another chance in four years.

Winners' Circles

It's all Oscar all the time in puzzledom it seems. Today's Feb. 24 nomination (answers) is from Nancy Nicholson Joline. The trick du jour makes me wonder how she ever came up with the idea. Some theme answers are better than others but they all have that property you want in a theme — it's not at all obvious at first and then when it finally clicks everything falls into place. Someone can explain, I'm sure, why "Forensic experts" are DEBATERS.

Nancy has a middle name which is unusual in the byline. She also has a first name which used to be unheard of. Before her Sunday puzzle almost exactly eleven years ago constructors only had first initials, at least in the Across Lite files. I assume the same was true in print. Will had a first name but, for example, the puzzle the day before was by A. J. Santora.

Other bloggers will give the low down on today's effort but Ms. Joline gives me an excuse to reminisce about one of her puzzles I particularly remember. Who Said It? back in 2005 asked us to guess who uttered some wonderful quotes. Here are a few I particularly recall. "I guess it just proves that in America anyone can be president" was by Gerald Ford. My favorite was "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti." Who said it? Sophia Loren. There was also a special quote for crossword solvers: "I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way." The speaker? Mark Twain.

Crosswords and God

Yes, it's true. I'm one of the few crossword bloggers who dares to take on the deep epistemological issues of our time. But first, the Wednesday crossword and some other loose ends.

The February 20 puzzle (answers) seems to be the NYT debut for Mr. Chuck Hamilton. Bravo. It must be fun to see your name in print next to Will Shortz for the first time. The DOUBLE theme was fine and there were a couple of clues I particularly enjoyed. What are matches made of? It's hard to imagine in only four letters. I had to get two of them before SETS came to mind. Tennis, anyone? What about "Offerers of arms"? I got completely sucked in to the military mindset but the answer is ESCORTS. Of course depending on the service, arms may be just part of the offer.

I mentioned in a previous post that constructors for the NYT don't know the publication date of their accepted puzzles. Constructor Ed Sessa wrote to tell me there might be a way after all. In his admittedly minimal experience — he has only one published puzzle — the date on the check corresponded with the publication date in the paper. Coincidence?

Mentioning Mr. Sessa gives me an excuse to point out his debut puzzle too which appeared just last September. It was before I started blogging but I remember it very well. Click the link and take a look at how elegant and even beautiful it is. Right across the middle of the puzzle is NOTES OF THE SCALE and then using circle pairs in symmetrical theme answers he lists their solfeggio names in order. All this while making it Monday-easy. I'm looking forward to hearing more from both of these new constructors.

Ah yes, but what about The Almighty? I've been asked what my favorite post is so far, and by far it's The Crossword Puzzle Moment. That little essay describes why this nerdy sport works for me. At the end of that post, I speculated idly on whether God enjoys crosswords. This began a fascinating discussion with someone who will remain nameless since, given the conclusions he comes to, he is going to Rot In Hell. I'll summarize his Crossword-based God Nonexistence Proof.

1. God is omnipotent. He can do anything.
2. God is omniscient. He knows everything.
3. As such, he will never have a Crossword Puzzle Moment because he'll know all the answers immediately, or even sooner.
4. Since the Crossword Puzzle Moment is the essence of the ability to enjoy crosswords, God is incapable of doing so.
5. Therefore God cannot do everything which contradicts statement 1 and God disappears in a cloud of logic.

QED.

Look, up in the sky!

I've never met a professional setter (I love that Britishism for "constructor" that Peter taught me in the previous post) but today's Tuesday January 22 puzzle by Adam G. Perl (answers) has pushed me to ponder how one might approach the job. Once again as I do so often in this blog, I'm just going to make it up!

The actual mechanics of fitting theme words appropriately into a grid, doing the fill and creating the clues has been well documented but what comes before that? Like every artist, the puzzle author starts by staring at a blank canvas and asking himself what story he's going to tell today. He glances around the room and then out the window searching for inspiration. He leans his head back and closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. What excites him? What does he love? From where (ok, for this audience "whence") does a warm feeling worth sharing with the world arise? For Mr. Perl, the answer took him back to his childhood, to those magical moments when a D.C. comic completely captured his imagination. Today's puzzle has a Superman theme. And guess what? It brought me back to those same fun memories. Thanks, Adam.

This reminds me of two favorite past puzzles. There was another Superman puzzle back on Oct 31, 2000 by Bill Zais with its pattern of circles in the shape of an S each containing an S. Then there was this lovely puzzle from Jan 1, 2004 by Richard Silvestri. The black squares in the middle form a letter S, the two long answers are clued " S " and " 's ", and to top it off, every single clue starts with S as well. Splendid!

American Crossword Critics Association Awards

It's been said that the Internet is nothing but a bunch of pages with links to other pages and I'm contributing to that today with my hearty endorsement of the ACCA awards. I'm just a casual, amateur solver who loves to think about crosswords but Amy Reynaldo and Rex Parker are pros. Together they are honoring their favorite puzzles from the past year. Please check out the awards and their commentary by clicking either of their names. Here are links into my database for some of the winners that happen to be NYT puzzles.

• SILVER in the Early Week category: 9/24/07 by Fred Piscop
• BRONZE in same: 2/12/07 by Lynn Lempel
• SILVER in Best Gimmick (Tilt at Windmills): 1/31/07 by Brendan Emmett Quigley
• BRONZE in same (punctuation rebus): 1/4/07 by Alan Olschwang
• GOLD in themeless: 2/2407 by Byron Walden
• SILVER themeless: 4/20/07 by David Quarfoot
• BRONZE themeless: 3/3/07 by Karen M. Tracey
• GOLD Sunday (Initial Substitutions): 3/18/07 by Craig Kasper
• BRONZE Sunday (Spellcheck): 1/7/07 by Ashish Vengsarkar

Also some honorable mentions: 5/27/07 by Patrick Berry, 9/20/07 by Alex Boisvert, and 5/24/07 by Patrick Merrell.

Finally, special congratulations to Patrick Berry named best constructor of the year with Byron Walden, David Quarfoot and Karen M. Tracey following.

I'll post my solution to the Saturday puzzle at xwordinfo.com when I come up with it but in the mean time, thank you Amy and Rex for this thoughtful and inspiring collection.

I can't connect the dots on this one

Every once in a while I come across a puzzle that seems like it's going to be great but then either I don't like it or I don't get it. The Wednesday, January 2 puzzle by Patrick Blindauer is a double shot. I don't like it and I don't get it. Probably I don't like it because I don't get it. I've posted the answers here. Maybe you can help me.

When I saw that the theme seemed to be that I had to connect all the Os with four lines I thought there would be some clever trick there. In the never-ending quest for uniqueness or freshness or at least not over-doing the same themes too many times, constructors have had to become more and more creative. A recent trend has been combining crosswords with other puzzle types. In fact, Patrick Blindauer did just that just last month -- combining with a Word Find puzzle. You can see it here.

In fact, let's talk about Patrick for a moment. He did another similar connect the dots trick back on July 4 and a scary face with fangs on Halloween 2006. All great stuff. His very first puzzle was one of the more bizarre crosswords I've seen back on July 21, 2005. You had to solve a simple cipher substitution to reveal the complete answer. That meant he got to include the 15-letter answer word ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF. You can see all 12 of his NYT puzzles here.

Anyway, connecting the Os wasn't hard and you end up with a nice symmetrical bow tie so that's all cute and all and I'm nearly ready to give major kudos for that, but a couple of things bother me. First, I don't get the theme which is apparently CLARINET RELATIVE. Huh? Is the bow tie some symbol for oboe or bassoon or English horn I don't know about? Is oboe hidden somewhere I can't see? Probably, but I'm not making the connection.

Secondly, I don't like some of the clues. ENOLA has been used 48 times in the database, almost always associated with GAY, and it always creeps me out. For all the slightly naughty or scary words that aren't allowed that would never bug me at all, I hate being reminded of mass killing. "50 degs., maybe" is LAT? Seems lame. The "Mythical king of the Huns" is ATLI. You knew that, right? Yeah sure.

And finally we have TOTO. Used 53 times already so we need a new clue. "Curtain puller of film"? Nobody can see the Great Oz! Not nobody, not nohow! Ok, I'll give him that one.

Happy new year! Best wishes for a puzzling 2008.

= = =

UPDATE: I suspected someone more clever than me would make it all make sense. Ellen Ripstein's comment is important enough to append to my original post, so here it is: "It's an O-bow (bow of O's, pronounced like the instrument oboe)".

Ahhhh. Nice one. Patrick, you're redeemed!

Elizabeth C. Gorski wraps up the year again

Some of my favorite puzzles have come on the final Sunday of the year. Elizabeth Gorski, the second most prodigious author in my NYT Puzzle database seems to specialize in these. Check out this puzzle called Making a Face from the final day of the 20th Century. The numbers 1 to 12 are arranged in a clock face with the circled clue (12 midnight) representing the hands of the clock pointing straight up. Very clever.

One year later she struck the final bell again with Dropping the Ball. Follow the central clue down to read "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it's 2002".

Today's Sunday puzzle Winter Figure carries on the tradition. It makes what I think is very good use of the circled letters. The clues are harder than average for a Sunday, but the theme is easy enough to guess and it helps to fill in enough of the circled letters to get one started on the regular clues. I'd forgotten that Frosty was a jolly, happy soul. Now I know. What makes it especially nice is that if you squint and look at the pattern of black and white squares, it's a not bad pixelated picture of a snowman complete with an old silk hat provided by a HABERDASHER.

Some favorite clues: "Pump room" is SHOE STORE. "Here!" is not PRESENT but rather TAKE ONE. "Accord of 1985" is (this one is nasty) USED CAR. "Not narrow" (I like this one) is TOLERANT. "Wolves" turns out to be MASHERS. Watching The Music Man recently helped me get that one.

Today's puzzle makes 148 for Elizabeth since the NYT started publishing in Across Lite format in 1996. That's an amazing output, bested only by Manny Nosowsky's 193. I'm doing some analysis on his puzzles to see if I can get a glimpse into that brain. In the mean time, thank you Elizabeth for another great wrap up to another year.