The JimH Crossword Blog

How does one start at Crosswords?

My stats site is down again because my provider discountasp.net is having problems. That means I can't post my answers to the Tuesday Feb 19 puzzle by Victor Fleming. If I weren't so lazy, I'd do the same as Linda and scan my hardcopy version, but of course Linda's already done that (her answers are the same as mine) and besides her handwriting has the distinct advantage of being legible. Good puzzle. I love "Talkativeness" becoming LOQUACITY.

So, instead of the usual deep, thoughtful, analysis that this blog is known for — or am I thinking of some other blog — I thought I would ask for your help on an important philosophical question. One of the problems with Crosswords as a sport is that there is a barrier to entry. Any puzzle rich enough to be interesting is likely too difficult for a novice. Most fans of this site are seasoned pros, but think back to that first time you tried to solve and remember how frustrating that experience was. How did you get past it?

I received this email from Afshin Haghgoo, a UCLA student majoring in Global Studies and Political Science. I want to help him. For one thing, I hope he gets famous enough so his mellifluous name gets into a puzzle one day.

I'm trying to learn the intrinsics of solving a crossword puzzle.  I'm currently a college student, age 21, and I've been trying dutifully to solve the NY Times crossword puzzles without cheating.  At best I've only been able to solve a handful of answers of each puzzle on my very own.  I've looked around on the web to see if any other crossword solvers would divulge some personal experiences in their time as a crossword novice, but I run into people who either seem to have a natural ability in solving crosswords or seem to have reached a threshold that they can't go back to the moments when they had the same difficulty as I'm having in solving crosswords.  I'm hoping that maybe you can give me some pointers in just learning how to grow as a crossword solver so with each week I can see the puzzle in a broader perspective and maybe even solve some more clues.  I hope that's not too much to ask.  Thanks for your consideration and look forward to reading more of your blog.

I'm not sure what to tell him. Are there any good books for beginners? Other puzzles to try before tackling the NYT? Web resources? I started back in Canada doing cryptics and I could never have managed without helpful friends. Is that the trick? Post your thoughts as comments or send me mail.

Ah, I see the stats site has just come back up, so the Tuesday answers are here.

Update: A comment here suggested that I add Amy Reynaldo's book as a recommendation for beginners. Despite my admiration for the author I haven't read it but if I click the image above I can buy it from Amazon. And that's what I'll do.

Conspiracy Theory

One day after my post on nattering nabobs, Lynn Lempel provides conspiracy theorists everywhere with just the proof they need that the NYT is, in fact, a socialist rag. All the theme clues tilt unapologetically politically leftward. Rush is working on his updated tirade even as you read this. It's a Monday puzzle so you probably don't need my help but the answers are in the usual place on my stats site if you're stuck somewhere or check out Rex or any of the other listed blogs for the details. I seem to recall the last theme answer was Godless Communist, but I could be mistaken. As a final insult to right-thinking Americans everywhere, "His tomb is in Red Square" was, of course, LENIN. There ought to be a congressional hearing!

I continue to get far more email than comments for some reason and some of my favorite correspondence comes from the constructors themselves. It turns out that when you get a puzzle accepted by the Pinko NYT, they don't bother to tell you what the publication date is. I suspect another conspiracy. That way they get you to buy the paper every day just in case your name appears. No true American would be that devious.

Ken Bessette had already been published in the L.A. Times and USA Today before his recent NYT debut. I love this quote in his email: "I didn't know mine was to be in today until I went online this morning to do the puzzle, as I always do, and there it was!" That must be quite a feeling.

Tony Orbach was kind enough to contact me even though I whined that his recent puzzle was too difficult to be fun. I like to think this great quote from his email completely vindicates me: "I'll tell you, I was really looking forward to a nice, tortuous Saturday solve — I opened the paper and that was the first I learned it was my puzzle today. I was very excited — but I needed to solve it, and even though it was my own puzzle I had trouble with it!" He ended his email with "The better I've gotten at solving though, the more I appreciate when someone totally stumps me! It's that kind of masochistic agony we all seem to enjoy — what's wrong with us?!" Ah, Tony, what indeed?

Finally, a completely useless datum. Of the 31 Lynn Lempel puzzles published in the Times, only one is a pangram. That's just an example of the fun facts you can find out yourself when the newly designed stats site goes live. I know, you can hardly wait, right?

Political leaders

Henry Hook's puzzles strike me as old-fashioned. My Grandfather used to do crosswords and I expect he and Henry would have got along just fine. I raced through most of the Sunday Feb 17 puzzle (answers) but got seriously bogged down trying to finish.

Before I get to what I loved, let me kvetch a little about a few I thought weren't fair. That's such an odd sentiment, isn't it? Who says either life or crosswords are supposed to be fair? And yet, there's this impulse to whine about the tiniest details.

First of all, "Supermarket lines" is nearly a great clue but UPC CODE it's straight from the Department of Redundancy Department. You would be excessively verbose to repeat unnecessary words over again more than once, such as universal product code code. And a good viewing position is COIGN of vantage? I looked it up. It is. News to me. I didn't know a "Jury pool" was VENIRE either. And I never, ever remember that EUTERPE is a music muse. And me a musician, even. "Passing remark" is SCUSE ME? Ok. But who says GAS for braggadocio? Maybe my Grandfather.

In another clue that I'm a lame puzzle solver, I fell into the usual trap of forgetting words can occupy different parts of speech. I know this trap is intentional but I kick myself every time. "Divine" must be an adjective describing godliness, right? Nope, it's a verb meaning FORESEE. When I call out "Rat Bastard," I'm complaining to myself. It's a good thing. A similar thing happened with "Ball handler" which is a great clue for ARNAZ. Do kids nowadays have a clue who that is?

The theme was all about SCRAMBLED PRESIDENT names. It didn't help me at all working on the puzzle but it was fun to go through afterwards and see how many I could suss out. I'm sure the other blogs listed on the left will include a complete exegesis.

My posts have been sparse lately because Robin and I are working on a redesign of the stats site. Coming soon.

Update: I posted quickly and forgot to include a word story I was keen to tell. 34 Across is clued "Bigwig" and the answer is a terrific word: NABOB. If you're like me you can't read that word without hearing Spiro Agnew whine about the "nattering nabobs of negativity" referring, of course, to the so-called liberal press, NYT included. Apparently William Safire of that same publication was the scriptwriter. But here's your fun fact of the day. That wonderful phrase is an anagram of "fat annoying bitter voting base."

Patron of Paris

The Saturday February 16 Tony Orbach puzzle (answers) was too hard to be fun. Damn, every time I think I'm making progress I get slammed by a killer like this one and I feel like taking up Sudoku, or better yet Word Find.

My brain hurts and I'm too cranky from the ordeal to say anything witty, so as usual I'll resort to a random statistical observation and pretend that counts as actual insight. 29 Across is "Dirt." The answer word PORNO is more popular than you might think in a family paper, having been used 8 times in recent years. Half the time the clue is Dirt, but the best clue was back in 1999 when David J. Kahn clued it "Graphic start."

Let me at least give you a head start on this one. The Patron of Paris is GENEVIEVE. The image above of Sainte Geneviève de Paris is full of symbolism, none of which I understand.

Garbo laughs

I've noted before that one of the great things about crosswords is that everyone knows something about something and if you find one fact that intersects your knowledge pool, it suddenly means you can chip away at an otherwise impossible puzzle. The Friday February 15 puzzle by Patrick Berry (answers) gave me two such opportunities.

I happened to know Toscanini which gave me a long clue along the top, and one of my favorite films is NINOTCHKA so that gave me something in the bottom half and I was off to the races.

I especially admired "Bands of holy men" becoming CLERICAL COLLARS and the special appearance by Binky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. I spent a lot of quarters on that quartet in my foolish youth. I'm so glad that I'm now well into my foolish adulthood.

Listen up!

I'm late posting on the Thursday, February 14 puzzle by David J. Kahn (answers) relative to my blog-o-peers. The general mood is that not everyone [HEART]s this puzzle. I did and I particularly liked two of the unpopular features. You can decide if that makes me odd or if there is another adjective that fits better.

First, the rebus answers were not symmetrical in the grid, but rather were arranged to make a heart shape. Without mentioning hobgoblins at all, this asymmetry worked exactly as intended for me. I started dropping hearts into the grid as soon as I thought I saw the pattern and got tripped up. Then I had a nice "awwww" moment as the shape appeared. Sure it's been done before, but it's Valentine's Day so what the heck.

Second, the [HEART] didn't always mean heart. Sometimes it was just the letters, as in NOW HEAR THIS. I prefer these to the more obvious HEART LAND or HAD A HEART. They produce a nicer aha moment for me because they're unexpected.

I've got a lot of loose ends to clean up in this blog so I'm working on an omnibus post of small items. That's coming soon. In the mean time, Happy Valentines Day, Robin, and best wishes to you and anyone else who stumbles upon my little blog. Love makes the world go round, they say, and who am I to argue with them?

Too much information

Today's February 13 puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski (answers) shows her usual aplomb with a SOUP to NUTS theme that covers THE WHOLE SHEBANG. She's the second most prodigious constructor in my list and is a consummate pro. I loved "They're high in Manhattan" being RENTS. "Sleek runway model" is, of course, JET.

It's Elizabeth's job to screw with our brains but only to the extent that the questions are challenging but not impossible, and that balance changes as the week progresses. The usual obfuscation technique is to withhold information. "Summer side dish" could be a lot of things so you have to get some cross words to be able to fill in CORN SALAD.

Sometimes including too much information can be just as confusing. "Author Jong" would be easy. You'd fill in ERICA without further thought. But "Jong who wrote Sappho's Leap" is confusing all of a sudden. Is that book familiar? Not sure. Is Ms. Gorski trying to disambiguate to point you to some other Jong or is she trying to trip you up. It turned out to be the latter today, and that's just as much fun.

Can statistics make you a champion solver?

For those in a hurry, the answer is is no but read on anyway.

One day after the fun Ken Bessette debut with the great clue "Re-re-re-remind" (click for answer) we re-re-re-return to that same motif in a big way. The Tuesday February 12 puzzle theme answers all start with that same syllable. It's the third puzzle by Deb Amlen. Two were solo and one was with Nancy Salomon who, as I mentioned earlier, is the subject of one of my upcoming famous mini-bios of people I don't know anything about. "Reminisce about a pig-out" struck me as a particularly funny clue but that could just be me. The answer is RECOUNT CALORIES.

So back to the title question. Imagine you're in Brooklyn and you find yourself in a heated competition with Ellen and Amy and the other elites. (Remember the days before partisan politics when that word was neither an insult nor ever seen as a plural noun?) You're doing Deb's puzzle and you hit 29 Down: "Heart chart, for short." You've got E_G but it's not enough. There are at least three possible answers that fit the clue and if the crossing clue doesn't help, you're stuck. One possible strategy would be to turn to math. Which answer is statistically more likely? If you click on ECG, EKG, and EEG you'll note that they go from least to most likely. They are correct, respectively, 6%, 35%, and 59% of the time. If in doubt, EEG it out.

We can do the same trick with the very stuff of life. Ms. Amlen was kind enough to disambiguate today with her 53 Across clue "Messenger ___ ". If you've forgotten, mRNA carries the genetic information into the cytoplasm where protein synthesis occurs. I've always wanted to use that sentence in a blog. However, sometimes the clue is less clear, something like "Genetic material." If you have _NA, which do you choose? You have two options. If you click DNA and RNA you'll note that even though DNA is more famous, RNA is correct 55% of the time. That small statistical difference might just be enough to send you home with the championship ring or tiara or belt or whatever it is. When the TV cameras zoom in to your smiling face, instead of telling the world you're going to Disneyland, give a nod to The JimH Crossword Blog for giving you that little edge. Of course if you opt for RNA and then lose, just forget we had this little conversation, ok? After all, it's only probabilities. If you were paying attention, the less likely EKG was today's winning heart chart.

Special class

The Monday Feb 11 puzzle (answers) looks like an NYT debut for Ken Bessette, so congratulations, Ken. He introduces this spelling of MATZOH for Passover bread.

 

In other news, I've added a new feature to XWord Info. There's a special class of puzzles that for one reason or another need annotation. Across Lite has the Notepad feature for just this purpose. I have my personal comments called JNotes on some puzzles as well. I thought it would be interesting to list all the "special" puzzles on a single page. You can see that list here.

Puzzles get Notepads for lots of reason. Most often they describe an unusual feature that you might not notice otherwise. Perhaps there's a diagonal clue. Perhaps there's an extra clue for the circled squares. Perhaps Bill Clinton solved it in less than an hour or the puzzle only uses letters that are touch typed with the left hand. For me the list is a nostalgic trip back through unusual puzzles of the past, very often crosswords with an extra dollop of creativity.

JNotes are my own additions. Sometimes I answer the question posed in the Notepad, ACCA award winners are called out, and so on.

I have done a fair bit of editing with the Notepad. For example, often Notepad is used to describe a feature of the previous day's puzzle and I have manually moved those over to the correct date.

It's an interesting list. Go ahead and explore.

Bill Zais uses Reverse English

For the second day in a row, the puzzle comes from a long-dormant source, at least as far as the Times goes. In his first since 2004, Bill Zais's February 10 puzzle (answers) combines opposites. So, for example, "Nonsense of a market pessimist" becomes BEAR'S BULL. Check out the blogs on the left for a detailed analysis.

Maybe if your last name starts with Z you like to think backwards. He pulled a related stunt in 2003 with Switcheroo. I mentioned in a previous post my adoration for his Superman puzzle. It turns out, that's an unusual mid-week effort for Bill. Of his eight published NYT puzzles, six of them are Sundays. Here's one from 2004 with SOS spelled out in Morse code at the center. Look at the unclued down answers in Rational Numbers from 2001. All great stuff.

Correction: Linda G points out that Bill Zais co-authored the cleverly baseball-themed July 1, 2007 puzzle Diamond Jubilee. I didn't spot it initially because Nancy Salomon had top billing. Nancy, by the way, is the subject of an upcoming "mini-biography of people I don't know anything about."