Talk:Crossword

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

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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

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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

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

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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

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 (http://www.crosswordtournament.com/more/wynne.html), 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 (http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0206/feature1/), 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 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/03/nxword03.xml), 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)

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)