Fill In Word Puzzles

Idle Hands: Addiction to words, word games is a good thing

Give me a nine-letter word for a puzzle using the alphabet. You win if you said "crossword." 

Solving crossword puzzles may not use a lot of muscles like running a marathon or swimming laps at the pool, but it can be good for you even though it is a sedentary pursuit. Word puzzles are one of the mental exercises recommended to people of a certain age to keep their minds alert. When we fill in a word on the puzzle, we feel a sense of satisfaction. It's like a small personal "Eureka!" moment when an elusive word seems to pop into mind. 

A puzzle that is too easy for our skill level is boring and feels like a waste of time, but a puzzle with clues that are mostly obscure to us isn't fun either. As a species we thrive on challenge when the task is difficult but possible.

I'm finding as I age that my memory lapses are especially obvious when I do crosswords and other word games. A clue might suggest a certain comedian, and I can see his face but not his name. I remember a movie he was in and the co-star's name, but not the name of the movie. I can sense the synapses firing, but the links I need to fill in the comedian's name have gone missing. From conversations with friends my age, it seems I am not alone in this frustration. 

People of all ages have been enjoying crossword puzzles since the 19th century in England, a shorter history than I would have predicted. It turns out the first of these puzzles appeared as a teaching tool in children's books and various periodicals. For adults, the first published crossword in England appeared in Pearson's Magazine in 1922. British puzzles developed a style of their own, and for some reason they were considerably more difficult than American puzzles.

Crossword puzzle publication began a little earlier in the United States, but the creator was a British man from Liverpool. Arthur Wynne holds the distinction of designing the first published crossword in this country. It appeared in the New York World on December 21, 1913. The puzzle was in the shape of a diamond and had no black squares. It took a few years to catch on, but by the early 1920s other newspapers were featuring crossword puzzles. A decade later, almost all American newspapers ran crosswords as a regular feature. It was during this time that the crossword puzzle took on the form we all recognize today and became a popular adult pastime.

Crossword Puzzles by Brendan Emmett Quigley: Guest crossword by ...

HEADS UP! SPOILER ALERT: The next paragraph is going to give away a few things, so if you want a clean solve, you'd best come back later. And there it is.

A few months back Matt Ginsberg sent me this puzzle, albeit in a slightly different format: every single answer had a normal clue. 9-Across was {Admonition to a toddler}. 22-Across was {Axling?}, etc. It had no cross referencing like it does now. Yet, there was that clue at 38-Down that read {Type of story that might end with 9-, 22-, 29-, 35-, 44-, 50- and 59-Across}. I was flummoxed. I kept looking for an explanation, and looking, and looking, and finally I just gave up. What story was he talking about? I asked Matt to explain what I was missing. He kindly told me that never gave me the lead-in to the joke. (Oh, well, in that case ...)

Matt was a kind soul to give you the lead-in which we've up above. So enjoy. Now, on to the interview:

BEQ: When I was solving the original version of this puzzle, I was convinced that there was some sort of Easter Egg that I was missing. Have you ever successfully pulled off a hidden message?

Matt: I wish! I want to hide Easter Eggs in my puzzles, but I never manage it. The closest I've come in print is my Valentine's Day puzzle with Pete [Muller] last year, where we managed to hide both our wives' names in the fill. I finally do have a puzzle coming out in the Times that has an Easter Egg, though. If you see a puzzle of mine that appears to be a themeless, it's probably worth taking another look at.

BEQ: Tell me a little bit about your background.

Matt: I run a software company. If you're interested, click to see what we do. (It's actually much cooler than I let on!)

Crossword-wise, I've been interested in constructing since the mid-'70s, when I wrote what was (I think) the world's first automated filling program. Then I basically put it aside until maybe four years ago, when I took a month off from work to unwind. Pete, who's a good friend of mine, had been making crosswords, and I figured I would give it a shot as well.

There are two things that I love about constructing. The first is that it's such a contained problem. You think of a theme, fill the grid, clue it, send it off to whomever, and it's done. Closure. There is zero closure running a business or raising kids; I often tell the kids that I envy mail carriers because when the letters are all delivered, they're done. Just flat out finished. Crosswords are like that, and it's a great feeling.

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