

NYT Crossword editor: "I was willing to endure a life of poverty to do this." - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/business/media/19askthetimes.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1312384839-mLpflGqHfgDeFFI863nEgA

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jonknee
If you haven't seen the movie Wordplay, do yourself a favor and watch it. Will
Shortz is a central figure in it and seems like a true word hacker.

Also a shameless plug, I run a crossword puzzle database that maps the
relationships between answers and clues (I wanted to see what clues pointed to
what answers and vice versa). It may be of interest here:

<http://crosswordtracker.com/>

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mcphilip
Second the Wordplay recommendation. I believe that's where he stated that his
favorite crossword clue ever was "It might turn into a different story" for
the word SPIRALSTAIRCASE.

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EvanKelly
BEQ, an NYT crossword constructor, did a Reddit IAMA the other day. He
mentioned a favorite clue and solution being {Take cash but not credit} for
GHOSTWRITE. I'm always the most satisfied whenever I successfully fill in a
solution for clues like these.

IAMA is here:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/j5v6g/iama_new_york_ti...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/j5v6g/iama_new_york_times_crossword_puzzle_constructor/)

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51Cards
I was really hoping the list of questions would include more background on the
1996 Election puzzle. That one fascinates me to no end.

<http://i.imgur.com/CTYHM.gif>

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jonknee
That's covered a bit in the Wordplay movie, they had both Clinton and Dole
comment about it (both saying they knew they won because it said so in the NYT
crossword).

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gruseom
"I'm a fan of any celebrity whose name is short and contains a convenient
vowel-consonant pattern."

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cpeterso
Lady Gaga?

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catshirt
i think he means pete rose

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ColinWright
I've met Will in passing - he probably wouldn't remember me - but he's an
incredibly cool and helpful guy.

And smart like it's hard to believe.

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camtarn
One thing I found fascinating was the difference between US and UK crosswords,
which I'd always assumed would be pretty similar: "Crosswords in England are
completely different from ours ... their crossword clues started including
anagrams, homophones, hidden words and other wordplay ... cryptics here have
never achieved widespread popularity."

~~~
Robin_Message
If you're interested, a clue in a cryptic crossword in the UK must give you
the answer two different ways, one of the ways is a synonym/description, and
no word may belong to both of the ways. Sometimes a setter will not meet these
criteria, so they append a question mark to the clue to mark it as not quite
proper.

For example, "reprimand son for being so unfeeling" is scold -- a synonym of
reprimand, and then s for son and cold for unfeeling.

I enjoy doing the cryptic crossword in our local paper. Unfortunately, the
ones in national papers are too hard for me. Often the trick is knowing
something like that a sailor used to be called a "tar".

They are a lot of fun though; I prefer them to general knowledge since all you
need to answer them is time, lateral thinking and a good vocabulary. They are
also a great illustration of the workings of the subconscious -- coming back
to a puzzle after a short time usually yields some answers instantly.

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hollerith
What interests me most about Will Shortz is the insight his his life and his
spots on NPR have given me onto the natural human love of puzzles.

Although I personally do not get much of a kick from solving puzzles for their
own sake, I definitely want to understand those who do. Seeing mathematician
John H Conway give a lecture was also interesting because he was deriving
immense pleasure from something while up on the stage -- and my best guess as
to the nature of that something is puzzle-solving. Until that lecture, it had
not occurred to me that puzzle-solving could be such an immense source of
pleasure.

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Erwin
Another of their crosswords editors did an interview on reddit here:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/j5v6g/iama_new_york_ti...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/j5v6g/iama_new_york_times_crossword_puzzle_constructor/)

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dancavallaro11
Nitpick: BEQ, the guy who did that AMA, is _a_ crossword puzzle constructor
who has had some puzzles published in the NYT. Will Shortz is _the_ NYT
crossword editor.

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duck
Seven people basically check each puzzle by hand, and yet it still isn't 100%
foolproof? That seems hard to believe for the level of skill all these people
have minus the freelancer.

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scott_s
Very little in our world is 100% foolproof.

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Kolya
I'm surprised to see a crossword editor use the phrase "crosswords in
England". It's not what you'd expect from someone so concerned with trivia.

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mcantor
Why is that phrase surprising?

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EvanKelly
I think they are typically referred to as cryptics across the pond.

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gjm11
No, we call them crosswords. ("Cryptic crosswords" when it's necessary to
distinguish them from the sort that's dominant in the US, and yes, that can be
abbreviated to "cryptics", but that wouldn't be the norm.)

I'm guessing that the complaint was actually about "England" versus, say, "the
United Kingdom".

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klbarry
I made up a word game in high school that became popular with my friends -
tell me what you think. Basically, you solve for one word. The clues are words
that have at least one letter from the word, in order, that have something to
do with the word.

As an example, this:

\---

storm

weather

drip

falling

\---

would be "rain".

This one is considerably harder:

\---

fur

hibernate

claws

latin

brown

omnivores

\---

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alanfalcon
Interesting game. I admit, I wouldn't have gotten it without help from the
internet, which I suppose is against the rules. But I know no latin, so it was
my only hope. The answer is ursine, which I've attempted to bury somewhat in
my response so that it doesn't pop out so obviously to those who read this
later and want to solve the clues for themselves.

Here's a stab at one that's so vague that there's probably a better answer
hidden in there than the intended "right" one:

Carbohydrates

Chickpea

Canned

Confectionary

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scott_s
Damn, I knew it had to start with urs, but I couldn't figure out the rest.
Regardless, I like the game.

