On Sunday I saw Will Shortz, the NY Times Crosswords & Games Editor, speak at UCSB with my friend Catherine. As featured in the documentary film "Wordplay", Will discussed the puzzle's history, how one is constructed, and what makes them great.
One of his favorite puzzles was one in which five words in the puzzle contained the star symbol to replace the actual word. For example, "starlight" would read "*light" in the puzzle. Once completed, the five stars appeared in the shape of the Big Dipper.
He also brought some new puzzle games to the show. For instance, he created a game wherein he offered a word, then you had to come up with the city and state that featured that word in consecutive order. Confused? Yeah, me too. Here are some examples:
Word: alone
City, State: buffALO NEw york
Word: sonar
City, State: tucSON ARizona
Word: bias
City, State: columBIA South carolina
He also told us that for a short time on the NYT website, you can complete a crossword with clues written by Bill Clinton!
1 comment:
I love crossword puzzles! (On Monday and Tuesday, anyway...).
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