stale vs edgy grid fill

This post is for those who are interested in crossword construction!

Ben Tausig's Reddit interview got me thinking about a recent trend in crosswords towards "edgy" clues and fill, and away from stodgier old-school fill. (When I say "fill," I mean words in the grid which are not theme entries.)

I should explain my background before going further. I began working the N.Y. Times crosswords as a teenager, many years ago, when Eugene Maleska was the editor. Crosswords had the reputation of being for cerebral types, and I felt compelled to conquer the challenge of successfully (and speedily) working these puzzles. From an early age, I've preferred working on difficult problems; solving something that's easy is boring, and not much fun. So crosswords were right up my alley.

When I first started, I found that I was stymied by some very peculiar word entries: for example, "ELA," "STOA," "ANOA," and "NIDUS." Sometimes I was able to reveal the solution by filling in all the crossing entries. In the worst case, I'd wait for the solution to be published. Either way, I was initially frustrated by the inclusion of such bizarre, uncommon words in a puzzle. It was an outrage! How could they expect anyone to know such obscure terms!?  Over time, of course, I'd soon be able to match a clue with its peculiar word entry. I never used these words, and never saw them used, either in written or spoken language. But I knew what they meant (more or less)!

Today such words are called crosswordese, and you can certainly find enough people who despise them. I have come to look at them fondly, however. When I see the clue "Guidonian note," I know exactly what to plug in. Although I may not have a firm knowledge of what it means (and according to Tausig, it's not a real word), learning about it has made a small dent in my knowledge of music. Even the entry "ULEE," which initially bothered me no end, has me interested in viewing a film I might never have heard of, otherwise.

So I'm no longer bothered by crosswordese. I consider it just another interesting challenge. I like fresh and trendy fill as well... though I prefer references to higher quality pop culture such as The Simpsons, and have a bias against references to reality TV.

I'll point out that I'm not into sports, so I'm just as much handicapped when trying to solve a sports-related clue as someone else might be by a reference to Greek architecture. But that doesn't invalidate the clue.

At World of Crosswords, I'm the one mainly responsible for producing the grid fill. While I enjoy crosswordese, I recognize that it can be a big problem for many solvers, so I try not to put too much of it into a single puzzle. We're trying to produce difficult puzzles, but not overwhelmingly so!

I recently had a discussion with Carla (the clue writer at WOC) about the word "PIKA." After I researched it, I was glad that I was introduced to the word and the very cute animal itself... I hope you agree!