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!

how do you feel about clechos?

A "clecho" is a "clue echo" - where two or more crossword puzzle clues are similar or the same. For example, in the L.A. Times crossword of Feb 19, 2012, 45A and 105A are clechos; both clues are "Hm...". The corresponding answers are, of course, different. 61A ("Design deg.") and 62A ("Designer Saarinen") are also considered clechos, even though they are not quite the same.

So far as I can tell, the term clecho was first used to describe the repeated use of "Eagle" as the theme clue in the October 6, 2010 L.A. Times puzzle. The word "clecho" was reportedly coined by one "Dennis," who writes at the L.A.Times Crossword Corner blog.

I'm happy with clechos when they occur as theme clues. In that case, it's perfectly clear what's going on, and it highlights the theme. However, when they appear scattered about throughout the puzzle, I get a little annoyed. Is it supposed to be clever? Is it just lazy? If the two clues are not close together, I might actually miss the fact that they are clechos; then it's kind of pointless.

There's a little discussion going about clechos over at the cruciverb puzzle forum. If you've got an opinion, post there, or here in the comment section.