December 11, 2018

How to construct a crossword puzzle.



A nice demonstration by David Kwong, which I noticed because I was reading Rex Parker's write up of today's NYT puzzle, which included this delightful it-can't-be moment:

12 comments:

Narayanan said...

Good morning, professora.
Thanks.

rehajm said...

It was fun change to watch a construction instead of the autopsy. Is that a real apartment ya think? I wanted to like the aesthetic but it's too Hoarders for a NYC apartment.

Ralph L said...

APESPIT?

campy said...

I'd try a "U" in there.

Ralph L said...

A young puzzle maker won at least once on Jeopardy, despite his slacker-ish appearance.

Ann Althouse said...

To me, David Kwong looks like Scott Walker.

Wilbur said...

I dated a woman once who I discovered had a serious aversion to crossword puzzles. Something to do with an ex-husband.

I liked her a lot, but we were definitely going to clash on this. I love me some NYT Sunday puzzles. We split amicably.

M Jordan said...

I enjoyed this video mucho. I create weekly anacrostic puzzles* for our local newspaper. Gridding it is a different concept than crosswords but using a computer program (which I wrote since there are none out there) helps immensely. It was Kwong’s discussion of clueing that was most interesting to me. Clueing is truly an art and done well has the ability to make the puzzle a truly enjoyable experience for the solver. Puns are a crucial part of that which Kwong didn’t mention.

I’ve created a few crosswords but haven’t published any yet. Hope to someday.

Thanks for the post.

*Anacrostics are quotation puzzles which are solved by answering questions whose answers are created from them the letter stock provided by the quote. Kind of a cross between Wheel of Fortune and crosswords.

Edmund said...

I have the Shortyz app for my Android phone, which downloads a number of crossword puzzles each day.

One thing I have noticed is that sometimes the same word will appear in multiple puzzles on a given day. One recently was "Alamo".

Original Mike said...

That was interesting, though I was surprised (I probably shouldn't have been) at the use of a computer. How did people manage pre-computer? How much longer did it take to build a puzzle?

I'm chagrined I missed the changing shirt color.

He does look like Scott Walker.

Mark said...

How did people manage pre-computer?

Hard copy dictionary?

Do they still make books from dead trees?

William R. Hamblen said...

Take a picture of the Scrabble game you just played.