The summer I graduated from college, I worked in the English Department office at my alma mater, Southern Methodist University. My main job was to mimeograph hundreds of copies of syllabi for all of the English professors’ fall classes and to type the department chair’s manuscript for his next book. (Quite a challenge, given his handwriting!) On occasion, administrators would ask me to conduct a tour for visitors.
The rest of the time, I answered the telephone. And ring it did. From day one, the chairman told me that I was to forward only the calls that asked for a professor by name. Otherwise, I was to field all other calls that came into the office.
It didn’t take me long to realize that most other calls began like this: “This is so and so from such and such insurance or law office. How would you correct this sentence?” Then the person on the line would read a very awkwardly worded run-on sentence. When I asked the chairman about such questions, he merely quipped as he continued to walk through the office, “You’re an English teacher now. Work out the sentence for them.” I have often wondered if any of those policies or documents ever turned up invalid because of any sentence structure I corrected during those three months.
The second most frequent calls came without any introduction: “What’s a five-letter or seven-letter or ten letter word for...?” If an answer popped in my mind, I responded quickly. If not, I told the caller that I didn’t know, please check with a crossword puzzle solution book.
I’m often reminded about those long ago calls whenever I encounter any advice column on aging that inevitably suggests: “work at least one crossword puzzle every day to keep the mind sharp.” I would add to such columns, ‘refrain from calling English department offices for assistance.”
Long before I ever read such columns, I, like most English teachers who love words, enjoyed the challenge of these interactive puzzles with intriguing horizontal and vertical clues to solve on a checkerboard of black and white squares. Although I’ve never read this helpful hint, I’ve discovered that for me, working a puzzle at bedtime becomes the best sleeping pill ever invented. Crossword puzzles require intense focus from players and if the body is already tired, such focus on the trivial blocks out those real concerns of the day which often keep us awake at night.
According to The Encyclopaedia Britannica, the original crossword puzzles were created in England during the 19th century solely for the amusement of children. In 1913, The New York World began to publish crossword puzzles for adults in its Sunday supplement, “Fun.” A year later, the phrase “crossword puzzle” was added to the dictionary. And within a decade, these puzzles had become so popular that many newspapers offered a daily puzzle for their readers to solve. To insure ongoing readership, papers printed the answers to each puzzle the following day. The adult version of the crossword puzzle returned to England where the British embraced it as their own.
People actually earn a living by creating crossword puzzles. They, along with puzzle enthusiasts, are called “cruciverbalists,” from the Latin “crux,” meaning cross and “verbum,” meaning word. Arthur Wynne of Liverpool is credited with creating that first puzzle that ran in the New York paper.
Cruciverbalist Matt Gaffney says, “ When people find out that I write crosswords for a living, they often ask, ‘Can't you just write crosswords using a computer program now?’ After I finish crying—some people really know how to hurt a guy—I respond that, yes, computers play a role in crossword design these days. There are three parts to constructing a crossword: coming up with a theme, filling in the grid, and writing the clues. Until artificial intelligence makes some serious leaps, humans will do the heavy lifting when it comes to theme creation and clue writing. But the second part, filling grids with words, is quite computer-friendly. It's here that machines have revolutionized the construction of crossword puzzles.”
Today, Internet users can find a plethora of crossword puzzle sites to work on-line or to print in order to work the old fashioned way with pen and pencil. A quick search indicates that there are theme puzzles to entertain any interest: Bible, history, science, mathematics, children, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc.
When some cruciverbalists create convoluted clues to make puzzles nearly impossible to solve, aficionados may think of other types of cross words to say. However, most true fans just keep working until they are satisfied with their results or give up.
However, it is a different story when anyone messes with their crossword puzzles before they have a chance to solve them. Then they tend to utter those cross words.
Steve Wiegand of The Sacramento Bee quoted Dennis Foley when the Orange County Register made errors with its crossword puzzle answers. “I got lots of calls, because people who work crossword puzzles are an extremely intense and loyal audience. If you mess with their stuff, they can get really upset...Really. If you're a newspaper, you can change headline styles -- but do not get crosswise with the crosswords.”
That’s probably pretty good advice to all of us about life’s abundance of nuisances. Do not get crosswise with cross words.
2008
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