Why are crossword puzzles so popular?
"Nature abhors a vacuum," The New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz theorizes. "You see that empty black-and-white grid, and you want to start filling it in. You like to fill up those squares."
There's also the fact that most people love a mystery, so the solving is a lot of fun, he says.
Then there's the way you have to face problems every day: How is the best way to run errands, what do you cook for dinner, how are you going to pay your bills, when do you find time to help with your child's homework?
"There are no perfect solutions to these problems, so we muddle through them the best we can. But with a crossword puzzle, when you fill in that last square, you have reached perfection. That's a rare and very satisfying feeling."
If Shortz sounds passionate about crossword puzzles, it is because he is passionate about crossword puzzles and has been all of his life.
Shortz grew up in a rural town in Indiana, where he began making up puzzles at age 8 or 9. He sold his first crossword puzzle at age 14, and by 16 was a regular contributor to Dell puzzle magazines. "My mother was a writer, and she encouraged me to start selling them," he said in a telephone visit from his office in Pleasantville, N.Y.
He was the first — and so far, only — person to get a degree in enigmatology at Indiana University. "There were no courses," he said, "it was mostly independent study" — which meant he pretty much had to design the curriculum as well as pass it.
He went on to get a law degree, but instead of practicing law he devoted his time and energies to puzzles and games, first with Penny Press Magazine and later with Games Magazine. In 1993 he became the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times. He also does a puzzle segment for "Weekend Edition Sunday" on National Public Radio, is the author of nearly two dozen puzzle books and directs the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Many people consider The New York Times puzzles the top rung of the puzzle ladder. Shortz believes he has the best audience, one that is educated and intelligent, so he can "presume a level of culture and solving skill."
Since taking over as editor, he has added his own stamp: adding the names of the contributors, bringing in more popular culture references and adding more tricks and ambiguities to the clues.
"I think the puzzles should reflect our language and culture as much as possible," he said. And while he does see them as having an educational value, "I want to educate in ways that enrich, that make life more interesting, not just in introducing things you will forget in five minutes. I want people to enjoy learning, but learning something they might use, something that will make them say, 'That's cool. I didn't know that!"'
Occasionally a few of those other words will slip in. A recent Sunday puzzle, for example, used the word AMBO, a large pulpit. "I struggled with that, but there really was no other way to go. But you won't see many of those," he said.
Shortz takes a very hands-on approach to editing puzzles. He averages between 75-100 submissions a week from constructors all over the country.
He looks for puzzles that are interesting, fresh, colorful and challenging. He takes the ones he likes and then matches them to the right level of difficulty. Since taking over as editor he believes he has "increased the slope of difficulty"; the Monday puzzles are a bit easier, but the Saturday puzzles are a bit harder.
In general, Monday and Tuesday puzzles are pretty straightforward and often have a theme. Wednesday and Thursday puzzles have more wordplay and trickery. Friday and Saturday puzzles are usually themeless, have longer answers and a more challenging vocabulary.
Surprisingly, Monday puzzles are the hardest to come by. "It's not that easy to make a puzzle out of words that are all familiar. Plus, puzzlemakers love to make the harder puzzles," Shortz said. His submissions are "awash in Tuesday and Wednesday puzzles."
Once the puzzle is selected and slotted for a specific day, then Shortz goes to work on the clues. "On average, half the clues are mine. That can range from 5 to 10 percent to 90 to 95 percent, depending on the skill of the constructor. Some are better than others."
The first thing he checks for is accuracy. "I will hear about it if anything is wrong." Then he looks for clever wordplay. It is easy to imagine him gleefully coming up with clues like "stick in the fridge" for "OLEO" instead of "margarine substitute," or "a private group" for "ARM" instead of "fighting force."
"I like things that tease and joggle the brain," he said.
Before it is printed, each puzzle is checked by five test solvers. It used to be just four, but The New York Times has an online forum where people can post comments. "There was one guy who was so incredibly knowledgeable and posted such good comments, I thought, 'Why wait until it is in print; let's have him check them before.' No other puzzle in the country undergoes such rigorous testing."
The New York Times puzzle is printed in 150 newspapers in the United States and Canada (including the Deseret Morning News) and in the International Herald Tribune. There is a six-week delay for weekly puzzles in syndication and a one-week delay for Sunday puzzles.
The New York Times puzzle, of course, is just one of many options out there. For an estimated 50 million people, crossword puzzles are a daily part of life.
Although word games and wordplay go back to ancient times, the crossword puzzle is a fairly recent addition. The first crossword puzzle is credited to a man named Arthur Wynn of Liverpool, England, who published the puzzle in the New York World on Dec. 21, 1913. That puzzle looked much different from today's crosswords; it was in a diamond shape and contained no black squares.
However, other newspapers picked up the puzzle idea and began to tinker with the form until it evolved into the one we know today.
In 1924, the publishing firm of Simon & Schuster launched its career with a book of puzzles, and their popularity spread even further.
Ironically, The New York Times was one of the last newspapers to add a crossword puzzle. It first published a Sunday puzzle in 1942 and a daily puzzle in 1950.
The standard black-and-white grid you find in newspapers is just one of many forms that modern crossword puzzles can take.
Nowadays you can find puzzles that are round, diamond-shaped, with varied framework, where you have to fill in the black squares and more, says Mark Legasse, senior executive editor at Dell, one of the country's largest publishers of crossword magazines, with more than 35 puzzle titles.
"I personally like the diagramless puzzles," he said in a telephone interview. Legasse has been doing puzzles since he was 4, and he loves to experiment with all kinds of puzzles.
He, too, works with a stable of constructors who send in the puzzles. Despite the fact that we are in a computer age, he said, most crossword puzzles are still done by hand. There are some computer programs that will generate them, but "the good ones are still done by people, especially puzzles with themes."
Considering that Dell publishes 8 million to 10 million puzzle books a year — in addition to all the other options out there — you can get a sense of how popular crossword puzzles are, he said. "We have people who tell us they do 20-30 puzzles a day. We hear from people who said they've done them for 50 years."
Puzzles are fun, he said. "It's not like a test at school. And you can find the level of skill you want."
In recent years, we've also been learning that they are good for us. "They keep the mind active. They keep people connected," Legasse said. There are reports that they can stave off effects of Alzheimer's and other dementia, he said. "Anything and all things we can do to keep our minds working brighter and faster have to be good."
E-mail: carma@desnews.com