what a bitter person might try to settle crossword clue
Beyond the crossword
How Give-and-take Lists Aid — or Injure — Crossword Puzzles
A look into how the words get called for the New York Times Crossword.
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If we were to get by the New York Times Crossword, Lake ERIE would be the most dazzling body of water on Earth. Mining ORE would be the nigh lucrative business venture. Co-ordinate to xwordinfo.com, ERIE is the 3rd most popular word in the New York Times Crossword. It has appeared over 1,350 times. ORE is 7th, with over one,200 appearances.
ORE and ERIE are examples of crosswordese, words that appear ofttimes in crossword puzzles only rarely in day-to-day conversation. One of the reasons they appear so oft is considering they are extremely useful in crossword construction. The alternate pattern of vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant makes for like shooting fish in a barrel filling of catchy corners or ending stacks.
For a long time, the main tools of a crossword constructor were graph paper and a dictionary. Among today's constructors, though, it'south difficult to find someone who doesn't utilize software such as Crossfire or Crossword Compiler to create their puzzles. These programs introduced a new tool that automatically fills in an area of a crossword puzzle using a word list. By using autofill, a constructor'southward job is made easier. But as a result, crosswordese is stuck in the pre-Net era.
Almost structure programs come with preinstalled word lists, only they also allow the user to create their own, or to import lists downloaded from the internet. In that location are a number of free and paid give-and-take lists floating around, ranging in size from a few hundred entries to several hundred thou. Every constructor I spoke to mentioned these word lists were a huge benefaction when they were get-go starting out.
The college a word is scored in a list, the more likely the software is to use it. The internet discussion lists tend to identify a higher weight on words that have appeared in published puzzles before, so crosswordese similar ORE and ERIE tends to appear unduly often. Every constructor has a different methodology for scoring their personal word list, the same fashion a painter may adopt one brush or paint over another.
A number of constructors said they felt that crossword puzzles were art, or at the very least a class of self-expression. Anybody can download a word listing, but how they use it is what makes it special, and a proficient word list cannot supersede the skill and feedback necessary to make a peachy puzzle.
Some constructors set aside time merely for sharpening the scoring of their word lists. For example, Amanda Rafkin, associate puzzle and games editor at Andrews McMeel Universal, told me that she sometimes spent two or three hours merely rescoring words in her give-and-take listing.
Matt Ginsberg, who has published 50 puzzles in The New York Times, told me he used a machine learning algorithm to score his word list, and constantly scraped websites such as Wikipedia and online dictionaries to notice words to add to his collection. Nevertheless, Mr. Ginsberg besides mentioned that this style of discussion list direction could sometimes make his puzzles feel "constructed," and that he envied constructors who used language that was more than personal to them.
Constructors will also prune their word lists to keep out words they don't desire in their puzzles.
"There are a lot of rivers, and I don't know them all, even if they accept a lot of good messages in them," said Kate Hawkins, who has had seven puzzles published in The New York Times. "If I would be displeased to see it in a puzzle, I take it out. If I think it'south offensive, I take it out. If I think something is merely meh, I take it out."
Ms. Hawkins likes to add together what she calls "utility language" into her give-and-take list. "I actually like signs and instructions in the world around yous," she said, "words and phrases that you see, and they're ubiquitous, they're not in discussion lists." An example she gave me was her puzzle with the phrase LANE CLOSED, which she added to her discussion listing after seeing it on a route sign.
A number of constructors also told me that they would remove a word if they thought an editor wouldn't have a puzzle for including information technology. Ross Trudeau, who has published twoscore puzzles in The New York Times, told me that since the list of words that editors observe acceptable is merely so long, many constructors' word lists are really very like.
"Any new 3-, four- or v-letter word is gold" and gets added to his word listing immediately, Mr. Trudeau said. A recent example he gave was PSAKI, as in the White House press secretary Jen PSAKI. He gives actress weight to new jargon, motion-picture show titles and especially anything that he thinks will generate interesting theme or revealer entries.
"As a human, your tastes change, it all depends on how the pieces stack up as a whole," said Sam Ezersky, a New York Times digital puzzle editor and a constructor. "A give-and-take list isn't going to tell you that there are two actually hard answers crossing each other."
When Mr. Ezersky is stuck in a tricky part of a grid he is constructing, he uses answers such as Air conditioning TO DC or Diminutive GAS. Crunchy phrases similar these might not appear in a normal discussion list, just with some clever cluing, they tin can piece of work well to mucilage together some smoother fill.
Editors like Mr. Ezerky are looking for those moments.
"We tin tell when some man, meticulous thought went into a puzzle," he said. "We love when it truly feels like a craft, something that a human designed."
There are resource for constructors looking to diversify their give-and-take lists, such every bit the Expanded Crossword Proper name Database. The database was created by Erica Hsiung Wojcik, a Skidmore Higher professor and a crossword constructor, as a way to increase representation in word lists subsequently she noticed white men were overrepresented in crossword grids.
Some database inclusions are things that seemed like obvious puzzle words to Ms. Wojcik. For example, the ERHU is a ii-stringed musical instrument with Chinese roots with a spelling that lends itself to being crosswordese, but at the time of writing, it has never appeared in the New York Times Crossword. Meanwhile, ED ASNER, an actor all-time known for playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Bear witness, which ran in the 1970s, has appeared in the New York Times crossword 41 times. His last name? One hundred and fifty-i times.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/crosswords/wordlists-for-constructing-puzzles.html
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