Wednesday, April 23, 2008

CROSSWORDS REVISITED


Well, I am part of a community now. I am a regular contributor to Rex Parker's blog on the subject of crossword puzzles . As a result, the number of rules that I had no longer exist.

Granted, I still use my trusty Cross pen. But the varying difficulty of the puzzles throughout the week obviate the need for some of the other rules. I am not as strict as I once was on where I start. The difficulty of the Friday and Saturday puzzles forced me to try to find a toehold anyplace within the body of the puzzle. I still use my trusty Cross pen for Sundays when I still do it in the newspaper.

Tradition, don't you know.

I like the idea of being able to discuss puzzles with others. We are all language mavens to some extent or another. I like being part of this community which is mostly about language itself and reading the comments of other solvers is truly a wonderful thing.

The tangents we go off on!

During this past week there was a discussion on the need for a new word to describe what I like to call meta-cluing, that is a clue that points to the language of the clue itself rather than what the clue describes. Recently we had a clue which was BIT OF COCOA? and the answer was SILENT A, which is an example of this kind of cluing.
So, come on over if you have an urge to participate - or just lurk around the edges - of a spirited discussion of our native tongue!