Tiffany Hanssen: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hanssen, filling in for Brian, who is off today. The world of crossword puzzles has a loyal fan base that can almost be described as a cult following. As crossword fanatics know, there's nothing more frustrating than an unhelpful clue, one that leaves you maybe more confused. If you're the kind of person who attempts a crossword puzzle and feels like your intelligence has come under question, yes, we may have a book for you.
Whether you finish the daily crossword or you've never even attempted one, but would like to, our next guest is here to help. David Bukszpan is the author of a new book called Crosswordese: A Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Language of Crossword Puzzles. The book also looks at the game's history and its present and it teaches you how to speak crosswordese. We're going to find out what that is in just a second. David, welcome back to WNYC. Thanks for coming in.
David Bukszpan: Hi, Tiffany. I'm so honored and just overjoyed to be here. It's really great.
Tiffany Hanssen: We're glad you're here. There's two sides to this. There's clues and answers. On both sides, what makes a great clue?
David Bukszpan: Yes, well, it's interesting. There are two sides, but they are so tightly connected. When I started writing this book, I thought, "Okay, I got to think about answers. I got to think about these little answers that come up all the time." You're right actually, it starts with a good clue. A good clue is one that I find-- there can be a few different reasons for enjoying it, but one would be when you look at it and you're like, "I do not know what this thing is. Oh my God, why are they asking me this?"
Then you just skip over it and you try to get some other answers that you do now, and then through the crosses, the answers that firstly you couldn't get, you look at the answer and you're like, "Oh, I do know this. I knew this all along. It just asked me to think in a different way." Then as you continue to do crossword, you start realizing, you see question marks, which are usually a sign that something funny is happening, usually a pun. That works for making a great clue, just misdirection and tricking you into losing faith in yourself for a second and then regaining it afterwards.
Tiffany Hanssen: A good answer?
David Bukszpan: Oh, well, a good answer, it can be dependent on a good clue. The same answer could not be very much fun if the clue is something obvious or has been used 100 times, but a good answer usually in crossword you like to see something that's fresh, that you haven't seen often in crosswords. It's unexpected. Something that you've encountered maybe in everyday life, and you're like-- Oh, I think last week one puzzle had photobomb in it and non-apology. Those are fun things to come across in a puzzle. It could just be an answer like Mozambique with a lot of fun letters in it that challenges you. It's fun to run into in a puzzle when you're maybe not hearing about that place in the news so much.
Tiffany Hanssen: A good reminder is there's a fun quotient here. It is a puzzle, right?
David Bukszpan: My goodness, yes.
Tiffany Hanssen: We hope there's a fun quotient. Let's talk about the word crosswordese. Is that your phrase? Where does that come from?
David Bukszpan: Well, it's been around for a few decades. The concept of it long predates the term. Crosswords were invented in 1913, and the first puzzle came out that in December in the New York World, and it was called a word cross. In the book, I take a look at that puzzle, and there's some words in there that nobody would have known then or now, they're just really difficult minutia.
I believe that that actually is the beginning of crosswordese or maybe because of what title was called, it was the beginning of wordcrossese. Basically, the crosswordese refers to short words-- sometimes they're called repeaters, that come up so often as answers or because they come up so much more as answers than they do in one's day-to-day life, that they seem to fit a little subset of language or its own little crosswords lexicon.
Tiffany Hanssen: Crosswordese applies to-- I keep thinking about it as two sides of the same coin, so clues and answers.
David Bukszpan: Absolutely.
Tiffany Hanssen: It applies to both sides of that coin. I'm wondering if we're going to carry this metaphor forward, if we've in this history of development of the crossword, have we seen dialects to this language develop? In other words, for different crossword developers have different forms of this crosswordese developed?
David Bukszpan: Oh, that's interesting. Well, I would say the lexicon has evolved over time. A big change happened in 1993. Actually, it was November 21, we're just almost at the 30th anniversary of Will Shortz becoming the editor of the New York Times crossword. Before that, the answer OREO would show up sometimes, but it was always clued as a prefix that meant mountain, and that would be just a detestable answer for people to come across. Finally, when Will Shortz came in, he wanted to make a lot of changes, and one was, "You know what, we're going to use names of products, and we're going to use more pop culture references." He started cluing OREO as the cookie.
I think OREO still counts as crosswordese because it appears so much. It's been clued as a crosswordese cookie, but I don't know if individual constructors have their own. They certainly have words that they prefer more than others, but crosswordese really exists within the set of answers that crossword puzzles rely on and use.
Tiffany Hanssen: We have a couple of texts I want to get to here. Listeners, if you are a puzzle fans and fanatics, call us with your questions about crosswordese or about the development of crosswords, the history of crosswords. 212-433-9692. You can also text that number, 212-433-9692. Maybe you're just looking for some tips and tricks. That's not a bad idea. We have here David, "I am a big fan of crossword puzzles." This is a tweet or a text rather, "Particularly those composed by Richard Mulcahy, every month in Harper's. I'm not sure, but I think he's not a spring chicken." Okay, I can't speak to that. "I fear the day when his puzzles will be gone. Any recommendations for other very clever, cryptic puzzles?" That to me sounds like a nightmare, but for someone who is looking for a very clever, cryptic puzzle.
David Bukszpan: Yes, well, the cryptic is kind of a different animal than the crossword. Actually, in England, when they say crossword, their puzzle refers to what we call a cryptic. It has its own set of clues, its own way of solving it, so it's a slightly different animal. You can look to the Sunday Times, they present different puzzles. Look to certainly the London Times, probably going to be looking more overseas, but also I would say there is American crosswords and a bunch of other crossword publishers from smaller outlets online that you can subscribe to that will offer you really challenging and different types of puzzles rather than your standard crossword.
Tiffany Hanssen: I'm learning. There's a difference between a cryptic and a crossword?
David Bukszpan: Yes.
Tiffany Hanssen: Aha. Do they look the same?
David Bukszpan: They look similar. Cryptic usually has many more black squares, not all the squares in a cryptic are checked, which means that answer goes through them two ways, which is one of the most important rules that American crosswords need to follow usually.
Tiffany Hanssen: Got it, okay.
David Bukszpan: Everything is usually with the crosswords.
Tiffany Hanssen: Listeners, 212-433-9692. Looking for tips and tricks about crossword puzzles, we've got your guy. David Bukszpan is the author of a new book, Crosswordese: A Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Language of Crossword Puzzles. I'm wondering, tips, we're talking about tips for beginners. If I've never done a crossword puzzle before, what are you going to tell me to do first? I can tell you, David, what I do is I go through the whole thing, and I pick out all the answers that I know away, and then I go back, and I just keep circling back and back and back.
David Bukszpan: That's perfect. That's a great way to start. One thing and you probably know this already, but a surprising number of people haven't encountered this because you encountered by solving crosswords is, if you're about to start, don't start today, or at least if you're going to start, don't start with today's New York Times puzzle because it's a Thursday and it's a very tricky puzzle. Thursday puzzles are difficult. Often they're rebus puzzles, which means they have something particularly strange happening in them, but start on a Monday. You can start with Minis. Minis are a great way to tune up a little bit but they don't always offer the pleasures of crossword, all the pleasures of crossword solving, which is an interesting theme, and tougher and more playful clues. Those things what they lend to the experience is these little shots of joy that you have. They're like, "Oh, I got that one," and then, "Oh, I solved it." Man, I think a Monday is certainly within even most absolute beginner's reach. It'll take a little time, but you'll get there and then you can move on through the week until Saturday, which is the real toughie.
Tiffany Hanssen: Okay, good. Good to know. Monday's my day. All right. So if folks are looking to ask you more questions, you have an event coming up?
David Bukszpan: I do. I have an event on Friday, December 1st at P&T Knitwear, that's down in Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. We're going to have a great panel of guests. I'm not going to do a lot of talking because the people around me are going to be so much smarter, [chuckles] and have done so much more constructing than me and editing than me. We're going to have the editor of the Wall Street Journal puzzle, Mike Shenk. We're going to have Wyna Liu, who is a New York Times crossword editor and who edits connections. We're going to have Helene Hovanec, and we're going to have Natan Last, who's a fantastic instructor.
Tiffany Hanssen: All right, so that's coming up December 1st at P&T Knitwear Bookstore on the Lower East Side. Our guest has been David Bukszpan, his book Crosswordese: A Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Language of Crossword Puzzles. David, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
David Bukszpan: Thank you for having me. Can I just say, if you want to know more, go to crosswordese.info, go to that website, you'll find out a lot more.
Tiffany Hanssen: Sounds great. David Bukszpan. Thanks so much. I'm Tiffany Hanssen. You've been listening to The Brian Lehrer Show. Stay with us and we'll be back tomorrow with more.
[MUSIC]
Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
