#VERY LARGE POWER OF TEN CROSSWORD FULL#
#VERY LARGE POWER OF TEN CROSSWORD PROFESSIONAL#

My junior year, I found a professor in the English department who liked crosswords and was willing to work with me, so every couple of weeks I took a crossword that I had made into his office as he sat and solved it and critiqued it. I assume a lot of your studies were about the history of puzzles and making puzzles? You went to Indiana University, where you designed your own major in enigmatology. And not surprisingly, puzzle-maker was not there. I remember adding up my figures, turning the page, and looking to see puzzle-maker on that list of professions. I remember a questionnaire I took in grade school where you would fill out all the things you like and don’t like, and then find what profession you’re best suited for.

#VERY LARGE POWER OF TEN CROSSWORD PROFESSIONAL#

In the eighth grade, when asked to write a paper on what I wanted to do with my life, I wrote on becoming a professional puzzle-maker.

I sold my first one, when I was fourteen, to my national Sunday-school magazine. I started making puzzles when I was eight or nine. When did you first get into puzzles? Do you have an earliest memory of solving a puzzle?

It had the word “dove” twice, one of them clued as the bird and one as the past tense of “dive,” so that’s how they dodged that accident. The first word across was “fun,” that was filled in for you. It’s the Fun section of the New York World from December 21, 1913. I have what I believe is the world’s only copy of the first crossword puzzle in private hands. Are there any collector’s items you can tell me about? I’ve heard that you have a whole collection of puzzle-related ephemera up there. We’re talking over Zoom, and you’re in your home, in Westchester. Afterward, he sent me a few of his favorite crossword clues, which you can attempt to solve below. In our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, we talked about some non-puzzle things, too: his love of table tennis, his cameo on “The Simpsons,” and the surprise of finding his first serious romance, late in life. Navigating these changes seems to have done nothing to dampen Shortz’s enthusiasm for the job the man was clearly put on this earth to puzzle. He now shares his duties with a team of associate editors, and he happily acknowledges that their array of backgrounds and habitus has made for a better crossword. To a rising generation of crossword enthusiasts, he is at once a revered maestro and a frustrating embodiment of the Old Guard.Īlthough he resists crossword-clue relativism, and maintains that some references are simply more significant than others, Shortz has changed with the times in certain ways. But he is a self-described “older white guy,” and his judgments have drawn criticism, at times, for catering narrowly to his demographic. Part of his job, as he sees it, is to adjudicate what any puzzler should know.

Now, at the age of seventy, and approaching his thirtieth anniversary at the paper, he is a member of the established cohort he once defined himself against. He published more contributors in their twenties and thirties, and favored clues with a modern sensibility: Greek prefixes and musty arcana were largely swept away, replaced by sitcoms, snack-food brands, and sprightly wordplay. X (223) Nita Jaggi (217) M.When Will Shortz took over as the crossword editor at the Times, in 1993, he set out to make the puzzle younger. Wishing everyone a happy new year, one filled with dogs and cats and other good things. Here's an obligatory link to an Oona pic . Them to be a fierce and/or edible swarm of creatures scampering around! Kindling a deep-rooted hunting instinct in her, as she probably imagines These wispy shadows dart across the ground, It's not the leaves themselves that actually interest Under a large tree in my neighbourhood, waiting for large clusters of Of the year, according to Oona, my 7-year-old dog. Red and yellow and are now mostly brown and falling.

#VERY LARGE POWER OF TEN CROSSWORD FULL#

Is in full swing here leaves have gone through incredible shades of Reversible prime! Both 1371 are prime numbers. Yet again, a crossword of mine has landed on a number that is a Omitting the last letter) slipped through in this one, making an Try to not repeat an indicator word within a crossword, but 'cut' (for

The surfaces of 5d and 6d allude to theĮnd of the year and the beginning of a new year, respectively. made it hard to create any thematicĮntries, and there aren't any. In fact, the puzzle is nearly a triple pangram-as another little homage to 2022, 22 letters appear at least 3 times in the solution. Which is again a nod to 2022, the year that has an abundance of '2's. Meant to be squinted at, to get a passable imitation of 2022 :-).Įvery letter of the alphabet appears at least twice in the solution, There is a nina (in the fourthĬolumn from the right) that reads, BYE ZOZZ. Crossword bids adieu to the year gone by.

Very large power of ten crossword