the world of crossword puzzles—the game

Here The Muse explores the game of crossword puzzles from a number of different aspects.

popularity and scope

Considering that the crossword puzzle was invented only as recently as the second decade of the 19th century, its rise to popularity has been phenomenal. It is an infant compared with games like backgammon whose precursors can be traced as far back as 3000 BC. A game called Twelve-Lined Game that was nearly identical to modern backgammon was played by the ancient Romans.

Nobody known to The Muse offers objective and reliable statistical data on game-play around the world. By some reckonings, there are 50 million fans. But exactly what is a fan and how do you count them? If generalizations can be permitted, it is probably safe to say that in the U.S. and Britain, crossword puzzles rank among the most popular of all solo games, even when compared with card games like Solitaire; they are among the favorite games with which to pass time in the den, kitchen, public waiting room, or other places where time permits and distractions don't preempt. And they probably rank equally in popularity with other manual games such as checkers, chess, Sorry, Monopoly, or Scrabble.

This is not necessarily the case in countries outside the U.S. or Britain, where multiple-player board games like backgammon (in eastern Mediterranean countries) or chess (in Russia) overwhelmingly capture game player interest. Presumably, multiple-player games like these have more appeal than single-player games like crosswords because they are competitive; they may involve gambling and they offer the simple joys that come from of good company and social gatherings. Yet crossword puzzles, which offer none of these characteristics when played as usual, as a solo game, can stimulate just as much enthusiasm among player populations.

Computer-based games provide another dimension for comparison. In countries where consumer automation is prevalent and affordable, beyond doubt the most popular kinds of games are those built upon game boxes, electronic games, and computers. These kinds of games make up a $30 billion dollar business. If sports and other kinds of games are included in the dollar count, many more billions are to be added.

Clearly, if popularity were to be measured by sales dollar volume alone, crossword puzzles would occupy a place far, far, on the yardstick. Measured by sales dollar volume alone, the world of crossword puzzles is tiny; it represents a very small portion of the larger world it inhabits. Yet by many other measures, such as numbers of players per capita in countries where crossword puzzles are played, man-hours per person spent in play, or keenness of player interest, it ranks high.

So, what's all the buzz about? Why are so many people of all sorts so captivated by crossword puzzles? Perhaps all the fascination has to do with the crossword's double and triple whammy. One one hand, solvers are captivated by the challenge of discovering answers to the riddles posed by a puzzle's cryptic clues—"quilting party," "BYOB," "Title for 39-Across," "Treasure hunter's aid," and the rest. On the other hand, they're mesmerized by the challenge of coming up with words that answer a numbered clue and at the same time contain a sequence of letters that fit the clue's open squares and mesh with its crosswords.

A crossword puzzle exercises both sides of the brain and many faculties at once. The left side—the cognitive part—deals with logic, language, processing clues, and problem-solving; the right side—the creative part—deals with imagination, making connections, intuition, and wordplay (working with puns, etc.). The puzzle's graphic layout calls on the brain's visual faculties; and all parts call on memory.

A crossword puzzle is trickier than it might seem. It is a linguistic exercise wrapped in an enigma. No wonder people of all kinds find crossword puzzles challenging and stimulating. That's why they keep some people awake at night.

history

Crossword puzzles were invented in England during the 19th century. This makes them a comparatively recent development compared with most other games. Originally appearing in children's puzzle books and periodicals, the very first crossword puzzles were simple in layout, concept, and content, far different from today's brain twisters. theywere organized (laid out) as a word square, which is a group of words arranged so that the letters read the same vertically as horizontally.

Even though early word squares were simple, word squares are not so simple in concept. Scientific research is still going on to establish their mathematical-linguistic properties.

• See a few examples of word squares at the Wikipedia web site page on word squares. Then go on to explore some of their linguistic properties: click here.

• See a copy of Wynne's first crossword puzzle at the web site of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Solve the puzzle for yourself or see the solution worked out for you there: click here.

For obvious reasons, Wynne initially called his creation the word cross. Within a few weeks, however, new puzzles started appearing in the World under the rubric cross word. In January, 1914, the World published a crossword puzzle with the challenge, "Find the Missing Cross Words." And so, the puzzle that eventually came to be known as the crossword was born.

As you might expect, it wasn't long after the World started publishing the word cross that readers began submitting their own puzzles to the World for publication. In 1914, a certain Mrs. M. B. Wood became the first reader-constructor to be so honored, starting the tradition of the solver-constructor, one that not only survives today, but flourishes.

At first, only the New York World carried the crossword puzzle as a weekly feature. During the 1920s other U.S. newspapers adopted the puzzle as news of the existence of crossword puzzles gradually spread. In 1924 there was a sea change. Simon & Schuster, then a small publishing firm, printed a collection of New York World crossword puzzles in book form that became a huge success. This publication, the first of its kind, gave puzzles a big boost, and as a consequence, in this era puzzles quickly became so popular that all sorts of consumer products were sold that featured crossword puzzle tie-ins.

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the game

Of course, crossword puzzles are most-often worked on paper with the aid of a pencil, but they may also played on a computer, game box, or virtually any appropriate kind of electronic device. For practical purposes, there is no essential difference between the electronic and the manual versions; they employ the same kinds of grid square layouts and follow the same rules.

Crossword puzzles are most often played in a solo manner, with a single player as solver. In this kind of play, the puzzle may be thought of as the player's opponent. In solo play, the player's opponent may also be thought of as the person who constructed the puzzle because the constructor's intelligence is the creative force behind the puzzle's clues, answers, theme, and layout. As explained later, crosswords may also be played against opponents and by teams.

There is no such thing as one kind of crossword puzzle. Crossword puzzles may vary by structure, theme, language, or in many other ways. What all crosswords have in common is the concept of a grid into whose squares are placed letters, pictures, or icons that form words or sentences in a language. The words are answers to clues posed by the puzzle. Essentially, crosswords are linguistic devices.

No crossword puzzle standards exist because there is no U.S. or international standards body to define crossword puzzle standards. No one seems to care. Even so, certain de facto standards or conventions have evolved that amount to virtual standards because they are almost universally adopted by constructors. The style for the American crossword puzzle is an example of such a de facto standard. Look for the story of this evolution and for descriptions of these de facto standards elsewhere in these web pages.

game play in the U.S.

In the 1920s, when crosswords began appearing in larger numbers, there were no accepted rules that limited the form a puzzle should take. Constructors were feeling their way. In the 1930s, widespread publication and interchange of ideas spurred development of new concepts about what a crossword puzzle could and should be. In the U.S., newspaper publication contributed greatly to crossword innovation and to its increased sophistication.

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game play in Britain and america

Publication in U.S. newspapers had contributed greatly to the public's awareness of the game and to its subsequent spread in popularity. Newspapers had opened the door. For several years, news of the U.S. crossword only trickled back across the Atlantic. Finally, in 1922 the British publication Pearson's Magazine became the first there to publish a crossword puzzle.

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tournament play

Crosswords can be very difficult to solve. With so much interest in a game that poses so many challenges, it was inevitable that sooner or later the solo version of the game would spawn competitive offshoots among solvers aiming to prove themselves to others or to themselves. In the 1970s, the festering urge to establish a clear winner among the best and brightest solvers finally led to another innovation in the world of the crossword puzzle, namely competitive tournament play.

As with the crossword puzzle itself, there is no tournament standard, no one way to compete; different venues and formats for tournament play are extant. Some versions pit individual players against each other; other versions pit teams against each other.

One prominent venue for competitive play is the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which has met for play every year since 1978. This tournament, which claims to be the oldest in America, attracts hundreds of the nation's and the world's most skillful players.

As with other tournaments, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament creates and follows its own rules and competitive style. Play is organized into rounds in which contestants try to solve the same puzzle; they progress by stages to a final round in which all finalists independently play the same puzzle against the clock, a puzzle specially created for this purpose by a constructor expert. The winner of the final round is declared the tournament champion.

• Explore art game competition American style at Electricka's page called the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: click here.

the future

Crossword puzzles and crossword gaming are continuing to evolve. For example, not long ago it was thought that a computer program could neither construct nor solve a crossword puzzle and that the construction job would have to be forever relegated to a few highly skilled humans who are born with or who are able to cultivate this rare ability.

Programs for home computers are available at reasonable prices that allow a lay person to construct his own crossword puzzles. Other programs solve puzzles by themselves under certain limited conditions or can make it easy for almost anyone to solve a puzzle with computer assistance. With such programs, almost anyone can be a constructor. Now anyone can encapsulate his own words, ideas, and themes in a puzzle.

Today, Internet web sites offer pages containing crosswords a visitor can solve on his monitor screen. It's even possible to construct a puzzle online. Who knows what's coming next?

• Work an arts-related crossword puzzle on your computer screen at Electricka's page called Welcome To Arts Puzzles: click here.

more about crossword puzzles