Think… Think… and think again…
- Crosswords are word puzzles that generally have a numbered black and white rectangular or square grid with a list of clues, the answer of which get written in the appropriate squares on the grid.
- Crosswords have different appearances and variations depending on the country and language system, with Hebrew crosswords only using consonants, and Japanese crosswords using one syllable per square, instead of one letter.
- Crosswords can range in difficulty from easy to hard, and are often set in a square and have 125 (15 by 15) to 425 (25 by 25) squares, to be filled in.
- The first true crossword is attributed to journalist Arthur Wynne, which was published in the “New York World”, in December 1913, and prior to this, similar word puzzles had been created, most notably, Italian Giuseppe Airoldi’s puzzle published in an Italian magazine in 1890, which had a square grid.
- There are two main types of clues for crossword puzzles, clues that have answers as simple definitions, known as ‘straight crosswords, ‘quick crosswords’ or simply ‘crosswords’, and clues which are ambiguous and a puzzle themselves, known as ‘cryptic crosswords’.
- In 1924 in America, the newly formed company Simon & Schuster, started by Richard Simon and Lincoln Schuster, published the first crossword puzzle book, which proved very popular, and the company still holds a prominent place in the United States for the publishing of crossword books.
- Roger Squires, of the United Kingdom, has designed the most crossword puzzles, starting in the 1960s, having is 66,666th puzzle on May 14, 2007.
- The longest word ever set in a crossword was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is a Welsh town of 58 letters, and was the answer to one of Roger Squire’s clues.
- Arthur Wynne’s crossword was originally known as ‘word-cross’, and this quickly changed to ‘cross-word’, and after a while the hyphen was removed.
- Someone who creates crosswords is a ‘cruciverbalist’, although crossword puzzle enthusiasts are also called ‘cruciverbalists’, although the term is not often used, and the creator is more commonly referred to as a ‘setter’, ‘constructor’ or ‘compiler’.
