Threadlines: The Crossword Hall Of Fame

The Crossword Puzzle

The crossword puzzle is a mainstay of American culture, dating back to the early 1900s. Over the 100+ years of their popularity, they have evolved from Arthur Wynne's first ever crossword in the New York World newspaper.

Over time, crossword puzzles have become more popular and complex, with new types of grids and clue formats being introduced. The use of themes also became common, where all the answers would relate to a central topic or idea.¹

Soon, crossword puzzles became a staple of many newspapers around the country, with the most notable being The New York Times which has published crossword puzzles daily since 1942.

To this day, many across America - including myself - solve the Times' daily crossword puzzle as a consistent part of their daily routine. The puzzle has developed cult followings and led to the creation of active discussion forums with legions of solvers discussing each daily puzzle.

Now, many major publications publish a daily puzzle - LA Times, The New Yorker, Washington Post, even Dictionary.com - and the puzzle has expanded to the digital world, with online solving options in conjunction with the typical pen-and-paper. Crosswords have been around for centuries, have evolved in many ways, and have continually captured the attention of the American - and now, worldwide - public.

But throughout this rich and century-old history, there are some specific crossword puzzles that are especially notable.
Whether it's because of their impact on the broader culture or their especially fascinating creation and cluing, a few select puzzles stand above the rest.

Here are three of those.

Hall Of Fame Puzzle 1: Spanning Generations

Bernice Gordon is a veteran, prolific crossword constructor, who had her first puzzle published in the 1950s by the original crossword editor of The New York Times, Margaret Farrar.² Following that, she wrote regular crosswords until her death in 2014. Over her 60+ year career, Bernice published thousands of puzzles, publishing under all four NYT puzzle editors.
Moreover, she set the record as the oldest crossword writer for The Times at age 95, before subsequently breaking her own record 5 times, at age 96, 97, 98, 99, and 100. When she turned 100 years old, Will Shortz, the New York Times puzzle editor attended her birthday celebration in Philadelphia.

On the other side of the coin, David Steinberg began creating crosswords when he was still in middle school, after seeing the late Merl Reagle create a puzzle in an iconic scene from the 2006 documentary, Wordplay. At age 14, he became the second youngest person (note about youngest also being a David) to have a puzzle published in The New York Times. Now in his mid-20s, at the time of writing, works as the Puzzles and Games Editor at Andrews McMeel Universal, where he works to curate, edit, and create puzzles of all kinds, including the Universal Crossword.

In 2013, the young constructor contacted Bernice to interview her on a project he was working on covering the bygone eras of Times crossword editors, and they struck up a friendship. Soon, the two cruciverbalists (a person skillful in creating or solving crossword puzzles) decided to collaborate on a crossword together, and soon enough, they published their puzzle in The New York Times. At the time of publishing, the two had an age difference of 83 years, with Bernice being 99 years old and David being 16.

Fittingly, the theme of their puzzle was AGE DIFFERENCE, with the top half of the puzzle featuring phrases that added AGE to the end, and the bottom half had AGE removed from the end of the standard phrases. For instance, one of the marquee top-half clues was: "Result of someone yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater?" With the answer being EXIT RAMPAGE (the standard phrase being "exit ramp"). On the bottom half, David and Bernice clued INSTANT MESS (typically, "instant message") as "What an exploding microwave can make?"

In crosswords, the personality of the constructor will inevitably shine through in the puzzle. This results in factors such as the age and generation of the writer playing a massive difference in how the puzzle relates to those who solve it. A 70-year-old puzzle writer will rely on references from the 1960s and potentially use words that are less familiar to younger solvers. Similarly, young puzzle writers will often reference modern trends and pop culture, as well as use slang that may be unfamiliar to older generations. David and Bernice are acutely aware of this fact, and are sure to include some older references (EARP, HAMLET, ENID) as well as some more modern ones (VEG, KOBE, THINKBIG).

In an interview for the crossword blog of The New York Times, Bernice Gordon noted that "David is a darling boy and I have enjoyed working with him. Of course, our vocabularies are so different. He does not understand my words (too fuddy-duddy, I guess) and I certainly do not recognize his." Furthermore, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that David Steinberg found that "'we think very differently.' Gordon first sent Steinberg a puzzle referencing a 'handsome Harry' - and he answered asking what it was. The puzzle Steinberg sent back had just as many generational pitfalls. ‘It had the word Uggs in it... U-G-G-S... What in the world are Uggs?'"

Despite this, the two were able to collaborate on a generation-spanning puzzle that Will Shortz called "phenomenal." I tend to agree with Shortz - the puzzle is charming, both with the lovely story behind its creation, and how the constructors take advantage of its unique origin to result in a memorable solve.

Next up, what is likely the most famous crossword puzzle of all time.

Hall Of Fame Puzzle 2: Predicting the President?

The 1996 US presidential election saw a race between incumbent Bill Clinton and challenger Republic nominee Bob Dole. The election was held on Tuesday, November 5, 1996, meaning the results would be announced in the press on the following day in the Wednesday papers.

However, on that Tuesday, The New York Times ran a crossword with one of the long answers clued as "The headline of tomorrow's newspaper." Depending on how solvers filled in the grid, the puzzle was constructed in such a way that CLINTON ELECTED or BOB DOLE ELECTED would work. For instance, the clue for the first down clue was "Black Halloween Animal" which could work for CAT or BAT.³  

This kind of double-cluing was done for all 7 of the relevant cells, which is truly a cool feat of crossword construction. As an aside, this type of puzzle has become known as a “Schrodinger's crossword”.⁴

Unsurprisingly, the public had strong reactions to this as folks assumed The Times must have been making some sort-of prediction about the election or worse, knew the outcome somehow. Will Shortz remembers in an interview with CNN that "the day the puzzle appeared in the Times my phone started ringing immediately. Many people filled in CLINTON ELECTED and thought I was being presumptuous at best and maybe inserting my political views into the puzzle. Then there were people who filled in BOB DOLE ELECTED and thought that I'd made a huge mistake."

Yet, as the gimmick of the puzzle was slowly realized by the media and the public, the confusion and clamor eased into wonder at the feat of cruciverablism on show. Now, Shortz calls it his favorite puzzle of all time.

Over the years, this 1996 crossword has become a storied part of puzzle history, covered in the aforementioned Wordplay documentary⁵ , appearing in multiple books on the history of crosswords, and discussed by Peter Jennings on ABC News.

Additionally and amusingly, the other two long answers in the grid were PROGNOSTICATION, a word meaning the ability to tell the future, and MISTER PRESIDENT. Jeremiah Farrel, the author of this now-iconic puzzle, clearly had plenty of fun with this grid.

Finally, how a crossword puzzle helped save the free world.

Yes, really.

Hall Of Fame Puzzle 3: Bletchley Park

During World War II, Britain’s, and to an extent, much of the Allied Forces' fate, hinged on the ability to decrypt Nazi messages and respond accordingly. Bletchley Park was an estate in Britain that hosted the Government Code and Cypher School. This began as a small operation, but as the importance of cracking the German codes became apparent, it started to receive much more focus and resources.

This group quickly became laser-focused on cracking the Nazi war codes, and especially "The Enigma" which was the German's ace-in-the-hole electric cipher device.

As the directors of Bletchley began to focus on recruiting more folks to work at and contribute to the effort at Bletchley Park, they had to, naturally, be very careful. Being a secret operation, they had to be conservative and resourceful in recruitment.

They began by reaching out to university mathematics departments and targeting individuals skilled in math to be codebreakers. However, they quickly found that many of the math-minded folks lacked the creativity necessary to be effective. So, they shifted their focus to those with extraordinary language skills.

Alaric Stephen writes, "In 1942 the Telegraph newspaper had been receiving letters complaining that the cryptic crosswords they had been publishing were too easy and that they could be solved in a few minutes. The editor thought that this couldn't be true and so arranged to have a time challenge: to solve the crossword in 12 minutes under test conditions."

25 aspiring crossword solvers showed up to the Telegraph's newsroom and sat down to solve a puzzle. Soon enough, only 4 were able to complete it correctly and within the strict time limit. Those 4 individuals all walked out of that room a hundred pounds wealthier, and completely unexpecting of what was coming.

A few weeks after this competition, the British War Office wrote to the puzzle winners, regarding a "matter of national importance." These 4 puzzlers were then invited to become Allied codebreakers and join the efforts of Bletchely Park.

They joined alongside Alan Turing, Hugh Alexander, and Stuart Milner-Barry, and became instrumental in the ultimate success of Bletchley Park in cracking the Nazi's "Enigma" machine. This machine was one of the most important upper hands that the Axis powers held over the Allies, and once it was cracked, critical messages could be intercepted by the Allied Forces. Subsequently, the Allies were able to prevent many Nazi attacks, and ultimately, end World War II. And crossword puzzles were at the heart of this.⁶

So, as A.J Jacobs quipped, "Thank you, puzzles, for democracy."

Crossword puzzles have evolved a lot from their simple origins that first appeared in newspapers. They now are mirrors of culture, capsules of the time's vernacular, and a vehicle for clever wordplay.

Crosswords delight and frustrate, as they are solved around dinner tables, at computer desks, and on comfortable couches. And as Will Shortz believes, "Good crosswords connect to everything in life.”

And alongside all of that, crosswords have brought people from across generations together, captured the attention of the American public, and even helped save the world from Nazis.

Quite the resume.

¹How to Solve The New York Times Crossword - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

² In 1959, a New Yorker article described Farrar as "[p]robably the most important person in the world of the crossword puzzle." The article quoted Farrar's preferences for clues: "We don't allow two-letter words and we avoid as much as possible obsolete words, variants, obscure words, and clichés—words like 'gnu' and 'emu' and 'proa' ... I favor using lots of book titles, play titles, names in the news, and so on. I also favor puzzles with a unifying theme—what I call the inner-clue puzzle, which was invented by one of our best constructors, Harold T. Bers. For example, an inner-clue puzzle he did for us recently was called 'Catalogue' and had answers that were words or phrases like 'catbird seat,' 'catacombs,' 'Kitty Hawk,' and 'pussyfoot.'

³ Here are all the down answer options for the Clinton-Dole puzzle
39. Black Halloween Animal. (Cat or Bat)
40. French 101 Word. (Lui or Oui, i.e. words that you learn when you first start French)
41. Provider of support, for short. (IRA or Bra)
23. Sewing shop purchase. (Yarn or Yard)
27. Short writings. (Bits (as in on a computer) or Bios)
35. Trumpet. (Boast (to trumpet something) or Blast (what you do with a trumpet))
42. Much-debated political inits. (ERA or NRA)

⁴Schrödinger puzzles (xwordinfo.com)

⁵The Wordplay documentary is a really fun watch, and you can rent it on Apple TV. I highly recommend: Wordplay (film) - Wikipedia

⁶The puzzle that they were tasked to solve was truly very difficult, and especially given the older language and references, it is now almost impossible to solve without any hints or Googling. But if you’d like to try… Solve this crossword in less than 12 minutes and you could have been a WWII codebreaker - Room Escape Artist