“Crossword puzzles were used to send secret messages during World War II.”
This, apparently, would be one more good reason why I would make a lousy spy. As much as I adore words, my secret shame is that I can’t stand crossword puzzles. I know, you would think, being a write and all, it would be my life-blood. But no… I stare at those boxes and clues and feel downright disheartened. Which is not to say I don’t admire those brave souls who do tackle these tools of torture, I do! In fact, one of my best memories of my grandfather was watching him, pen in hand, glasses slipping down his nose, as he completed an entire crossword in half the time it would have taken me to watch an episode of Dynasty; what I certainly would have been doing while sitting with him. The gentleman at Starbucks who was working on his went on to tell his friend that he had taken up doing cross-words in order to help with his dyslexia. Since he can’t sound words out, he has to know them like a picture in order to use them. He also said that when he recognized the author of the crossword he would be able to get into his mind, understand how he thought, and complete the puzzle more easily. While the dyslexia comment makes absolute sense to me, the puzzle personality seems like adding one more layer to an already complicated mission. So now, not only do you have to figure out a 10 letter word meaning ‘crazy’ (btw – the answer is unbalanced, in case you ever run across this one,) I also have to know that one particular author likes to use a lot of 10 letter word clues. Really? Who has time for this? Apparently a lot of people. “According to Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, perhaps as many as 50 million people do crosswords just in America.” (courtesy of Oneacross.com; a great site for helping – e.g. cheating – the system:>) Still, I don’t see myself rushing out to grab the next NY Times crossword. I’d rather work on my grandfather’s other passion… the Rubix Cube.
1 Comment
1/17/2013 04:44:21 am
Wow. I was just thinking about my grandmother doing her crossword puzzles. She could also add full columns of numbers faster than I could on a calculator. I tried to do crosswords but instead credit Grandma for my love of playing with words. She loved to put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle - or swap a few letters like "fam damily." Thanks for the smile!
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