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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's shuck and

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Speaker 1: this is Stuff you Should Know for one seven letters.

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Speaker 1: I'm really excited about this one because you and I

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Speaker 1: chatted recently, I think, probably on our super secret trip,

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Speaker 1: our research trip out west, about my new crossword passion,

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Speaker 1: which started I don't know sometime in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: where I started dabbling in the New York Times Crossword

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Speaker 1: for the first time, doing Monday Tuesday ish. I would

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Speaker 1: try Wednesdays, and then I was like, I wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: try anything past that because I knew they got progressively harder,

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't, you know, I was just sort of

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Speaker 1: learning the language of crosswords, which is a thing we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about, yeah, And then I was like, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna try these other ones, and before you know it,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing all seven days. Oh really like and finishing

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Speaker 1: them with my little cheats, which we'll talk about as well.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's pretty cool, man. Saturday's too, huh. Saturday's too.

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Speaker 1: And I love doing it so so much. It has

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Speaker 1: really added a lot of like happiness in my life.

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Speaker 1: I really really enjoy it. Man, do some crosswords. Take

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Speaker 1: a good nap, drink some tomorrow. You got to figure

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Speaker 1: it out. It's all coming up, chuck. So the New

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Speaker 1: York Times, he just said, it's all coming up, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: The New York Times is probably the most at least iconic,

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Speaker 1: if not well known, in the United States, at least

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Speaker 1: crossword puzzle in the whole country. Sure. One thing I

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Speaker 1: didn't know, Olivia helps us with this is that The

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Speaker 1: New York Times was actually the last metropolitan newspaper by

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Speaker 1: far to start running their own crossword puzzle. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: for a good twenty year the New York Times just

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Speaker 1: looked down. It's knows that crosswords is a brainless fad

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Speaker 1: that would surely and ever any day now, and it

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Speaker 1: just never didn't. They finally caved, and then you know,

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Speaker 1: sixty eighty years later, something like that sing about eighty

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Speaker 1: years Wow, that's crazy. Um, it's now like the number

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Speaker 1: one crossword puzzle of all time ever the paper of record. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so should we talk about the inventor of the word

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Speaker 1: cross Yeah, that's what it was called at first. His

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Speaker 1: name was he was a brit and he was an immigrant. Well,

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Speaker 1: he was a British immigrant. What does that mean? He

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Speaker 1: was an immigrant to the United States from Great Britain,

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Speaker 1: from Liverpool to be specific. All right, I get it now.

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Speaker 1: His name is Arthur Wynn, with two ends and one

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Speaker 1: y and any in a W. And he there were

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Speaker 1: some we didn't go over the prehistory of crosswords, but

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Speaker 1: there had been sort of crossword like word puzzles for

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Speaker 1: hundreds and thousands of years in some cases. And when

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Speaker 1: was probably pretty familiar with these, and he managed what

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Speaker 1: was called the Fun section of New York World that

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Speaker 1: had puzzles and jokes and things like that. And then

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Speaker 1: finally in nineteen thirteen, he said, in our Christmas edition

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Speaker 1: this year, I've created a puzzle called a word cross

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Speaker 1: that was shaped like a diamond, had no blacked out squares,

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Speaker 1: and had you know, sort of crossword clues like we

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Speaker 1: would recognize them today. Yeah, I mean, it was essentially

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Speaker 1: a crossword. He just got the name wrong. He got

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Speaker 1: it the name swapped, well, he got it right. Who

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Speaker 1: got it wrong but ended up being right was an

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Speaker 1: illustrator who accidentally swapped those words. And it was cross

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Speaker 1: dash word capital C, capital W. Yeah, and that name

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Speaker 1: stuck in it eventually just they said, let's quit with

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Speaker 1: a little dash in the middle, and let's go ahead,

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Speaker 1: make it one word yep. And Wynn was like, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is actually starting to get kind of popular within

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Speaker 1: just a few months, and he went to the publishers

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Speaker 1: of the world and said, hey, we should probably patent this.

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Speaker 1: And the world said, do you know how much it

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Speaker 1: cost to patent something these days? One hundred dollars. Get

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Speaker 1: out of my office and did not ever patent the crossword.

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Speaker 1: And I think that was actually a really it was

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Speaker 1: a bad move on the world's part, but I think

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Speaker 1: it was really great for the world. The world, you know, yeah, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: That would be very strange if crosswords were patented. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think that they would be anywhere near as

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Speaker 1: prevalent as they are now. So in that sense, the

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Speaker 1: publishers of the world gave us all a pretty neat present,

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Speaker 1: and we are going to give you a pretty neat

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Speaker 1: present by introducing you to a woman named Margaret Petherbridge.

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Speaker 1: This was at the time Arthur Winn's secretary, and he said, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're pretty sharp, why don't you take this

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Speaker 1: job over? And it turned out she had a real

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Speaker 1: knack for not only creating crosswords, but kind of codifying

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Speaker 1: what crosswords were and sort of the rules of crosswords.

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Speaker 1: She was the earliest one to sort of put in

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Speaker 1: place these rules like, hey, you should have a separate

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Speaker 1: list for a cross and for down, and you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: have any unchecked boxes, which is a square that's only

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Speaker 1: part of one word, like it should all tie together. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and very early on, I think if she didn't add

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Speaker 1: the black squares, which are called blanks, the squares you

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Speaker 1: actually fill in, they're called lights, she helps standardize them

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Speaker 1: because very quickly they if you look at a crossroad.

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Speaker 1: I never knew this before until we started researching this.

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Speaker 1: If you look at all the blanks, the blacks, the squares,

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Speaker 1: they're symmetrical. If you look at the left side and

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Speaker 1: the right side, they're mirror images of one another. And

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Speaker 1: you can turn it on its side and the top

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Speaker 1: and the bottom or mirror images of one another. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, why, how does that help anything? And

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Speaker 1: apparently they just decided, I think, if it wasn't Margaret

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Speaker 1: Pether Bridget with somebody she was friends with early on,

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Speaker 1: that symmetry is just beautiful, so make it symmetrical. Well,

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Speaker 1: they're not always like that they are. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at Today's and it's not symmetrical. No, I spent

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Speaker 1: so much time trying to find like something that undermined that,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't like. I was like, oh, it's it

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Speaker 1: is symmetrical. That's symmetrical. Holy cow, that's symmetrical. Did you

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Speaker 1: look at any crossword puzzles? I like, yes, I looked

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Speaker 1: at crossword puzzles. Apparently I didn't look at the one

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Speaker 1: from today, though. Well, Today's not. It has a great

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Speaker 1: deal of symmetry now that I'm looking at it, and

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Speaker 1: this is something I've never noticed. But for instance, I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at one which on the right side is an

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Speaker 1: L and on the other side it's an L. The

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Speaker 1: bottom square of that L. Okay, so it's it's not

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Speaker 1: quite symmetrical, but it is kind of symmetrical in some parts.

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Speaker 1: I'm so sick of this stupid conversation. Are you looking

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Speaker 1: at the Today's yet? I can't. I don't have my

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Speaker 1: log in right now, so well, i'll take a screenshot.

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Speaker 1: I'll take your word for it. Man, all right. I'm

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Speaker 1: just so bummed though, because you thought that was like

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Speaker 1: the fact of the show. It was one of them

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Speaker 1: for sure, and now it turned out to be the

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Speaker 1: incorrect fact of the show. Well, let's move on to

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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, when a young company called Simon and

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Speaker 1: Schuster said, Richard Simond's aunt, I think, said, hey, these

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Speaker 1: crosswords a lot of fun. You guys should package He's

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Speaker 1: together in a book, because your book company. And so

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Speaker 1: they hired Margaret Petherbridge, codifier of rules and master crossword designer,

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Speaker 1: to put this book together. And she got a couple

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Speaker 1: of other editors from the world and said, all right,

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Speaker 1: let's get to work on this thing. It'll come out

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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty four. It will come with a free

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Speaker 1: pencil and a racer, which is super cute. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: sold one hundred and twenty three thousand copies in that

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Speaker 1: first year. Yeah, and that one rants or did so

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Speaker 1: well that they released a second edition, in a third edition,

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Speaker 1: all within the same year, and all combined, those three

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Speaker 1: editions by Christmas time had sold more than a quarter

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Speaker 1: of a million copies. For a fledgling publishing house. That's

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Speaker 1: a pretty big thing. But also they were very smart,

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Speaker 1: Simon and Schuster. They created the Amateur Crossword Puzzle League

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Speaker 1: of America to basically help promote crossword doing solving, I

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Speaker 1: guess is what they call it, in order to help

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Speaker 1: sell more books. And it worked. Actually, it became a

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Speaker 1: legitimate thing. They started standardizing crosswords as well. Oh hold on,

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Speaker 1: you know what I think I'm wrong? I just sent

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Speaker 1: you yes, yes, So it's a mirror image in a way.

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Speaker 1: It's it's not I thought everything would correspond directly across

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Speaker 1: from one another, but it also works diagonally, So I

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Speaker 1: see what you mean. It is symmetrical if you include

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Speaker 1: the diagonal. So if you look in the tipe bright corner,

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Speaker 1: the bottom left corner should be the mirror image of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's symmetrical. They're all symmetrical. It's insane because it makes

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Speaker 1: it so much harder. Oh man, I'm so glad we

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Speaker 1: solved that for you, because thank you, dumb when I

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Speaker 1: was dumb, No, you didn't make me feel dumb. Mind. Well,

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Speaker 1: I kept looking at it and I was like, how

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Speaker 1: can parts of it be symmetrical? That didn't make any sense, right,

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Speaker 1: But I was looking for like a direct flip. It's

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Speaker 1: hard to explain how my brain was looking at This

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Speaker 1: is a rare in show correction for one of us

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Speaker 1: against the other. Right. Um. So oh yeah. Back to

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Speaker 1: the Amateur Crossword Puzzle League of America. Yes, um, which

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Speaker 1: sounds like they were all wearing capes while they totally

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Speaker 1: did um. But they had some rules like, um, no

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Speaker 1: part of the puzzle can be completely cut off from

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Speaker 1: the rest. Sure, so you can't use black squares to

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Speaker 1: just make an island of one grid. Um. You also

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Speaker 1: can't use tons of black squares. Uh. They actually is,

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Speaker 1: we'll see, make it easier to create a crossword because

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Speaker 1: using black squares breaks up the stuff so you don't

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Speaker 1: have to come up with So a typical I think

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Speaker 1: New York Times crossword is fifteen across and fifteen down,

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Speaker 1: So if you didn't use black squares, you would have

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Speaker 1: to come up with fifteen fifteen letter words. So no,

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Speaker 1: I guess thirty fifteen letter words, which would be really

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Speaker 1: really hard because they'd also all have to interact. So

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Speaker 1: they use these black squares to kind of break things

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Speaker 1: up and make it a little easier on themselves, to

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Speaker 1: shorten the letters and words and stuff like that. But

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Speaker 1: the Amateur Crossword Puzzle League of America said, Okay, no

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Speaker 1: more than one sixth of all the squares can be

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Speaker 1: blacks can be the black squares, because after that you're

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Speaker 1: really just kind of making a lame crossword. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I want to take another stab at correcting you, Oh no,

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Speaker 1: or to maybe clear up when you say fifteen across

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Speaker 1: and fifteen downs, that's fifteen lines, not fifteen clues, right,

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Speaker 1: But there's also fifteen spaces right total I'm saying. And

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Speaker 1: if there weren't any blacked out blanks, you would have

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Speaker 1: a fifteen letter word across at the top, a fifteen

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Speaker 1: letter word below that, a fifteen letter word below that,

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Speaker 1: and then from up vertically there'd be that have to

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Speaker 1: make a note its owned fifteen letter word, and so

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Speaker 1: on and so forth. So yeah, it'd be fifteen across

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Speaker 1: in fifteen down, right. I just want to make sure

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Speaker 1: people knew you didn't mean fifteen across clues in fifteen

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Speaker 1: down clues. There's fifteen lines vertically, in fifteen lines horizontally,

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Speaker 1: and on each line there can be as many as

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Speaker 1: you know, four words, no, no, four clues, Okay, but

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Speaker 1: that's if you have black blank squares. If you didn't

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Speaker 1: have blank right, But if you didn't, you'd have to

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Speaker 1: come up with fifteen letter words, any of them that

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Speaker 1: all interactive with one another. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I get it. But it sounded are we really talking

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Speaker 1: about this, man, this is a brainbuster of an episode.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting this when you were talking about it. Initially,

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Speaker 1: it sounded like you were saying, there were fifteen acrosses

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Speaker 1: in fifteen downs. Yes, if you didn't have black squares,

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Speaker 1: there would be right, but there, that's not a crossword,

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Speaker 1: right right, agreed. But the thing is is you could

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Speaker 1: keep adding more and more black squares to make it

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Speaker 1: easier on yourself, the puzzle constructor. And if you why,

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Speaker 1: because they're shorter words. Yeah, it makes shorter words. It

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Speaker 1: makes it easier to come up with words that interact

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Speaker 1: and intersect with one another. And I disagree. They said, well,

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Speaker 1: you should take it up with the crossword puzzle constructors

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Speaker 1: because they say it makes it easier. Oh really, Because

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Speaker 1: I've begun working on constructing my own, that's sort of

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Speaker 1: the giveaway. And I found that having a good long

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Speaker 1: word is a real benefit. Okay, yeah, it definitely can be.

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Speaker 1: But imagine having to come up with thirty fifteen letter

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Speaker 1: words that all interact with one another. That's not a

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Speaker 1: crossword though. That's my whole point. Okay, forget it. The

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Speaker 1: other thing, the other way to look at it, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: is that to show off crossword constructors use as few

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Speaker 1: blanks as possible. Yeah, so then get those longer words.

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Speaker 1: That's fine. Well, yes, we'll agree to that. Short words

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Speaker 1: you're challenging. I think you're thinking of a word search.

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Speaker 1: No I'm not. I know what I'm talking about. Will

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Speaker 1: Schwartz please come to our aid and settle this once

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Speaker 1: and for all. Oh well, ironically, I think we've been

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Speaker 1: saying the same thing, just in different ways. I think.

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Speaker 1: So Two, we need Jerry here to to interpret for us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Jerry's not here today. That's why we're fighting. Let's finish

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Speaker 1: this is as bad as our fights get. We should

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Speaker 1: finish this part, I think before we go on and

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Speaker 1: take a break. And that is when things got hot

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Speaker 1: in the crossword community. Was the nineteen twenties in the

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Speaker 1: United States, and it was a like a big d

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Speaker 1: such that there were people that came out and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: these cross It was sort of like these jazz cigarettes

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Speaker 1: are ruining our culture, Like these jazz puzzles are ruining

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Speaker 1: things because people are just spending all their time doing

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Speaker 1: crossword puzzles. Uh, there was and in the in the

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Speaker 1: UK there was in nineteen twenty four a headline from

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Speaker 1: the Tamworth Herald that said crossword puzzles it should be

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Speaker 1: a colon and enslaved America. And they were talking about

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Speaker 1: how like men are wasted, it was a sinful waste

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Speaker 1: of time, and that it was a fad that would vanish. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was the New York Times that called this sinful

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Speaker 1: waste of time. So yeah, there was a real like

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Speaker 1: if you were if you consider yourself an intellectual, you

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Speaker 1: definitely look down on crosswords in the twenties because it

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Speaker 1: was just such a huge popular pop culture sensation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was a song that was called crossword Mama. You

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Speaker 1: puzzle me demand in parentheses, but Papa is going to

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Speaker 1: figure you out. It's like vaguely intimidating, it is it is.

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Speaker 1: So it was like it was a really big deal.

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Speaker 1: But um, yeah, as much as the New York Times

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Speaker 1: and some of the other um of the tongue clucking

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Speaker 1: set wished m crosswords didn't go anywhere. They just became

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Speaker 1: more and more popular and eventually they did catch on.

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Speaker 1: In Britain, Chuck, they have their own version called Cryptic Crosswords.

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Speaker 1: Did you see anything about that? Yeah? The Cryptics are

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Speaker 1: like the New York Times Crossword will have a handful

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Speaker 1: of clues that are sort of deal more and they're

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Speaker 1: more clever. There's more word word play, there's puns. They

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Speaker 1: try to throw you off track, and apparently these in

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Speaker 1: Britain are that's all they are. They are and they're

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Speaker 1: really tough. They have really different rules than American ones.

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Speaker 1: So one an example, I think whatsoever a clue. A

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Speaker 1: clue was artist's phone hacked by terrible woman and the

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Speaker 1: answer is Chagal who is an artist. But the reason

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Speaker 1: Chigal is the answer is because in the middle of

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Speaker 1: Chigal there's the word hag And if you take the

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Speaker 1: word hag out of chical, you have call, which references

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Speaker 1: a phone. Wow. Yeah, like my brain just melted out

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Speaker 1: of my ear a little bit. Yeah. My deal with

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Speaker 1: the New York Times is I I love a good

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Speaker 1: clever clue like that. That's that I can figure out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's the best. I saw a friend American Crossroad. I

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Speaker 1: don't know who wrote it, but it was it brings

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Speaker 1: The clue was it brings out the child in you,

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Speaker 1: and the answer was labor. M that's good. That's the

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Speaker 1: that's sort of they have those routinely, Like, that's what

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about. That's a good example of a really good,

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Speaker 1: clever but gettable thing. You know, I really thought I

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Speaker 1: was going to get a better response out of you

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Speaker 1: than that for that one. Yeah, it's a great one.

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Speaker 1: It brings out a child in you, labor like you

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Speaker 1: just gave birth to a child. Yeah, but those are

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Speaker 1: there were two or three of those in almost every

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00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:57,400
Speaker 1: puzzle I know that, but that one is particularly We

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Speaker 1: need to start this episode over all, right, let's think

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Speaker 1: of break and we'll go hatch this out. We'll be

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Speaker 1: right back, all right. So we mentioned that the New

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Speaker 1: York Times finally got their crossword puzzle years and years

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Speaker 1: after they were all the rage in the twenties. And

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Speaker 1: it was when we entered World War two. Enter once again.

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Speaker 1: Margaret Petherbridge, now Margaret Ferrar said, wrote a letter to

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Speaker 1: the New York Times, is you know what we're going

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Speaker 1: into war? It's impossible too, and this is a real quote.

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Speaker 1: You can't think of your troubles while solving a crossword,

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00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:52,960
Speaker 1: so like this, this is going to be a big

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00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,119
Speaker 1: distraction for everyone during this tough time. And the New

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Speaker 1: York Times said, you know what, I think you're right,

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Speaker 1: and why don't we hire you to do it and

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Speaker 1: you can be our editor? And she said, I'd be

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Speaker 1: happy to do that for twenty seven years, right, man.

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Speaker 1: This was nineteen forty two, I think that they brought

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Speaker 1: her on board. And Margaret Petheridge Ferrar had been or

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Speaker 1: Petherbridge had been um a like involved in the crossword

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Speaker 1: world since the beginning, since they were invented, and so

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Speaker 1: who else would you bring on as the first editor

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Speaker 1: of the New York Times Crossword? Yeah? And she did

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Speaker 1: it for twenty seven years, like you said, which is

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Speaker 1: eclipsed in time only by the current crossword editor, Real Shortz,

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Speaker 1: who's been doing it for like, I think thirty something years,

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Speaker 1: thirty two maybe. But yet she had a really huge

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Speaker 1: impact on crosswords, and that's something I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of people overlook. The impact that crosswords have on society

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00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 1: and culture is really like under the radar, but it

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Speaker 1: is really significant because what you choose as words and

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Speaker 1: clues and the way that you put things has a

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00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:11,560
Speaker 1: there's millions of people all experiencing that same that that

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00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:15,200
Speaker 1: same puzzle, and so it's like you're planning seeds and

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00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:17,639
Speaker 1: millions of people's heads, and those millions of people go

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Speaker 1: on to talk and interact and it has a really huge,

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Speaker 1: far reaching effect, way more than you'd think of, Especially

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Speaker 1: the New York Times crossword. Yeah, there's something that I

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00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:29,399
Speaker 1: realized what there's is that, uh, And I was just

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00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:31,159
Speaker 1: naive because I didn't know much about it and I

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00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:33,560
Speaker 1: hadn't seen the documentary wordplay at that point. Have you

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00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:36,680
Speaker 1: seen it yet? Yeah, it's great, but there's a real

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00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:39,719
Speaker 1: community around it. And once I started doing it. Um.

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Speaker 1: I think I told you that Hodgeman and I were

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00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:45,400
Speaker 1: talking on the phone about something else and the crossword

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Speaker 1: came up, and he had been doing it. He's he's

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00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:51,040
Speaker 1: a big words guy, no surprise, and does play scrabble

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00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:54,760
Speaker 1: with his wife and for years and years and decades,

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Speaker 1: and so he's long done the New York Times. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh cool, and we started talking about it,

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00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:04,160
Speaker 1: and I was so new to it. I was super excited,

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00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,399
Speaker 1: and I think that sort of rebbed his motor a

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00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:09,399
Speaker 1: little bit because I was, you know, I was a

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Speaker 1: new guy that was like, thought it was the coolest

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Speaker 1: thing ever. And so we started texting a lot about it,

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Speaker 1: and then our friend Ben Harrison of the Greatest Gen Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: Ben does it. So all of a sudden, I've got

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Speaker 1: all these people like colleagues and other podcasters that we

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Speaker 1: like text each other hints or you know. John was like, man,

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Speaker 1: text me if you don't know a thing, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, well, I could just look it up, and

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Speaker 1: he said, text me. It's more fun. And I was like, right,

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Speaker 1: there's a community here, yeah, and about it. I can

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Speaker 1: just go lock myself in the basement with a candle

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00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:43,440
Speaker 1: and look it up. And I wasn't saying I shouldn't

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Speaker 1: get in touch with you about it, but it's like,

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Speaker 1: why would I bug you about it? And he was like, no,

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Speaker 1: bug me. That's the whole point is it's like it

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00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:51,639
Speaker 1: can be a social thing even though it's a generally

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00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:57,159
Speaker 1: a solo pursuit. Absolutely, So Margaret for our kind of

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Speaker 1: like coming to our live podcast shows. Huh yeah. So

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Speaker 1: Margaret fer Our, she retired in I think nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: nine and a guy named Will Wang took over. And

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Speaker 1: Will Wang um he had a huge impact on the

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Speaker 1: crossword as well. He had a great sense of humor

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Speaker 1: and so he got into that word play. Those puns

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00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 1: kind of like a diversions, like making you think it

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Speaker 1: was it's one thing when it's really another, the use

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Speaker 1: of a word that's got to be a will whanger.

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Speaker 1: He was replaced after eight years. He moved on and

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Speaker 1: by a guy named Eugene te Moleska, and he was

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Speaker 1: the editor from seventy seven to ninety three. And he's

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Speaker 1: the one that I think a lot of people our

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00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:48,480
Speaker 1: age who don't like crosswords think of when they think

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00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:51,399
Speaker 1: of how much they don't like crosswords, because he was

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00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: really being into opera, a former school superintendent, he knew Latin,

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Speaker 1: and he expected the crossword puzzlers, the solvers, I say,

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00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:03,800
Speaker 1: to have the same like background in education and tastes

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00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 1: that he did. And a lot of people don't, you know,

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00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 1: like it's not like you have to hate opera, but

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00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,960
Speaker 1: if you don't really like opera, you're probably not at

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00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 1: all into opera, you know what I mean. There's it's

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00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 1: not like I'm kind of into opera thing, you know

388
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,360
Speaker 1: what I mean? And to expect everybody else to understand

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00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,320
Speaker 1: the clue that that you know, wordplay about you know,

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00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:27,119
Speaker 1: and some opera that it's not. I don't know. I

391
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 1: just get the impression that the approachability of it really

392
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 1: bottlenecked under Molaska. Yeah. And the one thing that John

393
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,440
Speaker 1: and I agree on is like, and this is true

394
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: when we've designed our trivia games that we used to

395
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: do or pub trivia, is that the best clues in trivia,

396
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:47,840
Speaker 1: we believe and in crosswords are ones that you can

397
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,880
Speaker 1: probably kind of figure out and even if you don't

398
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: know the answer, and the worst ones are you know,

399
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 1: this person wrote this book or this opera, and you're like, well,

400
00:22:57,680 --> 00:22:58,959
Speaker 1: if you don't know it, you don't know it. It's

401
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,680
Speaker 1: a lot more fun to try and test your brain

402
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: into seeing if you can kind of figure it out.

403
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 1: And eventually you'll do that by getting other letters that

404
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: intersect with that word, of course. But if if it's

405
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:12,879
Speaker 1: just like I don't know, it's kind of lazy to me.

406
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,959
Speaker 1: To me to be like, you know, just name this

407
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,679
Speaker 1: person who start in this movie. Yeah, lazy is a

408
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: good way to put it. But on the other hand,

409
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 1: like the converse of it is like you just really

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00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 1: touched on an important thing of cross words, and that

411
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: they are approachable and they do something to your brain

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00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 1: that taps into a part of your mind and your

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00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: intellect that's not just wrote memory, that where you can

414
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,120
Speaker 1: combine different things that don't seem to be at all combined,

415
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: and it just makes it a really like pleasurable thing.

416
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: A lot of people compare, especially the British version, crypto

417
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 1: crosswords to reading like a miniature murder mystery and when

418
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 1: you figure out who it was, it turns out you

419
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:58,959
Speaker 1: were right, your suspect was the one who did it.

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00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,880
Speaker 1: That that feeling of like I knew it. That same

421
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: thing can come from like every single clue almost of

422
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: a really well written crossword, and it's kind of the

423
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: same thing where there's this discovery and you you also

424
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: have that kind of rush of accomplishment for having figured

425
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,119
Speaker 1: it out without just knowing a fact that you learned

426
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: in school. I think that was a really important point

427
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 1: you made. Yeah, but also it's not you can have

428
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,360
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to go all cryptic like a good

429
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: crossword total And it's has a mix of both because

430
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: it's also nice when you do know something and it's

431
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: you know this man let voices carry and you know

432
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: it's amy, you know what I mean? Did you get

433
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: that one? I did? It was pretty good. But would

434
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: you just made that one up? Wouldn't you have to?

435
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: It's good chuck, but think about it, you're gonna have

436
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: to fess up and make it two ends. Well. Sure,

437
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 1: so that's a huge giveaway too, but that's part of

438
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 1: the cheekiness of it. Yeah, no, I'm with you. But

439
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 1: sometimes it literally just says this person started and whatever. Movie. Right.

440
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: So there's one other one I want to give a

441
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: cryptic crossworth that just blows my char So that clue

442
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: is lineage and the answer is eagle. Can you figure

443
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: it out? Well, I mean I know it because you

444
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,199
Speaker 1: this is something that I read. We'll pretend like you

445
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: just figured it out and share it. No, how about

446
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: you ask the audience, well, audience, do you know no? No,

447
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,439
Speaker 1: Well I'll tell you. It turns out that lineage can

448
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:37,879
Speaker 1: also be read as L in eg eage. Well, if

449
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: you put L in eage, you get eagle. Yeah, I

450
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: mean those are tough, man, That is really tough. You

451
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: have to be so thoroughly British to be like, yes,

452
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: I totally am tapping into this. Yeah, it's just it's

453
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: just a different way of doing it, but it's the

454
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: same thing, and I think it's neat that everybody's got

455
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,479
Speaker 1: their own way. Yeah. My Actually, let me amend that

456
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 1: my least favorite clues and I will bail on a

457
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: puzzle altogether. If the theme and we'll talk about the

458
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,360
Speaker 1: fact that they have themes in a minute, But if

459
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: the theme is it's just you have to misspell this

460
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 1: word in order for it to be right. I hate those. Yeah,

461
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: you're like, if it's not a duke is a hazard theme,

462
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: I don't want to have anything to do with that crossword.

463
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: Back to will Schartz in the timeline of editors, because

464
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: like you said, there's only been one, two, three, four, Yeah,

465
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: I mean it's a good gig that, like the least

466
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: tenard was what eight years, yeah, Will Wing. So it

467
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: seems like a job that people like because they keep

468
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: doing it forever. But Schwartz has been there for thirty years.

469
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,719
Speaker 1: There was no full time staff there besides himself when

470
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: he came on, just a part time assistant, and he

471
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: changed that had somewhat of a staff. All of a

472
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: sudden he added the buyeline, which is a big deal.

473
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 1: When you go to your daily puzzle. You see who

474
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 1: wrote it and who constructed it, which is kind of cool.

475
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: And before that there was no biolin at all. And

476
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: then he said, you know what, we should also get

477
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: like clues that like talked about people of color and

478
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: talked about different types of cultures and more diversity overall.

479
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 1: I'll also add brand names, which is something they never

480
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 1: did before. Yeah, for sure, to just really kind of

481
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:23,719
Speaker 1: opened it up. He definitely did. He also started publishing

482
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: from a lot of different people too, including teenagers. I

483
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: think up to the Shorts era, only I think like

484
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: sixteen teenagers had ever been published in the New York Times,

485
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: And since he's been there, I think it's like sixty

486
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: four now now that was six teenagers. Six teenagers. It's

487
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: even less than I thought before. Yeah, six, and then

488
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: during his tenure forty six. Wow, So I really cool.

489
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: Screwed the pooch on that one, but the gist was

490
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: still correct. One thing that is also correct is they

491
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: do get progressively harder, and I was sort of wrong

492
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 1: when I first started doing and I thought Sunday was

493
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: the hardest. They get more intellectually challenging Monday through Saturday,

494
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,159
Speaker 1: and then Sunday's sort of like a midweek level, but

495
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: it's just larger. That's what I saw about one hundred

496
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: and forty clues. Usually, yeah, it's it's not lines. I know,

497
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: not lines. It's not what I meant. Here's let's do

498
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: this great example that Livia gave, because this is another

499
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 1: kind of fun head teaser, brain teaser. So the clue sandwich,

500
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: often given a twist, might be the Saturday clue for oreo,

501
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: whereas the Monday version might just be Nibisco sandwich cookie.

502
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: I saw that they start out easy on Monday and

503
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: then get increasingly harder day by day because they assumed

504
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: that the crossword solvers out there were still recuperating from

505
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: the weekend morning, and that they were getting sharper and

506
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: sharper as the days went on. And then you on Monday,

507
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 1: you get to just blaze through one. No, no, like

508
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: you're still hungover on Monday. So they made it easy

509
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: on you, That's what I'm saying. And you get to

510
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: blaze through it in ten minutes and feel good about

511
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 1: yourself again, right exactly, and then throw up from having

512
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: to focus on the little tiny print for an hour.

513
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: But just to explain in case you don't do them

514
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: at all, and you're like, I don't get the oreo thing.

515
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: Sandwich often given a twist. People often twist the oreo apart.

516
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: It is a cookie sandwich, and as Libya astutely points out,

517
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: that also satisfies what you see a lot in crosswords,

518
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: which is the short word with a lot of vowels,

519
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: like once a week, Enya the New Age artist. Enya

520
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: is a clue. She's never been She's been topical for

521
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: thirty something years because of her name. It's really funny,

522
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: and they're different ways of like describing the clue or whatever,

523
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: but it's it's very funny. It's always like this this

524
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: new ager or something like that, and so I see it,

525
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: there's Enya. Yeah. Yeah, that's another thing too that I

526
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: think you kind of referenced earliers. You know, you start

527
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: to get a feel for the language of cross words,

528
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: and sometimes some clues are virtually the same as others.

529
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: There's only so many ways you can describe ye, So yeah,

530
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: that'll start popping up, especially if it's a vowel heavy

531
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,479
Speaker 1: heavy word. We should talk about themes a little bit

532
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: more though, right, sure, Well, they're themed. A lot of times,

533
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: not always, but it seems like out of the seven days,

534
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: I would say three or four of them are usually

535
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: themed at least, and that is when there would be

536
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: like it's usually like four or five of the clues

537
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: have a theme, and then there would be an additional

538
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: one that says blank blank blank is a clue and

539
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: that it will say or a great clue to the answers,

540
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: you know, four or seventeen, sixteen, and twenty four, So

541
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: it'll it'll be a clue plus an additional thing that

542
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: sort of helped describe what the theme might be. Like

543
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: the theme the answer might be doubles, and that is

544
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: also the theme of the other ones that you you know,

545
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: hopefully got by that point. One of the other things

546
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: I saw that make theme crosswords popular, especially among constructors,

547
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: is that the theme answers are usually multi lettered see

548
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:21,719
Speaker 1: ten letters, and that's a big long string of consonants

549
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: and vowels that you can use to branch other words

550
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: off of the intersect with. So you'll have four or

551
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: five theme words. So you've got four or five ten

552
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: letter words right off the bat, but you don't have

553
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: to come up with thirty fifteen letter words. So it's

554
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: much more advantageous. Yeah, and like the example Olivia gave

555
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: of a theme, they're very This is very typical winner

556
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: of a preparing contest would be best sheller. And so

557
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: the theme ends up being adding an h in other

558
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: common terms to make it a different term. So, in

559
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: other words, instead of best seller, it's sheller. Another one

560
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: in that same theme would be Lothario's line in a

561
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: single spar pick up sticks instead of pick up sticks.

562
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 1: So themes like that I really enjoy. But the themes

563
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: I don't like, or like I said, when it's like

564
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: this is the word misspelled or something. Okay, thank gotcha. Okay,

565
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: I'm getting on my crossword soapbox a little. I say,

566
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: we take our second break and then come back and

567
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: talk about how people out there who are like I

568
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: like hearing about these crosswords. I'm gonna go try one.

569
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, because we're about to inform you how

570
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: to solve them more efficiently, starting in just a minute

571
00:32:39,160 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: or two after this moment, So the New York Times

572
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: went so full bore into um, which is, by the way,

573
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: is not sexual, kind of like balls out into crosswords

574
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: that they actually have a crossword column, not just a crossword.

575
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: They have a columnist dedicated to writing about crosswords. Yeah,

576
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,959
Speaker 1: her name's currently deb Amlin. Well that's probably always going

577
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: to be her name from now on, but I'm saying

578
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: the current columnists is named deb Amlin. Sure, and she's

579
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: at the New York Times, and she's got some tips

580
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: that she maintains that are they're pretty good if you

581
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: want to start out learning how to kind of basically

582
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: solve a crossword a little faster than you might have

583
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:48,239
Speaker 1: on your own. Yeah, for sure. And by the way,

584
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: there are lots of fun blogs outside the New York

585
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: Times too that that write kind of funny takedowns of

586
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: the day's puzzle. Nice. But Amlin says to start by

587
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: scanning for an the answers you definitely know for sure, Right,

588
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: it's a good way to start. Yeah, take a guess sometimes,

589
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: but use your racer, of course, I do mind on

590
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: the app online version. And then once you get like

591
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:17,239
Speaker 1: the intersecting words, more things will reveal themselves. So it's

592
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: fine to take a guess because you can go back

593
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,479
Speaker 1: and redo the word once you've realized that you were wrong.

594
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: Another one she suggests is yours and Hodgeman's method working

595
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: with another person. Yeah, via text or in person can

596
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: be fun. Over the breakfast table. Sure, if you get stuck,

597
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: just take a break. You don't have to finish this thing.

598
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: It's not a competition, like you can walk away from

599
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: it and come back. And oftentimes you'll do that kind

600
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 1: of unconscious thinking, almost like sleeping on it without sleeping,

601
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: and these things that just seemed totally impenetrable will suddenly

602
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: seem clear to you with fresh eyes. That happens almost

603
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: every time I do that. It's it's And I told

604
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: Hodgeman that and he went, yeah, that's a documented phenomenon

605
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: that happens. Yeah. Another one is that it's and this

606
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 1: is very controversial, but everyone has their own way of

607
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: doing it. There's no right way of doing it. There

608
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: are some purists, I'm sure that do not cheat at all,

609
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: and if they don't finish it, I guess they just

610
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,920
Speaker 1: don't finish it. I like to finish it. So here's

611
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: what I do. I will do all my acrosses first,

612
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: and then I'll do a check and it tells you

613
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: what you've gotten wrong. Then I do all the downs,

614
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: and then I do a check. Because I don't want

615
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: to spend it. I don't have a like hours and

616
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: hours a day to work on these things, and I

617
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: want to finish them, so, like, I don't want to

618
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time trying to figure out something

619
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: and drive myself crazy if I've gotten the A cross

620
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: word wrong to begin with, because then you're just throwing

621
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: yourself off. So I do a check one check down,

622
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: one check across, And that's the only sort of cheats

623
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: I'll use most times. Unless I'm just really stuck at

624
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 1: the end and i can't get the last couple. Then

625
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: I'll cheat, and I'll be like, all right, you know,

626
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: because what you're doing is you're learning something. If you're

627
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: if you're stopping three quarters of the way through because

628
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: you like you refuse to cheat, then you might be

629
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: missing out and learning something cool. So or you know,

630
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: solve it your own way. If you want to be

631
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: a purist and just not finish it, that's fine too.

632
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: So um, I think that's great words of advice, Chuck. Yeah.

633
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:21,240
Speaker 1: Some other ones I saw are so when you're looking

634
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: at the clue, the plurality of it. If the plurality

635
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: if the clue is plural rather than singular, the answer

636
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 1: has to be plural, So in that sense, if you

637
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: see something that has a plural clue, you can just

638
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: go ahead and add an S at the end right um.

639
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: Same with tense, so if if the clue is past tense,

640
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: you can add an eed right at the bottom of

641
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: them of the the answer um. And that's a great

642
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: way to fill up a couple of squares right off

643
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: the bat too. And as you fill in other ones,

644
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: say that are going across, and you're filling down answers

645
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: with s's and eds, that stuff's going to fill up

646
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 1: a lot faster and become clear. Yeah, we talked about

647
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 1: the language of cross words, which you just sort of

648
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,720
Speaker 1: get more familiar with as you do them. Partner Whenever

649
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 1: you see the word partner in there, it's usually linking

650
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: words together. So the example that Livia gave was a

651
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: partner of live. The answer would be learned because you

652
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: usually here live and learn stuff like that one. They

653
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 1: also will abbreviate words, but they say that they're abbreviating it,

654
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: So like following the clue, it will be say abbr

655
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: period or for short or in brief, or they'll actually

656
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 1: put an abbreviation in the clue. So a clue of

657
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: elephant group, as in GRP, the answer a GOOP because

658
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,320
Speaker 1: that's an abbreviation of Grand Old Party and the elephant

659
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: group is the abbreviated group GRP. Does that make sense, Yeah,

660
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: but not all abbreviations, like it's usually if it's something abbreviated,

661
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: that usually isn't like group was abbreviated. If you see oh,

662
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: good point, like what Libya put down is a great example.

663
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 1: If you see VIP, that doesn't necessarily mean that the

664
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: answer is going to be an abbreviation because VP is common. Yeah,

665
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: people don't typically abbreviate group. Right. You'll also very rarely

666
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 1: see the same word twice in a single crossword. Yeah,

667
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 1: it's it's considered bad form among crossword constructors. Constructors also

668
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: frequently give you fill in the blank clues as a gimme.

669
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: So there's a blank and then the second word or

670
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: something like that in a clue makes it probably pretty

671
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: easy to figure out based on the number of letters.

672
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 1: That's when you can start with. And then also I

673
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: saw that you should start at the bottom right because

674
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 1: the premises that constructors typically will start at the top

675
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: left and by the time they make it to the

676
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: bottom right, which is the end of the puzzle. They're

677
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: they're tired and they've stopped being quite as clever, so

678
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 1: you can figure out the clues in the bottom right easier. Yeah,

679
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 1: I'd start with one and one. That's how I do it. Okay, Uh,

680
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: there's some other fun ones, and I wish I would

681
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: have looked up an example. But one that you see

682
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 1: every single day is like, uh, word preceding, you know,

683
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: cat and basket and it'll be a word that you

684
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: often see linked up before cat in basket That isn't

685
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: one because I can't think of one. Play cat in

686
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 1: basket case, cat cat case in basket case. Okay, but

687
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: that would be uh not proceeding. But yeah, um, so

688
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: they'll do that a lot. Here's some things that I

689
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: didn't know, which now I'm going to be better at. Um. Well,

690
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: I did know this. If it's a question mark at

691
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: the end of the clue, that usually means is probably

692
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: a pun or some kind of wordplay, Like current events

693
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: is really current events, so tides because tides have currents,

694
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:55,360
Speaker 1: it's an event. Yeah, then you're like, what's the fifth

695
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: letter for well, and a lot of times the obvious

696
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: answer that's wrong. We'll have the same. If they're really good,

697
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: they'll have the same number of letters. Right, So you're like,

698
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: it has to be news. It fits, yeah, exactly. But

699
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: the ones I did not know was that if it's

700
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: in a quote, then the answer is a synonym for

701
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: a spoken phrase. And I sort of knew it was

702
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 1: sort of like that, but I didn't know it was

703
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: always like that. And then if it's in brackets, and

704
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 1: I didn't know this at all. I never knew what

705
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: the brackets meant. The brackets usually mean that the answer

706
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: is nonverbal, right, like the example Olivia gives us, that's painful.

707
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: In brackets, the answer might be grimace. Right. I didn't

708
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: know the brackets one either. The thing I like about

709
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: the quotes one is it's intuitive, Like I didn't know

710
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: that that was a convention, but I know that I've

711
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: figured that out, you know, plenty of times doing cross

712
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:49,959
Speaker 1: words to seeing those quotes. It just it's a really

713
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: great convention, I think. And then the heteronyms, these are

714
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:57,359
Speaker 1: my favorite. These are the really clever ones where it's

715
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: something that can be pronounced in two different ways and

716
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: you're intuitively led down a path to believe it's one,

717
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 1: and it's really the other. Um. So, the example that

718
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: Livia found was kitchen drawer. So you're trying to think of, like,

719
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 1: what's kitchen drawer? What could it be? What could it be?

720
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: And the answer is a roma. So it's not kitchen drawer,

721
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: but a kitchen drawer, as in the aroma draws you

722
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: into the kitchen. It's such a great one. I know,

723
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: I love that stuff. Not as good as labor, but

724
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 1: still pretty good. Okay, so you said you're trying your

725
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: hand at constructing puzzles. How's it going. Well? I mean,

726
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: I've I've started the idea of trying. I'm trying to

727
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: find a partner, asked Hodgeman, and he sort of didn't

728
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 1: say anything back. So I think that was a soft bass. Yeah.

729
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 1: Ben seemed a little more into it. And I wanted

730
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: to see if I could get stuff. You should know

731
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: when there as a clue, because obviously that would be

732
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: another bucketless thing for us. That would be great. Oh yeah, man,

733
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: can you imagine? Yeah, it'd be cool. Um so, uh,

734
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,800
Speaker 1: the The New York Times actually deb ammon Um wrote

735
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 1: a or am and sorry. She hosted a blog post,

736
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: a four or five part blog post that is really

737
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: in depth that where she interviewed the people who actually

738
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: edit and create the New York Times crosswords and how

739
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: they do it. And it is not at all created

740
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 1: the way that I thought they were created. Did you

741
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: see that at all? I haven't looked at that yet.

742
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: It's it's on my list because I know it's going

743
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 1: to inform my process, but I've I've been kind of waiting.

744
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 1: Is there like a I kind of thought there might

745
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: be programs that help you sort of lay it out.

746
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: They mentioned that they do use programs to kind of

747
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 1: basically create grids and stuff like that more easily, but

748
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: they don't use things like auto phil which will just

749
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: populate it with words and then come up with suggested

750
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: like clues or anything like that. They come up with

751
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: them themselves, which you would hope with the New York

752
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: Times crossword puzzle. But the way that they create this,

753
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: and I think it's like almost like an assembly line

754
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: if it's done the way the blog posts suggests, where

755
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 1: one team will come up with the theme and they'll

756
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: come up with the answers the words for that theme. Okay,

757
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: so let's say you have five five different words that

758
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 1: are the theme answers, and then that's it, they hand

759
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: it off to the next people. The next people will

760
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: create the grid and they have to figure out where

761
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: to put those five theme answers in there. And once

762
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: they have that done and they got they have the

763
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: black squares in there and everything like that, they hand

764
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 1: it off to the people who populate the grid with words. Um,

765
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 1: you want to avoid three letter words. You want to

766
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: definitely no more than no less than three three right, Um.

767
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 1: So it's actually kind of hard to come up with

768
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: words that are interesting, right, because those are your answers.

769
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: And then after that, after the whole thing's been populated,

770
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: they hand it off to the people who write the

771
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: clues based on the words in the grids. The deposite

772
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:59,360
Speaker 1: of solving it. When you say day, though, do you

773
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 1: mean is this when The New York Times is doing

774
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: their own So yes, that's my impression. I think for

775
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,240
Speaker 1: the most part, if you write, if you create, sorry,

776
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: construct your own crossword, you're doing every step of this.

777
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if they broke it down into teams

778
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 1: of two to make sure that everybody was interviewed in this,

779
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 1: or if they really do it assembly line style, and

780
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: a team of two will create the theme. A team

781
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: of two will create the grid, a team of three

782
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,160
Speaker 1: populates it with words, and a team of two does

783
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: the clues, writes the clues. But it's it's really mind

784
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: boggling how how it all comes together. It comes together

785
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: in the opposite way that you you would solve the puzzle,

786
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: which is one reason why Will Shortz. He was interviewed

787
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: by Neil Conan and I Think Science Friday, where he said, like,

788
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: people who are constructors are typically not good at solving

789
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: the puzzles and vice versa. If you're really good at

790
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: solving a puzzle, it does not mean you're gonna necessarily

791
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: be good at constructing it. You know who's good at both?

792
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:02,720
Speaker 1: Who is manning the south key? Yeah? Because Manny retired

793
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 1: from a medical practice in nineteen eighty three and got

794
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 1: was really into it and was published in ninety four,

795
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 1: and then since that time has created two hundred and

796
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: fifty four New York Times crosswords to be the most

797
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: prolific writer. I'm sorry, constructor, we keep saying that. Yeah,

798
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 1: I know, it's tough to remember. So Will Shortz. When

799
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: he started in ninety three, he was getting forty to

800
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 1: fifty submissions of meet a week, mostly from people age

801
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 1: fifty or over. Yeah, And as of April twenty twenty one,

802
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: he started getting about two hundred submissions a week. That

803
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 1: means two hundred different people went to the trouble of

804
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,280
Speaker 1: creating a crossword and sending it into the New York Times.

805
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: And the age has declined tremendously to about the mid

806
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: to late thirties today on average. And that's in large

807
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: part because Will Shortz made a determined effort, like you

808
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: were saying, to be way more inclusive in the crossword world. Yeah,

809
00:45:57,400 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: and women get a little bit of a bump. I

810
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: think twenty percent of submissions come from women, but about

811
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: thirty percent of published puzzles or from women. And I

812
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: was kind of under the impression that all of their

813
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: puzzles were submitted, so I didn't know that anyone on

814
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 1: staff was writing them. I'm curious of the breakdown there. Yeah,

815
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: I am as well. I don't know, because they said

816
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: that they get about two hundred submissions per week, but

817
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: they're only running seven, so that means that the acceptance

818
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: rate is about three to four percent, which would mean

819
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: that they are accepting like they're running nothing but submissions

820
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: rather than housemade ones. Yeah, this really made me pause,

821
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how much time do I want to

822
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 1: put into something that I have a ninety seven percent

823
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: chance of like failing. Well, you know, there's other places

824
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: that run cross words aside from the Times and Pleasures

825
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: would be more than happy to take us other pleasures

826
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: do you derive just from having done so? I think

827
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,320
Speaker 1: it'd be a good even if it doesn't get published.

828
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean, you know, I wrote a great seventy

829
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: show spec script that never did anything, but in my

830
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: mind it lives as a real episode. I wrote a

831
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: great Simpsons episode that it's right anything, and I love

832
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: it too. Yeah, agreed. I'll tell you what people love though,

833
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 1: is crosswords. And watch that documentary word Play, because you

834
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 1: will see a lot of it about the American crossword

835
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: puzzle tournament, which started in nineteen seventy eight. When crosswords

836
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: kind of after the twenties and thirties, they didn't go

837
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: away or anything, but they kind of laid a little

838
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: more low until the late seventies and they really kind

839
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 1: of picked up steam again. And the marketing director of

840
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:39,240
Speaker 1: a Marriott hotel in Stanford, Connecticut said, Hey, in the wintertime,

841
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: no one's coming up here. So let's let's do a

842
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: crossword puzzle tournament like an official New York Times thing,

843
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: and get Will Schwartz to help us plant And they've

844
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: been doing it there ever since, and it's I think

845
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: it's in late March early April this year, and they

846
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: get you know, close to a thousand people coming to

847
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: this thing. Yeah, and you get a really good sense

848
00:47:57,760 --> 00:47:59,799
Speaker 1: of what it's like in word play, like you were

849
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 1: really a great Like if if this has been at

850
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:05,919
Speaker 1: all interesting to you this episode, go check out word Play.

851
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 1: You will absolutely love it. Even if you're not into

852
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,239
Speaker 1: cross words. It's a great you know, um, social what

853
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 1: is the word social connector bonder know, the type of

854
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 1: documentary where it's like a little peak inside of Oh yeah,

855
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: one of those, Yeah, one of those. It's worth seeing

856
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: for sure. As far as the making you smarter, And

857
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: this was something that you and I talked a little

858
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 1: bit about. Like one of the reasons I started doing

859
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:35,240
Speaker 1: it is because I wasn't the impression that word games

860
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: kept you from descending into dementia. And it kind of

861
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: depends on the study. Some studies have sort of confirmed

862
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: or at least backed it up. Some studies said there

863
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 1: was no effect. Some studies say that it might just

864
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 1: be the placebo effect happening. Other people say, like, these

865
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: things are fine, but being like genuinely creative with your

866
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: brain is better for staving off dementia. So I've read

867
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:05,360
Speaker 1: this stuff and I was a little disappointed, but I

868
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: kind of figure it. It can't hurt, and it's can

869
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: be a part of the recipe of keeping your brain sharp. Yeah,

870
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: as far as I know, none of the studies where like,

871
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:17,280
Speaker 1: don't do crosswords, they're going to completely rot your brain. Yeah. Yeah,

872
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 1: that one about the placebo effect I thought was pretty interesting.

873
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:24,439
Speaker 1: When they advertised the puzzle as a brain training people

874
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: did better on IQ test than people who were in

875
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: a control group and did the same puzzle, but it

876
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 1: wasn't advertised as brain training. So I don't think it matters.

877
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: If a placebo effect doesn't matter, it doesn't diminish it.

878
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: You know, like if you can take a sugar pill

879
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,840
Speaker 1: and get the same result as taking a medication, like great,

880
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,880
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. I don't understand why everybody's always putting down

881
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: the placebo effect. Yeah, that sugar pill probably didn't have

882
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: side effects too. Well, it is sugar, so there's probably some.

883
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: But you know, there was a study in twenty fourteen

884
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: that found that if you were a crossword or scrabble

885
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: it says expert, but I would even say enthusiasts, then

886
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: you had a stronger working memory than the group compared,

887
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: which was I think college students who had a seven

888
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 1: hundred or better verbal on the SAT. Yeah, and apparently

889
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 1: they're better at like VISU visuo. Can I say that right?

890
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think that is right visuo

891
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: spatial information and integrating verbal and visualus. Oh man, visual space.

892
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: You're not gonna help me? Help you? Are you no? Vs? Information?

893
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:36,399
Speaker 1: How about that vs? Information in your short term memory? Jeez,

894
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:40,280
Speaker 1: I gotta go finish. I'm ironically pretty stumped on today's crossword,

895
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: as you can tell. Oh yeah, have you been doing

896
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: it while we've been talking? No, no, no, I made

897
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of time earlier, but I'll usually not

898
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: do it all in one go, like the Monday through Thursday,

899
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the money through Wednesday I can generally knock

900
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: out pretty quick like Mondays. Sometimes you can knock those

901
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:00,840
Speaker 1: out in like eleven minutes, and that's super speed. Yeah,

902
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: I've done that's my record. I think, Wow, that's impressive, man.

903
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: But uh yeah. Shout out to Ben and uh John

904
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: Hodgeman and Mark Gagliardi another podcasting friend who was who

905
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: was an enthusiast. Nice, it's fun, fun doing this stuff.

906
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 1: Shout out to all you constructors and solvers out there. Right. Yeah,

907
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 1: well hope if I ever get my own byline, then

908
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 1: you can bet stuff. You should know we'll be a clue. Awesome.

909
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: I appreciate that big time. Chuck. Uh, since that is

910
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 1: probably it, right, you got anything else? Yah? Nothing else? Well,

911
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:36,399
Speaker 1: then that means it's time for a listener mail. I'm

912
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 1: gonna call this correction on animal stuff. Oh boy, this

913
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 1: is from Daniel. This is a good correction too, because

914
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,480
Speaker 1: this feels like one of those things is just printed

915
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:50,319
Speaker 1: everywhere and everyone believes it's true. But apparently possums don't

916
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: eat ticks. Yeah, okay, all right, fine, Hey guys, I'm

917
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: writing because I was listening to the Possums podcast and

918
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: I heard you repeat an old myth that was fact,

919
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:05,320
Speaker 1: and I wanted to set the record straight. The idea

920
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 1: that possums eat thousands of six a year is a

921
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:10,760
Speaker 1: complete myth. It's based on a single study in which

922
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: researchers placed one hundred larval ticks on many different animals,

923
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: waited four days, then counted all the ones that fell off,

924
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: the ones that did not fall off or assumed to

925
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: have been eaten. Someone read that study assumed this was

926
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:27,320
Speaker 1: the same as the number of ticks they'd eat in

927
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:30,240
Speaker 1: the wild, and came up with the numbers that we heard.

928
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: So is there anything out there that disproves it, or

929
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 1: is this really just a critique of the quality of

930
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: the study In the extrapolation Part two? Okay, more recently, guys,

931
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 1: the study was done with possums in the wild and

932
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:49,240
Speaker 1: found no evidence that they ever eat ticks. They checked

933
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: the stomach of many wild possums, couldn't find evidence of

934
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: even a single tick eaten. Here's a link to an

935
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 1: article on the study, and this is from Field and

936
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 1: Stream mags. Then I'm not gonna argue with those guys.

937
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 1: They carry guns. Yeah, they cover both field and stream.

938
00:53:07,960 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 1: So just a couple of things. Number one, Daniel ruins everything. No.

939
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 1: Number two, I still have plenty of possum pride, and

940
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 1: it's fine. It doesn't diminish the possums one iota in

941
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 1: my eyes. Nice try Daniel, No, I agree. I think

942
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: it's like possums were great before the tick thing, so

943
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 1: they're certainly great taking the tick thing away. Yeah, okay,

944
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: fair enough. I can tell you that instagrammer is not

945
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: gonna like this. Well, you know, what are you gonna do?

946
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: Can't please everybody, No, you can't. If you want to

947
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,400
Speaker 1: be like Daniel and ruin something for us, or try

948
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 1: to but fail at it terribly, you can do it

949
00:53:53,520 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 1: via email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff

950
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

951
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:07,799
Speaker 1: podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

952
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:09,760
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.