Twitter—and the ACPT!

I'm happy to announce that the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project is now on Twitter!  To see the project's page, click on the icon in the righthand column.  For those of you on Twitter, this could be a good way to let others interested in the pre-Shortzian puzzles know about any observations you have or noteworthy entries or clues you come across.

This week's post is earlier and shorter than usual since I'm going to be at the ACPT over the weekend!  I'm looking forward to meeting (or reuniting) with litzers and fans of the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project.  While there, I'll be making a brief speech about the project, and flyers with one of the most brilliant pre-Shortzian puzzles I've seen so far will be distributed!

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was originally published on March 15, 1973, and was recently litzed by Howard Barkin.  At first I assumed this puzzle was themeless—I've noticed that an increasing number of daily puzzles are themeless as we litz further back in the Weng era.  Once I looked more closely, however, I realized that the puzzle had a subtle, elegant theme.  Three other anagrams of 1-Across, 5-Across, and 1-Down are placed symmetrically around the grid.  It's amazing how the anagrams of 1-Across and 1-Down, which are all common words, intersect perfectly in every corner!  Also, the nonthematic fill is impressive, considering how many theme entries the constructor crammed into the grid.  I especially like the entries AIRSTRIP, POWERFUL, and LETDOWNS.  I've never heard of a SWEETSOP (clued as "Sugar apple"), but it looks pretty cool in the grid!  In sum, this is a solid pre-Shortzian puzzle with a simple, clever theme.  I've started to look much more carefully for themes so I don't miss any other gems like this puzzle!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Today's featured pre-Shortzian entry is ELEEMOSYNARY.  ELEEMOSYNARY was originally used in the January 11, 1972, puzzle (constructor unknown), which was recently litzed by Howard Barkin.  Not surprisingly, the Ginsberg clue database shows that ELEEMOSYNARY has never been reused in a Shortz-era puzzle.  The original clue for ELEEMOSYNARY was "Charitable"; Webster defines eleemosynary as "of, related to, or supported by charity."  This bizarre word came from the late Latin eleemosyna  (from which the word alms is derived) and was first introduced into our language in 1616.  Below is a picture of the cover of Michael Sharp's and Patrick Blindauer's eleemosynary The American Red Crossword Book, which is dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Sandy and contains an introduction by Will Shortz.

Second Litzing Contest Winners, March Litzer of the Month, in 1971, Poll Update, and More Crossword Compiler Tips

The second litzing contest is now over, and I'm thrilled to report that we not only litzed 2,127 more puzzles in just two months, bringing us to 8,325 puzzles total, but we also passed the halfway point!  Awesome job, everyone—we're over the hump!

I'm also delighted to announce the contest's winners, with the number of puzzles they litzed in parentheses:

1.  Mark Diehl (625), who persevered to an amazing victory of man over machine!
2.  Howard Barkin (503), who has perfected the art of using OCR for litzing!
3.  Jeffrey Krasnick (204), who kept going despite needing to prepare for next week's ACPT!
4.  Barry Haldiman (32), who started it all and, appropriately enough, won the random drawing!

To see all the contest totals, click on the Contest Totals tab above.

Thanks so much again to Jim Horne, who provided year-long XWord Info subscriptions (or renewals) to the winners, and to Roy Leban, who gave Puzzazz e-books!

Howard Barkin, who performed prodigiously in this litzing contest, is the March Litzer of the Month!  To read more about Howard, click on the Meet the Litzers tab above or his photo in the righthand column.

I'm now sending out puzzles from 1971 to be litzed, and since we're approaching the legendary Sixties, I thought I'd start posting representative photos from the years we're in as we work our way backwards in time.  The photos will remind us of the times in which the pre-Shortzian constructors were building their puzzles!  Appropriately, the photo below is of the Intel 4004, the world's first commercially available single-chip microprocessor, which was introduced in November 1971:

Image courtesy of About.com.

Last week's poll asked whether you'd already known about Crossword Compiler's Insert Character window.  Apparently most people did:  66% said yes, and 33% said no.  Still, that's a sizable minority of constructors (including me!) who weren't familiar with this very useful feature.  In my post, I also asked readers to send in any other Crossword Compiler tips, and a couple of people did.

Mark Diehl wrote the following:

The insert character page shortcut (ctrl-S) doesn't seem to work from
the Review/edit clues page, which is where I do my clue entry Litzing.
 It does work from within the Edit clue page (as shown in your post).
I can move from the Review/edit page to the Edit page by hitting
Enter, but I find it is easier (for me) to enter the ALT code for
umlauts, etc., from within Review/edit.

One major shortcut I did discover a while ago is that you can make
acute accented vowels with the combination control and apostrophe and
then the particular vowel.  Control and grave (on my keyboard, up in the
left corner, sharing a key with ~) and the particular vowel will
produce grave accented vowels.  The majority of accented vowels in
clues are either acute or grave, so this short cut has worked very well
for me.

And Barry Haldiman noted:

BTW, I knew about the insert character in CC; I normally use “right-click,”
which brings up several options, including insert character.

I tried this, and when you do it, you get a whole menu of useful options, such as Character Map..., Insert Symbol, and Insert Character.  Thanks so much for these Crossword Compiler shortcuts, Mark and Barry!

Today's featured puzzle, "Literal Approach," was constructed by Bill Hartman.  According to my (still incomplete) records, Bill Hartman constructed just two pre-Shortzian puzzles, both of which were very high quality Sundays.  I'm featuring my favorite of the two.

The puzzle was originally published on September 21, 1975, and was recently litzed by Denny Baker.  This is definitely one of the most imaginative, innovative pre-Shortzian puzzles I've seen.  It features eight symmetrically interlocking theme entries that must be interpreted literally from their clues or placement in the grid.  For example, THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE (clued as "Observation on the ad era") is placed across the center of the puzzle.  Some of my other favorites include "(Sic)" (leading to CLUELESS ENTRY) and FOURTH DOWN (clued as "Last chance for the Jets" and literally placed at 4-Down).  What makes this puzzle particularly ahead of its time, however, is 64-Down.  The clue "Conspicuous" leads to the entry LIKE A SORE THUMB—this entry actually extends a square below the grid, so it literally sticks out like a sore thumb.  Wow!

Admittedly, PAINTED COLUMN, which is simply a vertical entry, isn't quite as strong as the other theme entries, and HUNDRED TEN ACROSS would be much better as ONE HUNDRED TEN ACROSS (or even A HUNDRED TEN ACROSS).  Nevertheless, the theme is exceptionally clever!  The nonthematic fill looks pretty nice as well—I especially like the entries AMBASSADOR, LEAD ASTRAY, and SHOWBOAT!  In the "meh" category, the first handful of Across entries alone includes FABA ("Bean, to Vergil"),  HADE ("Rock-vein angle"), TULE ("Bulrush"), LNG ("Coat part: Abbr."), and OXA ("Chem. prefix").  All in all, this is a phenomenal pre-Shortzian puzzle!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

                                               [B]

From hippies to rock and roll, the 1970s were known for being a drug-filled time.  So far I've come across two drug-related entries/clues in Will Weng–edited crosswords.  In the June 3, 1975, puzzle, which was constructed by Butler (first name unknown) and litzed by Jeffrey Krasnick, the entry MARIJUANA was clued as "Hemp with a wallop."  In the September 26, 1974, puzzle, which was constructed by Anthony B. Canning and litzed by Howard Barkin, the entry WEEDHEAD was clued as "Pot addict, familiarly."  I'm surprised that Weng was willing to push the envelope so much—I'm guessing Maleska never would have allowed these entries!  Below is a picture of the more legal type of weed.

Image courtesy of Whyteferret's Blog.

Halfway There!—and Crossword Compiler's Insert Character Window

We did it—we've now litzed more than half the pre-Shortzian puzzles!  On Monday, I litzed 3 puzzles to put us at exactly 8,000, then Thursday Mark Diehl sent in 16 puzzles to get us to 8,100, and this morning Jeffrey Krasnick sent in 7, which put us over the halfway mark of 8,113!  It hasn't even been 8 months since I began recruiting volunteer litzers, and in that time we've accomplished an amazing amount!  Awesome job, everybody!

Plus, I've just learned about something that may speed up our litzing even more!  A few days ago, Todd Gross wrote to me about a discovery he'd made by accident while in the clue window of Crossword Compiler.  If you type Ctrl-S, a window appears that will let you select special characters to insert into your clue.  He noted that this was a lot faster than looking up Alt codes.  Here's the example he sent me:

After typing Diarist Ana in the clue window (image bottom), I typed Ctrl-S (hold down the Control key while typing S) and got the Insert Character window you see at the the top.  Notice I selected the ï button in the lower right, and that ï appears in the clue now.

As for Alt codes...you really don't need to know about this for Macs, but here goes:  to get that ï in this window, I need to type Alt-0239.  Which is a shortcut for the following:

1. Hold down the Alt key
2. While the Alt key is depressed, type 0 2 3 9  {yes the 0 is part of the code}
3. The character ï now appears, and I can release the Alt key

Great discovery, Todd—thanks so much!  I have a Mac and a PC but do all my crossword construction on the PC because I use Crossword Compiler.  Until now, whenever I'd come across a special character in a clue, I'd just look for an example of it online and then copy and paste the character into the clue.  I bookmarked examples that occur frequently, such as é.  Before that, I was copying and pasting them from a Word document I'd created that had just about every special character that exists.  Unfortunately, Word did something weird to the formatting—even though the characters transferred fine into Crossword Compiler, sometimes they didn't when I later exported the files as Across Lites.

Todd wondered how many other people knew about the Insert Character window and whether there was anything else in Crossword Compiler that most people might not be aware of, and I'm wondering the same thing!  This was a very useful discovery—if you know of some other capability Crossword Compiler has that you think most people probably don't know about, please e-mail me or comment below.  I'll post any tips that come in next week.  In the meantime, I've created a poll, which you'll find beneath the litzing thermometer in the righthand column.  I'll be interested to see what percentage of people knew about Crossword Compiler's Insert Character window—results next week!

Today's featured puzzle, "Doing the Scales," was constructed by Jordan S. Lasher.  It was originally published on September 22, 1974, and was recently litzed by Howard Barkin.  Once again, Lasher managed to add a whole new twist to a standard type of theme (repeated word, in this case)—the whole center block arrangement in this 23x looks like a set of staircases!  Also, many of the theme entries feel particularly fresh and lively—I especially like THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS and ROGER BANNISTER.  I also like that the constructor placed the theme entry ESCALATOR DOWN running straight down the center of the puzzle.  The nonthematic fill has a handful of really nice entries, but it also has some that feel particularly contrived and/or obscure.  On the positive side, the grid includes ROPE LADDER (which may or may not have been intended as a theme entry), BASTILLE, IN A FLASH, TORPEDOES, and B COMPLEX.  The weaker entries include IAO (clued as "Wattlebird"), ISHES ("Exits, in Scottish law"), SICES ("Dice numbers"), TESTONES ("Old Italian coins"), and SNELLY ("Chilly, in Scotland").  My least favorite entries, however, are the more-than-five-letter prefixes SINISTRO and GRAECO, partials THREE ON A and ENTER AT, IIOOIO ("Twice 55,005"), and MRS. ASTAIRE ("Fred's wife"—this may have been a homophonic theme entry, especially since it balances ROPE LADDER).  Despite these shortcomings, this is still an exceptional Jordan Lasher puzzle with an innovative visual gimmick!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

The Will Weng–edited March 3, 1973, puzzle (constructor unknown), which was recently litzed by Todd Gross, contains two very unusual entries, so I'm featuring both of them this week.  According to the Ginsberg database, these entries—PEPSISSEWA and ASAFOETIDA—have never been reused in Shortz-era puzzles.  PEPSISSEWA was clued as "Evergreen shrub"; Todd Gross noted that this shrub is sometimes used as a flavoring in root beer.  Webster defines pepsissewa as "any of a genus (Chimphila, especially C. Umbellata) of evergreen herbs of the wintergreen family with astringent leaves used as a tonic and diuretic."  ASAFOETIDA was clued as "Gum resin used medically"; Todd Gross researched it and reported that it is mainly used for breathing and digestion problems.  Webster lists asafoetida as a variant of asafetida, which it defines as "the dried fetid gum resin of several west Asian plants (genus Ferula) of the carrot family used as a flavoring especially in Indian cooking and formerly used in medicine especially as an antispasmodic and in folk medicine as a general prophylactic against disease."  Below are pictures of pepsissewa and asafoetida:

Image courtesy of VisitRainier.

Image courtesy of  lookfordiagnosis.com.

Over 7,900, Man vs. Machine, in 1972, Daily-Puzzle Authors, Poll Results, and New Feature on Pre-Shortzian Constructors

We've now litzed more than 7,900 litzed puzzles—just a couple hundred more and we'll be at the halfway point!  On Sunday litzer Mark Diehl sent in 15 puzzles, which put us over 7,700, and then on Tuesday, Howard Barkin sent in 28 puzzles, putting us over 7,800, followed by another 21 puzzles this morning, which put us over 7,900!  And all the other packets from everyone have really helped push us along—thanks again, everybody!

Mark and Howard are still taking turns in the litzing contest's first-place position—as I write this, they're tied for the lead!  In a way, this has become a sort of battle between man (manual litzing) versus machine (OCR), not unlike the competition between human solvers and Dr. Fill at the ACPT!  Whatever the final result, it's all good for the project—Mark and Howard have each litzed more than 400 puzzles in the past 6 weeks!

I'm now sending out puzzles from 1972 to be litzed, so it won't be long before we're in the 1960s!  A couple of litzers have been saddened by the lack of authors for the daily puzzles now.  Although I'm hopeful that the authors of most puzzles will ultimately be identified, many will likely never have bylines.  The good news is that daily-puzzle authors will start reappearing in 1967, during the Margaret Farrar era.

The results of last week's poll are in!  The poll asked whether you thought last week's featured puzzle contained a rifle-related theme.  Most readers (55%) voted no, but the remaining respondents were evenly split between yes and unsure.  If you felt certain one way or the other (yes or no), I'd be interested in hearing why.  Please comment below or e-mail me.

I'm starting a new feature on pre-Shortzian constructors, which you'll find by clicking on the Pre-Shortzian Constructors tab above.  Many constructors had profiles written about them or were mentioned in articles in The New York Times and elsewhere, and I've decided to try to track down those publications and link to them from this site.  I'm starting with a few pre-Shortzian constructors whose last names began with L:  Jordan S. Lasher, William Lutwiniak, and Jack Luzzatto; I'll gradually add other constructors as I continue to find articles about them.  If you happen to know of additional links for a particular constructor, please let me know.

Today's featured pre-Shortzian puzzle was constructed by Evelyn B. Rosenthal.  In addition to being a prolific crossword constructor in the 1970s, Evelyn was also the high school math teacher of Crosswords LA director Elissa Grossman's father.  It's amazing how small the crossword puzzle world is!

The puzzle was originally published on November, 14, 1975, and was recently litzed by Alex Vratsanos.  This lovely Will Weng–edited construction features eleven theme entries for which the first part of the entry rhymes with the second (and, as Jim Horne just pointed out, the two parts—and, in one case, three—are also pronounced the same!).  The theme density is amazing—getting three theme entries to stack in each corner and the five other theme entries to interlock so elegantly must have been extremely challenging!  My favorite theme entries are DEAR DEER (clued as "Bambi, e.g."), ROAM ROME ("See the Eternal City"), and PLAIN PLANE ("Ordinary carpenter's tool").  EERY ERIE ("Weird lake") and TWO TO TWO ("1:58") feel weaker, but they're certainly better than nonthematic entries.  The nonthematic fill is a real mix on this one—I love the Scrabbly entries RAJPUT, ZWEI, PONZI, and DAFFY, but RYE OLD ("___-fashioned [cocktail]"), T MOORE ("Signature of an Irish poet"), and ENTEMPLE ("Set up a shrine") certainly aren't the best.  Warts and all, this is an outstanding pre-Shortzian puzzle and a stellar example of pre-Shortzian interlock!  The answer grid, with highlighted theme entries, can be seen below:

As we've continued to work through the Will Weng era, I've been litzing some of the Margaret Farrar–edited Sunday puzzles from 1942.  I find all the clues related to World War II (and that time period in general) fascinating, since they show how the United States felt about certain historical figures and also chronicle specific weeks in history.  The March 1, 1942, crossword alone, which was constructed by Charles Cross (an alias), contained at least eight topical clues:

• "German field marshal."  (LIST)
• "He thinks he can do business with Hitler."  (APPEASER)
• "Our ally in Russia."  (WINTER)
• "What the Axis is to U.S."  (THREAT)
• "Kind of battles we used to have."  (SHAM)
• "German battleship."  (GNEISENAU)
• "Warning lacking at Pearl Harbor."  (ALERT)
• "Hitler's 'merest utensil.'"  (DUCE)

The clues for APPEASER and WINTER are particularly amusing—even though our country took World War II very seriously, there was apparently still room for irony and humor in the press.  The clue for DUCE isn't particularly funny, but it's certainly historically significant in that it shows how Hitler felt about Mussolini.  I look forward to seeing what other war-related clues I come across as I continue litzing these puzzles!  In the meantime, below is a picture of the GNEISENAU:

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.