Old Map Letters Crossword Puzzle Clue

Old Map Letters Crossword Puzzle Clue – One hundred years ago yesterday, a strange new feature appeared in the Sunday New York World: On December 21, 1913, English-born journalist Arthur Wynne published what he called a “crossword” puzzle. Americans’ free time would never be the same. The diamond shape makes it look a little unfamiliar today, but the basic elements of today’s crossword were in place: empty boxes to fill in letters; words suggested by clues; a pattern of black squares in the middle.

The mania quickly spread across the country. Other newspapers began publishing them, and a best-selling crossword puzzle surprised critics who had hoped the “waste” puzzles would be just a passing fad. They originally came in a variety of sizes and shapes, and could often have misspellings. Crossword historians usually credit New York Times editor Margaret Farrar with standardizing the form: Beginning in 1942, she enforced a more consistent regime of common words, phrases, themes, identical sizes and shapes.

Old Map Letters Crossword Puzzle Clue

Nevertheless, some very modern crossword puzzles appeared quite early. Reproduced here is the earliest crossword puzzle in the Globe archives, published in The Sunday Globe of March 4, 1917. Despite its quirky numbering system, it is a close ancestor of today’s puzzles. “It’s symmetrical and uses mostly common words that a reasonably well-educated person would know,” says Matt Gaffney, an award-winning puzzle designer. But there are differences – it uses words twice, it includes two-letter words, and all the clues are simple definitions.

Mega Meta: “boxing Day” Solution

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Today, the crossword has been called the most widespread puzzle on earth, with different traditions around the world. The British tend to have looser grids and more cryptic clues, for example, and Polish crosswords normally only have nouns. Their global appeal suggests that the early crossword creators had hit on something important, says Robert Kurzban, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has written about crossword puzzles. Solving crosswords requires the use of several faculties simultaneously, and it awakens a set of human desires: “We have evolved with a curiosity, a desire to discover new information and a satisfaction when a game is won,” he says. The question is whether crossword puzzles in an age of video games and Sudoku will maintain their popularity for another 100 years. It remains a puzzle.

Black News Hour presented by The Boston Globe Powered by black journalists at The Boston Globe, “Black News Hour,” a new radio show, delivers trusted news that connects with our community and delves into deeper issues affecting our city. While we get to sample a variety of (mostly) historical headgear in today’s Cox & Rathvon puzzle, none of it is particularly appropriate for today’s circumstances. What you can actually use is a sun hat.

For anyone who may still be interested, I have now posted a review of the Saturday 4th August 2018 puzzle from Cox and Rathvon.

A Touch Of Autumn In The Air

The purpose of this article is to explain the conventions and symbols that I use on this blog to explain clue analysis.

An explanatory box provides additional information about the clue. In most cases, this information does not necessarily help solve the clue, but provides information about the clue. In the case of weekday syndicated Daily Telegraph puzzles, such information is often intended to help the North American solver understand how the clue might be perceived by a British solver. These boxes can also provide information about the people, places, movies, TV shows, works of art and literature, etc. mentioned in the clue.

Although the titles of these boxes are usually taken from a standard list, I occasionally throw in a title specifically suggested by the subject. The standard titles include:

Note that there are many types of cryptic crossword clues, and it is not my intention to go through them all exhaustively here. I will only discuss clue types to the extent necessary to explain the conventions and symbols used on the blog. Also, note that in the world of cryptic crosswords, there seems to be an exception to every rule.

Printable Crossword Puzzles (with Answers)

With one exception that I can think of, cryptic crossword clues provide two paths to the solution. These are often referred to as the definition and pun. Although these terms work well for most clues, there are some cases where the more formal terms of primary indication and subsidiary indication may be more appropriate.

Most cryptic crossword clues consist of a definition (primary clue) and pun (secondary clue). The definition may be a “precise definition” (a definition that is either taken straight from a dictionary or at least worded in a non-misleading way), or it may be a “cryptic definition” (a definition that is misleadingly worded to misdirect resolves either with respect to the meaning of the definition as a whole or to an incorrect meaning of a word used in the definition).

The only type of clue I can think of where there aren’t two ways to find the solution are those where the entire clue is a cryptic definition.

I identify precise definitions by marking them with a solid underline in the clue and cryptic definitions by marking them with a dashed underline. In clues where both definition and pun are present, the two parts of the clue are combined to give an overall meaningful statement (the surface reading) that usually bears no relation to the underlying cryptic reading of the clue. In some cases, an additional word or phrase will be inserted into the clue to create a meaningful link between the definition and the pun. I define clues that contain such a link word or phrase as having an explicit link and clues that contain no link word or phrase as having an implicit link.

How To Make A Crossword Puzzle

I mark the existence of an explicit link by enclosing the linking word or phrase in slashes (/link/) and mark the existence of an implicit link with double slashes (//) placed between the definition and the pun. Examples A few examples may help to illustrate these points more clearly. The first example is a clue used by Jay in DT 28573: 4d Fellow left work // a failure (4) Here the definition is “a failure” which is marked with a solid underline to show that it is a precise definition. The pun analyzes as F (fellow; abbreviation) + L (left; abbreviation) + OP (work; abbreviation used in music) which gives us the solution F|L|OP. The double slashes (//) between the definition and pun indicate the existence of an “implicit link” between the two parts of the clue (that is, no additional words are inserted into the clue to form the link). The second example is a clue used by Giovanni in DT 28575: 29a Woman going to match // travels with mother beforehand (10) Here the definition “woman to match” is cryptic (the setter tries to misdirect our thoughts to a sporting event in the place of a marriage ceremony) and is therefore marked with a dashed underline. The pun is contained in (in) BID (advance) and gives us the solution B(RIDES|MA)ID. As in the first example, the double slashes indicate the presence of an implicit link. The third example is a clue used by Rufus is DT 28583: 18d Knight caught by misplaced great blow /is/ staggering (8) Here the definition is “staggering” which is marked with a solid underline to show that it is a precise definition. The pun parses as N ([chess symbol for] knight) contained in (captured) an anagram (misplaced) of BIG BLOW producing the solution WOBBLI(N)G. Finally, slashes mark the linking word (/er/). I also use characteristic underlining to mark &lit.[7] and semi-&lit. clues. Note that the reviewers at Big Dave’s Crossword Blog generally prefer to refer to these clue types by the less pretentious names of all-in-one or semi-all-in-one clues, respectively.

In a &lit. clue [7] (or all-in-one clue) the entire clue not only provides the definition (when read in one way), but under another interpretation also acts as a play on words.

In the future I will mark such clues with a combined solid and dashed underline. Although this is a departure from previous practice, it seems to make more sense than using a dashed underline as I have done in the past). From now on, the dashed underline will be reserved for cryptic definitions. In a semi-&lit. clue (or semi-all-in-one clue), either:

For these clues, I will mark the definition with a solid underline and the pun with a dashed underline. This means that part of the clue can have a solid underline, part of the clue can have a dashed underline, and part of the clue can have a combined solid and dashed underline. A final clue type is what I characterize as a cryptic definition consisting of a precise definition combined with cryptic elaboration. For example, in DT 28560 (sets unknown) the following clue appears:

Living In The ‘golden Age Of Crosswords’

Since the entire clue is a cryptic definition, it is marked with a dashed underline