Matt Ginsberg, who has published 50 puzzles in The New York Times, told me he used a machine learning algorithm to score his word list, and constantly scraped websites such as Wikipedia and online dictionaries to find words to add to his collection. There are a number of free and paid word lists floating around, ranging in size from a few hundred entries to several hundred thousand. Colorful bird named for its diet crossword nyt answer. "There are a lot of rivers, and I don't know them all, even if they have a lot of good letters in them, " said Kate Hawkins, who has had seven puzzles published in The New York Times. The higher a word is scored in a list, the more likely the software is to use it. Meanwhile, ED ASNER, an actor best known for playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran in the 1970s, has appeared in the New York Times crossword 41 times. A number of constructors also told me that they would remove a word if they thought an editor wouldn't accept a puzzle for including it.
If I think something is just meh, I take it out. ORE and ERIE are examples of crosswordese, words that appear often in crossword puzzles but rarely in day-to-day conversation. A number of constructors said they felt that crossword puzzles were art, or at the very least a form of self-expression. A recent example he gave was PSAKI, as in the White House press secretary Jen PSAKI. Some constructors set aside time just for sharpening the scoring of their word lists. "A word list isn't going to tell you that there are two really hard answers crossing each other. Some database inclusions are things that seemed like obvious puzzle words to Ms. Colorful bird named for its diet crossword nytimes. Wojcik.
When Mr. Ezersky is stuck in a tricky part of a grid he is constructing, he uses answers such as AC TO DC or ATOMIC GAS. One of the reasons they appear so often is because they are extremely useful in crossword construction. The alternating pattern of vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant makes for easy filling of tricky corners or ending stacks. Colorful bird named for its diet crossword net.org. The internet word lists tend to place a higher weight on words that have appeared in published puzzles before, so crosswordese like ORE and ERIE tends to appear disproportionately often. Every constructor has a different methodology for scoring their personal word list, the same way a painter may prefer one brush or pigment over another.
According to, ERIE is the third most popular word in the New York Times Crossword. However, Mr. Ginsberg also mentioned that this style of word list management could sometimes make his puzzles feel "synthetic, " and that he envied constructors who used language that was more personal to them. Crunchy phrases like these might not appear in a normal word list, but with some clever cluing, they can work well to glue together some smoother fill. An example she gave me was her puzzle with the phrase LANE CLOSED, which she added to her word list after seeing it on a road sign. Ms. Hawkins likes to add what she calls "utility language" into her word list. "We love when it truly feels like a craft, something that a human designed.
But as a result, crosswordese is stuck in the pre-Internet era. For example, the ERHU is a two-stringed instrument with Chinese roots with a spelling that lends itself to being crosswordese, but at the time of writing, it has never appeared in the New York Times Crossword. Most construction programs come with preinstalled word lists, but they also allow the user to create their own, or to import lists downloaded from the internet. One hundred and fifty-one times. By using autofill, a constructor's job is made easier. Anybody can download a word list, but how they use it is what makes it special, and a good word list cannot replace the skill and feedback necessary to make a great puzzle. These programs introduced a new tool that automatically fills in an area of a crossword puzzle using a word list. ORE is seventh, with over 1, 200 appearances. The database was created by Erica Hsiung Wojcik, a Skidmore College professor and a crossword constructor, as a way to increase representation in word lists after she noticed white men were overrepresented in crossword grids. "If I would be displeased to see it in a puzzle, I take it out. He gives extra weight to new jargon, film titles and especially anything that he thinks will generate interesting theme or revealer entries. "I really like signs and instructions in the world around you, " she said, "words and phrases that you see, and they're ubiquitous, they're not in word lists. " If we were to go by the New York Times Crossword, Lake ERIE would be the most dazzling body of water on Earth.
Ross Trudeau, who has published 40 puzzles in The New York Times, told me that since the list of words that editors find acceptable is only so long, many constructors' word lists are actually very similar. If I think it's offensive, I take it out. Among today's constructors, though, it's difficult to find someone who doesn't use software such as Crossfire or Crossword Compiler to create their puzzles. Mining ORE would be the most lucrative business venture.