Crosswordese

Crosswordese

Crosswordese is a term generally used to describe words frequently found in crossword puzzles but seldom found in everyday conversation. They are usually short words, three to five letters, with letter combinations which crossword constructors find useful in the creation of crossword puzzles. This is frequently because short words that start with a vowel are needed in every puzzle to some extent. Too much crosswordese in a crossword puzzle is considered a negative thing by cruciverbalists, or crossword enthusiasts.

Knowing the language of ‘crosswordese’ is helpful to constructors and solvers alike. According to Marc Romano,[1] “to do well solving crosswords, you absolutely need to keep a running mental list of “crosswordese,” the set of recurring words that constructors reach for whenever they are heading for trouble in a particular section of the grid.”

Contents

Frequently used crosswordese

  • Portions of phrases are occasionally used as fill in the blank clues. For instance, "Et tu, Brute?" might appear in a puzzle's clue sheet as "_____, Brute?"

Architecture

Biblical references

  • Enos - first-born son of Seth
  • Esau - fraternal twin brother of Jacob

Brand and trade names

  • Afta and Atra - Gillette brand aftershave and safety razor, respectively
  • Esso - petroleum company, known as Exxon in the United States
  • STP - a brand of motor oil additives; slogan "The Racer's Edge"

Computers and the Internet

  • SCSI - pronounced "scuzzy," a set of standards to physically connect computers and peripherals for the purpose of transferring data.
  • TLDs - Top-level domain abbreviations that appear at the end of website addresses
    • .com - the most common TLD used in the United States, refers to websites with commercial interests
    • .edu - reserved for accredited post-secondary educational institutions, i.e. two-year community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, and post-graduate institutions
    • .gov - reserved for all non-military branches of the United States Government
    • .mil - reserved for exclusive use of the United States Department of Defense
    • .net - originally intended for networks such as internet service providers, now also used by websites that have few if any commercial activities outside the internet, such as blogs
    • .org - generally used by non-profit organizations
  • USB - abbreviation of Universal Serial Bus, a method of establishing communications between a host controller and a variety of devices

Directions between cities

A 16-point compass rose showing the 16 standard compass directions.

Many puzzles ask for the direction from one city to another. These directions always fall between the standard octaval compass points—i.e., North (N - 0° or 360°), Northeast (NE - 45°), East (E - 90°), etc.

The directions asked for on clue sheets are usually approximations. Starting at north and going clockwise, the directions are:

  • NNE = North-northeast (22.5°)
  • ENE = East-northeast (67.5°)
  • ESE = East-southeast (112.5°)
  • SSE = South-southeast (157.5°)
  • SSW = South-southwest (202.5°)
  • WSW = West-southwest (247.5°)
  • WNW = West-northwest (292.5°)
  • NNW = North-northwest (337.5°)

Fictional characters

Food and drink

  • Ade - a beverage generally made of fruit juice, water and sugar; as in lemonade.
  • Aioli - A condiment similar to mayonnaise, usually with garlic.
  • Grog - an alcoholic beverage made of heated low-alcohol beer, rum and a variety of flavorings such as lemon or lime juice, cinnamon and sugar.
  • Maha or Mahi - Sanskrit for fish. "Mahi" may refer to mahi-mahi.
  • Mead - honey wine
  • Nehi - a line of fruit-flavored soft drinks from the Royal Crown Company. Grape Nehi was the favorite drink of Radar O'Reilly on the TV series M*A*S*H
  • MSG - monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer that may cause asthmatic reactions in some people.
  • Oleo - Used as a synonym for *Margarine.
  • Penne and Ziti - hollow, cylindrical pastas. Penne is usually about 1 cm (about 3/8 inch) in diameter with ridges on the outside and angle-cut at the ends. Ziti is larger in diameter, usually smooth on the outside and square-cut at the ends.
  • Phở - a Vietnamese soup made with beef and rice noodles, usually served with basil, lime, bean sprouts and peppers.

Foreign words

General adjectives and adverbs

  • Eoan - an adjective meaning "of the dawn"

Geography

  • Agra - an ancient city in India best known as the location of the Taj Mahal.
  • Asti - a city of Italy known for its sparkling wines
  • Mesa - a Spanish word commonly used in English—especially in the American Southwest—to designate a plateau that sits higher in elevation than its immediate surroundings.
  • Ouse - river in Yorkshire
  • Tor - a rock outcrop formed by weathering

Jargon and slang

  • Alee - in seaman’s language, toward the side opposite the wind

Latin words and phrases

  • Ad hoc - pertaining to a specific problem
  • Dies Irae - Day of Wrath - a medieval hymn used in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass
  • Et tu, Brute? - alleged last words spoken by Julius Caesar after being stabbed by his friend Brutus
  • Veni, vidi, vici - a phrase spoken by Julius Caesar meaning "I came, I saw, I conquered"

Manmade items

Multiple meanings

Names of contemporary people (20th and 21st centuries)

(Note: The popularity of certain names used in crosswordese may wane with the passing of time. For instance, "Ito" -- as in Robert Ito, a Canadian-born actor of Japanese descent who was a regular on Quincy, M.E. from 1976 to 1983—continued to be a popular crosswordese reference throughout most of the 1980s. Yet, although he has remained active professionally, the appearance of his name in today's crosswords is a rare occurrence.)

Names of historical people

Nature, references to

Poetic phrases and terms

Prefixes and suffixes

  • Prefixes
    • Aero- - relating to air, aircraft or aeronautics
  • Suffixes
    • -ite - a suffix with several meanings, including a faithful follower of a certain person, a mineral, and a native of a certain place
    • -ose - a suffix in chemistry indicating sugar

Religious holidays, festivals, celebrations and observances

  • Eid - Arabic for "festival"; part of the names of several Islamic festivals
  • Hajj - the pilgrimage every faithful Muslim is obliged to perform; one of the five pillars of Islam
  • Purim - the festival celebrating the deliverance of the Jewish people from a plot to annihilate them, as told in the Book of Esther

Roman numerals

Many puzzles ask for Roman numerals either as answers or as portions of answers. For instance:

  • a puzzle might ask for the solution of 1916 - 1662 as "MCMXVI minus MDCLXII." The answer (254) would be written as CCLIV.
  • LEOIV is the answer to a clue about Pope Leo IV.
  • a puzzle might ask which Super Bowl was the first to be played in Tampa, Florida. The answer is XVIII.

Standard Roman numerals run from 1 to 3999, or I to MMMLXXXIX. The first ten Roman numerals are:

\mathrm{I,\;II,\;III,\;IV,\;V,\;VI,\;VII,\;VIII,\;IX, and \;X.}

For numerals representing values equal to or greater than 4000, a line is placed above the numeral. The following table shows the numerals used in crossword puzzles.

Symbol Value
I 1 (one) (unus)
V 5 (five) (quinque)
X 10 (ten) (decem)
L 50 (fifty) (quinquaginta)
C 100 (one hundred) (centum)
D 500 (five hundred) (quingenti)
M 1,000 (one thousand) (mille)

For those who are curious, the chart below shows numeral values up to 900,000.

×1 ×2 ×3 ×4 ×5 ×6 ×7 ×8 ×9
Ones I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
Tens X XX XXX XL L LX LXX LXXX XC
Hundreds C CC CCC CD D DC DCC DCCC CM
Thousands M MM MMM IV V VI VII VIII IX
Ten thousands X XX XXX XL L LX LXX LXXX XC
Hundred thousands C CC CCC CD D DC DCC DCCC CM

Sports and gaming

Titles of books, plays, movies, etc.

Titles used by royalty and the nobility

  • Aga - a Turkish honorific for a high-level government official; occasionally spelled "agha."
  • Emir - a title given to princes and/or sheikhs who rule certain Arab countries; may also be spelled amir, aamir or ameer

Transportation

U.S. states and Canadian provinces

World War II

References

  1. ^ Romano, Marc. Crossworld: One Man’s Journey into America’s Crossword Obsession.

External links


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