ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ CHECK PLEASE]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ CHECK PLEASE]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
The rules of crosswording are a thing of beauty. Obviosuly they’re there for a reason; Margaret Farrar set them up when she was the first crossword puzzle editor so that she could quickly weed out bad puzzles from the slush piles. It’s amazing that of all the innovations that have come since the dawn of the crossword, we still cling to her rules: 180 degree rotational symmetry, no more than 38 black squares and 78 entries, shortest words are three letters, all the letters are checked.
Having said that, there are times when the rules should be thrown out the window. I’ve seen a couple two three puzzles that had 80 entries and the puzzle was great. You could say that the symmetry rule should always be employed, and certainly there are those who agree with that. But there are some amazing puzzles Frank Longo has done for the New York Sun that has simply ignored symmetry altogether so that he could have insane 7×8 corners. Hell I made a puzle for the Onion where I ignored the symmetry rule for a themed puzzle only because I couldn’t come up with a suitable number of thematic entries. But I felt that the theme warranted the rule break.
Basically, if you have a very good reason to ignore the rules, go for it. But it has to be a very good reason. Above is a puzzle where I ignored one of the main rules but for a very specific reason. Hopefully you feel it was worth it. Enjoy it. New puzzle on Wednesday.
hunt the WUMPUS = awesome.
Tried WU-TANG at first, then got WUMPUS. I was pleased. At one point a dream job would have been to work for Infocom. Wasn’t mean to be.
I just read “Life: A User’s Manual” and can certify that it’s awesome.
Can I ask what “UNCH” is?
Died in the SE but very enjoyable. Took a long time to notice the three unchecked squares. Things fell pretty quickly when I did. But as I’d never heard of the game, Hunt the WUMPUS, nothing I put down felt right.
UNCH! UNCH! UNCH!
It’s crossword constructor lingo for “unchecked square.” Possibly the most
inside-baseball theme ever…
@Flavin: I believe that UNCH is the inside-baseball term for an unchecked square, i.e., a white square with only one word passing through it. I was only vaguely conscious of the term, and so I was hesitant to commit to the rebus at first. Hence the rebus here is the cool meta-joke that the unches are UNCHs.
I mis-remembered WUMPUS as WAMPUS until I saw that LONGRAN didn’t look so good. For once ACE Frehley was a rock reference that I actually knew without having to get from crosses.
Great, thanks … I’ve now spent the last half-hour of my life hunting the Wumpus.
http://www.dreamcodex.com/playwumpus.php
I had never heard of it, but it’s pretty darn addicting.
LOL! bananas. nicely done, brendan.
i didn’t like OK SIGN. and isn’t it usually UEY? that’s how i’ve seen it in other grids. how does one spelling of a slang term make it into a grid and another not? is there a slang dictionary that is standard in constructor-land?
on the plus side: great to see SDRE in a clue, and great to see EMO clued with something other than friggin’ fall-out boy. i had FOOTNOTES for PLOTLINES for far too long, which completely bolloxed the SE for a while. being from berkeley, i’d like to inform you that CRUNCHY and GRANOLA are both adjectives describing a hippie but are almost never (and i say “almost” only because i just googled it and got a few hits that weren’t recipes) used together like that. however, the theme is so awesome that i’m totally giving you a pass on that.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but “alto” would be more accurately clued as a french horn’s (or perhaps mellophone’s, if you wanted a nod towards drum corps groups) range. I suppose there are alto trombone parts, but the trombone is low brass, and along with the euphonium is really the tenor voice of the brass family.
Brendan, do you know where “couple two three” comes from? I think you said you are in Boston. A friend from Utica would say, as lunchtime neared, “Think I’ll go get couple two five sausage sammiches”.
Au contraire… the crunchy granola types were all over my alma mater. (Mike Nothnagel can confirm).
Here it is defined as an adjective:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/73/C0777350.html
This is what happens when you try for some freshness with clues. Thanks for the correction. Seems Wikipedia has an error (that can’t be the first time for that).
I dunno where “couple two three” comes from, but I sure could got a couple two five sausage sammiches right now.
OK, I’m a brand new commenter here. I love your puzzles, though I am not of the caliber of many of these other folks and can’t keep up with the speeds. Nevertheless, I play them all and thank you for them. Anyway, a quick technical question: I got the theme here, and WANTED to fill in the UNCHs, but doing the puzzle online, I can’t figure out how to get my computer to do it. What’s the scoop please?
I’m not sure it’s a feature in the Java app. I know in Across Lite you can type in a couple letters per square. Obviously you can do whatever you want in the printout version.
Thanks for coming. And don’t let that leader board scare you away. It’s humbling how fast some people can solve stuff.
TF –
If you press the “Insert” key you can enter more than one letter in a square in the java app.
aha! i stand corrected; it’s in a couple of slang dictionaries we use at work, too. i should have consulted them before posting. i was going from my own experience with the term/s, which are closer to the examples listed here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crunchy
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=granola
perhaps each alone has become a metonym for the two together.
Ahh. I’ve been crosswording all my life and never heard the term, so I was a bit bewildered….
Language man:
If “friggin'” and “frigin'” are accepted euphemisms for “fuckin'”, why doesn’t “frig” work for “fuck”?