The New York Times crossword puzzle
Encyclopedia
The New York Times crossword puzzle is a daily puzzle found in The New York Times
and online at the paper's website. It is also syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals. The puzzle is created by various freelance constructors and is edited by Will Shortz
. The puzzle becomes increasingly difficult throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult puzzle on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine
, is an icon in American
culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle. The standard daily crossword is 15 squares x 15 squares, while the Sunday crossword measures either 21 squares x 21 squares or 23 x 23 (a special set of 25 x 25 Sunday puzzles, with two sets of clues—easy and hard—was published in 1999 to commemorate the upcoming millennium
).
, was a longtime crossword fan) appears to have been the bombing of Pearl Harbor
; in a memo dated December 18, 1941, an editor conceded that the puzzle deserved space in the paper, considering what was happening elsewhere in the world and that readers might need something to occupy themselves during blackouts. The puzzle proved popular, and Sulzberger himself would author a Times puzzle before the year was out. In 1950, the crossword became a daily feature. That first daily puzzle was published without an author line, and to this day the identity of the author of the first weekday Times crossword remains unknown. There have been four editors of the puzzle: Margaret Farrar
from the puzzle's inception until 1969; Will Weng
, former head of the Times's metropolitan copy desk, until 1977; Eugene T. Maleska until 1993; and the current editor, Will Shortz
. Of the three former editors, Maleska alone held the position until his death. In addition to editing the Times crosswords, Shortz founded and runs the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
as well as the World Puzzle Championship
(where he remains captain of the US team), has published numerous books of crosswords, sudoku
, and other puzzles, and serves as "Puzzlemaster" on the NPR
show "Weekend Edition Sunday".
The popularity of the puzzle has grown over the years, until it came to be considered the most prestigious of the widely circulated crosswords in America; its popularity is attested to by the numerous celebrities and public figures who've publicly proclaimed their liking for the puzzle, including opera singer Beverly Sills
, author Norman Mailer
, baseball pitcher Mike Mussina
, former President Bill Clinton
, conductor Leonard Bernstein
, TV host Jon Stewart
and music duo the Indigo Girls
.
The Times puzzles have been collected in hundreds of books over the years from various publishers, most notably Random House
and St. Martin's Press
, the current publisher of the series. In addition to their appearance in the printed newspaper, the Times puzzles also appear online at the paper's website, where they remain the only part of the paper's content for which users need to pay for online access (unless they already subscribe to the printed version of the paper for home delivery). In 2007, Majesco released The New York Times Crosswords
game, a video game adaptation for the Nintendo DS
handheld. The game includes over 1,000 Times crosswords from all days of the week. Various other forms of merchandise featuring the puzzle have been created over the years, including dedicated electronic crossword handhelds that just contain Times crosswords, as well as cookie jars, baseballs, coasters, mousepads, and other items.
and April Fool's Day. The Friday and Saturday puzzles, the most difficult in the paper, are routinely unthemed and are usually "wide-open", with fewer black squares, and more long words. The general maximum word count for a themed weekday puzzle is 78 words, while the maximum for an unthemed Friday or Saturday puzzle is only 72 words. Given the Times's perception as a paper for a generally literate, well-read, and somewhat arty audience, puzzles frequently reference works of literature, art, or classical music, as well as modern TV, movies, or other touchstones of popular culture. The puzzle follows a number of conventions, both for tradition's sake and to aid solvers in completing the crossword:
puzzle authored by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, with a rotating selection of other puzzles, including diagramless crosswords, Puns and Anagrams, cryptics
(a.k.a. "British-style crosswords"), Split Decisions, Spiral Crosswords, and more rarely, other types (some authored by Shortz himself—the only puzzles he has created for the Times during his tenure as crossword editor). Of these types, the acrostic has the longest and most interesting history, beginning on May 9, 1943, authored by Elizabeth S. Kingsley, who is credited with inventing the puzzle type, and continued to write the Times acrostic until December 28, 1952. From then until August 13, 1967 it was written by Kingsley's former assistant, Doris Nash Wortman; then it taken over by Thomas H. Middleton for a period of over 30 years, until August 15, 1999, when the pair of Cox and Rathvon became just the fourth author of the puzzle in its history. The name of the puzzle also changed over the years, from "Double-Crostic" to "Kingsley Double-Crostic," "Acrostic Puzzle," and finally (since 1991) just "Acrostic."
A few crosswords have achieved notoriety beyond the community of crossword solvers. Perhaps the most famous is the November 5, 1996 puzzle by Jeremiah Farrell
, published on the day of the U.S. presidential election
, which has been featured in the movie Wordplay
and the book The Crossword Obsession by Coral Amende, as well as discussed by Peter Jennings on ABC News, featured on CNN, and elsewhere. The two leading candidates that year were Bill Clinton
and Bob Dole
; in Farrell's puzzle one of the long clue/answer combinations read "Title for 39-Across tomorrow" = MISTER PRESIDENT. The remarkable feature of the puzzle is that 39-Across could be answered either CLINTON or BOB DOLE, and all the Down clues and answers that crossed it would work either way (e.g., "Black Halloween animal" could be either BAT or CAT depending on which answer you filled in at 39-Across; similarly "French 101 word" could equal LUI or OUI, etc.).
In another notable Times crossword, 27 year-old Bill Gottlieb proposed to his girlfriend, Emily Mindel, via the crossword puzzle of January 7, 1998, written by noted crossword constructor Bob Klahn. The answer to 14-Across, "Microsoft chief, to some" was BILLG, also Gottlieb's name and last initial. 20-Across, "1729 Jonathan Swift pamphlet", was A MODEST PROPOSAL. And 56-Across, "1992 Paula Abdul hit", was WILL YOU MARRY ME. She said yes. The puzzle attracted attention in the AP, an article in the Times itself, and elsewhere.
On May 7, 2007, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, a self-professed long-time fan of the Times crossword, collaborated with noted crossword constructor Cathy Millhauser on an online-only crossword in which Millhauser constructed the grid and Clinton wrote the clues. Shortz described the President's work as "laugh out loud" and noted that he as editor changed very little of Clinton's clues, which featured more wordplay than found in a standard puzzle.
The Times crossword of Thursday, April 2, 2009, by Brendan Emmett Quigley, featured theme answers that all ran the gamut of movie ratings—beginning with the kid-friendly "G" and finishing with adults-only "X" (which, however is now replaced with the less crossword-friendly NC-17 rating). The seven theme entries were GARY GYGAX
, GRAND PRIX, GORE-TEX
, GAG REFLEX
, GUMMO MARX
, GASOLINE TAX, and GENERATION X
. In addition, the puzzle contained the clues/answers of ""Weird Al" Yankovic
's '__ on Jeopardy'" = I LOST and "I'll take New York Times crossword for $200, __" = ALEX. What made the puzzle notable is that the prior night's episode of the US television show Jeopardy!
featured video clues of Will Shortz for five of the theme answers (all but GARY GYGAX and GENERATION X) which the contestants attempted to answer during the course of the show.
At age 14, Ben Pall became the youngest person to have published a crossword in The New York Times.
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and online at the paper's website. It is also syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals. The puzzle is created by various freelance constructors and is edited by Will Shortz
Will Shortz
Will Shortz is an American puzzle creator and editor, and currently the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times.-Early life and education:...
. The puzzle becomes increasingly difficult throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult puzzle on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, is an icon in American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle. The standard daily crossword is 15 squares x 15 squares, while the Sunday crossword measures either 21 squares x 21 squares or 23 x 23 (a special set of 25 x 25 Sunday puzzles, with two sets of clues—easy and hard—was published in 1999 to commemorate the upcoming millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
).
History
While crosswords became popular in the early 1920s, it was not until 1942 that The New York Times (which initially regarded crosswords as frivolous, calling them "a primitive form of mental exercise") began running a crossword in its Sunday edition. The first puzzle ran on Sunday, February 15, 1942; the motivating impulse for the Times to finally run the puzzle (which took over 20 years even though its publisher, Arthur Hays SulzbergerArthur Hays Sulzberger
Arthur Hays Sulzberger was the publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961. During that time, daily circulation rose from 465,000 to 713,000 and Sunday circulation from 745,000 to 1.4 million; the staff more than doubled, reaching 5,200; advertising linage grew from 19 million to 62 million...
, was a longtime crossword fan) appears to have been the bombing of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
; in a memo dated December 18, 1941, an editor conceded that the puzzle deserved space in the paper, considering what was happening elsewhere in the world and that readers might need something to occupy themselves during blackouts. The puzzle proved popular, and Sulzberger himself would author a Times puzzle before the year was out. In 1950, the crossword became a daily feature. That first daily puzzle was published without an author line, and to this day the identity of the author of the first weekday Times crossword remains unknown. There have been four editors of the puzzle: Margaret Farrar
Margaret Farrar
Margaret Petherbridge Farrar was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times, from 1942 to 1968...
from the puzzle's inception until 1969; Will Weng
Will Weng
Will Weng was an American journalist and crossword puzzle constructor who served as crossword puzzle editor for New York Times from 1969-1977....
, former head of the Times's metropolitan copy desk, until 1977; Eugene T. Maleska until 1993; and the current editor, Will Shortz
Will Shortz
Will Shortz is an American puzzle creator and editor, and currently the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times.-Early life and education:...
. Of the three former editors, Maleska alone held the position until his death. In addition to editing the Times crosswords, Shortz founded and runs the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is a crossword-solving tournament held annually in late February or early March. Founded in 1978 by Will Shortz, who still directs the tournament, it is the oldest and largest crossword tournament held in the United States; the 2009 event attracted nearly...
as well as the World Puzzle Championship
World Puzzle Championship
The World Puzzle Championship is an annual international puzzle competition run by the World Puzzle Federation. The first one was held in New York in 1992...
(where he remains captain of the US team), has published numerous books of crosswords, sudoku
Sudoku
is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...
, and other puzzles, and serves as "Puzzlemaster" on the NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
show "Weekend Edition Sunday".
The popularity of the puzzle has grown over the years, until it came to be considered the most prestigious of the widely circulated crosswords in America; its popularity is attested to by the numerous celebrities and public figures who've publicly proclaimed their liking for the puzzle, including opera singer Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...
, author Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, baseball pitcher Mike Mussina
Mike Mussina
Michael Cole Mussina , nicknamed Moose, is a former Major League Baseball right-handed starting pitcher. He played for the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees ....
, former President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, conductor Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, TV host Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
and music duo the Indigo Girls
Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
.
The Times puzzles have been collected in hundreds of books over the years from various publishers, most notably Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
and St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
, the current publisher of the series. In addition to their appearance in the printed newspaper, the Times puzzles also appear online at the paper's website, where they remain the only part of the paper's content for which users need to pay for online access (unless they already subscribe to the printed version of the paper for home delivery). In 2007, Majesco released The New York Times Crosswords
The New York Times Crosswords
The New York Times Crosswords is a video game released on May 22, 2007 for the Nintendo DS.- Features :*Use the stylus to write the letters using handwriting recognition, with keyboard optional....
game, a video game adaptation for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
handheld. The game includes over 1,000 Times crosswords from all days of the week. Various other forms of merchandise featuring the puzzle have been created over the years, including dedicated electronic crossword handhelds that just contain Times crosswords, as well as cookie jars, baseballs, coasters, mousepads, and other items.
Style and conventions
Will Shortz does not write the Times crossword himself. Instead the puzzles are submitted to him as the editor by a wide variety of contributors. A full specification sheet listing the paper's requirements for crossword puzzle submission can be found online (see "External Links") or by writing to the paper. Aside from the increasing difficulty throughout the week, the Monday-Thursday puzzles and the Sunday puzzle always contain a theme, some sort of connection between 3-5 long (usually Across) answers. The theme could consist of a similar type of pun in each theme entry, a similar type of letter substitution or alteration in each entry, or any of numerous other types. Notable dates, e.g., holidays or anniversaries of famous events, are often celebrated with an appropriately themed puzzle, although only two holidays are currently commemorated on a routine annual basis: ChristmasChristmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and April Fool's Day. The Friday and Saturday puzzles, the most difficult in the paper, are routinely unthemed and are usually "wide-open", with fewer black squares, and more long words. The general maximum word count for a themed weekday puzzle is 78 words, while the maximum for an unthemed Friday or Saturday puzzle is only 72 words. Given the Times's perception as a paper for a generally literate, well-read, and somewhat arty audience, puzzles frequently reference works of literature, art, or classical music, as well as modern TV, movies, or other touchstones of popular culture. The puzzle follows a number of conventions, both for tradition's sake and to aid solvers in completing the crossword:
- Nearly all the Times crosswords have rotational symmetrySymmetrySymmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
: they can be rotated 180 degrees and still keep the same position of the white and black spaces. Rarely, puzzles with vertical or horizontal symmetry only can be found; yet more rare are asymmetrical puzzles, which usually indicate some sort of unusual theme is contained within the puzzle that requires breaking the symmetry rule. This rule has been part of the puzzle since the beginning; when asked why, initial editor Margaret Farrar is said to have responded "Because it is prettier." - Any time a clue contains an abbreviationAbbreviationAn abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...
(that is, one more significant than "e.g.") or the tag "abbr.", the answer will also be an abbreviation (e.g. M.D. org. = AMA). - Any time a clue is a statement ending in a question markQuestion markThe question mark , is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages. The question mark is not used for indirect questions...
, the answer is a play on words. - Occasionally, themed puzzles will require certain squares to be filled in with a symbol, multiple letters, or a word, rather than one letter (so-called "rebusRebusA rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames, for example in its basic form 3 salmon fish to denote the name "Salmon"...
" puzzles). This symbol/letters/word will be repeated throughout in each themed entry. - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
-, SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
-, or Latin-language answers, and more rarely answers from other languages are indicated either by a tag in the clue giving the answer language (e.g., 'Summer: Fr.' = ETE) or by the use in the clue of a word from that language, often a personal or place name(e.g. 'Friends of Pierre' = AMIS or 'The ocean, e.g., in Orleans' = EAU). - Clues and answers must always match in part of speech, tense, number, and degree. Thus a pluralPluralIn linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
clue always indicates a plural answer (and the same for singular), a clue in the past tensePast tenseThe past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
will always be matched by an answer in the same tense, and a clue containing a comparative or superlative will always be matched by an answer in the same degree. Similarly, slangy content in the answer will be indicated by a clue containing slang or informal speech. - The answer word (or any of the answer words, if it consists of multiple words) will never appear in the clue itself. Unlike in some easier puzzles in other outlets, the number of words in the answer is not indicated in the clue itself—so a one-word clue can mean a multiple-word answer.
- The theme, if any, will be applied consistently throughout the puzzle. e.g., if one of the theme entries is a particular variety of pun, all the theme entries will be of that type.
- In general, any words that might appear elsewhere in the newspaper, such as well-known brand names, pop culture figures, or current phrases of the moment, are fair game.
- No entries involving profanity, sad or disturbing topics, or overly explicit answers should be expected, though some have snuck in. The April 3, 2006 puzzle, contained the word SCUMBAG (a slang term for a condom), which had previously appeared in a Times article, quoting people using the word. Shortz apologized and said the term would not appear again. The word PENIS also appeared once in a Maleska-edited puzzle, clued as "The __ mightier than the sword."
- Spoken phrases are always indicated by enclosure in quotation marks, e.g., "Get out of here!" = LEAVE NOW.
- Short exclamations are sometimes clued by a phrase in square brackets, e.g., "[It's cold!]" = BRR.
- When the answer needs an additional word in order to fit the clue, it is indicated with a parenthetical phrase or the use of "with." For example, "Think (over)" = MULL, since "think" only means "mull" when paired with the word "over". Similarly, "Become understood, with in" = SINK, since "Sink in" means "to become understood."
- A good rule of thumb when in doubt of a given clue/answer is to apply the 'substitution test': Create a sentence featuring the clue word(s) and then see if you can substitute the answer and leave the parsing and meaning of the rest of the sentence unchanged. If not, the answer is almost certainly incorrect. For example, if you are unsure of the clue/answer combination "Approach, perhaps" = HIT ON, you could try substituting in the sentence "The shy man jealously watched the smooth talker effortlessly APPROACH women at the party" / "The shy man jealously watched the smooth talker effortlessly HIT ON women at the party." Since the meaning of the sentence remains unchanged, this would be a valid clue/answer combination (although not necessarily the correct one in a given puzzle).
Second Sunday puzzles
In addition to the primary crossword, the Times publishes a second Sunday puzzle each week, of varying types, something that the first crossword editor, Margaret Farrar, saw as a part of the paper's Sunday puzzle offering from the start; she wrote in a memo when the Times was considering whether or not to start running crosswords that "The smaller puzzle, which would occupy the lower part of the page, could provide variety each Sunday. It could be topical, humorous, have rhymed definitions or story definitions or quiz definitions. The combination of these two would offer meat and dessert, and catch the fancy of all types of puzzlers." Currently, every other week is an acrosticAcrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...
puzzle authored by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, with a rotating selection of other puzzles, including diagramless crosswords, Puns and Anagrams, cryptics
Cryptic crossword
Cryptic crosswords are crossword puzzles in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta,...
(a.k.a. "British-style crosswords"), Split Decisions, Spiral Crosswords, and more rarely, other types (some authored by Shortz himself—the only puzzles he has created for the Times during his tenure as crossword editor). Of these types, the acrostic has the longest and most interesting history, beginning on May 9, 1943, authored by Elizabeth S. Kingsley, who is credited with inventing the puzzle type, and continued to write the Times acrostic until December 28, 1952. From then until August 13, 1967 it was written by Kingsley's former assistant, Doris Nash Wortman; then it taken over by Thomas H. Middleton for a period of over 30 years, until August 15, 1999, when the pair of Cox and Rathvon became just the fourth author of the puzzle in its history. The name of the puzzle also changed over the years, from "Double-Crostic" to "Kingsley Double-Crostic," "Acrostic Puzzle," and finally (since 1991) just "Acrostic."
Records and puzzles of note
Fans of the Times crossword have kept track of a number of records and interesting puzzles (primarily from among those published in Shortz's tenure), including those below. (All puzzles published from October 23, 1996 on are available to online subscribers to the Times crossword.)- Fewest words in a daily 15x15 puzzle: 52 words, on Friday, January 21, 2005 by Frank Longo; in a Sunday puzzle: 130 words (on five occasions by five different constructors)
- Most words in a daily puzzle: 86 words on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 by Joe Krozel; in a 21x21 Sunday puzzle: 150 words, on June 26, 1994 by Nancy Nicholson Joline and on November 21, 1993 by Peter Gordon (the first Sunday puzzle edited by Will Shortz)
- Fewest black squares (in a daily 15x15 puzzle): 18 blocks, on Friday, August 22, 2008 by Kevin G. Der.
- Most prolific author: Manny NosowskyManny NosowskyManny Nosowsky is a U.S. crossword puzzle creator. A medical doctor by training, he retired from a San Francisco urology practice and, beginning in 1991, has created crossword puzzles that have been published in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other newspapers...
is easily the crossword constructor who has been published most frequently in the Times under Shortz, with 241 puzzles, although other authors may have written more puzzles than that under prior editors. The record for most Sunday puzzles is held by Jack Luzzato, with 119 (including two written under pseudonyms); former editor Eugene T. Maleska wrote 110 himself, including 8 under other names.
A few crosswords have achieved notoriety beyond the community of crossword solvers. Perhaps the most famous is the November 5, 1996 puzzle by Jeremiah Farrell
Jeremiah Farrell
Jeremiah Farrell is an American professor emeritus of mathematics at Butler University in Indiana. He is well-known for having designed Will Shortz's favorite puzzle, the 1996 "Election Day" crossword in The New York Times...
, published on the day of the U.S. presidential election
United States presidential election, 1996
The United States presidential election of 1996 was a contest between the Democratic national ticket of President Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and the Republican national ticket of former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas for President and former Housing Secretary Jack...
, which has been featured in the movie Wordplay
Wordplay (film)
Wordplay is a 2006 documentary film directed by Patrick Creadon. It features Will Shortz, the editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, crossword constructor Merl Reagle, and many other noted crossword solvers and constructors...
and the book The Crossword Obsession by Coral Amende, as well as discussed by Peter Jennings on ABC News, featured on CNN, and elsewhere. The two leading candidates that year were Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
and Bob Dole
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...
; in Farrell's puzzle one of the long clue/answer combinations read "Title for 39-Across tomorrow" = MISTER PRESIDENT. The remarkable feature of the puzzle is that 39-Across could be answered either CLINTON or BOB DOLE, and all the Down clues and answers that crossed it would work either way (e.g., "Black Halloween animal" could be either BAT or CAT depending on which answer you filled in at 39-Across; similarly "French 101 word" could equal LUI or OUI, etc.).
In another notable Times crossword, 27 year-old Bill Gottlieb proposed to his girlfriend, Emily Mindel, via the crossword puzzle of January 7, 1998, written by noted crossword constructor Bob Klahn. The answer to 14-Across, "Microsoft chief, to some" was BILLG, also Gottlieb's name and last initial. 20-Across, "1729 Jonathan Swift pamphlet", was A MODEST PROPOSAL. And 56-Across, "1992 Paula Abdul hit", was WILL YOU MARRY ME. She said yes. The puzzle attracted attention in the AP, an article in the Times itself, and elsewhere.
On May 7, 2007, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, a self-professed long-time fan of the Times crossword, collaborated with noted crossword constructor Cathy Millhauser on an online-only crossword in which Millhauser constructed the grid and Clinton wrote the clues. Shortz described the President's work as "laugh out loud" and noted that he as editor changed very little of Clinton's clues, which featured more wordplay than found in a standard puzzle.
The Times crossword of Thursday, April 2, 2009, by Brendan Emmett Quigley, featured theme answers that all ran the gamut of movie ratings—beginning with the kid-friendly "G" and finishing with adults-only "X" (which, however is now replaced with the less crossword-friendly NC-17 rating). The seven theme entries were GARY GYGAX
Gary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
, GRAND PRIX, GORE-TEX
Gore-Tex
Gore-Tex is a waterproof/breathable fabric, and a registered trademark of W. L. Gore and Associates. It was co-invented by Wilbert L. Gore, Rowena Taylor, and Gore's son, Robert W. Gore. Robert Gore was granted on April 27, 1976, for a porous form of polytetrafluoroethylene with a...
, GAG REFLEX
Gag reflex
The pharyngeal reflex or gag reflex is a reflex contraction of the back of the throat, evoked by touching the soft palate or sometimes the back of the tongue. It prevents something from entering the throat except as part of normal swallowing and helps prevent choking...
, GUMMO MARX
Gummo Marx
Milton "Gummo" Marx was an American vaudeville performer and theatrical agent. He was the fourth-born of the Marx Brothers. Born in New York City, he worked with his brothers on the vaudeville circuit, but left acting when he was drafted into the U.S...
, GASOLINE TAX, and GENERATION X
Generation X
Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western post–World War II baby boom ended. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960's through the early 1980's, usually no later than 1981 or...
. In addition, the puzzle contained the clues/answers of ""Weird Al" Yankovic
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...
's '__ on Jeopardy'" = I LOST and "I'll take New York Times crossword for $200, __" = ALEX. What made the puzzle notable is that the prior night's episode of the US television show Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
featured video clues of Will Shortz for five of the theme answers (all but GARY GYGAX and GENERATION X) which the contestants attempted to answer during the course of the show.
At age 14, Ben Pall became the youngest person to have published a crossword in The New York Times.
Newspapers which carry the puzzle
The puzzle is syndicated in over 300 newspapers and journals besides The New York Times itself, including the following (incomplete) list:- Akron Beacon JournalAkron Beacon JournalThe Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...
- Albany Times-UnionAlbany Times-UnionThe Times Union is a major daily newspaper, serving the Capital Region of New York, United States. Although the newspaper focuses on Albany and its suburbs, it covers all parts of the four-county area, including the cities of Troy, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. It is owned by the Hearst...
(Sunday only) - Albuquerque JournalAlbuquerque Journal-History:Its earliest predecessor, the Albuquerque Daily Journal, was first published on October 14, 1880. The newspaper is owned by the Journal Publishing Company, a family-owned business headed by president/publisher T.H. Lang; it is operated by the Albuquerque Publishing Company...
- Baltimore Sun
- Calgary HeraldCalgary HeraldThe Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in the Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta.- History :The paper was first published on August 31, 1883 by Andrew Armour and Thomas Braden as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser. It started as a weekly paper with only...
- Calgary SunCalgary SunThe Calgary Sun is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a division of Sun Media, a Quebecor company.First published in 1980, the tabloid-format daily replaced the long-running broadsheet newspaper, The Albertan soon after it was acquired by the publishers of the Toronto...
- Chicago Sun-TimesChicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
- China DailyChina DailyThe China Daily is an English language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China.- Overview :China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in the country...
- Commercial Appeal
- The Daily Beacon (University of Tennessee-Knoxville)
- Daily IlliniDaily IlliniThe Daily Illini, commonly known as the DI, is an independent, student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1871...
(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) - Daily Iowan (University of Iowa)
- Daily Texan (University of Texas at Austin)
- Daily TrojanDaily TrojanThe Daily Trojan, or "DT," is the student newspaper of the University of Southern California. The newspaper is a forum for student expression and is written, edited, and managed by university students. The paper is intended to inform USC students, faculty, and staff on the latest news and provide...
(University of Southern California) - Dallas Morning News
- The Des Moines Register
- The Denver PostThe Denver Post-Ownership:The Post is the flagship newspaper of MediaNews Group Inc., founded in 1983 by William Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder. MediaNews is today one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, publisher of 61 daily newspapers and more than 120 non-daily publications in 13 states. MediaNews...
- Deseret Morning NewsDeseret Morning NewsThe Deseret News is a newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is Utah's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. It has the second largest daily circulation in the state behind The Salt Lake Tribune. The Deseret News is owned by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of...
- Edmonton JournalEdmonton JournalThe Edmonton Journal is a daily newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta. It is part of the Postmedia Network.-History:The Journal was founded in 1903 by three local businessmen — John Macpherson, Arthur Moore and J.W. Cunningham — as a rival to Alberta's first newspaper, the 23-year-old...
- Fort Worth Star-TelegramFort Worth Star-TelegramThe Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a major U.S. daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. Its area of domination is checked by its main rival, The Dallas Morning News, which is published from the eastern half of the Metroplex. It is owned...
- Gainesville Sun
- International Herald TribuneInternational Herald TribuneThe International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
- Kansas City Star
- Las Vegas SunLas Vegas SunThe Las Vegas Sun is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. It is one of Las Vegas, Nevada's two daily newspapers. It is owned by the Greenspun family and is affiliated with Greenspun Media Group....
- Long Beach Press Telegram
- Los Angeles Daily NewsLos Angeles Daily NewsThe Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group....
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
- Montreal Gazette
- Naples Daily NewsNaples Daily NewsThe Naples Daily News is the main daily newspaper of Naples, Florida, and Collier County. Its main competitor in this region is the Fort Myers-based News-Press, out of neighboring Lee County to the north. It is owned by Ohio-based Edward W. Scripps Company, who bought it from the founding Collier...
(Sunday only) - North County TimesNorth County TimesThe North County Times is a local newspaper in north San Diego County, California owned by Lee Enterprises. It is headquartered in Escondido. The current publisher is Peter York....
- Oakland Tribune
- Orange County Register
- The OregonianThe OregonianThe Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
- The Ottawa Citizen
- The Times Picayune
- Pittsburgh Post-GazettePittsburgh Post-GazetteThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...
- The Riverside Press-Enterprise
- The Sacramento BeeThe Sacramento BeeThe Sacramento Bee is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its creation in 1857, the Bee has become Sacramento's largest newspaper, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 25th largest paper in the U.S...
- St. Louis Post-DispatchSt. Louis Post-DispatchThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
- San Antonio Express-NewsSan Antonio Express-NewsThe San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
- San Diego Union-Tribune
- The SaratogianThe SaratogianThe Saratogian is a broadsheet-style daily newspaper published in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. The paper has been published regularly since 1855. It covers all of Saratoga County, New York and specifically the city of Saratoga Springs....
- Seattle Times
- South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday only)
- Syracuse Post Standard
- t.o.nightT.o.nightt.o.night is an afternoon free daily newspaper in Toronto, Canada, owned and produced by t.o.night Newspaper Group Inc. Targeted at evening public transit commuters on GO Transit and TTC , its main distribution channels are through the use of newsies, newspaper boxes and PATH billboards throughout...
(Monday to Friday) - Vancouver Sun
- Washington Square NewsWashington Square NewsThe Washington Square News is the daily student newspaper of New York University and serves the NYU, Greenwich Village, and East Village communities. The paper, better known as WSN, has a circulation of 10,000 and an estimated 65,000 readers online...
- Winnipeg Free PressWinnipeg Free PressThe Winnipeg Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Founded in 1872, as the Manitoba Free Press, it is the oldest newspaper in western Canada. It is the newspaper with the largest readership in the province....