Origins of the Ordinary - The Crossword

 

Origins of the Ordinary - The Lattice of Clues

I was enjoying my early morning filter coffee while my wife sat with a folded newspaper, one quarter its original size, enjoying her favourite hobby. Her pen scratched furiously on the newspaper, she gazed out into the distance and then with an emphatic YES, she gave me a wide smile and said “Finished. It was very easy today”. I smiled back knowing fully well that today was going to be a good day. The small black and white puzzle had been solved.

This puzzle enters our lives quietly. One sees a parent trying it out and that is the time when you are asked a sudden question “Tell me the name of one of the operations in WW II which is 8 letters long and starts with the letter O”. You suddenly brighten up when you remember something memorised many years back and say “OVERLORD”. “That’s correct, son. You are good” and you are hooked too. One gets married and realises that your wife and father are competing over the same corner of the newspaper. You are already in 3rd place in the race. Then you have kids and they grow up and they join the race. You just sit there and watch, no more in the race. And just like that, an ordinary grid becomes a small universe around you.

It doesn’t feel tough like chess or occupy space like a board game. It waits folded into a newspaper, tucked at the back of a magazine, already half-forgotten until someone says, “Anyone doing the crossword?”

The Spark

At first glance, it is absurdly simple to look at. White squares, black squares, clues that look easy. You start. And the first odd thing you realise about a crossword is that it knows more than you do. You sit with confidence, pencil poised, sure of at least some answers. And then, very gently, it begins to expose the limits of that confidence and shows how ignorant you are. However, a crossword never humiliates you, it just tests you politely. 

Where It Came From

The modern crossword appeared on 21st December 1913, created by Arthur Wynne, a journalist asked to invent a light word game to enliven the Sunday supplement of the newspaper, the New York World. The original puzzle was diamond-shaped with 32 clues and was called a Word-Cross - a reference to the nature of the puzzle itself. Unfortunately, a typesetting error flipped the words to Cross-Word—and the mistake stuck. Sometimes things happen for a reason. Crosswords are happy accidents that change us far more than they were ever meant to. Improved vocabulary, analysis, increased memory power suddenly seem to crown you. The weird thing about this first puzzle was it DID NOT have any black squares.

By the 1920s, crossword “mania” had taken hold. Dictionaries got sold out, crossword-solving clubs formed and some critics complained they were addictive and morally distracting. They were right though, since every new pleasure gets accused of corruption at first.

Fun Fact

Did you know there is only one person in history to earn a degree in the study of puzzles and his name is Will Shortz. The name of the degree was coined by him and it is called Enigmatology. He is arguably the most influential puzzle figure of the last 40 years and is the longtime editor of the New York Times Crossword.

The Grid

The basic structure in which it is built on is called a Grid and it is a marvel of a unique kind. It is typically 15×15 in daily newspapers (with variations across publications) with small white and black squares interspersed in them seemingly randomly. However, that is not true. An interesting convention while setting crosswords has its roots in its aesthetic appeal. A symmetry which exists for no practical reason other than beauty. A crossword grid looks the same even if inverted 180 degrees and it ensures consistency in word length. 

The Black squares are called ‘BLOCKS’ since they interrupt you deliberately and the White Squares are known as ‘LIGHTS’. It literally lights up the face of the solver when it gets filled.

Every word is both independent and interdependent and finally gets verified by others. You think you know an answer until crossing letters play spoilsport. 

An Obsession

Once one is hooked on to a Crossword, one is hooked for life. It is something you could do alone, but still feel socially connected. It is one of the few activities which rewards memory, logic, language, and intuition — all at once. And the best part is it makes you clever without being showy.  Neurologically and emotionally, crosswords create micro-victories, they stretch memory without pressure and they reward patience more than speed.

The pleasure of solving a crossword is not in winning, it is in the fitting. That soft click when letters align and when an uncertain word becomes visible. There are times when a clue that annoyed you for twenty minutes suddenly feels obvious—almost embarrassing.

A crossword is a mind-map of how humans think tentatively corrected by context. It rewards partial knowledge and allows you to be wrong safely.

Types of Crossword Puzzles

There are various types of crossword puzzles one could come across.

• American / Block Crossword - These have Symmetrical grids and definition-based straightforward clues 

• Cryptic Crossword - Every clue has two parts: a definition, which is a direct reference to the answer and some wordplay. Some clues are downright mischievous and there is heavy use of misdirection. These are very popular in the UK and India. In these crosswords, the clue lies to you and tells the truth at the same time. To solve these puzzles one must learn to unlearn literal meaning. Though there is lot of wordplay in a cryptic crossword, the clue must read like a normal sentence. Imagine a clue like this - ‘Exterior of Car Fuse, after melting’ (7). It means it is a seven letter word. Exterior is the definition. After melting is the clue which tells us that the word Car Fuse should be melted or mixed to form the word SURFACE which means Exterior. 

• Themed Crossword - These have some central idea (puns, transformations, hidden words)

• Diagramless Crossword - There is no grid given and the solver must deduce the grid structure. Extremely tough, it causes pure chaos for beginners but a joy for purists.

• Barred Crossword - Instead of black squares, the puzzle uses bars and is common in advanced British puzzles

• Rebus Crossword - One square may contain more than one letter or symbol. For example a square could contain “ING” or a number.

• Acrostic / Alphabetical / Pangram Crosswords - These are some crazy crosswords where special constraints are given (all letters used, answers alphabetical, etc.). the answer is hidden within the clue. For example - ‘All clever riddles often seem to intimidate, confuse beginners’.  The word 'beginners' is the clue to use the beginning letters in the sentence ahead of it ‘A-C-R-O-S-T-I-C’ 

The Weirdness of Clues  and Wordplay 

This is where the real magic in the crossword lies - the clues and the wordplays.

• Definition Clues - Straight meaning - “Capital of Norway” → OSLO

• Anagrams - The Indicator words are scrambled, broken, drunk, mutated, mixed, wild  which tells the solver to find the anagram in the word. For example ‘Pay attention to silent drunk’.  Anagram of Silent is Listen which means to pay attention.

• Containers - It is one where one set of letters is placed inside another to form the answer.  Common Container Indicators could be in / inside, held by, trapped in, surrounded by, embraced by etc. For example ‘Drink held in mug ‘(6) - Drink → TEA, Mug → CUP, held indicates it is a container clue → TEACUP

• Deletions - Remove letters. For example “Singer without head” → INGER

• Reversals - These are indicated by the words like: back, returned, rising. An example is “Desserts returned” → STRESSED

• Double Definitions - One word, two meanings. An example could be ‘He plays with a flying mammal or sports equipment (3) - BAT

• Cryptic Definitions - These are riddles masquerading as a clue. For example “One who works when others play” → REFEREE

• Hidden Words - The answer is hidden across words. An example could be ‘The average found in time and us (4) → MEAN

• Homophones - These are Sound-alikes. Example “We hear priest” → FRIAR / FRYER. The word hear indicates it is a homophone.

• Charades - These are words placed side by side. For example ‘I leave my pet in a Dog House (6) → KENNEL

The Setters

Behind every good crossword is a very particular kind of mind at play — the setter. They are the invisible hosts of this daily ritual. Setters love language deeply, balance mischief with fairness, making sure that while the clue may mislead you for a moment, it must guide you to the right answer in the end. They collect trivia the way others collect stamps, saving odd facts for the perfect empty square. And though they are the ones who build the puzzle, they choose to remain quietly anonymous, letting solvers take the glory of that final satisfying click. 

Something Human about Crosswords

Crosswords are deeply personal and oddly communal. People remember who taught them how to solve crosswords. In many houses, families argue over clues or who should get the chance to solve the crossword first. Some solvers never use pen; others refuse to use a pencil. 

Crosswords age with us — and that’s not a coincidence. Unlike many games that depend on speed or reflex, crosswords depend on accumulation. Vocabulary, general knowledge, cultural references, half-forgotten facts — all the things that quietly build up over decades finally find a place to be useful. As we age, something interesting happens in the brain. Processing speed may slow but semantic memory i.e knowledge of words, meanings, associations often remains strong or even improves and crossword solving needs this second kind of memory.

Memory retrieval, pattern recognition, error correction and patience under uncertainty are built over years. And emotionally, crosswords do something even more important, they offer competence without pressure. There is no clock or timer, no comparison and no penalty for stopping midway. Which is why crosswords are often recommended for cognitive resilience. Not as a cure or a miracle but as a habit of engagement — a reason for the mind to keep wandering productively. In a subtle way, crosswords honour aging.

Unfinished puzzles haunts avid solvers, not because they defeat them, but because they feel like conversations have been left mid-sentence. This is the strangest part — and the most human. Psychologically, this is a classic case of the Zeigarnik effect: unfinished tasks remain more vivid in our minds than completed ones. And crosswords intensify this effect because you can see the gaps, you know the answers exist and that you were almost there. What haunts us is not failure, it’s understanding which remains pending. People return to puzzles days later and say “I suddenly got it — in the shower” because the mind never really lets go.

Subtle Life Lessons from Crosswords

1. Confidence is good. Cross-checking is wiser.
2. At times it is okay with not knowing — yet
3. In a world obsessed with continuity and completion, the crossword uses interruption as design. Those black squares say Stop, Begin again and you don’t have to connect everything all the time
4. Every thing must justify its place twice - once across, once down.
5. What else could this mean? which, incidentally, is a very useful life skill.
6. Understanding often arrives after struggle, and looks simple only in hindsight.
7. We are not disturbed by not knowing. We are disturbed by almost knowing.

Closing thoughts

If a Crossword could speak to a solver, it would probably go like this - 

“Hello. It’s me. The morning crossword. Don’t be upset. I know you thought you’d finish me in ten minutes that optimism is adorable. Relax. I’m not trying to prove you’re ignorant. I see you pencilled that answer very confidently. We will talk again after the crossings. You’re allowed to skip clues. I’m very patient. I’ve been sitting in this newspaper since dawn. That answer you’re “sure of” but won’t quite fit? That’s because you’re emotionally attached to it. Let it go. I promise you’ll find a better one. And I don’t mind if you look up a word. Truly. Learning counts as solving. When you finally get the last word, please don’t say, “That was easy.” We both know that’s not true. And if you leave me unfinished, no hard feelings. I’ll just sit quietly in your mind until you suddenly shout the answer in the shower. We’ll both enjoy that moment.”

In the meanwhile, enjoy yourself and Proceed carefully, at a measured pace (4,4,4) (The answer is a clue for today. Leave your guess in the comments!)