Crossword Puzzles or Tricks My Father Taught Me

There are a couple of tricks to doing crossword puzzles.

My dad, who did the New York Times Crossword in ink for most of his life, taught me some. Like most people, I started by doing all clues going across, then the ones going down, then back to those going across, then down, etc. Dad told me, "What you want to do is work in blocks. Try answering all the questions in one section, then move on to the next. If you fill in a couple of letters when the question is still fresh in your head, you have a better chance of remembering the answer."

It took me a few weeks of getting lost and filling answers in the wrong boxes, but he was right--the "block system" made things a lot easier.

Another trick isn't really a trick at all--it's just learning to recognize the designer's tricks and shortcuts. Like "awn" means the bristles on a head of wheat, while "seta" is the proper term for the bristles on a pig. Or that some designers use puns and some like slang--the more obscure, the better.

Dad said he learned the block system from his Uncle Henry, my grandmother's brother. He also passed on another piece of advice from Uncle Henry, who was a college professor of English: "When you're taking a test and you come to a question you can't answer, leave it and go on to the next one. By sitting on the question, not only do you waste your valuable time, but you may find a related question you can answer, which will trigger your memory." That one earned me a respectable GPA through high school.

It's also good advice for doing crossword puzzles. If you can't figure out a clue, leave it and come back to it later--you'll usually find the answer.

And yes, I do the NYC Times crossword in ink. Most days. Saturdays are a bear.