Puzzling

Today's the day!   One hundred years ago, on 21 December 1913, Arthur Wynne published the first crossword ( you can try solving it here !). He called it 'Wordcross' ... But a few weeks later, a typesetter made a mistake and wrote Crossword ... And we've called them that ever since! This puzzle has grown in that time to be one of the most popular puzzles around, worldwide. To celebrate this special occasion, Google and famous American setter Merle Reagle got together and created this interactive crossword .  And from me, here is a new cryptic clue competition for you all to enter! Rule Thingies 1) Write an anagram clue for the word CENTENNIAL . Your clue has to contain a definition for CENTENNIAL, an anagram indictor, and the anagram fodder (an exact anagram of CENTENNIAL). See below for more information. 2) Submit your clue as a comment on this post. Please sign your clue with your first name or alias (especially important for those of you posting A...

This year marks the centenary of the crossword! It was invented by Arthur Wynne , a British journalist working in New York at the time, on the New York World . Part of his job was to put together a page of puzzles for the Sunday edition of the paper. On 21 December 1913, he put in a new puzzle of his own invention — a Word-Cross Puzzle . A few weeks later a typesetter at the paper made a mistake, and set 'Cross Word Puzzle' instead of its original name, and then another mistake led to the hyphen being dropped — giving us Crossword. I will go into the further history of the crossword in later posts, but for now, I thought you'd like to see what this first crossword puzzle looked like! Later on Wynne added more black squares to separate words, and changed the numbering and the shape. But this diamond design was the very first one! Have a go at solving it, if you like  :) Answers are below (select them to view them). I've given links to more information on the...

In wandering through the world of crosswords you may have come across puzzles called cryptic crosswords. And they certainly are just that — completely cryptic and incomprehensible! Instead of a regular 'synonym' clue that you'd find in any self-respecting normal crossword  (such as: Nocturnal mammal (6) - the answer to which is BADGER), you are presented with totally ridiculous clues like Dogs going up in big rocket (5) or Writer's enclosure (3)! Cryptic crosswords are a variation on 'regular' crosswords, where each clue is a mini wordplay puzzle. Once you've 'cracked the code' on how to read them, they are wonderful fun to solve, and a great mental workout. They're my favourite puzzle to solve, and to write (so much more interesting than just writing definition/synonym clues!). Crosswords were invented by Arthur Wynne in 1913 — a Brit living in America. His invention rapidly grew in popularity, and leap across the oceans to the UK. In Brita...