What sound does a crossword puzzle make? Sounds are very useful for crossword writers, especially since their spelling is often so flexible. Some of the sounds crossword writers put in their puzzles can be a bit dubious. Has anyone ever actually shrieked “Eek!” upon spotting a mouse? More people have surely written EEK into a crossword grid than have shouted that while standing on a chair in the kitchen, since you see it in puzzles all the time. Let’s look at some other examples, including from last week’s Daily Beast puzzles. On Thursday we had TEE-HEE clued as [Laugher’s sound], plus […]
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Grid patterns aren’t the most important aspect of a crossword, but it’s nice when they have a nice look to them. “Grid art” is also a thing in puzzles, where the black square pattern makes some identifiable formation that relates to the puzzle’s theme. A noteworthy recent example is this grid from January , where the black squares form the new year 2020. Here’s another example, where the writer put SWISS ROLL in the grid at 16-Down, and then the black square pattern forms the shape of one in the grid. My favorite grid pattern for a 10×10 puzzle, hands down, […]
Iran envoy to UN: Any return of sanctions will be met severely by Tehran by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor, …with PressTV, Tehran [ Editor’s Note: We knew the US was going to lose this vote along with everybody else. Pompeo was just going through the motions, as we can expect to US to announce sanctions on anyone doing any arms sales to Iran. I can’t image anyone doing that who was not already on the list except for some of the EU countries. China and Russia of course voted no, with eleven abstaining that included Britain, France, and Germany The […]
Charo Woodcock cleans a classroom at McClelland Elementary School in June in Indianapolis. Students across Indiana are already back in school in a mix of in-person and online instruction. Darron Cummings/AP hide caption toggle caption Darron Cummings/AP Charo Woodcock cleans a classroom at McClelland Elementary School in June in Indianapolis. Students across Indiana are already back in school in a mix of in-person and online instruction. Darron Cummings/AP In Indiana, school has started up for many students — or will in the next week. It’s one of a majority of states where local districts will make most of the decisions about […]
99% of crossword solvers begin a puzzle at 1-Across. That’s not wrong, but here’s a super-secret pro tip: there’s an even better strategy. Spend a few seconds scanning the puzzle for fill-in-the-blank (FITB) clues, and write in any of those that are obvious. Then go back to 1-Across and proceed; you’ll be solving the same puzzle, but with a few “freebie” answers already filled in. FITB clues are just what they sound like: those clues where, instead of getting a synonym, description, or other hint at the answer, you’re given a blank space in which you must, as Taylor Swift sings, […]
We had ANG LEE in Thursday’s puzzle, which makes a crossword writer feel good. Why? Because I was able to use both the director’s first *and* last names in the grid. You see first *or* last names all the time in crosswords, of course, so it’s fun to surprise the solver with a full name. It wasn’t that tough to fit ANG LEE in there, however, since it’s only six letters long, plus it’s full of common, easy-to-use letters. Six-letter celebs appear a lot in crosswords, notably AL GORE, AMY TAN, YO-YO MA, and ED KOCH. No full-name credit for sneaking […]
The grids I used on four of last week’s five puzzles all had something in common: they contained eight six-letter entries, which is a lot for a small crossword grid. This was on purpose. Why? Because six letters is what I call “breakout length” in crosswords. Entries of three, four, and five letters are extremely common, of course, and there are relatively few of these words in the language due to their short length. This means the same ones get repeated all the time in puzzles – ERA and ERE, ERIE and ARIA, EERIE and ARENA – you know the ones […]
What do IDINA Menzel, ANI DiFranco, NAS, Kelly RIPA, IRA Madison III, RIC Ocasek, Peter O’TOOLE, and Rita ORA all have in common? That’s easy, if you’re a puzzler: they all appear in crosswords much more commonly than do other celebrities of equal fame. In fact, all of these celebs appeared in last week’s Daily Beast puzzles (ANI even showed up twice!). Why are these stars so “crossword famous”? Because their names have letters that crossword writers find very useful. Lots of vowels and lots of common letters — think 1-pointers in Scrabble like R, S, T, N, L, E, and […]
CNN contributor Van Jones has responded to a Daily Beast article accusing him of secretly working with President Donald Trump on a police reform executive order, saying he had nothing to do with it and demanding a retraction. The article is based on “false, sensational charges – apparently designed to get clicks, shares, and likes,” Jones tweeted on Monday. He added that he had visited neither Washington, DC nor the White House since the Covid-19 pandemic started, or been included in any meetings about police reform. “I didn’t know what was in the [executive order] until the day it was released,” […]
A former Gawker editor suing The Daily Beast is getting help from a set of right-wing trolls, including a Trumpy conspiracy site, white nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin, and a company tied to far-right agitator Charles Johnson. In 2019, The Daily Beast published a story about how the relaunch of Gawker collapsed after two full-time writers resigned in protest for what they claimed were offensive comments made by then-editorial director Carson Griffith. After Splinter published a story that included Griffith’s old tweets using gay slurs and racial stereotypes about Asians, the two writers, Maya Kosoff and Anna Breslaw, went to Bustle Digital […]
Watch FFWN above, click HERE for links to the stories we covered J. Michael Springmann stars, sporting a Palestinian keffiyah in honor of Nakba Day (last Friday) and Quds Day (this Friday). Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He is host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard driving weekly radio show funded by listener donations at Patreon.com and FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN); a audio-video show produced by Tony Hall, Allan Reese, and Kevin himself. FFWN is funded through FundRazr. He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS […]