The following is reprinted from The Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
In the 1920s, a crossword puzzle craze swept the nation that drove some people over the edge: a man shot his wife when she wouldn't help him and another man killed himself leaving a suicide note in the form of a crossword puzzle.
Here's the story of how crossword puzzles came to be and why it took over twenty years for The New York Times to convince itself to carry the puzzles.
OriginArthur Wynne was a writer for the game page of the New York World at the turn of the 19th century. One winter afternoon in 1913, while trying to think up new types of games for the newspaper's special Christmas edition, he came up with a way to adapt the "word squares" his grandfather had taught him when he was a boy. In a word square, all of the words in the square have to read the same horizontally and vertically, like the example below. But in the new puzzle Wynne came up with, the "across" words were different from the "down" words. It was more challenging, since there were more words to work on. Wynne's puzzle, which he called a "Word-Cross," debuted on Sunday December 21 as planned. And it was well-received. So many people wrote in to praise the puzzle that he put one in the paper the following Sunday and again on the third Sunday. (See if you can solve the World's First Crossword Puzzle)Reversal of FortuneFour weeks after the puzzle first appeared, typesetters at the newspaper inadvertently transposed the words in the title to read "Cross-Word." For some reason, the name stuck - and so did the puzzle. When the World tried to drop it a few months later, readers were so hostile that the paper reversed itself and decided to make it a permanent feature of the puzzle page instead. Though the puzzles were popular with readers, they were decidedly unpopular with editors. Crosswords were difficult to print and were plagued with typographical and other errors. In fact, no other newspaper wanted any part of them. So for the next 10 years, if you wanted to work on a crossword puzzle, you had to buy the World.Enter Simon and SchusterAccording to legend, in 1924 a young Columbia University graduate named Richard L. Simon went to dinner at his Aunt Wixie's house. A World subscriber and a cross-word devotee, she asked where she could buy a book of crossword puzzles for her daughter. Simon, who was trying to break into the publishing business with college chum M. Lincoln Schuster, told her there were no such books … and then hit on the idea of publishing one himself. M. Lincoln Schuster (R) and Ricahrd L. Simon (L). Photo: Simon & Schuster The next day, he and Schuster went to the World's offices and made a deal with the paper's crossword puzzle editors. They would pick the newspaper's best crossword puzzles and pay $25 apiece for the rights to publish them in a book. The pair then used all their money to print The Cross Word Puzzle Book.Hot off the PressesIt was literally an overnight success. The World's crossword puzzlers flocked to stores to get copies, and by the end of the year more than 300,000 crossword books had been sold. The book turned Simon & Schuster into a major publisher. (Today it's the largest U.S. publishing house and the second-largest publisher on earth). It also started a major craze. Crossword puzzles became a way of life in the 1920s. Newspaper started adding them to increase circulation. They inspired a Broadway hit called Games of 1925 and a hit song called "Crossword Mama, You Puzzle Me." Sales of dictionaries soared, and foot traffic in libraries increased dramatically. Clothes made with black-and-white checked fabric were the rage. The B&O Railroad put dictionaries on all of its mainline trains for crossword-crazy commuters.Crossword CasualtiesSome folks were driven over the edge by the craze. In 1924, a Chicago woman sued her husband for divorce, claiming "he was so engrossed in solving crosswords that he didn't have time to work." The judge ordered the man to "limit himself to 3 puzzles a day and devote the rest of his time to domestic duties." In 1925, a New York Telephone Co. employee shot his wife when she wouldn't help with a crossword puzzle. And in 1926, a Budapest man committed suicide, leaving an explanation in the form of a crossword puzzle. (No one could solve it.) Eventually, the craze died down. It took The New York Times to revive it. Today, The New York Times crossword puzzle is considered the puzzle of choice for hardcore addicts, but that hasn't always been true. Believe it or not, the Times resisted crosswords for more than two decades. Here's the story of how the newspaper changed its mind.Hard TimesBy the late 1930s, the crossword puzzle boom that started in 1924 had begun to fizzle - largely because the crossword puzzles in most newspapers had become predictable. They constantly repeat boring clues like "Headgear" (hat), "Writing instrument" (pen) and "Woody plant" (tree). But readers of The New York Times never got bored with their crossword puzzle … because the Times didn't have one. Then, as now, the Times considered itself America's "newspaper of record" and the guardian of journalistic standards. It scoffed at crossword puzzles as "a primitive form of mental exercise" in a1924 editorial, and refused to print them. Eighteen years later, it was one of the last puzzle holdouts among America's major newspapers.All this and World War IIStill, the Times had crossword puzzle fans on its staff. Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger is said to have loved crosswords almost as much as he hated having to buy copies of the rival New York Herald Tribune in order to get them. And as America teetered on the brink of war in the early 1940s, the mood at the paper began to change. Less than two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Lester Markel, the Times' Sunday editor, dashed off a memo to his superiors suggesting that they consider adding a puzzle to the Sunday paper. The pressures and demands of the war played heavily on his mind. "We ought to proceed with the puzzle," he wrote, "especially in view of the fact that it is possible that there will now be bleak blackout hours - or if not that, then certainly a need for relaxation of some kind of other … We ought not to try to do anything essentially different from what is now being done - except to do it better." Markel had met with Margaret Petherbridge Farrar, senior crossword puzzle editor at Simon & Schuster, and he attached a memo from her:The Herald Tribune runs the best puzzle page in existence so far, but they have gotten into a bit of a rut. Their big puzzle never ventures even one imaginative definition, and lacks the quality that I believe can be achieved and maintained. We could, I dare to predict, get the edge on them. I don't think I have to sell you on the increased demand for this kind of pastime in an increasingly worried world. You can't think of your troubles while solving a crossword … Getting StartedThe argument worked. The Times hired Farrar away from Simon & Schuster and made her its crossword editor, a position she held until she retired in 1969. The first puzzle appeared on February 15, 1942, in the Sunday magazine section. (Weekday puzzles weren't added until September 1950.) "The puzzle," writes Times reporter Richard Shepard, "was an instant success." Under Margaret Farrar's direction, the crossword "constructors" (freelance puzzle makers) developed a clever and elaborate style. Instead of giving clues like "Stinging insect" (bee) and "Bird's home" (nest), they phrased them as "Nectar inspector" and "Nutcracker's suite." The Times' clever, whimsical style almost single-handedly ushered in a crossword renaissance, as newspapers all over the U.S. followed its lead. Today, more than 90 percent of newspapers around the world have crossword puzzles, and, according to a study by the U.S. Newspaper Advertising Bureau, 26 percent of people who read newspapers regularly attempt to solve them.Setting the PaceThe New York Times crossword puzzle sets the standard that other puzzles follow. Here are just some of the informal (but strictly followed) "rules" that were established by the Times' example: There can be no unkeyed letters - letters that appear in only one word of the puzzle. Every single letter of the puzzle must be part of both a horizontal and a vertical word.
Puzzling Facts
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| The article above is reprinted with permission from The Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out! | |
Alex Santoso's Blog Posts
Here's the very first crossword puzzle, designed by Arthur Wynne. It appeared in the New York World on December 21, 1913.
| 2-3. 4-5. 6-7. 10-11. 14-15. 18-19. 22-23. 26-27. 28-29. 30-31. 8-9. 12-13. 16-17. 20-21. 24-25. 10-18. | What bargain hunters enjoy. A written acknowledgment. Such and nothing more. A bird. Opposed to less. What this puzzle is. An animal of prey. The close of a day. To elude. The plural of is. To cultivate. A bar of wood or iron. What artists learn to do. Fastened. Found on the seashore. The fiber of the gomuti palm. | 6-22. 4-26. 2-11. 19-28. F-7. 23.30. 1-32. 33-34. N-8. 24-31. 3-12. 20-29. 5-27. 9-25. 13-21. | What we all should be. A day dream. A talon. A pigeon. Part of your head. A river in Russia. To govern. An aromatic plant. A fist. To agree with. Part of a ship. One. Exchanging. To sink in mud. A boy. |
Quite a while ago we had a little surprise for three of Neatorama's top commenters. It's our way of saying thank you for participating and making the blog better by commenting. Back then, I dropped a hint that we would do it again (at an unspecified future date) - and to qualify this time, you'd have to be a registered user on the blog.
Well, folks, it's time. I'd like to congratulate ted, Ali S., and Justin for winning a brand new Apple iPod shuffle 1GB (or $50 by PayPal if they live outside of the US).
Here's a screen shot of the Top Commenters for March 2008:
(Yes, other people had more comments than Ali S. and Justin, but they weren't registered users as of the time I write this post - sorry guys!).
We'll do this again, but like last time, I won't tell you when. It'll be unannounced - because it's not a ploy to boost up commenting (the last time we did this, there was a brief spike in comments, which then leveled off as I suspected it would). It's simply a "thank you" for Neatorama's most loyal readers/commenters. And yes, the next winners will also be registered user of the blog (Register here - it's fast and easy).
By the way, everyone has an equal chance of winning - the top commenter list is updated (reset) on a monthly basis.
Congratulations again to the winners and thank you everyone for reading and commenting on Neatorama!
Image: DC Comics
The New York Times has a fantastic interactive gallery featuring Al Jaffee's fold-ins for MAD magazine from the 1960s to the present.
This one above, titled "Who Wants to be President More Than Anything"
is from the June 1964 issue, with the captions of "Rich candidates Rockefeller and Goldwater would fight hard in any pre-convention debates, weakening unity, so nixing idea was best for party's chances to beat Johnson." When folded, the unmistakeable image of Richard Nixon emerged (it would be another 4 years before Nixon did indeed become president).
Not to be missed: Link - via Gorilla Mask
Photo: Andreoli
That's the "Neverending" bookshelf, made out of Corian by Italian designers Luca Nichetto and Andreoli. Link
It's just one of the many bookshelves featured on this very specialized "Bookshelf Blog" - via Metafilter | If you like this, you'll love Freshome's feature "30 Most Creative Bookshelves Designs"
Okay, okay - this one is an oldie but still a goodie. Remember the famous 2003 Honda ad "Cog" (some say the best Honda ad ever)? It took 606 tries to shoot the 2 minutes-or-so clip - no trick photography or computer graphics was used. If you don't remember (or want to see it again), here it is:
[YouTube Link: Honda Accord "Cog" Ad]
Well, here's the spoof version (well, "sweded" but this was done well before the term was invented), also made without any computer graphics, but I'm pretty sure didn't take 606 takes to make:
[YouTube Link: Honda Spoof Ad]
BTW, 118 118 is a telephone directory service in the UK. They're quite famous for having spoof ads featuring the two mustachioed men (the "118 118 twins"). Here are a couple of their ads:
[YouTube Link: 118 118 A Team]
[YouTube Link: 118 118 Flashdance] Disturbing! You've been warned.
And lastly, here's another spoof of Honda's ad. This time the famous Honda Choir ad (first clip is the ad, the next clip is the spoof):
[YouTube Link: Honda Choir Ad]
[YouTube Link: 118 118 Choir Ad Spoof]
From Nekogames (of Cursor*10 fame, blogged about previously on Neatorama), here's a fun little Flash game by Yoshio Ishii, titled Hoshi Saga. The object of the game is simple: find the star. You've got 36 levels.
Link (Can anyone help me with stage 29?) - Thanks Akiro!
Update 3/31/08: Here's Hoshi Saga 2 - Thanks Akiro and CaptainHairy!Kids love weird food - and this one may actually be good for them. Behold, the Pickle Sickle (yes, a frozen pickle juice popsickle!)
Why is it healthy? Well, supposedly vinegar used in the pickling process helps prevent blood-sugar spike after a high-carb meal.
The company also said that their stuff may satisfy the cravings of expectant mothers!
Link - via Miss Cellania
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning."
- Rich Cook, author
In honor of news that Jason Statham is going to star (as Frank Martin) in the third installation of The Transporter series, Always Watching has compiled the top 10 most outrageous moments from the previous two films.
I quite like the original (better than the second one), so here's hoping that the third will be somewhat decent!
http://www.alwayswatching.org/features/top-10-most-outrageous-moments-transporter
Sadly, there is no info about the "who", "where" and "when" of this vide, but the what is pretty obvious: an awesome dance off between two handicapped dancers!
Link [embedded Break video]
Previously on Neatorama: One Legged DDR
Step aside Tonya Harding, there's a new (ex-homecoming) queen of mean in Redneckville. Here's the story of one Donna Sturkie-Anthony:
Police said Sturkie-Anthony's sister came to visit her at Lincoln Mobile Home Park on Route 30 in January, and the two started arguing about her alcohol abuse. Then, police said Sturkie-Anthony pulled off her sister's prosthetic leg and beat her with it. [...]
"The police, they call for backup when they come up here to deal with her," said another neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "They know who she is."
Link - via Super Punch
It's like the theremin of the 21st century: behold, the beamz Music Performance System:
Breaking the laser beams with your hands automatically generates pre-authored pulses, streams, riffs or loops of musical notes or sounds from a variety of instruments — all kinds of strings, keyboards, winds, percussion. Sophisticated high-fidelity sounds seem to pour off your fingertips like
magic!
http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__BZ100 - via GeekAlerts
Squids not only have sharp beaks - their beaks are made from one of the hardest materials found in nature. Yet, these beaks are attached to soft tissues with the consistency of Jell-O. Why don't squids get cut every time they eat?
Now, a team of scientists at UC Santa Barbara discovered the answer:
To solve the mystery, the research team painstaking studied the chemical composition of the sharp beak of the Humboldt squid. They found that the components in the beak — polysaccaride chitin, water and protein enriched in the compound Dopa and amino acid histidine — slightly change in quantities between the tip and the base. Dopa is concentrated at the tip, and gradually decreases as it moves toward the beak, the researchers found.
When mixed with water, the beak becomes increasingly soft and bendable as it moves toward the mouth. However, when the base dries out, it becomes as stiff as the tip.
"Nature takes care of the problem by changing the beak composition progressively, rather than abruptly, so that its tip can pierce prey without harming the squid in the process," Zok said. "It's a truly fascinating design!"
Link - via Scribal Terror
This has got to be the lamest/strangest excuse for a crime ever: blaming bigfoot for being a child molester!
A man who claims that he was molested by Bigfoot as a child was ordered to serve 20 years in prison yesterday for his own molestation-related activities.
Morrill told an investigator preparing his pre-sentence report about being sexually assaulted by the legendary Bigfoot, a North American folklore character said to be between 7 and 10 feet tall, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Patton said Morrill really believes the assaulted happened.
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/032008/03262008/366262 - via Cabinet of Wonders
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