Western Branch Diesel Charleston Wv
"If I would be displeased to see it in a puzzle, I take it out. There are a number of free and paid word lists floating around, ranging in size from a few hundred entries to several hundred thousand. Crunchy phrases like these might not appear in a normal word list, but with some clever cluing, they can work well to glue together some smoother fill. For example, the ERHU is a two-stringed instrument with Chinese roots with a spelling that lends itself to being crosswordese, but at the time of writing, it has never appeared in the New York Times Crossword. An example she gave me was her puzzle with the phrase LANE CLOSED, which she added to her word list after seeing it on a road sign. Meanwhile, ED ASNER, an actor best known for playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran in the 1970s, has appeared in the New York Times crossword 41 times. Most construction programs come with preinstalled word lists, but they also allow the user to create their own, or to import lists downloaded from the internet. Every constructor I spoke to mentioned these word lists were a huge boon when they were first starting out. Matt Ginsberg, who has published 50 puzzles in The New York Times, told me he used a machine learning algorithm to score his word list, and constantly scraped websites such as Wikipedia and online dictionaries to find words to add to his collection. Every constructor has a different methodology for scoring their personal word list, the same way a painter may prefer one brush or pigment over another. Colorful bird named for its diet crossword not support inline. One of the reasons they appear so often is because they are extremely useful in crossword construction. "I really like signs and instructions in the world around you, " she said, "words and phrases that you see, and they're ubiquitous, they're not in word lists. " But as a result, crosswordese is stuck in the pre-Internet era. Anybody can download a word list, but how they use it is what makes it special, and a good word list cannot replace the skill and feedback necessary to make a great puzzle.
If I think it's offensive, I take it out. The internet word lists tend to place a higher weight on words that have appeared in published puzzles before, so crosswordese like ORE and ERIE tends to appear disproportionately often. "A word list isn't going to tell you that there are two really hard answers crossing each other. The alternating pattern of vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant makes for easy filling of tricky corners or ending stacks. By using autofill, a constructor's job is made easier. The higher a word is scored in a list, the more likely the software is to use it. The database was created by Erica Hsiung Wojcik, a Skidmore College professor and a crossword constructor, as a way to increase representation in word lists after she noticed white men were overrepresented in crossword grids. If I think something is just meh, I take it out. "We love when it truly feels like a craft, something that a human designed. Colorful bird named for its diet crossword net.org. A recent example he gave was PSAKI, as in the White House press secretary Jen PSAKI.
When Mr. Ezersky is stuck in a tricky part of a grid he is constructing, he uses answers such as AC TO DC or ATOMIC GAS. Ms. Hawkins likes to add what she calls "utility language" into her word list. There are resources for constructors looking to diversify their word lists, such as the Expanded Crossword Name Database. If we were to go by the New York Times Crossword, Lake ERIE would be the most dazzling body of water on Earth. For a long time, the main tools of a crossword constructor were graph paper and a dictionary. Some database inclusions are things that seemed like obvious puzzle words to Ms. Wojcik. Mining ORE would be the most lucrative business venture. It has appeared over 1, 350 times. Editors like Mr. Ezerky are looking for those moments. A number of constructors also told me that they would remove a word if they thought an editor wouldn't accept a puzzle for including it. He gives extra weight to new jargon, film titles and especially anything that he thinks will generate interesting theme or revealer entries. Ross Trudeau, who has published 40 puzzles in The New York Times, told me that since the list of words that editors find acceptable is only so long, many constructors' word lists are actually very similar. ORE and ERIE are examples of crosswordese, words that appear often in crossword puzzles but rarely in day-to-day conversation. Colorful bird named for its diet crossword nt.com. For example, Amanda Rafkin, associate puzzle and games editor at Andrews McMeel Universal, told me that she sometimes spent two or three hours just rescoring words in her word list.
"Any new three-, four- or five-letter word is gold" and gets added to his word list immediately, Mr. Trudeau said. "As a human, your tastes change, it all depends on how the pieces stack up as a whole, " said Sam Ezersky, a New York Times digital puzzle editor and a constructor. However, Mr. Ginsberg also mentioned that this style of word list management could sometimes make his puzzles feel "synthetic, " and that he envied constructors who used language that was more personal to them. Constructors will also prune their word lists to keep out words they don't want in their puzzles.
Etiquette blunder, embarassing social mistake: faux pas. IBM competitor semiconductor business: qualcomm. Binks is exiled from his tribe in Star Wars: jar jar. French term for wine steward or connoisseur: sommelier.
Knight's servant: squire. Pungent smelly cheese with sandwich of same name: limburger. Boat that has a cabin for the crew, cabin __: cruiser. Building used for spiritual rituals: temple. Pennsylvania's first English colonists: quakers. Popular amusement park chain with banners: six flags. Awkward and not graceful: ungainly. Outer layer of skin that holds pigment: epidermis.
Goods delivered for pay; cargo: freight. Painter who practiced Tachisme, Jean __: fautrier. Device to measure fractions of time; used in races: stopwatch. Four: a group of Marvel Comics superheroes: fantastic.
Farthest planet from the Sun: neptune. Bear native to North America: grizzly. Modern word for a close male friendship: bromance. Almond cookie pastry from Sicily: ciarduna. Female x-men mutant introduced in 1978 codycross 1. Another name for the spine: backbone. A permanent alteration that changes a DNA sequence: mutation. Family originators of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: gracie. Group of young actors in teen movies in the 1980s: brat pack. Foo __, Dave Grohl formed this band after Nirvana: fighters. Broke free: escaped. Miming game; "two words, a movie": charades.
Crowdsourced encyclopedia: wikipedia Plum bran slivovitz. Italian goalkeeper, won World Cup 1982 at age 40: dino zoff. A majestic tree named after a great man: sequoia.