The finalists at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament wear giant headphones to block out the noise of the crowd and color commentary. As it happens, the white noise being pumped into them is the pre-recorded sound of a United Nations cocktail party. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “American Crossword Tournament”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
The finals of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament are always exciting. You have hundreds of people in a ballroom of a New York City hotel, and they’re all watching these finalists who are standing there at the front, in front of easels, trying to work these giant versions of an incredibly hard crossword puzzle. And they’re wearing these noise-canceling headphones.
And Grant, you remember that, right? Because you did color commentary for them back in the day. And there’s other noise in the room, too. People are moaning if they see an error because you can see the solution, right? The contestants can’t see it.
But what I didn’t know until I read it in the blog of Deb Amlin, who blogs about crossword puzzles for the New York Times, I didn’t know that the white noise that they’re listening to in their noise-canceling headphones is a recording of hundreds of voices speaking in different languages at a United Nations cocktail party.
Whoa! Isn’t that crazy? Isn’t that crazy? So in case there was a real voice accidentally slipping through, it’s going to be completely disguised by the voices in the headphones.
Exactly. Isn’t that wild? Or, you know, when you were doing the color commentary, you would use the person’s name, right? This or that contestant, and that could be distracting. And I’m told that it sounds pretty much like white noise, but there’s something about the idea of listening to cocktail party chatter. I wonder if it’s distracting or if it’s successful as white noise.
Apparently it is. We should ask the winners. Now, these people are such great crossword players that they could probably solve these things hanging upside down from the bottom of an airplane, right? In their sleep, yes. In their sleep. And they solve puzzles in about three to four minutes that would take me probably all day or maybe even a week.
Never for me. Staggeringly awesome talents. I’m thinking of Trip Payne and Tyler Henman and people like that. If you’ve got a secret about language that you want to share with the world, this is the place to do it. 877-929-9673. Or send in an email to words@waywordradio.org.
