Inside Crossword Puzzles

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. Doing crossword puzzles is a great mental exercise, and one of the reasons that these puzzles are such a good workout for your brain is that crosswords are less about what you know and more about how you think about what you know. For example, if I need a three-letter a word and the clue is it has a certain ring to it, the answer is tub. It has a certain ring to it.

Oh, because you it’s the dirty ring of soap and and stuff that’s left when you’re washing the tub.

Got it. Yes, yes. So you you look at that word ring and you have to think about it in a different way.

Or for example, if you need a four-letter word that means dog holders, dog, dog holders. Four-letter word? Four letters. Paws? Maybe. The one I was looking for was buns. It’s a different kind of dog.

Oh, hot dog holders. Buns. Gotcha. Or one more for you. If I’m looking for a five-letter word that means heavy breather at the movies. Five letters. Heavy breather at the movies.

I don’t know.

I am your father.

Oh, a Vader.

I see.

A Vader.

And all of those clues are taken from published puzzles.

And I found them in a great new book about crosswords.

And I want to talk about that book a little more later in the show.

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