![]() ![]() Over time, the crossword became less oriented toward children, and adults started to do them in the local paper, too.īut there also existed prizes immaterial, for whoever picked up the pen was participating in a joyful mental exercise, Raphel says. (*Some items were too bulky to deliver to the country.) For 50 credits, they could get a crossword book. The list of winners was published each week, and with their credits, that fortunate club could reap a reward of their choosing.įor 10 credits: a pencil box, a toy pistol*, crayons, agates, marbles, rubber ball*, eraser, sand pail and spade*, bead necklace, novelty brooch, dime bank, magspellnet*, paper dolls, tie clip - every child needs one -tiddlewinks, fairy tale book, dominoes*, spinning tops, toy models, or cut-out postcards. A broadsheet worksheet that didn’t feel like school. It promoted proper usage, proper grammar and spelling. ![]() “Age as well as neatness will be considered in awarding prizes.” Ten credits were given each week to the fifty neatest and most correct answers to the weekly puzzles, half of the winning entries allotted for children in Winnipeg and the other half in “the country.” “Boys and girls 13 and under may try,” the rules read. Solvers sent in their solutions, with cool prizes at stake). Three consecutive letters of the alphabet backward. Three consecutive letters of the alphabet. ![]() On March 14, 1925, the clue for 1 Across was “Vehicle,” and 2 Down, a two-letter word descending from the middle letter of the first one across, was clued “Like.” And then there was the crossword, published in the 1920s under the title “Solve Polly Evans’ Cross Word.” But it wasn’t meant for adults: it was designed “for our boys and girls,” and was divided into two categories: across, and up and down. There were single-panel cartoons, accompanied by poems, scientific lessons, and tales following a character called the Jungleland Detective. In the Free Press, they called it the Story Section. Soon, newspapers across North America, including the Manitoba Free Press, made room in their pages for that little grid. A book-length compendium published by Simon and Schuster sold thousands of copies, and Wynne’s creation spread like the juiciest of rumours through a high school cafeteria. The Word Cross crossed words.īy 1924, the crossword puzzle was a smash, Raphel says. Names change all the time: Thailand was once Siam Norma Jean Baker became Marilyn Monroe Tennessee’s Oilers are now the Titans. And it didn’t take long for colleagues to tell Wynne like it was. The result was an inky symbiosis between publication and subscriber: the paper printed emptiness, and the reader filled it up. A recently developed technological advance allowed for simple printing of blank grids, and the editor decided to pair empty quadralinear boxes with clues, turning fun-page devotees into verbose detectives. “It was an extra-large holiday edition,” says Adrienne Raphel, author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them. Christmas was around the corner, and Wynne was stressing over what sounds like it should be an enjoyable task: assembling the newspaper’s fun section. He worked for the New York World newspaper, and the year was 1913. ![]() A diversion.Īrthur Wynne was an editor who had what could be seen as either a problem or a beautiful thing: space to fill. Iotas of knowledge, coming in handy.Ī ritual. Little morsels of semantic information that take up residency inside the brain, proving they were never wasting space. A Russian nesting doll of trivia that during the act doesn’t feel at all trivial). To set out in the northwest and persevere until there are no more vacancies at the alphabetical hotel. To treat them like a mailbox and stuff them with hand-written letters. Ha! Good luck, they shout.īut those empty spaces also invite them. Sometimes, so much so they consider launching it across the room like a Soyuz rocket. See the full story - with clue text, pictures and several downloadable puzzles - here. This page provides the complete text of the story without the puzzle elements. Readers had to solve the puzzle to find words in the story. The Free Press published a version of this story with an accompanying crossword puzzle. Free Press 101: How we practice journalism. ![]()
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