THE GREATEST CROSSWORD PUZZLE

A young gentleman from Canada who is a PhD student in Sweden, has created the most remarkable American-style crossword puzzle ever constructed (IMHO).

Stephen McCarthy used all of the following tactics in constructing a puzzle labeled SCI-FI SHOWDOWN, which was published in the Sunday New York Times Magazine dated February 6th, 2022:

"Straight" clues.

"Tricky" clues.

"Difficult" clues.

Clues with double meanings.

Puns.

Clever positioning of black and white squares.

It took me several hours to get through about 90% of the puzzle, 10% more to go.  I am enjoying the challenges in this "work of linguistic art!", and I highly recommend anything this "master puzzle constructor" ever creates.

Joe Vaughan's "Puzzling" Tips (so to speak)

(These tips were outlined in a Prepop-Sez blog entry dated November 13, 2021. I've revised them a bit.)

1. If you need a magnifying glass to read a puzzle's clues, throw the puzzle away. Why ruin your eyes?

2.  If you can, cut the puzzle out and place it on a clipboard for ease of writing.

3.  If you feel safe in your puzzling, throw away the solution. (This builds confidence in time.)

4.  Use a ball-point or gel pen.  Try to not use a pencil that makes it easy to erase entries.

5.  If an error occurs, write over the ink.  

(When you use ink in solving, you are forced to think more carefully about the entries you make.)

6.  Don't feel bad if you can't solve clues such as "The Second Banana in the 1941 film 'Collegiate Fun.' 

(Nobody but the puzzle constructor and film archivist would know the answer, so don't feel bad about "googling" or using an encyclopedia.)

7. Try to solve the clue that gives the longest solution. This will open up lots of other solutions.

8.  If you get stumped at the beginning of a puzzle, try solving the clues at the end of the puzzle.

(I believe that constructors ignore the ending clues until they need "fill" to buttress the difficult beginning clues.  Often the words that are in that "fill" are easier than those difficult clues.)

 9.  If you can't finish a puzzle, drop it and try a different one.  You can revisit the unfinished puzzle at a future time, when you have become more expert at American crosswords.

So saith Joe Vaughan, alias "AHAB."

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