Editing Talk:2896: Crossword Constructors

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The top ten most common letters in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, and the percentage of words they appear in, are:
E – 11.1607%
A – 8.4966%
R – 7.5809%
I – 7.5448%
O – 7.1635%
T – 6.9509%
N – 6.6544%
S – 5.7351%

source: https://www.rd.com/article/common-letters-english-language/  <small>[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.187|172.69.58.187]] ([[User talk:172.69.58.187|talk]]) 22:29, 19 February 2024 <span style="color:grey; white-space:nowrap;">''(please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~</nowiki>~~)''</span></small>

At least one of those "words" is already available
...oreta is a genus of moths: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreta  <small>[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.64|162.158.154.64]] ([[User talk:162.158.154.64|talk]]) 22:36, 19 February 2024 <span style="color:grey; white-space:nowrap;">''(please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~</nowiki>~~)''</span></small>

: {Yoko} "ONO" was over-played in crosswords a few years back. "ORONO" (university town in Maine) was over-favored by one constructor. Not to mention a sandwich cookie. [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 22:39, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
:: "ONO" has also entered English from Hawaiian, where it means (a) good to eat, delicious; (b) the {{w|Wahoo}} (<em>Acanthocybium solandri</em>), a species of fish. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.247|108.162.245.247]] 02:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
::: Doesn't "ono" also mean "six" in Hawaiian? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.43|172.70.214.43]] 22:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
:”Eni” is an Italy-based oil company.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.36|141.101.68.36]] 02:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

In contrast to crosswords in german newspapers, those in american newspapers are typically not dense, right?
“Our” crosswords rarely have a single unused square.
And this is obviously easier to compose if you can choose from more words. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.123.39|172.71.123.39]] 22:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
: "crosswords in german newspapers, those in american newspapers are typically not dense, right?" 
For a quick overlook, Search Engine "NY Times Crossword", images.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ny+times+crossword&tbm=isch
The NY Times puzzles are as dense as commonly seen in the US. Much simpler puzzles abound, and brain-busters can be found, but the NYT puzzles are very typical well-done puzzles. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 00:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
:I was looking around the internet for an example, and I found this example: https://www.50plus.de/spiele/raetsel/kreuzwortraetsel-1.html
:If this is what you are talking about, Games World of Puzzles calls this a "Pencil Pointer" puzzle. I think technically the name is "Swedish Style" according to Wikipedia. They aren't typically the kind you'd find in an :American newspaper, but I do see them on occasion.
:Generally, the American style ones are less dense than Swedish but more dense than British cryptics.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.195|172.70.175.195]] 00:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
::Also, American puzzles almost always have rotational symmetry (at least 180 degrees, sometimes all four 90-degree turns)[[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 01:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)


I'm confused, on reading the Explanation, as to whether these words are wanted for crossword ''clues'' or crossword ''answers''. I thought I knew, but it looks like other people might have the other idea. Either:
#In order to fit something perpendicular to several other words, in a dense and/or symmetrically-gridded puzzle, it ends up asking for a (currently) fictional string of letters that cannot be given a valid 'Easy' clue. They're seeking to make "2024 Nicki Minaj hit song (5)", or similar, to become that, soon enough that they can publish the whole puzzle that they're otherwise happy with. Or,
#For a cryptic clue with an anagram/subselection element, they want a way to include, letters that they've found them unable to mix in otherwise. e.g. "Taylor Swift's 'Oreta' with Tenacious D's initial spin (7)" -> "rotated" (ok, awkward example, but best I could back-contrive at a moment's notice... As opposed to something like "Turned a bit of carrot at Edinburgh (7)", which would ''already'' work Ok for the exact same answer), using various typical tricksy and misleading mannerisms of a Cryptic...
#...or both? Being only a(n unskilled) ''doer'' of crosswords, not usually a compiler of them, I might well be missing the details that someone deeper into crossword-lore takes for granted.  [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.143|172.69.195.143]] 02:01, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
:Most likely Cueball and friends are constructing American-style crosswords and want to use ORETA, ENTA, and similar words as answers in their puzzles, so that they could clue them with "2024 Nicki Minaj album", for example. (I imagine that when John Lennon entered into his second marriage, crossword constructors of America rejoiced since they now had a well-known person that they could use as a clue for ONO.) Since the letters in their proposed album titles are common, I doubt that a cryptic crossword constructor would be hoping for such "words" to exist so that they could use them in clues. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.150|108.162.216.150]] 04:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
::To be precise, I think they want to ''be able to use'' ORETA, ENTA, etc. in their puzzles, should the other words in their puzzles fit together in such a way that ORETA, ENTA, etc. would be used as answers. It's not like they're starting with a blank grid and saying "I really want to use ORETA in this puzzle"; rather, they often find that putting other words together might lead them to have ORETA as an answer. But since ORETA isn't a good choice for an answer nowadays, they have to change some other word that it would cross with in order to produce an answer other than ORETA. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.82|172.70.127.82]] 09:48, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
:My initial reading was that these were awkward series of letters that appear within words that they're otherwise struggling to find clues for, but I guess why not all three.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.24|141.101.99.24]] 09:38, 20 February 2024 (UTC)


did any of yoy check out the new fnf rodentrap mod? i think it ws peak :) --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.188|172.69.79.188]] 08:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)


Should main page include possibilty that there is no intended meaning in these words? {{unsigned ip|172.71.94.236|14:20, 20 February 2024}}
:If you can explain what you mean (I'm not entirely certain, you leave it somewhat ambiguous), you can possibly include itself.
:(Unless you mean to edit the [[Main Page]] itself, which wouldn't be either right or technically possible, as you stand.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.166|172.70.91.166]] 15:45, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Are there existing albums by the named artists that are like the words suggested?  --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.6.107|172.69.6.107]] 18:20, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
:^^^^^That was what I wondered. When I have time I might pop Ed Sheeran's albums into a crossword generator and see what I come up with... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.60.177|172.69.60.177]] 21:56, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
::None of these artists' albums have names anything like the "words" suggested by Cueball and friends in this cartoon. The most unusual names among them, I would say, are {{w|Ed Sheeran discography|Ed Sheeran's albums}}, most of which are named after mathematical symbols. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.102|172.69.59.102]] 05:33, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
:::I think the point being that these are pop-culture artists ('pop' as still rooted in the original 'popular', rather than necessarily the specific subset that defines 'pop music' culture itself, naturally). Even *I* have heard of these prolofic artistes, though I might have miswritten as "Minage" and (ridiculous as it sounds!) "Weekend", etc. I couldn't tell you what their songs/albums were named as (doesn't one of them call her albums a number, the age at which she created them?), but I could look them up. By contrast, some of the other fields wherein such constructed names might be introduced would be a bit more obscure or untimely, e.g. scientific instrument acronymical names on space probes/landers. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.117|141.101.99.117]] 13:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
::::{{w|Adele}} is the singer whose albums all have numerical titles relating to her age, although now it seems more like the age when she started writing the songs rather than when the album was released. Her album ''19'' was released when she was 19, but her album ''30'' didn't come out until she was 33. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.152|172.70.100.152]] 09:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
:For the NYT crossword, there's a good database of clues and answers at https://www.xwordinfo.com. Some (partial) album names that have been used in the crossword in the past couple years are YAYAS from the Rolling Stones' "Get Yer Yayas Out!", RASTAMAN from Bob Marley's "Rastaman Vibrations", Steely Dan's "AJA", Nas's "I AM", Radiohead's "KID A", Alicia Keys' "AS I AM", Kanye West's "YEEZUS", Beck's "ODELAY", ELO's "OLE ELO", and Genesis's "ABACAB". None of these by those specific artists, but the point is more that they're some of the biggest active artists right now than that they're known specifically for making album names with weird letter combinations.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.67|162.158.158.67]] 17:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Is no one going to mention "Mr. Weeknd"? The thought of going up to him and addressing him by "Mr. Weeknd" is really funny to me [[User:Phlaxyr|Phlaxyr]] ([[User talk:Phlaxyr|talk]]) 18:12, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
:You might get told "No, Mr. Weeknd was my father. Please, just call me The..." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.211|172.70.91.211]] 23:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
:Mr Weeknd is usually the result of overindulgence on the Friday night.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.172|172.70.90.172]] 09:11, 22 February 2024 (UTC)