How can a crossword puzzle have two valid solutions?
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- This week's all about crossword puzzles - and a particular kind of puzzle that had to be this week's topic, because next week it just won't be the same.
The puzzle is at dylanbeattie.n... if you want to try solving it - there's an interactive web version using iPuzzler, and a PDF you can print out if you prefer solving on paper.
I'm remembering a more recent example of this trick... There was a clue along the lines of "STAR (blank)" on a four-letter space and the intersecting lines could be correctly answered with different words depending on whether you had answered with WARS or TREK.
I wonder if it's possible to make that one 3-way, to account for Stargate
Now we need Cracking The Cryptic to take a crack at this
That would be cool. You think they’d be up for it?
@@DylanBeattie I'd imagine they might be! I don't properly know, and I guess it's a bit late, now (it's either happened, or it hasn't), but... in case it comes up again, and in case it didn't happen this time, would encourage you to try to make it happen!
Could have also refered to the classic Star Wars/Star Trek quantum crossword puzzle. Don't need an upcoming uncertainy, just two cultural items with the same number of letters.
Clue is “best JavaScript framework” how many simultaneous answers can you make work for that
This crossword would have a different answer every year.
@@NeunEinser s/year/week/
Zero?
@@DylanBeattie This is a great reply on different levels.
Just completed this and loved it! What a great crossword, so many clever clues - 18D, 10D and 21D were highlights as well as 27A etc and 39A!
I see you're wearing the Ones 'n Zeroes shirt from your most recent talk
Now I want a sudoku style crossword. There can only be one solution. And the fact that there only is one solution is used as as part of the solution.
There's a style of puzzle called an "alphabet jigsaw" where some or all of the clues don't have numbers, so you have to solve them first, and then work out where they go. The Guardian normally features this kind of puzzle on Bank Holiday weekends - here's a few to look at:
www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2022/aug/27/prize-crossword-no-28847
www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2024/mar/30/easter-special-cryptic-crossword-no-29344
www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2023/dec/23/prize-crossword-no-29261
my granddad loved blank crosswords. it's like the usual crosswords except the grid doesn't have the black cells, you have to "find" them yourself.
have you seen will nedigers "two for the price of one" crossword? its a full us style schrodinger!
Don't know if it's intentional, but 12a has two likely solutions which only make a difference on the first letter: one if you've already got 6d, which I hadn't initially, the other from Dirac's mathematical prediction of the positron.....hope that's ambiguous enough to avoid spoilers. You bar steward.... ;)
That is interesting, because we are also having an election here in the Colonies, and if the outcome goes a certain way, all of the solutions to every entry of every crossword, everywhere in the world, forever, will be "Overruled (5)".
"Overruled flatulence (5)" also works in UK English ;)
I love cryptic crosswords, but I'm awful at them. Probably half because I'm not native, other half because they're british and often feature some very british terms or slang.
I think we can predict who's going to be elected at this point
Interesting but it's too hard for a non-native English speaker. Or maybe I'm just too dumb.
Oh, I think it's absolutely fair to say that people who speak English as a second or third language will find cryptic crosswords challenging... for what it's worth, 99% of native English speakers don't understand them either. English is a vast and weird language *before* you turn it into cryptic puzzles - I use a program to fill in the gaps in the grid before I write the clues, and it often throws in a word or two that I've never seen before.