{"id":335,"date":"2013-12-27T12:51:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-27T20:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/?p=335"},"modified":"2013-12-27T12:51:24","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T20:51:24","slug":"french-crosswords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/2013\/12\/27\/french-crosswords\/","title":{"rendered":"French crosswords"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>It turns out crosswordese is universal. <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/ROIJmpdur9\">pic.twitter.com\/ROIJmpdur9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Alex Boisvert (@al_ex_b) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/al_ex_b\/statuses\/370133010173001728\">August 21, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been solving some French crosswords lately (well, trying to) and let me tell you, they are desperately in need of a Margaret Farrar-type figure there.  Some things they have to deal with that we don&#8217;t:<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Unchecked squares!  I had a recent puzzle where I was left with DAN_Y and there was really no way of knowing what the blank was going to be.  I had to look in the back of the book.<\/li>\n<li>Two-letter words!  This might not seem like that big of a deal to you, but (for example) you essentially have to know every symbol on the periodic table.<\/li>\n<li>Crosswordese!  Oh, the crosswordese.  You think we have it bad?  How about <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ili_River\">Ili<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Omo_River\">Omo<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Japanese_yen\">Sen<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Omo_River\">Oeta<\/a>, to name a few.  They also have to deal with words we thankfully haven&#8217;t seen in ages, like UNAU, AI(S), and the like.  Maybe it&#8217;s just getting used to a new vocabulary, but it sure seems like a lot.<\/li>\n<li>Naturally, the crosswords are unthemed and asymmetric, but that honestly doesn&#8217;t bother me that much.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anyway, as we hit the hundredth anniversary of the crossword, I just thought you might like to be thankful for how far our crosswords have come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out crosswordese is universal. pic.twitter.com\/ROIJmpdur9 &mdash; Alex Boisvert (@al_ex_b) August 21, 2013 I&#8217;ve been solving some French crosswords lately (well, trying to) and let me tell you, they are desperately in need of a Margaret Farrar-type figure there. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/2013\/12\/27\/french-crosswords\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-puzzles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexboisvert.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}