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“Popular music,” the American Values Club crossword editor Ben Tausig told me, “where lots of young women and people of color are visible, is regularly dismissed as too ephemeral for a ‘Great Crossword Puzzle.’” He added, “Ephemerality is the code word exclusion is the result.”Īnd while some corners of culture are kept out of crosswords, some troubling aspects of language creep in. (Publications are anonymized in the editor feedback that follows.) MARIE KONDO wouldn’t be familiar enough “to most solvers, especially with that unusual last name.” GAY EROTICA is an “envelope-pusher that risks solver reactions.” (According to XWord Info, a blog that tracks crossword statistics, EROTICA has appeared in the New York Times puzzle, as one example, more than 40 times since 1950.) BLACK GIRLS ROCK “might elicit unfavorable responses.” FLAVOR FLAV, in a puzzle I wrote, earned a minus sign. Constructors constantly argue with editors that their culture is puzzle-worthy, only to hear feedback greased by bias, and occasionally outright sexism or racism. But one editor’s demerit is another solver’s lexicon. When editors review a puzzle submission, they mark it up-minus signs next to obscurities or variant spellings, check marks next to lively vocabulary. That crossword mainstays such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal are largely written, edited, fact-checked, and test-solved by older white men dictates what makes it into the 15x15 grid and what’s kept out. But any pub-trivia attendee-exposed to categories on craft beer or things that smell like sourdough or whatever the emcee is into-will tell you that personnel is policy. Read tweets by Awkwafina or Olivia Wilde on learning that they’ve been immortalized in the black-and-white grid-it’s the bookish version of handprints on a slab outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Hoelscher appeared, replied to Levy, and said she’d submitted the puzzle with no men, but wasn’t surprised when the Times editors changed that.Ĭrossword editors are strange arbiters of cultural relevance. Clues and answers that are stereotypically masculine are “general interest ” clues and answers that are stereotypically feminine are “niche” or “obscure” … We’re so far from that a few puzzles with exclusively women’s names wouldn’t get us there … “we acknowledge the systemic forces that threaten women, we speak up when we see those forces represented in crosswords, and we call on our community to do better.” Responding to Levy’s lament, a commenter wondered: “Why is it desirable/necessary to have women’s names predominate in crossword puzzles … I ignore the male/female body count.” Levy’s response was a perfect, full-throated call to arms for inclusivity in the crossworld:īecause women are underrepresented in puzzle content and creation. Alas, 66-Across, DEE, was clued as “Billy _ Williams,” not as the letter or the grade. “I went through looking for men’s names with mounting excitement: What if there weren’t any?” she wrote. Jenni Levy, an internist and a writer on the review site Diary of a Crossword Fiend, applauded how Hoelscher’s puzzle “passe the crossword Bechdel test.” But Levy bemoaned a “missed opportunity.” In comments sections on crossword blogs, alongside off-color jokes about hypothetical titles for a Melania Trump memoir, a debate raged. Some of the Times’ 600,000 digital-crossword subscribers finished Hoelscher’s puzzle with their thumbs, extending their solving streaks, and crossword bloggers (yes, they exist) favorably reviewed the puzzle’s theme, non-thematic vocabulary, and clues. Hoelscher posted a photo of the newspaper her husband rose early on his day off to buy, and veteran crossword constructors, as they’re called, offered congratulations in a Facebook group that develops constructors from underrepresented groups. Like lots of nerdy subcultures, the crossword puzzle has a buzzing ecosystem, and it whirred into action. It was Presidents’ Day the theme was memoirs by first ladies. Last month, Sally Hoelscher published her first crossword puzzle in The New York Times.