Re: Sudoku (and crosswords)

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 15:18:13 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> seems to have said:

On 20 Aug 2006 18:05:09 GMT, Anna Mazzoldi
<AnnaUsenet@xxxxxx> wrote in
<news:xn0eq7esmndfsf000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

[1] Italian crosswords are rectangular and each cell in the grid is
filled with either a letter or a "blank" -- in such a way that the vast
majority of letters of each word are involved in crossings with other
words. The variants I mean don't tell you where the blanks are, or they
give you definitions in random order without numbers, or both; however,
the definitions are of the "simple" rather than the "cryptic" kind.

The Italian Wikipedia article on crosswords
(<http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruciverba> has examples of what I mean.
The text is in Italian, I'm afraid, but "Parole crociate a schema
libero" is the "standard" type, while the following ones are the
"difficult" variants.

The standard U.S. crossword puzzle is similar to the
standard Italian form, but more regular: it's square, and
the pattern of 'blanks' is symmetric in some way. But the
definitions are simple, and most cells are contained in both
a vertical and a horizontal word.


Here lately the definitions are not simple: they're stupid. They're
obscure jokes about television personalities, abbreviations, weird
little injokes and puns only comprehensible to people who have been
struggling with the particular subculture of crossword puzzlers for a
long time -- or they're words of six letters or less, with no
challenge at all. Nobody seems anymore to write ones which require a
reasonable vocabulary and ability to finish out words from partials,
without the weird crap and specialized knowledge. So I hate crossword
puzzles now, though I once liked them. Sudoku has the advantage that
you don't have to know the author's taste in popular entertainment.

Lucy Kemnitzer, still
--The Donor:
the harm reduction vampire story, now complete:
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis/donor/donorweb/donorindex
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Sudoku (and crosswords)
    ... The variants I mean don't tell you where the blanks are, ... The standard U.S. crossword puzzle is similar to the ... standard Italian form, but more regular: it's square, and ... Yabbut...the typical US crossword puzzle *marks* the spaces that are to be kept ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: [all] Modern Development
    ... Do not alter Feature X. ... * Define a standard API that meets the needs of all variants. ... So being a variant maintainer becomes a minor and unnecessary task. ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.angband)
  • Re: "I am both Muslim and Christian" Ann Holmes Redding
    ... nobody wrote: ... produce one standard text, and then the variants were burned. ... both languages we could be in fact mutilating the original language as ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • contemporary names
    ... of variants of his/her name in contemporary material. ... one and same medieval document ... Already with these 'standard' variants, ... usages of their names, and frequent translations made ...
    (soc.genealogy.medieval)
  • Re: Using いつもin my sign off...
    ... >> it's not a standard way to end letters in Japan なんて ... to admit that I can't read most of this yet. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
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