CROSSWORDS: Ashland.news | CommuniCrossings

Crosswords

Fun new Ashland word game (nine letters):
Ashland.news Crossword weekly puzzle leaps into action with -- what else? -- 'Oh, deer'; AN; 2/2/2024
To list all crosswords, select top menu item Ashland.news > Culture > Crossword ("Crossword Archives"),
or select the Go to > Home » Culture » Crossword path link at top right of each crossword
The latest crossword might appear on the main page -- until replaced by other more recent items --
under one or more of these section headings:
Latest Posts [ top right]; Viewpoints & Columns [middle of page]; Explore More... [bottom of page].
Search (magnifying glass icon): "Crossword"
If you aggregate info across different sites using an RSS app (Really Simple Syndication),
Ashland.news crosswords are included in these RSS feeds: Ashland.news and Steve's Crosswords; feed with articles about Steve.

1228 panda — Confused Panda
free for use under Pixabay Content
License from pixabay.com

Common Questions -- Answered

Which Formats Are Available?

There are several ways to access and solve crosswords:
1. Online app: solve a crossword interactively in a web browser,
preferably on a larger screen with a physical keyboard.
Check and Reveal commands can provide help.
If the incorrect (previous) crossword appears in the Archive page (a browser caching issue),
Reload/Refresh the page, or click title at top to open it in a new window.
If the crossword is not visible, e.g., Chrome displays a gray box,
or for a larger view, click on provided link to open crossword by itself in a new window.
Although it is possible to solve on a smaller device, e.g., phone or mini tablet,
seeing clues and entering answers may require more scrolling of the
limited puzzle area and hiding/showing of the on-screen keyboard.
2. Paper: download crossword and solution .pdfs to print yourself,
or ask a friend with a printer. Budget-friendly ink saver format.
Pick up hardcopies of Ashland.news (and other) crosswords and solutions
at Ashland and other Jackson County Library branches.
3. Offline app: download crossword data file (.puz) to open in a solving app
(.puz available from Steve's crossword page).

Why Crosswords?

Quotes from Will Shortz, 4th NYT crossword editor:
"With a crossword, we're challenging ourselves to create order out of chaos."

"As human beings, we have a natural compulsion to fill empty spaces."

"Solving crosswords eliminates worries. They make you a calmer and more focused person."
An animated gif of MRI images of
a human head by Dwayne Reed;
Creative Commons Attribution
-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
from Wikimedia Commons

Well-designed crosswords are a fun and challenging pastime, whether by yourself or with a partner or friend.
A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine Evidence showed that brain shrinkage
(in MRI images) was less in crossword solvers than players of some other mental games.
By building a cognitive reserve, you might even delay the onset of dementia.

Where Can I Find Crosswords?

Many newspapers license puzzles for their print edition and websites from national syndicates such as
New York Times (NYT), Tribune (LA Times), McMeel (Universal), Arkadium (Newman, Sheffer, ...).
You can access their web sites often for free (with ads).
Site list: crosswordfiend.com [image on right]
Steve's site list and crosswords (including Ashland.news).
For local crosswords, hand-crafted for the Rogue Valley community with regional topics,
events, people and organizations: Ashland.news > Culture > Crossword.
Ideally, solvers might like a daily Ashland.news crossword.
However, that's impractical without an influx of crosswords from other pro bono constructors
or focusing on minis (which have limited local content). 1-2 crosswords/month seemed too infrequent.
A weekly crossword seems just right -- and sustainable for a few years, given current ideas in the queue.
Jackson Country Library crosswords typically include some local entries and clues,
and use the theme of that quarter's Reading program.

Who Creates and Edits Ashland.news Crosswords?

Steve Weyer is Ashland.news crossword editor and chief constructor.
He has been a cruciverbalist (crossword aficionado) and logophile (word buff) since the 1990s.
In 2002, he developed CrozzWord, a mobile app for crossword solving [image: on Zaurus, right].
Since 2011, he’s taught crossword courses at OLLI
and constructed crosswords for friends and local organizations: Steve's crosswords
(communicrossings.com also hosts this FAQ and OLLI course materials).
His first NYT crossword debuted recently: Wed, Nov. 1, 2023 [image: below].
Steve has lived in the Rogue Valley since 2006. When not solving or constructing crosswords,
he volunteers with Ashland’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT),
adventures with the Ashland Hiking Group, and enjoys craft beer (he’s a zythophile).
In his professional career, he developed and managed software in Silicon Valley with research interests
in e-books, learning environments, programming languages, mobile devices and AI. [Longer bio].
Steve's wife, Maria Geigel, provides feedback on draft puzzles.
Tod Davies of Ashland.news reviews and makes suggestions.
We welcome your feedback, suggestions and questions: crosswordeditor@ashland.news

How Can I Improve My Solving Skills?

Practice, patience, persistence and perspective are good starts.
Pick puzzles of appropriate level of difficulty that also challenge you.
A crossword’s difficulty depends on the words used, phrasing of clues and type of theme.
NYT crosswords increase in difficulty through the week: Monday is easiest, Saturday the hardest;
larger Sunday (21 x 21) and Supermega (50 x 50) [below right] take longer and seem more daunting,
but are similar in actual difficulty to mid-week crosswords.
Ashland.news crosswords will aim for a Tuesday-level of difficulty.
Use the Check and Reveal commands in the interactive crossword version
or peek at part of the printed solution for a boost if you get stuck.
Search online for a word, name or entire clue.
Click "Explanations of selected entries, theme, clues, etc.: (spoilers)"
in a crossword posting to provide additional info/insights.
No, it’s not really cheating -- unless you're in a tournament or bragging about your solving time.
It’s all about learning and enjoying what you’re doing.
The more crosswords you do, the easier they will become.
NYT: How to Solve The New York Times Crossword
NYT: Mini to Maestro (3-part series): Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced
Attend one of Steve’s OLLI crossword courses or local presentations.

What’s a Theme?

A theme is an idea or pattern that ties together the longest (usually Across) answer entries,
which might be single words, phrases, or a combination of words -- symmetrically placed.
Many newspaper crosswords feature themes, with themeless crosswords later in the week.
There are many kinds of themes, e.g., categories, idioms and embedded letters or anagrams.
A puzzle’s Title or Note (if any) might provide a hint about the theme,
e.g., "Under Construction" title for example on right.
A Reveal entry (often last) might explain the theme and refer to the theme entries,
e.g., Under Construction's 59-Across: "Constructor's do-or-die instinct?
17-, 27-, 38-, 45-, 59-Across circles: crossword constructor's checklist"
Figuring out the theme can often help in solving other theme entries,
and offer a satisfying meta-challenge of discovering a puzzle-within-a-puzzle.
Theme entries in Ashland.news will typically refer to local people, organizations,
fauna, flora, places, news and events in Ashland, our region and beyond.
The theme might be informative or serious, but more often,
the crossword will aim for playfulness, and possible punniness, in themes, clues and answers.
Don't expect difficult themes, e.g., rebus -- where a square can contain more than 1 letter.
Theme ideas and entries come from serendipitous inspiration and solver's suggestions;
a suggestion might be as simple as an idea, idiom, event or organization, preferably with a resource link;
best would be 2 pairs of matching-length theme entries, each 9-15 letters, e.g., 15,12,12,15; 11,13,13,11; etc.;
an optional 5th entry would be odd-length and appear in the center.
Although theme entries will generally follow standard crossword conventions,
the Dalai Lama has said: "Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively."
To create crosswords for an otherwise unworkable set of theme entries,
a very long theme entry might be shortened by abbreviating words
or by moving words to a FITB (fill-in-the-blank) clue, e.g., ___ of the ___.
To keep idioms/phrases readable and long enough, some theme entries might include the same word.
Two shorter entries might be combined to create a longer theme entry, e.g., aaaaaaaaabbbbbb,
with a compound clue, e.g., "Two sequences: 1) clue for aaaaaaaaa [9 letters]; 2) clue for bbbbbb [6 letters]"
Some titles reflect an ongoing series, which riff on a theme, e.g., Oh, Deer! #01,
or a yearly occurrence such as a theater season, e.g., Rogue Theater Company 2024.
This means that you can expect to see more of these in the future,
though usually not right away in order to provide variety.

Theaters

In addition to the length/word constraints mentioned above, some theaters do not stage or announce
enough plays to fill a crossword. For example, SOU and Ashland High School each advertise 1-2 plays
separately in the Fall, and later, 2 plays for Winter or Spring -- if each provided an annual schedule,
a crossword combining most productions from both SOU and AHS might be possible.

Restaurants, Wineries, etc.

By popular request, a crossword series -- "Eat One's Words" -- features local restaurants, cafes, coffee shops,
delis, wineries, brew pubs, etc.
The geographical scope is Ashland, plus other nearby members of the Ashland Chamber of Commerce,
minus non-local chains/franchises and gift shops.
The list of establishments (e.g., Ashland Chamber of Commerce, Tripadvisor, Ashland.news: sponsors, etc.)
is ever changing and sometimes incomplete/incorrect, so only those assumed to be "open" are included,
i.e., those with a valid/updated web site at the time of the crossword was constructed.
If it's known prior to publication that an establishment has subsequently closed,
the clue will be amended with a note, e.g., as for Black Sheep Pub in "Eat One's Words #01."
Suggestions of newly opened or overlooked establishments are welcome;
these may be added to crosswords later in the series.
Entries are chosen from a combined pool of entries and grouped mostly alphabetically,
rather than separated by category or cuisine, which provides more flexibility.
In some crosswords, all names might share a common letter, e.g., 'B' in puzzles #01, #02, #03.
However, given the distribution of names across the alphabet (and earlier entry length constraints),
some crosswords might feature several letters. The note appears with each puzzle provides
a hint about letters used, e.g., * entries feature 'A,C,'.
Entries with unusual names can be difficult to describe
-- these may be clued in a charade-like style for individual words or syllables , e.g.: a + b + c+ d

What’s a Grid?

The grid is the layout of letter and dark squares.
Examples on right: mini, free form (aka criss-cross); below: American, cryptic
American-style grid by Michael J.,
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Unported via Wikimedia Commons

Ashland.news crosswords will usually be 15 x 15 in size, symmetric,
and follow typical crossword rules and conventions.
Smaller “mini” themeless crosswords might occasionally appear.
In a fully-crossed US-style crossword, every letter square is part of both an Across and a Down entry
vs. British-style cryptics (lattice-like) or asymmetric, vocabulary-style, free-form or free form word puzzles.
British-style grid by MeekMark,
public domain
via Wikimedia Commons

Many crosswords have rotational symmetry, i.e., when they're turned upside down,
the pattern of white squares and dark squares (blocks) and
the rows containing paired-length theme entries appear in the same places.
Other types of symmetry might be used: left/right, diagonal.
If the number of theme entries is odd, an odd-length entry appears in the center row,
e.g., Under Construction example earlier.
If letter sequences are highlighted (circled), a Title, Note and/or Reveal entry might explain why,
e.g., common embedd element/category or anagrammed letters.
Editors prefer that these sequences span across phrases, but they might be split instead,
or perhaps occur only within a single word.

What’s Fill?

Fill: other words/phrases added to the grid after the theme entries are set.
Generally, fill entries are at least 3-letters in length.
Identical words (and word roots) are generally avoided,
though repeated letter patterns may appear.
Crosswordese -- i.e., obscure words and abbrev. that appear in dictionaries
but are rarely encountered in real life -- should be minimal.
In "quantum" (aka Schrödinger) crossword [on right], 2 fills are possible
for 39-Across crossed by 23-, 27-, 35-, 39-, 40-, 41- and 42-Down.
In Ashland.news crosswords, expect to see names/words
that are familiar only to locals and references to Rogue Valley organizations
and cultural events and to Shakespeare (while hopefully avoiding "bardolatry").

How Should I Read Clues?

The format or syntax of a clue is almost as important as its content.
For example, noun plurals, verb tenses, foreign language, abbr., etc. are mirrored between clue and answer.
Another convention: answer words should not appear in clues or title.
Shorter clues are preferred by most publications, not only for their clarity
but also for print publication constraints, usually ~1600 total clue characters for a 15 x 15 crossword.
Some Ashland.news clues may be more verbose and redundant or dual-difficulty:
with a more obscure, ambiguous or punny 1st half to challenge experienced solvers,
and a more straightforward 2nd half to reduce beginner frustration;
some clues provide local flavor and details -- unfamiliar to a national audience.
Some entries that are phrases might include a hint, e.g., "(3 words)";
compound entries might include a clue and length for each part, e.g., "1) ... [9 letters]; 2) ... [6 letters]"

house constr. — Construction works at a prefabricated house
by H. Raab (User:Vesta); 2 May 2006;
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
from commons.wikimedia.org

How Are Crosswords Made?

The construction process follows the topics outlined earlier and highlighted in the Under Construction example:
create a theme, lay out the grid, fill in other words, craft the clues -- then distribute or publish.
There are no automatic AI generators to construct quality crosswords, at least not yet.
Crosswords are still human-crafted, with assists from construction apps and word databases
for grid layout, finding fill words and writing clues. One editor imagined the crossword as
"a part of the newspaper that seemingly shows up automagically each day, probably done by
crafty little Keebler elves with ink-stained hands when no one in the newsroom was looking."
AI crossword tools use an LLM (large language model) to generate free form entries and clues from a suggested topic.
In a recent test using Doggerel theme, entry selection and layout (ignoring format differences) were similar;
clues were quite different -- perhaps AI could eventually incorporate difficulty and canine audience perspective.
Auto-generating a fully symmetric crossword, especially themed, would be a greater challenge.
DoggereLLM (AI version from "dog sounds" prompt): interactive; .pdf: puz, sol
construction zone by granth
license: CC BY-SA 2.0
from openverse.org

Doggerel (Steve's version; Ashland.news 5/15/2024): interactive; .pdf: puz, sol
NYT (5-part series): How to Make a Crossword Puzzle
video: How a Crossword Puzzle Gets Made; 3:32
e-book: Crossword Constructor's Handbook by Patrick Berry; $10; .pdf
Attend Steve’s OLLI Constructing Crosswords course or local presentations.

How Long Does It Take to Construct a Crossword?

Construction time depends on the constructor's skills, tools, computer speed, and the crossword's complexity.
Words that cross or abut the main theme entries often severely constrain nearby fill options,
which can lead to backing up, moving theme entries, modifying the grid and even starting over.
Minimizing crosswordese and crafting original clues take time.
For Steve, a typical crossword for Ashland.news, from idea to publication,
might take 8+ hours to construct and publish, spread over several days.
Constructing steps (similar to those outlined earlier):
select initial theme entries of appropriate lengths (discussed earlier: Theme and Grid)
draft clues for those to ensure clarity and consistency
create an initial grid layout
fit satisfactory fill words, modifying theme placement or grid if needed
clue all entries, either crafting original ones or copying from a clue database
review, review, review
Publishing steps:
edit text and links for the crossword Note, and Ashland.news page Intro and Spoiler section
generate and review .pdfs for the puzzle and solution
edit, preview and revise crossword template on the Ashland.news web site
post to the world on early Friday morning

Are There Submission Guidelines for Ashland.news?

Nothing official yet. We generally follow most common guidelines from other publications
about number of entries, blocks and 3-letter words, and types of fill words and clues.
Read earlier theme, grid, fill and clue sections for insights about Ashland.news' evolving approach.
Besides themed, symmetric 15 x 15 crosswords, we might consider themeless crosswords, minis and even an occasional free form puzzle.
After review and acceptance, your main rewards, for now, would be local fame and valuable experience.
Contact crosswordeditor@ashland.news if you have questions.

How Do I Solve Crosswords in My Web Browser?

The interactive app should be fairly simple to use for a 15 x 15
crossword on devices with a larger screen and physical keyboard.
Although it is possible to solve on a phone or mini tablet,
seeing clues and entering answers may require more scrolling of
the limited puzzle area and hiding/showing of the on-screen keyboard.
For details about navigation, entering letters, settings and other commands,
use the File:Help command [image: right] or see the summary below;
some options vary by device, i.e., size of screen and kind of keyboard.
click/tap (mouse/trackpad/gesture): on a square or clue
keys: A-Z, space, Delete, ← → ↑ ↓, Tab, Enter, Home, End, Insert, Esc
buttons/menus:
Check: Letter, Word, Puzzle
Reveal: Letter, Word, Puzzle
File: Help, Info, Notepad, Rebus,
Print, Clear, Export JPZ
Settings: filling, arrow keys, space bar, tabbing, misc.
00:00: timer
Applet used: Crossword Nexus HTML5 Solver (open source code*);
*local version for Ashland.news crosswords includes: File:Help, File:Rebus;
other crossword sites using this applet: Jonesin'; Alex Boisvert; Brendan Emmet Quigley (BEQ);
or upload a .puz/.jpz file: here or crosswordnexus.com

Why Consider an Offline Solving App?

Solving occasional crosswords online in your browser is simplest.
However, if you access crosswords from multiple sources
and would like to solve offline, i.e., while not connected to the internet,
there are some advantages to installing and using a standalone solving app.
Besides Check, Reveal, Print commands and more format settings,
a solving app provides a more consistent user interface, i.e., puzzle layout and
navigation commands, compared to different interfaces on multiple web sites.
Apps designed for smaller devices, esp. with no external keyboard,
may include a custom, compact on-screen keyboard
and make better use of the screen area.
The app opens a crossword data file that contains the grid layout, clues,
solution and meta info (Title, Author, Copyright, Note), e.g.,
.puz: aka "Across Lite format"; most commonly used
.jpz: a more open and flexible format
Example solving apps:
Across Lite Mac, Win, iPad; .puz only; free [image: on Mac; top right]
Crosswords Android, iOS, iPadOS; .puz, .jpz; $ [image: on iPad; on right]
XWord; releases: Mac, Win, Lnx; .puz, .jpz; free (open source);
XWord can automatically download crosswords for selected sites
More details and other solving apps
Where to obtain .puz/.jpz versions of a crossword:
Download crossword files to your device from web sites, save email attachments, transfer via AirDrop, etc.
browser app: File: Export JPZ -- blank grid for Ashland.news (and other sites using Crossword Nexus HTML5 Solver)
browser app: download .puz or .jpz using "Crossword Scraper" browser extension (Firefox, Chrome)
-- this works on many other crossword sites too, e.g., NYT, LAT, WSJ, ...
download .puz or .jpz from the links in Ashland.news crosswords listed on Steve's web site;
crosswordfiend.com for other publications
to reduce clutter, .puz/.jpz links are not included currently in Ashland.news crossword articles;
however, with enough requests, they could be added later.

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