A Puzzling Hobby
@owlwings (43897)
Cambridge, England
January 24, 2016 1:40pm CST
One of my hobbies - well, it’s more of a pastime than a hobby, really - is doing crossword puzzles. I buy a newspaper every day mainly because it has a regular puzzle page with two kinds of crossword puzzles which are to my liking. I often only read the news after I have done the crossword!
One is a relatively easy one with short, often one word clues and I generally finish that in 10 or 20 minutes whilst having my lunch. The other is a little harder and has no clues as such, just a number in each cell which represents one of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Three of the letters are given and one has to go through the grid filling in these letters and the puzzle is then to find out what letters the remaining numbers represent. That sometimes seems all but impossible but little things like knowing that E and T are the two most frequent letters of the alphabet, only certain letters can be doubled and that certain word endings are more common than others help a great deal. The more letters you guess (correctly), the easier it becomes to guess the rest and sometimes recognising a long word can give you four, five or six letters all at once.
I enjoy crossword puzzles because I have always been fascinated by words. The puzzle makes me think (a little) which keeps my brain active, the words themselves often make me realise that some words have very different meanings, depending on the context and (very occasionally) I come across a word with which I am unfamiliar and that leads me on a paper chase through the dictionary and the thesaurus.
I often wonder whether crossword puzzles are as popular in other countries as they are here. I think that they would be far more difficult to construct in languages, like Hindi, where each character represents a syllable and an ideographic language like Chinese might have to have whole sentences rather than words!
Do you like word puzzles like this (or do you even have them in your country)? What other things, besides just passing the time, can you see them being useful for?
[Image from Pixabay]
37 people like this
42 responses
@mysdianait (66005)
• Italy
24 Jan 16
Those sound very much like the crosswords in the Daily Express with my mother did for years, including the one on Saturdays.
Here in Italy crosswords are popular but few people still buy newspapers. Those are avilable online and at every coffee bar for a free read while you drink your coffee. I never buy one unless there is an article relating to my son and his band or work.
Crosswords are available in a couple of weekly books dedicated entirely to them and those are very popular. I usually buy one if I am going away for a week but that isn't often either.
4 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
I am not sure whether newspapers are on the decline here or not. I haven't ever heard our newsagent complain about it (and he's 'prone to moan' about anything) and there are always papers on the shelf and often spaces where they've sold out. I can't imagine, however, that the daily newspaper is anything like as popular as it used to be.
I buy the 'i', which is only 40p a day (50p on Saturdays) and is really just a condensed, tabloid-sized version of the Independent. It does me (and it has a good puzzle section).
4 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
The "Faily Ecpress" amused me. You have to remember not to hit the Right Shift key. (I actually think that every keyboard should have a Right Shift, a Left Shift and also a Left/Right Up and a Left/Right Down Shift, together with a Lock for all of them! Left+Lock would then type 'siqb' for 'down' and 'yo' for 'up')
3 people like this
@mysdianait (66005)
• Italy
24 Jan 16
@owlwings Oh I am not aware of that one. Maybe it is new? I was last there at the beginning of 2012.
3 people like this
@sueznewz2 (10409)
• Alicante, Spain
24 Jan 16
I like them... I think they are called cross reference puzzles... I akso like arrow word puzzles...
3 people like this
@sueznewz2 (10409)
• Alicante, Spain
24 Jan 16
@owlwings. I like quite a variety of crosswords..... but not sudoku.... mainly just to give my brain a workout...lol's
3 people like this
@AbbyGreenhill (45490)
• United States
24 Jan 16
I was never into them, and when I tried some I wasn't so good at them. Whenever I attempted to do a crossword my eyes crossed instead of the words.
4 people like this
@Marilynda1225 (91116)
• United States
24 Jan 16
I've never been good at crossword puzzles
2 people like this
@Poppylicious (11134)
• United Kingdom
24 Jan 16
I'm good with words, but rubbish with crossword puzzles {but I can do that other one you mention}. However, I'm rubbish at maths, but enjoy Sudoku. Puzzling.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
Sudoku isn't maths (you could equally well use any nine symbols), it's logic. Some people's brains are wired for that kind of puzzle. Mine tries to be but something is not quite right and I struggle with that kind of puzzle unless I can see a table or something graphical.
1 person likes this
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
24 Jan 16
The ones that my newspaper gets every sunday are mostly copied (with permissions) from some foreign crossword puzzles and I find them difficult to solve. It is a big one with about 50 words across and down.
I still have some collection of books of crossword puzzles that were made by Indian authors (or creators) which my late grandfather had got for me to learn words and also the dictionary. I still enjoy working them out (even after so many years).
I prefer jumbles and sudokus more today as I am able to solve some of them that come on the newspaper.
Off Discussion but for the record- I could not believe that I was not following you. A Glitch?
2 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
Are these puzzles in English or Hindi (or Odia, even - a language which I only just learned about from looking up Bhubaneswar! - a very pretty script, by the way, but, again a syllabic one, like most Indian scripts)?
I think that crossword puzzles are quite a good way of learning vocabulary in a foreign language. I remember learning a few French words that way.
2 people like this
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
25 Jan 16
@owlwings I have not found an Odia version on the dailies yet. Probably they may have some in other collections (as in some books or puzzle sets), but I am unsure.
There were some in Hindi - specially on the movie gossip magazines - wherein they would have some description about the movie or the actor etc and you would be required to pull in the name. Coming away from the Hindi speaking belt, it is difficult to say if there are any Hindi Crossword Puzzle sets available today.
2 people like this
@mammots (3209)
• Philippines
25 Jan 16
We also have crossword puzzles here in my country. Some newspapers have them in English others in my native language which is Cebuano. Other newspapers and tabloids also feature the Soduko puzzle which i find more challenging and difficult to do.
2 people like this
@SIMPLYD (90717)
• Philippines
25 Jan 16
I am into playing games on my phone . That too is good in practicing your strategies on how to complete each level of the game . It's one way also to activate my brain so well.
In fact , it activates my brain so well , i don't feel sleepy at all and have to force myself to sleep because the next day i will prepare early for work .
2 people like this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
25 Jan 16
I have never been good at crosswords, mainly due to spelling. i have a huge reading and verbal vocabulary, but spelling was never my strong point.
2 people like this
@pgntwo (22405)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
24 Jan 16
Crossword puzzles were an integral part of life when I lived with my parents, and still are if visiting them. Nowadays I find they get done if I am travelling - train or plane, either affords the opportunity to buy a newspaper and do the puzzles...
2 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
I remember when I was at school in the 6th Form we used to have a go at the Times crossword. There was one guy (whose paper it was, of course) who generally managed to finish it by the end of the day (or so he claimed). I think he was probably grateful for some of the help we gave him!
Most people, I think, do them as something to amuse the mind when travelling.
2 people like this
@Fleura (35037)
• United Kingdom
24 Jan 16
I rarely have time for that sort of thing and tend to lose patience when on my own. I used to regularly do crosswords with one of my work colleagues though, every morning tea-break we would do the Times easy crossword and then progressed onto the cryptic one, we actually started to get good at that but it did mean that every now and then we would suddenly think of something and drop what we were doing to dash back to the office and see if we had got an answer. Had to give it up in the end.
I have wondered that about other languages too, I don't know if such puzzles exist in Arabic or Japanese!
2 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
Arabic would be feasible because its a literal script. It might be more difficult to read, however, since most letters have a medial, terminal and a 'standalone' form. I'm not sure about Japanese but both katakana and hirogana are syllabic, though I think that it is possible to 'spell' words literally. It is certainly possible to transliterate Western names, for example (but they often leave them in Roman).
2 people like this
@nottoooldtowrite (2715)
• Philippines
24 Jan 16
I used to do crossword pyzzles to and word hunt/find. :)
2 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
24 Jan 16
The word find puzzles are, perhaps, easier than crossword puzzles because you don't have to know the meanings of words - just be able to know what is a word and what is not.
Were the crossword puzzles you did in English, Spanish or Filipino/Tagalog?
1 person likes this
@nottoooldtowrite (2715)
• Philippines
24 Jan 16
@owlwings true. Word find just literally let your time pass. I did English crossword puzzles.
2 people like this
@allknowing (153530)
• India
25 Jan 16
i used to be an addict at solving crossword puzzles in the good old days. I do those now too but they are much too easy. I have no time to spend on tough ones. Yes I need time My minds is no longer as sharp as it used to be 
2 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
27 Jan 16
I have quite often come across an unfamiliar word and decided that I should find a way of using it in my next discussion! Also I find that some very familiar words can be a source of wonderment when one realises that they can have more than one meaning, depending on context and, sometimes pronunciation. I think that I should start keeping a notebook because I so often forget what fascinated me momentarily.
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