Citations:crosswordese


 * 1981 — Eugene T. Maleska, A Pleasure in Words, Fireside (1982), ISBN 9780671447755, page 391:
 * Make every effort to keep "crosswordese" down to a minimum. Such words as anoa, asse, ipil, gher, tola and other oddities appear in puzzles only because the constructor and the editor found it impossible to eliminate them.
 * 1986 — A. J. Carter, "Confessions of a Crossword Puzzle Addict", Newsday, 5 October 1986:
 * What was missing, he felt, was instant recall of "crosswordese," those arcane bits of English and assorted other tongues whose mission in life is to become 37 Down.
 * 1987 — David Streitfeld, "Crosswords: The People Behind The Puzzles", Orlando Sentinel, 29 March 1987:
 * "The next day, I found several more new words I had never heard of," he said. "The more you solve puzzles, the more crosswordese you ingest into your brain, your body. When I came across feudal serf the next week, I said, 'Oh yeah, esne.' In those days, they used the same words all the time."
 * 1988 — Sam Hodges, "Puzzlers Exchanging A Lot Of Cross Words", Orlando Sentinel, 20 March 1988:
 * "The Times puzzle is full of crosswordese -- words nobody ever heard of," he said. "Take today March 10. He's got the clue 'corn mush.' The answer is 'samp.' Then there's 'dwarf buffalo.' The answer is 'anoa.' It's laughable. I know these words because I'm in the business. But why should you?"
 * 1995 — "Crossword Crusader A Puzzle", Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, 23 January 1995:
 * The word games quickly evolved toward heavy use of unusual and arcane words Newman calls "crosswordese."
 * 2011 — Hilary Greenbaum, "Who Made That Crossword Puzzle?", The New York Times, 7 October 2011:
 * Will Shortz, the fourth person at the post, told me, “My goals have been to modernize the crossword vocabulary, reduce crosswordese and obscurity, introduce more playful themes and in general broaden the audience.”