Every December I look back on the year of NYT puzzles, highlight some that caught my eye, and pick my Puzzle of the Year. There’s little suspense for the Outstanding Achievement of 2011 but read on anyway. There is much to celebrate this year.
Grids
As usual, I start with a few statistical observations. The biggest is that 2011 was not particularly a year of groundbreaking technical accomplishments. Joe Krozel had the least inky grid of the year with 24 blocks but that’s six more than his record set just last year. Seven puzzles had 25 blocks, including two by Patrick Berry. Mr. Krozel did manage to blow through the old record for most blocks in a 15x grid with 56. Julian Lim had the lowest word count (58) but again, well off the record. Only one grid managed a Scrabble Average over 2.0. For the second year in a row, we had two puzzles with two quad stacks of 15-letter answer words but no new stacking arrangements appeared.
Records were broken for most C’s and most R’s in a 15x grid, and records were tied for most M’s, P’s, and V’s. I call this one the official record for most T’s. There are 51 T’s in that grid, every answer contains a T, and every clue starts with a T.
Creativity
Grid records may not be falling but this has been a strong year for grid creativity. David J. Kahn gave us our first schizophrenic puzzle in nearly five years. Read the JNote on this crazy grid by Jeff Chen. Jonah Kagan has a sophisticated math/science theme. Jeremy Newton and Tony Orbach had us traveling around the grid by opening doors we had to find ourselves, and this Yin/Yang grid is simply gorgeous.
Each group of three consecutive black squares formed a BAR in this puzzle and then Mr. Kahn followed up with his own BAR hopping theme. Jeremy Newton included a familiar melody from Beethoven. Brendan Emmett Quigley tipped us off about his impending fatherhood. Within hours of the announcement of the death of Steve Jobs, Kevin G. Der created this tribute puzzle.
My favorite NYT crossword tradition is the year-end Elizabeth C. Gorski visual theme puzzle. If it weren’t for the diabolical genius of the eventual winner, this would have been my puzzle of the year.
Answer words
After going a bit out of fashion last year, ERA regained its spot as the most popular answer of 2011. TEN was, surprisingly, in the top three. New words introduced this year include BLOODLUST, ELENAKAGAN, USUALSUSPECTS, GROUNDEDFORLIFE, SIDVICIOUS, HANNIBALLECTER, BLINGBLING, MEH, NAPOLEONCOMPLEX, ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM, GETAROOM, BATGIRL, ACMECORPORATION, CHEFBOYARDEE and about 3,000 more. Oh yeah, including UPTHEWAZOO. Surprising debuts include not just MOLTENCHOCOLATE but plain old CHOCOLATE too.
New constructors, and a few gone missing
Congratulations to the 38 constructors who debuted this year. In order, they are David Hanson, James Tuttle, Chris A. McGlothlin, Jessica A. Hui, Victor Barocas, Steve Salitan, Albert R. Picallo, Robyn Weintraub, Erik Wennstrom, E. J. Masicampo, Gareth Bain, Michael Farabaugh, Nina Rulon-Miller, Jeff Dubner, Alex Vratsanos, Angela Olson Halsted, David Steinberg, Kelsey Boes, Milo Beckman, Joseph Samulak, Tom Baring, Paul Johnson, Johanna Fenimore, Caleb Rasmussen, Ellen Leuschner, Kurt Mueller, Janie Smulyan, Parker Lewis, Dana Delany, Kay Anderson, David Gray, Ben Fish, Dan Feyer, Barry Franklin, Sara Kaplan, Rolf Hamburger, Timothy Polin, and Louis Zulli.
A few constructors fell off the radar in 2011. The great Manny Nosowsky may well have published his last NYT crossword. Even so, his lifetime Shortz-era total of 246 puzzles including 29 Sundays is not going to be eclipsed any time soon. The other heavy hitter missing from the 2011 list is the frequent mentor Nancy Salomon. Richard Silvestri had at least one puzzle every year from 1993 but not this year. Sarah Keller had an 11-year streak end and one of the most creative constructors, Karen M. Tracey, was absent in 2011 as well. Beloved bloggers and podcasters Brian Cimmet and Ryan Hecht hung up their microphones and shut down their website.
The most prolific constructors were, as usual, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon who had an acrostic published every second week plus three cryptics. Ignoring variety puzzles, the clear winner was Patrick Berry with 19, including six in a row. The only others in double digits are Peter A. Collins with 12 and Ian Livengood with 11.
The rise of conservatism
Why do grids seem less ambitious this year? It could be just coincidence or merely the pendulum swinging back. It could also be that loud voices in the blogosphere inveighing against gimmick puzzles are changing the trend. The respected puzzle critic Amy Reynaldo often zeroes in on the least lively fill, marking down any grids with too many overused, obscure, or crosswordy answers. I mean this literally – she grades each puzzle. Extreme grids or complex themes almost always mean an above average level of junk in the fill.
Personally, I can tolerate all kinds of junk fill in the service of a delightful theme but mine seems to be a minority view. Some of my favorite puzzles are built around the craziest gimmicks; connect the dots, fold the paper, constrain the available letters or use them all, stack the 15s, shade the circles, reorder words in the clues – it’s all good. My hope is that Will Shortz continues to encourage innovation. We need both the crossword Brahms continuing to polish the classical forms and the crossword Stravinsky breaking all the rules and upsetting the critics and allowing a little (or even a lot of) dissonance along the way.
The Puzzle of the Year
The counter-argument, of course, is that it’s possible to both be highly creative, even gimmicky, and still be smooth. The Patrick Berry “Cross” Word Contest is Exhibit A. Of course it’s my Puzzle of the Year, but even Mr. Berry had to resort to EEL, ITAL, LAIC, ENNUI, ASTI, ASEA, ARE, ORR, ETTA, TAR, EMTS, IDI, EGAD, and so on to pull off his masterpiece.
Let me be absolutely clear about my level of enthusiasm for this six-day challenge. It’s the best word puzzle I have ever done. If somehow you missed it, don’t worry, I haven’t and won’t give away anything important.
If you have a NYT puzzle subscription, go to this page to download the set. You want to print these out so either download the PDFs or download the Across Lite files and then print them. One puzzle, the Friday, is only available as a PDF (although I have a proof-of-concept web-based solving page that sort of works.)
If you don’t have an NYT puzzle subscription, these puzzles alone are worth signing up for it and then you’ll get access to eight new puzzles a week plus the archives going back to 1996.
What makes this set of puzzles so good? Remember, it’s a “Cross” word contest. Each of the first five puzzles brilliantly introduces a variation on the “Cross” theme. On their own, they are outstanding puzzles. By the time you solve number six and realize how everything fits together, check your jaw. If it hasn’t dropped, you haven’t yet figured out all the levels.
Update:
Looking for another opinion? Deb Amlen and some guy named Will Shortz have now posted their own separate year-end retrospectives on Wordplay. Mr. Shortz may have included even more stats than I did.
the mia list does create a bit of a pang -- but it's a relief to know that karen is part of the sunday washington post team (and, in fact, has the 1/1 puzzle!).
great wrap-up, jim. and huzzah for defending your preference for a delightful theme. i'm right there with ya!
happy 2012!!
;-)
Posted by: janie | 12/30/2011 at 10:07 PM
Nice write-up, Jim.
Posted by: Patrick Merrell | 12/31/2011 at 05:00 AM
Thanks for the great year-end content analysis and commentary, Jim. It's interesting to see that chocolate was on so many constructors' minds this year. I think I may have used it in a puzzle once myself.
Glad to see Emily and Henry remain the most prolific constructors. Please keep those acrostic puzzles coming!
Oh, and like you, I don't mind a few Oonas and ollas in the interest of a clever puzzle theme....
Posted by: Cyn Morris | 12/31/2011 at 10:58 AM
Hi, Jim. Thanks for the recap of 2011. Nice work.
No surprise, I will agree with you on the PB pick for crossword event of the year. Lots of other great puzzles, and I haven't take a look back for favorites, but one I noticed, noted by Evan K. in comments on Deb's post, was the Ode to Joy puzzle from Jeremy Newton. ( http://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/15/2011 ) That was a beaut.
Interesting comment about the rise of conservatism. At times I've had similar thoughts, that maybe the adventurous puzzles don't come out quite as often as they used to. Maybe, maybe not.
Without a doubt, I'd say crosswords are changing, and in positive ways. Puzzles on average now are technically stronger than a few years ago. The fill is cleaner, the vocab more lively. Partly that comes from wider use of constructing software, which makes good grids easier to construct, and also may account for some new (and younger) constructors getting started. As expectations are adjusted, standards are raised -- which is all good -- but solvers seem to have less tolerance for the kind of compromise that may be needed for an ambitious puzzle. Maybe the trade-off is that puzzles get less daring.
The online community has changed. It's a lot different than when I first got into puzzles about a decade ago. Then things were more free form, everyone had an equal say, and it seemed more constructors were in on the discussion. With today's blogs fewer voices have a big impact. The focus is on solving, often speed solving, with plenty of attention paid to pop culture. Nothing wrong with any of that, but it's not quite the same conversation. Imo, gimmick puzzles and early-week themes are often given short shrift, and there's too much focus on short fill. It's an obsession I just don't get. Relative to the past, constructors seem less a part of the daily discussion. Feedback is sometimes merciless, so that's no surprise. Anyway, blogs have helped steer puzzles in better directions, but the environment today is not an invitation to take risks but to play it safe.
What I like to get in a puzzle is a surprise. Flawless execution is always desirable but if I have to choose that or a good aha, I'll take the latter, thank you very much.
Posted by: john farmer | 01/04/2012 at 11:31 PM
The Jeremy Newton "Ode to Joy" puzzle was one of my favorites of the year 2011. I told him so when it first came out, and I'm glad others agree. The central musical concept is brilliant, and it's worth taking a second look at how elegantly the supporting theme entries fit into that masterpiece.
Posted by: Joe Krozel | 01/26/2012 at 10:00 PM
Hi Jim,
Totally off-topic, sorry. Could you tell me what it means when xwordinfo.com says "This is puzzle 6 of 6 for Mr. Chen"? What would "6 of 7" or "6 of 4" mean? Thanks! Love your site!
Posted by: Richard E | 02/23/2012 at 02:25 PM
6 of 7 would mean that Mr. Chen has a total of 7 puzzles published in the NYT and the one you are looking at is his 6th.
Posted by: Jim Horne | 07/18/2012 at 07:56 PM