THE STORY OF CROSSWORDS

Although crossword puzzles are the most popular word puzzle in the world, they have a relatively short history. The first one appeared on 21st December 1913 in the Sunday newspaper New York World, though then it was called a "word-cross" puzzle. It had been devised by an Englishman, Arthur Wynne, who originally came from Liverpool. The puzzle was an immediate success and became a weekly feature. Wynne's puzzle differed from today's crosswords in that it was diamond shaped and contained no internal black squares. Despite the success, only the World carried the new puzzle as a weekly feature. Then, in 1924, a small publishing firm, Simon and Schuster, published the first collection of World word-cross puzzles in book form. The craze began, and Simon and Schuster's success was launched. The name evolved into the more euphonious "cross-word," and finally, the hyphen was dropped.

Crosswords have evolved from word squares, which are made of words of equal length that are read horizontally and vertically: These word squares go back to ancient times - a word square was found in the Roman ruins of Pompeii. In 19th century England, word squares had become the basis for primitive word puzzles for children, sometimes with pictures as clues or with an educational slant. Adults just didn't do them. The larger word squares are difficult to compose - nobody has yet managed to compile a word square using ten-letter words, even with the aid of a computer. (Go on, prove it can be done, I dare you.)

The first appearance of a crossword in a British publication was in Pearson's Magazine in February 1922, and the first Times crossword appeared on 1st. February 1930. British puzzles quickly developed their own style, being considerably more difficult than the American variety. In particular the cryptic crossword became established and rapidly gained popularity.

Since then crossword puzzles have spread round the world and have become part of every day life, even a part of folk lore. In 1944 Paris newspapers stopped printing crosswords for a time - they were afraid that they could be used to convey information to the Germans. In 1949 a crossword compiled by a certain Mr. Robert Stilgenbauer of Los Angeles was published. Working in his spare time, it had taken him several years to complete. It had 6,334 clues, 3185 clues-across and 3149 clues-down. Over one hundred and twenty thousand copies were distributed, and not one all-correct solution returned. There are reports of an even bigger crossword. It was supposed to have been compiled by a Serbo-Croat by the name of Zvonko Janah, and had 40,000 squares and 8,469 clues. Crosswords also made their name in Italy. In 1955 a Dr. Michele Quitadamo suggested that crosswords were made part of the school curriculum. According to him, they are "a valuable form of gymnastics for the intelligence".

Most anecdotes concerning crossword puzzles refer to those published in the Times, probably because it is generally accepted that these are the most difficult to solve. Different people, of course, take different lengths of time to do one of these crosswords. The shortest time to complete one was achieved in 1970, when a civil servant named Roy Dean completed one in 3 minutes 45 seconds - and this was done under test conditions. The longest time, one would think, would be impossible to ascertain, but in 1966, a lady from Fiji wrote to the Times to say that she had just completed a puzzle which had been started by her mother on 4th April 1932. Thirty four years must be a record.

There are two anecdotes about crosswords that I found amusing. One is about a Mr. Ronald Knox who gave up doing crosswords during Lent as a penance. The other is about a commuter who, once seated in the train, would open his Times at the crossword, take out his pen, and proceed to fill in all the squares with gibberish. Once finished he would fold his newspaper and throw it out of the carriage window to prevent anyone from copying the answers to the clues. Whether anyone twigged this ruse or not, I don't know, but it is one way of appearing to be intelligent.

Crossword puzzles have been developing now for 90 years, and they are found in many shapes and sizes - heart-shaped, circular, square and oblong, symmetrical and asymmetrical. They come large and small, easy and difficult, with pictures and quotations. They come as anacrostic, double-crostic and skeleton. There is no doubt about it, the crossword puzzle is here to stay.

BILL HUTCHINGS