An acrostic is a type of word puzzle, related somewhat to crossword puzzles, that uses an acrostic form. It typically consists of two parts. The first part is a set of lettered clues, each of which has numbered blanks representing the letters of the answer. The second part is a long series of numbered blanks and spaces, representing a quotation or other text, into which the answers for the clues fit. In some forms of the puzzle, the first letters of each correct clue answer, read in order from clue A on down the list, will spell out the author of the quote and the title of the work it is taken from; this can be used as an additional solving aid.
For example, two clues in the first part might be:
A. Country of the Rising Sun:
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8
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17
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14
B. Not doing anything:
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23
20
The second part is initially blank:
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If the answer to clue A is JAPAN, then the second part fills in as follows:
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A
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A
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J
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N
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P
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Letters 16 and 17 form a two-letter word ending in P. Since this has to be UP, letter 16 is a U, which can be filled into the appropriate clue answer in the list of clues. Likewise, a three-letter word starting with A could be and, any, all, or even a proper name like Ann. One might need more clue answers before daring to guess which it could be.
If the answer to clue B is IDLE, one could narrow down the 5/6/7 word to AND and the following word starting with JI. Some people might already begin to recognize the phrase "Jack and Jill went up the hill."
The numbers in the quotation are generally followed by letters corresponding to the clue answers, to aid solvers in working back and forth from the clues to the puzzle.
History
In this primal acrostic the words are pictured instead of described. When the seven objects have been rightly guessed and written one below another, the initial letters will spell the surname of a famous man. (published in St. Nicholas Magazine (1873)
Elizabeth Kingsley is credited with inventing the puzzle for Saturday Review in 1934, under the name double-crostic. Since then, other nonce words ending in "-crostic" have been used. Anacrostic may be the most accurate term used, and hence most common, as it is a portmanteau of anagram and acrostic, referencing the fact that the solution is an anagram of the clue answers, and the author of the quote is hidden in the clue answers acrostically. Later Saturday Review constructors were Doris Nash Wortman, Thomas Middleton, and Barry Tunick. Thomas Middleton also produced many puzzles for Harpers Magazine. Kingsley, Wortman, and Middleton created additional puzzles for The New York Times from 1952 to 1999, but not more than one every other week. Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon took over the bi-weekly setting duties for the NYT in 1999.
A similar puzzle, called a Trans-O-Gram, by Svend Petersen, and later, Kem Putney, appeared in National Review from 1963 to 1993. Trans-O-Grams were often themed puzzles, with clues related to the quote. The name Duo-Crostic was used by the Los Angeles Times for puzzles by Barry Tunick and Sylvia Bursztyn. Charles Preston created Quote-Acrostics for The Washington Post. Charles Duerr, who died in 1999, authored many "Dur-acrostic" books and was a contributor of acrostics to the Saturday Review. Michael Ashley's "Double Cross" acrostics have appeared in GAMES and GAMES World of Puzzles since 1978.
Writer and academic Isaac Asimov enjoyed acrostics, comparing them favorably to crossword puzzles. In "Yours, Isaac Asimov", published three years after his 1992 death, he wrote, "As it happens, I don't... have time for hobbies. But I am a fiend at Crostics. Crostics don't have the public that crosswords do, because Crostics seem hard. They aren't, and they're infinitely more interesting than crosswords."
An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word anagram itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram".
Word games are spoken, board, card or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.
A crossword is a word game consisting of a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers enter words or phrases ("entries") crossing each other horizontally ("across") and vertically ("down") according to a set of clues. Each white square is typically filled with one letter, while the black squares are used to separate entries. The first white square in each entry is typically numbered to correspond to its clue.
A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, as well as Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, and South Africa. Compilers of cryptic crosswords are commonly called setters in the UK and constructors in the US. Particularly in the UK, a distinction may be made between cryptics and quick crosswords, and sometimes two sets of clues are given for a single puzzle grid.
A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that the cryptogram can be solved by hand. Substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by a different letter, number, or symbol are frequently used. To solve the puzzle, one must recover the original lettering. Though once used in more serious applications, they are now mainly printed for entertainment in newspapers and magazines.
John Galbraith Graham MBE was a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He was also, like his father Eric Graham, a Church of England priest.
Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by scrambling its letters. A solver reconstructs the words, and then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to spell the answer phrase to the clue. The clue, and sometimes the illustration, provide hints about the answer phrase, which frequently uses a homophone or pun.
In the main type of anagram dictionary, the letters in words or phrases are rearranged in alphabetical order, and these transpositions are themselves then ordered alphabetically within word-length groups, so that any words consisting of this group of letters can be found. This arrangement is designed for use in solving word puzzles such as crosswords, or for playing games such as Scrabble. The first such anagram dictionary was The Crossword Anagram Dictionary by R.J. Edwards
Games World of Puzzles is an American games and puzzle magazine. Originally the merger of two other puzzle magazines spun off from its parent publication Games magazine in the early 1990s, Games World of Puzzles was reunited with Games in October 2014.
A metapuzzle, also known as a meta-puzzle or meta, is a puzzle that uses the solutions to a set of puzzles to create or provide data for a final puzzle.
Crosswords DS is a puzzle video game developed by American studio Nuevo Retro games released by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was previously released in Australia as CrossworDS but a new OFLC entry confirmed that Nintendo Australia re-released it with a European localization. Crosswords DS features over 1,000 crossword puzzles that the player solves by using the stylus. Despite the title, it also features word search puzzles and anagram puzzles. It makes use of similar handwriting mechanics that the Brain Age titles make use of. Crosswords DS is included in the Touch! Generations series of titles, which includes such popular games as Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! and Nintendogs. The background music was composed by Fabian Del Priore.
Crosswits is a British game show produced by Tyne Tees in association with Cove Productions and Action Time, and filmed from Tyne Tees' City Road studios in Newcastle upon Tyne. First shown on 3 September 1985, it was originally hosted by Barry Cryer for the first two series; comedian Tom O'Connor then took over from series 3 until the show ended on 23 December 1998. The show consisted of two members of the public competing against each other to solve simple crossword puzzles. A "celebrity" partner helped each member of the public. The announcers for the show were generally Tyne Tees continuity announcers such as Judi Lines, Jonathan Morrell and Bill Steel.
La Settimana Enigmistica is a weekly Italian word puzzle and word search magazine, published since 1932 with Europe-wide distribution. It's one of Italy's most popular and top-selling magazines.
The New York Times crossword is a daily American-style crossword puzzle published in The New York Times, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals, and released online on the newspaper's website and mobile apps as part of The New York Times Games.
Margaret Petherbridge Farrar was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times (1942–1968). Creator of many of the rules of modern crossword design, she compiled and edited a long-running series of crossword puzzle books – including the first book of any kind that Simon & Schuster published (1924). She was described the Los Angeles Times as "the grand dame of the American crossword puzzle."
Elizabeth S. Kingsley was an American puzzle constructor, famous for being the inventor of the double-crostic.
Club Bing was a group of online word games by Microsoft that lasted from April 2007 to May 2012. Players who completed or partially completed a game earned "tickets" that could be exchanged for Microsoft or other products. The site was credited with a significant increase in market share for the search engine Bing.
Pazurgo is a word puzzle which normally takes the form of a rectangular grid with white and shaded squares. Pazurgo includes elements from Crossword puzzles and Word Search puzzles, along with the addition of its own unique elements.
Microsoft Ultimate Word Games is a word puzzle game published by Microsoft Studios, first released for Windows Phone as 'Wordament' on April 24, 2012. The game was relaunched in June 2017 with two new game modes, Crosswords and Word Twister.
People Puzzler is an American television game show hosted by Leah Remini and broadcast by Game Show Network as well as in syndication. It aired from January 18, 2021 to April 4, 2023. The show is inspired by the celebrity and pop-culture themed crosswords in People magazine.
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