THE CROSSLINGS PAGE

The history of crosslings: During the summer of '99 I took up the habit of creating crosswords by hand when I was stuck in a boring meeting. Although this was an entertaining pasttime, I was nonetheless hampered by two things. 1) My poor spelling made it inevitable that at least one hint would be impossible to answer to people who knew how to spell 2) Unless the creator has good handwriting (which I do not) graph paper is pretty much a requirement. Lacking graph paper and a spell check, I realized that the creation of mini-crosswords (crosslings) both lessened the chance of any individual crossling having a spelling error, and made it easy to keep track of rows and columns without graph paper. A new form of expression was born...

Why this page: I still have boring meetings, I still create crosslings, and if I'm going to make them up, others might as well entertain themselves by trying to solve them.

How do crosslings work: A crossling is a grid (2x2, 3x3, 4x4, etc.) of words -- just like a small crossword puzzle. All of the words in a crossling have the same number of letters. The trick is that the hints are given in random order; its up to the puzzle solver to determine not only what the answers are, but where in the puzzle they go.

EXAMPLE CROSSLING (WITH SOLUTION):
1) __ G-d we trust
2) Opposite of yes
3) 3rd person singular of "to be"
4) Say it ain't __

SOLUTION:
1) In
2) No
3) Is
4) So

Now you just have to create the grid:

IN
SO

Of course, this is absurdly easy (perfect for illustration)... the real ones are tougher...

3X3 crosslings Simple crosslings to get the hang of it
4X4 crosslings These are tougher. Some are easier than others (depending on the number of common letters).
5X5 crosslings These are for only the bravest of souls.

More crosslings? Check back after I've had some more boring meetings. Or if you've written some, send 'em my way. I'll post 'em on the page with appropriate credit. And if you think its challenging to solve 'em, try writing one sometime.

If you want to see my actual crossword puzzles... well, email me. But I warn you in advance, the spelling is attrocious...