xkcd #2896: Crossword Constructors : xkcd

[+] [email protected] 63 points 9 months ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] Deebster 116 points 9 months ago (3 children)

These are all short words full of the most common letters, so will make designing crosswords easier because they'll be useful "crossers".

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (3 children)

But why references to musicians?

[–] [email protected] 69 points 9 months ago (1 children)

These specific musicians are referenced a lot by crosswords. NYT loves them, at least. Very “hip and with it”.

It’s kinda an inside joke, but that’s XKCD for ya.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Thanks, that’s what I needed

[–] Deebster 22 points 9 months ago

I assume it's just an example of how to create new topical words since it's a lot easier to name an album than to get a word well-known enough to be eligible for the dictionary.

The artists all seem to be big names so I assume it's their popularity rather than any history of quirky album names that's decided the list.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

I assumed it was because those musicians are popular enough that even if they released songs/albums with the title scheme akin to svnahshfhfbduj people would still buy them and know about them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Are we called crossers?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Oh the crossword cross-er. Thought it was a cool new “puzzle head” term I hadn’t heard. Misread. I’m dumb at crosswords too.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

https://explainxkcd.com/2896

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Having been doing daily crosswords for a few months, ERAS has come up like, ten times.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm having a mental stronk trying to figure out what the words on the bottom say

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Crosswords have clues going across and down.

The words just use common letters so they're things puzzle creators wish were real words. They're not currently words.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Ahem:

aerae: Latin, genitive/dative singular of aera

eni: Urhobo for 'elephant'

oreta: Latin, taxonomic genus within the family Drepanidae.

aroe: Rōmaji transcription of アロエ

oine: Danish, indefinite plural of øie

aen: Rōmaji transcription of あえん

enta: French, third-person singular past historic of enter

aete: Rōmaji transcription of あえて

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Those are all unacceptable crossword clues

Taylor 2025 effort would be an acceptable crossword clue

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

aroe: Rōmaji transcription of アロエ

ok but that's just the Katakana transcription of aloe

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

ha

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

oine is most definitely not Danish for eyes. That would be øjne, plural of øje.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What does 'enter' even mean in French?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

In means nothing. The french for enter is "entrer"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

That’s why they use “oboe” so often eh

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Or they could push for the sort of crosswords with more black squares (very common here in Britain) that rarely have anything bigger than a 1x1 intersection. There are other ways to challenge the solver.

[–] Deebster 9 points 9 months ago

I only do the cryptics myself - I like that you can be confident you have the right answer without waiting for the crossers to check your guess.