January 2011
15 posts
MILKFLOAT
Default - 336838 Words New 9L 79S MISFILING
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MEGAVOLTS (53)
The most recent segment of entries had a number of MEGA*, MICRO*, and MILLI* units of measure. All have meanings that a solver could suss out, but I have to spend a few seconds thinking of clue potential before giving a fill score. MEGAHERTZ scored on the high end with 70, and MILLIWATT on the low end with 50.
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MAJORETTE
Default - 336838 Words New 9L 79S MCCARTNEY
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MAJORETTE (70)
Most of the feminine-suffix nouns I encounter in Default range from passe (AUTHORESS) to ridiculous (ADMINISTRATRIX), and are scored accordingly. This entry gave me pause, as I wondered if the essential qualities of the familiar parade figure remain gender specific. I settled for a happy-medium fill score pending more...
New Additions
Added Notepad Default - 336838 Words
Transposal: MISPURCHASE / SHRIMPSAUCE
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My notepad included *sauce* OneLook finds and some entries from the Golden Globes nomination list. I thought I’d find some more interesting transposals. MISPURCHASE is RH2 and has an inferable meaning, but is hardly a stellar entry.
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HANNYSVOORWERP (75)
I’ve been an astronomy...
LOWENBRAU
Default - 336621 Words New 9L 79S MACADAMIA
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LOCKERBIE (60)
I wonder if this Scottish town could appear in a crossword without evoking unpleasant associations with the 1988 terrorist bombing. Wikipedia mentions that the town is connected with the Marquess of Queensbury and is known for sheep auctions. Hmm, maybe some other claim to fame will be available if it ever shows up in a...
LITERATIM
Default - 336621 Words New 9L 79S LITURGIES
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I’m wedging in Autofill work with several other projects, but I can usually fit in a few hundred entries while watching something on Netflix.
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LIBELLING (40)
British spellings are a major headache source in this project. Most of the obvious variants are easy to spot and score (low). “IZE to ISE” is an easy...
Notes
I spent MLK weekend in Cambridge for the MIT Mystery Hunt, so not much progress on the project. I did work on a project-related task — one that doesn’t require Internet access — while on the plane to and from Denver.
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I thought some more about the decision to keep entries in the Default list without spaces. The MIT Mystery Hunt features puzzles that can be solved by...
LAGNIAPPE
Default - 336621 Words New 9L 79S LEACHINGS
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KILLERAPP (75)
I wonder if this entry has legs. I’m not an expert on apps, but the term already strikes me as dated.
KIMJONGIL (45)
I don’t go out of my way glorify despotic rulers in crosswords. Professional constructors avoid HITLER and POLPOT, though IDI AMIN has become such a cruciverbal crutch that his first and...
JUDGMENTS
Default - 336621 Words New 9L 79S KACIBROWN
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At some point around 2007 I decided to expand the fill score range from 1-5 to 1-8. I wanted a few more categories to discriminate fill scores. In this range, 1 represented obscenities/other unusable entries and 2 represented “marked for deletion” entries — I’m not sure why I chose that odd ordering. In the other six...
New Additions
Added Notepad Default - 336621 Words
Transposal: PAPERTOWEL / POWERPLATE
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My Notepad had some jottings from an article on fitness equipment and a Sporcle quiz on TV shows with African American main characters. The list was not huge, but adding the entries to Default passed some time on a quiet evening. Power Plate is a brand of exercise machines (I scored the entry 55).
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INCOGNITA
Default - 336500 Words New 9L 79S JABBERERS
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The I’s in this data subset were tedious — lots of entries with compounded morphemes and low-scoring Scrabble letters. The IN- section was in particular need of relegation.
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INCOGNITA (45)
INCOGNITO (65)
In a crossword, INCOGNITA would almost surely need to be clued in relation to the phrase “Terra...
HUEANDCRY
Default - 336500 Words New 9L 79S IMPOSTURE
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HUEANDCRY (75)
Does anyone still use this phrase? I probably overscored it, but I guess I have an old soul when it comes to these old-fashioned expressions. I recently read Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat and associate the phrase with the lyrics of “Love’s a Bond” (a song from his early work Saturday Night).
IBMWORKER...
New Additions
Added Notepad / AcrossLite grids Default - 336500 Words
Transposal: NEONTREES / SONNETEER
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Today I went through the Billboard charts for 2010 and added names of musical acts and songs to the Notepad. I’m unfamiliar with current pop music, so I only pulled entries that appeared in the top ten of the “Weeks on Chart” list for all 52 weeks in 2010 that the Billboard...
HOWIELONG
Default - 336319 Words New 9L 79S HUCKSTERS
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HITLERISM (5)
HOLOCAUST (5)
The 5 score is being used for cultural unpleasantries, just as the 10 score is used for sexual/biological indelicacies. Both scores are lower than the minimum fill setting I would use while constructing a commercial puzzle, and distinguishing between the two categories is more out of personal aesthetics...
HARNESSER
Default - 336319 Words New 9L 79S HIBERNATE
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My first concerted attempt to ameliorate the fill scores of my data file occurred in the early 2000s when I started writing a daily mini-crossword for a now-quasi-defunct puzzle website. The crosswords consisted of a single pun theme entry intersected by a series of grids ranging from 3x3 to 4x5 in size. The applet designer included an...
New Additions
Added * television * / * tv * Default - 336319 Words
Transposal: TVMINISERIES / INTERMISSIVE
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I like to pick a random word and search for phrases containing that word using the wild card function in the OneLook online dictionary. I compile a list of interesting phrases and add then add the list to Default. It’s not a strictly efficient way to add to a word-entry data file...
