The Autofill Project

A few months ago I was talking about the Autofill Project with my friend Trip. He asked me whether I included “alphabet sequences” in Default and, if yes, how I scored them. I do have alphabet sequences, mainly trios, in Default due to downloading the Cruciverb list. I haven’t worked with extensive lists of three-letter entries since I began the Project, but I plan to keep alphabet trios in Default and give them a score of 40, the same score given to uncommon abbreviations and most Roman numerals. At the time, I told Trip, “a lot of alphabet trios can be clued in other ways.”

I thought about this conversation recently and decided to try a sidebar blog post by scoring the 24 three-letter entries that could be clued as {Alphabet trio}. I was curious to see if indeed “a lot” of them can be clued in other ways, and if those other ways merit fill scores higher than 40.

DEF, GHI, and STU are cluable as single words or names. DEF has a modern slang option, in addition to Def Leppard and Mos Def, so it gets a 60. STU (Sutcliffe, Ungar, Disco ___) is a 55, and GHI, which can be clued as a type of Indian butter, is 50.

ABC is the strongest of the abbreviations/initialisms. With the TV network and Jackson Five song options, it gets a 65. Airline KLM is a 55, and JKL, an established initialism for ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live with some Scrabbly letters, also gets a 55.

MNO, TUV, and WXY are the remaining trios that can be clued as telephone key letters. TUV is a hypothetical abbreviation for the nation of Tuvalu, as on a sports scoreboard, but the 8’s telephone trigram seems a stronger option. WXY requires a clue clarification, now that Z’s are standard on telephone keypads, so it might as well be considered an alphabet trio. MNO and TUV are 45 and WXY is 40.

The Scrabbly XYZ Affair, a moderately familiar diplomatic gaffe of the late 18th century, is good enough for a 45 score for the partial. RST can be inferably clued as the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and can also get a marginal fill score advantage of 45.

The remaining 13 trios have a couple of uncommon abbreviation approaches: binary-coded decimals in mathematics, the airport code for Hiroshima, a TV listing for Lifetime Movie Network, a computer instruction for “no operation performed.”

So, 14 of the 24 entries are scored as if they are clued {Alphabet trio}. That’s not “a lot” of them.

Default - 324606 Words
New 10L 79S CARABINEER

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     BRAMBLIEST (48)

I’ve started making side notes about comparatives and superlatives in the same notepad I’m using for plurals and verb forms. If I come across a comparative in the list, I’ll add the superlative to the notepad, and vice-versa. A basic adjective in Default is not a trigger to add the comparative and superlative forms in the notepad, but the comparative/superlative in Default might prompt me to add the basic adjective in the notepad, particularly if the adjective is not going to receive a high fill score, e.g. BRAMBLY.

     CAKEBATTER (70)

In 2002 I attended a puzzle convention in Vancouver, and one of the most popular local attractions among convention attendees was a gelato shop two blocks from the hotel. At one of my visits, my friend Chris offered me a spoonful of his order, which I believe had the advertised flavor “creme brulee.” “Doesn’t it taste like yellow cake batter,” he correctly observed. That was the first time that I considered “cake batter” as a confectionary flavor rather than simply a cake-baking means to an end. The idea apparently popped into a lot of minds at the same time, and in the last ten years I’ve seen cake batter-flavored candies, ice cream, cereal bars, and martinis!

     GEMUTLICHKEIT (65)

This word had been on a Google Doc list of potential seed entries for about six months. I learned the word from a QI segment about unusual German loan words. I didn’t have anything new and exciting to start Unthemely 19 so I threw GEMUTLICHKEIT in the middle of a grid to see what would happen.

     IBEATDRFILL (n/a)

I chose this one-off entry to seed the marquee spot in an Unthemely puzzle released a few hours after the 2012 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament ended. Congratulations to the 140 ACPT competitors who finished the tournament with a higher score than Matt Ginsburg’s crossword-solving software and thus earned an “I Beat Dr. Fill” souvenir button.

Default - 324506 Words
New 10L 79S BLOCKADING

DOWNLOADABLE PUZZLE: Unthemely #20

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     BELABORING (63)

This entry follows BELABARTOK in the 79S list, and when I initially read it, I felt like the list was making a sassy critique of Hungarian classical music: “BELA BARTOK? BELA BORING!”

     BEWITCHING (65)

I’ve worked on this project long enough that I have developed an automatic sense of score adjustments for variant forms of a given word. Once I determine the basic range (based on clue value, interesting letters, etc.) the standard hierarchy is: singular noun gets the highest score, plural noun is lower, adjective/present-tense verb lower still, and all other verb tenses are the lowest. Certain entries call for exceptions of that ordering. I scored BEWITCH 65 and BEWITCHES 63. If BEWITCHING were only a verb it would also score 63, but it’s a reasonable adjective so I gave it 65. BEWITCHED scores 70 because of the television title. So the BEWITCH hierarchy is notably exceptional…bewitching, you might say.

     BLITHERING (60)

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the someone use the verb BLITHER/S/ED in conversation. The synonymous BLATHER is clearly more popular, unless you want to describe a nonsense-talking idiot, in which case BLITHERING is the way to go. So the one-trick pony BLITHERING gets the high score of the BLITHER forms.

Added Across Lite files/Notepad
Default - 324506 Words

Transposal: STALEBREAD / TABLEREADS

Downloadable Puzzle: Unthemely #19

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     ENTERKEY (60)

I pulled the entry LKEY from a crossword puzzle a while back, and added ?KEY entries for the full alphabet. I considered these entries references to the parts of a typewriter/computer keyboard (despite some alternate options such as {___-dokey}) and assigned them low fill scores. LKEY and the like have dictionary value but limited crossword clue value. Also, many puzzles are solved on computer these days so clues for keyboard components that rely on locational references are suboptimal; I avoid clues such as {Space bar neighbor} for that reason. ENTERKEY has better clue options, but the 60 fill score expresses my modest enthusiasm for including the phrase in a grid.

     TIKIROOM (75)

I added this to the Notepad after reading recent news articles about the death of Robert Sherman. I should have added the entry much sooner. Frankie’s Tiki Room has become one of my favorite haunts during regular trips to Las Vegas. For a specialty drink order, I recommend the Thurston Howl.

Default - 324381 Words
New 10L 79S BABBITTING

The word list New 10L 79S contains 16,574 entries. Most entries are single words ranging from utilitarian to undesirable and receiving an adjusted fill score of 65 and lower. A few phrases or otherwise interesting entries show up hear and there.

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     AEROZAMBIA (55)

I found a long list of international airlines that I added to Default many years ago. These entries suffer the same problem as other business names in a world of volatile corporate identity/existence. The 55 score was purely instinctual, but later I researched AERO ZAMBIA and learned that the now defunct airline existed for about five years. It’s an inferable business name and gettable with meticulous clue so I let the possibly generous fill score stand.

     ALCOHOLICS (23)

Medical terms, particularly ones that are overly clinical, obscure, or unpleasant, receive a fill score in the 20-25 range, which is far below the threshold that I would use in a mainstream crossword. ALCOHOLICS would be difficult to include with sensitivity in a puzzle so I scored it as a reference to a medical condition. ALCOHOLIC was scored 65, though it would be clued as an adjective for “containing alcohol.”

     AMBUSCADED (53)

I had to look up this word, as synonym for “ambushed,” but I kind of like it. I won’t go out of my way to put it in a crossword, but I’ll add it to my ten-dollar-word arsenal and try to find a chance to use it in conversation.

     ATHABASCAN (45)

I had never encountered this word before seeing it in the word list. After a quick definition check, I decided that it was fairly obscure and assigned the relatively low fill score. A few hours later I was looking through the archives on the Learned League site and found the word (with the variant ATHABASKAN spelling) in a question on Denali. I didn’t change the score, but was amused by the coincidence.

Added Notepad
Default - 324319 Words

Transposal: POWERGAINS / SPIROAGNEW

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     HARRYTURTLEDOVE (60)

I read a news item recently about a terminal cancer patient who contacted a favorite author and asked him to privately reveal the ending of a yet unfinished book series. The series was Harry Turtledove’s alternative history epic The War that Came Early, which was new to me. I jotted the name and series into Notepad while I thought about fictional epics whose endings I would want to be told in the event that I had a month to live — Breaking Bad comes to mind, as well as The Puzzling World of Winston Breen. I also wondered about other famous people with last names that are Twelve Days of Christmas gifts: Shirley Partridge, Bella Swan, uh…Mother Goose? What are some unfinished stories that you would want to know the endings of?

     HERMAJ (65)

I picked up this slang term for Queen Elizabeth II by watching QI and other BBC television series via the Internet. It’s inferable when spoken but might be tricky to parse in a crossword diagram — tricky in a good way :-)

     JUVEDERM (65)

I’ve been proofreading print ads over the last few days. It’s not my primary job but I’m helping the auditing team. It’s easy work and I occasionally find some Notepad-worthy entries in the ad copy. The injectable “facial filler” JUVEDERM came up in a few ads for cosmetic surgeons. It could be interesting crossword fill, though my primary attraction was as a potential clue for the entry BOTOX. The product is probably unfamiliar to most but its name (suggesting “youthful” and “skin”) carries enough information to put a crossword solver in the right area. So the clue {Juvéderm alternative} (5) could fall in the same category as {Petro-Canada competitor} (4) or {Shopping.com’s parent company} (4).

Default - 324004 Words
New 10L 69S complete

After completing list I also rescored the 25 entries in the 10L 39L list, none of which were remarkable. The next list for the project is 10L 79S.

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     TANCOLORED (60)

I’m okay with this entry but when I scored it I thought about other [color]COLORED entries. ORANGECOLORED feels natural, perhaps from a need to distinguish between the color and the flavor. REDCOLORED feels better than BLUECOLORED, which feels better than BLACKCOLORED, and VIOLETCOLORED, and so on. 50-60 seems like a good range for these entries, though I’m not inclined to make an exhaustive list of them on my Notepad.

     THEARCHIES (70)

The fill score is based on the music group, not the plural of a government led by religious figures. Some CCWIN users prefer to keep entries in a database with proper case and spelling, and would theoretically have both “thearchies” and “The Archies” in a Default list. If you’re one of those users, do you know how CCWIN’s filling protocols handle heteronyms with different fill scores? Do the filling protocols only consider the highest score?

     UNBUILDING (80)

At first this looked like a verb form of “unbuild” and then I parsed it as the United Nations Headquarters building. But is “unbuild” a word? So it is — and in 11C with its own entry rather than part of the “un-” list. I scored UNBUILD/UNBUILDS/UNBUILT as 50/48/48.