Added Across Lite files/Notepad
Default - 325422 Words
Transposal: LOTHLORIEN / OLLIENORTH
* * *
ATILE (35)
The entry XTILE, clued as the Scrabble playing piece, showed up in a published puzzle. I added the rest of the ?TILE entries (that could only be clued in reference to word tile games) to take care of scoring all at once. I did the same thing with ?KEY, though I gave those entries a 40 score.
CROMULENT (55)
BEQ included this facetious synonym of “authentic” in a puzzle with a Simpsons neologisms theme. I was surprised that I didn’t already have it in Default. I may have once felt that the word would only be database-worthy if it were somehow accepted by a mainstream dictionary. Now, I can see that the word is a cultural artifact, and it’s as well known in popular culture as some of the sitcom costars and retired athletes whose names are also in Default with a 55 score.
HAYERS (30)
This entry took some effort to confirm. The “ones who cultivate hay” clue definition that was used in crossword I pulled this from does appear in NI3 but not NI2, and scarcely any online dictionary. Inferability put aside, I was motivated to give the entry a low score because it came from a Frank Longo themeless and was among over a dozen entries in the grid that stumped my database. I don’t like that many stumpers from a single puzzle, so I’ll attribute part of the dismissive score to sour grapes.
My Default list contains entries with fill scores ranging from 1 to 100. Entries with a 1 score are tagged for eventual deletion, and entries scored 5-25 are biological, medical, and cultural indelicacies that are not usable in mainstream crosswords but could be useful in other kinds of database projects. When I fill a crossword using entries from Default I generally use 40 as a minimum fill score. Default contains many yet-to-be-adjusted entries with scores of 29 and 39, and sometimes I will shift the minimum fill score to 39 to fill a tough corner. Often I can complete a grid section with a couple of 39s that, while not great, are acceptable and likely candidates for score promotion to 40 or above.
I took a break from scoring 10-letter entries this week and worked on the short list of 3-letter entries with a 39 score — 880 entries total. I ended up increasing the score of roughly three-quarters of these entries. Some were rescored as high as 55; DEV is an example that comes to mind, as more proper name/popular culture clue options have come up in recent years. Most New 3L 39S entries were abbreviations. Here are a few general scoring categories I chose:
Roman numerals were scored as 40. This was the entry type that was chosen as the 40 baseline at the beginning of the project.
Compass directions were scored as 40, though I personally dislike these entries, particularly when they are clued in very generic terms. Time zones also got a 40.
Monograms were clued as 35. A couple, such as JFK and LBJ, are iconic enough to merit higher scores, but EAP, GRF, and RLS seem to arbitrary.
Combining forms were scored 35 or lower. Most constructors/editors have stopped accepting the {Wine: prefix} style clues. Chemical suffixes still show up, but I would rather distance myself from the prospect of using ASE or OSE. The same goes for cutesy {Function start?} approaches to combining forms.
Sports leagues and conferences are mostly okay. Professional leagues such as NFL were already scored in the 50s and not in this list. NCAA conferences were often scored 45. I recently discovered that I appreciated NLL (National Lacrosse League) more than the New York Times. I had to swap that entry out for NLE, which I score as a 35.
A handful of stock ticker symbols showed up in the list. I gave TWX and USX a 40 score, but would score most others a 35.
Default - 325173 Words
New 10L 79S DIGESTIBLE
* * *
DAISYDUKES (75)
This entry is another departure from the “subtract two from singular score for plural score” system. The denim shorts are essentially a singular entry, and much more interesting to clue than the Dukes of Hazzard character for which they are named. DAISYDUKE gets a 65 score.
DIDYOUEVAH (45)
“Well, Did You Evah!” is a song from the Cole Porter musical DuBarry Was a Lady. The entry, without the “Well” is problematic, but I let it slide by with a 45 score figuring that a clue could reference the song, in a quasi-partial manner, or a presumed idiom that the song is based on. I checked the entry in Matt Ginsburg’s clue database, which is more extensive than Cruciverb, but found no hits. I probably added it manually after seeing the word EVAH in a puzzle, and failed to check the precise song title.
MOCKUN (75)
The NBC sitcoms Community and Parks & Recreation both ran episodes last year that featured model United Nations events. The episodes reminded me of a district-wide mock U.N. from my high school days. I didn’t participate, but my friend Chris attended; he was assigned to represent the IRA. The event was held in a lecture hall on the UMKC campus. According to Chris, the planned agenda of the general assembly was on the dull side, so he decided to stand out of turn and deliver a fiery speech directed toward the representatives of the US and the USSR, demanding that they dismantle their nuclear weapons complexes and divert funds to AIDS research. When an annoyed faculty sponsor approached him, he volunteered to sit down, but she excused him from the proceedings altogether. So he found the student union and played video games until the buses arrived to take the student ambassadors home. The MOCKUN Unthemely seed entry is dedicated to Christopher Anthony DiStasio — keep fighting the system, Stash!
Default - 325110 Words
New 10L 79S DAALIGSHOW
DOWNLOADABLE PUZZLE: Unthemely #22
* * *
CORRIGENDA (45)
Members of the National Puzzlers’ League know this word as the section of the Enigma magazine that lists errors in puzzles from earlier issues. I’m so used to the word in this context that I was ready to assign a 70 score, but then remembered that not every solver is in the League.
COTTONBALL (75)
At a recent staff meeting, my boss mentioned an unpleasant task that needed to be done and asked for volunteers. After a few moments of predictable silence, a coworker, who hails from Nebraska, remarked, “Boy, you can hear a mouse pissin’ on a ball of cotton.” It was the first new regionalism I’ve heard in quite a while. Have any of you encountered any new ones lately?
CROSSBONES (55)
I was curious if this term has any meaning independent of the phrase SKULL AND CROSSBONES. It is an 11C entry, though the entry basically refers to the SKULL phrase. Wikipedia lists a Marvel Comics supervillain and 2005 horror film. Still, it’s hard to picture crossbones on a pirate flag, medicine bottle, or tattoo without an accompanying skull.
CYCLOPEDIA (40)
This word reminds me of musty volumes on the neglected shelves of library reference sections — I was fascinated with old reference books as a kid. Because the word is inferable and could be clued in a nostalgic vein, I considered assigning a higher fill score. But then I relented, figuring that solvers wouldn’t find it particularly lively.
Default - 324881 Words
New 10L 79S COOKIECAKE
DOWNLOADABLE PUZZLE: Unthemely #21
* * *
CATCHFLIES (1)
This entry looks promising, but I can’t find the dictionary evidence to include it as a phrasal verb. I assume that I inherited the entry, but it’s not in CRUCIVERB so I don’t know if it was clued in reference to baseball, spider webs, or something else. The proverbial “honey/vinegar” sense of being socially appealing might work, though the clue would be unwieldy. Any other thoughts on saving this entry?
CHEAPTRICK (70)
When I came across this entry, I recognized it as the name of a rock band but also felt sure that it had another in-the-language meaning. I recall hearing it used to refer to a trick in a card game that is won with a relatively low card. Google research didn’t bear out that meaning, and it certainly wasn’t the origin of the rock band’s name.
CHIFFOROBE (60)
President Obama recently hosted a White House screening of To Kill a Mockingbird to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary. The piece of furniture that is a portmanteau of chiffonier and wardrobe has a significant part in To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel and film are the only places I’ve encountered the word.
CONFIDANTE (50)
I did a quick double take on this entry before realizing that it was the French feminine version of CONFIDANT.
Added Across Lite files/Notepad
Default - 324760 Words
Transposal: PARCELSOUT / SPECULATOR
* * *
DISCOFEVER (75)
This was my favorite entry in a recent Trip Payne themeless puzzle. I asked Trip about the entry and he said that it wasn’t the puzzle’s seed but just a happy accident. Per Google, I learned that DISCO FEVER is the title of a film, a former dance club, and a pinball game, but the entry works fine as a reference to disco music fandom. And with respacing, the DISC OF EVER sounds like a magical artifact in a Legend of Zelda game.
ISLANDOFMISFITTOYS (75)
The ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS is, of course, a location in the Rankin/Bass television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, a holiday favorite since the 1960s. In recent years, I’ve noticed an emergent interest in using the phrase metaphorically in discussions of cultural nonconformity and disenfranchisement. The children who watched Rudolph are now adult social scientists who can analyze the TV special as a Civil Rights era celebration of pluralism. The metaphorical sense of ISLANDOFMISFITTOYS isn’t widespread enough for crossword clue use, but I’m keeping my eye on it.
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
* * *
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
* * *
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
* * *
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.