Talk:2896: Crossword Constructors

The top ten most common letters in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, and the percentage of words they appear in, are: E – 11.1607% A – 8.4966% R – 7.5809% I – 7.5448% O – 7.1635% T – 6.9509% N – 6.6544% S – 5.7351%

source: https://www.rd.com/article/common-letters-english-language/ 172.69.58.187 (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

At least one of those "words" is already available ...oreta is a genus of moths: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreta 162.158.154.64 (talk) 22:36, 19 February 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

{Yoko} "ONO" was over-played in crosswords a few years back. "ORONO" (university town in Maine) was over-favored by one constructor. Not to mention a sandwich cookie. PRR (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

In contrast to crosswords in german newspapers, those in american newspapers are typically not dense, right? “Our” crosswords rarely have a single unused square. And this is obviously easier to compose if you can choose from more words. --172.71.123.39 22:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I was looking around the internet for an example, and I found this example: https://www.50plus.de/spiele/raetsel/kreuzwortraetsel-1.html

If this is what you are talking about, Games World of Puzzles calls this a "Pencil Pointer" puzzle. I think technically the name is "Swedish Style" according to Wikipedia. They aren't typically the kind you'd find in an :American newspaper, but I do see them on occasion.

Generally, the American style ones are less dense than Swedish but more dense than British cryptics.

Also, American puzzles almost always have rotational symmetry (at least 180 degrees, sometimes all four 90-degree turns)Mathmannix (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

172.70.175.195 00:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)