The New York Times puzzles are the easiest to solve on Mondays and get more difficult as the week goes on.
New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz speaks at the Springfield Public Forum at Symphony Hall on Tuesday evening.SPRINGFIELD - When New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz graduated from the University of Virginia Law School he didn’t want to be a lawyer.
He wanted to solve and create puzzles.
The crossword puzzle aficionados who attended his presentation Tuesday night as the first speaker in the 2012 Springfield Public Forum also like solving puzzles.
They didn’t let the heavy wind and the rain in the forecast keep them from attending the forum held at Symphony Hall.
Crossword puzzles at the New York Times are submitted, accepted and edited by Shortz.
Shortz said he receives 75 to 100 proposed puzzles per week.
The puzzles which appear on Mondays and Tuesdays are the easiest. By Wednesday they may contain some puns and by Thursday there is probably a trick or gimmick to solving the puzzle, he said.
Puzzle creators are paid $200 if a puzzle is accepted. Anyone who creates one of the large Sunday puzzles is paid $1,000.
When he took the job of puzzle editor in 1993, puzzle makers were paid $40, Shortz said, and $150 for Sunday puzzles.
“I’m trying to get the price to go higher,” Shortz said.
Puzzles are accepted based on adherence to the rules, the quality of the theme, originality and lively, colorful vocabulary, Shortz said.
Shortz said he prefers that they have as few obscure word answers as possible.
The New York Times puzzle which elicited the most response was on Election Day, 1996, when both “Clinton Elected” and “Bob Dole Elected” fit the clue.
“Some readers were outraged when we predicted that Clinton would win, calling it the typical New York Times liberal bias,” Shortz said.
Others claimed the New York Times had made a big mistake in predicting that Bob Dole would be the winner, he said.
Crossword puzzles are only 99 years old, Shortz said.
The first crossword puzzle was published in the New York World in December, 1913.
Now, he said they appear in many languages, even Chinese, a language without letters.