Cross Thread

November 12, 2009 11:09 AM

Why do crosswords have to be symmetrical?

I've been constructing crosswords and reading about constructing crosswords. There are all kinds of conventions, but some of them seem to exist solely to make construction more of a feat.

What does a symmetrically gridded puzzle give the solver?
Ditto for symmetrical theme answers?
Why does the size have to be odd (I've seen it explained that it leaves a central row and column, but so what?)?
Is it all just because the NYT has said so for a hundred years?

posted by cmoj to Grab Bag (10 answers total)

It's just the common way of doing it. That said, I seem to recall as a child having a book that contained oddly shaped crosswords. There's little logical reason that I can see.
posted by Solomon at 11:11 AM on November 12, 2009

I would think it's because they are harder to design and to solve.
posted by dfriedman at 11:11 AM on November 12, 2009

Symmetrical theme answers are very useful for the solver because then you know which answers follow the theme. E.g. if the "trick" is that all the special answers have, say, a state abbreviation in one of their boxes, and you find one such answer, then you know the symmetrically opposed answer has the same property.

I think the symmetrical grid is just to look pretty, though (essentially yes, NYT says so on that one). But having a central row/column can be useful in terms of indicating which answers might follow some theme also.
posted by nat at 11:14 AM on November 12, 2009

What does a symmetrically gridded puzzle give the solver?

Nothing. However, it fits easily in column print for the printer.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:18 AM on November 12, 2009

Symmetrical grids do look prettier, but the major reason (in my opinion) is that unsymmetrical crosswords are much easier to do and hence are a form of cheating. The beauty of a crossword lies in being able to design it in such a way that you preserve the symmetry and yet get some great words and clues in there, just as the beauty of a sonnet comes at least in part from its rigidity. This is easier to do with computers now, but I remember my dad doing this by hand when I was a kid and it's quite an art.
posted by peacheater at 11:31 AM on November 12, 2009 [2 favorites]

Rotational symmetry was one of a number of crossword conventions established by the Amateur Crossword Puzzle League of America in 1924. Nobody seems to remember why...
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:39 AM on November 12, 2009

Yeah, the convention is to have them be symmetrical because it's harder. A LOT harder to make. With asymmetrical puzzles you wouldn't have to worry about the length and placement of your themed entries, is the main thing, and that's one of the fundamental challenges. It also lends itself to quirkier puzzles where, say, weird things go on in the corners, or specific parts of the puzzle, etc, but the primary reason is the inherent challenge. Peacheater put it perfectly- the beauty lies in seeing what obnoxious ingenuity you can come up with while working within such rigid confines.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 11:49 AM on November 12, 2009

Symmetrical grids do look prettier, but the major reason (in my opinion) is that unsymmetrical crosswords are much easier to do and hence are a form of cheating.

Yes -- note that symmetry variations (including no symmetry) are much more common for diagramless crosswords, where less symmetry actually makes the puzzle harder.
posted by advil at 12:39 PM on November 12, 2009

Some good reasons from 'nat' and others. But people should bear in mind that symmetrical crossword puzzles work really well in English because of the relative randomness of letters with which words begin, end and are put in the middle. This makes puzzles easier to put together with "blocks" of perhaps four words up against each other, vertically and horizontally. It's impossible to do this with regularity in Serbo-Croatian or Hungarian or numerous other languages. In many languages symmetrical puzzles would look really sparse and and when you do see them, they tend to be pretty simple. So part of the answer is because English lends itself to the possibility of this form in a way other languages don't.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 1:42 PM on November 12, 2009

The Sunday puzzle is usually a 21-box square and features about 140 words, except for once a month, when it goes to 23 boxes across and down and is filled by about 170 words. The black boxes are about a sixth of the total, and all words must meaningfully intersect in a symmetrical pattern that requires the constructor who puts a 14-letter across below or down the side to do the same in the opposite portion. Why? "Because it is prettier," Farrar [the first editor, who established many conventions] reportedly explained. -- Bambi Is a Stag and Tubas Don’t Go ‘Pah-Pah’: The Ins and Outs of Across and Down (a history of the NYT Crossword in the NYTM)

This very point is covered in the documentary Wordplay.
posted by dhartung at 11:27 PM on November 12, 2009