janbarstad
119K posts
janbarstad
@janbarstad
Senior World Communication Consultant. Tweets: norwegian and english. Digital, photography, flyfishing, music, art, politics. ☁️ @janbarstad.bsky.social
Last weekend — for the first time in the puzzle’s 84-year history — ‘The New York Times Magazine’ printed an unsolvable crossword. Clues didn’t align with their corresponding answers or were missing altogether. The grid was correct online, but for print-magazine solvers, the damage to their weekends, and esteem, had already been done. Some solvers who complete the Sunday puzzle in the print magazine (often with pen) complained on crossword forums and social media, saying they were “nearly in tears,” some with fears of “sudden onset dementia” or, worse yet, ineptitude. When Mike McFadden, in New Jersey, couldn’t crack it, he thought, “something was wrong with me. I didn’t think that they would have an error.” It nagged at him all day. For others, the error triggered an existential crisis. “We trust that it’s always going to be something that at least somebody can figure out,” Irene Papoulis, a former writing instructor at Trinity College, said. “The world is making less and less sense. So it’s like, ‘The crossword puzzle? Not you, too!’” Several people said they felt robbed of a sacred morning routine. “Maybe I’m overreacting,” McFadden said. “But it ruined the best hour of my week.” Maggie Duffy reports on the crisis in the crossword community after an erroneous grid was published in the ‘Times’: nymag.visitlink.me/dVShF6
