Cross About Crosswords

For John, BLUF:  Sometimes I do crossword puzzles and sometimes I don't.  My wife does them near every night.  And I like Hallmark's Crossword Puzzle Mysteries series, with Actress Lacey Chabert.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Please Update Your Files And Lifestyles Accordingly

Here is the sub-headline:

From the pages of The Atlantic, a new torment for woke sophisticates:

"The hidden bigotry of crosswords".

From the David Thompson Blog, by Blogger David Thompson, 22 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus six:

That sound you hear is barrel-bottom-scraping.

The popular puzzles are largely written and edited by older white men, who dictate what makes it into the grid—and what is kept out.

The world of woke crossword-puzzlers - because that’s a thing that exists - is one in which enthusiasts, via social media, grumble about white men, bemoan the insufficient prominence of “queer or POC colloquialisms,” share “off-colour jokes about hypothetical titles for a Melania Trump memoir,” and fret about the exact ratio of male and female names used as clues.  Because a lack of “gender parity” in crossword puzzle clues constitutes one of “the systemic forces that threaten women.”

Crossword puzzles can do that, apparently.

The list of possible crossword-puzzle wrongdoings is, of course, extensive, ever-growing and not entirely straightforward.

Transgressions include clues for ILLEGAL (“One caught by border patrol”); MEN (“Exasperated comment from a feminist”); and HOOD (“Place with homies”).

I’ll give you a moment to steady yourselves, to recover from all that gasping.

"The popular puzzles."  Heaven forfend.  The puzzle writers are catering to their audiences.  Can you imagine that?  Life must be hard for the woke.  One wonders if there was more freedom when the Puritans managed affairs in the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

English is an interesting and rich language, with lots or words from the past, interesting words, words that should not be suppressed.  And we shouldn't lose that richness because some word, at some point, had, in some usage, a negative connotation.  Fashion changes, but we shouldn't just condemn those who are still wearing last year's fashion.  It is OK to feel sorry for them, however.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff