Crossword Puzzles a Great Way to Sharpen Word Skills

Sunday, March 29th, 2009 | local info

According to most popular historians, the first crossword puzzle was published in New York World in 1913. It was created by Arthur Wynne. These first puzzles were called “word-cross” puzzles quickly became very popular in newspapers across the US and Canada - being published weekly in such papers as the Boston Globe by 1917 and into the 1920s.

Solving crossword puzzles soon became an extremely popular activity at libraries where fanatics in the early 1920s made such use of the dictionaries and encyclopedias that regular users sometimes had a hard time getting their hands on them. Crossword puzzles became quite a fad in the 20s in America.

Simon and Schuster published the first complete book of crossword puzzles in 1924 and it came with a pencil attached. The book was very popular and helped make crossword puzzles the fad of 1924. This actually inspired a debate amongst sober minded American commentators and religious leaders, some of whom thought crossword puzzles were a “sinful waste of time”, that provided only empty, childish entertainment with no redeeming intellectual stimulation. How times have changed!

Over the years The New York Times has been the most prestigious publisher of crosswords on a regular basis. That paper has had a dedicated editor of the daily crossword since 1942. The most recent New York Times crossword editor is Will Shortz who has been there since 1993. Shortz also is the founder of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the World Puzzle Championship.

Puzzle books continue to be published by several specialty puzzle and games publishers and they are popular to this day. Meanwhile the internet has spawned a whole new interest in puzzles, as people can now download almost unlimited puzzles of almost any type. Crossword puzzles are a really effective way to improve your spelling and reading skills, and to improve your vocabulary. In other words, crossword and word search puzzles are not only entertaining, but they are educational too.

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