Consternating crosswords  

My daughters, who know me like the palm of their hands, recently gifted me with a crossword puzzle book: "The New York Times Truly Tough Crossword Puzzles" edited by Will Shortz. Admittedly, the book is truly tough. Of the 10 or so puzzles I have started answering out of the 200 in the book, I have not been able to complete a single one.

 I do not mind being unable to complete a puzzle. I love challenges and I get a kick out of completing a challenging one. But I also have no illusions and if I fail to complete one, I am able to accept my limitations and do not lose sleep over it. I never go to the answer pages just to be able to fill up a grid. No joy in that.

I allow myself an exception, though. I do check out the answer pages when I am absolutely sure my answer is correct and there is a chance the provided answer is wrong. Nobody is perfect. Just as I have my limitations, so must the people behind the book. Of the 10 puzzles I have started on, I have found two answers to be possibly wrong.

In Puzzle No. 2, the provided answer to Clue 7 Down is "Oxes" whose ending letter "s" meshes perfectly with the last letter "s" in "Uses" which is the answer provided for Clue 21 Across. But any English grammar teacher or online English grammar check will tell you there is no such thing as "oxes" as the plural form of "ox". It is "oxen".

In Puzzle No. 51, the provided answer to Clue 37 Down is "Story Arc" whose letter "C" meshes with "Tact" which is the answer provided to Clue 62 Across. But Clue 62 Across is "Delicacy". How on earth can "Tact" be considered a delicacy. The more likely answer is "Tart" which was my answer, but which thus makes two clues unanswerable.

I could, in my ignorance, be wrong. But just because it is "The New York Times" does not preclude any mistakes, especially in crosswords where editing can be tough when all the editors see are interlocking letters. The possibility is always great that when letters mesh perfectly, it is assumed that the answers must be correct.

It is not until the clues start to be answered by people coming across the puzzles for the first time that mistakes, if indeed there are, start to be detected. But in the two examples I have given, I think I have a better chance of being correct than wrong. I think the plural of ox is still oxen, not oxes. And that tart is the more likely delicacy than tact.

My daughters gave me a New York Times crossword puzzle book because I have always preferred American crosswords to the British style. And I have had NYT crossword books previously, but all of them were edited by Margaret Farrar. I have had no problems with the puzzle books she edited. But maybe because they were not titled "tough".

I do not know, however, if by "tough" is meant taking certain deliberate liberties with, say, correct grammar to ensure the puzzles would indeed be "tough". To me, taking liberties with the plural form of ox to produce “oxes” instead of “oxen” indeed made the puzzle very tough. No one who sticks to good grammar and proper English will be able to answer it.