Do I Have To Spell It Out?

Arthur did.

Arthur was born in Liverpool and loved to have fun. As far anyone could tell Arthur had never had a cross word for anyone … that is until he emigrated to the US at just 19 … not having a clue what to do he ended up in Pittsburgh where he found work at the local newspaper … played the violin in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra … but after a while he chose to move to New York City and took a position at the major daily newspaper there … his job was to create a page of puzzles for the Sunday edition which was a lot of fun. One day, at age 42, he had a great idea … for a new puzzle for the paper … and he added it to the section. Well, the puzzle was a hit … and pretty soon other newspapers started making their own versions of Arthur’s puzzle … and then it just grew rapidly from there.

Today, over 100 years after Arthur Wynne’s puzzle appeared in the Sunday edition of the New York World newspaper … its everywhere … and you’ve likely done one yourself … the Word Cross puzzle … which is what Arthur originally called it until a typesetter at the newspaper got the two words mixed up one day … and so the “crossword” was born.

The Crossword is a great idea because if you simply test an idea … you might just fill in the blanks on creating something special.