Crosswords: a century of connections

Cruciverbalist

(noun)

A person who makes crosswords. Can also be used to describe one who enjoys playing crosswords.

Ashley Knowles is a cruciverbalist, currently working as a crossword setter for the Guardian.

He began setting crosswords around 2000, at first as a birthday present for his now wife.

By 2003, his puzzles were being published in One Across magazine and he first had a crossword printed in The Guardian in 2008.

Ashley sees crosswords as a form of art: “[Arthur Wynne] created this whole new, I would say, a new artform, because people are creating new works with it.”

Ashley explained how crossword setters, such as himself, are now able to use them as a way to communicate and have fun with an audience through a different medium: “You can say things with a crossword. 

“You can make little political comments. 

“You can make jokes that sound as if they’re about Trump or Johnson, but it’s really just using some letters out of their name. 

“But, by the way that you phrase the clue, it becomes something that allows you to say something without saying it.”

He thinks that one of the reasons why people have continued to enjoy crosswords for so long lies in the puzzle’s ability to provide a sense of escapism and achievement: “It’s a contained, miniature world that you can dip into and feel a sense of accomplishment.”

He added: “I think there’s something about completing a grid which appeals to us. 

“The idea that it’s a symmetrical world, we like symmetry, we’re programmed as a species to look for symmetry, and when we see it, we find significance in it. 

“So, I think, when you see a crossword grid, just because it’s symmetrical, you think, if I start completing it, I must finish it. 

“I need to see the symmetry resolve itself, like hearing the start of a piece of music without hearing the ending.”

According to Ashley there is also a scientific reason behind why people enjoy doing cryptic crosswords in particular: “The part of your brain that’s doing the wordplay is actually not the same part of the brain that’s searching for the word. 

“So, more of your brain is engaged at once.

“You’re forcing your brain to make connections from one side to the other.

“That releases the same sense of accomplishment and creativity that you get when you genuinely create something, like when you write a piece of music, when you dance.

“You’re using all of your brain and, again, as a species, we’re programmed to get a buzz out of that.”

He added: “We have this explosion of ability to put ideas together, look for patterns, use our language to further that investigation of what’s possible within the world.”

Looking forward, Ashley believes that it will be some time before AI is able to create crosswords to the same quality that humans can: “Maybe within five to ten years [AI] could do something like setting clues.

“Maybe you’d have to wait another generation, before AI is actually writing short stories and convincing novels, and then, at that stage, they’ll just about be ready to do crosswords.”

He emphasised the human impact of crossword solving, as well as setting: "You see people doing crosswords as a group and you think, it's not just a different way of using your brain, it's a different way of using the group brain.

Genuinely, you're solving problems as a collective."

For now, it seems that crosswords will remain by humans, for humans - whether individually or communally.

Communal crosswords