Ep. 326: Are you a word nerd?

Guest: Jonathan Berkowitz

What’s a 14-letter word for a crossword puzzle lover that, when used, makes you sound sesquipedalian?

Naturally, the answer is as plain as day: it is “cruciverbalist” which the enigmatologist Will Shortz says “is a person who loves to have the cruciverbalist pleasure centre in their brain tickled.”

Crossword puzzles are a gift, not just for Christmas or for filling endless hours of pandemic isolation. They are simply a gift to the spirit – the imagination and the mind of solvers. As Margaret Farrar wrote, “You can’t think of your troubles while solving a crossword.” Ms. Farrar was one of only four editors of the New York Times crossword puzzle which is the gold standard in North America.

The wonderful thing about crossword puzzles is they are for everyone. There is a puzzle-solving level that meets your enthusiasm to solve the puzzle. As Jonathan Berkowitz says, “Puzzle creators actually want you to solve their puzzle.” And how you do that is up to you. There are no rules. You can click through letters on your keyboard with the “error check mode” on or off; you can call a friend or you can look it up. You can solve the puzzle any way you choose.

In the solving of the puzzle, you often discover new words that ignite thoughts and open doors to history, geography, law, the sciences – and they are the key to your imagination. Crossword puzzles are much more than entertainment. They are a launching pad to worlds you can discover and rediscover.

We invited Jonathan Berkowitz, cruciverbalist extraordinaire, to join us for a Conversation That Matters about the deep rich world of puzzling.