Re: [announce] Invented Languages magazine

David Peterson wrote:
>
>Call it blasphemy, but I am more impressed by someone who
>can put together a functional, New York Times-style crossword
>puzzle than by someone who creates a language.  I have tried,
>on occasion, to produce a crossword puzzle.  Not in a conlang,
>or a second language, mind you, but in English--my home court,
>as it were.
A friend and I tried on several occasions (we also used to race to see who
could finish the Sunday NYT puzzle fastest :-))) and could only at best make
one corner or so. Very discouraging, though somehow we avoided the
"11-letter word ending in -ec" problem...:-) (But there's IIRC "malbec" a
grape variety, and how about "Spanish brandy distiller" ans. Domecq)

How 'bout those words in the Spelling Bee finals tonight? Aargh!!! In the
little informal spell-offs we used to have in 6th grade, "receive" was
considered a challenge!

And if you really
>did want to put together a conlang crossword, I'd give you
>some words.  I'd be delighted to see the result.
A lot of your languages have enough vocab (and Kamakawi has simple syllable
structure); likewise (I like to think) Kash-- maybe I'll try over the
weekend, in between the NYT and WaPo puzzles.... Though I'm not sure simple
syll. structure is necessarily a good thing-- I recall watching my
Indonesian teacher (a Javanese lady) doing one in Bah.Indonesia, and I could
barely figure out the clues, let alone the answers :-)

Of course in a proper conlang crossword, the clues have to be in the
language, too, no????

Next step-- a London Times type puzzle, with cryptic clues. Ouch.  The
Harvard Alum. Magazine used to have a very challenging puzzle of that type,
which usually took me a week or 10 days to solve, if ever-- but it was
discontinued years ago.