Not so much a rant, maybe more like sounding off on the subject of crossword puzzles. I do two of them every day while I have my first cup of coffee. It's a way of getting my brain cells moving around and I enjoy the challenge.
Over the years, I've noticed something new, which I really wish the creators would stop doing. And something old that used to be helpful which now seems to have gone the way of the buggy whip.
It seems like half of all the puzzles now have circled letters. Now, the squares are small enough to begin with and when they put a circle inside the square it just makes it harder to fit the letter into the square.
Supposedly, the circled letters are supposed to help you figure out the puzzle theme or just a particular clue, but I can honestly say that I've never found the circled letters to helpful. Not even once. Of course, now I usually just ignore them.
I wish the puzzle creators would just give it up and let me fill in the squares with the correct word. That's just my opinion and I'm sure there are some people who enjoy the stupid circled letters.
What I miss and wish they would bring back are the little helpful hints like “2 wds” when the answer is not a single word, “hyph” when there's a hyphen in the word like Q-tipsTM, or “var” when the answer is a variation spelling like ameba instead of amoeba, for example.
It frustrates the hell out of me when I try to figure out a 10-letter word only to finally discover that it's two words, or even three. For all I know it's the editors to blame and not the creators, but I wish they still did that.
My rant isn't going to change either of those two things, and it's not like I'm going to stop doing crossword puzzles but I feel better now anyway so I'll climb down off my soapbox. For now, anyway.
Have a nice day,
Remmy