A tale of two Puzzles.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:46 am

Whis is the more noble? Which do you prefer?

Neither for me.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:50 am

OMG crosswords are my lifeblood. I started doing them at work. See, it's extremely boring, but we get the paper every day, so I started doing the crossword and now I can't stop. I regularly buy the New York Times crossword books and stuff. So much fun.

Su Doku, on the other hand, I've never taken to. I've done a bunch of them, and I never get that sense of immense accomplishment when I'm done. Maybe I'm a different sort of person.

susnfx · Post by **susnfx** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:59 am

Crosswords test my brain in more ways than sudoku, forcing me to think of words with more than one meaning, learning new words, etc.

Susan

missy · Post by **missy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:59 am

I've just not been able to "get into" Su Doku.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:01 am

Yeah, but...

I've just been passed a Hexadecimal Sudoku, which is on a 4x4 grid of 4x4 squares - or 16x16, if you'd rather. It's been driving me nuts for days and I'm about to give up on it.

Sudoku are nice to do on the train going home from London. And I do the quick crossword as well.

But I'm told that Americans don't yet have the concept of the cryptic crossword. I remember showing one to an American Woman in the next seat on a plane, and she thought I was making it up, or something.

But it's one of those left-brain/right-brain questions. Left-brain for logic and Sudoku, and right-brain for language and crosswords.

My wife and I used to do a tag-team effort on the Guardian Cryptic Crossword, and often could finish it. But on my own I can seldom do more than half-a-dozen clues.

Gary Kelly posted a link to an on-line crossword: Chambers Crossword

That's an easy cryptic one.

But what of word-searches, or code-word-puzzles, or those logic puzzles where "1. The engineer wears a blue tie. 2. The manager's wife is not called Julie..."?

The logic puzzles are probably my favourite. And although I prefer crosswords, I do more sudoku.

chas · Post by **chas** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:05 am

I was heavily into crosswords for ten years or so, but they just kept getting easier and easier as I did more of them. I started cutting out the grid and doing them diagramless on graph paper, but that got pretty easy after awhile. Then I got into double crosstics/acrosstics/quote-acrosstics, whatever you call them. I still find them quite challenging, and they're what I take with me when I travel; I like doing them on planes. Now I quite enjoy su doku and the numeric crosswords, where you're given the sums of the rows and columns and have to fill in numbers that fit.

I didn't vote. I wouldn't want to have to choose.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:06 am

Ok, that "Cryptic Crossword" is totally outside of my realm of experience. How the hell do you do it?

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:33 am

Congratulations wrote:Ok, that "Cryptic Crossword" is totally outside of my realm of experience. How the hell do you do it?

In a great part, experience. My father is a great one for Crosswords, but I never caught the bug to have to do one regularly.

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:32 am

Congrats wrote:Ok, that "Cryptic Crossword" is totally outside of my realm of experience. How the hell do you do it?

A lot of it does seem to be experience, from what the deeply addicted tell me, especially getting to know the favourite word games of a particular author. After a while you can get a handle on them. Here's one clue that totally stumped an addict I know. She couldn't make anything of it, and was quite put out that I got it right away (the only one I got): "What's the pipes in pipes?"

"Chanters" of course.

djm

flanum · Post by **flanum** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:00 pm

Cryptic..

CLUE : "In speech one may find repetition"

ANSWER : "echo"

"echo" is within "speech one", repetition = echo

from http://home.gil.com.au/~vburton/cryptics/cryptics.htm

FJohnSharp · Post by **FJohnSharp** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:09 pm

I don't consider nobility. They both work different brain parts. It's like a treadmill and a Bowflex. Doing them both is better for you.

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:21 pm

I donnt like croswerd puzels.

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:21 pm

I don't play either puzzle
but last summer I dragged my husband to Indiana one weekend while a class I was in was harvesting herbs there.
For a couple hours he walked the wooded 80 acres of land the teacher owned
and then got in his Prius and asked the little french lady in its dashboard where the closest "big box" store was, drove there, and came back with a folding chair and a Sudoku.

I've never seen my husband drawn to crossword puzzles but he really enjoys Sudoku. He'll do them while watching tv in the evening and at the breakfast table before going to work in the morning.
I think he's mentioned the Sudoku being about how a person uses their mind to think versus stored information.

Innocent Bystander wrote:...
But it's one of those left-brain/right-brain questions. Left-brain for logic and Sudoku, and right-brain for language and crosswords.

Lets see, his PhD is in physics and he works in IT.
Oh yeah, and for those of you who think it matters, he's Left handed.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:26 pm

I have done 1, maybe 2, sudokus. I'm a little too dysnumeric, in that it's too easy for me not to notice if, for example, I have 2 3's in one column, whereas working with letters/words is a more natural, and therefore more fun, process.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:34 pm

I tried crossword puzzles, but everyone I picked up, the clues were all wrong. Don't know why they can't be more careful when they print those puzzles.