I’ve always liked crosswords but during lockdown I’ve been doing one every day as an escape from all the bad news.
There’s a crossword setter in The Guardian called Qaos who definitely goes the extra mile, not only setting great crosswords but also making sure there’s a theme to each one, with lots of the answers fitting that theme. As speakers we should admire this sort of attention to detail.
Recently Qaos published his 100th crossword in the paper and it didn’t seem to have a theme. There was one, I just couldn’t see it. I’m going to share it with you, and I bet you won’t see the connection either.
There was a link between all the across answers. Once you know it you’ll be amazed at the effort that has gone into making it work.
Here are the across answers: INSOMNIA, OVERT, DEAF, ALTERATION, RUDELY, ERADIATE, RESTING, MEDIATE, ADDITIVE, LOGGED, AMIABILITY, POOH, OVERS, RAFTSMAN
Can you see it? A clue is that he did it to commemorate his 100th crossword.
Scroll down for the answer
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With it being his 100th it revolved around the letter ‘C’, Roman numeral for 100. Every single across clue could be made into a new word with the addition of a C.
INSOMNIA, OVERT, DEAF, ALTERATION, RUDELY, ERADIATE, RESTING, MEDIATE, ADDITIVE, LOGGED, AMIABILITY, POOH, OVERS, RAFTSMAN
become: INSOMNIAC, COVERT, DECAF etc. I’ll leave you to work out the rest for yourself.
Kudos to Qaos!
