The people are clamoring for my "controversial" opinions. Very well; I shall sate your appetite for tendentiousness with my most controversial stance of all.
ahem
Looking things up while doing a crossword puzzle is not "cheating." It makes them better. THREAD
ahem
Looking things up while doing a crossword puzzle is not "cheating." It makes them better. THREAD
Point the First: Crossword puzzles are the ultimate low-pressure leisure activity. They're not graded. There's no schoolmarm hovering overhead, rapping you on the knuckles if you peek at the Merriam-Webster. Quite literally no one cares a whit what the fuck you do!
Point the Second: The best thing about crosswords is that in doing them we encounter new words, facts, and shades of meaning, increasing our fluency and making us better writers and readers. They're the English language at play, which makes them an incredible way to learn.
But so many puzzle novices, confronted with a word they don't know, exclaim "I'm too dumb for this!" and give up on the spot, because they've been told crosswords are a Jeopardy match where if you don't have the entire dictionary stored in your brain you're not allowed to play.
This is such a shame, because the right thing to do in said situation is the same as any other time we encounter a new term, place name, or idea: LOOK IT UP! By so doing you not only learn something new, you increase your crossword literacy, making you a better puzzler.
For instance, if I hadn't looked up "across the Pyrenees" after the 10th time I saw it, I would never have learned the name of the mountain range that separates Spain and France, or that this is a common way crossword puzzles clue Spanish-to-French translation.
What stops us from doing it? The fear in the back of our minds is that the REAL puzzle-doers will disapprove. Well, I am a real-puzzle doer (proof: I can sometimes do SATURDAYS), and I stand before you and declare today: It's okay to look things up. Go forth and REFERENCE
