ARTHUR WYNNE'S WORD-CROSS, THE FIRST CROSSWORD

Today, The Grandma has been practising one of her favourite hobbies, crosswords, and has remembered the first crossword puzzle, that was published in the New York World on a day like today in 1913.

Arthur Wynne (June 22, 1871-January 14, 1945) was the British-born inventor of the modern crossword puzzle.

Arthur Wynne was born on June 22, 1871, in Liverpool, England, and lived on Edge Lane for a time. His father was the editor of the local newspaper, the Liverpool Mercury. He emigrated to the United States on June 6, 1891, at the age of 19, settling for a time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

While in Pittsburgh, Wynne worked on the Pittsburgh Press newspaper and played the violin in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He later moved to New York City and worked on the New York World newspaper. He is best known for the invention of the crossword puzzle in 1913, when he was a resident of Cedar Grove, New Jersey.

Wynne created the page of puzzles for the Fun section of the Sunday edition of the New York World.

For the December 21, 1913, edition, he introduced a puzzle with a diamond shape and a hollow center, with the letters F-U-N already being filled in. He called it a Word-Cross Puzzle.

Although Wynne's invention was based on earlier puzzle forms, such as the word diamond, he introduced a number of innovations. He subsequently pioneered the use of black squares in a symmetrical arrangement to separate words in rows and columns. With the exception of the numbering scheme, the form of Wynne's Word-Cross puzzles is that used for modern crosswords.

A few weeks after the first Word-Cross appeared, the name of the puzzle was changed to Cross-Word as a result of a typesetting error. Wynne's puzzles have been known as crosswords ever since.

Arthur Wynne became a naturalized US citizen in the 1920s. He died in Clearwater, Florida, on January 14, 1945.

On December 20, 2013, he was honoured with an interactive Google Doodle commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first crossword puzzle with a puzzle by Merl Reagle. Numerous other constructors also created tribute puzzles to Wynne to commemorate the anniversary.

A crossword or crossword puzzle is a word game consisting of a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers enter words or phrases (entries) crossing each other horizontally (across) and vertically (down) according to a set of clues. Each white square is typically filled with one letter, while the black squares are used to separate entries. The first white square in each entry is typically numbered to correspond to its clue.

Crosswords commonly appear in newspapers and magazines. The earliest crosswords that resemble their modern form were popularized by the New York World in the 1910s. Many variants of crosswords are popular around the world, including cryptic crosswords and many language-specific variants.

Crossword construction in modern times usually involves the use of software. Constructors choose a theme, except for themeless puzzles, place the theme answers in a grid which is usually symmetric, fill in the rest of the grid, and then write clues.

A person who constructs or solves crosswords is called a cruciverbalist. The word cruciverbalist appears to have been coined in the 1970s from the Latin roots crucis, meaning cross, and verbum, meaning word.

More information: Express

My favourite thing is to do crossword puzzles. 

I do the 'New York Times' one every morning.

Then I go to the barn to see my horse

Amber Heard