Make every effort to keep "crosswordese" down to a minimum. Such words as anoa, asse, ipil, gher, tola and other oddities appear in puzzles only because the constructor and the editor found it impossible to eliminate them.
1986 — A. J. Carter, "Confessions of a Crossword Puzzle Addict", Newsday, 5 October 1986:
What was missing, he felt, was instant recall of "crosswordese," those arcane bits of English and assorted other tongues whose mission in life is to become 37 Down.
"The next day, I found several more new words I had never heard of," he said. "The more you solve puzzles, the more crosswordese you ingest into your brain, your body. When I came across feudal serf the next week, I said, 'Oh yeah, esne.' In those days, they used the same words all the time."
"The Times puzzle is full of crosswordese -- words nobody ever heard of," he said. "Take today March 10. He's got the clue 'corn mush.' The answer is 'samp.' Then there's 'dwarf buffalo.' The answer is 'anoa.' It's laughable. I know these words because I'm in the business. But why should you?"
1995 — "Crossword Crusader A Puzzle", Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, 23 January 1995:
The word games quickly evolved toward heavy use of unusual and arcane words Newman calls "crosswordese."
Will Shortz, the fourth person at the post, told me, “My goals have been to modernize the crossword vocabulary, reduce crosswordese and obscurity, introduce more playful themes and in general broaden the audience.”
