New York Times, Tuesday, November 7, 2017

This puzzle came about as the result of a minor philosophical crisis.

I'd read a blog post where the author was complaining about a puzzle that he felt "lacked fresh fill." This complaint surprised me because I'd personally found the puzzle in question to be quite lively.

It got me wondering: what do we talk about when we talk about "fresh fill"? What separates perfectly OK workhorse words from gnarly crosswordese? Can clever cluing turn a stale word fresh? And when does a word go from "fresh" to faddish, twee, or just plain annoying?

I soon began to doubt everything I knew about cruciverbalism, and indeed, language itself.

At around the same time, I read on Language Log (a blog run by an international supergroup of academic linguists) that the American Dialect Society had recently announced "DUMPSTER FIRE" as their 2016 Word of the Year. It struck me that if there were one word everyone could agree on as "fresh," surely it'd be the ADS Word of the Year.

So I made a puzzle based on that idea.

My initial plan was to seed the past several years' winners anywhere I could fit them into a grid. But when I looked at the WotY list, I realized the word lengths might allow for symmetric placement. Luckily, I was able to pull it off.

I'm super-duper thrilled for this to be my debut puzzle in the Times. Thanks to my friends and family (especially Cliff, Nick, and the Daves Madden and Sheppard) for their support and feedback. Thanks also to Mr. Shortz for actually accepting this thing, and editing the clues to be better and more consistent overall.

My only regret is that UHF is no longer clued as [1989 "Weird Al" film set at a low-budget TV station].

Second debut in two days! Greg lists out some fun WORDs OF THE YEAR, as decided by the American Dialect Society. So apt for us cruciverbalists! PLUTOED was my favorite — such a colorful way of saying "demoted." The MILLENNIUM BUG, of course, was huge back in 2000, and what a snazzy phrase back then. Not sure it's held up, but it did get a great clue — [Rollover problem] had to be some SUV issue, right? Not when it's a problem rolling over from 1999 to 2000!

Made me curious as to what other words of the year were. What a shame CHINGLISH didn't make it in this puzzle, nor did MISUNDERESTIMATE. (You could write an entire week's worth of puzzles using Bushisms …)

That gets to the heart of why I'm not super keen on list puzzles. With so many entries possible, why not SHOCK AND AWE or CLOUD COMPUTING or LETS ROLL or any of the other great phrases? I would have liked more tightness, perhaps the full set from 2016, or if all of them were related, i.e., all Bushisms.

Amazing how much Bush-speak is on the list! That entire WMD thing was questionable at best, but it's hard to beat Bush for sheer comedic and wordplay value.

I appreciated Greg's efforts to work some bonuses into the fill. Not an easy task, what with three long answers, two mid-length ones, and two shorties taking up so much real estate. PIANO WIRE and KING MINOS, GAY BAR, my beloved Ken GRIFFEY, Jr. = great stuff.

Prices to pay. RSTU ought to automatically necessitate a puzzle redo — it's barely a step above [Any four random letters]. A ROPE, AND LO, INO, REG, OEUF … oof, indeed. Fewer themers and/or fewer bonuses would have been a welcome trade-off for more smoothness.

But overall, I had forgotten about the WORD OF THE YEAR, and it was fun to get some throwbacks to interesting times in history, what with WMDs and all. Reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.

ADDED NOTE: Ben Zimmer, linguist and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, pointed out that the official ADS WotY selections are much more limited than I had thought. (That's what I get for speed-reading through Wikipedia!) Interesting to note that there's just a single word / phrase they choose each year. My favorite was 2005's "truthiness" — not a Bushism per se, but related!