New York Times, Thursday, April 20, 2023

I was curious about developing a theme which plays on quirks of handwriting. I knew it might put app solvers at a slight disadvantage, but I hope it was still fun. (I abandoned a theme which only works if it's solved in lowercase, for which all solvers can be thankful.)

I tested the gimmick on different handwriting syles and limited the usable letters to those which worked most reliably (a capital /H/ will rotate to a capital /I/ without fail, but not vice-versa, for example, depending on handwriting style). A rotated capital /E/ or /U/ is unmistakably /M/-like or /C/-like in almost any font, but app solvers might still want to squint a bit.

I asked the editors if the NYT app or published answer key could use a "handwriting" font. As of this writing I don't know about the answer key, but I got a definite "no" on changing the app font!

The first time I saw this concept, I couldn't help but NO NI WOOZ the concept and say how HSIM I could come up with something as genius. No matter how hard I tried, though, my sounding board (Jim Horne) answered in polite Canadian tones, to the effect of E W I. Cock your head and that becomes M E H, but I had the last laugh, as I interpreted his comments as M E —, as in "me minus you nothing for great effort."

I manage to convince myself of so much.

Simeon's point about writing styles is on point. For so many solvers, it'll be impossible to see an I turned sideways as an H, because they write the letter I with one simple stroke. And even if you write a capital E instead of a lower-case one, it takes some creative thought to imagine it as a M. It was similarly a case of Muddy Waters when Alex and I tried to riff on M W — for many solvers, that was hardly an experience of Es.

I laughed so hard at Jim's "for some reason ..." comment below that anything else I say today would pale in comparison.

Click the grid to rotate CLOCKWISE, and then click again to straighten it out. This effect works better in other fonts, but you'll get the idea.

Theme answers here use "rotational letters" E H N O U W and Z which, when rotated, give M I Z O C E and N. Our Finder can help find words with only those letters.

1. Using the Regex query ^[MIZOCEN]+$
2. Using the OneLook query *+MIZOCEN

Fun fact: the longest such word that OneLook finds is zenzizenzizenzic — an obsolete form of mathematical notation representing the eighth power of a number. For some reason, it's never been used in an NYT crossword.

It's interesting to compare letters that become other letters after 90-degree rotation, with Byron Walden's similar idea requiring a full 180-degree flip. Click the grid on that one too, to see the rotation in action.