Don Gagliardo author page

Don: There is no memorable inspiration for this puzzle. It probably grew out of thinking about alphabetic order. Why not just order the consonants? The "how" of it proved to be more challenging than one might first imagine.

It was decided to confine alphabetically-ordered letters in sequences of words that fill entire rows. We did not know how many rows this would take. It turns out that three were enough. Designing a grid was a challenge. We ended up having to use a grid with right-left symmetry.

An experienced solver can tell just looking at the grid that we're up to something difficult, since there are not many long answers and the top corners are very simple in design. The word ALPHABETIZATION worked well as a reveal answer for the theme, a nice 15 to cross the grid.

C.C.: We accidentally put SRS in 44-Across spot (where ORS is) in our submitted grid. Thankfully Will & Joel caught our goof and redid that section of the grid.

DON:

What started me on this theme was ONION RINGS — I just happened to notice that the O's were described by RINGS. I thought if we simply write OO, one could literally say they are ONION RINGS. I started to think of other possibilities. DD came easily, DEAD ENDS. Enlisting the help of a co-constructor is very profitable in this situation. Zhouqin came up with some great ones, like AA: NCAA FINALS, NN: MINNESOTA TWINS.

We got too ambitious with the grid design. With nine theme answers, one needs to be very careful. We had too many short answers that were unacceptable. The puzzle was accepted for the theme, but we needed to clean it up. We decided the best route was to start over completely. It paid off well because in a reasonably short time we were able to construct a grid that was acceptable. This is another case where having a co-constructor is ideal, because starting over completely may seem overwhelming by oneself, but much easier with some assistance.

C.C.:

I love when Don's theme proposal clicks with me immediately! I had fun finding LEADOFF DOUBLE, NCAA FINALS, JAZZ DUET & WINDOW FRAME. The other few (MARRIED COUPLE, SHOPPING CENTER & MINNESOTA TWINS) are just there waiting for us.

Don designed both our grids. I still have difficulty making 140-worder (maximum word count) happen.

Thanks for the new title, Will and Joel!

A theme like this instantaneously reveals itself. Don noticed a phrase, MINK STOLE, where the last word doubles as a noun and the past tense of a verb not related to the noun. This is a quirky sort of aspect of our language that we thought would be interesting for the crossword puzzle solver.

We intuited that there are many similar examples, and that such a theme had the potential for a Sunday-sized puzzle. To find such phrases, it was helpful to look at a list of verbs and their past tense forms. We did find quite a large number of examples — it is not often that we 1.) have quite a few theme entries to choose from and 2.) make the intersection of two theme answers possible.

Don created a grid design that did not fill easily. Zhouqin finished off the design, and that was when she noticed two pairs of theme answers could cross. After we were done inserting theme answers, Don saw that there was still space to enter one more down the middle at 45D.

It is risky to have so many theme answers and still be able to come up with good surrounding fill. We give great credit to Will Shortz and Joel Fagliano for encouraging us to find better fill in the NE and SW corners after our submission. Those were difficult areas to fill, and we thought we had exhausted the possibilities before. But having a fresh start on it, we were able to improve the areas greatly.

We will admit that sometimes we force a fill because we like certain words or phrases, and that may have been the case here. It is difficult to admit to oneself that the fill is not good enough, and to better keep looking — we are glad that we have editors who cared enough to point this out.

This was a puzzle where the title came after the fact (sometimes the title drives the theme idea). Don came up with AS IT WERE almost immediately, without thinking much about it. It just sounded right!

C.C.:

I'd like to share the first email exchanges I had with Don regarding this theme:

C.C.: "Don, can we put BEE? words on top of various flowers and have POLLINATION as title?

Don: "You are too funny. Are we talking weekday or Sunday puzzle? Better yet, find flowers that can be masked, like ASTER in EASTER, etc. This may require circles. I suppose we should look at a list of flowers first to see if that is possible. There is IRIS in IRISH, ROSE in PROSE. Maybe that is all we need. I don't think we can do a big puzzle with this theme. Having three flowers embedded with BEE words above and POLLINATION in the grid is enough. Want to give this a try? ..."

This is how Don rolls, always improving on a simple idea I have and making things happen.

DON:

I will add that there seems to be a synergy to collaborating on an idea. Most likely, neither of us would have come up with this idea, but by throwing it around, we see things that we otherwise would not see.

ZHOUQIN (C.C.):

This idea occurred to me when I put WOODROW in a down slot one day & misread it as the two-word WOOD ROW. Don did all the hard work on the grid design. I initially used a 5 & 5 & 3 word break on the very top & bottom rows. Simply could not make the grid work, not to mention including a few long downs.

DON:

This idea places a burden on the construction, because we were stuck using lengths of words that must work out to rows and be symmetrically arranged. And then sticking WOOD ROW in the center made it even more difficult.

CC and I share filling and cluing. On a personal note, I was happy to get RUBINSTEIN into the grid. That was on my half of the grid. Way back when I was a senior in high school (1972), Rubinstein came to Cleveland to perform a recital of all Chopin music. I was in heaven, being a Chopin fan and a Rubinstein fan. I was witness to an extraordinary event. Other than that answer, it is not a very exciting grid for us to design, because we both like more complexity, with some longer entries. The theme really limited what we could do.

Don:

I remember clearly that I was in my car in Columbus, Ohio, listening to a local radio show host, John Corby of 610 WTVN, and the subject was "words that were at one time trademarked but have now become accepted everyday words". It seemed like an excellent topic because I was not aware of many of the entries on his list. I thought that if we could make phrases with some of the words, it would be fun. Many thanks to John Corby.

Beyond that, I can't remember how we approached the construction, but most likely, my resourceful partner, C.C., came up with a thorough list of qualifying words, and we both made phrases from these, and chose the ones we thought worked best. We always share the construction and cluing about 50/50, as we like it to be a complete collaboration.

Zhouqin:

As Don mentioned earlier, we narrowed down our choices to words that were once trademarked but have since lost their legal status. Lots of words that we use generically are still trademarked.

This is actually the first puzzle that Mr. Shortz said "Yes!" to us. Don and I were very excited when we got the "congrats and welcome aboard!" from Paula.