What 74 Years of Crossword History Says About the Language We Use

I wrote a mini NYT crossword search engine many years ago (only covers 1996 to 2011).<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;hacker" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;hacker</a><p>Its funny to see how terms changed over the years. A few interesting ones:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;aol" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;aol</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;google" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;google</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;facebook" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;donohoe.io&#x2F;projects&#x2F;crossword&#x2F;#&#x2F;facebook</a>

Alternatively: What 74 Years of Crossword History says about the New York Times.<p>I am not dismissing the observation, but I think other factors have to be taken into account.

Maybe this already exists but I could see crosswords, etc (ex, Jeopardy-like A&amp;Qs), being used as a learning tool for things like geography and history, allowing students to mentally visualize subject-specific associations (ie, including backwards and sideways) rather than just memorize first-this-then-that type facts.<p>One could throw in identical problems here and there, either stated exactly the same way or differently, in order to create spaced-repition learning, as well as an inside-out understanding of the subject.<p>To give a random example - US geography, and if the student enjoys it or does well, let them continue on with it and grade them on the successive tests for State-specific or foreign country geography, for example. Throw in historical changes to make it multidisciplinary. In other words, let students explore their interests within the larger subject, rather than standardizing everything for everyone.<p>______<p>The Crossword article and the article link that follows, on Horizontal History, inspired my comment. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;waitbutwhy.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;horizontal-history.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;waitbutwhy.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;horizontal-history.html</a>

<i>Uber (a car service) is no longer clued as a German preposition (over or above)</i><p>Perhaps because it isn&#x27;t? The latter is written with an umlaut.<p>(Note that umlauts can actually be a distinguishing factor for very different meanings, e.g., &quot;schwül&quot;-&gt;humid vs &quot;schwul&quot;-&gt;gay. In the case of &quot;uber&quot;, there is simply no such word in the German language; the preposition is &quot;über&quot;.)<p>(Note also that in cases of typed German where there is not umlaut key available, the standard way to transcribe is to insert an &quot;e&quot; after the vowel. So you would write &quot;ueber&quot; for the German preposition.)