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Constructing => General Discussion => Topic started by: DarlaFanbridge on October 29, 2019, 12:57:31 PM

Title: Crosswords using 2-letter answers
Post by: DarlaFanbridge on October 29, 2019, 12:57:31 PM
Back in the day, there were a few crossword series that relied on two-letter answers.  There was "Today's Sunday Puzzle" (which relied on 23 X 23 grids) and "Crossword Puzzler" (13 X 13) by United Feature Syndicate, and there was the NEA Crossword (which switched to 3 letters as the bare minimum sometime in the mid-1990s).  The Sheffer Crossword series (13 X 13), published by King Feature Syndicate, had two grids in a four-week cycle that had two-letter answers, if only limited to two such answers for each grid.

"Today's Sunday Puzzle" discontinued 2-letter answers by March 1986, though I did discover in the early 1990s, in a TV guide, that two-letter answers made a comeback when four such grids were added to the rotation, unless they were recycled puzzles.

Are there any crossword series published these days that have answers of two letters each?
Title: Re: Crosswords using 2-letter answers
Post by: Glenn9999 on October 30, 2019, 10:07:31 PM
Are there any crossword series published these days that have answers of two letters each?

Anything that's taken anywhere near seriously, no.
Title: Re: Crosswords using 2-letter answers
Post by: StemmyNug on November 06, 2019, 11:36:09 PM
Not that it really counts in the context of what you’re asking about, but there was a puzzle published in the NYT pretty recently with a two letter answer.

The theme clues were
CHOCOLATE, VANILLA, PISTACHIO, SINGLE, DOUBLE, TRIPLE, SCOOP with three down answers OV, OOV, OOOV, as visual representations of ice cream cones. It was a neat puzzle, asymmetrical and included a two letter answer. So if it’s central to the theme and the puzzle is good enough I suppose there are exceptions to be made.