Understanding sparkle

[flight]

I'm curious about how any of you gauge if an entry has "sparkle", if it should be avoided at all costs, or something in between.

Take the entry LUCKYSHOT, for example. The phrase seems adequately common, it's certainly nothing obscure, and it seems like it has some promising clueing possibilities, IMO. When I check crosswordgiant.com, crosswordtracker.com, etc., I see a single use of this entry in Jonesin' Crosswords in 2009 but nothing else in any other publications (NYT, LAT, WSJ, etc.), and this raises alarms. It makes me suspect that there must be something about this phrase that no one wants to touch. I find it hard to believe there's something about this phrase that fails the Sunday morning breakfast table test, but the utter lack of its presence in publication makes me wonder: is it just too boring for general use? But I see hundreds of longer entries (and clues) that seem far more "boring" than this phrase, so I doubt that's it. Is there something else going on here? Is it somehow offensive? I ask these questions about a lot of words/phrases that I consider using that seem viable and reasonably (even very) common but somehow have never been published. Keep in mind that I have yet to have a puzzle published, so I'm working under a certain level of paranoia regarding having my puzzles rejected (and a certain level of ignorance that comes with being green). I want to craft my puzzles in a way that publishers find acceptable, but it seems hard to gauge whether to use a certain word/phrase or not.

I don't want to worry too much about whether a phrase has been published or not, and it seems like a good thing to debut phrases, but how do you really know if an entry has "sparkle" or not, and how do you know if a word/phrase that doesn't appear in a previously published puzzle is a viable entry that won't get your puzzle rejected? It seems that over-reliance on the above websites to verify a phrase's publication history is a great way to reinforce the use of fewer words/phrases at the expense of other possibilities.

[mmcbs]

"Sparkle" in crossword parlance is roughly equivalent to "lively". So, yes it just means a word or phrase that seems interesting, or novel, or amusing, and not something that you see all the time in crosswords.  LUCKY SHOT is not a standard or idiomatic phrase, but it is interesting, and as you pointed out it hasn't been used a lot in crosswords. It can be clued in reference to basketball or firearms or archery. I noticed that LUCKY GUESS has not been used, and few would argue that it's not a good entry. Cruciverbalists use the term "in the language" to define a phrase that is suitable for crossword use; however, the term itself (in the language) is not a standard or idiomatic phrase. I take it to mean a phrase that you might reasonably expect to see in a magazine article or hear in everyday speech, in addition to standard or idiomatic phrases.

[mmcbs]

Let me just add that if you're talking about a themed puzzle, a single entry is not likely to get a puzzle flatlly rejected. Typically the editor will ask you to redo the section without that word and submit a revision. I don't know about themeless puzzles, since I don't do them.

[cranberry44]

I think "sparkle" has more to do with the overall liveliness of the puzzle than an individual entry. Because of the necessity of crosses, every puzzle contains some entries that don't evoke a "wow response." Lively entries spinkled throughout the puzzle seem to do the job. You might want to check out xwordinfo for its "Freshness Factor Hall of Fame." And although it's only one person's point of view, you might want to check out Rex Parker's site. Today, for instance, he thinks today's NYT puzzle is dull.

Re: first time appearance of a word: xwordinfo also has a listing of first-time appearance words (although only in the NYT puzzles). Surprisingly, the entry "abstained" was first used in 2018! So you never know. I, personally, think "lucky shot" is just fine. Perhaps the clue could be "fluke"?

[flight]

Thanks for all of your thoughts and the suggestion on the FFHoF. I have the phrase ORING (gasket) in the same puzzle I mentioned. I noticed on the various websites that ORING was used fairly regularly by the NYT until it faded off in 2012 until a final use in 2015, after which it hasn't appeared. I pay a lot of attention to the frequency of entries used by the various publications and try to deduce what I can from this archaeological record. I wonder how much of the apparent demise of an entry like ORING coincides with the proverbial raising of the bar for crossword construction around the mid-2010s, brought about by the rise of software programs. It seems like the entry might have been (begrudgingly?) acceptable until the stakes went up and it became evident that there are better entries that should be used. Or perhaps ORING has some new or revived connotation that now makes it unsafe for general use (I've called a few people an "O-ring" over the years, if you know what I mean)? Or maybe certain words and phrases just get played out, overused, and then retired?

[axlrosen]

An O-ring was responsible for the Space Shuttle blowing up in 1986, so I think it's widely known to people of that generation, but probably more obscure to younger solvers.

Also be aware that there are plenty of other good crosswords to look up to besides NYT: https://crosswordtracker.com/answer/oring/ which show recent but infrequent usage of that entry. (Also Pat Sajak loves O-rings.)

So for me, it's acceptable but a small demerit, like ASEA or TSK or ENG but better than TSKED or ENGR or NIE. Most puzzles are filled with small demerits and a handful of bigger demerits. Of course someone who doesn't know "O-ring" might consider it a big demerit.

[mmcbs]

An o-ring is a common hardware item that anyone who's ever done home maintenance will recognize. Of course that isn't everyone. People who get upset when they encounter a word they don't know in a puzzle need to take a chill pill and be thankful for the opportunity to learn something new. Of course that doesn't apply if the word is some obscure thing that neither they nor anyone they know will ever encounter in real life or ever have any use for.

[flight]

Mark, I agree on the "chill pill" sentiment, thanks for being bold and saying it.

I know and use a number of different internet sources for non-NYT metrics... but thanks for caring and sharing, axlrosen. :-) And to be clear, it was, indeed, only the NYT that seemed to stop using ORING as of 2015, which piqued my interest. Perhaps it simply hasn't been attempted in an NYT grid since that time? I find that hard to believe. Also, and strangely, I had never learned that the o-ring was the cause of the space shuttle explosion, despite being a young adult at the time. Fascinating. Sad.

I think of o-rings as somewhat common, although surely there are plenty of people who either haven't heard of the term or haven't associated their presence/absence with garden hose leaks, car problems, etc. My wife didn't know what an o-ring was. Perhaps it's a comment on my social circles--and reason for my initial hesitation to use the entry--but several people I know thought an "o-ring" was purely an insult, a euphemism for a certain body part. In any case, I will keep it in my grid and see what happens.

Another question: can anyone suggest an optimal way to find a list of the most-used crossword entries, arranged in order of (over)use? I haven't made an effort to do so yet, but if there's an obvious answer, thanks for weighing in with it. :-)

[Glenn9999]

Another question: can anyone suggest an optimal way to find a list of the most-used crossword entries, arranged in order of (over)use? I haven't made an effort to do so yet, but if there's an obvious answer, thanks for weighing in with it. :-)

I did a study back when I had my blog.  Couldn't justify keeping it, so I can't link it to you.  But basically the most used entries are the typical crosswordese type stuff that have a small number of letters and multiple vowels (ERA is #1, if that gives you a clue of the kind of words that are on the list).

[flight]

Glenn9999, I know what kinds of words are on the list. I'm interested in seeing an actual list of, say, the top 200 most-used entries.

[cmcetta]

XWordInfo has a list under "Words & Letters." It's titled "Most Popular Answer Words" and the list is compiled from NYT puzzles. There's also a list compiled by word length. XWordInfo has a lot of interesting statistics based on the NYT puzzles. I keep finding new and interesting things to look at.

[flight]

XWordInfo has a list under "Words & Letters." It's titled "Most Popular Answer Words" and the list is compiled from NYT puzzles. There's also a list compiled by word length. XWordInfo has a lot of interesting statistics based on the NYT puzzles. I keep finding new and interesting things to look at.

Awesome, thanks!

[Glenn9999]

Glenn9999, I know what kinds of words are on the list. I'm interested in seeing an actual list of, say, the top 200 most-used entries.

I ran against a number of random PUZ files.  Here's a top 250 list.  Pretty consistent with what I did the last time.  The number after each word is the number of times it appeared.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5vsottmmibuuzro/testout.zip?dl=1

[flight]

Wow, thanks, Glenn9999.

[flight]

I ran against a number of random PUZ files.  Here's a top 250 list.  Pretty consistent with what I did the last time.  The number after each word is the number of times it appeared.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5vsottmmibuuzro/testout.zip?dl=1

Ugh, I hope it's not a deal-breaker that my grid uses ten of the entries from your list, Glenn9999.