In Finland, there exist six types of crossword puzzles:.In contrast, a character shown doing crosswords in The Sun or the Daily Mirror will be ridiculed.

A character seen completing The Times or The Guardian crossword (or, in extreme cases, the famously difficult ones in The Listener) will be very smart.

British crosswords resemble snaking mazes with clues that require a working knowledge of mythology and literature, with cryptic clues layered with double meanings (non-cryptic crosswords are known as 'quickie' crosswords).

(The crosswords featured in Harper's are Nintendo Hard, mostly because the clues are VERY obscurely worded and require a buttload of abstract thinking to decode.) An American doing a crossword is likely to be portrayed as being of slightly-above-average intelligence, especially if it's the New York Times crossword.

American crosswords are typically interlocking grids, with a theme for the lengthier answers, while the rest of the puzzle features vocabulary tests.

The trope carries rather different cultural baggage depending on which side of The Pond you live on. note An anagrams puzzle with a pun as the solution.Īlso see Smart People Play Chess, Genius Book Club, and Pastimes Prove Personality. If a character is a child, or at least easily amused, the character might do the Jumble.Whether that's a good thing depends on context. If the character does Sudoku instead, it connotes that the character is trendy and up on popular culture.'Cheating' by looking in the next day's newspaper or the back of the magazine-absolute rotter.If they're asking, 'What's a three-letter word that means 'feline?'', the character is meant to be not too bright at all. The person who constantly asks the other person in the room, 'What's a 11-letter word that means 'mercenary captain?'' note It's 'condottiere' Generally seen as someone who wants to be thought of as smart, but isn't quite making it.The character fills in a set of wrong words that have to do with the plotline usually this is to show that they're distracted.

The know-it-all who does his puzzle in ink.Describe 'A game of using clues to fill in words and phrases into overlapping horizontal and vertical lines on a grid - 9 and 6 letters' here.Īs a hobby in fiction, crossword puzzle solving shows that the character is intelligent and good with words-or wants people around him to think he is.

Tv pilot often crossword clue