Crosswords are good at introducing us to new words, but they’re even better at helping us remember them. Longtime solvers know that the same words appear again and again, the puzzles drilling them into our brains with similar clues. If I’m looking for a four-letter word with a clue that mentions “Othello,” I automatically fill in IAGO, a name I know only from crosswords. (I still haven’t seen or read “Othello,” so please, no spoilers for this 400-year-old play.) It’s also fun when that transfer of knowledge goes in the opposite direction, when a word a solver knows from a unique experience surprisingly shows up in a puzzle. Solvers sometimes share their “How I know that word” stories in the Wordplay comments, and I always enjoy reading them. Oftentimes, the origin of their knowledge isn’t from their education or career, but from a meaningful source, like a favorite song lyric, or a decidedly meaningless source, like a commercial for laundry detergent. The crossword’s use of rote learning is an effective vocabulary tool, but tying a word to an experience or a memory can be even stronger. When I was in middle school, an English teacher made me look up the word sophomoric, which she had used to describe my behavior in class. I didn’t know the word before then; now, I’ll never forget it. I know lachrymose is a ten-dollar synonym for sad because of Lake Lachrymose, the fictional setting of Lemony Snicket’s “The Wide Window.” (His “A Series of Unfortunate Events” novels expanded the vocabulary of a generation of young readers.) I want to hear your “How I know that word” story — whether that word has appeared in the New York Times Crossword or not. Was it a line from a favorite movie? A conversation you overheard on the subway? A commercial for a different laundry detergent? Send them my way at crosswordeditors@nytimes.com. Solve Today’s Capture
Puzzle of the WeekThis week, check out the Wednesday, July 29, puzzle by Emily Biegas and Sala Wanetick. In the Wordplay column, Sam Corbin wrote: “Anyone who claims that Latin is dead has never had to solve the New York Times Crossword. Its squares are rife with Latin terms and phrases such as ‘et alia,’ ‘erat,’ and ‘ecce,’ and full of references to some of the most influential writers in history (here’s looking at you, Ovid).”
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