Héloïse Goy, with Alexis Patri
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11:49 a.m., March 15, 2022
The American daily “New York Times”, famous both for the quality of its articles and for its mythical crossword puzzles, has decided to hire a new team of verbicrucists. The aim of the newspaper is to offer dusted-off crossword puzzles that better reflect the current world.
New cruciverbists to attract more cruciverbists. the New York Times modernizes its mythical game grids by expanding its team of crossword creators (the verbicrucists) to increase its number of players (the cruciverbists). To imagine its future game grids, the American daily wanted to welcome more women, LGBT people, and non-white people into its teams.
Crosswords in step with the times
“Crossword puzzles are a reflection of today’s world, which is why they need to be accessible to a wide variety of people,” says Everdeen Mason, the newspaper’s games editorial director. From now on, the terms chosen and the references used in the definitions will therefore be more in step with the times.
This modernization is a strong symbol for the New York Times whose crosswords have become over the decades an institution across the Atlantic. Appearing weekly in the newspaper in 1942, the crossword puzzles were printed in each of the daily editions from 1950.