CROSSWORDS: We need a six-letter word for a cry of discovery …

According to a blog at newspapers.com, crossword puzzles haven’t always been the newspaper staple they are today. The first modern crossword appeared in the New York World on Dec. 21, 1913.

The paper’s “Fun” section editor, Arthur Wynne, needed to fill some space on the page. He used acrostic puzzles as a reference to create his “word-cross” puzzle, which was an instant success. Readers wanted more.

Wynne kept creating and just a few issues later a typesetting error forever changed the puzzle’s name to crossword.

Instead of today’s square, the design was a simpler diamond shape. Further, despite their incredible popularity, most thought the puzzles were a fad that would pass.

Wynne sought to have the newspaper copyright the puzzle but management refused, believing it would be “too much work for something that wouldn’t be around for much longer.”

In 1924 the New York Times called them a “primitive sort of mental exercise.”

The same year, the puzzles clearly not just a fad, Richard Simon and Max Schuster partnered to publish the first book of crossword puzzles, launching the Simon & Schuster publishing house.

The Times published its first crossword in 1942. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II, editors decided to “proceed with the puzzle, especially in view of the fact that it is possible that there will now be bleak blackout hours — or, if not that, then certainly a need for relaxation of some kind or another.”

As Margaret Farrar, the first crossword editor for the New York Times, said, “You can’t think of your troubles while solving a cross-word.”

Eureka!