Word Games

The five families, and why the difference matters

People say word games as though it were one thing. It is five, and they ask for completely different work.

A crossword asks you to interpret. A word search asks you to see. An anagram asks you to rearrange. A spelling game asks you to build and to count. A guessing game asks you to deduce from feedback. Someone who finishes a hard cryptic in twenty minutes can be beaten at Outspell by a teenager, and neither result says anything about vocabulary.

Knowing which family you are in tells you what to practise, and it is why this page is organised by family rather than by popularity.

Crosswords ask you to read the clue properly

A crossword clue is a definition with a disguise on it. The disguise follows rules, and once you know the rules the difficulty drops sharply.

A clue ending in a question mark is usually a pun. An abbreviation in the clue means an abbreviation in the answer. A plural clue takes a plural answer, and setters use that constantly to confirm a final S you were unsure about. Words like say, perhaps and for instance signal an example rather than a synonym.

The single most useful habit is to solve the crossings first. A clue you cannot read becomes readable once two of its letters are fixed by answers you were sure about, which is why sitting on one clue is the slowest way to work a grid.

Word searches ask you to see rather than to know

Nothing about a word search tests vocabulary. The words are printed next to the grid. What is tested is visual search, and there is a right way to do it.

Scan for the rare letters. There are few Js, Qs, Xs and Zs in any grid, so a word containing one is found in seconds by looking for the letter rather than for the word. Scan columns and diagonals deliberately, because eyes read rows by default and the words hidden vertically are the ones people miss. Look for double letters, which stand out at a glance.

That is also why the format works for people who find other puzzles frustrating. There is no wrong answer to be embarrassed by, only a word not yet found.

Anagrams reward counting before thinking

Given a jumble of letters, most people search their memory for words and check whether the letters fit. That is backwards and it is slow.

Start with the constraints. How many letters. How many vowels. Is there a rare letter, and what few words contain it. Are there letters that almost always sit together, such as TH, CH, ING or QU. A five letter answer usually holds two vowels, and if you have three, one of them is probably ending the word.

Then build from the ending. Park an S, an ED or an ING at the back and solve the front, because the front carries the meaning and the back carries the grammar.

Spelling games are arithmetic in disguise

In the games where you build words for points, the score does not come from length. It comes from which letters you use and where you place them.

That means a short word using awkward letters on a good square routinely beats a long ordinary word. Players who chase seven letter words in Outspell lose to players who bank thirty points from four letters and keep their good letters for the next turn.

The other half of it is rack management. Ending a turn with five consonants and no vowel is a self inflicted wound, and it happens because someone took the biggest score available rather than the best position.

Guessing games are about information, not vocabulary

In a five letter guessing game such as Word Master, your first guess should not be a word you think is correct. It should be the word that tells you the most.

That means common letters and no repeats. A guess with five different frequent letters eliminates more of the field than a lucky attempt at the answer, and the same principle applies to Hangman, where vowels first is not caution but efficiency.

Cryptograms work the same way. The one letter words are A or I, the three letter word appearing everywhere is THE, and apostrophes are followed by S or T far more often than anything else.

Getting better, honestly

Improvement in word games is not vocabulary growth. Almost nobody fails a puzzle because they did not know a word.

What improves is pattern recognition, and it improves with frequency rather than duration. One crossword a day beats seven on a Sunday, because recognising a clue type is something the eye learns rather than something the mind reasons out.

The second thing that helps is playing the family you are worst at. Most people rotate between two puzzles they are already good at, which is enjoyable and teaches nothing.

Where to start

• Never done this before: a word search.
• Ten minutes on a phone: a mini crossword or Word Master.
• Something competitive: Outspell.
• Something with a daily rhythm: the syndicated crosswords.
• Something for a child: Hangman and the picture puzzles.

Nothing here needs an account and nothing is behind a payment, so trying the family you have avoided costs you a minute.