Making predictions about the future, especially when it comes to presidential elections, is a risky business. Get it wrong, and you could look silly or seem out of touch with reality. If recent elections have taught us anything, perhaps it’s best to avoid assuming you know the outcome of something that hasn’t happened yet, no matter how well-informed you are or how many polls you’ve seen.
No wonder fans of The New York Times crossword puzzle were stunned when they opened the paper on November 5, 1996 (which just happened to be Election Day) and saw the clue for the 39-Across answer: “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper.” They were even more surprised when they discovered that the first letter of the 14-letter answer started with “C,” seemingly indicating that Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz believed that Democratic nominee (and incumbent U.S. president) Bill Clinton would be the winner.
Soon after the paper was published, Shortz began receiving phone calls from people who were outraged that he had presumed Clinton would win the election. There were also shocked callers who had solved the puzzle correctly but ended up with a completely different 39-Across answer starting with “B,” for Republican nominee Bob Dole. It turned out that two completely different answers worked, both “CLINTON ELECTED” and “BOB DOLE ELECTED.”
Shortz has described the puzzle as “the most amazing crossword I’ve ever seen.” It worked because all of crossing clues also had ambiguous dual answers. For example, the “B” in "BOB DOLE" and the “C” in "CLINTON" came from the crossing clue “Black Halloween animal.” Both “BAT” and “CAT” were correct.
Credit for the puzzle goes to Jeremiah Farrell, a Butler University mathematics professor who had contributed crossword puzzles to The New York Times since the 1970s.
Puzzles and puzzlers:
- Will Shortz is the only individual with an academic degree “enigmatology” (the study of puzzles), a major that he created for himself at Indiana University in 1974.
- Shortz has been the puzzle editor of The New York Times since 1993, succeeding Eugene T. Maleska. Before that, Shortz was the editor of Games magazine. He is also the founder of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the World Puzzle Championship.
- During his tenure, Shortz broadened the cultural references used by the puzzle and added more riddles. He also made sure that bylines were given to the crossword constructors.
- Margaret Farrar was the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times, from 1942 to 1969. She devised the idea of the puzzles increasing in difficulty as the week progressed, from a (relatively) easy one on Monday to a very difficult one on Saturday, which she described as a “two-cups-of-coffee puzzle.” The Sunday crossword is larger and of medium difficulty.