AEIO, Woo!
A crossword reconstruction.
As part of the last Year in Crosswords entry, I showed an unsolved grid from the New York World that had sixteen four-letter words with unusual properties. Four began and ended with A, four with E, four with I, and four with O.
Quiara Vasquez asked about the I’s, and I was curious myself, so I looked up the answer. This reproduction is a little rough…
But from it, I was able to reconstruct a clearer version. (A few letter cells on the right are illegible, but logic allows us to fill those in.)
The whole puzzle is a weird mix of the familiar and the foreign to our modern eyes, really spelling out what puzzlers used to think was fair game and worth knowing. When we say that Margaret Petherbridge and her colleagues at the World tried to eliminate obscurities, we’re speaking truth—but everything is relative, and “obscurities” are not what we’d define them to be 100 years later.
AGUAVINA, a kind of fish.
ADELICIA, probably referring to Adelicia Acklen, a…um…slave trader who was the wealthiest woman in Tennessee (I know, I know, but maybe we should think more about this kind of history? It seems to sneak up on us when we don't).
AEDICULA, a painter’s depth-perception trick or small shrine.
ACHELATA, the spiny lobster family.
ELEGANCE, what many of these entries lack.
EDENTATE, kind of animal belonging to an order that includes anteaters, sloths, and armadillos.
ENGLANTÉ, “with acorns on it,” from the French.
EMPLOYEE, not the same thing as a “jobber.”
ISHMERAI, name from the Bible meaning “God will preserve,”
ISHIKARI, city (then town) in Japan.
ILLIMANI, the highest mountain in the Cordillera Real of western Bolivia.
ISHANAGI, a then-popular spelling of Izanagi, a creator god from Japanese mythology who created Japan itself.
OSTINATO, a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.
ORDINATO, Italian for “tidy.”
ORISTANO, city in Italy with some tidy monuments and untidy wars.
ORATORIO, a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text, usually for sacred subjects, kind of like a low-budget or one-singer opera.
I feel like maybe four of these would pass muster in modern crosswords… ELEGANCE, EMPLOYEE, OSTINATO, and ORATORIO. ILLIMANI might squeeze in, if you’re feeling generous. Better candidates for a modern treatment…
ALOPECIA, ANGELICA, ABSCISSA, AMBROSIA, ANAPHORA, ANATHEMA, ANACONDA. (Maybe ANOREXIA if you clued it just right.)
EXCHANGE, EXPOSURE, EXERCISE, ENVELOPE, EVIDENCE, ESTIMATE, ENSEMBLE, EMBEZZLE, EMINENCE, ENTRANCE…there are over 50 viable options here, and ELEGANCE and EMPLOYEE are fine.
As Vasquez notes, “i” is the toughest one. ILLIMANI starts looking better and better when you evaluate the alternatives. IGNORAMI, a plural of ignoramus AKA stupid person, isn’t bad. There’s the INFINITI, a well-known car brand, and…uh…(snaps fingers vaguely) Arnando IANNUCCI, who created the TV show Veep? Allowing multi-word answers may not be in the spirit of the original, but it gets us the more comfortable IPOD MINI, IPAD MINI, ISAO AOKI, “I DID, DID I?” and if you’re really desperate, IN HAWAII.
ORATORIO and OSTINATO are the best o-examples, the rest being the also musical OBLIGATO and the spiny plant OCOTILLO. And if we’re allowing multi-word answers—we’ve got to allow them now, right? The i-words have already ripped that Band-Aid off—we got OSSO BUCO and ONE OR TWO, maybe O SOLE MIO to get a fully Italian corner.
Tomorrow: Some Los Angeles goals!
I looked at this grid and thought, how could they possibly have filled this in with legitimate entries!? And, uh... you know the Arrested Development bit about the dead dove? That's what came to mind here. :')
A missed opportunity here: having the unchecked letters connecting the four sections be A, E, I, and O! Which you could in fact do with common-ish contemporary crossword entries (LAT, LEI, III, COE).