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Four-Letter Words: And Other Secrets of a Crossword Insider
Crossword puzzle expert and champion Michelle Arnot has complied this irresistibly fun and entertaining manual filled with fascinating facts, puzzle miscellany, and surefire tips for puzzle solving. For devoted daily puzzlers, casual solvers, and fearless crossword warriors alike, this book offers insights into the addictive world of crossword puzzles
• Insider secrets, techniques, and tips
• Obscure four-letter words for scoring big points
• Advanced strategies of competitive puzzlers
• Inside stories of eccentric players and all-time champions of the grids
• Trivia, lore, and the lingo of crosswording
• Insider secrets, techniques, and tips
• Obscure four-letter words for scoring big points
• Advanced strategies of competitive puzzlers
• Inside stories of eccentric players and all-time champions of the grids
• Trivia, lore, and the lingo of crosswording
- GenresNonfiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
6 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Michelle Arnot
10 books1 followerAuthor Arnot has been writing about crosswords for eons. Her new book demystifies the special vocab of expert solvers."
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 3, 2012
If you're just looking for a history of crosswords (as I was), there might be better books out there. Four-Letter Words has plenty of history, as well as lots of other useful information about how crossword setters set crosswords and how crossword solvers solve crosswords -- but it's all mixed in with the Four-Letter Words.
By Four-Letter Words, Arnot means "repeaters" -- short words (usually four, sometimes three or five letters long) that contain the most frequently used vowels and consonants, and which therefore are found again and again in crosswords because they're needed to connect the more particular long words together. Many of these words, by necessity, are somewhat obscure.
Four-Letter Words is really a collection of mnemonics for these words, with crossword history and other facts along the way.
This would be a great book for someone who's competitive enough about cross-word solving to memorize lots of these "repeaters" (like someone who's competitive enough about Scrabble to memorize obscure high-point words). But the explanations of words like "Oona" and "Graf" gets a little tedious when you really just want a better grasp of how crossword puzzles are designed and how other people like to solve them.
I am a bit amused by Arnot's writing style -- it's terse, direct, and obviously the result of a lifetime writing and reading puzzle clues.
By Four-Letter Words, Arnot means "repeaters" -- short words (usually four, sometimes three or five letters long) that contain the most frequently used vowels and consonants, and which therefore are found again and again in crosswords because they're needed to connect the more particular long words together. Many of these words, by necessity, are somewhat obscure.
Four-Letter Words is really a collection of mnemonics for these words, with crossword history and other facts along the way.
This would be a great book for someone who's competitive enough about cross-word solving to memorize lots of these "repeaters" (like someone who's competitive enough about Scrabble to memorize obscure high-point words). But the explanations of words like "Oona" and "Graf" gets a little tedious when you really just want a better grasp of how crossword puzzles are designed and how other people like to solve them.
I am a bit amused by Arnot's writing style -- it's terse, direct, and obviously the result of a lifetime writing and reading puzzle clues.
March 29, 2010
Interesting history of the crossword puzzle and some good insight into how a puzzle is constructed. A bit too long for the content, but worth picking up if you're a cruciverbalist.
October 19, 2017
2+
Arnot is engaging, the prose witty and quick, but I found the overall lacking. My expectations as much as anything else, perhaps. I wanted more history-of and vignettes-within than actual definitions of four-letter words and how they fit into crosswords. This was a bit of all and not quite there on any.
I read this book while getting an oil change an my brakes done, and it was perfect for that -- sounds like damned with faint praise. But more it's context for the kind of book I found it to be; no heavy-lifting, easy to put down and pick up again, with segmented anecdotes that didn't round into a full narrative. Stick it in your bag & enjoy snippets on a commute, or keep next to the commode.
Arnot is engaging, the prose witty and quick, but I found the overall lacking. My expectations as much as anything else, perhaps. I wanted more history-of and vignettes-within than actual definitions of four-letter words and how they fit into crosswords. This was a bit of all and not quite there on any.
I read this book while getting an oil change an my brakes done, and it was perfect for that -- sounds like damned with faint praise. But more it's context for the kind of book I found it to be; no heavy-lifting, easy to put down and pick up again, with segmented anecdotes that didn't round into a full narrative. Stick it in your bag & enjoy snippets on a commute, or keep next to the commode.
February 10, 2025
Parts of this book were interesting to read, but mostly, I would recommend this as a reference for people who want to improve their crossword skills.
Update: I'm lowering my rating because I tried to use this as a crossword reference and found it frustrating. I was trying to remember the name of a river (Oder) and I recalled that it was mentioned in this book. When I looked in the back of the book, where it had a long alphabetized list of four-letter words, Oder wasn't in the list! I had to go through the chapters of the book to find the section about rivers. Why would Arnot leave useful words out of her reference list? I don't know how many other words she discussed in the book and then omitted from her list, but that certainly weakened its utility as a reference for me.
Update: I'm lowering my rating because I tried to use this as a crossword reference and found it frustrating. I was trying to remember the name of a river (Oder) and I recalled that it was mentioned in this book. When I looked in the back of the book, where it had a long alphabetized list of four-letter words, Oder wasn't in the list! I had to go through the chapters of the book to find the section about rivers. Why would Arnot leave useful words out of her reference list? I don't know how many other words she discussed in the book and then omitted from her list, but that certainly weakened its utility as a reference for me.
April 16, 2018
There was a lot of interesting details here (I really liked the chapter about British cryptics) but the format (forcing as many 4 letter crossword words into the text as possible) was not what I expected.
July 15, 2017
Good
March 5, 2021
Did not finish.
July 20, 2022
3.3 - a great training tool for someone just starting out with crosswords; interesting to see how clues for frequent words (like "Elsa") have changed over time, even since this book was published!
March 10, 2017
Fun and informative book about crosswords: their history, their construction, and especially their backbone -- the "repeaters" ( four letter words that every serious crossword solver will recognize). I found the earliest chapters fascinating and amusing, although I got a bit bored by the later chapters as there probably wasn't enough information for a full length book. Still, a must-read for puzzlers.
December 16, 2008
This book is a collection of crossworld puzzle history, insider information on how puzzles are constructed, along with "solving tips" from longtime puzzlesolvers and words the author believes every crossword solver should memorize.
I really liked the parts of the book that gave me an insight into puzzle history, and a look into the minds of those who construct crossworld puzzles for a living. I also enjoyed finding out about all the celebrities who are crossworld fans. I skipped over the parts of the book that essentially devolved into cheat sheets for puzzlesolvers, however. I don't know about other solvers, but for me, I enjoy learning new things as I complete general knowledge crosswords, and building upon my knowledge as I solve a new puzzle. To just pick up this book and memorize 20 pages of words would definitely take something away from my puzzle-solving experience.
Still, this is a fairly quick and interesting read if you're into crossworld puzzles.
I really liked the parts of the book that gave me an insight into puzzle history, and a look into the minds of those who construct crossworld puzzles for a living. I also enjoyed finding out about all the celebrities who are crossworld fans. I skipped over the parts of the book that essentially devolved into cheat sheets for puzzlesolvers, however. I don't know about other solvers, but for me, I enjoy learning new things as I complete general knowledge crosswords, and building upon my knowledge as I solve a new puzzle. To just pick up this book and memorize 20 pages of words would definitely take something away from my puzzle-solving experience.
Still, this is a fairly quick and interesting read if you're into crossworld puzzles.
November 19, 2008
I'm not quite finished, and I liked this less than expected. However, it may be my expectations that were the problem. Arnot is a lively and entertaining writer, but this is less a book about the history of crosswords and how they are constructed, and more of an entertainment/advice guide on how to solve puzzles well.
Her main conceit is based upon the repeaters - words puzzle solvers come across (no pun intended!) again and again. Again, Arnot's work is interesting, just not as entertaining as I'd hoped. Of course, part of that may be that I could be solving puzzles instead of reading this book!
Her main conceit is based upon the repeaters - words puzzle solvers come across (no pun intended!) again and again. Again, Arnot's work is interesting, just not as entertaining as I'd hoped. Of course, part of that may be that I could be solving puzzles instead of reading this book!
April 18, 2013
This was a poor attempt to write a crossword book. It's a very small percentage history of crosswords, bigger part dictionary of four-letter words commonly used in crosswords. It just doesn't carry enough weight on either part to be worth reading.
If you're interested in crosswords, I would recommend Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life in the Grid by Stanley Newman instead.
If you're interested in crosswords, I would recommend Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life in the Grid by Stanley Newman instead.
September 18, 2008
Danish painter (5 letters): Munch.
Pygmalion playwright (5 letters): Ibsen.
What goes --, must come down (2 letters): Up.
Am I on the right track?
Yes, I'm cheating with my Goodreads stats...here's yet another book which I began, took a bite of, and GAVE UP ON. I'm countin' it as read, because it's as good as read, better read than dead, on and on ad infinitum. I read enough of it to know I didn't want to read anymore.
If you want me to read whole f*n' books, write better books!!!!!!!! Pardon my french.
Pygmalion playwright (5 letters): Ibsen.
What goes --, must come down (2 letters): Up.
Am I on the right track?
Yes, I'm cheating with my Goodreads stats...here's yet another book which I began, took a bite of, and GAVE UP ON. I'm countin' it as read, because it's as good as read, better read than dead, on and on ad infinitum. I read enough of it to know I didn't want to read anymore.
If you want me to read whole f*n' books, write better books!!!!!!!! Pardon my french.
January 31, 2016
A short book from a crossword creator and editor celebrating the familiar and not-so-familiar words of "crosswordese" that show up constantly in puzzles. Has a handy list in the back of all those words and brief clues for each. This probably would have made a sharp magazine article, but it's an awfully thin idea to be a whole book. Still, it is sort of a fun read for the amateur cruciverbalist.
January 28, 2009
The second book in my 50 in 2009 attempt. The stories were kind of interesting, mostly I enjoyed the history of the crossword as an activity aspect. I will hold on to this book as a reference for all of the crossword repeaters neatly indexed.
May 15, 2009
Enjoyed this combination of crossword history & the common three, four, and five letter words that repeat and run common threads in our daily puzzles.
It was a bit repetitive, but isn't that the point? Four letter words repeat.
Hopefully this improves my own crossword game. ;)
It was a bit repetitive, but isn't that the point? Four letter words repeat.
Hopefully this improves my own crossword game. ;)
April 26, 2009
The information was somewhat interesting, but I felt like the book was really repetitive.
October 4, 2011
Arnot tells the history of the modern crossword puzzle as she celebrates the large number of four-letter words found in them -- she maintains they are a key to successful solving. Enjoyable.
August 20, 2012
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11346640
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11346640
June 30, 2015
This is a pretty interesting book about how to improve your crossword game, it focuses primarily on... you guessed it, four-letter words.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews