Illinois student's puzzle to appear in The New York Times
伊利诺伊州学生的拼图将登上纽约时报
Jan 03, 2020 Jodi Heckel, Illinois News Bureau
2020年1月3日伊利诺伊州新闻局Jodi Heckel
University of Illinois student Adam Aaronson created Saturday’s crossword puzzle in The New York Times to include several interesting and fun words that have never been used in The New York Times crossword puzzle.
伊利诺伊大学的学生亚当·阿伦森在《纽约时报》上制作了周六的纵横填字游戏,其中包括了几个在《纽约时报》纵横填字游戏中从未使用过的有趣的单词。
Aaronson – a freshman from Deerfield who is studying computer science and plans to minor in linguistics – has only been making crossword puzzles for a year. He has submitted many puzzles to The New York Times, and he received about a dozen rejections before getting an email in December telling him the newspaper had accepted one of his puzzles. It will run Saturday, the day of the week the paper publishes its hardest puzzles.
阿伦森是来自迪尔菲尔德的一名大一学生,正在学习计算机科学,计划辅修语言学,他只做了一年的填字游戏。他已经向《纽约时报》提交了许多拼图,在12月收到一封电子邮件告诉他报纸已经接受了他的一个拼图之前,他收到了十几封拒绝信。它将在星期六出版最难的谜题。
“Creating a crossword is a puzzle in itself – what combination of words fit together, where to put the black squares. You have to include words that will be interesting to the people who are doing it,” Aaronson said. “There are some tricky words and tricky clues throughout (Saturday’s puzzle). There are some long words you have to piece together and figure out as you’re solving it.”
“创造一个纵横填字游戏本身就是一个难题——什么样的单词组合在一起,在哪里放置黑色方块。你必须包括那些对做这件事的人感兴趣的词汇。“在整个(周六的谜题)中,有一些棘手的词汇和棘手的线索。有一些很长的单词你必须拼凑在一起,并在解决问题时找出答案。”
The puzzle editors told him in an acceptance email that they would publish his crossword puzzle quickly because it is his first puzzle to appear in the paper and because he is young. They praised the 18-year-old’s work and the interesting longer words he used in the puzzle.
拼图编辑在一封接受信中告诉他,他们会很快出版他的纵横字谜,因为这是他第一个出现在报纸上的拼图,而且他还年轻。他们称赞了这位18岁的孩子的工作,以及他在拼图中使用的有趣的长单词。
"We could tell you had real constructing talent from the get-go,” the editors’ email to Aaronson reads, in part. “Really stellar work; we hope you're just getting started.”
“我们可以告诉你,从一开始就有真正的建筑人才,”编辑们给Aaronson的电子邮件部分写道。“非常出色的工作;我们希望你刚刚开始。”
Aaronson started with a particular word he wanted to include in the puzzle and positioned it in the grid first.
Aaronson从一个他想包含在拼图中的特定单词开始,并首先将其放置在网格中。
“I have an ongoing list of words that I think will be fun and interesting to include in a crossword that have never been in The New York Times crossword before. I often pull from that list and build a grid around it,” he said.
“我有一个正在进行的单词列表,我认为在一个以前从未出现在《纽约时报》纵横填字游戏中的纵横填字游戏中加入这些单词会很有趣。我经常从这个列表中抽出来,在它周围建立一个网格。”。
He can search for words in an online database for The New York Times crossword puzzles and see if they’ve appeared before in the paper’s puzzles.
他可以在《纽约时报》纵横填字游戏的在线数据库中搜索单词,看看这些单词以前是否出现在报纸的拼图中。
“I’ve been interested in puzzles in general for my whole life – jigsaws, word puzzles, logic puzzles. I would make word searches and mazes for friends,” Aaronson said. As he got older, he began making trivia quizzes on the Sporcle website. “Crosswords were a natural progression of my interest in puzzles and words and trivia.”
“我对拼图感兴趣了一辈子——拼图,单词拼图,逻辑拼图。我会为朋友们做单词搜索和迷宫。随着年龄的增长,他开始在Sporcle网站上做一些小测验。“填字游戏是我对谜题、单词和琐事兴趣的自然发展。”
The first crossword puzzles he created took him more than two months to complete. He created them manually and used some websites to help in searching for words. He’s become more efficient in making the puzzles, and it took him about a week this summer to create the puzzle that will be published.
他创作的第一个填字游戏花了他两个多月的时间才完成。他手工创建了它们,并使用一些网站来帮助搜索单词。他制作拼图的效率越来越高,今年夏天,他花了大约一周的时间才制作出即将出版的拼图。
“Once you get a spark of inspiration, it gets a lot faster and you can zoom through the creation process,” he said.
他说:“一旦你得到灵感的火花,它就会变得更快,你可以放大创作过程。”。
The most time-consuming aspect, taking a lot of trial and error, is placing the words in the grids. Creating the clues is straightforward, he said.
最费时的方面是把单词放在网格中,需要反复尝试。他说,创造线索很简单。
Aaronson uses a software program called CrossFire that suggests how to place certain words and indicates if a certain combination of words will be impossible to fill into the puzzle.
Aaronson使用了一个名为CrossFire的软件程序,该程序建议如何放置某些单词,并指示某些单词组合是否不可能填充到拼图中。
“A puzzle should have a lot of fresh, lively vocabulary. The quality of it is determined by how interesting the words are,” he said.
“拼图应该有很多生动活泼的词汇。它的质量取决于单词的有趣程度。”。
When he received rejections for other puzzles he’s submitted to The New York Times, the rejection emails included feedback and constructive criticism.
当他收到他提交给《纽约时报》的其他谜题的拒绝信时,拒绝信中包括了反馈和建设性的批评。
“When I first start doing it, it seemed like a super-daunting process. There are so many empty squares you have to fill,” Aaronson said. “But there are a lot of resources online on how to make crosswords, so it’s really accessible. It’s really addicting, too. Once you get started on a grid, you really want to finish it.
“当我第一次开始做的时候,这看起来是一个非常令人畏惧的过程。有这么多的空广场,你必须填补,”阿伦森说。“但是网上有很多关于如何制作纵横填字游戏的资源,所以很容易获得。它也真的很上瘾。一旦你开始一个网格,你真的想完成它。
“It’s a really fun process, and since I’m interested in logical thinking and also creativity, it’s the perfect intersection of those,” he said. “It’s an awesome hobby.”
他说:“这是一个非常有趣的过程,因为我对逻辑思维和创造力感兴趣,所以这是它们的完美结合。”。“这是个很棒的爱好。”
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Feature photo caption: 2019 was the year of the puzzle for Adam Aaronson, a freshman in computer science. He began creating crossword puzzles a year ago, and he’ll have one of his puzzles published Jan. 4 in The New York Times. Photo by Fred Zwicky.
特写图片说明:2019年是计算机科学大一学生亚当·阿伦森的拼图之年。他一年前就开始创作填字游戏,他将于1月4日在《纽约时报》上发表他的一个拼图。弗雷德·兹威基摄。
See the original Illinois News Bureau story.
看伊利诺伊州新闻局的原始报道。