Crossword puzzle trivia

Did you know that…

1. The phrase ‘crossword puzzle’ was first used in 1862, but didn’t appear in a dictionary until 1930. Don’t know why it took almost 70 years!
2. Crossword puzzles were used by allied security officers to convey secret messages during the second world war and were banned because of that.
3. The longest word that was used in a crossword puzzle was the name of the British town Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.
   NO, it’s not a typo and YES, that’s 58 characters…
4. A man was ordered by law to limit himself to 3 crossword puzzles per day after his wife took him to court for spending too much time on them.
5. Another man shot his wife after she refused to help him solve his crossword puzzle.
6. After killing himself, a man left a suicide note in the form of a crossword puzzle.
7. The New York Times, despite of being considered the leading authority on crossword puzzles today, called them “a sinful waste” and refused to publish any for over 20 years. Well, the space you spend on a crossword, you can’t use for advertising, no?
8. Word square puzzles date back to the Roman era, some puzzles were discovered in the ruins of Pompeii.
9. Cruciverbalists is the official word used to describe crossword aficionados.
10. The most commonly used word is ‘era’.
11. The word ‘crossword’ was initially a type setting error. It used to be ‘word-cross’ puzzle, but the mistake stuck around.