Basic strategies for solving the New York Times' crossword puzzle

The modern crossword puzzle was introduced a little over a century ago on December 21, 1913 in the newspaper "The New York World". Created by a journalist from England, Arthur Wynne, this first puzzle started a craze that has remained unabated to this day. Most American aficionados consider the daily puzzle - especially Saturday's - in the NY Times to be the most challenging published in the nation. Here a few tips on how to solve it successfully:

Start with every "-s", "-ed" or "-ing" - Crossword creators are quite fastidious in their use of plurals and the tenses. If the clue indicates that the answer is a plural, be assured that the last letter is almost always an "-s". Similarly, clues about verbs given in the past tense will likely end in "-ed" and those given in the present participle will end in "-ing".

Abbreviations are important - Similarly, abbreviations are consistent. In other words, if an abbreviation is used in the cue, there will also be one in the answer. For example, if the clue asks for a football org., the answer will be NFL and not National Football League.

Look for the obvious - Proper nouns - of people, places and even brands - are an excellent place to start, as it is indisputable as to how they are spelled. These letters provide invaluable help when trying to determine whether a certain other word will fit in a perpendicular line.

Consider the theme - Most crossword puzzles devote their longest answers to a particular theme - that is, the answers to these clues will be related to each other in one way or another. Once the solver has determined the correct answer to one, it will give additional help in solving the others.

Go through the alphabet - This tip is most useful if the solver has only one space left in a word, but it can come in handy when only a few spaces are left. Simply take a word with one or more spaces left and add an "a" to the end. If that produces no result, move on to "b", "c", "d" and then the rest of the alphabet. It is a remarkably powerful way to solve a word resistant to solution.

Learn some "crosswordese" - There are innumerable short words that will crop up in crossword puzzles all the time. They range from those with many vowels - "epee", "olio" and such - to those that are downright strange - "brr", "tsk" and even "cwm" come to mind. Keep these in mind when an unusual line pops up.

As a last resort, look up the answer - While practice will eventually make a solver much better, there is no way to ever know the answer to every clue. The best solvers don't let this fact dissuade them, however. Instead, they resolutely look up the answer in a thesaurus or dictionary until they have it solved.

Solving a crossword puzzle can be a bit daunting for the newbie, but with a little practice, most people can become quite competent. The key to success is to solve every day and pay attention to the little things described above. After a short while, the letters should start to fall into place easily.