A few cross words over crosswords and Covid

In the 111 years since Arthur Wynne, a journalist from Liverpool, published a "word-cross" puzzle similar to modern crosswords, in New York World, crosswords have become popular in magazines and newspapers.

Surely the most difficult are the cryptic variety, generally well beyond Civis’ ability to solve.

Some are just general knowledge quizzes, like a popular quiz show screening daily on TVNZ1, a mixture of historical questions, word meanings, and "celebrity", "sport" (is it sport when it’s a professional business?) and popular music trivia.

Civis and spouse, who once enjoyed addressing the crossword in a well-known New Zealand weekly, have been disappointed with it in recent times, now that many of its clues are of the general knowledge-trivia type (they did manage to complete a couple recently, though).

So far as they’re concerned, a crossword, unless labelled otherwise (such as "cryptic" or ‘general knowledge") should contain words defined, in the clues, by other words or phrases — not answers to questions of fact (or fiction).

A good example of their kind of crossword is the "Jumbo" on the Diversions page of Saturday issues of the ODT, which they enjoy attempting to solve during the weekend, before Monday supplies the answers. Completing it on the Saturday is cause for particular self-satisfaction, but often a sticky one or two answers require sleep and Sunday to come to mind (at times revelation has come in the middle of the night, which says something about brain activity during sleep).

The only regular quibble about those crosswords is when anagrams are used, with no relation in meaning between clue and answer — they seem pointless and unfair, particularly when they cross each other, and at times they are treated with the contempt they are felt to deserve and disregarded.

At times, it must be admitted, the clue needs to be stretched a bit to describe the answer word, but Civis can recall only one outright mistake in a clue, and it has appeared at least twice in the past year or so.

"Run aground" doesn’t mean "founder". A ship founders when it fills with water and sinks.

A New Zealand crossword compiler should know that running aground on shallow beaches was standard practice for Māori in waka, and, after Pakeha settlement, for the flat-bottomed scows which serviced many settlements, so that they could load and unload where there were no wharves, without them taking on water or sinking.

So when, one Monday, Civis discovered that the answer to "Run aground" was given as "founder", cross words ensued.

More cross words were expressed on realising, from an item on TVNZ’s 6pm news last Tuesday about the surge in Covid-19 in the lead-up to Christmas (a son and daughter-in-law of Civis, camping in Nelson, caught it over Christmas) and the New Year (why has the plural phrase "New Years" become commonly used despite referring to only one such calendar date?), that Covid-19 Rat home testing kits will no longer be available free to the public from "next month" (a government website gives February 29 as the cut-off date).

Unbelievable. Covid is highly infectious, kills many and overloads intensive care hospital beds.

Long Covid probably affects more than 10% of those catching it, with effects on vital organs, crippling many sufferers long term. Immunisation helps protect against severe disease, but it’s effective in preventing transmission.

The almost complete lack of mask use now is bad enough (the only other shopper seen wearing a mask inside the supermarket on Monday was a retired doctor), but putting home testing beyond the means of the poor will worsen a major public health problem.

It will increase Covid-19 spread, be discriminatory (the poor are disproportionately Māori and Pasifika), and it will be counter-productive for New Zealand businesses (will that, at least, influence the new right-wing government?), in both the short and long term.

Get funding continued, Health Minister Shane Reti, or resign.