Crossword Breakfast Test (Meta)

It will be interesting to see how many “DIRTY” minds are out there…

thanks for pointing this out! i went back and went hunting for the numbers! amazing :)

(stares at floor)

Omg - so I immediately entered Dirty (sorry), then tried to use the “code” but mistakenly had I=8 for CPEAN. And only realized my mistake after reading this DOH!!! It was right there in front of me! Very clever construct- thank you!

*raises hand*

(once i realized it was so good! another reminder how much i pale to you geniuses)

Well, I certainly did! I'm still not sure how the numbers work

I originally put “sic” after Barbra - ouch, it hurts to type that

Nope, I’m not that clever. Perfect example of what Matt says - no need to add deliberate red herrings as they’ll turn up anyway.

That's the only thing I noticed!

We covered your demographic with the Vic Damone tune

Me neither. It probably has something to do with this "numbers" thing that everyone is referring to but nobody is explaining.

The title might be a bit “inside baseball” if you don’t solve the main daily crosswords. The “breakfast test” for crosswords is an unwritten rule that unpleasant entries should be avoided in the grid, so as not to spoil the solver’s breakfast when doing the morning crossword. Example from a recent NYT article about constructing crosswords:

“The last thing we need to mention about bad fill is the “Sunday Morning Breakfast Test,” which means that every entry in a crossword should be sufficiently family-friendly. The first New York Times crossword editor, Margaret Farrar, went further and once wrote that crosswords should avoid “death, disease, war and taxes.” To me, words strongly associated with most topics like that should never appear either in the grid or the clues. Absolutely. The current New York Times editor, Will Shortz, has a different take, though. When we asked him about words that should or shouldn’t be in a crossword, he wrote: “If a word or term is used in the columns of The Times, or in cultured society in general, I think it’s probably O.K. for a crossword, even if it’s touchy or slightly unpleasant. I strive to have crosswords reflect real life as much as possible. … I don’t believe in banning words, except for the very worst. And I’d be happy to abolish the term ‘breakfast test’ completely.” So, his is a pretty laissez-faire policy.”

So when you look at the prompt, you have to question whether DIRTY could be right. The last across could have been any word but NOT is designed to have you that the first answer is wrong.