Alright, let me walk you through this little crossword thing I tackled the other day. Nothing fancy, just the usual newspaper puzzle I do to keep the brain ticking over.
So, I was working my way through the grid, feeling pretty good, getting most of the across clues. Then I hit this one down clue. Can’t recall the exact number, maybe 14 Down or something. The clue itself was a bit vague, something like “Always found in pairs, but rarely worn”. It was 5 letters long.
My first thought went straight to clothes. Shoes? No, worn. Socks? Same deal. Gloves? Worn. Okay, so maybe not clothes. What else comes in pairs? Eyes? Ears? Too short, and you kind of ‘wear’ your eyes, metaphorically speaking. My mind just blanked for a solid minute.
I looked at the letters I already had from the across clues crossing it. It looked something like S _ _ _ S. Okay, starts with S, ends with S. Five letters.
Trying to figure it out logically
Right, “Always found in pairs… rarely worn”. What common pairs fit S _ _ _ S? Scissors? Ah, that fits! Always a pair of blades, right? And you don’t really ‘wear’ them. Felt pretty good about that one. I pencilled it in lightly.
But then, a few minutes later, I solved an across clue that crossed ‘SCISSORS’ right in the middle. The letter needed for the across clue was a ‘T’. But ‘SCISSORS’ needed an ‘I’ there. Drat. Back to square one. My clever answer was wrong.
So, S _ _ _ S was still the pattern. The crossing clue now strongly suggested the middle letter was a ‘T’. So, S _ T _ S. Okay, now what?
Shifting to Guesswork
At this point, I was stumped. Logic wasn’t getting me there. The clue felt tricky, maybe a play on words. “Always found in pairs…” What if it wasn’t a physical object? What about letters? The letter ‘S’ itself? It often appears in pairs in words. But the clue said “Always found in pairs”, which isn’t true for the letter S. Hmm.
I stared at S _ T _ S again. What common five-letter words fit that pattern? STATS? Yeah, that fits. Does it fit the clue? “Always found in pairs…” Not really. Stats don’t always come in pairs. “…but rarely worn.” You definitely don’t wear stats. It felt weak, but it fit the letters.
Then I had another thought, maybe simpler. What about the word ‘STETS’? It’s a proofreading term, meaning ‘let it stand’, used when you cross something out but then change your mind. Do they come in pairs? No. Rarely worn? Yes. Still didn’t feel right.
This is where the real guessing started. I just started plugging in vowels around the T.
- STAYS? Doesn’t fit the clue.
- STITS? Not a common word.
- STOTS? Maybe? What’s a stot? Looked it up later, means a bullock or a bounce. Doesn’t fit.
- STUTS? Nope.
Okay, I was clearly missing something obvious or something obscure. The ‘rarely worn’ part kept sticking out. What if it was really literal? Like, things called pairs but you don’t wear?
Then it clicked. Not because I suddenly understood the clue perfectly, but because I just tried fitting words again, almost randomly. S _ T _ S. What about… STAIRS? Wait, that’s 6 letters. Nope. My brain was fried.
Let’s reset. S _ T _ S. Five letters. “Always found in pairs…” Pairs of what? What about… pants? Trousers? They are a ‘pair’. Rarely worn? Well, a single leg isn’t worn. But the clue didn’t say ‘a pair of’. It just said “Always found in pairs”.
I went back to the grid, double-checked the crossing letter. Was it definitely a T? Yes, the across clue was solid. So, S _ T _ S.
Honestly, at this stage, I just threw in the towel on cleverness. I thought, what word fits S_T_S and feels vaguely plausible? ‘STATS’ was still the best fit for the letters, even if the clue connection felt iffy. I decided to just write ‘STATS’ in more firmly. It felt like a guess, a bit of a punt. If it blocked other clues later, I’d know it was wrong. But for now, it filled the gap.
Turns out, after finishing the rest of the puzzle, ‘STATS’ was right. Why? I guess the logic was maybe that statistics often compare two things (a pair of data sets?) and you don’t ‘wear’ stats. Still feels like a stretch to me, a bit of a weird clue. But hey, the guess worked based on the letters and just picking the most likely word pattern. Sometimes, you just gotta guess.
