Pym's Daily Word Square Tactics

Tuesday, 7th January 2025

Over the years that Dr. Algernon Pym was publishing his Pym's Daily Word Square Puzzle books, he often gave helpful advice in the Preface for those struggling with a day's puzzle. These might still help players today, so I'll be paraphrasing his advice over a number of forthcoming blog articles.

With the computer edition of the puzzles, there is extra feedback to the player that the books could not offer, such as confirmation of which words are correct and incorrect when you submit a puzzle, and a puzzle score. For these features I'll add some extra tips that would not have occurred to Dr. Pym.

But for this first post, I'll quote Dr. Pym directly with a simple piece of advice for starting the puzzle: "Correspndents have sometimes asked me, 'Pray Dr. Pym, how can one more easily solve the word that lies across the middle? It has only one letter in the clue, and so many words would fit.' To them I say, a little common sense will elicit the answer. If you turn your attention to the other words beforehand, and make certain of one or two of them, then you will provide additional clues where those words cross the one in the middle."