If you saw the words in this title and wondered “WTF?”, you probably do not work crossword puzzles. Like most things, there are tricks to doing them and one of them is remembering little quirky words that they like to use.
“Orts” is defined as “Scraps for Fido”, or “Leftovers” or “Food bits” but none of us has ever heard it used in polite conversation. It is just a nice short word that has easy to use letters so it fits well into a grid. It has no “Z”s or “X’s to deal with.
Agra is the city where the Taj Mahal is located. They give clues like “City on the Yamuna River” or “Location of Monument to Mumtaz”. Again, it is a malleable little word that can be worked into a puzzle. I once did some business with a travel agent and her name was Mumtaz. i asked her “As in Mahal?” and she told me I was the first American to ever trip to that. Ah, crossword puzzle info to the rescue!
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care! IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!Monday
Crimson Quillfeather alternate with
Tuesday ejoanna
Wednesday Pam from Calif
Thursday art ah zen
Friday FloridaSNMOM
Saturday bigjacbigjacbigjac
Sunday loggersbrat
I worked the Los Angeles Times puzzle everyday for years. I learned so many useless, arcane words but it was always fun. The puzzles had a cadence of sorts; they were easiest on Monday, getting harder by Thursday and tough for me to complete on Friday. The weekends were hit and miss, but I usually got the Sunday puzzle done.
Do you do crosswords? If not, some other sort of puzzle, like Sudoku? I did those for a while but I have little ken with numbers and couldn’t seem to really connect with the plot of them. I could do them by the process of elimination but I never got the spark of them. What about you?