SOME years ago, The Scotsman newspaper made a terrible error of judgement. When redesigning the paper, the editor came up with the idea of putting sport and business in a separate section. This was on the principle, presumably, that only men read those pages. He was soon put right.

The impact on the denizens of Edinburgh was immediate and vocal. With the business pages went the crossword, meaning that the wives of men who took it to the office were in uproar. Without this brain teaser to fill their hours, the day stretched emptily ahead. With time to spare, or so it was rumoured, rates of infidelity among unoccupied housewives in the New Town rocketed. It’s no wonder that the editor, whose phone was ringing out like bells on Christmas day, swiftly reversed his decision.

Much has been made of the centenary this month of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and of the 70 years since Queen Elizabeth took the throne. But it marks another landmark too, one which touches millions of puzzle fans every day.

One hundred years ago, in February 1922, the first crossword was published in Britain, in Pearson’s Magazine. We were slow off the mark compared to America and Italy, who were decades ahead and, unlike us, did not at first view this lexicographical teaser as something suitable mainly for children. They recognised its value as a serious adult occupation or, as the Italian inventor put it, foreseeing Edinburgh’s ladies who lunched, as an enjoyable way “per passare il tempo”.

READ MORE: Academic stramash over slavery

By the time of its appearance in Britain, it was already becoming an American craze. The disgruntled staff in New York’s Public Library complained in 1925 about having to protect their regular readers and students from rapacious puzzlers. They would swoop on the library, raiding its shelves for dictionaries and encyclopaedias like pigeons commandeering a bird feeder and consuming all the nuts.

When I was a child, the sight of someone doing the crossword on the train or in a café represented the height of maturity and wisdom. I used to assume it was something that came naturally when you reached a certain age, like driving a car, or understanding the Dow Jones. To this day, however, I can manage only the simplest. Even the beginner’s one in Gardener’s World is beyond my reach, a painful reminder of my horticultural cluelessness.

Cryptic crosswords, however, are in another class entirely. Requiring reserves of logic, lateral thinking and general knowledge mere mortals will never possess, they were used as a recruitment tool for Bletchley Park code-breakers. For me, they remain as unfathomable as hieroglyphics or a publisher’s royalty statement. I’d as easily understand nuclear fission as a clue reading: “statement by filmed divorcée, retracted”.*

Thanks to Wordle, though, I’m dipping my toes in the water, gearing up for one day plunging into ever deeper puzzles. Already I’ve overcome my doubts about getting into a daily routine, which was the first hurdle. Doubtless many Herald readers are already experts Wordlers, whereas I’ve only been doing it for a couple of weeks. Even so, in that short space of time I can refute the concept of its Welsh inventor, Josh Wardle, that only one game is released each day because it’s not intended to become addictive.

But it really is. I’m hooked. It also punctuates the morning, an oasis of self-indulgence over coffee, when all other chores can be briefly laid aside. “Did you get caulk?” neighbours asked at the weekend, with no need to explain what they were talking about. Initially resistant, they were coaxed into doing it by their daughter, who lives in Canada, thereby starting a daily cross-Atlantic rivalry. Both of them are convinced that they are approaching it scientifically, whereas the other is merely guessing wildly. This is all the evidence you need to prove that, gentle pursuit though it is, it brings out the competitive side of even the easiest-going.

When I suggested my husband try it, he was not interested. Learning that you have six attempts in which to guess a five-letter word, he asked why it couldn’t be done in one. Technically that must be possible, but it would take a Stephen Hawking to calculate the odds of magicking the correct answer without a single clue. Put it this way: you have a better chance of picking the winner of the Grand National without knowing who the runners are.

Wardle, a software engineer who recently sold his game for a seven-figure sum to the New York Times, spent much of lockdown doing that newspaper’s crossword. It shows. His own puzzle was devised as a pastime for him and his partner during the worst of the pandemic. Improving an early prototype he had come up with years ago, he has now sparked his own pandemic, Wordle’s popularity spreading faster than any virus.

If Wordle is base camp, cryptic crosswords are the peak, demanding powers of deduction beyond the ordinary. Indeed, Agatha Christie said plotting her novels was just like doing a cryptic crossword.

In my time, I’ve met more than my fair share of word game experts, since the Chambers Dictionary, with whose lexicographers I once worked, was used to adjudicate in national Scrabble competitions. Colleagues would return from weekends on duty in far-flung hotels looking weary and relieved, like prisoners allowed parole. Judging by their stories, stand-offs in the finals could be as tense as Fisher v. Spassky.

Compared to players and solvers, the crossword compiler is another creature altogether: often male, sometimes eccentric, always with a phenomenal memory. One I encountered was a Morris dancer, who kept his clogs in the car boot ready for an impromptu demonstration should anyone express an interest. Or even if they didn’t. He had a passion for etymology, punctuating people’s conversations to explain the roots of words as if he was footnoting a book.

I envy his knowledge, if not his obsession. And I admire anyone who can sit on a bus or train, tackling sudoku without fear of public humiliation. This remains entirely beyond me, the mere sight of numbers paralysing all rational thought.

Perhaps that explains why I’ve taken to Wordle. It’s doable, yet demanding enough to shake the dust off the synapses. How best to describe it? With only five letters, that’s tough. Great probably comes closest, but it also feels like a treat.

*(answer: remark)

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily