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As The New York Times crossword puzzle editor,
whose desk is surrounded by 55 feet 6 inches (or thereabouts) of reference
books, I know a thing or two about fact-checking.
Every clue in every puzzle needs to be accurate, and for the Times
this means verifying or composing more than thirty thousand clues
a year.
My most-used references, not surprisingly, are dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias,
and almanacs. But I have specialized books on geography, biography, historical
events, literature, film, classical music, opera, theater, rock and roll, TV,
mythology, sports, food, brand names, Shakespeare, the Bible, and virtually any
other subject you can think of. God forbid there is a mistake! Solvers love to
catch me making a mistake.
Over the years I've noticed that certain kinds of facts are hard to verify or
find in traditional references. This is because either they don't fit in the usual
broad categories (say, the names of Olympic mascots--where can you find a list
of those?) or they're just too "trivial" (the name of George Washington's Arabian
stallion, perhaps, or the secret identity of the cartoon hero Underdog).
Now to the rescue comes Stanley Newman, a colleague of mine who edits crosswords
for Newsday and other newspapers, and Hal Fittipaldi, director of the Super Bowl
of Trivia. They've compiled more than ten thousand entries in this encyclopedia
of trivia, focusing on fun yet useful bits of information that generally can't
conveniently be found anywhere else.
The result is a joy to browse through, as well as a godsend for a
fact-checker like myself, for whom this volume will be positioned
front and center among the 55 feet 8 inches (or thereabouts)
of reference books around my desk.
--Will Shortz
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