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Beef Erupts Over Crossword Guru’s Hip-Hop Slang Clue : The Two-Way

According to some, Shortz took a false step with this past Saturday’s puzzle, when he included a clue steeped in hip-hop slang. The clue asked for a 5-letter word that means “Wack, in hip-hop.”

We’ve got a great blogpost on our Crossword blog about what happened here.

The letter of complaint about the clue was forwarded to the puzzle’s editor Will Shortz, which as Deb Amlen notes at Wordplay, the NYT puzzle’s blog, is not a rare occurrence:

In his home office in Westchester, Mr. Shortz has file drawers of letters he has saved over the years, all claiming to have found a mistake in the puzzle…

The letter writers are either extremely pleased with themselves for having gotten one over on the puzzle master, or they are angry because it seems inconceivable that a mistake could have been made and they want their money back.

Shortz - something of a legend in American crosswording - replied with some citations:

The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, by Tony Thorne, defines “illin’” as “bad, uncool,” and says it is a buzzword in the rap and hip-hop cultures. It seems to me that’s roughly the same as “wack” in the sense of worthless or stupid.

So who is right? And how can we tell? Read more here.