The past few days, I’ve played with Qudoku puzzles, my term for Word Sudoku puzzles teamed with quotes—circled, numbered letters in the completed Word Sudoku puzzles feed numbered cells in the quote; solving the Sudoku puzzles spells out the quote.
But the so-called quote grid doesn’t have to contain a quote; it can be anything you think is worth spelling out—something funny, memorable, cute, deeply meaningful, etc. I have Qudoku puzzles that spell out Buddhist sayings or Chinese proverbs; quotes from Mark Twain; or well-known quips about life and love.
And today I present the beginning of a week-long series of Qudoku puzzles containing oxymorons.
An oxymoron is a combination of mutually exclusive or self-contradictory words, which together form a new meaning. Think “giant shrimp” or, in my line of work, “press release.”
There are also lots of (for the lack of a better term) pseudo-oxymorons. Not really oxymorons, but sometimes cute, sometimes caustic opinions. One of the more infamous is “Microsoft works.” Mean, but, if you don’t work for the big one, sorta funny, in a mean way. Another example of this ilk is “congressional ethics.” Less funny. Or “military intelligence.” Not funny. A political one that actually works for me is “Reagan Democrat.” That actually has meaning.
If you like the concept of seemingly illogical, self-contradictory phrases that also happen to be true, then you’ll love the book “Oxymoronica” by well-known psychologist/author Dr. Mardy Grothe (http://www.drmardy.com/). I loved the book! It’s—no pun intended—‘serious fun.’ And you’ll definitely want to check out his latest work hot off the presses, called “I never metaphor I didn’t like.” It focuses on what Dr. Grothe calls the three superstars of figurative language: analogies, metaphors, and similes. He uses hundreds of great and memorable quotes from famous and infamous people as examples. Since I read a lot of science fiction, love wordsmithing and wordplay and just a few days ago talked about the contradiction inherent in free parking, I loved the illustrative example Dr. Grothe used on his Web site to promote his book. It’s a quote by biochemist and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov: “Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end."
The beauty of oxymorons, for our present purpose, is that they come in all sizes. So for the serious fun of it, I’m going to present you a series of oxymoronic Qudoku (“Oxydoku”?) puzzles over the next week or so in a wide variety of puzzle sizes, beginning today with 4x4 and 6x6-sized puzzles-really easy ones! Then in the next days, we’ll work through puzzles of size 8x8, 9x9, 10x10, 12x12, 14x14, 15x15 and 16x16. Anything size 12 and up is hard to solve, and size 16 is all but impossible, as far as I’m concerned. So you have your Word Sudoku puzzle-solving work ahead of you!
RUSE
4x4 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x2 square and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote
SOUR
4x4 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x2 square and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote
BESTIR
6x6 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x3 rectangle and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote
ISOMER
6x6 Qudoku Word Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x3 rectangle and group of circled squares contain the letters in the anagram exactly once
Copy letters in circled cells to the matching numbered cell in the quote
Solutions first thing in the morning. And come by each day for the next week or so as we work through different sized Oxymoronic Qudoku puzzles.
Thanks,
--Dave
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