Vivant Bong
It’s data science week on the Dispatch!
Puzzler
Think of a two-word English phrase that’s been anglicized from its French origins. Reverse the order of the words, add a letter to the end, and you’ll get a new two-word phrase that might describe a French person’s taste in food.
Exploration of NYT Crossword answers from 1994-2017
GitHub - jtanwk/nytcrossword: An exploration of New York Times crossword answers from 1994-2017, i.e. the Will Shortz era.
An exploration of New York Times crossword answers from 1994-2017, i.e. the Will Shortz era. - GitHub - jtanwk/nytcrossword: An exploration of New York Times crossword answers from 1994-2017, i.e. ...
jtanwkJonathan Tan has analyzed 20 years of New York Times crosswords and mapped out how the puzzle has changed w/r/t answer length and word density. It’s not a surprising result, but it’s a really fun read, with a lovely set of charts.
The NYT Crossword puzzle is approximately as cool as the OED
Solving Crossword Puzzle Based on Data Collected
There’s a misconception that being good at crosswords and getting NYT crossword answers quickly requires knowledge of trivia, and it couldn’t be more false. Sometimes a crossword constructor will resort to an obscure word just to get all the clues to fit, but trivia runs counter to the goal of th
Rachel Kogan
More NYT crossword data analysis, this time comparing words to the OED. Fun to see which words got in the dictionary first, and which in the crossword first.
Graphing the distribution of English letters towards the beginning, middle, or end of words
Graphing Distribution of English - ProoFFreader
Some data visualizations tell you something you never knew. Others tell you things you knew, but didn’t know you knew. ... Read more
David
Graphs of each of the 26 letters and the frequency of their position in English words. Read to the end to find the most representative word in English.
Solution to the previous Puzzler
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