Okay, so, I was messing around with this crossword puzzle, you know, the kind you find in the Sunday paper? And I got stuck on this clue: “to pass or move around.” I stared at it for a good while, scratching my head. It wasn’t a super long word, so I figured it couldn’t be too complicated, right?
First, I tried to think of all the synonyms for “move around” that I could. You know, words like “wander,” “roam,” “circulate.” But none of them seemed to fit the number of letters I had to work with.
- Wander – Nope, too long.
- Roam – Still too long.
- Circulate – Way too long.
Then I decided to change my tactics. Maybe I should look at the words I already filled in. I started looking at the letters that intersected with the clue. That sometimes helps, you know? Get a letter or two and suddenly the word just pops into your head.
I noticed one of the intersecting words was “Rottie”. I knew it, It is a dog.
I remembered some tips I read online about solving crosswords. One of them was about paying attention to wordplay and themes. So, I looked at the overall theme of the puzzle, but it didn’t really give me any hints this time. Another tip was about abbreviations. Could “pass around” be some kind of abbreviation? Like AWOL, it is “absent without leave.” Nah, that didn’t seem right either. And then ash, it seems like what’s left after burning by fire.
I kept staring at the puzzle, feeling a bit frustrated. I even googled “pass around crossword clue” and “move around crossword clue,” hoping to find some hints. I found a bunch of websites that give you answers to crossword clues. Some of them listed a whole bunch of possible answers, like maybe 40 of them! Others had fewer, like maybe 11 or 30.
The shortest one I saw was “MILL” with 4 letters, and the longest was “REARRANGE” with 9 letters. But the websites didn’t tell me which one was the right answer for this specific puzzle.
But I didn’t want to just cheat and look up the answer. I wanted to figure it out myself! After all, what’s the fun in that? So, I went back to the puzzle and kept trying.
Finally, after a lot of thinking and trying different things, it hit me! The answer was pretty simple: “go”. G-O. It fit perfectly, and it made sense with the clue. I felt so good finally figuring it out on my own!
So yeah, that’s my little story about wrestling with a crossword clue. It was a good reminder that sometimes the simplest answer is right in front of you. You just gotta keep at it and not give up.
