A crossword coup de foudre
Evidently, many readers of this column have cultivated cruciverbalism as part of their skill set. So they hastened to respond when, last time, I asked for “a word for when you can’t figure out the answer to crossword clues and you walk away from the puzzle, only to come back to it later and the answers you couldn’t previously come up with just seem to flood into your head!”
John Haneffant, of Boston, used the occasion to give a shoutout to a beloved Globe crossword creator. “I have been solving crossword puzzles for over 40 years and have always looked forward to the puzzle in the Sunday Globe. I especially looked forward to the puzzles created by the late Henry Hook. Solving his puzzles (hardly a guaranteed outcome) always made me feel a great sense of accomplishment. In his memory, I submit the
Hook relook.”
Well, that’s charming — but I’m afraid it scores too low on intuitability to be a serious candidate.
Several readers seemed to feel that the name for the phenomenon in question needed to be fancy.
Janet Tang, of Porto, Portugal, reminisced: “This often happened to me in high school when trying to complete a difficult math proof. I would half wake in the middle of the night, complete the proof (in ink!), and then awaken the next morning surprised that the proof had been completed correctly. I called that somnambolution. I suppose you could call this delayed discovery desolution?” Mary Ann Coughlin, of Dover, suggested lethological remission, lethologica having appeared in the 1915 edition of Dorland’s American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (before Carl
Jung popularized the term), where it was defined as the “inability to remember the proper word.”
Scott Street, of North Reading, invented not only a word but a backstory for it, declaring: “Psychologists use the term vocagestation (vo-CAY-ge-STA-tion), as it points to the subconscious gestation process that is familiar to solvers and scientists alike.” Nice work, Scott — what you’ve come up with is close to being true. Research psychologists use the term incubation: “a period of time in which a problem is set aside prior to further attempts to solve” it.
Jeffrey Lee Schantz proposed recombinant apopheniation, apophenia being, as we all know, “the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things.” Jeffrey helpfully used his term in a sentence: “After staring at the crossword for hours, I went to refill my coffee. When I returned to it, the clue I was searching for appeared in a haze of recombinant apopheniation.”
These are all quite snazzy, but they, too, score low on intuitability.
Now, here’s an option whose meaning I think everyone will get: Dotty Corbiere went with the opposite of brainfreeze to coin brainthaw.
Almost as transparent is “knowluge, a deluge of knowledge!” from Sharon Cameron, of Peabody.
Lynn Rosenbaum, of Arlington, wrote: “When you get a delayed ‘light bulb’ idea, it’s a delight
bulb — and it is indeed a delight!”
Dennis E. Noonan, of Wellesley, recounted: “Many times I have been stumped by a crossword clue but came back later to have the answer appear almost magically. I call it re-piphany.”
And Marc McGarry, of Newton Highlands, coined lexipiphany.
Noreen Barnes, of Acton, proposed “that the aha! moment of realizing what the answer is, after taking a break, is a sudden recollexicon. I experience these frequently and had just finished the New York Times Sunday Crossword when I turned to ‘May I have a word.’”
Kerry Loughman, of Brookline, suggested: “How about infruition? This is a creative state that I constantly seek in writing poetry. When I have some of it but not the whole, I walk away and do something else. Often the words come or the solution to the writing comes, as if it had been wandering around in my subconscious.”
And Don Hunton, of Acton, reported: “I imagine the crossword clues echoing around in my brain when I walk away from a puzzle, so I propose crucireverb for the name of the phenomenon. Or maybe crucireverberation?”
Those are fun, no? Therefore, I award Don bragging rights for his stylish coinages — and Dotty Corbiere bragging rights for crystal clarity with her brainthaw. Well done, you two!
Now David Davis, of Cambridge, wants to know: “What is a word for when a man leaves the toilet seat up after using the toilet,” potentially disgusting and inconveniencing the next user?
Send your suggestions to me at Barbara.Wallraff@globe.com by noon on Friday, July 28, and kindly tell me where you live. Responses may be edited.
As we enter the dog days of summer, I’d love to see some reader challenges that speak to some as yet nameless aspect of the season. But meanings of any kind in search of words are always welcome.