Ethics POLL.

Depends why you're doing the crossword.

Of course it isn't cheating. Crosswords are, for the most part, entertaining and a form of relaxation. If you have to work too hard thinking to finish a crossword puzzle then it becomes more like work and less like fun.

But some do it for the challenge.

LOL...not me, I got a lazy brain. :wink:

Dictionaries of any kind? Of course it is cheating, she says snottily, though not really meaning it. I am a mid level crossword puzzle person; that is, I can do the New York Times sunday puzzle sans dictionary sometimes, but it takes me a while. I need to muddle over it several times, over a week or two, scratch stuff out, and often end up with some area I haven't solved. Some people I know just fill them out...

I like the inbetween time when I can't figure something out and then, and then, and then... I get it!

But that's me, I have a reasonable vocabulary to start with, through no virtue of my own except that I had to study latin when I was a teen, and that turned out to be useful for english words and some others. It was useful because it gave me a clue about some parts of some words and as I have met new words, I can make connections with the old ones I knew.

So, I am one of those who take it as a challenge. If I hadn't had that enforced latin education, plus a strange childhood where I read for entertainment, I would be staring at a desert of blank squares, and then I'd say sure, go for it with any kind of dictionary.

Especially a fat old one with onionskin paper...

If Christine Lovatt thought it was cheating then she wouldn't give Franklin crossword solvers etc as prizes or print letters advising of helpful websites , would she?

Using a dictionary...
I believe dictionaries, or any other reference material for that matter, should be available for use - when required.

Cheating? -- I think not!

How else is a person supposed to acquire knowledge??

Crosswords are like poker--house rules prevail.

cheating is cheating! I guess I think of cheating in 2 levels: cheat-lite and cheat-heavy. Cheat-lite would be when I look up the clues I've already answered to make sure they're right. Cheat-heavy is looking up key words to help the crossword continue.

julksy, i say cheat away.
who's gonna know? who's... gonna... know! :wink:

hmm. but if you just do it for fun, it can't be cheating. there is no other party involved and you seek out the dictionary knowingly, hopefully, thus nobody is cheated behind his/her back since that is simply impossible. it becomes cheating as soon as you want to present your finished puzzle somewhere as a proof of your brilliance, or submit it somewhere for a competition or whatnot - simply as soon as you involve someone else in the process. otherwise who cares really...

Whom are you cheating? The only way that I would consider it cheating is if you were doing the puzzle in some sort of contest. If you are doing the puzzle for your own pleasure, do what pleases you!

The Lord High Executioner, Koko, and I have a Little List of Society's Offenders who Might Well Be Underground and Who Never Would Be Missed.

Somewhere in my top 10 entries are people who make hard and fast rules for other people's leisure pursuits. Many of the purists who insist that using reference books is cheating don't do crosswords themselves.

Ah, when I said cheating, I meant my rule for me, for my own pleasure in the challenge of not researching the answer but laboring over puzzle unaided. It's a sort of game, I like to do the puzzles that way.

Of course one looks words up to learn, that is another way to do the puzzle.

I don't know anything about doing crossword puzzles with other people, much less who Christine Lovatt is... someone who makes rules for others?

ossobucco--

I never meant to imply that your avatar was Mrs. Grundy! You eschew the reference books because you have more fun tussling with the puzzle on the puzzlemaker's terms.

My remarks were prompted by memories of the first Mr. Noddy who did not do crosswords, loudly announced crosswords were a waste of time and who hid reference books every Sunday.

Since those unhappy years I've encountered any number of non-verbal, self-appointed authorities who yell, "Yah, yah, you're cheating," if you even ask a more literate comrade for help.

You go to your church and I'll go to mine and we'll get ecumenical next month at the Umpteenth Annual Strawberry Festival.

Well....Since I started this poll I better add my 2 cents worth eh?

I reckon that using dictionaries and reference books are ok, either online or offline. Even using Google seems ok to me. Because I consider that research and you are actually looking for your answer.

I think using a crossword dictionary where you just put in the letters you've got and let it come up with an answer for you is cheating.

And guess what?

I CHEAT!!.....hehehe

Even posting in all the enteries for the Lovatt's crosswords for a couple of years I've still only won a $50 cheque.
I gotta be the unluckiest person put on earth I tell ya.....

I'm more or less on OssoB's team with this.

If I need to use any resource other than what's in my brain, it's a crossword I'm not going to be happy having completed. So I complete it on my own, in pen, or I don't complete it.

And, well, honestly, I am a bit uppity about it. I wouldn't tell you to your face, but if I saw you looking things up in your crossword dictionary, I'd think a little tiny bit less of you.

Not that it matters.

$50! Maybe I'd better check this out!

Noddy, I wasn't fussing at you at all. Just trying to say my sense of "cheating" is my own game not applicable to anyone else, which I guess I didn't make clear in my first post as I was funnin' - actually, I think we all agree on the general pleasure of crossword puzzles, sans the first Mr. Noddy.

Now then, those puzzles UNDER the nytimes sunday crossword, are they called acrostics? And they used to have a puzzle in the Saturday Review that I could only ever fill out one or two lines of, if anything at all, even with my old college english books at hand. Am a total fool at those. Roberta just flips all these out like flapjacks. (I think it's Roberta, someone on a2k does.)

Hi, ehBeth. Of course in ink. A good crossword puzzle by me is indecipherable by others, as some sections have lots of layers and on rare occasion a possible tear, though I try hard to avoid that. I put things in in ink very lightly if I have doubt, and sometimes get exhuberant with the ball point when I am sure, for sure. The finished puzzle, which might not happen for days, has a certain patina, like old copper...