Some thoughts on wordplay
What do crosswords, musical theater lyrics and picture books have in common? That’s the question I found myself pondering after a conversation with my brother, Frank David.
For context, he’s not just my brother, but he’s also a crossword puzzle guy. After years of enthusiastic crossword puzzle solving, he recently co-authored a puzzle with his son, Henry Lin-David, a seasoned constructor. (You can check out their puzzle here—a Sunday New York Times debut for both of them!—and read a behind-the-scenes post about how it was created here.)
As Frank was talking about a new idea for a themed puzzle, I noticed that the joy he seemed to be getting from crossword construction was similar to the joy I get from writing musical theater lyrics and picture books. And after a bit of discussion, Frank and I figured out why: all three formats involve playing with words, and that’s something the two of us both love.
Of course, wordplay works slightly differently across these three genres. The sound of words clearly matters in lyrics (which are meant to be sung) and picture books (which are meant to be read aloud), but only sometimes in crossword puzzles (for example, when a puzzle incorporates homonyms or puns).
Rhyme matters (a lot!) in lyric writing, and also obviously in rhyming picture books, but not in unrhyming ones or crossword puzzles (unless there’s some sort of rhyming trick involved in the themed entries).
The way words look matters a lot in crossword puzzles, both in terms of spelling and word length. In picture books the text is part of the overall art design, so it’s more about the length of sentences (or lines in a rhyming picture book) and how many go on a page. With musical theater lyrics, on the other hand, only the singers will see the text, so the way it looks doesn’t come into play.
We also talked about where poetry fits in; Frank realized that the poetry he likes best (e.e. cummings, for instance) also relies heavily on wordplay.
Frank wondered if maybe different genres could be put into a 2x2 matrix, like this:
Lots of wordplay Low focus on meaning (ex. unthemed crossword puzzles) | Lots of wordplay High focus on meaning (ex. musical theater lyrics) |
No/little wordplay Low focus on meaning (ex. ???) | No/little wordplay High focus on meaning (ex. narrative picture books) |
As you can see, I couldn't quite think of what would go in that lower-left box. (Can you?) Nevertheless, it was lots of fun trying to articulate the various ways wordplay and meaning intersect across genres, and my/Frank's shared love of language!