Judge, 1924-11-08 · page 12 of 36
Judge — November 8, 1924 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This 1924 Judge magazine page satirizes the crossword puzzle craze sweeping America at the time. The top section presents an intentionally unsolvable puzzle as a humorous challenge to puzzle enthusiasts who claim no puzzle defeats them. The main satire appears in "Historical Utterances," which imagines how famous American historical quotes would sound if expressed as crossword puzzle clues instead of eloquent speeches. Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death!" becomes absurdly convoluted puzzle language. Similarly, General Sherman's fierce Civil War statement is reimagined as clinical, grammatical definitions—the satire being that expressing these stirring historical moments through crossword puzzle mechanics drains them entirely of their power and emotion. The bottom cartoon depicts a woman showing the puzzle game to "Phyllis," suggesting crosswords were marketed as entertainment for women specifically. The satire mocks both the obsessive nature of the puzzle craze and how over-intellectualizing language destroys meaning and passion.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Hardest Puzzle Ever Conceived This crossword puzzle is more than hard—it’s impossible. It is presented here as a sort of challenge to those experts who boast that no puzzle is too difficult for them. N. B.—Your attention is called to a special feature—the dotted portion. These little extra squares are merely a convenient device for catchirig the extra letters in words that overlap. Horizontal An abbreviated man’s name. Luminiferous proboscides. Seven hundredth word in Gettys- burg Address. Thingamajigs. Urq (provincial). An uncivilized country where no- body has ever even heard of sus- penders. Weapon used in Hollywood. Nervous gelatine. What excited Eskimos call each other. Vertical Comes in bottles. We get it from the Greek (not soup). Future sausage. Pertaining to fly paper on chairs, Upside Down and Backwards Babylonian motorcycle policemen. Painless payments. Thirtieth of February. On laundry tickets. The ex-kaiser. Could Be Proud of Herself May—Helen never goes to a beauty parlor. 4 Mark—No, she’s a self-made girl. Historical Utterances 1924 Models ow fortunate for America’s his- toric sloganeers that the cross- word puzzle epidemic came at this late day. Deeds of valor, now sum- med up in terse, cryptic, euphonious phrases, would never have echoed down the corridors of time had they been expressed in alphabetical jargon. Suppose, for example, the immortal Patrick Henry had been bitten by the grammatical germ. “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” he shouted. But how long do you sup- pose we would have remembered: “To make gifts—Objective case of I—Power to do as one pleases— Sooner than—The cessation of all vital functions without capability of resuscitation?” At that, though, General Sherman would have been regarded as a much sweeter person by the Nice Nellies had he uttered the following, in- stead of his fiery arraignment: “The state of exerting force or violence against another—Third per- son singular present indicative of the verb ‘to be,’ Place of punishment for the wicked after death.” Carry the thought even further— no we dare not! A. L. L. Tue Inventor or It7—This dandy new game ought to make a hit with Phyllis! comicbooks.com