BUT OF COURSE: THE NEW YORK TIMES’ CROSSWORD PUZZLE IS INCREASINGLY PROBLEMATIC TO ITS INTENDED AUDIENCE. As James Lileks writes, “So the crossword is old and white. So what? Well, it’s in the Times, and thus it should be inclusive, and that means abandoning terms that Young Persons of Color don’t get, or, if they do get them, don’t find them appropriate for the newspaper. Eskimo, for example. The term is no longer used – therefore it should not be referenced. Cultural literacy thus shrinks to only the common terms deemed acceptable by the Word Judges, until we have a generation unaware that the term Eskimo ever existed.”

Reminder: These books weren’t intended by their authors to be how-to guides: