The Language of Numbers in Puzzles

Have you done this week's crosswords?

Subscribe The Daily Beast Crossword is where power, pop culture, and politics intersect—quite literally.   Designed to be more challenging throughout the week, you can test your knowledge with five puzzles each week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Play This Week's Puzzles Get in the Game With Matt Gaffney [Number after siete] read the clue to 26-Across on Sunday's puzzle, which might've prompted you to start reciting Spanish numbers in your head: UNO, DOS, TRES and so on until you hit SIETE and realized the answer was OCHO, for the number eight.    Spanish numbers are particularly useful in crosswords, partly because so many Americans at least know 1-10, but also because their letters are extremely useful. Of those ten numbers, only CUATRO and DIEZ do not appear that often in crosswords; the other eight show up all the time (UNO, DOS, TRES, CINCO, SEIS, SIETE, OCHO, NUEVE). Even zero in Spanish (CERO) is so useful that it appears from time to time in puzzles.   Numbers in other languages show up as well, though in lesser volume. EINS and DREI in German (one and three) are common crossword visitors, as are various forms of EINS such as EIN and EINE (which are the indefinite article "a.")  Other German numbers, such as FUNF (five) and ACHT (eight)  are consonant-heavy and don't show up nearly as often.    From French we often see DEUX or CINQ (two and five) if the puzzle constructor needs that fancy X or Q at the end, but you're unlikely to see the number six clued to the French, since it's just SIX, same as English.   Numbers from non-European languages have yet to make much headway in American crossword puzzles, though the Japanese for word for the number one, ICHI, would be a good place to start. It has useful letters, and would already be familiar to some solvers through the Japanese beer Kirin Ichiban ("Ichiban" means "number one").    Did a number in another language do a number on you while solving? Tweet it to #beastxword and we'll do the math together. Play This Week's Puzzles © Copyright 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC  555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011  Privacy Policy If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, click here to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can safely unsubscribe.