ST×NLB Cross-References: Toilet purveyor, or ticket to prosperity

SINGAPORE – This week’s ST×NLB Crossword was constructed by yours truly and edited by Sasha Tan from the National Library Board, who is part of a team of 40 volunteers from both organisations.

A little behind-the-scenes tidbit: Since we started this collaboration, our volunteer group has come up with over 650 unique clue suggestions. Each puzzle has just 20 to 30 clues in total, so my main goal this week was to incorporate as many suggested clues into the grid as I could, which is why the contributor list is so long.

I have a confession to make: I was not the most avid crossword solver before I took on this project. I’ve learnt a lot from co-editing these puzzles week to week, so I thought I would use this week’s column to talk a little about crossword construction.

With any puzzle, one typically begins by filling in the nice, big, juicy words that anchor the rest of the grid. I wanted to use SANG NILA UTAMA (3D) and BOUGAINVILLEA (13A), and the fact that both have an ‘I’ as their sixth letter allowed me to cross them nicely. 

Most people here know the myth of the Prince of Palembang naming Singapore after the lion he supposedly saw here (although historians doubt this, as lions are not native to the island). And while many might know the name of the ubiquitous [Pink roadside flower], I thought putting it in a puzzle would act as a fun skill check on one’s spelling ability.

As grids are rotationally symmetrical by convention, I needed to include two more answers of the same length on the other side of the grid. Both also needed to cross the first two answers, as well as each other. Given the need to keep answers accessible, it took me some time to settle on the phrases GENERATION GAP (16A) and PASSIVE INCOME (5D), which are both well understood and relatable concepts.

Now that I had my anchor words, the rest of the puzzle could be filled opportunistically. Although our puzzles are not themed per se, I do enjoy including words that have some sort of relationship with other words in the grid.

Since I already had flora, I decided to include the critically endangered PANGOLIN (6D) to represent local fauna. The fun fact that it is a [Scaly mammal that carries its baby on its tail] was a suggestion from my colleague Audrey Tan, who supervises coverage of environment issues. In March, a baby Sunda pangolin was born at Mandai Wildlife Reserve for the first time in 10 years.

And to go along with the answer to [Boomer-zoomer divide, for one], I added TIGER MUM (23A), which felt like a relatable reference in our education-focused culture. For the record, my own mother was not a [Fiercely demanding matriarch].

However, this created a possible problem: mum and mom are equally valid spellings. How could the solver be sure which is the intended answer? I needed to add a crossing entry for the centre letter.

Many crossword puzzles tend to incorporate short “filler” words that are mainly there to ensure the longer answers have fair crossing entries. Merely to ensure the “U” in TIGER MUM was crossed, I needed to add GUY (22D), AGO (21A) and AYE (25A) as well as SUP (3A), ULU (4D) and NUS (10A) on the other side of the grid to ensure symmetry.

But a filler word does not necessarily have to be clued in a boring manner. A generic puzzle might clue SUP as shorthand for the phrase “what’s up?”, AGO as something incorporating the phrase “long ago”, and AYE as the slang term for acknowledgement. Instead, we took the opportunity to include even more local references. Here are a few:

3A. SUP is the Malay word for soup, as seen in the names of Indian-Muslim dishes like sup kambing (mutton soup) and sup tulang (bone marrow soup). Did you know? Sup tulang is a local invention, believed to have been created in the 1950s at an Indian-Muslim stall in Jalan Sultan. Stallholder Abdul Kadir used mutton bones to make stock for mee kuah and started serving the bones as a side dish at a patron’s request.

21A. Singapore’s public accounts watchdog, the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO), can be considered a [Regular government critic, in a way]. One of AGO’s primary responsibilities is to flag lapses and irregularities at government ministries and agencies during its annual audit.

24A. “You’ll hear the bread TALK, but the kopi tiam” is a line from local writer Ng Yi-Sheng’s poem Roti Chatter. First written for the 2017 edition of Singapore Poetry Writing Month, the piece was also featured in MRT stations and trains as part of the Poems On The MRT initiative in 2024. Read it in full here.

25A. The Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) connects Tuas to Outram. I’ve often wondered why it was not abbreviated as ARE instead, but at least it fits in the grid as it is.

2D. TOTO is both a manufacturer of toilet products, including the popular Washlet electronic bidet that always impresses visitors to Japan, and the name of a lottery game operated by Singapore Pools. Don’t flush away your tickets in frustration if you lose.

20D. [Catch-all payment service?] is a play on NETS, an early driver of electronic payments in Singapore. Founded in 1986 by a consortium of local banks, the payment provider now supports payment cards for motorists, stored value smart cards for commuters and point-of-sale machines for consumers to pay with credit and debit cards and QR codes. 

Book recommendations

Let the week’s clues inspire your next read, courtesy of NLB. Follow the links to borrow.

12A. “‘Everything in moderation’ doesn’t quite cut it in a world where the ‘everything’ for sale in the average supermarket has become so SUGARY and so immoderate.” – The Way We Eat Now: Strategies For Eating In A World Of Change by Bee Wilson

13A. “I heard that last time, this woman had a mother, very old, sitting in a wheelchair. She often brought the mother to the park in front, the one where sometimes after it rained, the BOUGAINVILLEA petals would litter the tarred footpaths as if a parade had just passed.” – Corridor: 12 Short Stories by Alfian Sa’at

18D. “More important than the easily satisfiable addiction, what the little cylinders provided me was a prefabricated motivation and transition, a way to approach or depart from a group of people or a topic, enter or EXIT a room, conjoin or punctuate a sentence.” – Leaving The Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

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Across

3. Word before kambing or tulang (3): SUP

8. Mall with a connection to Sentosa, in short (4): VIVO

9. Not part of a set meal (1,2,5): A LA CARTE

10. School with a campus in Kent Ridge (3): NUS

11. Waist-wrapped garment (6): SARONG

12. Like Nutri-Grade D drinks (6): SUGARY

13. Pink roadside flower (13): BOUGAINVILLEA

16. Boomer-zoomer divide, for one (10,3): GENERATION GAP

17. Min jiang kueh filling (6): PEANUT

19. High-kicking dance (3-3), or Singlish “sure” (3,3): CAN CAN

21. Regular government critic, in a way (3): AGO

23. Fiercely demanding matriarch (5,3): TIGER MUM

24. “You’ll hear the bread ____, but the kopi tiam” (4): TALK

25. It connects Tuas to Outram (3): AYE

Down

1. Part of a girl’s school uniform (8): PINAFORE

2. Toilet purveyor, or ticket to prosperity (4): TOTO

3. He probably didn’t actually see a lion (4,4,5): SANG NILA UTAMA

4. Out of the way, colloquially (3): ULU

5. Earnings from dividends, say (7,6): PASSIVE INCOME

6. Scaly mammal that carries its baby on its tail (8): PANGOLIN

7. Crescent’s constant companion (4): STAR

14. Ayataka or matcha (5,3): GREEN TEA

15. Like whiteboard markers (8): ERASABLE

18. Way out (4): EXIT

20. Catch-all payment service? (4): NETS

22. Dude (3): GUY

If you have any feedback, feel free to write to us at stgames@sph.com.sg. See you next week!