Okay, let’s talk about tackling one of those pesky crossword clues, specifically the word “ending”.
My Crossword Struggle Today
So, I sat down this morning with my usual cup of coffee and the daily crossword puzzle. Things were going pretty smoothly, filling in the easy ones, getting a few letters here and there for the tougher clues. Then I hit it: 4 Down, “Ending” (5 letters). Seemed simple enough, right? Well, not quite.
My first thought went straight to common words for conclusions. Stuff like:
- FINIS
- CLOSE
- FINAL
But wait, only five letters. “FINIS” fit the letter count, but looking at the crossing letters I already had, the second letter needed to be an ‘M’. Okay, so “FINIS” was out. “CLOSE” also five letters, but the ‘M’ didn’t fit there either. “FINAL” – nope, wrong letters again.
I stared at it for a bit. “Ending”. What else could it mean? Maybe like the end of a movie? Credits? No, too long. The end of a race? Finish line? Still too long. I checked the crossing letters again. I had _ M _ _ _. Hmm. That ‘M’ was really throwing me off.
I decided to put the puzzle down for a minute. Went to refill my coffee, looked out the window. Sometimes stepping away helps shake things loose. When I came back, I looked at the clue again: “Ending”. Could it be more literal? Like, the act of ending something?
What about common phrases? “The end”? No. How about suffixes? Things you add to the end of words? Nah, that didn’t feel right for a standalone clue like this.
Then it clicked. Sometimes crosswords use slightly tricky definitions. What’s a word that means “ending” and has an ‘M’ as the second letter? I thought about story endings, book endings… OMEGA! You know, “alpha and omega,” the beginning and the end. Let’s check the letters: O M E G A. Five letters. Second letter ‘M’. I quickly penciled it in.
Lo and behold, it fit perfectly with the other crossing words I solved later. Felt pretty good to finally crack that one. It wasn’t about complex vocabulary, just thinking a little outside the most obvious meaning. That’s the fun of these things, I guess. Keeps the brain working.
