15 Down: Biggest Crossword Fanatic at Harvard

Quick—what’s a nine-letter word for hours and hours (and hours) of fun? For Grace Tiao ’08, the answer just might be “crossword.”

More specifically, a gigantic, enormous, gargantuan crossword. Tiao is the proud owner of one “World’s Largest Crossword,” a massive tapestry of downs and acrosses with over 28,000 clues. The seven-by-seven foot puzzle, which hangs on a wall in Tiao’s room in Weld Hall, was a high school graduation gift. As Tiao explains, “My friend was flying home from MIT’s freshman weekend and saw this puzzle in the Skymall catalog.” (In other news, Tiao’s friend may be the first person in history to order something from the Skymall catalog.) It was a perfect gift for Tiao, who evidently has developed a reputation as something of a crossword junkie.

The Georgia native began her crossword odyssey in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. As an act of rejection against what she termed the Journal Constitution’s “lackluster” comics page, Tiao began filling out the Sunday crossword. “There was nothing better to do when reading on a Sunday morning,” she says.

She may be an undeniable crossword whiz, but Tiao needs all the help she can get. Just finding the right blank can be a huge challenge on a puzzle with tens of thousands of blanks.  Tiao’s friends often help her out when they are in the room. But work is understandably slow-going.

From a distance, the puzzle resembles a black-and-white Persian rug or the tile floor of a mosque. Barely even recognizable as a crossword, it makes for an interesting piece of art and a great conversation piece. “It’s what decorates our room,” says roommate Kelly Chan ’08. But owning your very own “World’s Largest Crossword” has its downsides, too.

Tiao says that first-time visitors to the room often make some snide remark like, “Whose is this?” Another of her roommates, Allison A. Frost ’08, also notes that they “have gotten weird looks” about the puzzle. When prompted with the idea of throwing a crossword puzzle party, Tiao remarked, “That would finish off my social life for good.”

But crosswords wait for no man, and there is work to be done. Though Tiao confesses that the puzzle is “not particularly difficult,” completing it will be an undeniable challenge. How long until she finishes? It could be a while.

“My goal is to finish this puzzle before I die,” she says.