Palavras Cruzadas (Páscoa)

I finished this easter crossword slightly late. It was one of the easier ones and I hardly even needed to use the dictionary.

One of the things I learned in the process was how you describe the clues. In English we say “one down” and “seventeen across”. In Portuguese the down clues are “vertical” and across “horizontal” but I’ve never been sure if it was “um da horizontal” or “um horizontal” or what.

So I asked:

Adoro fazer palavras cruzadas. Tenho um livros cheio de palavras cruzadas portuguesas. O autor é Paulo Freixinho e cada palavra cruzada tem um tema.

Uma coisa que não sei é como se referem os espaços (da grelha) e as pistas correspondentes. Por exemplo em inglês, dizemos “one down” para indicar a primeira pista no vertical” mas será que os portugueses dizem “um na vertical” ou “um vertical” ou “um para baixo” ou… Uma outra coisa?

The answer turns out to be pretty simple: it’s just “um vertical” and “um horizontal”. Boring but useful – at least if you are a crossword fan.

By the way, vertical and horizontal, when used as nouns, are feminine, but in spite of that its still “um vertical” not “uma vertical” because we’re not saying that there is one vertical, we’re referring to number one in the list of vertical clues.