Okay, so I was doing this crossword puzzle the other day, you know, the kind you find in the Sunday paper? And I got totally stuck on this one clue: “is in the past”. I stared at it for like, a good five minutes. Nothing.
My brain was churning. I tried thinking of synonyms for “past”, like “history,” “yesteryear,” “long ago”… Nope. None of those fit the number of spaces I had. I even started trying to think of specific historical events. Was it asking for a specific battle? A dynasty? Still nothing.
Digging Deep
So I grab my phone. Usually, I hate cheating at crosswords, It ruins the fun, but I was desperate. I googled “is in the past crossword clue.”
The first few results were just general crossword help sites. You know the ones that list a bunch of possible answers based on the number of letters? I scrolled through those. I have Four blank spaces to fill, There were a few four-letter options, but none of them seemed quite right. I felt like I was missing some key piece of the *’s very frustrating.
Aha! Moment
Then I saw it on a forum. Someone else had asked the exact same question! And the answer? It was so simple, I almost facepalmed. “Was.” WAS! Of course! “Is” in the past tense is “was.” It’s not about historical events, it is about tenses!
- I felt so silly.
- I had been thinking about the answer must be a noun.
- But I forgot the words’ tense.
I popped that answer into the crossword, and boom, several other clues suddenly made sense. It was like a key unlocking a whole section of the puzzle. I finished the crossword in record time after that.
So, yeah, that’s my little adventure with a seemingly simple, yet deceptively tricky, crossword clue. It’s a good reminder that sometimes the answer is right in front of you, and you just need to change your perspective a little bit to see it.
