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17 June 2008
It's no secret that the Chihuahua word puzzle on this website was inspired by the "Target" puzzles in several newspapers around the world. But the original source of this type of word-making puzzle was a parlour game which was around in the 1870s, if not earlier.
In the Oxford Guide to Word Games (2003), Tony Augarde quotes from an article in Chambers's Journal for 20 April 1872 about a game called, simply, "Words", where players made as many words as they could in five minutes from the letters of a given word. A few weeks later, this article was reprinted in the New York Times in a section headed "Drawing-Room Games". We can read this article, courtesy of the New York Times online archive.
Given the intense debates that have raged about plural words in Chihuahua, it's interesting to note that way back then, plurals - and inflected forms of verbs - were disallowed.
Another noteworthy feature of the game described is the elimination of words found by other players. Something similar has been included in some recent computer games, for example WordZap. In The Penguin Book of Word Games (1982), David Parlett suggested a variant where you would score for every word you found, but get a bonus point for each word found by only one other player and more bonus points points for each word nobody else claimed.
It might be entertaining to have a variant of Chihuahua with a five-minute time limit and this type of scoring rule. What do people think?
One statement in this article from 136 years ago that is just as true of our contemporary game is: "Nothing but practice can make perfect at this amusement..." (Although "perfect" is an unattainable goal for most of us, no matter how hard we practise.)
(So, how many words can be made from the letters of Cambridge, the example used in the article? In the Chihuahua word list, there are no fewer than 311 words using these letters. 154 of them are classed as common. These numbers include some past tenses of verbs, such as aimed and braced, which presumably would have been disallowed in the 1870s game.)
27 May 2008
The Chihuahua puzzle page has a new section: Your puzzles. When you click on this tab at the top of the display, you will see a whole new world of Chihuahua goodies! Read more ...
28 September 2007
Chihuahua celebrates two years online. Read more ...
12 April 2007
Chihuahua now gives you more information about your progress in the game, and it even lets you change the information you see on the scoreboard! Read more ...
19 March 2007
We checked out the statistics to see if players were getting better results since they could shuffle the letters. Read more ...
23 February 2007
Chihuahua has had another upgrade. The newest features include a shuffle function and a way to bring back previous words. Read more ...
15 December 2006
Some new features have been added to Chihuahua, including optional player registration and saved random games. Read more ...
25 October 2006
The Chihuahua word puzzle is back online after an absence of about a week. Read more ...
11 July 2006
A million words have been played in Chihuahua. Read more ...
6 June 2006
Some reports of disappearing words are due to players misunderstanding when games are saved. But this doesn't explain all the problems reported. Read more ...
5 April 2006
The new Chihuahua Assist tool is revealed to have been an April fool's joke. Read more ...
1 April 2006
A powerful new tool is about to be added to Chihuahua. Called Chihuahua Assist, it harnesses computer technology to help you improve your scores. Read more ...
14 March 2006
It's been suggested that some of the nine-letter words are too obscure. Read more ...
22 February 2006
From now on, the Challenge puzzle will be somewhat more difficult, on the average, than the Standard puzzle. Read more ...
27 January 2006
If you play both the Standard and Challenge puzzles you may have wondered if there is any difference in how the puzzles are set. Read more ...
4 January 2006
Did you know you can play Chihuahua using the keyboard instead of the mouse? This has always been a feature of the game, but now it has been enhanced. Read more ...
6 December 2005
A few words have been added to the list of words allowed in Chihuahua.. Read more ...
2 December 2005
You now have a choice of two Chihuahua word puzzles every day, Standard and Challenge. Read more ...
November 2005
From now on, the solution will not be available until the following day. Read more ...
Wednesday 12 October 2005
The Chihuahua puzzle now has two higher levels to aspire to - Maven and Cham. Read more ...