世上最难的填字游戏

Earlier this year, Marc Breman, one of the most prolific crossword creators in Great Britain, released what some papers called the most challenging crossword puzzle in history. Breman creates around 13,500 crossword clues every year for publications like the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express, and the Sunday Telegraph. He has made more than 30,000 puzzles in his nearly three-decade career. But one stands above the rest.

今年早些时候，英国最高产的填字游戏创作者之一Marc Breman发布了一份被一些报纸誉为史上最具挑战性的填字游戏。据悉，Breman每年都会为《每日镜报》、《每日快报》、《星期天电讯报》等刊物创作约13500条填字游戏线索。在近三十年的职业生涯中，他已经制作出了超过30000份谜题。其中，有一份却从中脱颖而出。

"The World's Hardest Cryptic Crossword" got its title because of its intensely abstruse clues, and it took Breman six weeks to complete. Though the language of each clue—like 44 Down, "Fuss about a large bear," or 51 Across, "Yorkshire flower of zero application"—may read as straightforward, Breman's puzzle is said by the Daily Mail to be challenging due to its "linguistic wordplay, codes and numerous hidden meanings."

这份谜题之所以被誉为「世界上最难的填字游戏」，是因为其线索极为深奥，花了Breman足足6周时间才设计完成。尽管每条线索的语言表达看上去都很直白(例如第44纵列「Fuss about a large bear」或第51横列「Yorkshire flower of zero application」)，但《每日邮报》称其挑战性在于「语言双关语、代号以及众多隐藏含义」。

So just how hard is it? "Based on the feedback of other compilers who have seen it or tried it, mine is about 100 times harder," Breman told The Mirror in April. "If that description is indeed correct, then it stands to reason that it would take the average enthusiast 100 times longer to solve it. This amounts to 100 weeks, or just over two years."

所以说，到底有多难呢?Breman在四月份时曾表示：「基于其他出题人阅读或尝试后的反馈，我这份谜题比他们出的难上100倍」「如果他们的描述正确无误，那么理所当然的是，普通发烧友需要花费100倍的时间去解开它。这相当于100周，或者说两年多时间」。

In an interview with The Guardian, Breman said, "[The puzzle] started as a reaction to being asked by a couple of magazines to make things easier. I decided to make the hardest puzzle I could, just for fun." But he did backpedal the claim of its impossible difficulty just a touch: "It's clearly not the hardest puzzle, it's just the hardest puzzle I could make."

在接受《卫报》采访时，Breman表示「[这份谜题]起初是为了响应一些杂志提出的让我出简单点的要求。于是我决定竭尽所能制作一份最难的谜题，只是为了好玩而已」。与此同时，他也补充道：「这显然不是最难的谜题，只是我能想出来的最难谜题而已」。

Almost immediately, one reader of The Daily Telegraph said he solved the puzzle in under two hours. "I am a very keen puzzler," Simon Anthony told the paper. "Some of the clues were definitely tricky, but two years would be a stretch … it used a lot of interesting vocabulary and cluing, although some of the clues were outrageous." Anthony was the first of 10 people Breman said sent him a correct solution.

不过，《每日电讯报》的一位读者几乎马上表示自己在两小时内解开了这份谜题。这位名叫Simon Anthony的读者表示：「我是个非常狂热的解谜者」「有些线索确实很棘手，但是两年时间也太长了… 这份谜题使用了许多有趣的词汇与线索，尽管有些线索非常荒谬」。 Breman对此表示，Anthony是回答正确的前十人之一。