Crosswordese

According to Marc Romano, "to do well solving crosswords, you absolutely need to keep a running mental list of 'crosswordese', the set of recurring words that constructors reach for whenever they are heading for trouble in a particular section of the grid".

These directions always fall between the standard octaval compass points—i.e., North (N – 0° or 360°), Northeast (NE – 45°), East (E – 90°), etc.

Starting at north and going clockwise, the directions are: Because of crossword rules that restrict the usage of two-letter words, only entries of three or more letters have been listed.

The "zed" spelling of Z is often indicated by a reference to a Commonwealth country, where that is the standard pronunciation (e.g. [British puzzle center?]

Postal abbreviations: Since the late 1970s, the post offices in the United States and Canada have used computerized letter sorting.

This prompted the creation of the two-capital-letter abbreviations used today for all states and most provinces (i.e., "MN" for Minnesota and "QC" for Quebec).