Credits & sources

Where a puzzle depends on reference material, the source is listed here. Clue text is written for Whird; reference works are used to check facts, not copied.

Etymology

• Wiktionary — used as a research aid for word origins. Wiktionary content is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; puzzle clue text is original and any passage derived from Wiktionary is attributed on the puzzle where it appears.
• Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology and the Online Etymology Dictionary — consulted for dating and root attribution.

Literature

• Spoiler Shield uses passages from works in the public domain: Dickens, Austen, Melville, Conan Doyle, Shelley, Carroll, Poe, Wells, Brontë, Wilde and Stevenson. Each passage names its author and year, and links to a Project Gutenberg edition where one exists. The redactions are ours.

Lexicon

Snark Lexicon uses real, obscure English words. Definitions are paraphrased from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) rather than copied. The three wrong definitions on every card are other real entries from the same list, not invented jokes.

Film and figures

Cast lists, directors and release years are matters of public fact. Plot summaries, alibi cases and phantom profiles are written for this site; no published synopsis or biography is reproduced.

Typefaces

Text is set in the reader’s own system typefaces — no web fonts are loaded, so pages stay fast and nothing is tracked.

Software

Built with Astro (MIT) and TypeScript (Apache-2.0). Deployed as static files.

Corrections

If a puzzle is wrong — a false root, a disputed date, a clue that admits two answers — it should be fixed. Corrections take priority over new puzzles.