Dennis Gormley

RE SRO: I first started doing crosswords in the 1980s. My mother was a big crossword puzzle devotee, so everytime I do one today I remember her. Anyway, back then it became apparent to me that some answers that were -- well -- "puzzling" to me were easy for her. I came to believe that ofttimes puzzle answers (and their clues) were geared towards those who were at least a generation older than I. At that time, I had an extensive background in films of the 1930s and 40s, so some answers came more quickly to me than to my contemporaries. I would compare crosswords with my mother and ask "How do you know that?". Her reply: "Everybody knows that!" (A conversational strategy I would employ when playing trivial pursuit - and that's a clue to how old I am! So SRO is not a common phrase now. But in my mind's eye, I can still see movie scenes of newspapers coming off the press describing a hit film as "SRO" - Standing Room Only. It has become a phrase these days only kept alive by crossword puzzles, but at one time was a part of the common vernacular.