By Penelope Green | September 24, 2025
The world of wordplay mourns the loss of Mel Taub, the brilliant and long-serving creator of The New York Times’s Puns and Anagrams puzzles. Taub, a true master of ingenious wordplay and wonderfully “groan-inducing” puns, passed away peacefully at his Austin, Texas, home on September 14th, at the age of 97.
His son, Daniel, shared the news of his father’s passing.
Known affectionately as ‘PandAs,’ these Puns and Anagrams crosswords were a unique variant, distinct from the more complex cryptic crosswords popular in Britain. While some serious cruciverbalists might have deemed them ‘lightweight,’ they garnered a dedicated following who relished the challenge of unraveling a cleverly constructed anagram and, of course, the sheer delight of a truly awful pun.
Deb Amlen, a senior puzzle editor at The Times, fondly referred to Taub as ‘the king of the groaners’ within their puzzle community. She emphasized that his puzzles were crafted with a singular goal: to bring a smile to the solver’s face.
To truly appreciate his genius, here’s a classic example from one of Mr. Taub’s 2017 creations:
An embedded interactive puzzle, originally published by Mel Taub in 2017, showcasing his signature style of puns and anagrams.
Reflecting on more of Taub’s brilliant wordplay, a puzzle from August 21, 2011, featured the clue ‘Offspring of many fodders.’ The satisfyingly punny answer: DODDERS, referring to a type of parasitic vine.
Another memorable example, from May 21, 2017, presented the clue ‘Male or female, in Boston.’ The delightful, if slightly cringeworthy, solution: AGENDA (a phonetic interpretation of ‘gender’ with a Bostonian inflection!).
Outside of his passion for puzzles, Mr. Taub held a full-time position as an underwriter for the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. His creative work took place at his family’s dining table in Brooklyn, often during evenings and weekends. Each intricate puzzle, averaging ten puns, required approximately eight hours to complete.
In a 1982 interview with The Four Star Puzzler magazine, Taub revealed his creative process, stating he always began a new puzzle with a fresh, unused pun, followed by a hopeful ‘And then I pray.’ The magazine noted his ‘rapid fire’ conversational style, much like his comedic idols Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield, a trait that clearly influenced his distinctive humor.
He once famously shared an example clue: ‘Salad ingredient on the Titanic,’ with the fitting and darkly humorous answer: ICEBERG.
Taub explained his philosophy to The Puzzler, saying, ‘Each definition is a word game in itself.’ He particularly favored anagrams where the letters flowed naturally into the definition, citing ‘He doesn’t have an end seat,’ which cleverly leads to STANDEE, as a prime example.
A clever discovery that often delighted readers was the fact that ‘Mel Taub’ itself is an anagram for ‘mutable,’ a perfectly apt description of his adaptable and ever-changing craft. Some playfully frustrated solvers, however, might have preferred ‘bum tale’ as an alternative anagram!
The Puns and Anagrams puzzle made its debut alongside The Times’s inaugural crossword in the Sunday magazine on February 15, 1942. Initially titled ‘Riddle Me This,’ it was credited to ‘Anna Gram,’ a pseudonym Will Shortz, The Times’s veteran puzzle editor, suspects belonged to the paper’s very first puzzle editor, Margaret Farrar.
Remarkably, it took the then-26-year-old Taub three attempts to get his work published in the esteemed newspaper, with his initial submissions being traditional crosswords.
In his first rejection letter, Ms. Farrar acknowledged, ‘This is an interesting puzzle, and I foresee you will land in the puzzle corner.’ However, she expressed her dislike for ‘the crossing of djo and oont’ – obscure terms for a Japanese measurement and an Indian camel, respectively.
Despite the rejection, she extended an invitation: ‘I hope you’ll come again. We pay $10 for the dailies.’
His second puzzle attempt also faced rejection, this time due to what Ms. Farrar felt were forced abbreviations, such as ‘diph’ for ‘diphthong.’ Perseverance paid off, however, and his third puzzle was finally published on October 24, 1954. His very first Puns and Anagrams puzzle followed the next May, earning him a modest $15.
Beyond PandAs, Taub also crafted double-crostics, compiling them into several books, though these were not for The Times. He occasionally contributed traditional crosswords and even a handful of cryptic crosswords to the newspaper.
His crossword ‘Hail to the Chief,’ published in The New York Times Magazine on January 17, 1993, served as a tribute to the then-newly elected President William Jefferson Clinton. Just one day later, Clinton returned the puzzle, meticulously completed in pen, accompanied by a note expressing his enjoyment ‘in between spurts of speech writing’ – remarkably, only three days before his inauguration.
A notable clue from that puzzle: ‘The White House is her Everest,’ with the timely answer: HILLARY.
Melvin Seymour Taub was born in Brooklyn on September 4, 1928, the youngest of four children to David and Esther (Schwartz) Taub. His father had a varied career, including a period as a part-time bootlegger during Prohibition, producing slivovitz (fruit brandy), before later working in a luggage factory.
He pursued an English degree at Brooklyn College with aspirations of becoming a comedy writer. When that path didn’t materialize, he transitioned into the insurance industry, where he remained until his retirement at the precise age of 63 and a half, as his son Daniel recalled – a detail that perfectly illustrates his meticulous nature. In 1959, Mr. Taub married Phyllis Spinrad, an administrator at Brooklyn College.
He is survived by his sons, Daniel and Dave, and one grandson. His wife, Phyllis Taub, who herself had two daily crosswords published in The Times, passed away in 2023.
Though PandA puzzles continue to appear bimonthly in The Times Magazine, they are no longer available online. However, over a hundred of Mr. Taub’s clever creations are preserved and accessible on xwordinfo.com, a fan-made website maintained by fellow puzzle enthusiast Jim Horne.
By his personal estimation, Mr. Taub enriched The Times with approximately 350 to 400 Puns and Anagrams puzzles, with his final contribution appearing on October 20, 2019.
As his wife, Phyllis, perceptively remarked to The Four Star Puzzler in 1982, ‘He doesn’t just play with words; he preys on them.’