Word search puzzles have, like crosswords and arrowords, been very popular in the United Kingdom, and - also in common with these latter puzzles - have had complete magazines devoted to them. Word searches are commonly found in daily newspapers and puzzle books. Some teachers use them as educational tools for children, the benefit being that young minds can learn new words and their spellings by intensively searching for them, letter by letter, in the puzzle. A common strategy for finding all the words is to go through the puzzle left to right (or vice versa) and look for the first letter
The Last Word (game show) competed to guess groups words that had something in common in order to win cash and prizes. The civilians received all winnings credited to their teams. Among the celebrities who appeared include Jill Whelan, Ted Lange, Susan Ruttan, and Gordon Jump. A puzzle consisting of three rows of blanks was displayed, representing three related words, and one letter of each word was filled in at the outset. The player in control pressed a button to stop a randomizer that flashed around the board. If it stopped on an empty space, that letter was filled in and the player could either