In 1959, a "New Yorker" article described Farrar as "robably the most important person in the world of the crossword puzzle." The article quoted Farrar's preferences for clues: "We don’t allow two-letter words and we avoid as much as possible obsolete words, variants, obscure words, and clichés—words like 'gnu' and 'emu' and 'proa' ... I favor using lots of book titles, play titles, names in the news, and so on. I also favor puzzles with a unifying theme—what I call the inner-clue puzzle, which was invented by one of our best constructors, Harold T. Bers. For example, an inner-clue puzzle he did for us recently was called 'Catalogue' and had answers that were words or phrases like 'catbird seat,' 'catacombs,' 'Kitty Hawk,' and 'pussyfoot.'"