A relative brought us a copy of the New York Times. Like every other U.S. newspaper, The Gray Lady ain’t what she used to be. A downsized format, far fewer pages … well, you know the drill.

But some of the basics are still there. A stripped down news and commentary package. A weather map. A quote of the day.

And one puzzle has survived, although in altered form.

To repeat what is in the headline and, well, in the photo, see if you can deduce an answer from this clue:

“Nine letters: Shrunken newspaper feature”.

The answer?

“Crossword”.

As in crossword puzzle.

For decades, The Times had the best daily crosswords in America, but the newspaper apparently will no longer commit that much space to the feature.

But someone decided they couldn’t leave the paper without any crossword at all. So they came up with The Mini Crossword.

It is a sad thing, compared to what the paper once printed.

This thing is five squares wide and five squares deep.

The one I solved had 10 clues and 19 letters.

It took me about three minutes to solve, which is nowhere near what the old ones required. Basically, if you get a couple of clues, in such a tight format, the others will come easily enough.

So, is The Tiny Crossword a good thing or a bad?

It’s sad, certainly, but I think it is more good than bad.

It reminds us that the crossword remains extant, if not necessarily in the pages of The Times. The Tiny Crossword allegedly is “edited”, still, by the venerable Will Shortz — who must bang out a week of these in an hour.

And it might push us back to the challenges of larger formats, which can be bought in Your Closest Remaining Book Store. Perhaps in the most interesting format, the old Sunday puzzles — which were a minimum of 21 squares wide, and on up to 23 squares wide. Which once were available in soft-cover books of 200!

Meantime, have a look at The Tiny Crossword in the Shrunken Newspaper. See if you can handle it. Intellectually, and emotionally.