Australian Crosswords

Many years ago during a regular crossword-related search of the internet, I came across an article written by a fellow from Bowral, NSW, called Dick Honor. The article interested me, and since he was a cryptic man who taught people in his area how to solve cryptics, I wanted to make contact and perhaps introduce him (and his students) to my website. Many discussions ensued, during which he told me about a project he’d been working on involving the documenting of cryptic terms and words used in cryptics and crosswords in general. Every day he would scan the SMH crossword and note any term or word he didn’t know, or maybe a synonym for a word that he hadn’t seen before. Soon words from all parts of his life were added, with Dick being on constant lookout for new words and phrases. His Glossary built up over many years and, with encouragement from his family and students, he decided to investigate making it available for solvers to use. This was no easy task, as the collection of words and their meanings was assembled in a Word document, and turning this into a look-up reference took a some effort. The good news is that Dick’s Glossary is now available for all to use.
Dick’s local paper printed an article about his efforts.
Dick describes his book as a Glossary because “it’s a mixture of thesaurus, dictionary and fact book.” Almost 700 pages of blood, sweat and tears. You can get a printed version or Kindle version from Amazon.

It’s great to see a true Australasian crossword reference!

I recently helped a friend drive to Alice Springs to go on a spirit journey. He needed his 4WD, so we drove from Sydney for three days through Mildura and Port Augusta. My role was to get him there safely and fly home. A spirit journey is one led by an Aboriginal person on their own land, where they share stories of their ancestry and connection to the land. By all accounts, everyone who goes is deeply impacted by the experience.
I got to stay on a property for two days as people gathered, an expereince in itself, as Alice and its inhabitiants are special people.
As a setter of word puzzles, I must pay very close attention to words that might be considered sensitive and/or offensive. Such words have increased dramatically in number over the years I’ve been setting, with publications and agencies erring on the side of caution. It generally means, rather than get it wrong, some words are just not used.
I was discussing local issues in Alice Springs with others and used the term “Aborigines” much to the disgust of the people around me. As a setter I’d been very careful in how and when I used words like Aboriginal and Aborigine, knowing from my references that the terms had changed in use over time. I had, in fact, reverted to the original, lower-case meanings of the words in my crosswords to ensure I didn’t upset anyone. I was surprised to learn that now Aborigine could be considered offensive, and that Aboriginal person was the accepted term. This isn’t reflected in references (yet) but is definitely in effect in the real world. Sadly, setters find the easy thing to do is not use such terms at all to avoid a backlash, perhaps, banishing some references of our First Peoples from our crosswords, just to be sure.