Australian Crosswords

The Guardian in the UK has a reputation for publishing a good cryptic crossword. It was the crossword my teacher used back in the 1970s to teach us how to solve. Times have changed since then, and a misguided belief that cryptic crossword evolution is necessary has changed The Guardian crossword into a hit and miss affair. There are quite a few setters, all different, which is a good thing especially if your cryptic tastes are broad. Creativity has been encouraged by the crossword editor Professor Hugh Stephenson and various pronouncements over the years have given warnings to solvers of devices once deemed unacceptable, being brought into the fold in the name of progress. One that sticks in my mind was the acceptance of words like INDEED meaning IN DEED without any indication.
A few weeks ago a clue appeared in a Guardian crossword that caused some questions among solvers. 16-down reads: Type of fun guy reportedly got putting hand under jumpers as well (9)*. The definition is “Type of fun guy reportedly”, that actually has to be solved before the true definition is known. So, “fun guy reportedly” becomes “fungi” and the clue moves on from there. There’s a brief discussion about it on Derek Harrison’s Crossword Message Board. I think there’s so much wrong with this that I don’t know really where to start. The obvious one is the use of wordplay elements in the definition which requires the solver to work out the definition as part of solving. There’s lots of scope when in comes to the wordplay part of a clue, but for me, the definition is sacred. You can be as devious as you like with the definition, but you must still “say what you mean”, which isn’t what’s happening here. While this fanciful definition is sort of a well-known joke, it has its flaws when used in this context because the language is incorrect. Who says “type of trees” or “type of crosswords”? “fungi” is plural, “type” is singular and they are mismatched: surely it should be “Type of fungus”? On a more technical level, “fun guy” is pronounced in more than one way (“fun guy” and “fun ghee” at least), making the sounds-like equation an inaccurate one. I never use a sounds-like indicator where multiple possibilities of the pronunciation of the target word are involved as the effectiveness of the device isn’t guaranteed.
I realise that this kind of thing has been done here in what might be seen as an obvious way, but essentially what we have is two wordplays butted together. Is this acceptable? Maybe it’s the start of a brand new type of crossword.

*TOADSTOOL = L(eft) [hand] after (TOADS  TOO)

Every now and then I receive encouragement from solvers in the form of contributions. There are about 6 people who give without my prompting which reinforces my decision not to use a subscription model and restrict access. On rare occasions I receive a contribution from a new source, which gives me hope that the cryptic message is getting out there slowly. Last week an American fellow sent me a generous sum which makes me jump for joy as the US doesn’t have a cryptic crossword culture (does Australia?). It also means they found me on the net and that my “international” cryptic is appealing across the seas. As with most new contributors, I started up a conversation digging into their cryptic history and preferences, and was delighted to read that there are US cryptic solvers keen to find crosswords that meet their needs. Mr America pointed to three US cryptics that he solves regularly, one of them is by Cox and Rathvon, who I’ve mentioned before as being two of my cryptic heroes. Have a go at their latest from the Wall Street Journal and there’s a PDF version available too.
You’ll notice a particular style which, once you get the hang of it, will appear to be fairly easy to unravel. This crossword contains typical American cryptic clues, ones that don’t allow etymological cross-over between definition and wordplay, making it relatively easy pickings for seasoned Stickler solvers. That’s not a criticism, I admire the ingenuity despite the clueing restrictions at play. You’ll also notice there’s a gimmick involved, an extra that is common in all types of American crosswords to add to the variety and possibly compensate for the relatively easy cryptic clues.
Please let me know what you think.

I’d like to talk this week about choices made by setters when writing a clue. We’ve established before that setters can take the construction of a clue like 15-across in this puzzle: Upstanding people accepted by retired gentility (10). [FINE + MEN inside RET giving REFINEMENT] This clue could be Upstanding men accepted by retired gentility (10) or simply Fine men accepted by retired gentility (10). Very little effort is needed to make it easy, moderate or hard by just replacing a few words. The clue ultimately used reflects the choice of the setter, that is, whether a setter wants that particular clue to be easy, moderate or hard. This choice may be made to keep the whole crossword consistent in difficulty or possibly to present a balanced grid (that is, some may be hard, others easy and some somewhere in between).
I’d like to show you a recent clue published in an Australian paper that, as a setter, confuses me. Organised religion’s discontented worshipper (8). When I solve, I look for key words that could indicate what’s going on. I pick the obvious one first, try and solve based on that, and move on to another if that doesn’t work out. Here ORGANISED and DISCONTENTED stand out as possible anagram indicators, with DISCONTENTED potentially being an indicator of removing the entire contents of a word leaving the first and last letters (it should have a ? if used this way). Either way, that leaves WORSHIPPER the likely definition. Taking this approach, I tried a few things but nothing worked, so I tried another approach: A word for DISCONTENTED + a word for WORSHIPPER meaning “organised religion”. No joy. I realised if this was the path, ORGANISED would be largely redundant, so I went back to my original approach, this time looking for any words that could be made from the letters of RELIGIONS. I eventually came up with LIONISER, which means DISCONTENTED is used to remove the middle letter G. That certainly left me discontented! The question here, though, is why the setter chose to use DISCONTENTED (which employs a made-up use of the word anyway) to remove just one letter of the contents, when they could have easily used DISHEARTENED (still made up, but potentially much more accurate and recognisable)? It could be argued, of course, that the contents is G and the containers are RELI and IONS, but that makes DISCONTENTED a variable indicator, with multiple options. Great for a setter, but a nightmare for solvers. But why use it when something better is available? There’s only one explanation, as both provide a reasonable surface reading: DISHEARTENED is too easy and obvious and the setter wasn’t happy with that, and was prepared to sacrifice accuracy and, for me, fairness, to make the clue more difficult. I’ll leave you to judge whether such a decision is one that is to the benefit of the solver.