Australian Crosswords

One of the things my old neighbour asked me about was what he called “order of operation”, that is the sequence a solver takes when processing a wordplay. His main question related to whether a clue that flowed left to right with no assumed word groupings (imagined brackets) was superior to a clue where assumptions needed to be made. Here’s an example of each from last week’s crossword: 1) 19-across Call about right to join card game (8,6).  2) 12-across Bond managed by head of taxation in suspicious circumstances (8). The first one can be taken from left to right processing exactly as is stated in the clue; the second one requires the solver to join two elements and put them inside another. The second one has another parsing possible, so the solver must work out which one is in effect. As a setter and solver, I see the work needed to be done by the solver here to be part of the game, same as working out, for example, whether a word is part of a device or fodder, and what word form a particular word takes. When I’m setting, any assumptions will involve groups of words, but the order will always be left to right unless the wordplay contains positional indicators that say otherwise. I might include punctuation to mislead, but I won’t leave punctuation out that potentially changes the order in which indicators operate. That is, an operating adjective will appear ahead of its fodder, not behind it with an implied comma (as is commonly seen in modern-day cryptics). Clues like A B in, where what is really meant is A with B in, will never appear in a Stickler. I think this is where order of operation can create convoluted clues: a combination of implied bracketed wordplay and indicators operating out of order. Clear as mud? So, which is superior, 1) or 2)? In this case, I see them as basically both the same, and although 1) might be seen as being easier, 2) certainly doesn’t present many problems.

A couple of weeks back I have to admit a wry smile came across my face when I read a quick comment by Steve Ball:
“1-ac had me stumped for ages (that “in”) as did 27-ac. Some slapping of the forehead followed.”
This was from The Stickler Weekly 163: Area in front of courthouse featured in show (8) [IN + (C)OURTHOUSE] inside PROVE, giving PROVINCE.
The “in” that caused Steve trouble is strategically positioned to potentially trip up solvers as it is commonly used as a linking word. That is, Definition in Wordplay. There are a number of linking words like this, most of them short: BY, FROM, IS etc. I have a special fondness for short words that normally provide sentence structure and not much else in everyday language, as these are often ignored by solvers as a matter of course. We are conditioned to pick up key elements of sentences and to overlook the inconsequential words even though, as solvers, we know great care must be taken with every element of a clue. Little words such as AT, TO, IS, AN, ON, OF, OR, IN and SO often appear in ordinary words, in fact, these ones appear as whole words in more than 20 words in this paragraph alone (up to this point). For this reason, I intentionally hunt them out and try to use them (often “in the clear”) in my clues. The more a clue looks like ordinary language, the better chance a solver will read it as ordinary language, and the more chance a vital piece will be initially overlooked. I like economy, so all components should have a role, and generally I won’t use a linking word unless I really have to. Always check the clue help as sometimes where I’ve used common little words that look insignificant, but actually have a role, I’ll flag that “nothing is wasted” in the clue hint for that clue.