Australian Crosswords

I’m on record (somewhere) as saying that you can’t construct a good cryptic crossword without putting a lot of thought into the choosing of the words in the grid. There are a couple of key reasons for this: a good cryptic crossword doesn’t have any obvious weaknesses, such as an odd or obscure answer, so making sure all words suit the solving audience is important, and secondly, prudent choices at grid-building time, where possible wordplay breakdowns have already been thought about, should yield a set of clues without any obvious deficiencies. I use a couple of guidelines to help me when selecting words – words should be in concise dictionaries if possible; words unknown to me should be in multiple dictionaries and not listed as rare, regional, obscure or archaic; words that exist in just one dictionary shouldn’t be used (look up the word “miserable” in Chambers – it’s a noun meaning “very weak tea” – great meaning to impress people with but no good to use as such in a crossword); and “internet-only” words and terms should be used with extreme caution. I’ve learnt to double-check words I know and not rely on my memory as my personal experience is not everyone’s personal experience, especially when creating an “international” cryptic such as The Stickler Weekly. A few years ago in a Financial Times crossword I was chastised for using “stock” as a definition for “ski pole”. I first skied in my early 20s and the things I used in my hands while skiing were always called stocks. Little did I know this is largely an Australian term and not known to the majority of Financial Times solvers.
A few weeks ago Steve Ball questioned my use of Gathering = Boil, which leads me to say that not only should answer words be appropriate for an audience, but all words and their meanings used in clues should be too. (That is, of course, if, as a setter, you have consideration for your solvers). It’s no good picking all words from a concise list if you use North American, internet-only or obscure meanings of a word in clues that solvers have no hope of knowing. While I don’t think Gathering = Boil falls into that really obscure category, it maybe was stretching people’s general knowledge that little bit too far. My problem in this case was again that the equation wasn’t foreign to me and so I assumed it was more common than perhaps it actually is.

A while back a device was used in a DA crossword that caused a little discussion on the Australian Crossword Club forum. He uses many devices that I don’t subscribe to, but this one I quite like. DA first mentioned it on his blog as one he’d seen in another puzzle (like this one). Setters tend to collect devices like normal people collect stamps, except, of course, every new valid device is an extra string to our bows and another way to achieve a wordplay goal. The more we have, the easier the setting becomes. This is the clue in which DA used this device most recently: On vacation, trusty cleric arranged kids’ transport (8)* [SMH 25/3/16]. The deception here is with the term “on vacation” which appears to mean on holiday but actually means “when cleared out”, with vacation meaning the act of vacating. However, even though I’m happy with what “on vacation” can mean in a cryptic sense, I think the positioning of the indicator gives just too much for the solver to do. Here, at least, there’s a comma to maybe help indicate with the order necessary to make it work, but that’s not always a given in the modern-day cryptic. There’s an old “rule” in cryptics: ignore punctuation, but the truth is, the solver sometimes needs to do more: they have to add punctuation too, as without implied punctuation many cryptic clues don’t work properly.  I constantly talk about the need to look after the solver, otherwise wordplays will have only a minor role in the solving of clues. Just imagine reading through a clue where, in theory, there could be a comma at the end of every word, changing the structure of the wordplay. Nightmare. A solver who is constantly going back after finding the answer and spending lots of time unravelling wordplays is being dudded by the setter. Back to the clue. The solver has to realise the deception in the device then apply it to fodder that follows rather than what’s in front of it as would be the natural flow. The two things together are too much for me and I doubt this wordplay would be sorted out in the build-up to finding the answer.
(* anagram of (T)RUST(Y) + CLERIC = TRICYCLE)

Deception is what we setters like to use as often as possible in a cryptic crossword. You might think that’s necessary in EVERY clue, but truthfully, to experienced solvers most clues may not be deceptive at all. A setter goes to great efforts to construct each clue with a good surface, hopefully disguising how it works, however, an experienced solver can usually form a workable solving approach on the first read of the clue. A best guess at how to solve it. They may not be right, so they apply their second guess. A great clue will suggest a solving path, where ultimately a different approach is needed altogether. For newer solvers, the initial deception is in how the clue is constructed, then they have to tackle the clue’s individual devices. One of the tricks I like to employ is taking standard cryptic terms and exploiting their regular roles in clues. A couple of weeks ago in The Stickler Weekly 124 there were two such tricks:
10 across Condemned ten caught with ecstasy on board ship (9)
Here “on board ship” would normally mean inside “SS”, but in this case it means inside “SEND” (verb) (Answer: SENTENCED)
24 down Children slip away from broadcast, possibly (4)
Here “possibly” is used as fodder in an subtractive anagram clue, where normally it might suggest an example or actually be an anagram indicator itself. (Answer: BOYS)

Neither clue is difficult, but the use of these common cryptic terms (hopefully) forces a typical response from a solver, taking them down the wrong track.