Australian Crosswords

A few weeks back I was looking through a local crossword and came across this clue: Dawn is grieving without you (7) (SMH 18/4 by LR)
I was taken back instantly to my early cluing days where I didn’t realise (why, I don’t know, as I’d never seen such cluing in any decent publication) an appropriate homophone indicator was needed to convert YOU to U. It’s common practice in cryptics designed for the entry-level or non-cryptic solver, as rules don’t seem to matter so much, since providing solvers with an easy path to the answer is more important than building a set of cryptic-solving tools than can be applied to all cryptics.
Many will be aware that The Chambers English Dictionary is seen as the crossworder’s bible, largely due to its comprehensive coverage and concise definitions that often contain synonyms (great for setting and solving). It carries baggage though, due to its heritage, and has a bad habit of including words and definitions that no other references have. These aren’t so good, as such inclusions need to confirmed elsewhere before using them as answers or in clues. When I first started cluing “it’s in Chambers” was my catchcry (along with many other setters), and I’m sure this frustrated lots of solvers who felt one-off words or definitions gave them little chance of deriving or finding answers. The Chambers English Dictionary is one of the few to actually spell out SOME letters of the alphabet, and so these spellings were considered fair game in the early days for me. Some letters are spelt out usually to represent their shape, like “DEE” for “D” or “ESS” for “S”, but for the most part letters aren’t spelt despite their inclusion in some dictionaries. (Chambers also spells “C” as “CEE” and “SEE” – how confusing). Even in Chambers there’s no spelling of “U”, so is there any case where an unindicated “YOU” can equal “U”?
Here’s where it gets interesting: communicating via a mobile phone or posting in Twitter has generated an abbreviated language that certain sections of society, and particularly younger age-groups, see as “normal” and at least equivalent to long-form language. Terms have materialised (like BTW, IMO, LOL, FAQ and FYI) that have been used enough to be accepted into dictionaries and turn up in everyday language, especially written language. On the whole, though, apart from some of these “new terms”, there’s a contextual issue that has to be recognised, and a general usage issue that has to be considered. U = YOU is not uncommon in abbreviated text-speak, but it’s rarely seen outside that realm, so how acceptable is the reverse (YOU = U) in a cryptic crossword clue? I would imagine most of the cryptic-solving fraternity are not aware of this link (assuming that’s what the setter is relying on here) and would simply consider YOU = U without a homophonic indicator as just poor form. So, what’s the verdict, Stickler solvers?

PS. It seems I stumped a few with 2-down’s cryptic definition. They are always troublesome.

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.