The Stickler Weekly 166 Solution

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.