Wines crop up in crosswords quite a lot. Any time RED or WHITE is mentioned in a clue, consider whether it may conceivably refer to a wine. Also, the letter combo CRU is frequently clued by VINEYARD.
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A puzzle-level (rather than entry-level) question this time: In American crosswords there is a "soft" convention to not have "dupes" (duplicates) — either words repeated in the grid entries, or (anything but the most common) words repeated across the grid and a clue (without a cross-reference). Here 1A is MALBEC and 4D uses Malbec in the wordplay fodder. Is that totally fine in cryptics, steered away from but no big deal, or generally avoided? Thanks!
Hi, Sendhil (and Jeff!), Yes, I think it's generally avoided, unless it's a themed crossword, where the whole point is that many of the clues have the same word cropping up. I noticed and was bothered by the double malbec (as well as the double USER) when I was compiling this, but I give myself a lot of leeway in these beginners' guide shorties, because it's harder to make perfect crosswords when most of the clues have got to be of the same type (and be easy enough for beginners), so I'm sloppier about the conventions than I would be in a full-size cryptic for experienced solvers.
Thanks again, Melanie!
I assume the CH in 5D comes from "Church" picking up two letters rather than just the first? tho with 7A, it's just the C for "Church", but I'm not sure then how we get the final E? Thanks -
In British crosswords, church usually clues either CH (standard abbreviation for church on maps etc) or CE (Church of England - the state church here), although it's occasionally RC (Roman Catholic). Hope that helps.x
rjy 🤓3:41 · 19 giorni fa
Thank you … learning so much from this! BTW, you don’t have a tip jar here, but I feel like I owe you for all that you’re offering here … what’s the best place to grab your poetry books to send some dinero your way?
That's very kind of you, but I just love doing it. "The Full English" is available from Lulu.com and CYSWICF is available from https://burningeye.bigcartel.com/artist/melanie-branton, but they're all available from me, including the one that's out of print (I assume you know me, if you know I write poetry). But there is absolutely no need - I do this because I love it.