This week’s puzzle, “Just Add Sugar,” is pretty straightforward as puzzles of mine go, so I’m not sure there’s any earthshaking need to say much about it -- which is just as well since I’ll probably have more than the usual amount to say about my next two puzzles (for January 24 and 31). I won’t say much about those now, but since I seem to have nothing to say about specific puzzles this week, maybe it’s a good time to mention a pet peeve of mine that I see more often than I’d like in today’s crosswords.
It’s something I’m tempted to call a “flansir,” which stands for “familiar looking although never seen in reality” (pronounced “flancer,” let’s say). I tend to differentiate this from a traditional “crosswordese” word, which is generally a short, obscure word that occurs often in puzzles because of its handy letter combinations, like ERN(E), ODA(H), and PROA. And one reason that these words have truly earned their crosswordese badges is because there’s no way to know what they mean simply by looking at them. However, they do exist in the real world, outside of puzzles. If you were online doing research on a sea eagle or a harem room or a Malayan canoe, you would probably come across these words. Odd as they are, they are the actual terms for these unusual things. A flansir, though, not only is something that occurs only in crosswords, it virtually never occurs outside of crosswords -- it’s an entirely crosswordcentric thing.
A perfect example is IDEATE, which occurs quite a lot in medium-to-difficult crosswords. It’s often clued as “conceive” or “brainstorm” or some such -- as if IDEATE were a routine synonym for those two words, and yet I have never said it or used it myself, I have never heard anyone else say it, and I have never read any newspaper, book, or magazine passage that contains it. This is not to say that it can’t be found somewhere online, but in normal everyday life -- which is where flansirs are implied to exist -- have you ever heard anyone say anything like, “We’re meeting the client on Monday morning so we have only two days to ideate on our presentation”?
Another example is ACERB, routinely clued as “sharp” or “bitter.” Since when? ACERBIC, yes. ACERB, no. As far as I can tell, it’s a poetic term, like ETERNE. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be used in puzzles, but as Judge Judy says, don’t pee down my leg and tell me it’s raining. Use it, but call it what it is, “Bitter, to a poet.”
Here’s another one, IRANI. Shows up in puzzles constantly. Yes, it’s a legit dictionary variant of IRANIAN, but where in any American media does it appear? Is it standard fare in crosswords because IRAQI is spelled that way? Again, we all obviously know what it means but it seems to live only in crosswords and not in our daily world.
All of this has the effect of making crosswords less connected to the real world and as many of my puzzle friends know I am a firm believer in keeping crosswords as connected to reality as possible. And by the way, if any of you have a better word for it than “flansir,” let me know!
Here’s my list so far:
abed
acer, acers (clued in terms of tennis; I’ve just never heard it or seen it)
acerb
ados
ague (clued simply as “chills”)
aler (American Leaguer, for short)
amain
ameer
ana (meaning a collection)
apace
aper
areel
aroar
asea
aslant
atilt
aver
dos, res, mis, fas, sos, las, tis (plural music notes)
eery
efs, kue, pee, esses, etc. (spelled letters clued as “failing grades,” etc.)
emeer
emeu
emoter
enisle
ensile
epos
etern, eterne
ideate
irani
ires, ired (“ire” as a noun, yes)
lave
lett (for “Latvian”)
nler (National Leaguer, for short)
orate (hard to criticize this one, but I just never hear it)
ower (clued as “one in debt”; not in any dictionary)
ssrs (old Russian divisions)
tec (short for “detective”; never seen it or heard it used, even in old movies)
umas, yuls, ymas (pluralized names where there’s only one noted person with that name)
ush [back-formation from "usher" ... somehow. (thanks, puzzlegirl)]
Now to be honest, I can’t say that I lack fondness for some of these words. In my career I’ve probably used most of them, and I’m not saying that all of them should be thrown out the window (although if I never see EFS again it’ll be too soon). But I do think that if they’re going to be used at all they should be clued more precisely and in a manner more befitting what they are -- strange words rarely seen or heard in the real world.
FLANSIR UPDATE -- February 1, 2010
What a great group of flansir opiners! (Hmm, maybe that’s another one.) Let me try responding a bit.
Joon -- I might rethink APACE, since I do say it jocularly myself. AMAIN, I think, will probably stay. And I just saw another one in a puzzle this past weekend that has to be on the list -- ALOP, clued as “crooked.” Actually, it’s pretty awful no matter how it’s clued, but it’s every inch a flansir.
Paul -- The best thing I can say about ALer and NLer is that they are certainly not unknown in baseball circles, but their actual “commonness” seems to be overstated. My problem is not so much that I see them in puzzles but that I see them in puzzles a lot. Remember ALAR, the crosswordese word meaning “of insect wings”? Well, ALer is the new ALAR. And that's another issue -- in real life, ALer is written upper-lowercase, so that readers at least have a shot at understanding what it is. But in crosswords it’s written in all caps, ALER, and just looks like an odd, pronounceable word that rhymes with “paler.” Worse, it’s usually clued obtusely, like “O or Jay,” as if most solvers were ardent baseball fans. I know that there are lots of female sports fans out there but from my experience the vast majority of women solvers are not. Sports references in general leave most female solvers in the lurch, but insider sports references leave them irritated.
Ken -- I think N-TEST is legit, but the only place I used to see it was in headlines, so maybe it should be clued primarily in that context and not just as any nuclear test.
Andrew -- Even if “ush” were clued as campus slang or some such, it’s still a pretty weird word -- and kinda hard to defend to most solvers. I think PuzzleGirl is right on this one.
Gene -- ASEA is almost a perfect flansir -- hardly anyone in the puzzle world bats an eye at it (and I don’t really mind it that much) yet virtually no dictionary contains it! AT SEA, yes, ASEA, no. My gigantic Webster’s Third New International has it, but only hyphenated. As to pluralized music notes, I grant that they have a life in certain specialized music contexts, but I’m guessing that they’re rarely if ever written down, and that’s why they strike me as so odd-looking in puzzles. Cluing DOS, RES, MIS, and TIS as music notes when they can be clued in so many other ways just seems like needless flansirism! And I looked up some stats on EERY and since the year 2000 it has almost always been clued with the “variant” indicator, which is good. But I put it in the same boat with IGLU, variants to avoid like the plague!
More updates to follow as the flansir story, fast-breaking, unfolds ...
