Redd's Roster of Crosswordese: Do not read if you hate DRNO

(side note: I am probably way more forgiving of these than most, because my delight in solving is rooted in good cluing, interesting and/or tricky themes, interesting long answers - not, primarily, in avoiding crosswordese.

It's great when a constructor avoids EKE or ALOU, sure; but I don't construct puzzles so I don't know how easy or hard it is to do consistently interesting themed puzzles without ever resorting to ANTE or YSER or whatever. Definitely seeing some 20th-century stuff just age out of common use. ERNE and SST still pop up but are waning, in my experience.)

EIRE really grinds my gears

Sure, but it is at least Irish for Ireland - Erin and Erse can get to fuck, though.

sure could use a MRPIBB

what gets me are the ones that are slightly out of date, e.g.

EMAG
PDA for a device
HIRES for a monitor instead of HIDEF

equally annoying are the ones that are just a tad too current, like
1 Across: "It's ____!"
and the answer is POPPIN

Yeah the "archaism" is part of what makes me itchy about the clueing for Eire

always exciting to see if it'll be KEA or LOA

equally annoying are the ones that are just a tad too current, like
1 Across: "It's ____!"
and the answer is POPPIN

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, July 15, 2020 3:42 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

better clue would be "my lip gloss is _____"

okay, maybe not TOO current

The phrase TINKERS to EVERS to CHANCE just popped into my head, which used to be a crossword staple when I was coming up, seems to linger on and pop up every once in a while nowadays.
https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2009/04/tuesday-apr-21-2009-rj-nj-byron-1946.html?m=1

https://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/gonfalon/

always exciting to see if it'll be KEA or LOA

yeah this is like the cargo shorts of crossword clues. try harder

https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=7/3/1949

Yeah, when I see MAUNA __ and already have the final A, I wanna throw my UKE up in the air in frustration.

that 1949 puzzle is hardcore

In defense of crosswordese, sometimes it is the only way to crack into a difficult Saturday grid. Also sometimes it's fun to know all the different ways to clue, say,the hero of the thread title: Joseph Wiseman role, Crab Key denizen, etc. Or that famous fellow from the OP played by Bamboo Harvester.

45D Man's name. : ISIDOR

foh

what gets me are the ones that are slightly out of date, e.g.

EMAG
PDA for a device
HIRES for a monitor instead of HIDEF

ETAIL and EZINE always make me lol

Pearl Buck heroine

Oh man, I still have problems spelling that one.

ESAI

which led me this this old related thread somebody started long ago

When MRT studies to the NTH degree, he gets a PHD and is henceforth called DRT.

LORI and TONI drank an ORANGE NEHI in front of the ELHI.

OUIOUI, SISI
ADIEUX, MES AMIS

LIEU EKE

LIEU EKE

We gotta go

I said
UIE UEY
UAE UZI
Me gotta go
YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH

🎵 UEY UDAY
thou little tiny child
WIFI UEY UDAY 🎵

WII OREO now

I said

WII OLEO

(To the tune of "Take a Letter, Maria")
Last night I was ONKP
Across from the APO
I was EYED up by a dog named OTTO
Who report to the NCO

I’m with YMP, don’t actually know why, actually I think I do know why, people complain about crosswordese so much, it’s kind of the DNA or building blocks of XWORDS. It’s like people complaining about cliched chord progressions or cliches in general: they can be problematic but they can also be used creatively, it depends.

I only started noticing the gluey fill when I was exposed to xword blogs (RP, xwordinfo), but they've never really been a huge impediment to my enjoyment, ESPECIALLY if a grid has interesting and/or long entries or wide open spaces.

I do like Jeff Chen's puzzles a lot though, and he's pretty dedicated to avoiding glue.

And he is the keeper of xwordinfo too I guess.

when you're filling up so much of the grid with letters it's unavoidable that you're gonna need these repeating mini-words, so i understand

but like, mel OTT has been dead for 60 years. bobby ORR has been out of hockey for 40. we're gonna be seeing USB long after that protocol has been deprecated. i have never actually seen ESAI morales in anything. so many of the acronyms are awkward reaches . . . i just wish the NYT were a little bit more ambitious with the possibilities, and i have to think that having the same editor for decades at a time doesn't help

I think people very much in the center of the scene avoid pointing out that Shortz is something of a tired drip but people slightly outside it don’t hesitate to say so

redd and mookie, I tend to grade for an overall average level of creativity, as opposed to requiring a complete absence of ERSE / ERNE / OTT etc.

Like, if a constructor can get something surprising like MCJOB or RUNDMC or POKEMON in there, I will likely forgive the occasional ALOU. I'm assuming it takes a lot of compromises to make an innovative word work in a grid.

However, if everything in a puzzle is rooted in the culture of 1950s Manhattan, then I get annoyed. I will still finish the puzzle - not least because I've learned all this bullshit trivia from doing thousands of puzzles - but I will be annoyed.

this would be a terrible word for reasons of age and obscurity but i would still like to see MCDLT sometime

pretty sure i've seen clara peller referenced before

I actually have heard whispers, well maybe heard is the wrong word, just sort of been in the big room at the ACPT when in the distance I seemed to see some insider or two talking quietly which turned out to be grumbling about successors to the throne. It was done very discreetly and my internal parabolic mic couldn't pick up any of it, but I asked someone later and they told me discreetly and in a roundabout nudge nudge way what that tiny Blow-Up moment I thought I witnessed was about.

Back to the topic at hand. Please forgive my POP PSYCH approach, but feel like people (excessively) grumbling about fill is partly or mostly really about their addiction to XWORDS not giving them the high it used to. Not saying, just saying. Is that all there is, as Peggy LEE sang.

Not every constructor is going to be the Crossword JESUS, sorry.

I can think of maybe one constructor who jumped out at me, that wasn't already some kind of name, well exactly one, Dan Naddor, who I came across while solving LATIMES puzzles.

let's make an ilx crossword

FUCKWASHINGAHAT is a handy 15 letters

Lol

https://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/dan-naddor/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jan-07-la-me-dan-naddor7-2010jan07-story.html
https://crosswordfiend.com/2009/12/31/dan-naddor-in-memoriam/
which links to https://crosswordcorner.blogspot.com/2009/04/interview-with-dan-naddor.html

jaymc used to construct, not sure if he is still doing that.

i don't mind crosswordese but i'd like better clues!
As noted above, enough already with Mel OTT; how about "way, way too much" instead?

"nhl's senators on a scoreboard"

Right? My problem with a lot of fill isn't the fill – it's trite crosswordish cluing. (Cluing, by the way, is a great word).

My favorite 'regular' constructor is Zhouqin Burnikel. Among the standards I like Lynn Lempel and Jeff Chen, because everybody does and they're great. Trenton Carlson is the only regular whose name alone intimates that I won't have fun. Too many Qs and Js and Zs. Oh, and whoever wrote last Sunday's puzzle. I don't like that person either.

Whoops. I missed your post, ulysses. Coulda just written 'ditto.'

let's make an ilx crossword

Athlete who "knows" about uranium? = BORAD

2 x 33 + 11 = SEVENTYSEVEN

Greetings from Ditka? = BEARSAYHITOME

Rockist setting for a bicycle? = GEIR

Unlikely event = NOTGONNAHAPPEN

Dave Matthews Band pan = BADANDHATED

I constructed three blatant failures a couple years ago (https://spooky.camp/~evan/) and I did try to be as annoyingly creative as possible with my cluing