Is IDS Center (3, 6) or (1, 1, 1, 6)?
My sense is that (1, 1, 1, 6) would have been preferred last century, but with acronyms increasingly used in everyday life, (3, 6) would now be acceptable.
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asked Feb 10, 2018 at 22:48
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2 Answers
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4
I would clue it as (3,6). My (albeit limited) experience with cryptics tells me that typically only spaces are considered in an enumeration - other punctuation is indicated. Also, Wikipedia says
An acronym is a word...
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1$\begingroup$ Wikipedia does indeed say that "an acronym is a word", but that doesn't mean that "IDS" here is a word; it could instead mean -- and I think it does mean -- that "IDS" is an abbreviation that isn't an acronym. $\endgroup$– Gareth McCaughan ♦Feb 11, 2018 at 0:20
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2$\begingroup$ "NATO" and "radar" are definitely acronyms and I would definitely clue them as (4) and (5) respectively. But "IBM", "RSPCA", "GOP" -- things that are pronounced by listing the letters, rather than as words -- are not strictly acronyms and I would be unsurprised to see them clued as a string of 1s. That sort of thing isn't common in crossword solutions, though, so I don't have a lot of evidence to go on. $\endgroup$– Gareth McCaughan ♦Feb 11, 2018 at 0:22
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1$\begingroup$ Even if IDS isn't an acronym, it still forms a unit similar to a word, so I'm with thecoder16 here and would clue it as (3, 6). And I would be surprised to see, for example, "FBI agent" clued as (1, 1, 1, 5). But like Gareth, I have no real evidence for this and in the end it's probably a matter of personal preference. $\endgroup$– M OehmFeb 11, 2018 at 11:20
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Your sense is correct, at least as far as most British crosswords. For example, The Guardian switched over in 2012 as announced here.
