Tue., 8/5 Toth & Burnikel

[magus]

THEME:   terms relating to SLIDE
   
GOOD ONES:    
Wall Street decline {& theme}   SLIDE   
Old Roman coins   LIRE [not really that old]   
Place to make a splash   WATER PARK [not Broadway]   
Give and take?   SWAP   
   
BTW:   
Venus, to Serena   SISTERS [heavenly!]   
   
Soon, to Pope   ANON [more Elizabethan than Neo-Classical, put with his zillion rhymes he  must've used the term]   
   
   
RATING:    
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun   

[Thomps2525]

Another term relating to SLIDE is "continuing to use the same words over and over instead of trying to be creative." I get the Times, Register and Daily News and I'm really getting bored with doing all the puzzles when I see certain short words appearing in five or six puzzles every week. Today's Times puzzle includes ADO, CUL, EMO, SAAB, TETE, AGES, OGLE, IPOD, RENE, ALOT, ORES, EMIR, ONTV, ARLO and ASTER, all of which I've seen in several other puzzles recently. I wonder if anyone has compiled a list of the most common "Crosswordese" words. And I wonder if anyone has managed to make a puzzle without such words. He'd be a genius!

[magus]

Doing one puzzle a day as I do may help the feeling of redundancy.  The other thing would seem to be to make a puzzle yourself, genius or not.  The process may make you more forgiving.

[wbg]

I don't think it would be too hard to do a puzzle without the oft-repeated words.  Make a word list of the ones you don't want.  I believe CC, and probably most other programs, allow you to remove words on one list from another list.  Then use the modified list to complete fills.  Personally, I don't mind one or two chestnuts.  Ah, good old "etui."  A comforting reminder that the constructor is only human, too.  And it might turn out that taking these workhorse words out of the mix would make it much harder to fill grids due to the perversity of ingles.  They pop up so often for a reason, and I doubt that it is simply constructor laziness.