"Bag opening?" DOGGY [doggie is usual]
"Street address" BRO
"Branch headquarters?" TREE
"It's pitched at a stake" HORSESHOE
"Classic ghost story" ACHRISTMASCAROL [never thought of it that way]
As long as I've been doing them, Xwords use SER as an abbrev. for sermon, but I've never seen
ser. used in the real world.
Pet peeve: Roman numerals clued not by Arabic numbers but by some vague reference to a date. Today we had "15th century year" [MCDL]. But if that clue is fair, why wouldn't "Animal" be fair for DOG or "Proper noun" be fair for Bill? If I were an editor, I would insist that MCDL be clued by "1450 on a building" or "1450 in Roman numerals" [on a Monday, of course].
