Shared letter strings in theme answers

[flight]

New constructor here. I'm curious about using theme entries that end with a common suffix--specifically -ATION. I'm working on a theme that presently includes words like PREDICTION, PUBLICATION, and OBSERVATION along with three other theme answers that don't share any sort of similar suffix.

Having more than one theme entry share a string of five letters seems like it would be unacceptable by most publishers. It seems that having half of the entries in this state while the other half share no such suffixal similarities (to themselves or the other group of three) would also be an unacceptable lack of theme consistency, even if the shared suffix were not an issue.

For that matter, can anyone weigh in on where publishers typically stand in regards to other shared letter strings in theme entries (e.g.: PERSPICACITY, DESPICABLE) when this shared string is not some gimmicky part of the theme?

Thanks!!

[mmcbs]

I believe you are right about the theme set with several -ATION words and others that don't have that ending. I guess if it were otherwise really eye-popping you might get by with it, but probably not.

As to the common letter strings, these are perfectly OK unless the words are etymologically related, so your example of  PERSPICACITY and DESPICABLE would be no problem.

[flight]

Honestly, I don't know if my theme is eye-popping or not, but after quite a bit of research I'm pretty sure it has never been attempted before in any of the big crossword publications. This I find shocking and it's part of why I haven't plainly stated it publicly (scars and trauma remain from previous intellectual property theft).

[mmcbs]

I tend to agree with you about sharing theme particulars to a wide audience; however it gets done a lot, especially on the Facebook group "Cruciverb", I don't think there have been any problems, mostly just suggestions and critiques.

If you have checked the various databases and not found a theme like yours, that's probably good news. Innovative theme ideas pop up on a regular basis, so you may be onto something. If you would like to share it with me privately, I'd be glad to take a look and give you a more thorough assessment of the issue your dealing with. My email is mcclain.salem@gmail.com.

[flight]

That would be wonderful, Mark. I left Facebook two years ago and haven't regretted it, so I have mixed feelings about rejoining just for entrance into a single group (although this group represents the most compelling reason I've had in the past two years).

As for checking the databases, I think I've done that to the best of my ability and found nothing like my theme, but I'm still a bit befuddled that, for all of the online tracking/databases of every word and clue used in every crossword puzzle in the NYT and others for however many decades, there doesn't exist a database that's simply a running list of all the theme topics/executions from all of these thousands of puzzles over the years. I know some probably aren't easy to summarize in a single word or phrase (i.e. rebus puzzles and other esoterically designed themes, etc.), and perhaps this endeavor would require far too much time and effort, but I would imagine it would be pretty straightforward to do so for a large majority of published puzzles--at least NYT--if not all of them, a la...

* Puns formed by removing "IT" from a word or phrase
* Words/phrases incorporating the San/Santa of "saintly" cities of California
* Puns using the names of Impressionist painters
* Removing "H" from answers to form clever phrases
* Adding "E" to answers to make clever new ones
* Adding "DIS" ... " ... " ... " ...

Thoughts?