DT GK 15ix07

[Strix]

Does anybody know which dictionary KM is using? I've had to use three different ones to verify the answers today.

[POINCIANA]

I don't think she uses one; I think she fills in some squares to make a word and then uses Google to search for the most obscure bit of information she can find to devise a clue to suit that word.

It often happens that when I reverse this process - when trying to solve a clue - I find the actual wording of her clue among the things Google throws up.

[Strix]

I'm sure you're right - it is just a bit annoying as the Cryptic is supposed to be based on Chambers that the GK is not. I try as hard as possible to be a purist (don't always succeed, obviously) and not to use Google/Wikipedia et al, so it is very cross-making at 7.20 am on a Saturday morning and closing in for the kill and when trying to check that you have the right answers before posting the crossword in the first post to find that the answer, for example 24 across, is not in Chambers but is in Collins!

[sincnoel]

I suspect, from various things over the past few months, that she is using Encarta. MM used Chambers but I reckon Kate has switched.

[fordward]

surely it dosent matter it is for YOU to find the answer

[Strix]

So, if you are right, it should be called a General Research Crossword?

[fordward]

true

[GrumpyOldMan]

Getting a bit like the old News of the World, where five or six clues could be anything you wanted them to be and it was pure guesswork wether you were on the same wavelength

[Strix]

Spot on, Grumpy, with MM when you had an answer that fitted the clue you knew you were right. With KM you have to fish around with the criss-crossing answers to be certain it was worth more than just pencilling in. That's why with MM I would nearly always have it finished in between half an hour and forty minutes but KM's take longer purely because I am having to check her spellings and whether her answers are factually correct and then allow for her errors.

[bondy]

If you knew all the answers it wouldnt be any fun doing. I fill in the ones I know. Then look up my hunches in Chambers. Also use Collins Encylopaedia, Bloomsbury Crossword Lists, Roget's Thesaurus and Wikipedia or any other reference book I can find. When I get really desperate I use Chambers Crossword Compiler or Google buts that's really cheating! If I was just chasing the prize I would I might use them earlier but Iprefer to test myself a bit first.

[Strix]

Bondy, I do it pretty much the same way as you. I do, in pencil, all the across ones I can then the down ones then back to across and then back down again. Then the books come into play: Chambers/Collins & the complete Oxford dictionaries, Roget's. I have all the various Oxford Dicitionaries of, and the Oxford Companions to, plus the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Bible, various books of poetry, flora and fauna etc etc. I do not have a crossword dictionary. If all this has failed only then do I use Google. I have never used Wikipedia for a crossword. I do submit my completed crossword but bitter experience in never winning means that I know I will never be a successful pot hunter!