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A comment on I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them. Parent comment

Re:I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them by boffinism on Monday May 03, 2021 @07:42AM (#27023840)
In the UK, terrible puns are de rigeur, but the answer has to be a recognisable standalone word or phrase. So 'poisoned pen' could be an answer, and the clue could conceivably contain a pasta-based pun on that, but 'poisoned penne' could not.
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Re:I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them by bl0b on Monday May 03, 2021 @08:52AM (#27024387)
In the US, at least (TIL there's a different style across the pond, so fun), a 'pun-based' clue like that would need a question mark at the end of the clue.

Additionally, I would say that that, because the answer isn't a coherent standalone word/phrase, that particular clue/answer combo would only be found in a puzzle as part of a hidden theme shared by a number of 'special clues' throughout the crossword, with some kind of rule uniting the answers (add 'ne' to the end of a common phrase, for example).

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Re:I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them by mcphage on Monday May 03, 2021 @08:31AM (#27024215)
So the puns need to be in the clue, and not the answer?
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Re:I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them by joshuamorton on Monday May 03, 2021 @08:05PM (#27032515)
Sort of. Cryptics, which are the international style, might have a clue like "insect in pants" -> "ant", which is pants without the first and last letters.

And more complicated variants, like anagrams, mashing words together, etc.

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Re:I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them by oneeyedpigeon on Monday May 03, 2021 @09:11AM (#27024580)
You could have a pun in the answer - although I think that's pretty rare - but the answer itself would still need to be a recognized word/phrase.
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Re:I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them by mcphage on Monday May 03, 2021 @09:23AM (#27024734)
That's really interesting—I'm not much of a crosswords fan, but I had never even considered the idea that there are "dialects" in what crosswords clues & answers could be.
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