CCCWC Christmas Special competition voters’ comments on Clue no. 18

CCCWC Christmas Special competition voters’ comments

Clue no. 18: Forced it out in lav used straining (7)

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A clue to A “FIVE GOLD RINGS” word.
5 comments refer to this clue (from 4 competitors, 0 others)
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Comments on the clue

1.	Grammatically flawed – used must become using for this to make sense.
2.	I like a bit of toilet humour, but the grammar doesn't quite work?
3.	… and quite a forced surface reading which seems ungrammatical to me
4.	Definition seems imprecise and surface reading grammatically incorrect.

Comments on the competition
1.
This month 42 entries clued 18 valid words, with a further 3 clueing FIVE GOLD RINGS (6, 21, 24). Appropriately, clue words subdivided neatly into groups of 5. More than half the clues (25) led to the 5 most popular words, or variations thereon: DEJA VU (1, 5, 8, 12, 13, 25, 42) (7), AVULS/E (9, 19, 31, 36) /D (18) /ION (3) (6), BRAVURA (7, 37, 40, 44) (4), NUNAVUT (28, 35, 38, 39) (4) and SHAVUOT (17, 32, 41, 45) (4). Another 5 clue words or variations resulted from a further 12 clues: CLAVUS (11, 14, 27) (3), HELIO/GRAVURE (43, 10, 30) (3), AVUNCULAR ([20, 33) (2), CLAVULATE (15, 34) (2), and FAVUS (22, 23) (2). There were 5 other singly represented clue words which were generally more obscure (A VUESTRA SALUD (4), CHAVUTTI THIRUMAL (26), DAVUTOGLU (2), GUSTAVUS (16) and LAGAVULIN (29)). The average length of the 18 different clue wards was 8.4 letters, dropping to 7.4 letters when their relative frequencies was taken into account. In general it appeared to be easier to construct a good clue, and thereby score more highly, when a shorter clue word was chosen (the best 5 clues all had answers of 5 or 6 letters).

Comments on the competition

This month 42 entries clued 18 valid words, with a further 3 clueing FIVE GOLD RINGS (6, 21, 24). Appropriately, clue words subdivided neatly into groups of 5. More than half the clues (25) led to the 5 most popular words, or variations thereon: DEJA VU (1, 5, 8, 12, 13, 25, 42*) (7), AVULS/E (9, 19, 31, 36*) /D (18) /ION (3) (6), BRAVURA (7, 37, 40*, 44) (4), NUNAVUT (28, 35*, 38, 39) (4) and SHAVUOT (17, 32, 41, 45*) (4). Another 5 clue words or variations resulted from a further 12 clues: CLAVUS (11, 14*, 27) (3), HELIO/GRAVURE (43, 10, 30*) (3), AVUNCULAR ([20, 33*) (2), CLAVULATE (15, 34*) (2), and FAVUS (22*, 23) (2). There were 5 other singly represented clue words which were generally more obscure (A VUESTRA SALUD (4), CHAVUTTI THIRUMAL (26), DAVUTOGLU (2), GUSTAVUS (16) and LAGAVULIN (29)). The average length of the 18 different clue wards was 8.4 letters, dropping to 7.4 letters when their relative frequencies was taken into account. In general it appeared to be easier to construct a good clue, and thereby score more highly, when a shorter clue word was chosen (the best 5 clues all had answers of 5 or 6 letters).

CCCWC Christmas Special competition voters’ comments Clue no. 18: Forced it out in lav used straining (7)

CCCWC Christmas Special competition voters’ comments

Clue no. 18: Forced it out in lav used straining (7)