The object of a skillful PD clue is to achieve wording that reads convincingly in both devilled and undevilled forms. If either is less convincing, it must always be the devilled form.
The best PD clues employ word breaks occurring within words both before and after excision – of the 51 clues submitted 35 managed this successfully. The other 16 failed to close the gap after removal of the clue word (4, 6, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 25, 27, 29, 37, 42, 45, 46 and 48)
PD clue setters also need to avoid forcing the wording of the undevilled version to accommodate that of the devilled version, something which stood out particularly in clues 2, 13, 16, 20, 31, 34, 36 and 49.
A significant number of clues contained key words or phrases in the undevilled version which were not adequately referenced after they disappeared in the devilled version, thereby giving the solver very little realistic chance of guessing the main subject matter of the original statement (eg 'serial killer' in clue 22, 'sermon' in clue 24 and 'sonatas' in clue 38).
A couple of clues exhibited 'devilry run riot', with few of the words in the full version remaining the same – not really fair on the solver (37 and 44).
The most popular undevilled word by far was 'service(man)', with 11 showings, 5 of which successfully closed the gap to form novice (9, 12, 26, 30 and 47*). 'Sermon' was delivered 5 times (24, 25, 27, 34 and 51), and 'ermine' 4 times, though none of these managed to close the gap (14, 19, 45 and 48). There were also four 'serious' clues amongst them a couple of contenders (1, 5*, 21 and {41]*). Three clues featured 'serial' (10, 22 and 39) and there was also a trio of 'erection(s)' (2, 13 and 32*), though one did stand out above the others. Other less popular undevilled words included 'serf' (7* and 36), 'serpent' (6 and 49), 'Serbian' (35), 'series' (18), 'serve' (28), 'server' (3) and 'servile' (15). |
