Please, Spare Us Your Boring Definitions

To crossword editors everywhere: I offer a deal.

We who have not the skill to construct, but who live to solve, put up with much of your permissive codswallop. We’re accustomed, for example, to the misplaced preposition “depend,” defined as “rely on,” as though when I rely on my mechanic I depend him.

We cravenly forgive your inconsistency with regard to the Latin plural “setae” and “ulnas” in the same puzzle.

We shrug off your apparent ignorance of ancient history: Medes were not “old Persians” but warred against them. And modern history: The REO is not an “old Olds” - Ransom Eli Olds sold his Oldsmobile to General Motors, then 10 years later came back to build his REOs, including the trucks he called Speedwagons, anticipating a muchlater rock group. (REOs are neither “vintage” nor “classic” cars, by the way - terms with exact meanings to auto fanciers.)

You are not, however, a notably enissophobic group, so that I feel constrained to offer a deal. I’ll never mention the above again, and I’ll go further. I’ll quit harping on your misspelling and misdefining “reata,” which doesn’t mean “lariat,” and I won’t keep reminding you that the Latin for “others” is “alii”- never, ever, “alia.” In return, you shall forbid your contributing constructors the Ten Most Boring Definitions, advising them that however ingenious the rest of the puzzle, use of the Terrible Ten means automatic rejection.

The Ten:

ORE: “Mined-over matter.”

OVEN: “Hot spot,” or, worse, “It takes the cake.”

ADAM: “Leading Man.” This proscription includes “Leading Lady” or “First Lady” for EVE.

LIMO: “Big wheels” or “Hot wheels.” It’s not a word anyway.

THE: “Magazine article.” Once was enough.

ETA (or TAU or RHO): “Letter from Athens.” Could we at least make it Amfilokhia? HERO: “Long lunch.” Deliver us from New York jokes.

SALAMI: (as “the stuff of which heroes are made”) is not bad if you can spell “heroes,” but it’ll get old very soon, unlike the salami.

TEE: “Ball-bearing device.”

ANTE: “Chip in a chip.”

Some of those were funny once; newcomers may appreciate them on first encounter. But have mercy on the rest of us.

Even if you can’t tear your constructors away from HERO as a Manhattan lunch instead of as Claudio’s beloved, a novelist’s protagonist or the motivation for a Hellespont swim, at least grant us downtrodden solvers our deepest orison: Defrock forever anyone who defines EWE as “Lamb’s dam,” “Ram’s dam,” or, and especially, “Ram’s ma’am.” Paranomasia by definition works only once.

After all, it is you who are supposed to be good with words.

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