Re: Indirect anagrams

"Morten G. Pahle" <morten@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> Sure, the possibilities are many, maybe too many. But for the same
> reason, would it be reasonable to expect that setters do not accept
> clue anagrams with more than 7 letters (thousands of possibilities
> if you discount double letters, usual letter combinations etc.) ?

But at least you know you're rearranging the right letters (if you
interpreted the clue correctly), so it's worth considering all the
possibilities (Oof course, solving anagrams doesn't really involve
looking at all n! combinations). A solver is probably less prepared to
exhaustively consider lots of combinations if s/he doesn't even know
s/he's got the right letters.

>
> > I guess this is just because a simple "don't do it" rule is simpler
> > than a "don't do it unless it's easy" rule.
>
> Since when do we want things to be simple :-?

Well it's very easy to right a very difficult clue. The question is
whether it's fair and reasonable to expect someone to solve it, and
more importantly whether s/he would get pleasure or satisfaction from
doing so. Giving the solvers a hard slog of trying millions of
possibilities is not going to win you many fans.
- Paddy

--
Paddy Grove, Cambridge, UK
Rage of a theologian surrounded by party extremists (5)
http://www.psae.f2s.com/Crosswords/Crosswords.htm
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