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Picking up on comments in the Spectator 2755 thread I wondered what your pet hates are?

For me the worst is the use of Spoonerisms - I cannot bear them!

M

Hounds, like you, I cannot bear Spoonerisms. I am also not a fan of the Spenser clues, I much prefer crosswords to include words that someone, somewhere, is using. I'm quite happy to be ignorant, to be given new words - not these fossilised old collections of letters that interest me not one jot!

Love Scotland, but obscure Scottish dialect words are often difficult to locate.

People complaining about spoonerisms :-)

People complaining about people complaining about Spoonerisms 😉

But add me to the Spooner hater club

The “primarily” clues every week in the Everyman. Usually, they have very clunky surfaces.

I have no problem with spoonerisms, as long as they are properly flagged (so "Spooner's" rather than "Oxford don's" or the like), but I can't stand partial homophones where the soundalike is a non-word, eg "Reportedly watched match" for SORTIE.

Spenserian words in general, but especially those flagged by "Ed". Why not "Eddie" or "Eddie baby"? Or Shakespeare words flagged by "Will". Why not "Billy"?

And Scots words. Don't get me started.

I do spike a good Loonerism, however.

Bit of, drop of, hint of etc. as single letter indicators.

“Extremely” as an indication of outer letters.