| 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). |
