Cluing ARE

No, no, "Cluing IS."

“To be” or not to be? It’s the simplest and most complex verb in English. It’s the most commonly used, easily edging out rivals like to have and to go, and it’s the most irregular. Though it’s not the only verb that can change its entire form—go becomes went, for example—it’s the only one that does so based on who’s doing the thing, not just when the thing is done. The simple form be has no letters in common with am or is or was, and only one in common with are and were, whose e’s are pronounced differently or not at all.

Of be’s various forms, ARE is most likely to crop up in a crossword grid. AM, IS, BE, and any apostrophized form (’S?) are disqualified by length. WERE and WAS have that relatively uncommon W, and BEEN has the relatively uncommon B.

One trend I’ve seen in cluing lately has been to make the most of the metamorphic family to which ARE belongs. “Is for two,” “Were in the now,” “Is but nonbinary,” and “Modern art?” all exploit ARE’s transformations, with the last clue referencing the fact that “You are” was once “Thou art.”

But IS and ARE are mostly helpmates in the language: what makes them great is that they tend not to hog the spotlight. Reality series ___ You The One? and “___ we there yet?” foreground ARE a little more, but it’s just as easy to get “My lips ___ sealed” (I used this one in Ubercross Abecedaria A—oops, spoiler) or “Orders ___ orders” or “All cats ___ grey in the dark.”

Outside of its most overwhelmingly common meaning, ARE can also mean an area equal to 100 square meters (about 40 times smaller than its alternative, the acre, which may be one reason metric land measurements haven’t really caught on in the States). The hectare is a little more useful, but not to crossword-makers.

What else? As an acronym, ARE most often stands for “age-related expectation,” an important concept in education. But it’s tough to clue it this way, because in practice, people don’t talk about one learning expectation, they talk about a set of them. So it’s usually AREs, not ARE. Though that’s worth remembering if you’re tired of talking about the Greek war god. (At what age are you expected to learn about Ares?)

I grew up in the shadow of Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment (seriously, this building was visible when I waited for the school bus at the end of my block). It was where I voted. Cayce was known as “the sleeping prophet” and the father of holistic medicine, and I don’t think there were many pseudosciences he didn’t have an opinion about. But his legacy organization seems a little obscure in today’s world compared to something like Are You Being Served? Plus, I’m not too anxious to spread word about Cayce’s…theories to the masses. They’re not the worst I’ve heard; there’s no hate in them, at least. But still, I’m someone who barely tolerates the existence of horoscopes and tarot decks.

Really, there’s nothing in the alternate definitions that can compare with all the options are-the-irregular-verb gets you.

“We ___ Young” (fun)

“Be the person your dog thinks you ___” (Ricky Gervais)

“Crosswords ___ stupid” (autocomplete that popped in when I searched “crosswords are,” which makes me wonder how it is that Google can spy on so much of my personal information and yet (sob) j-just not know me at all)

Be the ARE you want to see in the world!