Cluing D-Words
Catching up with the main feature.
Continuing to track the most mainstream, first alternate, and just-a-bit out-there cluing angles for words I have to clue at least twelve times.
I’m going to lead off with a little controversy here. In indie crosswords, you’re more likely to see DTS clued as DTs, defensive tackles. Newspapers are almost lock-step in cluing DTS as the DTs, short for delirium tremens, alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
The new school of thought, if I can do it justice, is that the latter clue shames alcoholics for an affliction often beyond their control—and is kind of grim for casual entertainment. There are times I feel like the new school has a point. And yet…I learned about the DTs through crosswords, when I was impressionable enough that the warning affected me.
I don’t think it’s the single factor that saved me from becoming a lush or anything like that, but I do think there are certain benefits to keeping such things in our entertainment, just enough to warn someone off the wrong path.
I like crossword grids to feel big as life, and (with a very few exceptions), I like them to represent all of life, including the uncomfortable parts. It’s not like football can’t be brutal, too.
DTS is also a competitor of Dolby in the field of sound compression, beloved by some purists (and Christopher Nolan) for its high-fidelity sound. Although the way things are trending, it might be losing that race.
Like a cone, a DISC is a widely-seen shape (plates, hubcaps, saw blades, and especially Frisbees). But someone talking about just a “disc” is more likely to mean a compact disc or, especially lately, a digital video disc. Sometimes we say “DVD disc,” just to be redundant.
Although I don’t often think of it in terms of its shape, there’s also the disc in your spine, which you want to keep right where it is.
In many business fields, DiSC is a personality test, and like most such tests, it’s kinda bullshit. The four letters originally stood for dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance, which…sound like two pairs of synonyms? More modern presentations of the test use “dominance, influence, steadfastness, and conscientiousness”—in other words, changing at least two of the sought-after traits while pretending to be the same test. (You can argue influence is a more modern, less aggressive way to say “inducement,” but the latter two?) Yet some businesses still swear by this thing.
For me, the most embarrassing thing about it is that it was developed by William Moulton Marston, who also developed the lie detector and Wonder Woman. Ah, comics.
DOES is a common linking verb, easy to drop into questioning phrases like “___ he know?” or “___ she like me?” or “___ it matter?” Pronounced differently, it’s also a plural number of female animals—not only deer, but mice, rats, squirrels, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, giraffes, antelopes, rabbits, hares, kangaroos, and weasels.
“Does” has a range of other verb meanings, often when some other verb would be redundant—She does a great impression of Oprah Winfrey, the theater troupe does Macbeth this spring, he does time in jail after he does heroin—or euphemistic. “When he does him” could mean “when he kills him” or “when he has sex with him.” Which one should be clear from context! If the context does its job, of course.
