Cluing ERE

But not always like before.

In crosswords as in life, E and R are among the most useful of letters. Just about every source agrees that E is the commonest letter in the English language (either written or spoken). Things get more controversial after that, but this recent study of words in the OED seems like a trustworthy source, and it rates R as the most common consonant, behind only E and A.

So since a word generally needs at least one vowel and one consonant, shorter words are more versatile, and two-letter words are generally frowned upon, it makes all kinds of sense that ERE would be one of the commonest crossword words. The only reason it doesn’t quite overcome competition like ERA and AREA is it’s not quite so familiar, especially these days.

The search for fresh ERE clues might be a boon to beautician Ere Perez, biographized on her company website as having “a childhood spent in Mexico with a traditional medicine man grandfather and a mother’s flair for home remedies & beauty recipes.” I wouldn’t say she’s up there with ESTEE Lauder yet, but constructors looking to diversify their puzzle’s offerings could do worse than to mention her.

For instance, they could clue ’ERE as “Cockney greeting.” While it’s nice to nod to diversity of dialect, true Cockney is not really heard that much these days. H-dropping is still common in Britain, though, and “’Ere!” remains popular as a contraction of “See here!” It’s a sort of “hey” or “psst” that commands attention and promises the speaker will follow it up with something more substantial.

Then there’s “Able was I ere I saw Elba” and its occasional variations. I’d worry a bit about obscurity with palindromes, but palindromes are word games, and devoted crossword solvers are guaranteed to be word nerds, so all’s well there.

(The last four of these would probably never make it to a newspaper, and they feel too judgey and sex-negative for my tastes…except for the last one, which feels like it could be a fun romcom plot. It doesn’t have to be a man who’s speaking the “Anal” line, either.)

But my favorite way of cluing “ere” is still to quote the classics. There are hundreds of years of the written word in which using “ere” for “before” was common, and crosswords benefit from bringing in the parts of those old influences we can learn from…the Bible and Shakespeare, sure, but many others besides.

“A sword-day, a red day, ___ the sun rises!” (Tolkien)

“I kissed thee ___ I killed thee” (Othello)

“But I heard him exclaim, ___ he drove out of sight…”

Of course, I tend to favor the occasional lengthier quote:

“Thy victims ___ they yet expire, shall know the demon for their sire” (Lord Byron)

“This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ___ long” (Shakespeare)

“I shall forget you presently, my dear, so make the most of this, your little day, your little month, your little half a year ___ I forget, or die, or move away” (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Beautiful. And so much more refreshing than another damn “Before, before” clue.