Attention cruciverbalists: more tips for SA variants

Eagle-eyed readers of your great article last week on George Euvrard’s cunning crossword will have spotted that when compiling clues he has the Dictionary of South African English open on his computer.

For those crossword puzzlers who haven’t already discovered this handy resource, the web address is www.dsae.co.za. It’s free, and still in a pilot version – so it looks pretty much like the old print edition of the dictionary – but easily searchable.

With a bit of lateral thinking, and the ‘full-text search’ option, you should be able to track down even some of those tricky variant spellings that Leela Pienaar mentioned.

And, for all those interested in South African English, not just to solve cryptic crosswords, keep an eye on the website. Later in the year we’ll be uploading various new features to modernise the dictionary and to open up its contents to intriguing research possibilities. And it will still be free!

Jill Wolvaardt Executive Director, Dictionary Unit for South African English, Rhodes University