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I thought we'd moved beyond this, but it occurred in the Times New Years Day jumbo (no. 1360);
Old coach's daily account written outside bar - CHARABANC

Am I the only one who finds it annoying? It makes me think the setter must be an old fuddy-duddy sitting in his ivory tower while his "woman who does" fusses around him.

"Char" seems to be common crossword parlance for "daily / cleaner2
It often crops up..

TreborNotlaw, I know exactly what you mean! I think there are quite a few words, terms that are outdated, but continue to be used in crosswordland. It wasn't so long ago that I saw 'steady', meaning regular boyfriend, used in a clue - and I felt it had been decades since that was common usage.

I don't think the setter must be an old fuddy-duddy - it smacks more of laziness to me, using out-of-date words and phrases, rather than coming up with something new.

PS Your 'woman who does' might be lost on younger solvers (on the Forum) as that's equally old, little-used in the real world.

TreborNotlaw - I'm puzzled that you have an issue with 'char' but not 'charabanc', which the setter has even admitted is old-fashioned by adding the prefix 'Old'. Surely the palette for the crossword setter is the English language as a whole as reflected in current dictionaries (where 'char' and 'daily' will both be found, and where all words are equal). If every word appearing in clues and grids had to be in common use as viewed by every solver I think the task of composition would be well-nigh impossible.

Thanks, Spoffy, for some interesting stuff. I think your point about 'charabanc' is equally applicable to 'char' (and 'daily') - ie so old-fashioned, used so little, that they need an indicator such as 'old', 'once' and so on to show that they are not in common, current usage. It must be decades since anyone referred to their 'char'.

I certainly don't think every word appearing in a clue has to be in common use - we'd never learn anything that way!

I must confess to getting irritated when I see clue after clue where the wordplays seem to consist largely of artists, sailors, newspapermen, spies, airlines (RA/AB/ED/CIA/BA) and the like (which would include daily/char). This strikes me as lazy setting - I agree about 'daily' and 'char' being somewhat superannuated, but I don't mind seeing words such as this ('oof', 'rhino' etc) appearing from time to time as long as they have been used thoughtfully rather than mechanically!

I object specifically to char because I think to use it to mean a cleaner is derogatory. I can't imagine the Times would use such a term in an article, so I don't think it is acceptable in a crossword.

Malone- my use of "woman who does" (in quotes) was deliberate as that is another expression I have seen used for the same purpose in crosswords, and another that I think is unacceptable in this day and age.

TreborNotlaw, thanks for the added stuff about 'the woman who does' - it's sometimes hard to pick up nuances from posts, I just took it at face value. 'Char' doesn't have any derogatory connotations for me, but it - and 'daily' - are so old-fashioned that this should be indicated if they're going to be used in a crossword. As it is now, any appearances of them has me sighing at the lack of imagination of the setter. I feel the same when I see It (as Italian vermouth or sex appeal), SA (sex appeal - decades ago) and a few other very old words and phrases.

Malone

I dont mind abbreviations in crosswords. I object to them being used in speech though. I have been very irritated recently by the use of "AI". To me this has always meant "artificial insemination", but apparently it now means "artificial Intelligence" - whatever that is.

I used to train employees in how to talk to customers, to avoid jargon and company-related abbreviations which are a mystery to the public. I used the following example:

The PC PC had a pc of the PC's pc on his PC.

6 different meanings! Chambers is recommended!

Amazingly most people could translate my absurd sentence.