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adeano - my reluctance to use anagam apps and crossword lists stems from my belief that cryptic clues should be all that's needed to arrive at the correct answer. People my age started solving cryptics when such things weren't available, so we only got to be reasonably good at it after quite a bit of practice. I don't think it does credit to a good clue to work it out after the fact, and I think an essential part of the skill comes from solving anagrams.
buddy, as you've championed the 30 cells solution throughout, I'd say your latest input would have me erasing my corner shading - if I still submitted my solutions (as it is, I don't - so, I can avoid the travesty}. I just hope you're right.

I subscribe to the 32 cell approach and humbly retract all previous posts.

Smellyharry, yes, in ODQ. Mine is 1986, but I'm sure it's still there.

drxx:

I agree in principle, and would never use electronic aids to solve a regular cryptic. And I don't just use it willy-nilly with the Listener either, that'd defeat the point.

However, my vocabulary is not broad enough to encompass the vast range of words used in the Listener. Plus, my weakness as a solver is thinking of synonyms. I usually find that I have identified the answer and parsed the wordplay, but just cannot come up with more than one or two synonyms for that one part of the clue I'm stuck on. Therefore, without the app, I'd be stuck. And I often get the fun of learning a new word for something (my favourite was "authentically Asian" in the current puzzle).

I have nothing but admiration for those who solve entirely without electronic aids. Maybe one day I'll be there, but for now I'll settle for the enjoyment of solving, even with a bit of help!

That said, part of my pleasure in completing this puzzle was the fact that pattern-matching was of very limited use, so I had to rely on the grey matter a bit more! Maybe I should try harder in future...

I can agree with just about all of that aldeano, and that clue is a particular favourite of mine too - luckily, the synonym featured in another crossword fairly recently (I always find new words easier to remember if I've had a bit of a struggle tracking them down in the first place). Sadly, as I mentioned earlier, I did use Wordwizard, after a certain point, solving this puzzle - but I might have avoided that, if I'd spotted the very fair and helpful gimmick in time (I should try harder in future}.

I'm rather late to the party on this one, having been away over the weekend, but came here to see what folks thought about the strangeness of only 30 cells needing to be shaded. Having read the thread, it seems most people have ended up thinking that 32 is the way to go. I'm a bit confused as to why folks have reached this conclusion.

From my point of view, we're clearly instructed that "the set of cells that the solvers must shade" is the five letter word in the bottom row of the grid; let's call this word N. This is the only mention of shading in the preamble. For me, that suggests 30.

I know that this gives a mutilated version of the "world" which is indeed strange, but correctness surely arises from following the given instructions rather than guessing what might have been intended. Can anyone convince me that two corners are somehow part of N, or that this is not relevant? In particular, where are we told that we must shade those two? People seem to have made some distinction between "set" and "group", but I still can't see how that instructs one to shade the corners. Nevertheless, the fact that most people seem to have converged towards 32 makes me wonder whether I've missed something.

nxe - the 32 cells comes from considering N in the context of the quote and in that way the “set” of N is different to the “group” of cells outlined earlier in the preamble

I agree with CD. I’m convinced that Occam would have gone for 32.

And not just old William. I recall an Inner House judgment on an appeal in a civil case some many years ago that said “we find that Lord X erred in that he attempted to interpret the detailed wording adopted by Parliament in part of the section, rather than seeing what Parliament plainly meant by the section as a whole.”

Whatever. We’ll all know soon enough!

nxe - From my point of view the quote describes the world as two sets of items. The word in the final part of the grid border tells us which of the two sets should be highlighted. The crossword solution allows us to identify which of the two sets is which, but it does not define the sets. Hence 32 is (to me!) the obvious requirement,