Crossword editor’s desk: should puzzles avoid Americanisms?

How can you tell whether a word is peculiar to a form of English spoken elsewhere?

How can you tell if a phrase is American English, as opposed to the kinds spoken in the UK and elsewhere? I spent some pleasurable time searching theguardian.com to see who has used the phrase “no way, no how”. An American cadence, but since it had appeared in an editorial about George Osborne, I gave it a clean bill of health.

Some solvers are wary of an excess of Americanisms, and with reason: once a term is used widely enough to count as reasonable crossword fodder, it’s unlikely to still be called an Americanism (or Australianism or whatever): the once-US BRASSIERE being a case in point.

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