The Stickler Weekly 185 Solution

I recently helped a friend drive to Alice Springs to go on a spirit journey. He needed his 4WD, so we drove from Sydney for three days through Mildura and Port Augusta. My role was to get him there safely and fly home. A spirit journey is one led by an Aboriginal person on their own land, where they share stories of their ancestry and connection to the land. By all accounts, everyone who goes is deeply impacted by the experience.
I got to stay on a property for two days as people gathered, an expereince in itself, as Alice and its inhabitiants are special people.
As a setter of word puzzles, I must pay very close attention to words that might be considered sensitive and/or offensive. Such words have increased dramatically in number over the years I’ve been setting, with publications and agencies erring on the side of caution. It generally means, rather than get it wrong, some words are just not used.
I was discussing local issues in Alice Springs with others and used the term “Aborigines” much to the disgust of the people around me. As a setter I’d been very careful in how and when I used words like Aboriginal and Aborigine, knowing from my references that the terms had changed in use over time. I had, in fact, reverted to the original, lower-case meanings of the words in my crosswords to ensure I didn’t upset anyone. I was surprised to learn that now Aborigine could be considered offensive, and that Aboriginal person was the accepted term. This isn’t reflected in references (yet) but is definitely in effect in the real world. Sadly, setters find the easy thing to do is not use such terms at all to avoid a backlash, perhaps, banishing some references of our First Peoples from our crosswords, just to be sure.