[Kolya]

I'm surprised to see a crossword editor use the phrase "crosswords in England". It's not what you'd expect from someone so concerned with trivia.

[ColinWright]

Will knows when to be a pedant, and when it's necessary not to be a pedant in order to communicate more effectively. Some people don't know when not to be a pedant - I tend to be one of them - and it's interesting to see Will transcend that.

[mcantor]

Why is that phrase surprising?

[EvanKelly]

I think they are typically referred to as cryptics across the pond.

[gjm11]

No, we call them crosswords. ("Cryptic crosswords" when it's necessary to distinguish them from the sort that's dominant in the US, and yes, that can be abbreviated to "cryptics", but that wouldn't be the norm.)

I'm guessing that the complaint was actually about "England" versus, say, "the United Kingdom".