I’m new to US crosswords, having grown up in England. I’ve been doing two US crosswords regularly for a few months - one avclub.com and one at theweek.com. I’ve noticed that almost each week there is one clue (or at least answer) in common, and they are specific enough, and this has been going on for long enough, that this is clearly not a coincidence. Do US crossword compilers often reference each other for such extended periods of time, or is something odd going on in this particular case?
I would guess the writers are lazy and poaching from the same source (possibly the New York Times Crossword, which often phrases clues in a distinctive way).
Why not eliminate the middeman and do the New York Times Crossword? It is our nation’s crossword of record. 
I think this might be more appropriate for The Game Room than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
One difference between American crosswords and British ones is that in American crosswords, all squares are crossed, that is, part of both an across and down clue. Some words are a lot easier to fit into a grid of this sort than others (lots of vowels or other common letters, for instance), and it makes it a lot easier to construct the grid if you sprinkle in a few such words. So you’ll very often see words like OREO, ARIA, EPEE, OLEO, OGEE, etc. showing up in crosswords for this reason.
Repeated answers and repeated clues may be a sign of laziness on the part of the editor, but they are almost certainly not the sign of a conspiracy. Certain words pop up regularly, just because they’re convenient as “fill” (the non-theme sections of the puzzle), and editors don’t necessarily come up with brand-spanking-new clues for every appearance of every word.
twickster, who spent many, many years working as a professional puzzle editor
Do you have a link? I went to avclub.com and searched and searched for a crossword but couldn’t find one.
If the crossword at theweek.com is the same as the one in the print version of the magazine, it’s apparently specifically designed to include as many references to current events as possible. If the same is true of the other crossword, the occasional coincidence shouldn’t be surprising.
Still, I’ve often had the experience of working two different crosswords from completely different (and non-current) sources that have eerily similar coincidences.
Twickster is probably right- laziness on the part of constructors is the issue, probably combined with increasing reliance on puzzle construction software packages.
Nowadays, there are software packages so good that all I’d need do as a constructor is create 3 or 4 lengthy theme entries, and let the computer fill in the rest of the grid with3, 4 and 5 letter words. And since many of these short words are used a lot, a constructor may already have 3 or 4 clues in his computer for them. He can let the computer pick 1 of the old clues, rather than making up a clue himself.
If a number of constructors are using software, it’s not surprising that we’d see the same words AND the same clues showing up a lot.
I knew we’d had a thread on this phenomenon before. Actually, I found two of them:
My theory on why the same word pops up in different crossword puzzles
The crossword daily double
I don’t know of any US crossword constructors who regularly reference each other, but recently, crossword constructors Matt Gaffney and Brendan Emmett Quigley tried an experiment where they each constructed a different crossword around the same theme entry supplied by a third party.
Thanks Thudlow for the links to the threads, I’m off to read them.
Meanwhile, here is the link for the AVClub crossword, if you haven’t found it already: http://www.avclub.com/crossword/.
And thanks everybody else for the fast imput. You guys have been very helpful. This was my first question; I’ve a feeling I might be back!
So, I take it you are used to the Cryptic Crosswords then?
Hey, it could be worse, you could be an American, trying to wrap your head around Cryptics. [Like Me]
But then, I am sure twickster will come back around after me and link to the fun we have been having on the cryptic clue thread.
Reading those threads reminds me how much I miss my pal Barn Owl, who died a few months ago. 
Not having clicked those links :
Isn’t it a simple matter of, only so many letters can finish a word, and only so many words can be put next to other words, so as to accomododate the other direction in the confines of the puzzle, that so many times, only a given combination for “out there” words can occur, hence a limited pool, of oddness?
Might make sense to read those links, in which the reasons for word repetition are discussed.
And there are also so many words that make appearances in a LOT of crosswords. There are words that I only know from crossword puzzles, that I’ve NEVER seen anywhere else. ERNE/ERN, for one (two?). Never seen it outside of a crossword puzzle. (The usual clue for it is “sea eagle”)
And ESNE. And ADIT. And ARIL.
I know such things are hard to justify, but I used to be a semi-professional puzzle constructor, and I can tell you from experience: it’s HARD not to use words like that! I always hated them as a solver, but I found out the hard way: constructors use them for a reason. It’s all too easy to get stuck in a corner where you’ve used the most common letters of the alphabet, and the only word that will fit is one of those obscure, cliche “crosswordese” entries.
Short semi-famous names are common, too: Asta. Fala. Ina (Balin). Ira (Parseghian, Gershwin). Ari (Onassis).
You would think that crossword familiarity would help with Scrabble skills, but it doesn’t in my case. sigh
OK, I think that ADIT is “Mine entrance”, and ARIL is “Seed part”, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen ESNE.
Don’t forget Oona (Chaplin.)
Ort* was always one of my favorite “crossword words,” so much that I started working it into everyday speech: “The cat’s not begging, she’s hoping for an ort.”
** noun. A morsel left at a meal; scrap.*
Parseghian is Ara, not Ira. 