Comments on: Guardian 23,954/Quantum – CD hits a sour note

By:

Miss Pedant — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:07:01 +0000

Yeah, but … it’s a yeah but.

By:

ilancaron — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:05:51 +0000

But that’s what the crossing letters are there for. I think it’s a fair balance with enough info being supplied by both sides of the equation (SI and DD). Bottom-line is that we all disocvered NN eventually without recourse to googling I bet. At some point NICKLEBY becomes pretty unavoidable.

By:

loonapick — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:52:23 +0000

Clare Danes probably hasn’t. But what about Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse?

By:

ilancaron — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:35:17 +0000

Hang on everyone, Clare Danes hasn’t had much output that belongs in a library.

By:

BenIngton — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:50:58 +0000

I’m with loonapick on this one. CD is just not an acceptable ‘clue’, otherwise the initials of all manners of people, places and things become valid. I wonder how many solvers instantly got the meaning in isolation, without having needed the cross-checking letters? I suspect very few if any and, for me, a clue becomes unfair if it cannot be solved as a clue in its own right.

By:

Miss Pedant — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:51:53 +0000

Could have been Clare Danes just as ‘fairly’, then! Not much fun, this one.

By:

ilancaron — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:27:44 +0000

Wrt NN, I too needed most of the crossings before I got it but… I think the setter gave fair warning by emphasizing “initially” — which basically meant to me that it wouldn’t be an acronym that I was familiar with (e.g. compact disc or certificate of deposit): i.e. if it were either of those two, qualifying with “initially” wouldn’t have been necessary.