Comments on: FT 12,512/Quark

By: petebiddlecombe

petebiddlecombe — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:06:46 +0000

Fair enough. I guess my take is that ‘most of tennis set’ could be ‘{Most of tennis}, set’ or ‘most of {tennis set}’ and that it’s up to the solver to decide. For me, this is just an example of what Afrit called “a form of words which can be taken in more than one way”.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:04:31 +0000

Yes, yes, I know!! But I wasn’t going to say “if word and gap groupings are indeed arbitrary, then the clue’s wrong” (as the clue wording would then lead only to tennis/se*), was I?

You know me Pete – I’m far too nice, and Quark could be a great big psychotic Hell’s Angel for all I know.

By: petebiddlecombe

petebiddlecombe — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:51:26 +0000

‘ang on, ‘ang on. The reason for plumping for TENNI/SET rather than TENNIS/SE is that one is an anagram of SENTIENT and the other one isn’t!

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:10:42 +0000

17dn ‘most of tennis set’ would at first glance seem most plausibly to be TENNI/SET*: but, since anag fodder is organised into ‘words’ and ‘gaps between words’ on the surface only in some arbitrary way, there is no technical reason (for dedicated ‘cryptic readers’ at least) why plumping for TENNIS/SE* is any less plump.

And with ‘what to do’ advertised so overtly in this clue, it is hard to call it ‘unfair’ even where Afrit’s Injunction – for absolute sticklers – has been lifted.

Nice blog, Smiff.