Comments on: Independent 6728

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:37:46 +0000

I might have been fortunate with this, as found it in the general Phi style, with everything adding up and no particular difficulty. Particularly liked the wordplay for POSTMODERN.

I enjoyed it.

Maybe you’re lucky, John, that a phrase like TAX THRESHOLD does not come quickly to mind…

By: eimi

eimi — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:38:04 +0000

I don’t think out of office is a euphemism for dead, merely a way of saying former – it’s a definition straight from Chambers.

By: Testy

Testy — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:30:36 +0000

I had the same reservations as you over 26A and 21D and I’ve not heard of “out of office” being used as a euphemism for dead.

I was happy with 22D (as in “he carried on talking in the same vein for hours on end”) and 18A which I don’t think is a definition by example. To my mind a definition by example would involve using “tench” to indicate the answer FISH (which personally I’m not too bothered by but would prefer “tench, say”). There must certainly be no problem in using “fish” to indicate the answer TENCH and I think “angler’s target” is simply a slightly more indirect way of indicating the answer (or possibly even a more precise way seeing as it is narrows things down to game fish) and one that fits the surface better.

Overall I liked the puzzle.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:17:53 +0000

I think “out of office” might be a euphemism for being dead, ie late.