Comments on: Inquisitor 88 — OVER AND UNDER by Obtrox

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:06:00 +0000

Had a great PDM with this, having struggled with it for a long time. With hindsight the key words in the preamble were “assist solvers to highlight”. I’d been looking for a message – once I saw that position was what mattered I found ACUTE and GRAVE straightaway and the other had to be CEDILLA. I found some of the clues quite tough esp the NE quadrant.

By: Hihoba

Hihoba — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:21:38 +0000

Thank you all for the help. It’s another one where you could send the solution off without fully understanding the answer! My pet bugbear!

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:40:17 +0000

Geoff, thanks for “takes”. Despite the East End indicator I obviously missed this one. I’m not sure in this case that I even follow the pronunciation. How I say TYKE is a very strange way to pronounce “take”. Perhaps Cockney indicators should stick to dropping aitches.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:33:31 +0000

…so some omitted letters appear twice in the red letters above, some appear just once (those in unchecked positions.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:30:56 +0000

Yes, perhaps I should have made it clear in the introduction. The omitted letters in checked squares appear as omitted in both the across and down clues. This confirms the positions. The shapes themselves spell out ACUTE, GRAVE and CEDILLA as they are drawn.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:29:28 +0000

The extra letter(s) required in each clue is (are) the one(s) that need(s) to be highlighted to form the accents.

So we have 1 E, 6 G, 12 T, 13 R, 14U, 15 A, 20 E, 31 C, 33 E etc.

Just work through the clues highlighting the letters. Where there are duplicates, choose the following:

13a the first R
11d the first E
18d the first A
20a the third E
45a the second A

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:23:21 +0000

I agree with Colin about the ‘on’ in 15a but decided it was just about OK.
And also concur with Geoff about the three down clues he refers to.
As to Hihoba’s problem …
the five letters of ACUTE can be found between row 5, col.1 and row 1, col.5;
the five letters of GRAVE can be found between row 1, 5th. last col. and row 5, last col.;
the letters in CEDILLA are in the appropriate shape in the middle cols. at the bottom.
So, in the list “EGTRUAECEDILALCUTEGRAVEADL” (if it’s right – haven’t confirmed) most of the letters of ACUTE, GRAVE & CEDILLA will appear twice (if the cell is checked) and the rest, e.g. the first A of ALBATROSS/ACUTE, appear only once as they appear in barred off cells.

By: Hihoba

Hihoba — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:10:12 +0000

I’m still not entirely clear how it’s supposed to work. If you take out “The circumflex is another one” you are left with “EGTRUAECEDILALCUTEGRAVEADL”
EGTRUA seem to point to the letters of acute and grave in row order, then I get lost. I have a spare E, then “cedil” but letters in the wrong order for the LA, a missing A for acute, the GRAVE, then an extra A and DL. Anyone else done better?

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:58:12 +0000

Colin

I agree with your interpretation of 22d and 28d.

For 24d I had ‘tyke’ = cockney pronunciation of ‘take’ with take[s] = teaches.