Comments on: Independent 6841 by Tees

By: Tees

Tees — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:37:52 +0000

Anagram indication is very much a horses for courses thing, I think you’ll find (I’m already regretting having posted that, don’t worry).

My editor at The Independent has said he is happy to accept, inter alia, nounal indication for anagrams, and so occasionally I put them into my puzzles. I don’t think you are allowed to use them for Times crosswords, whereas in The Guardian a simple ‘of’ or ‘from’ can sometinmes suffice.

Although he is a most wise crossword man I wasn’t convinced by Azed’s argument con. Grammar’s an eel in our Vaselined hands I reckon. And after that, there’s Derrida.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:31:21 +0000

AZED covers this issue in detail in his recent book – it is complex and, as I’m far from a grammar expert, I found it heavy going at times, but it does explain why they are generally avoided.

By: Testy

Testy — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:27:33 +0000

I just don’t see the problem people have with nouns. A house renovation is a renovation of a house so SHUT FOR renovation seems perfectly acceptable to me as meaning a renovation of SHUT FOR.

A “cement and sand mixture” is going to be mixed just as well as a “mixture of cement and sand”!

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:19:10 +0000

Provided the anagram indicator is ‘with renovation’ I don’t see the problem. Using Chambers definitions, renovation = regeneration = rebuilding or reformation (as in regenerate = to reform completely).

By: Al Streatfield

Al Streatfield — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:38:28 +0000

It occurred to me after I had made my comment on Ximpedant that the posting may have been a joke. For some reason “renovation” doesn’t look quite right as an anagram indicator tacked on after the word that it is to be anagrammed. Possibly because of the word itself. A “renovation” of something usually means that the structure is the same but the furniture and fittings are changed- it is decorated differently etc…

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:15:16 +0000

Yes, that’s how I saw BOLTON, but it was tricky – I should have explained it more fully in the blog.

I think the Ximpedant comment was in jest (though in that as you know there is many a true word…). It’s a complex area with subtle grammatical points.

When verifying, “Spiritual leader of the nation” did come up for EVITA.

Thanks Mick H for SUNNI – what I missed was Scipio indicating Latin which was good – and I think Tees has used something similar in the past. Not sure about nn = news tho.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:56:12 +0000

BOLT (run as a horse given start [or a start, startled] ON

By: Al Streatfield

Al Streatfield — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:38:47 +0000

Some good clues, but too much trickery for my taste. I.e. STUDHORSE being an anagram of SHOUTS RED,the anag. indicator being provided by the second half of RED RUM. Agree with Ximpedant about nounal anagram in “Shut for renovation”. Didn’t like definition of Eva Peron. Why “unto” in SUI bit of SUNNI? NO TIES a bit loose as a synonym of freedom (which could be said to imply that there was only one word as a container). I’d never heard of FERULE. I haven’t got the clues in front of me. Can someone explain the clue for BOLTON, which was the only word I didn’t get?

By: Ximpedant

Ximpedant — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:05:15 +0000

Sorry — that nounal anagram indicator won’t do. The barbarians are at the gates.

By: Mick h

Mick h — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:25:30 +0000

Very tricky. I struggled hard with the last few clues, and thanks Niall for clearing up the wordplay in some of those. With 2down, I read it as N,N (news, as in plural of new) in SUI, which means itself in latin and is therefore ‘itself unto Scipio’.
I wasn’t confident about putting EVITA in, just because I don’t think of Eva Peron as a spiritual leader. But there were some very nice touches here – I’d hold up ‘Quarters shut for renovation’ as a good example of a noun used perfectly acceptably as an anagram indicator. Clear as anything.