Comments on: Guardian 24575 / Puck

By: KG

KG — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:32:53 +0000

Journeys -> jam (?) + white queen: the rest was redundant. “Going” didn’t have a spare letter. Having said that, I approve of quotes and phrases as solutions.

Perdu as concealed? I am now back in Catalunya and up north from here we have the Monte Perdido region. The mountain was never lost (as in misplaced) I guess, but obscured. These latin roots travel and change. One of my favourites in Castillian Spanish is the use of the same verb – esperar – for ‘to wait’ and also ‘to hope’. Fluent English-speaking Spanish friends still don’t really understand how to ‘wait in hope’ as to them its the same thing.

Don – ban foreign words? How far back do you want to go. Pre-Roman?

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:03:20 +0000

Absolutely. It’s just slack clueing (on this occasion, for this solver: I’m not suggesting for a minute that Puck is a slack clueist, and I too gained enjoyment through solving this puzzle). But ‘four-legged’ is adjectival, ‘Wolves are’ isn’t.

By: Geoff Anderson

Geoff Anderson — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:02:39 +0000

15d
In the olden days, this would have been clued “Wolves, for example, are confused etc” and I’ve noticed this strict application of logic being diluted over the decades, until nowadays it is not uncommon to have a specific clued by a generic, if I can put it like that. The other way round is fine, eg “Quadruped upsets flow”, since ‘wolf’ is a specific example of the general category which is ‘quadruped’.
Rules do gradually change. There was a time when every individual letter of an anagram was always to be found in the clue. Nowadays, one of the letters may be a whole word (such as ‘advanced’ for ‘a’) which is commonly abbreviated to a single letter. I’m not saying it’s wrong, whereas I do think it’s wrong to have a generic clued by a specific.
One way of putting it is to say that ‘wolves’ doesn’t describe/define ‘four-legged’ whereas ‘four-legged’ describes/defines ‘wolves’.
Thinking of ludicrously extreme examples also helps: if wolves can define four-legged, then ‘city’ could define ‘big’, since cities are big, as wolves are four-legged. The whole can’t define a part, whereas a part can define the whole.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:14:38 +0000

9ac etc. Yes, the extra 3 lettered word threw me for a while (and I started blocking off 19d as a consequence). However, I think it is reasonable, in that the “and” was in bold; but I thought Puck could have included Dan in the list of anagram characters somewhere.

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:09:54 +0000

I also dislike these overly long anagrams (megagrams anyone?) they are perhaps forgivable if an &lit or an excellent surface reading as in a few Araucarian ones, but otherwise self-indulgent. This surface reading maybe refers to a mental ward linking to the madness in Alice In Wonderland but is tenuous to say the least. Puck would have been better referring back to Pauls Queen epic “Never play casually with queen” (3,2,4 blah blah etc)would have done me.
A few decent clues but another disadvantage of megagrams is it cuts down the number of other clues.
(ps congrats Phaedrus on another hon. mention in Pauls clue comp)
Stiofain

By: don

don — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:49:20 +0000

Sorry, the enumeration for 9,19,7 and 19,29,18,19,16 as printed out was:

(3,4,2),3,(2-6) then 3, 3 and then (9), (3,5), 3, (2-3)

One of those threes in the middle seems superfluous?

By: mark

mark — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:38:07 +0000

John, then Don and then Geoff mention the missing ‘and’. Geoff, I’m impressed by your phlegmatic “haven’t seen this done before”. Neither have I and it’s not on. As one of the few who tried to work the blessed thing out bit by bit it threw me completely.

By: don

don — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:37:48 +0000

Of course — I should have put it in quotation marks!

There seems to be a discrepancy between two enumerations:

9,19,7 and 19,29,18,19,16 (as above)

and

9,19,7 3, 3, 19,29,18,19,16 (as on the version I printed out)

No matter: I enjoyed this crosword.

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:35:38 +0000

Probably one of the most irritatingly clued puzzles in ages.

The lengthy ones I have a particular dislike for.

The clues to 11a and 15d were dubious to say the least.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:07:00 +0000

The ‘and’ appears in bold in the enumeration at the top of the clue, which presumably means it is not to be entered in the grid. Haven’t seen this done before.

I’m intrigued to know what a bland spot is, Don. Is the rest of you more strongly flavoured?

Typos are a curse in these blogs – we all do it from time to time.