Comments on: Inquisitor 128 — An Important Distinction by Obtrox

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:40:54 +0000

Hihoba: I’m sure you are right but as I said there is no mention of purchase = rope in Chambers.

HolyGhost: Yours is probably a better reading. ‘gets’ isn’t a strong inclusion indicator.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:56:23 +0000

Colin’s gives the wordplay for 13a as CO[A TE[e]]E and comments on ‘Athletic support’ for (golf) tee being cheeky. I think a better reading is CO[e] A TEE, with the “a third off” leading to CO[e] and the A being an abbreviation of “athletic”.

By: Hihoba

Hihoba — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:39:25 +0000

A purchase in sailing (Naval) terminology is a rope or rope + block and tackle for raising a yard (hence ha(u)l-yard) carrying a sail. Nowadays sails rarely have yards, but the term halyard has persisted for a rope used to raise anything, particularly sails and flags. I’m really unclear that purchase has much to do with the word grip – naval terms often get totally divorced from their original meanings!
Interested in the last comment. I’ve never been, and want to, so ease of access would be a definite plus!

By: Gareth Rees

Gareth Rees — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:28:54 +0000

I disagree with Johnson on this one.

It’s probably a bit easier to get there now than it was in the 1770s!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:24:49 +0000

Enjoyable puzzle, where I thought the clues were fairly easy overall. Took me quite a while to find what to highlight and it was a nice PDM when I did.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:17:43 +0000

Re 11d, thanks for the correction. I’ve just looked at my original notes and I had SOOT rather than SOT O. When I checked Chambers as I typed up the blog I failed to find sweet under soot but I didn’t check soot(2) for some reason.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:46:19 +0000

In 11d, I think that the wordplay is I’M around SOOT (=sweet, obs.) + ERIC (=man), with the OT to go.

I too initially had CANE at 21d. And I felt there were rather too many three letter words with 2 letters to be removed, e.g. 5d PIN for “leg” produced just P in the entry.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:45:46 +0000

Re HALYARD. Chambers does not, as far as I can see, give purchase = rope. It does say that halyard = ‘rope or purchase’. I thus understood purchase here in the sense of a grip on something like a rope rather than the most obvious meaning of purchase.

By: Hihoba

Hihoba — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:33:07 +0000

I agree with your comment about the two missing letters. It really made the down clues MUCH more difficult. I put the apostrophe in the middle square without giving it too much thought, but, like you, EUROPE was my last solved clue.
I found it very entertaining, but took some time to find the quotation, despite finding the author pretty quickly. I was slowed down somewhat by looking for Doctor or Dr rather than SAMUEL!
Finally, HALYARD is a sailing term for a rope (aka purchase), not to do with grip, I think.