Comments on: Independent 7651 / Nestor

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:51:25 +0000

Apologies Nestor not trying to create a flame war at all, just musing after taking medicinal painkillers and my judgement was impaired. Please don’t take it personally, slanging match not sought, it’s not my style, jokey maybe. Anyway peace and thanks for the feedback and puzzle. P

By: Nestor

Nestor — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:13:01 +0000

I’m not going to get into a slanging match, but this is not a case of tricking Eimi into publishing something flawed. I contend that “perchance wilt, after winter” is a perfectly acceptable (cryptic) definition for the verb “thaw”, as I explained.

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:22:13 +0000

Well you got it past Eimi but good grief, iffiness doesn’t quite cover this one though.

By: Nestor

Nestor — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:10:04 +0000

The wordplay for 14A is indeed “thaw” = “happened to thee” (ie lisped form of “saw” = “happened to see”). The definition is “perchance wilt, after winter”. COED defines “wilt” = “become limp through [loss of water,] heat, [or disease]” and “thaw” = “become [liquid or] soft as a result of warming up”, so there’s some overlap of meaning. “Perchance” indicates the iffiness of the definition and “after winter” bolsters it.

By: redddevil

redddevil — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:17:59 +0000

Be nice if Nestor could confirm – or otherwise – the parsing of 14 as I’m still not comfortable with it.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:26:11 +0000

Hi PeeDee
This one was towards the tougher end of the Indy spectrum. Normally the Monday puzzle is at the easier end but presumably Eimi decided that we might have a bit more time to spare on a Bank Holiday.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:04:13 +0000

Thanks Gaufrid, very tough I thought. I hadn’t got clue about 14ac, it took a while to catch on, even after your explanation.

I just dropeed in to try an Indy for a change, are they always this tough?

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:07:29 +0000

Hi nmsindy @8
I did consider your possible interpretation for the definition part of 14ac but ruled it out as I do not see ‘thaw’ as being synonymous with ‘wilt’. None of the dictionary definitions that I checked had any similarity for the two words nor are they connected in Chambers Thesaurus.

By: flashling

flashling — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:50:09 +0000

Stuggled with this and couldn’t see THAW. With that wedding on Friday was this meant to be the Thursday toughie and Eimi’s shuffled to accomodate it? Rare to see Gaufrid asking for help! Thanks all.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:38:23 +0000

This was good as always from Nestor, maybe a harder one than for a normal Monday as it’s a holiday in the UK. I think you’re right about the wordplay to THAW, Gaufrid, thanks. I did wonder tho if the definition part is just ‘Perchance wilt after winter’ ie thaw but far from sure, with ‘wilt’ and ‘thaw’ being similar in meaning. Thanks, Nestor and Gaufrid.