Comments on: Independent 7741 by Quixote

By: fairforward

fairforward — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:05:34 +0000

Thank you very much, Neal, for that speedy response – got it now! And I’ve learned a new trick too, so very satisfying altogether. Slowly slowly …

By: NealH

NealH — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:58:23 +0000

OR frequently appears in crosswords clued by things like soldiers or men. It is actually an abbreviation for Other Ranks, meaning basically the non-officer classes. GeORgia contains OR, so what the clue is saying is that the abbreviated form of Other Ranks (OR) is hidden in Georgia. So the clue is really a hidden word type, but clued in an unusual and more indirect way.

By: fairforward

fairforward — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:53:20 +0000

I’m at the Sandy Balfour stage of hardly ever managing to complete a whole crosword, so please humour me – what has ‘other ranks’ got to do with Georgia? It had to be that but no idea why. I guess they are soldiers but that’s about the limit of my grasp of this clue. I got most of the rest eventuaLly (it’s now Friday!
Thanks

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 07:45:08 +0000

Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been around rather a long time so have picked up a varied vocabulary and a lot of useless knowledge, but I solved this without any help from reference sources. Nevertheless, some clues took a bit of working out. Didn’t spot that it was a pangram, though.

By: flashling

flashling — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:20:02 +0000

or lived Tees… hope I can be on line to blog tomorrow….

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:47:57 +0000

Indeed. The warmest we’ve been all summer, and I live very close to a Tesco with a cashpoint. Oh my days.

By: flashling

flashling — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:18:38 +0000

ty Neal and Don, fun here as south london is all on fire. Deep joy.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:04:27 +0000

What I would hope is that a reasonable stab could be made from the subsidiary indication, with possible final verification from a dictionary at home. For instance, TESLA (not known to all)is obvious from the hidden clue with T-S-A even if you haven’t heard of it — and if you want to can learn a bit about the unit when you get home – and the man it’s named after(an unsung engineer-physicist hero by the way who first came up with AC electricity generation). Anyway — even feedback that I disagree with is very welcome, unless if course it’s overwhelmingly supported! So thank you, the whiskered one!

By: walruss

walruss — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:49:04 +0000

Yes, but it is a daily puzzle, and we don’t all have Chambers or Collins on our desks, and definitely not on the Tube! yes if it’s a theme I don’t mind seeing a hard word or two, but yours are sometimes almost like an Guardian Azed in their content!

By: Quixote

Quixote — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:00:15 +0000

Thanks for mainly encouraging comments. In answer to walruss:if a word is in a non-Chambers dictionary I think it’s fair game.

There are at least three additional reasons why I would defend using less well-known words:

1) To test solving skills (it is a common complaint that many puzzles can be solved mainly form definitions). I like subsidiary indications to be worked out, sometimes with the solver having the satisfaction of finding a new word. That’s me — sorry walruss!

2) One man’s meat is another man’s poison (that can’t be helped — we all have different backgrounds)

3) In a career of setting that spans
decades, I need all the words I can (semi!)reasonably get hold of to avoid repeating hackneyed words with hackneyed clues recycled ad infinitum.

I also like to produce non-thematic crosswords that celebrate the wonderful diversity of the amazing universe God has given us!

Greetings to all!