Comments on: Guardian Cryptic N° 25,512 by Paul

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 02:32:26 +0000

Came here to find the parsing of ONTH… lovely indeed. Didn’t understand the fuss over Sioux until some of you explained the strange way you say PSEUDO – surely those who pronounce it syoodo would also pronounce the tribal name syoo?

Like quite a few of you, 13d came quite late, although fairly early on I knew roughly what it was going to mean (from 25 and the wonderful 4). In fact, it and 3, 14, and 15 were my last four solutions. I really liked 7 a lot.

This was classic Paul – devious, funny, cheeky, and downright fair in its insanity-provoking liberties.

Thanks for the ‘onth of ‘arch, dialrib, for the blog, PeterO, and especially to Paul for the romp!

By: g larsen

g larsen — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:35:13 +0000

I thought this was a lovely crossword – Paul at the top of his form. Like most, I couldn’t understand the ‘onth’ until visiting here, but it’s perfectly fair.

Spike Milligan : ” He walked with a pronounced limp, pronounced ‘limp’.”

By: tupu

tupu — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:44:50 +0000

Re my comment @19 re 10a. The penny has now dropped. It is clear that ‘arch’ (like ‘ay’) is an example of ‘month’ without its initial ‘m’ i.e ‘onth’.

By: madman

madman — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:16:38 +0000

There’s another layer of ‘meaning’ to the clue in 5d: Khoisan women have a pronounced steatopygia, considered to be sexy by their menfolk.

By: FranTom Menace

FranTom Menace — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:08:51 +0000

I’ve always pronounced it “soo-doe” although occasionally with a light “y” there, the homophone I still got very quickly. I don’t think it’s a poor clue by any stretch of the imagination, it seems perfectly fair to me. I’ve seen far, far worse homophone-type clues in the Guardian!

It’s grand that we all seem to find some crosswords easier than others – I reckon that with me at least it’s not the setter and it’s not always their style of cluing that particular day – it’s more the frame of mind I’m in when looking at their puzzles.

By: tupu

tupu — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:38:59 +0000

Hi Thomas99

There seems to be a difference between American and English pronunciation.
My Collins gives a phonetic reading of what seems to be your and my version with an ‘i’ or ‘y’ sound between the s and the eu/ou sound. American online samples seem to pronopunce it as soodo.

By: Martin P

Martin P — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:09:55 +0000

I like Paul’s puzzles.

Although the devices are often devious, the solutions are usually commonplace words. That’s a plus to me.

That said, I completely failed to analyse 10a, but wrote it in anyway, the way you do…

By: morpheus

morpheus — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:47:49 +0000

Just shows one mans meat etc. Found this a real struggle and some of the clues a bit of a stretch.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:35:18 +0000

Several people have suggested that pseudo/sioux dough is a weird homophone but online dictionaries suggest that the pronunciations are identical. (As it happens I (southern UK) would normally pronounce pseudo with a “y” sound before the first vowel but that isn’t reflected in the dictionaries.)

By: FranTom Menace

FranTom Menace — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:39:39 +0000

We thought this was a good’un. Similarly to you, PeterO, we didn’t get the homophone answer until we’d already sussed what it meant from other clues! We completed the lot with a little help from the Wiki list of former ANC members, and we also got the solution to 10a without sussing ‘onth’ for a few moments. Fran sussed it!

Hottentot was a word I’d heard but we had to look up the definition after putting it in.

Thanks PeterO and Paul, a good theme and a good puzzle.