Comments on: Financial Times 13998 Peto

By: Paul B

Paul B — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:17:49 +0000

… whilst ‘with fear’, though adjectival, would not define DREAD in that sense.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:14:25 +0000

24A surface sense is nounal. Back in the real world, FEAR is a verb or a noun, DREAD a verb, noun or adjective.

By: scchua

scchua — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:13:31 +0000

Thanks Thomas99 and Paul B. Blog amended.
Re 24A, as I understand it, you’re taking definition and answer as verbs? I took FEAR and DREAD as nouns, in which case “with” doesn’t affect the definition.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:33:21 +0000

I too had no problem with that one. 30A, and even FISH for SMELTS you could describe as DBE, but there are limits. And yes, there were some nice surfaces.

To be a bit techie, in 19A the use of ‘on’ (to the right of something) was correct according to convention, whereas in 17D (on top of something) it was incorrect; in 24A ‘with’ might get Peto shot by the pedants, since it changes the tense of the definition; 30A ‘taking’ some might not see as a true container-ind despite the context, and FA aren’t footballers (whereas PFA are); 1D ‘over’, as in something knocked over, works; 3D RE is Latin, not really short for ‘regarding’; 6D ‘after’ is fine both across & down; 22D ‘stands’ might be mistaken for a reversal-ind, which would give solvers two to select from!

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:25:23 +0000

Thanks for the blog. The clues were very well-wrought with some lovely surfaces. As you said, not too long a solve though. For anyone who got through it quickly I recommend looking back over them to enjoy the constructions.

14a – A question mark is not appropriate. The Tang certainly IS a dynasty. The question mark is needed if it’s the other way round – i.e. if the answer is Dynasty and the definition is Tang, because a dynasty MIGHT BE the Tang, but could easily not be. This comes up from time to time in the blogs but I think everyone would be astonished if someone clued Al Pacino as “Actor?” or “Actor, perhaps”. And you quite rightly didn’t suggest Cape Fear should have been defined as “Film?” in 30a, an exactly equivalent case.