Thanks for the lecture on protocol, but really it’s not necessary. As Picaroon is a newer setter, I am entitled to comment on their style as I see fit. If my comment were irrelevant then Uncle Yap could remove it. My comment should not excite any reaction such as to prevent free debate, surely what the internet is all about. So crawl back under your bridge, troll! lol

S (sun) TRIPPER (Holidaymaker) to get STRIPPER which is the “help to remove coat”

“getting” is like “for” and is not extraneous

However, the irony is that by arguing the (seemingly reasonable) position that ‘the crosssword rules’ are personal and not absolute, one is denying the hard-line Ximean perspective in which the rules really are absolute.

If one takes personal views as being equally valid, one has to accecpt another’s the personal view that the rules are absolute and you really are wrong.

In the end the relativist position is no sounder than the absolutist one.

Thomas99 @45 and JS @56: Of course “people” can be singular and “usually” doesn’t count. Still it niggles. “A people’s princess” resolves the problem without, I think, detracting from the surface.

Picaroon @55: Thomas99 does indeed put the matter very well. A verb is not needed. I was trying to say that a verb can make the thing construe. Tribe’s run amok contrues as tribe has run amok. He’s no right construes as he has no right.

I just had a problem construing people’s princess as people has princess. However tribe’s princess does construe as tribe has princess (as first in line of succession, for instance).

I retire (partly) defeated. Apologies for giving up on the quotation marks. My head is starting to hurt.

“I should say that my comments earlier about “People’s princess” weren’t advocacy of any particular type of cluing.”

Oh come on – not much – it was pretty well a party political broadcast on behalf of the ximenean “I am”/”I is” rule or, and more generally, the ximenean notion of cryptic grammar. You start by quoting the rules of The Listener (a ximenean stronghold) and, after saying you agree with them, you describe it as a “convention” as if to imply that it is broadly accepted across the board.

If you are a ximenean that’s cool. I have lots of fun solving good puzzles by hardline ximeneans – but I don’t give them extra points for their ximeneanism.

I’ll be offline in a mo so sorry to rant and run but it’s late here.

Usually never counts – the setter can ask you to assume any possible valid interpretation. Obviously “people” is usually the plural of person (unless you are a policeman) but it can also be singular, meaning a race or tribe etc.

Additionally, since you accept S for has (a commonplace over in barred-grid-land), take it that way by dropping the apostrophe – punctuation is always arbitrary – that is unles you buy the ximenean approach – and even there people tend to read too much into his rather garbled views on that.

I am not at all against quibbling over detail – I am not even against ximeneanism per se. What I am against is the ongoing attempt by ximenean enthusiasts to pretend that his approach is the one and only valid and logical one.

The example clue given at #35 is a clear example of the difference between ximenanism and normal logic.

The (counter-)example given by Ximenes is actually:

I am in the plot that’s clear (5) for PLA(I)N

Most normal solvers would automatically take both clues as an indication to insert “I” into the other word (or the letters thereof) and not be interested in fussing
over whether the letter I or the word itself was intended at that moment.

Re the Rufus – I don’t think there was anything controversial there. It seems to be accepted across the board that articles can be disappeared at will, but not spirited out of nowhere.

Re strait and narrow. To be honest I thought it quite unremarkable, Gordius having been a clergyman, and that being the spelling Bunyan mainly favoured in his many comments on the biblical text in question.

I have just read all the debate here with great interest. Like rhotician, I enjoy the “quibbling and counter-argument” on 15^2, particularly as I suspect most of us cruciverbalists have been faced with that “please shut up” look when talking about puzzles to people we know who fail to share our interest (no? just me?…).

In response to JollySwagman (@42), I should say that my comments earlier about “People’s princess” weren’t advocacy of any particular type of cluing. I was just trying to answer morpheus’s question by pointing out that even according to the most grammatically rigorous standards the clue is sound. Thomas99 puts the matter very well indeed (@45). As a solver I enjoy puzzles from across the spectrum and as a setter simply try (and the word needs emphasising here!) to find something that seems to work. As agendas go, that’s it for me.