Comments on: Guardian Cryptic N° 25,727 by Gordius

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:10:37 +0000

Thanks Gordius and PeterO

Also only picked this one up today – clues went in steadily enough with a couple of new ones in FRANK BRIDGE and DAYTON. Have seen ODO in other crosswords.

Had written in DIETICIAN until I went back to parse it properly and corrected.

Enjoyable enough and didn’t find the little Gordius nuances got in the road of the solve.

By: sheffield hatter

sheffield hatter — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:44:09 +0000

Late posting because I did this while away on holiday.

I was struck by the number of clues that ended in question marks when there was nothing really very dubious about them.

Love to diversify with reproductive organ?
Food store hard to find in eastern capital?
Popularity lists for sailors?
Growth of scripture teaching among lawyers?
Growth of Grahame’s character’s instrument?
Assured fact that may have to be corrected?

I don’t see any benefit to either the surface or the crypticality from these superfluous question marks.

The clue that has had some people getting a little grumpy had a well-merited query after it: Mount a siege to join society? …as did this one: Could Wodehouse be right as performer on pipes? …though there are other compilers who would be happy to let “performer on pipes” = PLUMBER stand unqueried. Likewise: Appliance for the unsound? …has attracted no adverse comments, so the question mark has done its job in this instance as an indicator of a dubious definition.

Maybe Gordius could be a little more sparing with his ?s in future?

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:55:53 +0000

Making “heartless king” in 29a be HenrY is remarkably flexible – seems to allow a lot of two letter combos. Shouldn’t that construction be reserved for KG?

By: Mr & Mrs Jones

Mr & Mrs Jones — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:11:13 +0000

Thanks to Gordius and PeterO. We took 8d to be from cousin-german – a first cousin.

By: William

William — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:39:47 +0000

Thanks, PeterO.

ODO/PLUM new like everyone else. Also, I can’t spell DIETITION apparently.

Miche @2 mentioned Yoda-esque and that applies to ABRIDGE at 1d too.

BELEAGUER a bit grim I thought.

All pretty do-able, just a bit clunky for my taste.

Thank you, Gordius.

By: ToniL

ToniL — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:07:49 +0000

chas@12; leaguer isn’t society.

I understood it thusly; leaguer is a member of a league.

League and society are synonyms – so…

To ‘join society’ is to ‘be (a) leaguer’ !

By: chas

chas — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:26:34 +0000

Thanks to PeterO for the blog.

I knew that Wodehouse is referred to as Plum but I failed to see that ‘be right’ gives BE R

I do not like leaguer as society!

By: rowland

rowland — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 12:17:18 +0000

Staightforward club for me, with some provisos as usual! GULF WAR def looks like an opinion to me, which I’m given to understand is not de rigueur, but happy to side with it.

Many thanks
Rowly.

By: Robi

Robi — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:17:32 +0000

Thanks tupu @9; I got the (n)ARROW bit; just didn’t see ARROWhead (doh!)

By: tupu

tupu — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:03:35 +0000

Hi robi

The definition is ‘shaft’ and the ‘thin’ is narrow which minus it’s head = arrow. An arrow has a head as in ‘arrowhead’ (cf Collins).

There is an old story of an enquiry at a spiritualist seance. The medium claimed to be in touch with an old Amertican Indian chief (it seems they often made this claim) and the enquirer asked if the chief could be rquested to tell them the name for an arrowhead in his language.