The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28360.
Anto shows a fondness for descriptive rather than dictionary definitions, and there are a couple of doubtful points mentioned in the blog. Not, I feel, a top class puzzle (but I did like 4D).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SOBERING |
Brie melted in air? That’s serious (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of BERI, an anagram (‘melted’) of ‘brie’ in SONG (‘air’). | ||
| 5 | AD IDEM |
Papers returned with date inserted in agreement (2,4)
|
| An envelope (‘with … inserted’) of D (the first one, ‘date’) in AIDEM, a reversal (‘returned’) of MEDIA (‘papers’). It’s Latin, “to the same thing”. | ||
| 9 | AT RANDOM |
Drama not composed willy-nilly (2,6)
|
| An anagram (‘composed’) of ‘drama not’. | ||
| 10 | BEYOND |
Outside link accommodating short study (6)
|
| An envelope (‘accommodating’) of EY[e] (‘study’, verb) minus its last letter (‘short’) in BOND (‘link’). | ||
| 11 | CREDIBLE |
Apparently true conservative Republican can be taken in (8)
|
| A charade of C (‘conservative’) plus R (‘Republican’) plus EDIBLE (‘can be taken in’). | ||
| 12 | WONDER |
Think about returning wine present (6)
|
| A reversal (‘returning’) of RED (‘wine’) plus NOW (‘present’). | ||
| 14 | EGG ON TOAST |
Encourage cook, perhaps, to provide snack (3,2,5)
|
| A charade of EGG ON (‘encourage’) plus TOAST (‘cook, perhaps’). | ||
| 18 | DOUBLE TOPS |
It requires perfect vision to get this score on board (6,4)
|
| DOUBLE TOP is double twenty in darts, and twenty-twenty is good – but not perfect – vision. Also, where does the plural come from? | ||
| 22 | LOADED |
Two flats? That sounds rich (6)
|
| LOW and DEAD can both mean ‘flat’, and together ‘that sounds’ … | ||
| 23 | TRUNCATE |
With constant coverage, novel can’t get contract (8)
|
| An envelope (‘with … coverage’) of NCAT, an anagram (‘novel’) of ‘can’t’ in TRUE (‘constant’). TRUNCATE and ‘contract’ both indicate shortening, but I would say in not quite the same way. | ||
| 24 | THONGS |
Extremely ticklish open garments made of leather? (6)
|
| First and last letters (‘extremely’) of ‘TicklisH OpeN GarmentS‘. | ||
| 25 | ISLANDER |
Independent small spacecraft, one based in Sicily? (8)
|
| A charade of I (‘independent’) plus S (‘small’) plus LANDER (‘spacecraft’). The question mark covers to identification by example. | ||
| 26 | SEDANS |
Second-hand vehicles lacking leads had to be carried (6)
|
| [u]SED [v]ANS (‘second-hand vehicles’) minus the first letters (‘lacking leads’). | ||
| 27 | INTERNET |
Place trap underground with modern technology (8)
|
| INTER NET (‘place trap underground’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SEARCH |
Charges about having lost good rifle (6)
|
| An anagram (‘about’) of ‘char[g]es’ minus the G (‘having lost good’). | ||
| 2 | BARKED |
Called out plot to capture animal shelter (6)
|
| An envelope (‘to capture’) of ARK (‘animal shelter’) in BED (‘plot’). | ||
| 3 | RENOIR |
Note on black French artist (6)
|
| A charade of RE (‘note’) plus NOIR (‘black French’). | ||
| 4 | NEON LIGHTS |
English not crazy for flashy displays (4,6)
|
| An anagram (‘crazy’) of ‘English not’. | ||
| 6 | DUE NORTH |
Outstanding former PM is straight up (3,5)
|
| A charade of DUE (‘outstanding’) plus NORTH (Frederick ‘former PM’. Before my time). | ||
| 7 | DROP DEAD |
Quickly pass on insult (4,4)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 8 | MODERATE |
Bring down average speed (8)
|
| A charade of MODE (‘average’ Mathematically, MODE is the most common value in a group, which is probably somewhere near the average) plus RATE (‘speed’). | ||
| 13 | COMPARISON |
City replaces masthead in general correspondence (10)
|
| COMMON (‘general’) with the second M (‘Masthead’) replaced by PARIS (‘city’). Do you remember the spelling reminder “What pest can do comparatively more harm than a mouse? What city is more beautiful in comparison with London?”? | ||
| 15 | CD PLATES |
Record second thoughts about recent requirement for country reps (2,6)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of LATE (‘recent’) in CD (compact disc, ‘record’) plus PS (postscriptum, ‘second thoughts’). In the definition CD stands for Corps Diplomatique, license plates identifying a vehicle as belonging to an embassy. | ||
| 16 | HUMANOID |
Philosopher irritated when declared to be like everyone else (8)
|
| Sounds like (‘when declared’) HUME ANNOYED (‘philosopher irritated’). | ||
| 17 | ALLERGEN |
Whole green bananas can cause a bad reaction (8)
|
| A charade of ALL (‘whole’) plus ERGEN, an anagram (‘bananas’) of ‘green’ Like the intersecting 24A and 26A, the “definition’ is descriptive, rather than a true definition. | ||
| 19 | INTAKE |
Food for new recruits (6)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 20 | MADDEN |
Get to chaps minding tot (6)
|
| An envelope (‘minding’) of ADD (‘tot’) in MEN (‘chaps’). | ||
| 21 | REGRET |
Deplore being endlessly cruel (6)
|
| Chambers gives for deplore: to feel or express deep grief for, to express strong disapproval or disgust at, to give up as hopeless. The second meaning is the one I would normally attach to the word, but the first is required here; the wordplay is ‘[c]rue[l]’ minus its outer letters (‘endlessly’). |
I wasn’t very enthused about this one, sharing PeterO’s reservations. In fact I think he was too generous regarding MODERATE: yes, mode and mean can have the same value, but they are different concepts, and in fact you can create distributions where the mode and mean are arbitrarily far apart.
Doesn’t WONDER mean think rather than think about, which requires an object?
When I was at school, the mode, mean and median were all classed as averages.
Flavia@2 all I can say is Wow!
Regarding LOADED, the second syllable doesn’t work for me, but of course YMMV.
Well it kept me groinking slowly away for hours, with quite a bit of guess and check, so, Anto, I thought it was a pretty good effort at a non-Monday puzzle, well done mate. Mind you, my old brain is sluggish lately. I mean, the adder/sum/tot trick..how many times…and yet it takes me minutes to switch, like those rusty points on a disused railway. Plus a couple of dnks…the Latin thingy and the other meaning of CD. But overqll I enjoyed it, ta A and P.
Yes, Dr Wh. @3, the e is a schwa, but it’s a cute clue…
A mixed bag for me — CREDIBLY, BARKED, RENOIR, DUE NORTH, and MADDEN were all very satisfying but CD PLATES, DOUBLE TOPS, HUMANOID, and REGRET had me scratching my head. Thanks Anto and PeterO for the blog.
Found this difficult. Needed some help with the GK such as former PM North, Frederick.
Favourites: RENOIR, COMPARISON, MADDEN, HUMANOID.
Did not parse DOUBLE TOPS (new phrase for me); MODE in 8d; REGRET, SEDANS.
Failed 15 down even though I had entered the LATE in PS bit and had the D from 18ac.
Thanks, Anto and Peter.
The blog was better than the puzzle. Thanks
But I have to say Imogen, Monk and Maize are difficult acts to follow.
As a newcomer to solving and still learning, this was a welcome and slightly more accessible challenge for a Thursday (I’m still restricted to Mondays and Quiptics). But thanks to this wonderful site, learning a lot.
Regarding DOUBLE TOPS, in darts parlance the double twenty is often referred to in the plural (but not other doubles, curiously enough).
Thanks to Anto and PeterO
The NW went in so quickly, I thought this was going to be a breeze but then it got chewy. I assumed this was themed around thoughts/thinking with clues such as SOBERING, RANDOM, CREDIBLE, BEYOND, WONDER, DOUBLE, LOADED, SEARCH and REGRET. Not being a mathematician, I felt MODERATE was a bit iffy but good enough for me. I really liked CD PLATES, COMPARISON and HUMANOID but DOUBLE TOPS didn’t work for me either. However, I really enjoyed this. Ta PeterO & Anto
Flavia Hodges @2 Yes, I’ve just looked on a GCSE Maths site to check that it’s still taught that there are three main types of average: mean, mode and median, although mean is obviously what most people mean when they say ‘average’.
I would say that the Double 20 bed in darts is ‘Double Top’ or just ‘Tops’, but I’m sure there are some people who would say DOUBLE TOPS.
Thanks to Anto and PeterO.
I see Penfold has already stepped in to support Flavia @2. I was also taught that “average” was a colloquial concept and mode, mean and median were the mathematical terms with precise definitions. Not much I want to say about the puzzle, those descriptive definitions and obscure (to me) GK had me hitting reveal.
Thanks PeterO for slogging through this one. First time I’ve not enjoyed an Anto. Too many loose definitions and devices that didn’t work for me – very much including mode/mean. ‘Fraid it just left me markanoid.
[Markanoid @13
Markanoid is a Commodore 64 game.]
I agree with Flavia @2: there are different kinds of averages: mean, mode and median. And there are also different kinds of means also, arithmetic and geometric. Most people use average when they are talking about an arithmetic mean, but that does not imply that the others are not averages. I thought MODERATE a very fair clue. (Dear me, whatever is crosswordland coming to when a perfectly good definition is rejected because some people didn’t remember it?) I am surprised not to have seen concern about AD IDEM. I had not come across it, but have now googled it and see that it is a legal term, meaning that two parties have come to a common understanding. I live and learn… And now off to teach via zoom. Who would have thought a year ago…?!?
Beobachterin: you aren’t the only one ignorant of AD IDEM: I revealed it. Apart from that, I didn’t have much trouble with the top half, but the lower half was a nightmare: didn’t spot the low dead or the used vans or Hume annoyed, or REGRET or TRUNCATE… Just not my day.
Thanks Anto and PeterO
I had question marks of one sort or another against 8 clues – not quite a record. I’ll mention just one – what sort of clue is REGRET? Wordplay gives a synonym for the answer? I don’t think I’ve seen that before.
HUMANOID raised a chuckle.
Some lovely surfaces but a few too many tenuous definitions so ultimately a bit like having bits of shell in your scrambled eggs
Delighted with the Kraftwerk reference in NEON LIGHTS although they do need to work on their dance moves
It seems reasonable to look at average as a “measure of central tendency” which covers a range of possible measures including the MODE
Maybe some of Anto’s attempts to turn up the difficulty dial were a bit of a reach but I still find them entertaining if occasionally infuriating
[It doesn’t resolve the question, but in Excel the formula for a mean is =AVERAGE(…)]
Grumpy mathematician time now. The mode is not typically used to find an average but to find the most frequent occurrence. Where there are two occurrences of equal value, then the mode will not help you in the quest for an “average.” Also in trying to find a centre point in a set of data (which most people think of as the “average”) then the mode will not help where the data is skewed in any way.
I would argue that the common understanding of “average” as a word is the arithmetic mean and would take you in completely the wrong direction with 8d.
Actually, what I’m saying is that I took “mean” rather than “mode” and went in the wrong direction! However, I find that a minor quibble is enough for me to excuse my own stupidity and therefore give me a get-out-of-gaol-free card. That and justification for a coffee and a McVitie’s Suggestive (as they are called round here).
I did like the surface of 14a though – minor snortle.
[Penfold @14: Oh my – that brought back memories! Commodore Pet user at school, ZX80 and 81 at home. At Uni we had networked BBC Bs for word-processing and JANET access and used to spend hours in the Terminal Room playing Elite and BBC Tetris. Have just found http://www.mkw.me.uk/beebem/ Those were good times…]
Thanks to Anto and PeterO.
I didn’t finish this one. Kicking myself over CD PLATES but I think AD IDEM is unfair. It’s not well-known and it’s not in the standard dictionaries
Apropos nothing at all, a long time ago Italian car maker Lancia produced a very elegant car called the Flavia. I remember a local car dealer promoting a fine example of the Marque with a large sign on its windscreen declaring ‘Flavia of the Month’.
[Indeed, muffin @19, and what a relief it was when “fill down” would iterate all your stats arithmetic…subtractions, squares, sums of squares, then the square root thereof…phew..]
Yes a bit of a curate’s egg. I liked CREDIBLE. I always struggle with initialised words like CD. Former PM to me implies a living person who used to be a PM, but I could be wrong.
After the first few clues I thought this was going to be easy, but no. AD IDEM is not in Chambers (it’s not even in Wikipedia) and the included DI (papers returned) makes it hard to work out if you don’t know it. Likewise DOUBLE TOPS, not readily gettable unless you know the phrase. The definition for ALLERGEN doesn’t work (I don’t buy the “definition by example” here). HUMANOID is cute and CD PLATES is clever, but on the whole I didn’t much like this.
My twopence worth today: The 3 averages are now KS3 stuff and I used to tell pupils that they can remember MODE by the initials of Most Often.
Average referred to mean, mode and median when I taught, not just studied, statistics, although of course the mathematical definitions etc were all different, so I liked that clue. But I struggled at the end with 23 a, doh! Often the case for me.
Didn’t find it very satisfying. Didn’t get CD PLATES. But, really liked MODERATE. I thought that part of the fun of crosswords was verbal misdirection. And like others I was taught that mean, median and mode were all types of average.
Oh dear! Anto really has rubbed people up the wrong way this morning. I agree entirely with those here who were disgruntled at WONDER ( not = ‘think about’) and the number of loosely descriptive defs, but by Grauniad standards a sprinkle of dodgy clues is to be expected. Otherwise I thought the clues quite acceptable, if not sparkling with wit and ingenuity. Surely the mathematicians’ grumps about the technical definition of MODE do not bear on the question whether the clue is fair, since the layman equates the mode and ‘average’ in common usage. And cryptic crosswords usually include vocabulary, such as AD IDEM, which are somewhat arcane and lie outside most people’s GK — so I guess the flak that Anto is getting is simply a result of snowballing opprobrium in the blog comments.
A decent crossword, IMO. Thanks, Anto, and PeterO.
“which are” –> “which is”: ooops!
I suppose ‘Bring down an average speed’ would have made the clue more palatable.
Regarding the rest of the puzzle, I share other misgivings cited previously and in particular did not think SEDANS or CD PLATES fair.
It really does take all sorts, doesn’t it? Though it happens quite often that, if I enjoy a puzzle, it gets the thumbs down here. As a non-mathematician, surprised at the offence taken at MODERATE but as a lawyer equally surprised at the umbrage taken to AD IDEM. Horses for courses. HUMANOID actually made me chuckle. Not often a crossword clue does that!
To quote Thumper’s dad: ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all’. Sorry.
[Andrew Barnes @22: “A Lanica is a Fiat, only Faaancia”]
Found this somewhat tough. Guessed correctly for DOUBLE TOPS, including guessing that it was a darts reference but incorrectly for CD PLATES, having ID instead. In addition to those two, also nho AD IDEM but solved from wordplay so thought was fair. Failed to parse REGRET but now think this clever. Fav was HUMANOID ( I do like puns). Ta to Anto and tobPwterO
The NW went in fairly readily, but after that things got much more difficult. But I got there in the end. I think I had been vaguely aware of both AD IDEM and CD PLATES and they emerged from somewhere at the back of my mind.
26a SEDANS was interesting. As PeterO says, maybe strictly the definition is just “had to be carried”, but “vehicles lacking leads had to be carried” suggests the answer too (lacking leads because they were not horse-drawn like other vehicles of the time). Could we maybe describe this as a hint of extended definition?
I thought 16d (Hume annoyed) was brilliant and very funny.
Many thanks Anto and PeterO.
Like others, started off well in the NW a bit slower in the NE then very slow on the bottom half and had to reveal a few.
Liked MODERATE, COMPARISON, HUMANOID, SEDANS (which I didn’t manage to parse). CD PLATES took me ages to get, but is obvious. Had to read the blog for REGRET several times before the penny dropped.
Thanks to Anto and PeterO
I found this the most difficult Guardian puzzle in years! Either I’m completely off Anto’s wavelength or I left my brain in bed today. Did NW corner, but struggled with the rest and had to look up about half the answers. Phew!
Having come here to get the parsing for 21dn (and 22ac), I’m now annoyed with it, given that the main definition and the concealed/cryptic one are very similar in meaning, so not giving that much more information than one alone. OTOH, I did particularly like 16dn, once I got it, and I once more found Monty Python’s Philosopher’s Song to be useful for coming up with names of philosophers.
The top went in relatively smoothly, but the bottom half was a bit gnarly.
I did like CD PLATES and HUMANOID. A few ‘that’s’ would have helped with the definitions.
Thanks Anto and PeterO.
No objection from me to AD IDEM or MODERATE: the two that left me cold were DOUBLE TOPS and REGRET. The first seems to have an odd sort of indirect wordplay that feels a bit pre-Ximenean and takes too many steps to get there: perfect vision is sometimes (inaccurately) called twenty-twenty, which is sort of like double twenty, which is also called double tops… if it was just DOUBLE TWENTY I’d probably be OK with it, though even there it might want a ? to indicate it’s being a bit loose.
I find the criticisms today rather picky. To my mind the surfaces are generally smooth and satisfying and the definitions are, with the minor query about ‘about’ in 17ac, fine. Other eminent and popular setters frequently get away with worse. And, as a frequent darts player in the early 70s (anything to put off my studies!!) I can say that double tops was always the expression used. Ad idem and its definition come up straight away on google, and mode as a type of average similarly. I think the whole was a good step up in difficulty and a finally satisfying solve.
Thanks to Anto and PeterO
Thought this was going to be a pushover with the NW corner quickly filled in. Slowed to a crawl thereafter, and just couldn’t manage CD PLATES (should perhaps have got this as a niece of mine had these on her car when working for the Foreign Office in Europe a few years ago), and the interlocking, difficult to grasp LOADED. Therefore a DNF. Two in a row this week, things are definitely slipping…
Not sure why 9d MODERATE is getting such a hard time. Average is not a well defined term and can be calculated in one of several ways, and the mode is one of those ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average. The ‘correct’ way depends on the context. ‘Mean’ itself has more than one meaning: arithmetic mean, geometric mean or harmonic mean, depending on what you are trying to calculate.
Many thanks to Anto and to PeterO without whose help I would still be trying to work out some of the parsings.
Thanks, PeterO.
Knowing Anto only from the Quiptic and nursery-slopes Monday, it was nice to see them spread their wings and soar, with some lovely clues that called for lateral thinking. I specially liked the link between 20:20 and double tops. The pun “Hume, annoyed” made me laugh. Not so keen on “low, dead” for loaded, which only works if you talk like Catherine O’Hara’s character in Schitt’s Creek.
Nice to be reminded (by 15d) of the Goon Show:
Moriarty: See that plate on the steamroller? See the letters on it? C.D.
Willium: Cor blimey!
Moriarty: No, Corps Diplomatique!
I think I see what is happening with mode. I have to admit I was fairly gobsmacked to learn here that people were actually taught that mode is a kind of average, and thanks Mathematico@44 for the Wiki reference. The sense I can make of it is not that mode is considered a kind of average by a mathematician, but that one of the colloquial uses of average corresponds to the sense of mode, or most common. Thus you can say that the average car is grey-scale (white/silver/grey/black) – this is actually true – but you are not talking about any grand colour-mixing calculation.
As a big fan of darts, Double Tops was my favourite clue despite being a write-in for me. I’d always call that section of the board “double tops”, and not worry about the unnecessary plural. Nice to have a reference to an otherwise seldom mentioned subject in crossword land. I’m still waiting for videogames to feature to the extent they deserve to be, but fear I may have to take up setting myself to push that agenda.
As to “mode” being an average, I’m sure I was taught that it was, and a quick google supports the fact that many people consider it 1 of the 3 “averages”, despite only one of them actually meaning average. The Wikipedia page for “average” has a section for mode, for what that’s worth. Regardless of mathematical correctness, weight of opinion would suggest the clue was just fine.
I seem to be with the the majority. Easy start then dramatic leap into difficulty. Sadly I didn’t enjoy it.
To rephrase MarkN@48, the average person thinks mode is an average. Even though you can’t average people.
I “solved” the conundrum of 18A by entering DOUBLE TENS. One double 10 scores 20 so two of them give 20 20 vision! It seemed smart at the time but I never made much progress in the SE after that.
Re: 18, not only is 20/20 vision not perfect, but “normal” (I was going to say “average”, but thought better of it), but in most places other than North America it has been metricated, the chart being read from six metres away rather than twenty feet, so normal visual acuity is now 6/6.
Maths was never my subject but MODERATE seemed fair enough to me.
Not so TRUNCATE; I agree with PeterO that CONTRACT means something subtly different.
I have similar reservations about REGRET & DEPLORE but there, it seems, Chambers is against me.
Enjoyed HUMANOID but generally a SOBERING experience.
Thanks to Anto and PeterO
I guess it’s DOUBLE TOP or DOUBLE TOPS depending on the part of the country one spent one’s idle youth in.
Am I alone in wondering if CD is really a two letter word, or is it really (1,1)?
Markfieldpete @54 – I can’t find chapter and verse, but I think the Guardian changed its policy re acronyms and initialisms in crosswords a few years ago. IIRC, the change came about after a discussion about the enumeration of HENRY VIII: (5,4) or (5,1,1,1,1)?
I agree with those who allow Mode to be a type of average. Just because that is a DNK for some doesn’t mean it’s not permissible. ADIDEM was a DNK for me but it was gettable from the word play (and rather a nice clue, I thought).
Anto beat me but fair and square IMHO. Thanks Peter for helping me with SEDANS and REGRET.
And I just went back to Everyman and finished it – though I can’t parse three of them so could be wrong. Still got to go back to the prize.
I wouldn’t call a CD a ‘record’.
Regarding MODE and average, I’ve just done a quick analysis and seen that Donald Bradman made 10 ducks in his Test career, and that this was by some distance his most common score. Therefore Donald Bradman’s Test batting average is zero.
Come on, even in common non-mathematical English “average” means the sum divided by the number of observations. Do we really teach school children that the mode is an average? It just isn’t!
I’m sorry to see “willy-nilly” defined as AT RANDOM instead of its original meaning, “willing or not” with the presumption of “not.”
Thanks PeterO, I managed to forget that a word can have two ends if the setter is that way inclined, thus did not get the cruel reference in REGRET which took me ages. Count me with those finding a few of these a bit iffy and as with Brummie’s on Tues I think this would fail the Trailman Test (in my case because of AD IDEM).
Markfieldpete@54 I agree with Miche@55: I think it is the official Guardian policy to clue abbreviations as if one word, I think we have seen RSVP as (4) in the past, for example. I agree it is possibly misleading but otherwise I suppose they might be a bit of a giveaway.
Anyway it was certainly a challenge and despite the grumbling there were quite a few here that I enjoyed of which my favourite is NEON LIGHTS so thanks Anto.
[I wonder if the acceptance of Mode as an average is a generational thing which presumably came in with some broad curriculum change. Muffin@19 I have been hoping for 20+ years that microsoft would change excel so that it recognised =MEAN(…) instead, but I suppose it will only happen on the day I retire.]
Valentine@60 I know what you mean (I was delighted to come across the phrase Willens-Nillens when talking to some Flemish colleagues a while back which is presumably where we get the English equivalent) but I can think of senses where to move at random is to move under compulsion eg Brownian motion with particles being buffeted about willy-nilly, subject to the laws of physics but outside their control of course. Does this help to reconcile the definition used here with your preferred original?
FJ @59 Can I refer you to our stemmed leaders at gov.uk …
“The gender pay gap is the difference between the average (mean or median) earnings of men and women across a workforce”
Also Chambers Thesaurus has mean, mode, and median as synonyms for average
I was taught that mean, median and mode were all “measures of central tendency” and that the unscientific “average” was to be avoided, the classic example being income where the mean is much higher than the median, which is still more than most people earn. (because of the skewing effect of the super rich. I vaguely remember that you avoid the Bradman problem with modes by grouping continuous data into ranges.
It’s nearly 5pm and I’ve finally given up somewhat exasperated. Thank you 225 for all those like me who strolled through the NW and then hit a wall. I feel a lot better now.
(After the recent discussion about Birmingham accents, I love the idea of clues based on words as pronounced by Moira Rose in Schitts Creek. There’s always howls of laughter in this house when someone says ‘baby’ like she does.)
Mean, median and mode were definitely in the English GCSE syllabus last time time I looked. So was Rolling or Moving average which we are seeing so much of in the Covid figures.
What’s the ‘average ‘ number of arms a person has?
Mean = 1.999…
Mode = 2
Median = 2
Julia@66: Yes, I sometimes annoy my friends by saying that most people have more than the average number of legs.
Julia @66 The average person has one testicle 🙂
[Gazzh@62: I think the Flemish may have got it from us (or more precisely from you, probably not from the Americans)! “Nill” is an archaic word meaning “not will,” and so “will he nill he” meant “whether he wishes to or not.” The Gravedigger uses this in Hamlet Act V Scene 1.]
Like others, I had to reveal a lot of these; “Double tops” was especially rough as the term is unfamiliar and a search turns up mostly some things about stock market charts–and also this was only one of two entrees into the SE. But I do want to praise some very enjoyable clues, 13d was brilliant I thought and 10ac and 16d also very nice.
Bodycheetah @63 and Petert @64
Earnings is indeed a classic example. And every time I read an article in The Guardian about income inequality, the writer will at some point refer to median earnings and make a point of explaining (correctly) that this is a more pertinent measure than average earnings because blah blah blah. So the median is not the average, and indeed with skewed distributions such as annual earnings it gives us useful information which the average does not.
When I use the word “average” in conversation, no-one ever says to me “hold on, do you mean the mean, median or mode?”, not even the nerdiest of my friends, and I work in a data science software comany so I know a few. Chambers Dictionary defines average as the arithmetical mean, and mode as the most frequent value. Mode = average feels like using fish = shrimp because they both live in the sea. And no I don’t know why this irritates me so much either.
Crosswords don’t usually make me grumpy but a combination of factors achieved this today with this one. Far too many loose clues, and stretches of a definition. For example I saw DOUBLE TOPS quite early and didn’t enter it because I thought no editor would let that through. And then a grid where an hour’s tortuous progress through one quadrant leaves you precisely no nearer completing the other three. Whatever. Bring on tomrorow.
[Penfold @68: that’s just b******* 😀 Ball in your court…]
I started this quite late, and only finished an hour ago, but my total solving time (about four hours) included diversions to read the Guardian; complete two Killer Sudokus, and two other Japanese puzzles in G2; and finish the FT ‘Prize’ from 23 January and read the blog of that puzzle here. I needed every one of those diversions to repeatedly unfreeze my brain after staring at some of Anto’s clues for far too long. I refused to give in, and don’t REGRET the time spent when I could have been doing something else. I didn’t finally write in REGRET until I had the crosser from TRUNCATE, my penultimate one in, and I am grateful for PeterO’s blog for the parsing. As another commenter said (was it muffin?), what kind of clue is it when the wordplay doesn’t provide the answer but a synonym for the answer?
Regarding all those “definitions by description”, I don’t have a blanket objection. I thought SEDANS was incredibly difficult but not unfair (unlike REGRET), but I did think the clue for SOBERING was wrong. The “definition by description” was ‘That’s serious’, but isn’t it that something serious is sobering, rather than something sobering that is serious?
I can’t believe that people are still arguing about mean, median and mode. No, I’m not going to join in, thanks.
Penfold@68. I think you are being mean when you suggest I am the average person.
All this about means and modes: perhaps we should agree to strike a happy median.
Fiery Jack@70 I thought the grid was awful too. By dint of protest, I seem to remember we managed to get Rufus to abandon his awful grid a few year’s ago.
SH @72
I’m pleased that someone picked up on REGRET. I thought that it was a very odd clue.
FieryJack @59: Mode being an average is absolutely what I was taught back in the early eighties. I’ll acknowledge that it’s bollocks, but it was what I was taught, and only my own learning since has changed my perspective. As to cricket – averages are hardly exact. You have to be out each time to make them meaningful. You can’t even have a batting average if you never get out, regardless of how many innings you’ve played. It’s not a precise term in any sense of the word.
Get from “Second-hand vehicles” to “used vans” and hence to SEDANS (hint – something that had to be carried) – if that’s a reasonable construction for a crossword clue then I am Marie of Romania.
It’s another Russian doll – solve a clue, then manipulate that answer to get the actual answer. Easy for the setter though.
Random word: “Average” – Mode obtained from truncated angry troglodyte (7)
See? Even I can do that…..
Marie of Romania @77. Welcome to the site. 🙂
SH@72 and muffin@: For REGRET you have to solve a clue to get the definition component of the wordplay (what you said muffin). Not my cup of brew at all.
SH@78: Tvm. Hold on there….
Re all the comments on the clue regarding th’owd log end: as someone who played over several years for two different pub teams, and captained one of them, I’d always heard it as either TOPS or DOUBLE TOP.
Alphalpha @77 I don’t like them Russian dolls. They’re so full of themselves.
Penfold @82: I’ve said it before… “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside…”
Actually I thought MODERATE was rather neat, but like many others I learned that the mode, alongside the median and the mean, was a form of average.
I liked LOADED, ALLERGEN and MADDEN, and thought HUMANOID was brilliant.
But I am very much with those who object to DOUBLE TOPS – if you are going to reference 20-20 vision it needs to be DOUBLE TENS, which would actually fit and be really sneaky – and who utterly detest this particular grid. Can it please be banished forever.
I have kept out of this so far, but no longer. If the distribution is symmetrical, mean, mode, and median are all the same. However, if it is a skewed distribution, they aren’t; in that case, the only sensible interpretation of “average” is the mean; neither median nor mode could in any sense be regarded as “average”.
[Me @85 – I do speak as someone who loked up “meanrate” to see if it was a word!]
Penfold @82: I prefer my dolls slower…
I’m sticking up for Anto here. Not that he deserves it for visiting today’s “puzzle” upon the world. Average simply means typical. Eg as in “average Joe”. The mode is a measure of typicality and a commonly understood average in math. Period.
muffin @85: I’ve got to admire your stamina. Your first post on this subject was at 10:08am!
If anyone had asked me, before coming to this blog after solving the puzzle, which clue would have been the least contentious in today’s puzzle, I’d probably have gone for MODERATE, but maybe that’s because I’m so middle-of-the-road! (Only kidding, I’m really an extremist.) When I solved this clue I had no premonition of the kerfuffle that had already kicked off. After reading a few posts, I checked “average” in the index of my mathematical equivalent of Chambers; it took me to a section headed Central Tendency, which had three subsections: mode, median and mean (with “or average” for the final section). However, I can also remember at school that median and mode were spoken of as alternative types of average, so I had no trouble solving the clue. Looking back, I see that bodycheetah referred to “measure of central tendency” @18 (at 10:05), and equated this to the layman’s “average”, with subdivisions of mode, median and mean.
I vaguely remember seeing something on one of these blogs about Scandinavian being clued to include Finland, and after the inevitable outcry, a voice of reason said words to the effect of, “this is a cryptic crossword, not a geography exam.” Please substitute “mathematics” for geography, and that will be my final word on this subject.
Hear, hear, Morpheus @88!
With regard to 18 across and the darts terms, we always ‘pluralise’ the last score to achieve.
So for 40 we would say you need “double tops”. In reality, all we would say is: “You need Tops”.
The same for any other doubles needed… “you need….
19’s for 38; 18’s for 36; ….16’s for 32; down to 4’s for 8; 2’s for 4; 1’s for double 1″. Etc…
I hope this helps. So for Twenty Twenty, this was my first clue in!
I found this a game of 4 quarters, with the NE and SW both holding out for ages.
I was going to have a moan about the loose definition for SEDANS but Lord Jim @36’s extended definition argument quite nicely sorts that. All the other queries are pretty defensible. However, I still think DOUBLE TOPS is a few steps too many to really work. Also think 5 need a ? for the DBE since MEDIA covers rather more than just papers these days. Collins online has d = date in the section under American usage, but I can’t think where this is used. History books maybe?
Tough puzzle. I think this is more due to Anto’s style being a little different and new than anything else.
Thanks, Anto and PeterO.
As midnight draws on, may I say that I hoped we had reached a point where 2020 was at last hindsight; but (Gilly@91) it seems not.
Meant to thank Anto and PeterO. I’m not feeling myself these days.
[ sheffield hatter@89, It certainly is a kerfuffle but I would call it a kerfluffle. Kerfuffle = much ado, kerfluffle = much ado about nothing.
It reminds me of the professorial theorem: The heat with which academics argue a point is inversely proportional to the importance of the matter. ]
Alphalpha-93 refers to the year. I was referring to the clue/answer of 18 across. NOT the year, sad as it has been. Anto put the correct solution to a very good clue. Thanks Anto. Double Tops to you.
>Do you remember the spelling reminder “What pest can do comparatively more harm than a mouse? What city is more >beautiful in comparison with London?”?
Spelling reminder? You’ve lost me there.
Joe@96, in case you ever come back here, I think this is a device used to spell those two long-ish words – there is a RAT in “comparatively” hence the ref to a mouse, and PARIS in “comparison” hence the ref to London – so that kids don’t spell them “comparitively” and “comparason” for example.
@Gazzh comment 97. in case you ever come back here, thank you! I know understand.
Over and out.
Boy, did I not like this! What on earth is DOUBLE TOPS?
od @99
As I pointed out in the blog, double top is another name for double 20, at the top of a dart board. There is a discussion in the comments above about the plural