Inquisitor 1728: Face Trouble by Ifor

17 comments on “Inquisitor 1728: Face Trouble by Ifor”

1. This one was tough, with a whole bundle of obsolete words and meanings used in some beautiful clues. Both the sentence and highlighting stumped me, as I couldn’t make anything coherent from the list of extra words. No help was afforded me by the title either. Total logjam. I spotted the six words GLEN INLET SHALLOW FLUTES HARASSED & BANTER, as all were nicely spaced in the grid (and were of 36 letters as required), but I couldn’t reverse compile these to get six synonyms making a meaningful sentence, so it still meant nothing. The link from the 26 extra words to (yet another) pangram was just far too tenuous a connection for me I’m afraid. So sadly, a DNF recorded by me this week. So near, yet so very far.

   Thanks, as always, to both setter and blogger.

2. A quick grid fill, and likely words to highlight spotted quickly too, but I wonder if I was alone in floundering on what we supposed to do with the extra words, “primarily associated”. It took several days to twig that we were looking for letters to add to the beginning of each, and even then I failed to get them all, resorting to Google to get the final “sentence”. Too tricky really then for me, but I enjoyed the bits I did manage to do properly.

3. All thanks to Ifor and HG. Very slow progress here — I got distracted by real life and came back to this one after several days. A major obstacle was disbelief that we could be facing another pangram so soon after Ella Minnow Pea! None of the “perfect” 26-letter examples are even slightly memorable, but I eventually got there from CWM. After which, alas, the next IQ was waiting and I gave up after finding GLEN in the grid. Some idiot had carelessly pencilled in 6D as the nonsensical REDAAL, and the resulting INLAT rang no bells. Must try harder.

   Brilliant stuff though.

4. Splendid puzzle with great clues, a real pleasure.
   I feel a bit sorry for Ifor, as the editor strangely decided to publish two pangrams in a row.

5. Earth to Inquisitor, Earth to Inquisitor: that is not a ‘sentence’

6. The three constructions not in Chambers are S-bend, K-ration, and R-value. Chambers does have F-bomb. (All of these constructions are listed under the entry for their leading letter, except for O-ring, which you can find between Orimulsion and oriole.)

7. @5
   It just about qualifies as a sentence. Vext is the verb and quiz can mean an odd looking person.

8. Not sure if I’d have gone anywhere had it not followed so soon after last week’s…could hardly identify any of the correct letters even once I had most of the missing words, and couldn’t see anything else sensible emerging in the few I did have. Fortunately I remembered that there were some awkward 26 letter pangrams out there, so googled a list on the off-chance I could apply one of them here.

9. A very satisfying crossword, and a most enjoyable endgame.

   When I completed the grid I had 24 of the 26 words from which I hoped to identify many of the corresponding letters. However, several of the words had alternative associated letters (like W or Z for particle and S or U for bend), and, not surprisingly, some letters could be associated with more than one word. At that point I had barely half of the letters that I needed.

   I suspected that the required pangrammatic sentence might be documented online somewhere, but I knew I would enjoy the endgame much more if I could work it out. Looking at what I had, and favouring W over Z for the particle, I visualised CWM at the start, followed by FJORD, with QUIZ possibly at the end, and I considered these to be confirmed when I found synonyms for them in the grid. That was as much as I could work out, though.

   I looked up ‘pangram’ in Wikipedia, and I was directed straight to the article where the required sentence was spelled out, and I could at last complete the puzzle. What a crazy ‘sentence’, but it just about makes sense.

   Thanks to Ifor and HolyGhost.

10. @7. Yeah. Right. Whatever you say.

11. I thought this was OK, but I was a bit underwhelmed by the pangram – which I had come across in my research for Ella Minnow Pea. I’m grateful to HG for explaining LAR – as a sailor I really should have known about larboard – and Avogadro – I had the answer for ages but ORD had escaped me. I thought the best bit was the explanation of the title! Thanks to Ifor – I presume CWM is in his native language – and HG.

12. I’m also struggling to see a sentence, and to understand the instruction about ‘six groups’ in the grid – rather than six words. Not that I got close to that point: I’m one of those who, having listed all the words (or almost all; there were a couple I couldn’t parse), simply couldn’t see what their ‘primary association’ might be. Many of them are news to me.

    Thanks to Ifor and HG

13. My thanks to those who commented, and of course to HG for his thorough exposition and kind remarks.

    As to the (non?)sentence, I took my cue from an elderly Guinness book (in the days when it had a words and language section) wherein this is given as a sentence and a “translation” provided. I can see some will take a different view; I think it comes down to whether the initial nouns can be seen as adjectival, as in (say) “river valley side”. I hope no-one in the other camp found that affected their arrival at a solution.

14. I couldn’t finish this. There were alternates for at least two of the words you could have had col for cwm and terrace for bank.

15. Thanks Ifor — very satisfying and clever! and thanks to HG for the helpful explanations — especially our friend LAR which I had parsed as L,AR but could crack AR. Out of curiosity, what’s the definition for 15a (BE,AMENDS) – I’m sure it’s staring at me… but… I’m blind. thanks!

16. Ilan Caron @15: if someone is said to be on their beam-ends then they have very few resources left

17. thanks HG @16 — Chambers let me down 🙂

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