Everyman 3322

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Nothing much objectionable here, but certainly not an easy one with some slightly more obscure words/phrases and once or twice I ended up knowing that it must be this set of letters, but just not knowing the word so having to have a bit of a guess followed by a verification (1 across is a perfect example of this). However there were a couple of lovely clues such as 16ac or 22dn with clever misdirection in the word “stud”.

Across
1 SABADILLAS – BASILALAS* around D
6 SCOW – SOW around C
10 SECULAR – CLAUSE* + R(ector)
11 ASPIRIN – ASPIRIN(g)
12/14 MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT – [MAKE NO MISTAKE] + ABOUT + IT
16 GRANNIE – EARNING*
17 SUCROSE – S + COURSE*
18 EVEREST – (s)EVEREST
19 DANDIE DINMONT – D + AND + I + MINDONE* + (stree)T
23 AVERAGE – VERA in AGE
24 ONTARIO – ON + TAR + I + O
25 NOTE – dd
26 AMANUENSIS – A + MAN + USESIN*
Down
1 SASH – S(uch) + A + SH
2 BY COMMON CONSENT – [COMMON + CON] in TENBYS*
3 DALEK – DALE + K
4 LORGNETTE – NOTGRETEL*
5 ALARM – dd
7 CURTAIN LECTURES – ISCARETRUCULENT*
8 WINCYETTE – WINCE + YET + T(erylen)E
9 APOSTATE – PO in [A STATE]
13 RAISED CAIN – RAISED + [I in CAN]
15 TROPICAL – TOPICAL around R(etsina)
16 GREENHORN – GREEN + HORN
20 DREAM – DRAM(a) around E
21 OUTRE – OUT + RE
22 BOSS – dd

Common crossword abbreviations this week:

500 = D
Italian = IT
second = S
daughter = D
round = O
conservative = CON
Kelvin = K [SI unit of temperature]
one = I
East = E

8 comments on “Everyman 3322”

  1. Arthur

    I agree. Some very nice clues- I liked OUTRE- but some obscure stuff too. LORGNETTE, AMANUENSIS, SCOW beng examples of this.

  2. Thanks for the blog, Arthur. I agree with both you and AJK, some slight obscurities, but as usual, eminently gettable from the wordplay. This morning’s is happily more straightforward!

    GRANNIE was my favourite in this one.

  3. Interesting that obscure words caused us problems with this but as often happens our vocabulary blind spots are in different places. I have no problem with LORGNETTE, AMANUENSIS and SCOW but had never come across WINCEYETTE or DANDIE DINMONT. Now filed away for next time.

  4. I was a bit disappointed with this one. I think of Everyman as the ‘O’-level of Crosswords (with stuff like Azed the ‘A’-level). So when I ended up with only 8 correct I started to think I was back down at CSE level! (apologies to younger readers for the 1970s exam references). I had never heard of the phrases ‘curtain lectures’ and ‘raised cain’. And don’t get me started on ‘dandie dinmont’ (curiously even my word processor is foxed by this: it wants to autocorrect it to ‘Dan die dismount’). And in my version of Chambers, ‘sabadillas’ doesn’t have the final ‘s’ (not that that makes any difference, to be honest). Come on Everyman, stop making me feel stupid!

  5. Thanks for comments so far – seemingly not a particular favourite puzzle of anyone, but never mind. David, I believe that the S at the end of SABADILLAS simply pluralises the word, so should still square with Chambers.

  7. I enjoyed this puzzle and didn’t have much difficulty finishing it. As always, there were loads of excellent clues although after a week I can’t remember which appealed the most. Today’s puzzle was far too easy.

  8. I really struggled with this one – had started to believe that I was getting the hang of Everyman so this brought me down to earth a bit!

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