Everyman 3334

by

Not my favourite one ever. Far too many anagrams (just under half of all the clues contained anagrams) and some obscure knowledge – I don’t think I have ever used the phrase at 9/10dn nor has anyone ever said it to me, and I only got the composer at 16dn due to the fact it was a “hidden in” type clue so the word was in the clue. But a couple of nice misdirections too, 15ac and 25ac being my favourites.

Across
1 LIKE SO – LIKES + O
4 SPRING – dd
8 PETRA – PART* around E
9 AUBERGINE – IN in AUBERGE
11 PLAINCLOTHESMAN – PLAIN CLOTHES MAN
12 MASONRY – MARY around SON
13 YOUNGER – GUYONE* + R
15 DYNASTY – D(ing)Y + NASTY
17 ANDANTE – ATANEND*
19 IN THE LAST RESORT – TRASHTOLISTENER*
22 TEA GARDEN – GREATDANE*
23 SATIN – SAT + IN
24 RUNWAY – RUN(a)WAY
25 FRINGE – RING in FE
Down
1 LAP UP – LAP + UP
2 KIT CARSON – TRICKSONA*
3 SHANNON – SH + ANN + ON
5 PARVENU – N in RAVEUP*
6 IDIOM – hidden in (k)ID I OM(itted)
7 GREY NURSE – GUERNSEY* around R
9/10 ALL MY EYE AND BETTY MARTIN – IAMTRENDYYETLAMENTABLY*
12 MIDWINTER – TIMEWIND* + (Decembe)R
14 GUNCOTTON – GUN + (Henry) COTTON
16 SMETANA – hidden in (Athen)S MET AN A(dmirer)
18 DRESSER – dd
20 TRAIN – ART< + IN
21 TENSE – T + SEEN*

Common crossword abbreviations this week:

duck = O
East = E
river = R
iron = FE
quiet = SH
kinght = N {chess}
right = R
time = T

12 comments on “Everyman 3334”

  2. Pretty straightforward and a bit humdrum. I had not heard of 9, 10 (nor last week of Ecky thump) but it is in Chambers. Smetana was OK for me and Cotton (in 14) but I would not be surprised if many don’t know his name these days. I had to check my vague memory of bang for fringe.

    A lot of anagrams as said.

    Liked 2 down.

  4. Hi Eileen

    Thanks for the source. I’ve come across ‘all my eye’ and other expressions like ‘a load of eyewash’. The idea of a Latin derivation of some sort seems plausible. I remember someone joking after an after-dinner grace (Benedicto benedicatur) ‘What’s all that about Bennie the Dictator?’, though not surprisingly it never caught on!

  5. Thank you Arthur. I remember being struck like you and tupu by the high proportion of anagram derived clues. I remarked a little while ago that I liked the occasionally ‘quirky’ phrases that Everyman throws in for us from time to time, but I wasn’t completely made up about 9,10. I’d certainly never heard of it and had to resort to online help to find it.

    Others have already highlighted my favourites.

  6. I suppose they are all examples of the Mondegreen.

    cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

    Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
    Oh, where hae ye been?
    They hae slain the Earl O’ Moray,
    And Lady Mondegreen.

    I only came across this word a few years ago but it was coined in the 1950s. I imagine that lots of ‘such errors’ have simply been concocted for fun including at least two about bears.

  7. Thanks Arthur,

    I enjoyed this puzzle despite your reservations about the number of anagrams, and the surfaces, as usual, were excellent. Among(st) lots of good clues, I liked ANDANTE plus IDIOM was well-hidden.

    As to 9,10 I hadn’t hear of the expression either although I have heard it said “a lot of my eye”. I messed up the anagram by assuming that the second word was ‘BY’ instead of ‘MY’ and in the end had to resort to actually solving the anagram rather than just guessing it.

  8. Hi tupu and Eileen,

    Thanks for the links. The mondegreen phenomenon is in fact a more common factor in the development of languages than we may realise nowadays, when averyone can read. Mis-hearing according to familiar sounds explains the disgregation of Latin into the Romance languages, each built on the languages of the pre-Roman inhabitants.

    I love children’s misinterpretations, too, and ‘mondegreen’ is an excellent coinage. I wonder if we’ll ever find it in a puzzle 🙂

    I didn’t finish this, having put in ‘sedan’ for ‘satin’, without much thought, and being unfamiliar with the term ‘guncotton’.

    I found Betty Martin by Googling ‘all my eye’, which I did know, and spent a while reading various theories as to her origin. I’m inclined to favour ‘beata Mater’, as the accent on ‘Martine’ would be on the second syllable.

    Not being as allergic to anagrams as some, I found this an enjoyable, and informative, puzzle.

    Thanks Everyman and Arthur, and a happy bank holiday to those of you in the UK

  9. Hi Stella

    There is also an excellent collection of English nursery rhymes (which a friend once lent me) transliterated into spoof medieval French.

    I think the following by Tim Martin in the Telegraph 13 Jun 2009 refers:

    “Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames, by the American Luis van Rooten, is a very odd book: one of those rare works so peculiar and inspired that one wonders simultaneously how it ever got into print and how it ever fell out. Try reading the following lines aloud in your very best French accent: “Un petit d’un petit/ S’étonne aux Halles …” Or these: “Chacun Gille/ Houer ne taupe ne hile/ TĂ´t-fait, j’appèlle au boiteur.”

    While the French translates as gibberish, English readers with a knowledge of children’s nursery rhymes and a good enough ’Allo ’Allo! accent will begin to notice familiar shades of “Humpty Dumpty” and “Jack and Jill”.

    The mad humour of the book goes far beyond such artfully mixed-up Mother Goose. The entire thing is a parody of a medieval manuscript, littered with fake woodcuts and pompous academic annotations on the rhymes themselves. “Reine, reine, gueux éveille / Gomme à gaine, en horreur, taie” is sedulously translated above an illustration of a beaming monarch as “Queen, queen, arouse the rabble / Who use their girdles, horrors, as pillowslips”.

  11. You can buy it in Amazon, and even read the first pages. I’ve just read the whole of ‘Un petit d’un petit’, with annotations 😆

  12. Hi both. Along the same lines, if anyone’s French is up to it, you can try this piece of cod latin:

    CESAREM LEGATOS ALACREM EORUM

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