A shorter (and less complicated!) preamble than some recent EVs – each clue giving an extra letter, which would spell out an instruction to apply to all answers before entry.
I was lucky enough to spot the underlying theme to this quite quickly – within the first 10 minutes or so… I went through the clues, comparing them to grid entries and noticed that most answer lengths were one letter more than the entry, some were two or even three, and one five…but some were the same length. However, none were shorter – implying some sort of letter removal was required before entry – in most cases.
Then, as I started solving, a pattern emerged – answers requiring deletions had repeated letters which matched the number of characters over the grid entry, e.g. CYCLE, AGLEE or EGG-WHITE, whereas I managed to get a couple of the matching length answers, like LAUGHTER and ACHING – which had no repeated letters.
Simple, I thought – and it may seem that way, with no quotations, hidden words, patterns to be drawn, etc. – but there was still some fairly hard solving to get through before I got the instruction to confirm my theory – OMIT ALL REPEATED LETTERS FROM EVERY GRID ENTRY. Thus the twelve-letter DIESEL ENGINE becomes the seven letter entry DIESLNG, etc.
Some quite hard (but fair) clues, the extra letters in wordplay, and the fact that crossing letters were not always helpful, due to omitted letters, all added up to make this an enjoyable challenge of an EV, and quite a feat of construction – so thank-you Kruger, and a happy New Year to you all…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Extra Letter | Derived Answer | Entry | Clue (definition in bold)/ Logic/Parsing |
| 1A | O | VERGER | VERG | Church official on the other side of Mongolian tent (6) / (O)VER (on the other side) + GER (Mongolian tent, or yurt) |
| 4A | M | ECONOMICAL | ECONMIAL | Abused once, mother in US state is careful (10) / ECON – anag (i.e. abused) of ONCE – plus (M)OM (mother) + I (in) + CAL (California) |
| 11A | I | OTTAR | OTAR | Pole’s covering bird in oil (5) / OAR (pole) around T(I)T (bird) |
| 13A | T | TENSON | TENSO | Native enters wine competition (6) / TEN(T) (wine) around SON (native) |
| 14A | A | WHEATEAR | WHEATR | Bird, weak with high temperature, on cultivated area (8) / W (with) + HEAT (high temperature) + anag (i.e. cultivated) of (A)REA |
| 15A | L | ASTRICT | ASTRIC | Bind most unlikely burglar finally before international court (7) / (L)AST (most unlikely) + R (last letter of burglar) + I (International) + CT (court) |
| 16A | L | ACCENT | ACENT | Chief accountant upset customer lacking single distinguishing mark (6) / AC (CA, chief accountant, upset) + C(L)ENT (client, or customer, without I – single) |
| 18A | R | LAUGHTER | LAUGHTER | Scornful act disturbed the rural gentry at first (8) / anag (i.e. disturbed) of THE + (R)URAL + G (first of gentry) |
| 19A | E | AVGAS | AVGS | When star put in fuel for plane (5) / AS (when) around V(E)GA (star) |
| 23A | P | BANNERET | BANERT | Opinion’s taking in waiter but not starting to influence knight (8) / BET (opinion, as in ‘I bet…’) around (P)ANNER (pannier, or waiter, without I – first of ‘influence’) |
| 24A | E | ACHING | ACHING | Priest abandons sermonizing in pain (6) / pr(E)ACHING (sermonising) without PR (priest) |
| 26A | A | CYCLE | CYLE | Saucy calendar displays series of romances (5) / hidden word in sauCY C(A)LEndar |
| 27A | T | GRAECO-ROMAN | GRAECOMN | Old Croat and German devised style of wrestling (11, hyphenated) / anag (i.e. devised) of O (old) + CROA(T) + GERMAN |
| 31A | E | SOCLE | SOCLE | Plain face is very good on shortened 2-iron (5) / SO (very good) + CLE(E) – shortened CLEEK, or golf club (2-iron) |
| 33A | D | WHELPED | WHELPD | Wife occupied soft bed (with no blankets initially), and gave birth (7) / W (wife) + HELD (occupied) around P (soft, pianissimo) + E(D) – bed without B, first of blankets |
| 34A | L | EGG WHITE | EGWHIT | On changing weight, it could be used in cookery (8, 2 words) / (L)EG (on-side, in cricket) + anag (i.e. changing) of WEIGHT |
| 35A | E | RELENT | RELNT | Soften first of ridges with iron for example [not the middle] (6) / R (first of ridges) + ELEm(E)NT – element, such as iron, without its middle letter |
| 36A | T | WICCA | WICA | For a second time almost caught by Dominica’s ultimate black magic cult (5) / (T)WICe (for a second time, almost) + C (caught) + A (last of Dominica) |
| 37A | T | DRAGONTREE | DRAGONTE | Otter and gander destroyed large plant (10, 2 words) / anag (i.e. destroyed) of OT(T)ER + GANDER |
| 38A | E | AGLEE | AGLE | After a period of time shelter is askew in Ayr (5) / AG(E) (time) + LEE (shelter) |
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Extra Letter | Derived Answer | Entry | Clue (definition in bold)/ Logic/Parsing |
| 1D | R | VOWEL | VOWEL | It could be a promise to relative (5) / VOW (promise) + (R)EL (relative) |
| 2D | S | ETHNARCHY | ETHNARCY | Egyptian fratricide’s cunning – hiding in US city governor’s domain (9) / (S)ETH (Egyptian god, who committed fratricide) + NY (US city) around ARCH (cunning) |
| 3D | F | RAEBURN | RAEBUN | Artist from north of the border with black vase (7) / (F)RAE (from, Scottish) + B (black) + URN (vase) |
| 5D | R | CURETTAGE | CURETAGE | Procedure to remove tissue from dog and French cat’s tail – madness! (9) / CUR (dog) + ET (French, ‘and’) + T (last of cat) + (R)AGE (madness) |
| 6D | O | OMAN | OMAN | Afternoon moon is hazy in sultanate (4) / anag (i.e. hazy) of A (afternoon) + MO(O)N |
| 7D | M | METHANAL | METHANL | I leave them animal pickled in formaldehyde (8) / anag (i.e. pickled) of THE(M) + ANiMAL (without I) |
| 8D | E | INRO | INRO | Emperor follows in something of traditional Japanese dress (4) / I (in) + N(E)RO (emperor) |
| 9D | V | ASSIST | ASIT | Help very large sibling inside (6) / (V)AST (very large) around SIS (sister, sibling) |
| 10D | E | LOCUSTA | LOCUSTA | Place to eat repellent grasshopper (7) / LOCUS (place) + TA(E) (eat, repelled) |
| 12D | R | ETCHINGS | ETCHINGS | Impressions of awful singer in Chad? Au contraire! (8) / TCH (International Vehicle Registration for Chad) in anag (i.e. awful) of SINGE(R) |
| 17D | Y | TRAVEL AGENT | TRAVELGN | He could arrange to get away from river engulfing composer and another man (11, 2 words) / TA(Y) (river) around RAVEL (composer) plus GENT (another man) |
| 20D | G | GRAMMATICAL | GRAMTICL | With properly constructed language, letter covers refugee’s first and habitual response to local girl (11) / GAMMA (letter) around R (first of refugee), plus TIC (habitual response) + (G)AL (girl, dialect) |
| 21D | R | BACKWARD | BACKWRD | Unwilling poet eats part of carcass with wife (8) / BARD (poet) around (R)ACK (part of carcass) + W (wife) |
| 22D | I | DIESEL ENGINE | DIESLNG | Disturbed genie inside lamp’s opening base – it could be a source of power (12, 2 words) / anag (i.e. disturbed) of GENIE INS(I)DE + L (first of lamp), then E (logarithmic base, mathematics) |
| 23D | D | BRACELET | BRACELT | Support cash discount by returning box for ornament (8) / BRA (support) + C(D) (cash discount) + ELET (tele, or box, backwards) |
| 25D | E | NOTHING | NOTHIG | One night transformed insignificant person (7) / anag (i.e. transformed) of ON(E) NIGHT |
| 28D | N | NOTATE | NOTAE | Write, in specialised symbols, observation about native (6) / NOTE (observation) around (N)AT (native) |
| 29D | T | WHERE | WHER | Sharpen leading edges of rapier and épee – in what circumstances? (5) / WHE(T) (sharpen) + RE (leading letters of Rapier and Épee) |
| 30D | R | CELLA | CELA | Chamber in temple’s underground vault (5) / double defn (of sorts) – CELLA = temple chamber, CELLA(R) = underground vault |
| 32D | Y | ODEON | ODEN | Mostly sing in a frequently changing voice beside theatre (5) / (Y)ODE (most of yodel, or sing in a changing voice) + ON (beside) |
Thanks, mc_rapper67 and Kruger. My solving experience was quite similar to yours, except that it was very much more than 10 mins before I spotted the theme. As you say, hard but totally fair and most enjoyable. Thanks for explaining Seth – I did not understand that but it had to be right. BTW – and this only came to me quite a bit after I solved the puzzle – I think the title means SOLO (ie just one letter appearing) treated in the same way as the grid entries were.
Thanks for your blog.
I just want to point out that you have used ‘repeating’ letters in your preamble whereas you obviously meant ‘repeated’ letters.
Thanks for the feedback:
– Ernie at #2, I have corrected that
– nmsindy at #1 – good spot on the title, or should that be tile?! – I had assumed ‘sol’ was Spanish or Italian for only/alone or similar – I had a note on my working copy, but lost that over Xmas, so was working from scratch and long-distance memory here…
Sol means sun in Italian and Spanish.
I think that at 19a the star is ‘V(e)ga’, giving ‘AVGAS’ as the full answer and ‘AVGS’ as the grid entry.
Thanks DT – yes, that makes more sense – duly updated. As I said, I had lost my notes by the time I blogged – hope I got it right in my submitted version!…