Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 9, 2013
I find only one outstanding clue in this puzzle — that is 22D (NINJA) which is a fine &lit. — but think it is a solidly good puzzle all in all.
Across
1. CHATTY – C[ricketer] + HATTY (like a bowler, might you say?)
4. ATOMIC – hidden word
8. DENTIST – [fa]N in anagram of ID TEST
9. STROPPY – TROP (too much) in SPY (look)
11. PROSTITUTE – P (soft) + ROSTI (Swiss food) + TUT (mummy) + E[aten]. This was easy for me as I happen to love rosti; had a memorable one in Austria a couple of years back. In the definition, ‘the other’ is slang for sexual intercourse.
12. HULL – double definition
13. DINGO – anagram of DOG IN
14. PARENTAL – PA (secretary [as in personal assistant]) + RENTAL (hiring)
16. CATALYST – anagram of C[learl]Y AT LAST
18. IRONY – double/cryptic definition
20. DAFT – DA (attorney) + FT (us)
21. BIRTHSTONE – anagram of THE BRITONS
23. NIGERIA – AIRE (runner — in the sense of a river) + GIN (drink) all backwards
24. STAMINA – ANIMAT[e]S (enlivens without energy) backwards
25. THOUGH – H (hard) in TOUGH (hard). There is a typo in this clue, at least in the Web edition. It has “desribes” which should, surely, be “describes”.
26. UGANDA – UG (primitive comment) + AND (joiner) + A (a)
Down
1. CLEAR – C (ton) + LEAR (king)
2. ARTISAN – SIT (pose) backwards in ARAN (sweater)
3. TESTIMONY – IM (I’m) + ON (working) together in TESTY (irritable)
5. TITHE – TIT (common bird) + HE (man)
6. MOORHEN – RHE[a] (tailless flightless bird) in MOON (show behind!). It took me a while to figure out this wordplay.
7. CAPILLARY – PILL (a dose of medicine) in CARY (Grant)
10. JUMP-START – JUMP (jerk) + START (jerk)
13. DRAMATIST – TAMAR (Cornish river) backwards + IS (is) together in D[orse]T
15. REICHSTAG – anagram of CHAIRS GET
17. ART DECO – DEC (month) in anagram of ROTA
19. OTTOMAN – OTT (extreme [i.e. Over The Top]) + OMAN (nation)
21. BLING – B (black) + LING (swimmer)
22. NINJA – hidden word and an &lit.
Thanks Pete. I very bravely had a go at this while on holiday without access to a dictionary or the internet and feel I performed creditably but couldn’t get a few.
Is TROP an English word?
John, You raise an interesting question. I don’t have all my usual dictionaries at hand but those that I can check (Collins Cobuild and The Shorter Oxford) do not list it. Checking online dictionaries I find that a few list it but as a French word. And I don’t mean as a French word that has been adopted into English but simply as a French word! So the answer may well be no.
So far as I am aware, the only time that TROP is used in English is in the phrase ‘de trop’ meaning unwanted or excessive (literally, of too much).
Hi Gaufrid. And that phrase happened to come up in another Mudd recently (26ac in http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/02/07/financial-times-14221-by-mudd/). Maybe that led Mudd to think that ‘trop’ by itself is more English than is appropriate.