Neo gives us a pangram today.
A brisk solve this morning, with only one clue where I had to look beyond Chambers.
There was a flurry of clues – 25,26 and 27 across – which all included what I’ve called ‘neutral operators’, i.e. words which add nothing to the definition or to the cryptic wordplay but which keep the ‘surface’ rolling nicely along. I always found these a problem when I first started doing cryptics, so I’ve pointed them all out here today.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MARXIST | Communist type put six back in trading centre (7) |
| SIX reversed in MART (‘trading centre’). | ||
| 5 | FIGLEAF | Cover-up revealed by Page with Plant? (3,4) |
| LEAF (‘page’) after FIG (‘plant’) to give the traditional artistic hider-of-the-naughty-bits. | ||
| 9 | RAZED | Zebra in love knocked back and flattened (5) |
| ‘Zebra’ is evidently radio code for the letter ‘Z’, although ‘Zulu’ is more common in Britain. We put that Z into DEAR (‘love’, reversed or ‘knocked back’) to give the answer. | ||
| 10 | ALL COMERS | Beaten loser, calm, finds every challenger (3,6) |
| Anagram (‘beaten’) of ‘LOSER CALM’. ‘Finds’ here is just an ‘operator’ or crossworder’s place-holder meaning ‘gives us’ [the answer]. |
||
| 11 | MORTAL SIN | Serious transgression? Perhaps it’s normal (6,3) |
| Anagram (‘perhaps’) of ITS NORMAL. A mortal sin may incur the penalty of spiritual death, which does indeed sound serious. | ||
| 12 | EATEN | Worried bear skinned cardinal (5) |
| Here, we ‘skin’ (take the outside letters off) bEAr, then add TEN, a ‘cardinal’ number. You can be ‘eaten’ by a problem. | ||
| 13 | ANIMA | Tailless creature shows inner personality (5) |
| ANIMAL without its last letter or ‘tail’. | ||
| 15 | OBSERVANT | Keen-eyed alumnus with man (9) |
| OB (short for ‘old boy’ or ‘alumnus’ of a school), then SERVANT for ‘man’, as in ‘My man Jeeves’. | ||
| 18 | ARLINGTON | Heather in painting about military cemetery (9) |
| ART (‘painting’) and ON (‘about’) in which we place LING, the ‘heather’ Calluna Vulgaris whose primary habitat is the crossword. Arlington National Cemetery is in Virginia. | ||
| 19 | TULIP | Flower in centre of mature border (5) |
| TU is the centre of maTUre, then LIP for ‘border’. | ||
| 21 | EQUIP | Last from Monkhouse joke stock (5) |
| E is the ‘last’ [letter] of ‘monkhousE’, followed by QUIP (‘joke’). | ||
| 23 | HOLY WATER | Something blessed new hero staying fifty years by temple (4,5) |
| Anagram (‘new’) of HERO, ‘staying’ (i.e., propping up the outside of) L (‘fifty’), Y (for ‘year’) and WAT, a buddhist temple, Angkor Wat in Cambodia being the most famous example. Tricky old parse, this. | ||
| 25 | GUILLEMOT | Diver’s test on craft round loch (9) |
| MOT (the legally-required British ‘Ministry of Transport’ test of roadworthiness) follows GUILE (‘art’) around L (for ‘loch’). That little apostrophised ‘s’ at the end of ‘diver’ is another neutral operator… | ||
| 26 | GLOAT | Crow has lark’s head covered in butter (5) |
| … as is ‘has’ in this clue. ‘L’ is the ‘head’ of ‘Lark’, inside GOAT, an animal which ‘butts’… | ||
| 27 | DRESSER | Actor’s assistant in clothing store (7) |
| … and ‘in’ is another operator in this double definition. | ||
| 28 | NANKEEN | Material makes granny weep (7) |
| NAN (a granny) and KEEN, for wail or ‘weep’. Nankeen is a kind of cotton. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MARIMBA | Instrument of scripture held by serpent (7) |
| RI (Religious Instruction, a school subject) inside MAMBA for ‘serpent’. ‘Of’ is your operator here. | ||
| 2 | RAZORBILL | Flyer cut savagely bled at first, then sick (9) |
| RAZOR (‘cut savagely’), then B for ‘first’ of ‘Bled’, then ILL. | ||
| 3 | INDIA | Country home help turned up (5) |
| IN (‘home’), then AID turned upwards in this Down clue. | ||
| 4 | TRANSPORT | Rolled small piano inside wrong entrance (9) |
|
‘Entrance’ meaning to delight here, of course. RAN (‘rolled’, as in ran along tracks), then S (‘small’) and P (‘piano’), all inside TORT, a legal ‘wrong’. |
||
| 5 | FELON | Criminal hides large ring in marshy land (5) |
| L (‘large’) and O (a ring) both ‘hidden’ in FEN. | ||
| 6 | GLOBETROT | Travel, travel across lake (and promise to ditch husband) (9) |
| GO (that 2nd ‘travel’) is ‘across’ (or surrounds) L for ‘Lake’. Then we have BETROTH, for ‘promise’ without its H (for ‘husband’). | ||
| 7 | EJECT | Put out in Calais, I put up with shocking treatment (5) |
| In Calais they say JE for ‘I’. Reverse – ‘put up’ – that, and follow it with ECT for Electroconvulsive Therapy. Et voila. | ||
| 8 | FISHNET | The fins twitchy in this? (7) |
| Anagram (‘twitchy’) of THE FINS, and a whole-clue joke as definition. | ||
| 14 | ANNAPOLIS | Maryland capital area on plains destroyed (9) |
| Anagram of A (‘area’) & ON PLAINS. | ||
| 16 | SINGLETON | Vest available for unmarried person (9) |
| SINGLET (‘vest’) and ON (‘available’, as in ‘that date seems to be on’). | ||
| 17 | ALLOTROPE | Line added to grant form scientists know (9) |
| ROPE (‘line’) after ALLOT (‘grant’). An allotrope is one variant of an element which may appear in several forms, I’m told. | ||
| 18 | AVENGED | Carried out retribution – gave Ned thrashing (7) |
| Anagram (‘thrashing’) of GAVE NED. | ||
| 20 | PURITAN | Wordplay about educated woman having strict morals? (7) |
| ‘Educating RITA’ is a play by Willy Russell. Around (‘about’) her we put PUN, a wordplay depending on exact rhyme. (Why is it that when people say ‘no pun intended!’ there almost never is one?) | ||
| 22 | UNITE | Make one university tenure vacant (5) |
| UNI plus stripped-out (‘vacant’) TenurE. | ||
| 23 | HOMER | Pigeon, horse and rook to confine old Neo (5) |
| H (‘horse’) and R (‘rook’, the chess piece) both surround (‘confine’) O (‘old’) and ME, i.e. Neo, our setter today. | ||
| 24 | WAGON | Wife on Greek festival vehicle (5) |
| W (‘wife’) above AGON, an Athenian film festival, it seems. | ||
*anagram
And of course now I’ve published the blog I can see at least three more of those neutral operators. See if you can spot ’em.
Thanks Grant.
These ‘neutral (they’re not neutral, as we’ll see) operators’, in some parts of England at any rate, are sometimes known as ‘link words’. So integral to the craft are they, you’ll find them in every daily crossword that’s ever been set. Try writing clues without them, and you’ll soon realise how difficult that is, especially over thirty clues.
I find it hard to grasp why anyone would campaign against them, and I would disagree profoundly with the idea that they ‘add nothing’, or are ‘neutral’: they are to be considered just as carefully and strategically as any device stationed in a clue. Used well, they help in the process of (fairly) misleading the solver, or in creating the desired illusory effect associated with surfaces. Used badly they can totally ruin the cryptic grammar, or overly stuff the clue, for which reasons one really must be careful in their deployment.
Some people are not, I note, and maybe you should have a peruse here and there to see if you can find some rogue examples. You would be entitled to a rant there, were you to fancy it!
In other news, I was fantastically entertained by your blog, so many thanks.
Kindest regards
Neo
Hi, Neo,
Thanks for coming back. It can get kinda lonesome out here on the old Bar FT.
Sorry if you thought I was having a go; I wasn’t. I think I may have misunexpressed myself, as George Bush would say. The intention wasn’t to diss link words, as I’m happy to call them, but to draw the attention of beginners-and-improvers to their very existence. (This may or may not be my job: I’m new to the blogging thing and I was looking for a topic that might be of interest to Tuesday solvers.)
I try to make the explanations as full as possible and I’ve noticed that other bloggers rarely mention the link words, which of course can range from ‘in’ or ‘of’ to quite substantial phrases like ‘leads us to’. I even thought of trying to highlight them in a different colour but I’m not clever enough.
You’re right; I should keep a note of the more unusual ones. Watch this space!
Thanks Grant and Neo.
Try not to feel lonely Grant. I’m sure many more read the blog than comment.
I spotted the potential Pangram about half way through which made my solve of the bottom half a bit easier.
And I did find this on the easier side for Neo – I suppose that’s right for a Tuesday puzzle even if I’m 3 days late.
I did have to look up the AGON in 24dn but otherwise no new words for me.
Interesting comments from Neo on the use of link words. Some setter’s styles can be quite clumsy, and I have found Neo to be so some times in the past, but this time the surfaces were all elegant, making for a pleasant solve.
Thanks Neo and Grant
Lucky crosswords don’t go stale, eh !! Nice to look back at the style of blog that you did at the start of your sessions.
This was an unusually straightforward puzzle from Neo with no real holdups at all and did manage to spot the pangram afterwards. Interesting discussion on the ‘neutral operators’ – I think that I must be extremely liberal, these sort of things don’t really bother me one way or the other. So long as I can get to the answer of a clue is about as complicated as it gets for me.
And I did here well inside the half hour which is a quick solve for me (I’m a very slow writer is my excuse). Finished the crossword with MARIMBA and ANIMA up in the NW corner.