Financial Times 15,507 by Goliath

11 comments on “Financial Times 15,507 by Goliath”

1. As someone who was a kid in the 1970s, I couldn’t believe 29a, a real blast from the past. I remember one of Ms Morgan’s films being advertised outside the local cinema – probably a rare thrill for the adults, but for us youngsters it was unintentionally hilarious. Just intoning the name “Chesty Morgan” was enough to start us all giggling.

   I wasn’t 100% sure about canal/banal at 3/20, but I know pronunciation cavils concerning Spoonersims and homophones are a grey area, if not utterly yawnsome.

   Thanks to Goliath and Pete.

2. Thanks Goliath and Pete

   Quite gentle by this setter’s usual difficulty level and all over much quicker than the following Monday’s Dante.

   The subtraction anagram wordplay at 30a is one of his trademarks and, on the alert for that, it became a pretty straightforward get. The lift and separate ‘penchant’ is another of his tricks and it was my favourite as well when the penny dropped.

   Finished in the NE corner with EROTICA, TEARAWAY (which I found pretty tricky) and the well hidden and definition by example RASTA as the last one in.

3. Thanks Pete Maclean and Goliath. Nice one.
   Thanks for parsing PLEAD.

4. I am very late here and I don’t think anyone will read this anymore.
   Yet, I would like to echo Michael’s doubt about the Spoonerism at 3,20.

   Chambers, for one, defines it as: “A transposition of initial sounds of spoken words, eg ‘shoving leopard’ for ‘loving shepherd’ “.
   Elsewhere, I get the impression, the focus is also on how it should sound, on how it is pronounced.
   I have never seen (nor heard) any examples of Spoonerisms that are just based on swapping first letters.
   In my opinion, canal boat / banal coat is not a Spoonerism.
   Grey area? Mmm, not sure.
   I think Goliath should have used a different expression to tell us his plans.

   Nevertheless, a fine (and easyish) crossword altogether.

5. I was a bit harsh on the ‘Spoonerism’, wasn’t I?
   It just about works in the eyes of the Yawnsome Homophone Police.
   That said, I think I would have gone for an indicator that tells us to swap the starting letters.
   Just to play safe.

6. Michael and Sil, I do think you raise a good point about Spoonerisms and I agree that Goliath might have done well to choose a different device here especially because he makes it personal, making out that the Reverend Spooner himself might have misspoken “banal coat”. William Archibald Spooner may have been absent-minded and muddled, but I have no information that he was dyslexic.

7. (I’m later even than Sil.) Is the pronunciation of “banal” not to rhyme with “canal”? That’s how I’ve always said it (native Brit) but I may well be wrong. Given that assumption, the fact that the written form is a straight initial letter swap is irrelevant; the initial sound swap applies here, which is what matters. Am I missing something here, or just mispronouncing? (Or perhaps it’s regional and the nay-sayers simply pronounce it differently from Goliath.)

   That aside, I enjoyed this one, especially 6d where “PM” wrong-footed me for a while. Thanks Goliath and Pete.

8. My experience is that ‘banal’ is pronounced with the second A long and the accent on that second syllable. However I am unsure whether that is held to be the one correct way to say it or not. I have a suspicion that I rarely hear the word used in conversation because many people are unsure of how to pronounce it.

9. I think you’re right about people being unsure! Some quick googling suggests that the two most accepted pronunciations both have stress on the second syllable: rhyming with “canal”, and turning that second syllable into something like “ahl” or “arl” (er, depending on how one pronounces those examples, but hopefully the gist has been communicated). I can see where detractors of this clue are coming from then, if they’re working from a perfectly valid pronunciation that doesn’t work. One of those clues that works in some regions of the country but not others, maybe!

   Must be hard to include homophones (and spoonerisms) when there are so many accents and dialects out to thwart you. Is there an unspoken rule that these things should be read aloud as RP, perhaps? Since I’m feeling anal (which I invite you to read as rhyming with “banal”) I checked the Chamber’s Crossword Manual, and all I could find were mentions of explicit exaggerated accents (dropped Hs and so on), rather than a standard reading accent.

10. Moving on from banal/canal-gate, I can’t let it detract from ‘antipasti’, which I shall actively shoe-horn into a conversation next time I’m down south.

     

11. Moving on from banal/canal-gate, I can’t let it detract from ‘antipasti’, which I shall actively shoe-horn into a conversation next time I’m down south.

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