Azed leads us on a very enjoyable ramble though some of the lesser-used parts of the English language, places one would never find without such a knowledgeable guide. Thank you Azed.
| Across | ||
| 1 | THRAVE | Is missing this knees-up for a good number locally (6) |
| THis missing IS then RAVE (knees-up) | ||
| 6 | ESPIAL | Recurrent failure? I interposed observation (6) |
| LAPSE (failure) reversed (recurrent) contains I | ||
| 12 | REAGIN | Antibody the treated regain (6) |
| anagram of REGAIN | ||
| 13 | APORIA | Difficulty fitting ‘gazunder’ into song (6) |
| PO (?) in ARIA (song). I have no idea how gazunder fits in. | ||
| 14 | INTELPOST | Communications system: pen lots transcribed in it (9) |
| anagram of PEN LOTS in IT | ||
| 15 | MINNEOLA | Hybrid citrus served by hotel in Maine, Ohio and California city (8) |
| INN (hotel) in ME (Maine) O (Ohio) and LA (city in California) | ||
| 16 | POCO | Post office company, not big in Italy (4) |
| PO (post office) CO (company) | ||
| 18 | BOER | Pig, one replaced by English farmer? (4) |
| BOaR (pig) with A (one) replaced by E (English) | ||
| 20 | CATATONIA | Mental health affliction: disturbed at action gripping one (9) |
| anagram of AT ACTION containing I (one) | ||
| 22 | MADERISED | Reckoned one type of wine is bottled or became ‘rusty’ (9) |
| MADE (reckoned) RED (one type of wine) contains (bottles) IS | ||
| 25 | BAAS | Overseer follows the flock? (4) |
| BBAS follow a flock of sheep | ||
| 27 | MOPP | One doing work taken in by parliamentarian (4) |
| OP (work) in MP (parliamentarian) | ||
| 30 | LEAP YEAR | A salmagundi put in oven? One in four roughly (8, 2 words) |
| A PYE (salmagundi, medley) in LEAR (annealing oven) | ||
| 31 | AVIZANDUM | Judge’s early opinion, namely one given in commercial, with hesitation (9) |
| VIZ (namely) AN (one) in AD (commercial) then UM (hesitation) | ||
| 32 | SEVENS | Stokes quits one form of popular sport (6) |
| s (stokes) EVENS (quits). Does anyone know in what context s stands for stokes? | ||
| 33 | ENSUED | Followed last point round court, as before (6) |
| END (last point) contains SUE (court, archaic) | ||
| 34 | TWEETS | Mawkish bits of Trump speak? (6) |
| TWEE (mawkish) and Trump Speak (first letters, bits of) | ||
| 35 | SKELLY | Grace e.g. after start of supper, cockeyed to Jock (6) |
| KELLY (eg Grace Kelly) following Supper (first letter of) | ||
| Down | ||
| *1 | TRUMP | Old card game (5) |
| competition clue | ||
| 2 | HEMIOLA | Either of two intervals I love in composition of Mahler (endless) (7) |
| I O (love) in anagram of MAHLEr (endless) | ||
| 3 | RAUNCH | Coarseness universal in a farm (6) |
| U (universal) in RANCH (farm) | ||
| 4 | VINEGAR-PLANT | Fermenting agent given when mixed with skill involving design (12) |
| anagram of GIVEN then ART (skill) containing PLAN (design) | ||
| 5 | ENTOPTIC | Like pupil, say, first among ten struggling, I see (8) |
| TOP (first) in anagram of TEN then I C (see) | ||
| 7 | SPLATTERPUNK | Collapsed when taking in dish on page in extra-violent genre (12) |
| SUNK (collapsed) containing PLATTER (dish) on P (page) | ||
| 8 | POPS | The old man is bursting (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 9 | IRON-ON | One strip of cloth, new in, requiring no needle and thread (6) |
| I (one) ROON (strip of cloth) containing N (new) | ||
| 10 | AISLE | Part of cabin aft is remaining when ——? (5) |
| aft is left (remaining) when A IS LE | ||
| 11 | LATERAL | NFL player may pass one, not yet one on left (7) |
| LATER (not yet) A (one) on L (left) | ||
| 17 | CASCADES | Falls about a lot in rough sea (8) |
| CA (circa, about) SCAD (a lot) in anagram of SEA | ||
| 19 | IMBRAST | Old poet’s included iambs, sort not so complex (7) |
| anagram of IAMBS soRT missing SO | ||
| 21 | IMPANEL | Pick out from list one entering drive (7) |
| AN (one) in IMPEL (drive) | ||
| 23 | DATIVE | Case providing idea TV exploited (6) |
| anagram of IDEA TV | ||
| 24 | WOEFUL | Wretched, being without fuel, cast adrift (6) |
| WO (without) then anagram of FUEl | ||
| 26 | ADVEW | Scan (in Spenser) verse enveloped in an early freshness (5) |
| V (verse) in A DEW (an early freshness) | ||
| 28 | PREDY | Once cleared for action, quarry’s primed with head of detonator (5) |
| PREY (quarry) contains Detonator (first letter of) | ||
| 29 | MZEE | Old fellow’s last letter (to some) after onset of malaria (4) |
| ZEE (last letter, to some=Americanism) following Malaria (first letter of) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
I’m curious about the definition for 2dn. I did know the word from somewhere but the definition in Chambers says it’s either a perfect fifth or a triple. A perfect fifth is an interval, but a triplet is a rhythm – three notes in the time of two, so why “Either of two intervals”? And just to confuse matters, Wikipedia says that some Greek authors used the term for several other intervals.
I did like 34ac.
The ODE has a definition for HEMIOLA that more fits the usages I’ve seen (sleeve notes about Chopin, mostly) – the juxtaposition of duple and triple metres. Nothing about intervals there or in Collins. While it may have been used for intervals, I don’t think it is any longer.
In the immediate case, it looks like Azed has assumed ‘triplet’ to be another interval (perhaps a third? C has a slightly flaky definition there too).
This may be an old question discussed in the past, before I latched on to this site, but is it a regular Azed policy not to indicate hyphenation? PeeDee has three hyphens in the answers which are not hinted at in the cluing: SPLATTERPUNK is unhyphenated in Chambers, unlike VINEGAR-PLANT and IRON-ON, and I felt the latter at least could/should have been marked as (6, hyphenated) – like LEAP YEAR (8, 2 words). The New York Times of course does not even give you that amount of breakdown, a convention that it is fun to adjust to, and maybe the lack of hint about hyphens is part of the distinctive Azed challenge on a smaller scale. IRON-ON did hold me up for a time for that reason. Maybe others can cast light on the history of this.
13a: ‘gazunder’ and ‘po’ can both mean a chamberpot.
32a: I always assumed S was an abbreviation for stokes as the CGS unit of kinematic viscosity, but Wikipedia says it should be St.
quenbarrow@3
Not indicating hyphenation is fairly standard in puzzles with barred grids, but I don’t know anything about the history of it. It’s been that way for as long as I’ve been solving such puzzles.
Dormouse – I noticed the apparent lack of a second interval when I looked up the definition in Chambers. At the time I just put it down to my limited understanding of musical terminology. Perhaps Phi @2 has the more likely explanation.
quenbarrow – the hyphen in splatter-punk is my mistake, I will fix it later on. Hyphens catch me out regularly in Azed. I always forget about them until I have banged my head against the wall searching for whole-word answers for far too long. I really should have learned by now to expect them in barred grids.
Matthew – thanks for gazunder=chamberpot. I failed to spot the second entry in Chambers when I looked the word up.
On hyphens, many thanks to Matthew and PeeDee for quick response. The rule may well hold for Azed and for some other puzzles with barred grids, but not for those of The Spectator! 23 across in the current one, by Pabulum: “Rory downsized huge cargo boats (5, hyphened)”. And in fact the answer to that [submission deadline is still two weeks away] would have been easier to get, without the hyphen information, for me anyway, than IRON-ON was (and than others like that in Azed).
I’ve just checked my old copy of the New Oxford Companion to Music which has an entry of hemiola, complete with musical examples. I see, as Phi says, it’s not what I would call a triplet. A single line at the end of the entry says it has been used as an interval of a fifth.
I did wonder if Azed had erred, but I didn’t want to “cast nasturtiums”.
quenbarrow – my understanding is that hyphenation is a matter for the setter of the puzzle and the editor(s) of the journal in which it appears. They choose whether to indicate hyphens or not as they see fit. In the UK it is common to see hyphens explicitly indicated in normal grids and unindicated in barred grids. I would not describe this as a rule though.
Azed has never indicated hyphenation, nor I believe did Ximenes before him, nor does the Mephisto puzzle in the Sunday Times.
quenbarrow@7
The Spectator has so many unchecked cells in some entries that I’m not sure it should be counted as a barred puzzle. In any case, I deliberately said ‘fairly standard’ rather than ‘universal’.
S = stokes is in Chambers under capital S.
Nick
Matthew@11.
I’m not quite sure of the technical definition of a barred puzzle – but in any case I was not trying to score a point, simply to learn more, as a relative neophyte, about the conventions, which I have certainly done: sincere thanks to you and Goujeers and PeeDee. I shall be much more hyphen-aware from now on…
Middle of the road in terms of difficulty, I imagine lots of fun has been had with the competition clue. 🙂
quenbarrow@13
Questioning whether the Spectator crossword should count as a barred crossword was supposed to be a joke about it typically allowing more unchecked letters than other barred crosswords. For example, the Spectator crossword you refer to has 4-, 6- and 8-letter answers with half of the letters unchecked, which is normal in a blocked grid, but Azed would never have so many unchecked letters (counterexamples welcome).