Guardian 27,490 – Orlando

52 comments on “Guardian 27,490 – Orlando”

1. Couldn’t get STATESIDE (got stuck on SPACETIME and SPACELIKE, which didn’t work), but managed ORFE and CURASSOW. Favourites were UNRESERVEDLY, CHICK LIT and ARMCHAIR. Many thanks to Orlando for a good puzzle, and to Andrew.

2. A pleasant start to what’s going to be a difficult day (medical treatment!). It’s always good to see Orlando; thanks to him and to Andrew.

3. Good morning all, a nice start to the week, very reminiscent of Rufus, I thought. A minor point, can you really equate GRAND with K? As I understand it, a grand (G) is specifically $1000, whereas K is the non-specific metric symbol for 1000 (metres, grams etc.) I don’t think our (non-metric) American friends would equate the two. Just a thought. Discuss at leisure…

   Thanks for the entertainment, Orlando, and for the blog, Andrew.

   Now, where did I put that bottle of curacao…

4. Thanks Orlando and Andrew

   Very nice. I loved PADDINGTON!

5. Thanks, Andrew and Orlando [good to see you back!]

   I didn’t know the bird [I know the drink 😉 ] but it was meticulously clued, as was the whole puzzle. I had ticks for the same ones as drofle, plus PADDINGTON and NARRATIVE.

   All the best for today, June @2. x

    

6. Thanks both.
   I knew ORFE, and CURASSOW seemed familiar, though I googled to check it (I think I once saw curassows in an aviary somewhere).
   Greensward@3: I think it’s quite common to use ‘grand’ and ‘K’ interchangeably when referring to money (£ or $) eg ‘her salary is 50 grand/50 K per year’.

7. Many thanks to Orlando and Andrew. I particularly liked ‘head examiner’.

   Greensward @3: it’s common practice in the UK to write – and even say – eg,10K to mean £10,000. Is that a problem, or am I missing something?

8. Re the K – G debate: I’m pleased you’ve raised the point Greensward, as I’ve had similar concerns about recent uses of K for Grand because one is dollars and the other is pounds.

   Comments at 6 and 7 are quite right though and I have no quibble now. One is a UK term and the other a US term for 1000 units of money.

   PS Enjoyed the puzzle

9. Thanks Orlando and Andrew.

   I, too, knew curaçao but not CURASSOW. I guess these days most people would say “sternums” rather than STERNA, as Latin plurals seem to have gone out of fashion – maybe Eileen can comment.

   LOI was CHICK LIT; the term is regarded as somewhat offensive these days, I think.

   I did like ‘Bones in back start to ache’ – I sympathise!

10. Beaulieu, Judygs, pex @6, 7, 8. Thanks for the replies folks. If a single example of equivalence is deemed acceptable, that’s fine by me, but my (admittedly minor) quibble was that I understood GRAND to be specifically $1000, and not a general term for 1000 of anything. For example, in athletics, a 5K run = 5000 metres, but could this be referred to as a 5G run in America? Anyway, glad to have Generated a few Komments.

11. Re the K discussion. K is used in computer terminology too, where it only loosely means 1000 and is really 1024, i.e 2 to the power 10. Makes me smile when we bandy giga, tera and all those other byte multiples around now. *Trips down memory lane* When I started the whole operating system ran in 2K and the remaining 30K were for apps
    🙂

    Thanks Orlando for nice relaxing start to week, and Andrew for blog.

12. Greens @ 10: Absolutely agree “I understood GRAND to be specifically $1000, and not a general term for 1000 of anything.”. Ah well.

    (just about got your last sentence to which I’ll add that some Keneral Gnowledge was required)

13. I’m American, and I can confirm that “grand” is just for the sum of money; its use is losing out to K, I think. So 26 didn’t work for me. Also had no idea about the homophone in 6–I can figure out non-rhotic homophones but I really have no idea what that vowel is supposed to be compared to the “non-posh” version.

14. Thanks to Orlando and Andrew. I found this to be a pleasant and gentle beginning to the week, which went in steadily. LOI stateside and I had to check chick lit which was unfamiliar, though it was clearly clued. In retrospect I liked stateside, Paddington and snaffling. Thanks again to Orando and Andrew.

15. Chick lit an entirely new one for me…

16. Normal Monday service is resumed: inordinate amount of time on my last one in, the straightforward (to everyone else) dd ENGAGE.

17. Thanks both,

    An enjoyable start to the week although I’m still struggling with the Prize. I didn’t know orfe (guessed orff) or curassow (guessed pugassow). It’s odd how a plausible (or even an implausible one) puts one off from trying other alternatives.

18. This was a DNF for me – I had forgotten about ORFEs, and I tried out but rejected ENGAGE because I wasn’t familiar with its meaning as “promise”.  Otherwise, a typically entertaining Orlando puzzle.  I loved UNRESERVEDLY – wonderful surface and precise parsing.  A nigh on perfect clue, for my money.

    Great way to start the week.  Thanks, Orlando and Andrew.  I’m doubly chagrined about ORFE, it being a quintessential crossword fish and because it’s the same thing as the other quintessential crossword fish, the IDE 🙁 .  Hopefully now I’ll remember!

19. Tyngewick@17 There ought to be a pugassow, it’s a lovely name.

20. To say that chick lit is somewhat offensive is somewhat of an understatement in my view, especially when it is defined generally as ‘female’ writing.

    Having decided to use the term, the setter had a problem though.

    Perhaps it could be clued as: term used by condescending and stupid men to demean the work of competing women authors

21. Had to guess ORFE (and tried ORFF first), and CARASSOW. Other than that all went in fairly easily.

    Thanks to Orlando and Andrew.

    [Sorry to quibble, Crossbar, but nowadays you can use either “k”, (not “K”) for 1,000, or “Ki”, for 1,024, so, for example, 1kB is a kilobyte, which is 1,000 bytes, and 1Kib is a kibibit, or 1,024 bits.]

22. Thanks to Orlando and Andrew. Lots of fun. Both bird and fish were new to me (and I had to experiment to get the latter) but I always look forward to puzzles from this setter.

23. I had lots of ticks and some question marks – mostly already mentioned. I will add that I enjoyed 21A ARCH and 3D IN PROGRESS. I had to check a few with Google, e.g. It had to be Langoustes although I’d only heard of langoustines. Maybe it was particularly clever and sneaky or maybe I was just being slow but my LOI was 25A STATESIDE. I tend to tolerate political incorrectness in crosswords more than IRL as they reflect the language as used. However, I had the same thought as Tom Hutton; the clue could have implied that the term is pejorative.

    Thanks, Orlando and Andrew.

24. I couldn’t remember whether the fish was ORFE or ORFF but I guessed the right one!  (It seems some others weren’t so lucky: ORFF was the name of the composer who wrote Carmina Burana).  Lucky escape.  CURASSOW – the other obscure word – rang a dim and distant bell, and the clueing left no room for ambiguity.

    I nearly slipped up when I wrote in PARMA.  I know about the city, and the ham, and I was wondering whether it was also some sort of jacket.  Luckily I spotted PARKA in time!

    Incidentally, this debate about whether K means 1000 or 1024, in computer-speak, takes me down memory lane too (1970s).  I recall, as a student, getting into a fierce argument with the chief operator in the Computing department.  We as students were restricted to programs up to 32K words (“words”, not “bytes”… O happy days when one could write code as compactly as that!).  I’d submitted a batch program which demanded 32,xxx words, I don’t remember what the xxx was but the total was certainly less than 32768 (which is 1024 * 32).  On collecting my printout, I discovered that the operators had aborted the run with a note saying “too much core (“memory” back in those days!).  So I took it to aforesaid Chief Operator, and said, “what’s all this about, what does ’32K’ mean?”.   She answered “32,000”.  I said “no it doesn’t, it means 32,768”.  I can’t recall how the argument went after that, I think the department Head got involved….

    Anyway, enough of me rambling on.  Thanks to Orlando and Andrew.  Nice gentle start to the week!

25. Silly me, if it wasn’t obvious I should say that in my previous comment I was wading in on the “CHICK LIT” debate.

26. [No Probs Bear olb @21 – my computer days are well in the past now, and not at all missed.

    Laccaria @24 – on IBM we generally talked in bytes. I seem to recall a word was 4 bytes, but could be wrong. Guess you were on another platform.]

27. I see there’s a bit of a row brewing over CHICK LIT.

    I knew of the expression (although I first tried to write in BLACK TIE) but was never quite sure what it means, so I looked it up.  Certainly to equate it with ‘something written by a woman’ is utter nonsense!  Is Wuthering Heights ‘chick lit’?  Is To Kill a Mockingbird?

    It seems that the term originally derives from works such as the Bridget Jones series – which I haven’t read so I can’t judge them.  But other, earlier work which I have read, seems to fit the genre.  I would suggest that Breakfast at Tiffany’s fits the bill as ‘chick lit’ – even though it was written by a man and the first-person narrator is a man.  Agree, anyone?

    Whether the phrase is offensive or not: I’ll pass on that.

28. Nice puzzle in the Rufus style so no complaints from me. I’m surprised that K has aroused so many comments;K=Grand seems to have been around in crosswords for years!
    I liked SNAFFLING,PADDINGTON and SKYE.
    Thanks Orlando.
    Ps Is CHICK LIT offensive?

29. Crossbar @26 – for us it was ICL – like most British universities back in those days.  IIRC, the mainframe at our place was a 1904S.  A word was 24 bits or 3 bytes, although the word ‘byte’ was never used by us back in those days.

    Amazing that we were able to get such complicated work done in such tiny amounts of memory.  The one occasion when I ‘broke the system’, so to speak, was when I submitted a program to solve 100 simultaneous linear equations.  That process, while straightforward, takes up a lot of memory, and because the computer didn’t have enough, it kept on swapping out pages to hard drive and back again.  On that occasion I eventually got my printout back with a note saying, this program gobbled up the entire Computing department’s resources for a day and a half – please re-write if you can! 🙂

    I think I managed to work around the problem…

    But I’m rambling on yet again.  Sorry! 😮

30. Gillian @19, I too wanted to put PUGASSOW in 16d (as you say, it’s a lovely name), but it isn’t a word, and I had to rethink it to something else.

    Although I know ‘engaged’ means ‘pledged’ I didn’t know ENGAGE equated to ‘promise’.  But it’s in the dictionary, so I can’t complain.

    Also, I didn’t think CHICK LIT meant ‘female writing’, and I still don’t.

    Apart from those doubts/queries, I enjoyed this puzzle, and I liked CRANIOLOGIST, BRONCOS and ORFE particularly.

    Thanks to Orlando and Andrew.

31. Iroquios @ 13: The standard pronunciation of “off” is pretty much as spelled, both sides of the pond. The so-called posh one is more like “awf” and is entirely non-rhotic. It is also not confined to the upper classes. My very working-class grandfather awfen said “awf”.

32. [Laccaria @29. I had a brief dalliance with ICL at university, but then worked for very many years on IBM writing commercial systems, starting on an IBM360/30 for a shipping company. And yes, however did we manage to do so much with so little memory? Enough computer talk now, or we’ll annoy the others. 🙂 ]

33. If G is exclusively $1000, how come us Brits also use Grand for £1000? Sorry Americans, but there is no monopoly on the term.

34. A very enjoyable puzzle which I thought was just right for a Monday.  18a and 28a were both very clever.

    CHICK LIT is a term used (by both women and men) to refer to a particular genre, and is not a general term of abuse used solely by men to disparage women’s writing as a whole, as some on here seem to suggest.  The definition in 7d is “female writing”, and as the genre of CHICK LIT is almost totally written by women, it seems fairly reasonable to me.  “Seafood” is the definition at 11a, but nobody thinks that clue is suggesting that all seafood is LANGOUSTES.

35. I need to brush up on my colleges. Rest was fine.

    Particular smiles at PADDINGTON, ROLLING PIN and CHICK LIT.

    I also thought PUG originally for 16d (with the U checker)

    I agree with Lord Jim@34. Just like CHICK FLICS,  I always imagined CHICK LIT was a genre for women, rather than by women, though I’m not surprised it would be mainly written by women. I never imagined it was offensive. I haven’t read much chick lit, but i confess to tears at some chick flics i ended up watching with my wife.

    Many thanks Orlando and Andrew

36. First post from me in this forum. Fascinating reading the comments. I enjoyed ARMCHAIR from where I was sitting. FETA took some time even though I guessed I needed initial letters from somewhere. G Men for FBI agents was new to me.

37. Well we finished it and didn’t find it that gentle, but did find it very enjoyable for a Monday or any other day. My favourite was UNRESERVEDLY for the definition – unusually I’d worked out the solution before identifying the definition.
    JinA where are you?
    Thanks Orlando – I look forward to more puzzles from you – and Andrew.

38. CHICK LIT is listed as ‘informal’ rather than ‘derog’ or ‘offensive’. So no matter what we think, the compiler cannot be blamed. Unless he had chosen to clue it as… well, I’ll leave that one to the imagination.

    An excellent puzzle by an excellent setter, in my view.

39. ‘Chick lit’ and ‘chick flicks’ in my experience are mostly neutral terms used by  women (mostly) talking about  literature and films that appeal to women (mostly). Although  it’s unfortunate that they/we have appropriated a word that is belittling of women. But in a way they’re no different to any other terms formerly demeaning which have been appropriated  by a group of people, formerly demeaned. But, hey, they’re great examples of monosyllabic assonance and rhyme! What other phrase  would say it so well and so concisely? Blokes’ jokes?  The more you think about it though, ‘chick flicks’ is quite anachronistic, both ‘chick’ and ‘flick’. The younger generation, who do use the term chick flicks, wouldn’t have a clue where ‘flick’ comes from. Do digital visual media forms ‘flicker’ on screens? (I was going to say films, or movies but they’re gone too).

    My pick of the clues was U-TURNS. Empty vessel me.

40. Hello Emberiza – welcome and I look forward to hearing from you more.

41. Lord Jim @34

    Thanks to you and others for your explanations and clarifications of CHICK LIT.  (I queried the definition ‘female writing’.)   I must say the clue holds up well in spite of my doubts about it, and I would now add it to the other three clues that I singled out as favourites.

42. Some people  just want to be offended.

    If you really think the phrase “chick lit” is offensive then perhaps you better start informing the followers of this website

    Or perhaps you’ll try and argue that the ue of “Chick Lit” here is ironic. (There’s a straw, grasp it! 🙂 )

43. Well, I volunteer in my local library, and I can confirm that ‘Chick Lit’ is alive and thriving. Mostly unreadable too. Just scan the shelves for books with a cover featuring a street scene (often generic northern town, or wartime) as a backdrop to one or more attractive young ladies (nur

44. see and land girls seem popular). The authors seem mainly to be called Daisy or Maisie, which is crazy, or maybe just lazy.I don’t mean to sound dismissive because they’re heavily borrowed, and anything which helps keep libraries open is worth the paper it’s printed on.

45. Sorry for the length of that and for the enforced breaks.

46. In the light of messages above on CHICK LIST, may I mention an issue that cropped up quite recently in a message board on an Indian crossword.

    A lady strongly and persistently objected to the words TART and TROLLOP saying they are just not acceptable.

    I think these words do appear in UK crosswords now and then. Do they spark any protests when they do?

    On a larger issue, is any word that is marked derog or offensive in a dictionary a no-no in a crossword? Or, while we may totally avoid some, can we – at our discretion or out of compulsion – put other such words in the grid but take care in clueing so it does not ruffle anyone’s feathers?

     

     

     

     

     

47. I get your drift Rishi. The words exist so they are valid. It’s all about the definition. ‘Female writing’ per se  is not derogatory, whether it’s writing by females, or for females, or both.  Although as a woman, it seems that words  like tart and trollop come up fairly often in crosswords, and do jar a bit. But they’re so old, and I take them to reflect a time gone by , like the classics, cricket, chess, the bible, the military,  and  other cryptic mainstays. There aren’t as many derogatory male terms  in crosswords, probably because they’re unprintable. Personally, I don’t much like Paul’s schoolboy humour with words relating to sex or toilets, not because of prudishness, it’s just so …. oh, schoolboy, and not really funny (to me). I prefer Arachne’s wit and gentle humour any day, even if she does disappoint me occasionally with abbreviations from the military. But then she was a specialist in  the language of  Russian naval ships from centuries ago, or something like that.

48. paddymelon @47 Just want to say I completely agree with you on Paul’s schoolboy humour. I really like his puzzles apart from that, but can’t understand why so many applaud the humour. It is so predictable.

    On CHICK LIT, I don’t find the term offensive at all, whether written by or for women. I belong to a couple of (currently) all female book groups. The books are sourced by a library depending on the stocks available at the time, and often we get very anodyne fodder – female overcomes adversity without losing her charm or femininity, and survives it all to a happy ending. Very cosy and comfortable. Usually involves an old decrepit mansion somewhere remote by the sea, and with a mysterious back story. I don’t object to the term CHICK, but LIT is stretching a point. Sadly they are almost always written by women, and sell.

    I’ve finished now. :/

49. Rishi – the Guardian crossword is expected to comply with the newspapers editorial standards, in the same way as journalists writing news stories and features.  Of all the UK papers, the Guardian has the strongest reputation for fairness and equality, so all derogatory words and references that might be regarded as sexist, racist, demeaning to those with physical or mental disabilities, etc, would be excluded.  Different publications have different standards – see for example what Brummie gets up to setting as Cyclops in Private Eye.

50. I’m late getting to this, but in case it helps anyone worrying about the grand-K problem: it is possible in the US to use K to refer specifically to $1000: at least in some circles, “The car cost 30K” would be a reasonable thing to say. So since both grand and K can be American slang for $1000, I think they’re reasonable equivalents.

    Or you could just regard it as a crossword convention like so many others in this game. G, K, and M are used in crosswords all the time to refer to 1000 without worrying too much about the fact that the first one is specific to dollars. I find this much easier to get used to than “pi” = “good”, for instance!

     

51. Enjoyed UNRESERVEDLY.

    [I concurred with first sentence, final paragraph of Laccaria@24. A pity that he/she didn’t! I would like to know how best to point out that boring, witless logorrhoeal anecdotes infringe site rules (as well as diminishing the pleasure of visiting fifteensquared) without breaking site rules myself…!]

    Many thanks to Orlando – and Andrew, of course.

52. Rishi @46,

    I personally will accept any real word in a crossword, regardless of the publication it appears in or the editorial standards of that publication.   I’m not even sure I’d turn a hair if one of Brummie’s Cyclops efforts “accidentally” appeared in the Guardian one day, although I’m sure that would never be allowed to happen.  Likewise I am entirely unoffended by Paul’s (much toned-down these days) schoolboy humour, having been a schoolboy once myself. Some would say I still am !  When I first started solving cryptic crosswords some 40 or more years ago, it was one of my bugbears that they mostly seemed to be aimed at solvers far older, more classicly educated and more straight-laced than myself; it perplexes me to still be having those same thoughts now at the age of 66 !

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