It’s been six months since we last had the pleasure of blogging a Radian puzzle, and it was worth the wait.
We were quite well into the puzzle before we tumbled to the theme – something we have come to expect from this setter. We reckon there are twelve thematic entries relating to language, grammar and speech, most of which we Brits only come across when we try to learn another language.
It makes us realise that English is rather unusual in that it does not involve accents, and that that must cause a lot of problems for folk learning English as a second language who get no indication as to how a word is pronounced from its spelling. It does keep our keyboards simple though!
We had a lot of difficulty parsing 21d, due to a lack of fairly specialist knowledge of biological terms, but as has been said many times before – you learn something new every day in crossword land.
We were really surprised to note that there is only one anagram in the puzzle!
Thanks to Radian for the challenge.
| Across | ||
| 1 | French film actor opens his own sound stage (7) | |
| STATION | TATI (Jacques Tati – French film actor) in or ‘opening’ SON (French – ‘his own’ language – for ‘sound’) | |
| 5 | Call this writer for part of speech? (7) | |
| PHONEME | PHONE (call) ME (this writer) | |
| 10 | Top brand, “The Third Man” (4) | |
| ABEL | ||
| 11 | Posh male and female interrupt round 10 and 12, for example (10) | |
| CIRCUMFLEX | U (posh) M (male) F (female) in or ‘interrupting’ CIRCLE (round) X (ten) | |
| 12 | Stress papers should be removed from crash (6) | |
| ACCENT | ACC |
|
| 13 | Public officials sign new books at the front (8) | |
| NOTARIES | ARIES (sign) with N (new) OT (Old Testament – ‘books’) in front | |
| 14 | Film barbarian, tense, seizing child’s letter (9) | |
| CONSONANT | CONAN (from the film ‘Conan the Basrbarian’) T (tense) round or ‘seizing’ SON (child) | |
| 16 | Measure diameter with circles (5) | |
| WIDTH | D (diameter) in or ‘circled’ by WITH | |
| 17 | Stripped hammock back, revealing insect (5) | |
| COMMA | A reversal (‘back’) of |
|
| 19 | Briefly ring reviewer Mark (9) | |
| DIACRITIC | DIA |
|
| 23 | Last project (5,3) | |
| STICK OUT | Double definition | |
| 24 | Bookmark: Use Drugs (3-3) | |
| DOG-EAR | DO (use) GEAR (drugs) | |
| 26 | Bug leading staff on phone survey (6,4) | |
| GALLUP POLL | GALL (bug) UP (leading) + a homophone (‘on phone’) of POLE (staff) | |
| 27 | A big shot at Old Trafford backed league (4) | |
| AXIS | A + a reversal (‘backed’) of SIX (‘big shot at Old Trafford’, or any other cricket ground) | |
| 28 | Can celebrity, Le Carré for one? (3,4) | |
| PEN NAME | PEN (can, as in ‘prison’ – short for penitentiary) NAME (celebrity) | |
| 29 | Orient sections to fill newspaper (3,4) | |
| FAR EAST | AREAS (sections) in or ‘filling’ FT (newspaper) | |
| Down | ||
| 2 | Firm supports explorer sailing north for Virginia, say (7) | |
| TOBACCO | CO (firm) after or ‘supporting’ (in a down clue) a reversal (‘sailing north’) of CABOT (explorer). Cabot was an Italian explorer who settled in Bristol (our home city) before setting sail to find Asia and found ‘New-found-land’ instead. Many places in Bristol are named after him. | |
| 3 | Iberian writers use this until designers restrict it (5) | |
| TILDE | Hidden or ‘restricted’ in ‘unTIL DEsigners’ | |
| 4 | Language of old volume, one with strap (7) | |
| OCCITAN | O (old) CC (cubic centimetre – volume) I (one) TAN (strap) | |
| 6 | Unionist visiting Hampshire’s favourite spots (6) | |
| HAUNTS | U (Unionist) in or ‘visiting’ HANTS (Hampshire) | |
| 7 | Queen‘s hat back to front in northeast India (9) | |
| NEFERTITI | TITFER (hat) with the back half moved to the front in NE (northeast) I (India – in the phonetic alphabet) | |
| 8 | Sheep tucked into natural food, a lifesaver (3,4) | |
| MAE WEST | EWE (sheep) ‘tucked’ into MAST (natural food – nuts and acorns etc) | |
| 9 | Count on pair in complex, so to speak? (13) | |
| PRONUNCIATION | An anagram of COUNT ON PAIR IN – anagrind is ‘complex’ | |
| 15 | Brief stop in house on section of canal (9) | |
| SEMICOLON | SEMI (house) COLON (section of the alimentary canal) | |
| 18 | Swapping parts, extract unused frames (7) | |
| OUTTAKE | TAKE OUT (extract) with the two words or ‘parts swapped’ | |
| 20 | Mark at bottom of letter: “Edward has to wear black” (7) | |
| CEDILLA | ED (Edward) in or ‘wearing’ CILLA (Cilla Black) | |
| 21 | They lean forward to indicate species in text (7) | |
| ITALICS | We really had no idea about the parsing of this, but it was the only logical entry given the crossing letters and the ‘leaning forward’ part of the clue. However, we think that this must be a cryptic definition relating to a meaning of ‘species’ in Chambers that refers to a biological group of individuals placed taxonomically under a genus with their names in ITALICS | |
| 22 | It was used to shoot two Brits in Victoria (3-3) | |
| POM-POM | POM POM – how an Australian (‘in Victoria’) might refer to two Brits | |
| 25 | Solemn Queen presented bandages (5) | |
| GRAVE | R (Queen) in or ‘bandaged by’ GAVE (presented) | |
This was A Cuté puzzle
… or perhaps more accurately A cute puzzle, copmus @1 – think about it.
Yes, good fun trying to spot all the thematic clues, which helped as I originally had ‘stand out’ for 23a until I realised this didn’t fit with the crossing SEMICOLON. I just took ITALICS to be the way in which species names are correctly written. Missed a few including OUTTAKE and the parsing for NEFERTITI, so a win to Radian.
Thanks to Radian and B&J
Yes, delightful puzzle with a theme that was right up my street, and allows me to be grumpy about two of my bugbears: people who don’t know how to use the semicolon correctly, and those who misspell (or even worse, mispronounce) PRONUNCIATION as PRONOUNCIATION. Of the themed clues, I liked DIACRITIC best.
ITALICS I couldn’t parse, so thanks for the explanation – I am sure you are right.
English pronunciation not reflected in spelling? Naah … GHOTI and CHIPS is our national meal, innit?
Thanks all three.
Liked GHOTI, pronounced ‘fish’ by KD@8. For those head-scratching over this, it is GH as F in words such as ‘tough’, O as I in words such as ‘women’ and TI as SH in loads of words ending in TION, such as 1a. I was particularly pleased to (eventually) recall the word DIACRITIC, but only knew SON in French To mean ‘are’. Thanks to Radian and BJ.
WordPlodder @2 you correctly sussed that I am no gag writer but you may have been under the misapprehension that I have no knowledge whatsoever of French grammar.
Cependant j’ai éprouvé peu de difficulté dans cet excellent puzzle
Merci M Radian.
@4Hovis – in French it is “sont” you are thinking of, the third person plural of the verb to be eg ils/elles sont; they are.
There seems to be a sort of double definition in the clue to 1A as “son” means both his (own) and sound.
I share Kathryn’s Dad’s horror and disgust at the mispronunciation of (mis)pronunciation.
Great puzzle, interesting theme. Thanks to Radian and Bertandjoyce.
You’d be right about son, Hovis, if we were talking about Spanish …
Thanks for the explanation of GHOTI – it’s a chestnut, but it’s a good way of explaining how unphonetic English is (unlike Spanish, where it’s pretty much WYSIWYG).
Any advice as to how you can print out the Indy xword?
Tx in advance
Oleg @8
Display the puzzle on the Indy website, click on ‘menu’ (top LHS) then select ‘print’.
Nice puzzle, thanks Radian, B&J
Simple, but I liked WIDTH and GRAVE.
It was a cause of some triumph that my Italian class at school managed to persuade a visiting teacher, whose English wasn’t great, that the correct pronunciation of pronunciation was pronounciation. We made her repeat it often, and I think she took it back to Italy at the end of term.
Whoops! Mi español es mejor que mi francés. Thanks to gwep@6 and kd@7.
@9Can get the clues but not the grid. Top LHS doesn’t offer menu
Oleg @12
What device and browser are you using when accessing the Indy website?
Copmus @5, I’m humbled. Your French language skills are far greater than the little I remember from my schooldays many decades ago.
Anyway, even without an acute, it was a cuté puzzle as you say.
Yours in admiration,
ALT0233
Wrote on the top of the sheet ‘some tough bits’ and I have to say that the ‘bits’ concerned were some of the themed answers. Not to worry, always good to learn something new.
Think this is the first Radian puzzle that I’ve solved – quite enjoyed the challenge. 8d got my vote for favourite.
Thanks to Radian and to B&J for the blog.
We saw ‘Radian’ and knowing Tuesday is usually a theme day thought we were in for a rough ride. But PHONEME, ACCENT and then CIRCUMFLEX went in so easily we were then on the lookout for, inter alia, DIACRITIC and CEDILLA – and were not disappointed!
Great puzzle. Thanks, Radian and B&J.
Thanks Radian and BnJ
In 1, I saw the wordplay for SON as HIS [in] “TATI’s OWN SOUND”, ie French, which contrasts a little with gwep @ 6.
Plausible?
A very fine crossword but is everyone OK with ‘black’ [lower case] for CILLA?
Sil: yes.
Fine but please but don’t tell Don Manley.
Oleg@12: And what website are you using? If I go to the Independent’s online edition, the crossword has no menu, but if I go to https://puzzles.independent.co.uk/games/cryptic-crossword-independent/ then there is not only a menu top left, there’s a print button bottom left. I’m using Edge in Windows 10, but it worked on my previous laptop using Chrome in Windows 8.
Oleg@12: Have you sorted it by now? By way of further information I get the crossword with menu and print button by clicking on ‘Independent’ under “Today’s Cryptics” at the top left of the Fifteensquared site. I’m using Firefox in Windows 10.