Quiptic 1,025 by Carpathian

17 comments on “Quiptic 1,025 by Carpathian”

1. Thanks both. Good stuff.
   Anybody else try to find an anagram of BEING STERN for 14d?

2. Thanks Carpathian and nms

   I got off to a bad start by writing in TOPS for 1d. I recovered though.

   I didn’t find this all that easy. Favourites were LOOSE ENDS and CONTRASTS.

3. TOPS here too – not surprising there are alternative answers, as the two definitions are very closely related.

4. I was another TOPS. I thought double solutions were no-nos.

5. I also went for TOPS, apparently the unanimous choice for 1d today. Bear of little brain @4, multiple solutions are allowed as long as the crossers eliminate all but one. Some solvers still object, but in my opinion the grid is there for a reason.

   Thanks to Carpathian and newmarketsausage.

6. TOPS for me too and I’ve never heard CAPS used in that way. Had a generally bad time of it today and gave up after getting very few answers. Never heard of ADZE or PETIT POINT, didn’t know the meaning of ‘supercilious’, and didn’t know ‘caught’ could be abbreviated to ‘c’, etc. Wouldn’t say this was particularly beginner-friendly…

7. There was a genuine “double” in the Radio Times crossword a while back. The solution was either BUREAUX or BUREAUS, with the last letter unchecked. The wordplay could have been BEAUX or BEAUS as well.

8. Gillafox @6 – here’s an apolcalyptic cricket scorecard with lots of examples of ‘c’ for ‘caught’:

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/scorecard/ECKO44641

9. Nice surfaces and generally entertaining.

   I thought of tops and pips before I got to CAPS. I liked CANDIDATES and PREFERENTIAL.

   Thanks Carpathian and nms.

10. John E @6 thanks, I assumed it must be cricket related! Certain interests (cricket, sailing, classical music, Christianity) seem overrepresented in crosswordland, particularly when it comes to abbreviations. I can get on board with things like roman numerals, the phonetic alphabet, or ‘morning’ meaning ‘AM’. But shortening ‘sailor’ to ‘AB’ or ‘priest’ to ‘RR’ is very off-putting to those dipping their toes in…

11. DaveinNC: In this case I think I’m one of those that objects. I’m happy with grids where one lightly fills in a possible solution that one is slightly unhappy with, only for the penny to drop later when crossers show that you were right to be doubtful, but I’m not happy when both answers are equally good (or, in this case, in my opinion, the wrong answer is a slightly better fit to the clue than the right answer). Relying on the grid for disambiguation feels, to me, too close to quick crossword land.

12. Gillafox@8 & 10 – you don’t need to know about (say) cricket to do crosswords, you just need to remember the bits that keep cropping up, e.g. leg = on, c = caught etc. I know nothing about sailing, but I know that sailor = tar or AB. I’ve been doing cryptics for half a century, but I am still learning, thanks to this site.

13. Another “tops” here and another trying to anagram “being stern” with no luck. I enjoyed “loose ends” more than I when Ned Sherrin is involved and the alpine ferret tickled my fancy. Good fun.

    Gillafox @10 for a quiptic I think I am inclined to agree that perhaps this was a little more “standard crossword” in style. Often Quiptics have a bit more in the way of double or cryptic definitions which beginners tend to find easier precisely because, as you’ve indicated, they don’t require specialist knowledge of abbreviations. A sailor can also be a “tar” or a “jack” as well as “AB” or “ABS” and probably several other things. A priest? Try “pi”, “p”, “lama”, “rr” “rev”, “fr” and numerous others. Oy vey. I guess the idea is you get used to them slowly so too much at once is off-putting. But to progress to the other puzzles it’s part of the arsenal you need to deploy.

14. Not easy enough for a quiptic. Nearly all clues solved by guessing the answer and then fiddling with the word play. Observation is not a good definition for CONGNISANCE which is a legal term. Had both TOPS and CAPS in my mind from the start, but I agree that this is bad setting. Thanks all.

15. Bear of little brain @11, thanks for your thoughtful response. I don’t fully embrace your point of view, but you provide a reasonable defense for it.

16. I”m yet another TOPS person. I tend to be in DaveinNCarolina’s camp regarding clues with multiple solutions, but I understand the other point of view, which Bear of little brain articulates very well.

    I found this tougher than the usual Quiptic, but upon looking back at I can’t really see why, as the clues all seem perfectly fair and well-constructed.

17. I wondered about a rabbi being a holy man. I though that rabbis are priests, scholars, teachers. Does that make them “holy men”?

     

    Thnaks B+S

Comments are closed.