Imogen provides this morning’s Guardian challenge.
This puzzle had me referring to Chambers and Wikipedia on a regular basis, but I got there in the end. It just felt a bit too challenging for a morning puzzle with a host of words I had not come across including UMMA, SCAGLIOLA, SAHEL and the composer STAINER, but as always, the BRB and Wikipedia came in handy and I think I’ve managed to parse everything, although 7dn is tenuous. Trovatore in the first comment has provided a better parsing.
Overall some of the deifinitions were a little loose (the aforementioned 7dn, but also BORIS, eg).
Thanks, Imogen.
| Across | ||
| 1 | UNCTION | Oily charm from judge leaving meeting (7) |
| (j)UNCTION (“meeting” with J (judge) leaving) | ||
| 5 | WISE MEN | Bethlehem visitors find retribution, returning with one change of direction (4,3) |
| <=NEMESI(s>W) (“retribution” (nemesis) with S (south) changed to W (west) [one change of direction]) | ||
| 9 | TEN COMMANDMENTS | X, mark probing new evidence of collision — get the law! (3,12) |
| TEN (“X”) + COMMA (,) + M (mark) probing N (new) DENTS (“evidence of collision”), so TEN-COMMA-N-D(M)ENTS | ||
| 10 | GRETA | Hear one welcoming woman (5) |
| Homophone of [hear] GREETER (“one welcoming”) GREETER being one posssible pronunciation of “Greta” | ||
| 11 | SUSTAINER | One supporting and backing American composer (9) |
| [backing] <=US (“American”) + (John) STAINER (English 19th century “composer”) | ||
| 12 | TABLE WINE | Unexpectedly arrived during tea, drunk on this? (5,4) |
| BLEW IN (“unexpectedly arrived”) during *(tea) | ||
| 14 | SAHEL | Part of Africa has bounced back well, if intermittently (5) |
| <=HAS (“bounced back”) + (w)E(l)L [intermittently]
Sahel is that part of Africa immediately south of the Sahara Desert |
||
| 15 | BORIS | Russian bishop’s prayer not working (5) |
| B (bishop) + ORIS(on) (“prayer” but not ON (“working”)) | ||
| 16 | FORMATTED | Put into shape, because tangled (9) |
| FOR (“because”) + MATTED (“tangled”) | ||
| 18 | INTROVERT | Sort of personality: international Mars explorer has tons (9) |
| Int. (international) + ROVER (“Mars explorer”) has T (tone) | ||
| 21 | LUCKY | Brave but missing first chance (5) |
| (p)LUCKY (“brave” but missing first (letter)) | ||
| 22 | DOLLAR DIPLOMACY | Pronounced sorrow with board game where finance dictates policy (6,9) |
| Homophone of [pronounced] DOLOUR (“sorrow”) with DIPLOMACY (“board game”) | ||
| 23 | DESPAIR | Having no hope of fixing 24 (7) |
| *(praised) (answer to 24ac) | ||
| 24 | PRAISED | Showed approval of 23 being freed (7) |
| *(despair) (answer to 23ac) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | UPTIGHT | Nervous in court, cramped (7) |
| UP (“in court”) + TIGHT (“cramped”) | ||
| 2 | CANTERBURY TALES | Hypocritical speaker to cover least bad book (10,5) |
| CANTER (“hypocritical speaker”) + BURY (“to cover”) + *(least) | ||
| 3 | IDOLATERS | Devotees, cricket match being over, not now on square (9) |
| <= ODI (One Day International, so “cricket match” over) + LATER (“not now”) + S (square) | ||
| 4 | NIMES | Roman city‘s northern half taken over (5) |
| N (northern) + <=SEMI (“half”, taken over)
According to Wikipedia, Nîmes is often referred to as the French Rome |
||
| 5 | WIND SHEAR | Turns to catch the sound of sudden change of air (4,5) |
| WINDS (“turns”) + HEAR (“to catch the sound of”) | ||
| 6 | SUMMA | Succinct treatise from small religious community (5) |
| S (small) + UMMA (the body of Islam, so “religious community”) | ||
| 7 | MEN IN WHITE COATS | Are they sent for if popes, say, act so strangely? (3,2,5,5) |
| My original comment – Cryptic definition, I think. “The men in white coats” are said to be sent to collect mad people, and popes wear white vestments. Travatore has pointed out a better parsing – MEN IN WHITE (“popes”) + *(act so) | ||
| 8 | NOSTRIL | Through this shortly I’ll snort horribly (7) |
| *(il snort) where IL is [shortly] IL(l) and &lit. | ||
| 13 | INFIELDER | Batting, force one senior man away from boundary (9) |
| IN (“batting”) + F (force) + I (“one”) + ELDER (“senior”)
In cricket, an infielder is one of the fielders closer to the bat (i.e. further away from the boundary) |
||
| 14 | SCAGLIOLA | Imitation marble is logical as could be (9) |
| *(logical as) | ||
| 15 | BLINDED | Deprived of sense, incorrectly bound to accept Liberal (7) |
| BINDED (incorrectly “bound”) to accept L (Liberal) | ||
| 17 | DRY-EYED | Unmoved as grass has stained coat (3-4) |
| RYE (“grass”) has DYED (“stained”) as a coat | ||
| 19 | OMAHA | US city with no motorway? I am surprised (5) |
| O (‘no”) + M (motorway) + AHA (“I am surprised”) | ||
| 20 | TOP-UP | A little more drink for toasting new pet? (3-2) |
| TO PUP! may be a toast to a new pet. | ||
*anagram
7dn: the MEN IN WHITE are your popes.
Then: act so strangely = COATS.
In the preamble above, ULLA should surely read UMMA. I agree about the number of obscurities like that one, but it was still a satisfying puzzle – thanks to both. Neat symmetry between the two 15-letter down clues, with the last five letters an independent anagram.
10 – Perhaps I live a sheltered life but I’ve never ever heard the name Greta being pronounced anything like “Greeter”.
In the original Swedish (I live in Sweden) it’s basically pronounced how one would say “greater” if one is a Geordie – Gray-er-tuh – or if one comes from some parts of Yorkshire – Grair-tuh. really it’s somewhere in between those pronunciations, but you get the point. (Sorry, don’t have phonetic symbols on my phone).
In the English speaking world (where I grew up) I’ve otherwise only ever heard it pronounced with a short e, like “Gretta”.
“Greeter” is just bizarre to me. But I’m happy to be proven wrong.
On a more general note, this does illustrate a problem with the use of aural puns in crossword clues – the setter all too often assumes their way of pronouncing a word is universal when it isn’t. A particular problem with an online version of a paper which now has a global readership.
Thanks, Trovatore@1.
Quenbarrow@2 – noticed my typo ULLA v UMMA and have edited.
David, Stockholm – I agree with you but Chambers has both pronunciations. I think the Americans may pronounce it that way sometimes – I’m sure I’ve heard Garbo’s first name pronounced with a long E, even though it should be a short one, in my opinion.
10 – I’ve now seen that the name is not necessarily original to Sweden, and that first vowel in the name is pronounced like Greeter in German (albeit that the gutteral R hardly makes the word as a whole sound like
the English greeter). But I’ve still never heard it said this way in English, and my basic point about the danger of puns and accents still stands.
A nice mix today of those unknown words which had to be worked out from the elements (tricky neither knowing SUMMA nor UMMA), and others which came from the definition and then had to be parsed.
We particularly liked PRAISED and DESPAIR.
Thanks for the help, Loonapick..missed the comma in TEN COMMANDMENTS and agree with Trovatore @1 about the COATS.
Thanks Imogen.
Thanks to Imogen for a challenging solve.
I liked all the clues that led to the long answers because of the elements that led to the construction of each one: 9a TEN COMMANDMENTS, 22a DOLLAR DIPLOMACY, 2d CANTERBURY TALES and 7d MEN IN WHITE COATS.
loonapick and others have mentioned the words which were unfamiliar to me, and though I managed to biff them in from wordplay and crossers, I did have to look them up to be sure: STAINER the composer in 11a SUSTAINER, 14a SAHEL, UMMA in 6d (though I knew SUMMA from Theology studies), and 14d SCAGLIOLA. David, Stockholm@3 and @6, that’s not how I pronounce GRETA (10d) either, but that was all the answer could be once the crossers were in, though I was interested in the possible variations in pronunciation that have been canvassed.
20d TOP-UP was my favourite due to its simplicity.
I appreciated the blog, loonapick, and the additional explanations and suggestions from previous posters.
@4 My first book-size publication, Practical Phonetics, was co-authored by the late Greta Colson. She, and I, pronounced her name /??ri?t?/, homophonous with the way I pronounce “greeter”.
Seems that this site can’t cope with phonetic symbols. Sorry!
I had SUSPENDER in for 11a initially, but Spender was a writer rather than composer and it messed up 7d so eventually I saw the error or my ways. I also hadn’t heard of UMMA or SCAGLIOLA, and it wasn’t clear to me whether the anagram was of IS LOGICAL or LOGICAL AS. Anyway, all good fun. Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.
Despite well knowing the Italian ‘gli’ diphthong, spelled scagliola wrong, lazy really, and dnk umma or summa, so a double dnf today. For Sahel, another dnk, just did what it said. Otherwise quite fun, although Garbo here is always as in gretta. Hey ho. Cricket starts soon. Thanks both.
Choral societies still occasionally sing STAINER’s ‘Crucifixion’ at Easter in the UK.
Old joke: what do you think of Stainer’s ‘Crucifixion’? I think it would be a good idea.
Did anyone else have MIAMI for 19d? It seemed to work quite well. Slowed me down though.
I particularly liked the anagrams at 23 and 24.
There were some really fun clues in here – I though the comma in “ten commandments” was positively Qaotic, and “blinded” Rufusian. Both of those are intended as compliments, if that is not obvious! Some went in too easily from the definition and/or word count (“wise men” for example, and “top up”) which took away the fun of solving the wordplay. In the case of “wise men” I literally wrote the answer after reading the first two words of the clue.
Lots of ticks though. “blew in” in “table wine” was nifty. “sahel” was well-clued for an unfamiliar term – it had to be that and could be looked up to confirm. Bu contrast “scagliola” was how not to do it – there are lots of possible anagrams so even once you know it’s an Italian word and means imitation marble, and it is an anagram of “logical as” you still don’t have a solution. “Russian” was fine for “Boris” – not so much a definition by example, but more a metonym. A columnist might have asked, in the Cold War era, “How will Boris respond?” much as he might ask about John Bull, or Uncle Sam.
“introvert” is interesting because it seems to have influenced a change of spelling from Jung’s original “extrAvert” as the opposite type, to the more modern “extrOvert”. I wasn’t sold on “chance” = “lucky”. “luck” maybe, but how is it “lucky”? I loved the mutual anagrams – we’ve seen it before I think, but this was just so neatly done, especially being neighbouring clues.
7dn was eminently getable and I parsed it as Trovatore did @1 but I still think it’s an awful clue. Weakly defined either way.
But, on balance, a couple of quibbles, some real challenges and grins, some neat invention and many more ticks makes this a jolly good morning’s entertainment. Thank you Imogen, and thanks loonapick.
This puzzle seemed like one by Pasquale. New words today were ORISON, SAHEL, SCAGLIOLA, WIND SHEAR, (Sir John) STAINER – so I was very glad of help from google and my dictionary today.
The homonym GRETA/GREETER seemed strange to me.
My favourites were TABLE WINE, OMAHA, TOP UP, DRY EYED as well as the four long answers.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick.
jim, it would if there were no ‘no’ in the clue; and zero M aha is quirkier.
Grant @12: interesting re Oz pronunciation of “Greta”.
By contrast, I once had a chuckle at a terrible clue along the lines of “Actress to hail a rubbish collector (5,5)”.
grantinfreo, it does work. MIAMI with no motorway = AMI = anagram of I AM.
I thought at the time it was too easy, but TOP UP and WISE MEN were easy too.
jim @18 Good point – that does work. My reservation in putting in “omaha” was that “aha” is more likely to be said by the surpriser than the surprisee. Imagine jumping out from behind a door – who shouts “Aha!”?
Michelle @15 “orison” came back to me from Hamlet’s soliloquy, “Hush you now, the fair Ophelia, Nymph in thy orisons are all are sins remembered”. I’d like to claim an impressive grasp of Shakespeare’s plays but this has stayed with me after a group of us penned “Halibut’s Soliloquy” which, inevitably, started “Turbot, or not turbot?” and ended “In thy incisions are all my fins dismembered”. That has left indelible scars for me on that particular line!
Oh yes of course jim, a subtractive, clever! Sorry I doubted.
Trovatore, one of those clues that earns its wothiness by groanworthiness!
More on Greta:
https://www.rightpronunciation.com/languages/swedish/greta-garbo-8967.asp?id1=21&page=8
So, technically, “greeter” would be way off!
TheZed@14 – I too wasn’t sold on 21a, CHANCE = LUCKY. The best I can do is “I had a chance meeting with..” which makes chance an adjective. But not really lucky, just random
Happy enough with chance for lucky, as per your example, Shirl.
Travatore, don’t you just love ursprungligen for originally! Etymology is such fun.
I bet my son that the blog would be full of comments regarding Greta and I am pleased to have been proved right. 🙂
Off topic, if I may, my son also asked if there was a complete crossword that people regard as “the perfect crossword “ in the way I suppose that if one was asked for the perfect example of a perfect clue, one would be likely to quote Araucaria’s “I say nothing”.
Thanks loonapick, and to Imogen. I took the inclusion of GRETA and BORIS to be topical references to two contrasting public figures, namely Ms Thunberg and Mr Johnson, with the apt associated terms SUSTAINER and DESPAIR near to each. But that’s probably just me…
My surprise at the circular reasoning of 23 & 24 being deemed acceptable has now been replaced by surprise that no one else seems to find it all noteworthy!
Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.
TheZed@19
thank you for the info about ORISON and “Halibut’s Soliloquy” – I would love to read the whole soliloquy that you guys penned. “Turbot, or not turbot?” is very clever!
@8 John Wells – I see we’re keeping distinguished company here! May I irrelevantly recall a long-ago TV programme in which you used archive recordings of public schoolboys to illustrate – non-prescriptively – the evolving pronunciation of “Jupiter”? It was a small epiphany for me.
With Jim@13 et seq – Miami seemed pretty good, until 18a intervened!
Not being such a fan of cricket (ODI only spotted later), you could rewrite 3d clue without the word cricket: the ‘I do’ signifying the ‘match’ made, so in a sense over, in church.
Last in was 10a, which only came with the ‘a’ crosser. Agree unhelpful choice of uncommon homonym.
Good workout, thanks Loonapick and Imogen.
I ended up losing on the letter order lottery for SCAGLIOLA and had never heard of (S)UMMA or SAHEL, though I thought I should have known the latter. Done, yet again, by the old punctuation as wordplay trick in 9a and also missed the WISE MEN parsing. GRETA as ‘greeter’ was fine by me.
Hard work and a bit frustrating to have failed in the end, but worth the effort anyway.
Thanks to Imogen and loonapick
I usually enjoy a battle with Imogen but I found today’s crossword very hard work – and not just because there were so many words from the Book of Obscure Words for Crossword Setters (I’d better point out, because when I mentioned it before someone on another blog went off to try and find it on Amazon, that it doesn’t actually exist but it probably should). I also noted that it appears to be National When is an Indirect Anagram not an Indirect Anagram Day
Thanks to Imogen for really straining my poor old grey matter and to Loonapick for the explanatory blog
crypticsue @31 It is called “Mrs Burn’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words“. I borrowed it from my local library when I was about 14 IIRC.
[Michelle @27: Alas it is lost to posterity (and not even prosperity) but began: “Turbot, or not turbot, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the lings and minnows, or outrage for tunas. Or to grow arms in a sea of bubbles, and opposing thumbs to end them. Am I a fish? A fish, perchance a bream? Aye there’s a dab.]
robert @26: I feel your pain on the linked pair (Reaoning, circular: See “circular reasoning”. Circular reasoning: See “reasoning, circular”) but I felt that this was a well-judged example, able to be solved because of the helpful definition in 24. As a device I think it could be next to impossible. Here, if anything, it erred towards being a bit too easy, but that made it fair.
I’ve got Ummagumma and I’ve heard of Summa Theologica.
jim @13 – Miami held me up for a long time – the clue worked so well I thought despair had to be wrong. It was only when I got introvert that I reconsidered.
I failed to get Summa. I parsed the clue correctly and did consider Summa, but it didn’t sound any more plausible than Samma, Samba, Samea, Samma, etc. and you can’t look them all up!
I also put dallas diplomacy in for 22 – the wordplay works other than the D and it seemed a plausible meaning. Oh well.
[TheZed@#32
haha, that is fabulously hilarious! ]
Thank you TheZed@32 – I’ll have to get a copy
Thanks both,
When I were a lad, in Lincolnshire, I’m pretty sure ‘Greeter’ was standard for Ms Garbo, who was even then a star of yesteryear. ‘Scagliola’ was unfamiliar, but I’m surprised people hadn’t come across ‘sahel’ which was widely used when there was a drought in that region a few years back.
I thought the ‘having’ in 23 was unnecessary and made it obscure since ‘having no no hope’ needs to be construed as a noun phrase to make it equivalent to ‘despair’. Eg ‘He was in a state of despair/having no hope’ just about works, but is not idiomatic.
Last night I didn’t get a single word, which I don’t think has ever happened before. Not even 5a, I was so stuck on MAGI. I thought I had one, at least — like Jim @13 I had MIAMI, but this morning DESPAIR made it impossible, so I puzzled out OMAHA.
I knew SAHEL. For 11a, I put in SU (backing American), biffed in SUSTAINER and then dimly remembered Stainer the composer, though I mostly thought of Stainer and Bell the music publishers — if you’ve been in a choir you’ve met them. Dimly remember UMMA, but hadn’t heard of SUMMA. SCAGLIOLA was completely new — I got some crossers and then filled in bits of the anagram (which I first thought was “is logical” rather than “logical as,” so the second A befuddled me) that made it look Italian. The Wikipedia article was fascinating — Romans discovered the technique and the Italians rediscovered it in the Renaissance. You can tell scagliola from real marble because it’s warm where marble is cool to the touch.
Never heard of ODI. It tried spelling TEST backwards, but it got me nowhere.
I never would have parsed TEN COMMANDMENTS or NIMES in a million years. Thanks, loonapick.
GRETA is not pronounced with a long E by any Americans I’ve ever met.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
Curious synchronicity that Imogen and A N Other setter use the same device today.
A question please:
For 12ac, assuming “drunk” is part of the definition, what is the anagram indicator for “tea”? Can “drunk” be used twice?
Thank you
Valentine@38 ODI means One Day International, a form of cricket lasting only one day 🙂
7d brought back memories of a National Lampoon spoof movie “Men In White”, a classic spoof of alien invasion films.
Thanks Imogen for a very good one, and all the bloggers.
Damn! I came here hoping to make a comment about “Greta/greeter” and found I was way too late. I need to get up earlier.
Hesh@40 and loonapick, I think the definition should just be “this”, since the drunk part is the anagram indicator. It makes the surface read well and there is a ? mark, however.
Apart from SCAGLIOLA, which was new to me, the bottom half was fairly straightforward and the rest followed once the long ones were in. A few less familar elements – UMMA and STAINER were new to me.
Thanks to Imogen and loonapick
Of course, copmus, Aquinas; should have rung a bell as his theory of intentionality is built upon by one of my favourite neuroscientists, Walter Freeman; old neurons not firing.
And Ummagumma was the first Floyd album I heard, at a party in ’69. I remember going wtf, and asking the host Who IS that?!!
Thanks Imogen and loonapick. Quite tricky with the obscure words but enjoyable.
Hesh @40 and Roberto @43: yes I wondered if 12a was intended as an &lit. Or perhaps the best way to describe it is that it is BLEW IN in an anagram of “tea”, “with an extended definition” as they say.
crypticsue @31: which clues were you thinking involved indirect anagrams?
Thank you both, Roberto@43 and Lord Jim@46 for your replies.
Yes, of course, an &lit would allow this. I’m used to seeing &lit involving the entire clue, not a part of it. Relatively new to this and still learning.
Per Yorkshire Lass, the lady who created our wedding cake was Greta invariably pronounced ‘greeter’. And what applies in God’s Own Country is the true standard, obviously!
We liked TEN COMMANDMENTS. Agree with loonapic that the oversupply of obscure words made this a bit hard for a non-prize.
Lord Jim @46 and Hesh @47, I think the correct classification is “semi &lit”
Roberto @49 Would that be an “&bit”?
TheZed @50 Yes, since the clue is indeed &bit of a stretch 🙂
Roberto @49: I’m not sure – I thought that a semi &lit was a clue where the entire clue is the definition but only part of the clue is the wordplay. The “Crossword Unclued” site gives this example:
Slow-moving mice may get snapped up by them (4) (OWLS)
In 12a I don’t think you could say that “Unexpectedly arrived during tea” is really part of the definition of TABLE WINE.
This was good in parts, with some well-devised and clever clues. I particularly liked the duality (almost) of OMAHA and MIAMI, as noted already. I also enjoyed working out TEN COMMANDMENTS (my FOI) without guessing the answer first. I was defeated in the end, mainly because there were some things I just didn’t know and could not easily look up.
I have just come from another place, where I reported the positive experience of having two new things to learn while solving the day’s puzzle. This latest experience was less positive. I didn’t know: Greta pronounced in that strange way, Sahel, canter (in that sense), wind shear, summa, Umma or scagliola. I would have preferred fewer obscurities.
Lord Jim @52 …take a look at alberichcrosswords.com which gives a very detailed explanation of &lit and semi &lit clues. I think this one is similar to one of the examples.
Re. 10: You Brits have a bad habit of pronouncing the vowels preceding single consonants as if the consonants were double: e.g. yoghurt as “yoggurt”, potable as “pottable” (which should only be said of a produict that could be preserved in a jar, or else a ball in snooker).
Rompiballe @55, I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of the English language. But keep listening 🙂
It’s all been said–the GRETA homophone is just not on–I can’t imagine a dialect where it’s pronounced “greeter.” I also didn’t like the dolor/dollar homophone, as I’ve invariably heard and said the former word with the first O long (like the O in “dole”). But my dictionary says that the other pronunciation is an alternate, so it must be okay.
I knew SUMMA thanks to Aquinas, and hence assumed that UMMA was correct. It took several tries before I got an anagram at SCAGLIOLA that turned out to be a word.
Thanks Loonapick and Imogen.
I thought this was terrific…
…apart from 10a, which for me breaks the cardinal rule that when you get the solution there should be no room for doubt that it is correct. But I promised myself I wouldn’t comment again on supposed “sounds like” clues so I’ll vanish in a puff of logic.
Well, after a suspiciously easy start, with the first three across answers succumbing without fuss, and fearing there would be a religious theme to upset my atheist sensibilities, I spent the next hour getting increasingly perturbed, and finally came on here in search of enlightenment and solace: this was tough.
I can’t say I enjoyed it overall, but that may be due to my own shortcomings. I didn’t parse 7 down properly (thanks to Trovatore@1 for splitting WHITE from COATS), and it was a DNF for me as I misspelled SHEAR, darn it. I liked the mutual anagrams at 23 and 24, and BLEW IN in TABLE WINE, as well as the clue for BORIS, if not the obnoxious answer; I don’t like him, but I do like young GRETA the environmental activist, so balance was achieved. DIPLOMACY reminded me of playing the game years ago, and ending a friendship when I completely stitched up the host over some disputed territories in central Europe.
I was uncertain about STAINER, SCAGLIOLA, SAHEL, the Roman connection to NIMES (lovely place though) and UMMA; thanks to loonapick for unpicking it all.
UMMA reminded me of my favourite Pink Floyd album, Ummagumma (just the majestic live tracks, not the awful studio self-indulgence). I think I will go and de-stress now by listening to Saucerful of Secrets or Astronomy Domine from said LP, while enjoying a TABLE WINE or two.
Thanks to loonapick; and apologies for whatever it was I did to upset Imogen!
To mrpenny@57: no need to imagine – visit Doncaster! (Mine @48 refers).
I too had SUMMA – O-Level Latin and Medieval History at Uni, but not quite fair for those without such now rare advantages, as not really an English word. Whereas, rather oddly, I suspect ‘umma’ now is.
Loonapick – what is a BRB? To me that just means “be right back”.
The plethora of obscure words took away some of the fun for me as well. Sahel I knew, but none of the others you mentioned, adding SUMMA and ODI.
Greeta is definitely not an American pronunciation. It sounds more like a Star Wars character to me. I’m fairly sure Hans Solo shot someone with a similar name.
I liked the puzzle, which I thought was one of Imogen’s easier ones. WISE MEN and TEN COMMANDMENTS were good. SUMMA and SCAGLIOLA were new to me too.
I thought the DESPAIR clue should read “Have no hope…” to make the definition and the answer match. I quite liked the mutual referencing technique.
Thanks, Imogen and loonapick. Obliged to you for the full CANTERBURY TALES parse.
BlueDot 61 – apologies for the jargon – BRB stands for Big Red Book (i.e. Chambers Dictionary)
mine@62
“Having no hope” could also be a gerund, though, and I now see that 23 and 24 should be read together. In which case, a couple of ellipses wouldn’t go amiss…
I can’t be alone in thinking that the definition for 21a should be BY CHANCE
On the LUCKY/chance question, I think it’s perfectly fine: the two words overlap, even if they don’t mean the same in all cases. Similarly, even if lots of people don’t pronounce GRETA that way, some do, so again, quite acceptable in my view.
Didn’t get a thing. Unbearable. As soon as I read judge was J missing from ‘junction’ (having considered ‘unction’ as the answer) I just want Araucaria back.
There is so little joy in Guardian crosswords these days.
Well worth the combined effort of MrsW and me to complete this and then to come here for the blog and subsequent discussion. Thanks to everyone.
Thanks to both for the head scratcher and explanation. I got nothing on the across clues first time so my FOI was NOSTRIL! After that there was a gentle unfolding but it was hard going. I was another who got bypassed for a while with MIAMI but the rest wasn’t too bad. Smiled at TOPUP but was also not happy with the derivation of UNCTION, although I could see how it was constructed.
Loonapick, your explanation for INTROVERT should have the last T coming from “tons”, not tone.
I sympathise with Hilt @67, as for several hours (ok, I did other things in between) I was looking at a grid with just TOP UP written in. Other ideas gradually formed into answers that I could write in but it took a couple of glasses of wine late in the evening to get the weird pronunciations of dollar/dolour and Greta/greeter for my last ones in. Pleased to have solved it without recourse to any works of reference though, despite having never heard of SCAGLIOLA and only vaguely of UMMA. Like others, I found the equation of LUCKY with “chance” and DESPAIR with “having no hope” a little loose, but not as loose as GRETA or DOLLAR! If forced to pick one clue as a favourite, it would have to be NOSTRIL.
No time at the moment to comment in detail, but I would just like to say (in case Imogen happens to read this) that I thought this was excellent and eminently fair, and I enjoyed it very much. I think that all of the criticisms of various clues (e.g. Greta) have been answered by previous contributors; and that some contributors seem to confuse their personal preferences (e.g. re GK, obscure words, “loose” definitions, etc) with what is or is not legitimate. And to answer loonapick’s initial criticism, why is this, on a Wednesday, less acceptable than, say, Enigmatist on a Friday?
And, btw, I am probably an intermediate solver compared with many who contribute here.
Thanks, in particular, to Imogen; and to loonapick and other contributors for an entertaining read.
Chiming in late from across the pond… I felt this was a swing and a miss. LUCKY is off; GRETA is off. Other words that honestly seem to have made the final grid because the setter was painted into a corner.
glenn (@72)
I think you are wrong:
LUCKY – “lucky encounter” = [more or less] “chance encounter”.
GRETA – various contributors above have indicated that “Greeta” is the/a common/acceptable pronunciation in their part of the world. I would have thought that most Guardian solvers should be aware of other people’s ways of pronouncing words; and that they would by now have got used to the fact that purported homophones in Guardian crosswords may vary somewhat from their own pronunciation..
anotherAndrew@71
You said that “some contributors seem to confuse their personal preferences … with what is or is not legitimate.” I would just make a plea that those who have stated their personal preferences without confusing them with what is or is not legitimate (like me, for example, in my earlier comment) are also recognised.
I did in fact have just one question of legitimacy, which I didn’t raise as such, and that concerns GRETA, which is more than a ‘purported’ homophone – the clue depends on the two words sounding alike. For one section (one half?) of the population the clue doesn’t work, as the solver has to imagine a word whose sound is markedly different from the answer-word – and possibly unheard of as a woman’s name. (It probably goes without saying that I solved the clue readily enough with all the crossers because I could see – hear, even – what the setter intended.)
Thank you anyway for your contributions. I have enjoyed Imogen’s crosswords over the last couple of years, and I enjoyed this one up to a point – until the going got too heavy with words (or meanings) I didn’t know.
Alan @ 74 – in case you see this …
I certainly didn’t intend to cast any nasturtiums on those who express their likes and dislikes. And I always enjoy reading your measured contributions.
I can see how this crossword might have been unpalatable for a purist such as yourself who tries to solve a crossword without resort to aids (an approach that I admire and In principle aspire to). However, in this case, I enjoyed the variety of ways that I had to use to get to the various solutions [building the solution from the wordplay {for me the most satisfying}; guessing it from the presumed definition + crossers and/or enumeration; dredging up bits of dimly remembered GK and if necessary checking on Wikipedia/Google; and so forth.
As for GRETA, I think you have answered your own criticism – in the final sentence (in brackets) of your penultimate paragraph. As I understand it, Araucaria’s criterion was broadly that a clue was fair if it could be solved “readily enough”. [Incidentally, although I dabbled with cryptic crosswords on and off from about 1974, I didn’t start seriously trying to understand the game until shortly after Araucaria died so I’ve never properly attempted one of his puzzles – one of these days I might get round to delving into the archive!].
P.S. Incidentally, there’s a village in North Yorkshire (or possibly Co Durham) just off the A66 called Greta. I’ve no idea how to pronounce it but my first attempt would be “Greeta”.
anotherAndrew @75
Thanks. I appreciated both the tone and the content of your reply.
I always try to be positive in my occasional posts, even when I find something I disagree with.
I might have appeared to ‘answer [my] own criticism’, but not really. I still consider the homophone to have been an unsuitable device to use for this clue as it appears to assume a particular knowledge of the setter as a speaker. The amateur setter in me would not have done that!
As for being a purist – well, perhaps! What I would say is that I much prefer to solve Guardian crosswords (when I get time to do them) ‘off the page’, without using references. If I am enjoying a crossword that much and wish to get further with it I will look things up without any regrets at all. That has happened with Imogen’s crosswords before, but not with this one, which I found heavy-going.