Another entertaining and engaging puzzle from Tees to start the Indy week. You always learn stuff from him. The setter has been rummaging in his ‘unusual words’ drawer, and there were four new ones for me today; but they were all clued clearly, so I put them in the ‘that’s an interesting word’ rather than the ‘how the chuff am I supposed to know that’ category. He has also given me the chance to witter on a bit about Germanic consonant shifts, which doesn’t happen every blogging day.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Southern family visiting Welsh town miser
SKINFLINT
A fairly gentle charade to kick us off: of S, KIN and FLINT.
9 Georgia doctor needs advanced instrument
GAMBA
Another charade: of GA, MB and A. Short for Viola da Gamba, roughly equivalent to the modern cello.
10 Celebrity right to enter pastures new
SUPERSTAR
An insertion (‘to enter’) of R in (PASTURES)*
11 Revolutionary opera hero provides diversion
RED HERRING
A charade of RED and HERRING. The latter is referencing the Benjamin Britten opera Albert Herring.
12 Crossword hard one Eliot admits
THIS
An insertion of H and I in TS for Mr Eliot’s initials. He of Journey of the Magi and The Waste Land fame. Oh, and so as not to marginalise my fellow Indy blogger Kitty, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
14 Rugged Derek called back
GNARLED
A reversal (‘back’) of DEL RANG, with DEL being the shortened nickname of blokes called Derek.
15 Revolutionary greeting in foreign language
MARATHI
A charade of MARAT and HI. The ‘revolutionary’ is Jean-Paul Marat, of whom I knew (via crosswords); the language was new to me. It’s one of 22 official languages in India but is still spoken by more people than live in the entire UK.
17 Leaderless Corbynites in the fold
OMENTUM
[M]OMENTUM. I didn’t know this either, but Collins has:
omentum n anatomy a double fold of peritoneum connecting the stomach with other abdominal organs
19 Left in wild seeking rescue
SALVAGE
An insertion of L in SAVAGE.
20 Wrong in turn to claim black writers
NIBS
An insertion of B in SIN reversed.
22 Rebellious press worker dismissed as excessive
INORDINATE
IN[SUB]ORDINATE
25/6 One down in burrow?
NOT A HAPPY BUNNY
Nothing to do with the clue: it’s a cd.
26 Gets close attention in new society
NEARS
An insertion of EAR for ‘attention’ in N and S.
27 Several men following settled course
TENOR
A charade of TEN for ‘several’ (well, it’s more than one, and less than ‘lots’) and OR for Ordinary Ranks or ‘men’. ‘The tenor of his argument …’
28 Boy in goal — not up front all the time
ENDLESSLY
An insertion of LES for ‘boy’ in END and SLY.
Down
1 Tease Yankee over sweetheart
SUGAR
A reversal of RAG US.
2 Present time bad to shackle news providers
IMMEDIATE
An insertion of MEDIA in (TIME)* with ‘bad’ as the anagrind.
3 Whip and others allowed fine returns
FLAGELLATE
A reversal of ET AL, LEGAL and F.
4 Covered small hardened cases
INSURED
An insertion of S in INURED.
5 Uncle in Stowe keeps little horse: Shetland say
TOPONYM
The ‘uncle’ is TOM, the character from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Insert PONY in that and you’ve got a word meaning the name of a place. ‘Shetland’ is certainly an example of that, and of course it also has ponies to add to the misdirection.
6 Shakespeare serious about Romeo
BARD
An insertion of R for the phonetic alphabet ‘Romeo’ in BAD.
7 Nick evidently secular?
NOTCH
If you were secular you’d be NOT CH[URCH], innit?
8 Hosiery designed to clothe kings in old county
YORKSHIRE
Another insertion: of two kings (R and K) in (HOSIERY)* I fancy Tees has put ‘old’ because Yorkshire is a historical county; its administrative functions are now undertaken by subdivisions because it’s so bloody enormous.
13 Sparkle of stream — can I be moved across it?
BRILLIANCE
And another insertion: of RILL for ‘stream’ in (CAN I BE)* The anagrind is ‘moved’.
14 Reason madman becomes oil producer
GROUNDNUT
A charade of GROUND and NUT.
16 Louts on holiday sobbing?
TEARAWAYS
Another insertion: of AWAY in TEARS. The clue works (and is clever) because AWAY, the synonym for ‘on holiday’ is IN TEARS, or ‘sobbing’. He’s quite good, this Tees youth, you know.
18 Maybe laddish guards shot some soldiers once
MANIPLE
He’s a bit insertion happy this morning though: this is another one, of NIP for ‘shot’ in its drinks sense in MALE. Another new word for me. Again, from Collins:
maniple n in Ancient Rome, a unit of 120 to 200 foot soldiers
19 Fell from grace: lacked herd mentality?
STRAYED
A cd cum dd.
21 Don’t declare weapon
BATON
If a cricketing side doesn’t declare their innings closed, they BAT ON.
23 Tract from English Society for example
ESSAY
A charade of E, S and SAY.
24 God renders Hamlet powerless
THOR
This last clue took me the longest time to see. The misdirection is in ‘Hamlet’: it’s naff all to do with the play, but everything to do with its use (uncapitalised) as a noun meaning a small settlement. It’s THOR[P]. THORP (alternative spelling THORPE) is defined in my Collins as ‘small village’ but it marks it as ‘obsolete except in place names’. Many of which are in 8dn: GRIMETHORPE, FOGGATHORPE, MIDDLETHORPE and a squillion others. Why? Because of the Old Norse/Viking influence in that county: it comes from the Old Norse thorpe, meaning ‘village’. Thorp is cognate with modern German Dorf (whence Düsseldorf, for example) and modern Dutch dorp (whence Hoofddorp). This d to th shift is very common: brother/Bruder, leather/Leder, earth/Erde, bath/Bad. That’s enough consonant shifts for one morning.
Many thanks to Tees for today’s puzzle.
Thanks for the blog, Pierre – especially for the parsing of 22 and 28ac and for the linguistics lesson.
And thanks to Tees for a very interesting puzzle. I knew OMENTUM [from crosswords] and MANIPLE but the language was new. Lots of clever clues: my favourites were OMENTUM, TOPONYM, YORKSHIRE, TEARAWAYS and THOR.
This did nothing for me- not a single laugh. Revolutionary greeting? Already had HI at the end so who is the revolutionary?
-RED? CHE? go through lists getting bored until you find o e that connects to HI to ma,e an obscure language.
Thanks to Pierre for blog and THOR-had to be that but too complex for me.
Viola da gamba maybe -really this was a very annoying puzzle
As I’ve said before you are much too nice, Eileen
copmus @2 – [has someone stolen your identity? – it doesn’t sound like you].
I don’t reckon to say things I don’t mean. Like Pierre, I found this puzzle entertaining and engaging. I don’t understand your comment on 15ac. I didn’t know the language but found Pierre’s observation on it interesting. I did know MARAT the revolutionary – he was murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday.
I reckon it’s an old girlfriend.
Eilen @2 “tired and emotional” could explain it. But I coulda been hacked by a Grauniadista?
And the keyblard has been drinking,
But (real copmus speaking) not Tees’ finest hour in my humble view.
We’re with Pierre and Eileen on this. Mind you, we had to do a bit of head-scratching and digging up words (such as MARATHI) from the recesses of memory, and confirm OMENTUM in Chambers. But we saw the capital H for ‘Hamlet’ as a 11ac and got THOR straightaway – btw there’s a Thorp without a final E in 8dn, Thorp Arch. We couldn’t see the parsing of INORDINATE, though.
Thanks, Tees, for the mental workout, and Pierre for the entertaining blog.
I’m with Eileen and Pierre (and Tees) on this one. Helped I suppose that I knew the unknowns but the wordplay was very helpful even if I hadn’t
Thanks to Tees and Pierre
We’ll put it down to wrong side of the bed, copmus. There’s always next week.
Well I couldn’t see anything wrong with it in the end, but struggled to finish and needed a word search for a couple. I couldn’t parse 7D even though I got the correct answer – silly really! Thanks Tees and Pierre.
Well, I also enjoyed it. Copmus is obviously NOT A HAPPY BUNNY – I liked the misdirection in that one.
Yes, I didn’t know some of the words but got there in the end.
I also liked TEARAWAYS and IMMEDIATE.
Thanks Tees and Pierre – as there were no birds for Pierre, I looked up flagellated bird parasites – yuk!
That’s thoughtful of you, Robi, but I think I can wait for the next real bird to make an appearance …
I nearly reached for some wordsearching help, but put the puzzle aside and came back to it a few times. Managed to untangle everything in the end, although did check my guesses along the way. Weirdly, I saw THOR instantly – no idea how that happened!
Bit late in the day to remember favourites, but there definitely were some highlights.
Thanks to Tees for the enjoyable challenge, and to Pierre for the blog – and for taking care not to marginalise me! I do like the Indy family. 🙂
Thanks to Pierre and Tees
I didn’t have a problem with Marathi – Marat isn’t far from the top of the list of Crosswordland’s revolutionaries – or indeed any of the rest of this puzzle.
But, and this is by no means exclusive to Tees, I am increasingly put off by usages such as “visiting” in 1a, “needs” in 9a, and “seeking”, in 19a. I could go on but I know I’m fighting a losing battle.