Financial Times 16,414 by ZAMORCA

11 comments on “Financial Times 16,414 by ZAMORCA”

1. 

   Hovis

   #1 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 09:54

   
   

   A nice, simple start to the week. Didn’t check the pangram but noticed the possibility.

   I did wonder why he/she chose to clue the final R in 14d that way when “restricted initially” would work.

   Thanks to Zamorca and Teacow.

2. 

   Ilan Caron

   #2 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 10:09

   
   

   thanks Z and T! I agree with your parsing of both 27a and 14d.  I guess there are still R-rated films in the US.  Thanks for decomposing 18d for me — I didn’t see N=bearing.  I had SCRAP for 21a at first (almost works!) until EXHIBITOR showed me the error of my ways.

3. 

   ACD

   #3 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 13:20

   
   

   Thanks to Zamorca and Teacow. Just right for a Monday. I’m another who started with SCRAP and also was late spotting “contamination” for Cause-SAUCE.

4. 

   Angstony

   #4 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 16:18

   
   

   I had no problem parsing 14d and I could just about make sense of 27a by ignoring the bad grammar and inferring ‘is’ after ‘without’, but for the life in me I couldn’t make 16d work and I’m surprised it hasn’t been questioned here already. I mean, how does EIGHT bringing in (R + ER) result in R+EIGHT+ER? Unless ‘bringing in’ can somehow mean the opposite of what it normally does, this construction makes no sense to me. Or am I missing something here?

   Thanks to all.

5. 

   Sally

   #5 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 16:31

   
   

   Angstony @4: It’s all about how you read it. In this case this works as:

   1. Fine crew bringing in King (F; EIGHT bringing in R)

   2. and Queen’s (+ ER)

   Hope that helps!

6. 

   Angstony

   #6 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 16:46

   
   

   Sally @5: It does, thank you! I’d somehow forgotten the preceding F and tried to parse the remainder of the clue separately. It’s also rather embarrassing that if I’d looked properly at Teacow’s  parsing I would have seen the bracketing that explains it.

   I also forgot to say in my previous comment that apart from that misunderstanding I did enjoy the crossword.  Favourites were MISSION and MAKE HASTE.

7. 

   Tony Santucci

   #7 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 17:08

   
   

   Enjoyable start to the week. Missed BROACHING not knowing that roach is a fish. Favorites included EJECT and ANDANTE. Thanks Zamorca and Teacow.

8. 

   brucew@aus

   #8 - Mon 2nd Mar 20, 21:35

   
   

   Thanks Zamorca and Teacow
   Not too many problems with this one, although I didn’t fully parse EXHIBITOR.
   Noted that a pangram was likely after getting a Q,J and Z early on.
   Finished in the SW corner with SCRUB and MISSION.

9. 

   Grumpy

   #9 - Tue 3rd Mar 20, 14:25

   
   

   Thanks to Teacow & Zamorca. This was most enjoyable.
   I particularly liked the smooth surface of 18dn.

10. 

    Lucio

    #10 - Sat 7th Mar 20, 12:04

    
    

    I also liked this puzzle, especially since I was able to complete it (which is not always the case)!

    However, I have two issues.

    On 15ac, in my view ME cannot become I. The two words may be regarded as interchangeable in a phrase such as “it’s me”, that may become “it’s I”. I may be influenced by having to do latin for 7 years in secondary school, but with respect to personal pronouns the declination of cases is retained in English too. In “swamps me” ME is clearly the accusative case, whereas I is the nominative case: one cannot replace the other, any more that HIM could not be replaced by HE.

    As for 8d, when I read “important bit of DNA” as a geneticist I immediately thought it must be GENE. But I don’t see how the phrase ‘picked up’ would allow for high to become HY, and even less for GENE to become GIENE.

    On the other hand, I specially liked 1ac and 20d.

    Thanks to Zamorca and to Teacow for a perfect blog

11. 

    Logoch

    #11 - Tue 17th Mar 20, 10:05

    
    

    Lucio@10. Maybe too late with this, but “picked up” means sounds like. So “high gene” sounds like “hygiene”

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