32 comments on “Inquisitor 1663: Equivalency by Eclogue”

1. My thanks  to Eclogue and kenmac. No complaints about this one from me. I too noticed ABYS(S) as the first of the bottomless pits, and it seemed reasonable enough they should be down answers with the bottom (rather than the final or rightmost) letter missing. But by then I could already “see” INVERSE SQUARE, though it took a while to get from there to LAW. Embarrassingly, I never parsed TRON at all, but it’s a familiar crossword answer and I felt safe in including it.

   I ended up with the same nine letters highlighted despite what I assume was intentional distraction by the next three in that vertical line, a bottomless GUL(F).

2. I disliked this puzzle for a number of reasons, but managed to complete it nonetheless.  Even after reading your solution above I don’t understand some of the answers (e.g. EN=”nut” in 29D).  Clues like 35A, 27D and 28D, which represent obscure words in terms of other obscure words, are pretty much beyond me I’m afraid.

   My solution (with comments)

    

    

3. I thought this was fine, tbh, an enjoyable solve. Bottomless pits being down answers seemed to be natural enough, and did raise a smile when I spotted what was going on. The law across the top of the grid took a little looking up, but everything else went in without too much ado.

4. Another DNF for me, I’m afraid, mainly through my complete ignorance of Shulchan Aruch, which is particularly embarrassing for me, a lawyer with a Sephardic background, one of whose ancestors was a printer in Venice!  I did deduce the John Bull message, solved the other three (vaguely) legal references and the bottomless pits going down.  In my defence, Shulchan isn’t in Chambers, ODE or the OED although there is of course (I now see) a Wikipedia entry.

   Incidentally, I don’t think the unclued entry at the NE corner is HENGE; I think it’s HANG(i), a New Zealand term for a barbecue pit.

5. The two themesters starting in the top left took a bit of searching, and I wasn’t happy with henge for pit. Thanks to bridgesong for getting hangi.

6. Yes, I had HANG[i] as well after receiving a hint.  I’m not sure whether HENG[e] can be ruled out though – cremation pits are sometimes associated with henges.

7. Oh, and by the way I had SCROBICUL[a] rather than SCROBICUL[e], not that it makes any difference to the grid (the two appear to be synonymous).

8. @GuyBarry

   A ‘nut’ is a printing measurement

9. #8: Wow, that’s obscure.  Seems as though “em” and “en” sounded so similar that some printers referred to them as “mutton” and “nut”.  Thanks.

10. What I liked most about this puzzle was the fact that the theme revealed itself not all at once but bit by bit, according to what I could think of, work out or look up.

    INVERSE SQUARE and ROZZERS came first, and when I finally worked out the complete message I saw the ‘law’ connection and also got the right idea for DEPRESSION and ABYSS. I assumed that the Down items would all be bottomless pits and the Across items laws of some sort.

    HANGI and SCROBICULE were quite hard to get, and SHULCHAN ARUCH even harder. That last one, with just the checked letters, was clearly not English and looked more Hebrew than German (or anything else), and I first thought along the lines of ‘school rule book’, or whatever that might be when translated. But I got lucky with my first search on SHULCHA, which led to the Jewish law book that has an entry in Collins but not in Chambers.  I was a tad surprised at the choice of this example of a law.

    I was pleased to find the nine letters in the grid without much grid-gazing – I guessed they would be in one of the columns. CRATER was in plain sight, although it contributed just CRATE to the two words I was looking for – a neat touch. And RULE, while not cryptic, is a valid example of and answer to ‘law’.

    An impressive design and gridfill, and a good set of clues. Thanks to both Eclogue and kenmac.

11. Great blog, kenmac almost like an OBO

12. DNF for me. I couldn’t work out what the top one might be – I suppose my goggling technique needs working on – so I couldn’t get the hang of the other one hanging off the end of it. No highlighting either.

13. I finished this, but was distinctly underwhelmed by it, as, I think, were you Kenmac. I had rozzers, riot act and inverse squarequite quickly. However, even after solving Shulchan Aruch by using a search engine, I felt that this was a definite foul! If bridgesong #4 couldn’t do it with his background, then what chance did mere gentiles have? It is quite rare for me to feel aggrieved by an Inquisitor that I could solve, but this one definitely had that effect! Thanks for the blog Ken. My solving experience was different to yours; I got the laws first and only after getting the quote, did I spot the bottomless pits.

    If you must be very obscure, Eclogue, please ensure that the answer is flagged in the rubric as NOT being available in the normal reference tomes!

14. I am in the camp which quite enjoyed this one. As Alan B @10 observed, plenty of PDMs. Hi @13, one of my most-thumbed tomes is Anne Bradford’s CSD, without which I would not have got the top row.

15. I enjoyed this and thought the bottomless pit idea was clever. I can’t remember how I dredged up SHULCHAN ARUCH, though I think I realised it looked like Hebrew and found it after a search for Jewish law. Pleased that the highlighting was unambiguous too. Thanks to Eclogue.

     

     

16. I did just over half of this crossword, then after several days of trying again with fresh eyes I gave up. I have to say I agree with nearly all Guy Barry’s quibbles, after following his link (thank you for that). I particularly agree that it’s unfair to clue an obscure answer with another obscure word – but then others don’t seem to have a problem with this, so maybe it’s horses for courses. I also found “c” for “canine” unfathomable (an abbreviation used by dentists maybe?) Seeing here the theme explained I must say I would never have got it. The recent Wind in the Willows puzzle was so much more fun! This was a lot more challenging, but obviously pleased some. Thank you as always for the informative blog and comments.

17. DaveW @14
    My copy of Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary is also well-thumbed, and I would describe that work as practically indispensable for crosswords like these.  I never thought to find Shulchan Aruch in that book, but there it is under ‘Law’, as I have just seen for myself.  I went along the same route as cruciverbophile’s (‘it looked like Hebrew’) having earlier thought that the range of laws was already wide (Rozzers, Riot Act and Inverse Square), and I wondered if religious law would feature.

18. Thanks to Amateur for his/her comments. I had some sort of quibble on most of the clues, which may be because I’m not sufficiently used to this type of puzzle, but it seemed a lot harder than any of the others I’ve attempted recently (#1661, #1662 and #1664).  Some of the indications in the clues made no sense at all to me – who is “aged Jonathan” in 9A, for instance?  And one or two of them seemed plain wrong – in 22D, why is VUM clued as “to swear in Kansas”?  Some of the references I can find online suggest that the word may have once been used in New England, but I can find no connection with the Midwest at all.

    If the possession of specific reference books is a prerequisite for solving these puzzles then I’ve got no chance.  If I can’t find the answer on the internet, then it doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned!

19. Guy Barry @18: Chambers is the key reference book for this and other ‘advanced cryptics’, such as the Listener. That’ll cover almost all of the answers that aren’t proper nouns, and some that are. For example, the entry for VUM “(US dialect) vt and vi a corruption of vow, in the phrase I vum”, and for JONATHAN “n the people of the United States, collectively, or a typical specimen (often Brother Jonathan) (archaic)”.

20. #19: So what’s the connection of VUM with Kansas, then?  “US dialect” could refer to any part of the US. The Free Dictionary specifies New England, as do some other online sources.  I can’t find a single reference linking it with Kansas or the Midwest.

     

     

     

21. Hi Guy,

    It’s just something that setters do. They see “American” in the dictionary and just name an American place in the clue.

    For example, I’ve seen “we in Glasgow” used to define “oo” but I’d bet that no-one in Glasgow ever said that, it’s more of a Borders thing.

22. ‘It’s just something that setters do. They see “American” in the dictionary and just name an American place in the clue.’

    Well I’m not impressed.  If they’re going to put obscure references in the clues they should at least get them right!

23. Checking in the OED Online, I see that the most recent citation for “vum” (verb) is from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in 1858:

    “But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, With an ‘I dew vum’, or an ‘I tell yeou’)”.

    He was based in Boston, Massachusetts.  Kansas didn’t even join the USA until three years later!

    I call foul.  Sorry.

24. I think it would be very restrictive if setters were not allowed to use the name of a place in a country to indicate a usage indicated by a dictionary as relating to that country.

    Chambers is generally the main source for these types of puzzles and it gives it.

25. Hey Raich,

    Maybe you should have a word with the extremely benevolent editor. I’m sure he’d finance a fact-finding trip to anywhere in the world in order to check local usage.

    😉

26. In principle I am with Raich on this. Any indication that lets the solver know that it will be noted as (US) in Chambers will suffice. It could be a state or any major town. Similarly, it could be ‘according to Trump’ or any other well-known American, without knowing whether they have ever used the word. However, in this case Chambers has ‘(US dialect)’ so I think there is a case to say that perhaps the setter should have checked where it is/was used when using a state as the indicator.

27. #26: “Any indication that lets the solver know that it will be noted as (US) in Chambers will suffice.”

    I see.  So “to swear in Kansas” doesn’t actually refer to a verb used in Kansas meaning “to swear”, it’s just a device to indicate how the entry is labelled in Chambers.  Of which I don’t have a copy.

    Is it any wonder that some people regard these “barred” crosswords as an exclusive club to which outsiders aren’t allowed?  I’ve been doing cryptics for forty years and I’ve never been told that I have to have a copy of a particular dictionary to solve a crossword, nor that I have to understand a particular code that refers to entries in that dictionary in a particular way (even though it’s completely inaccurate on this occasion).

    I spent some time looking up “vum” and discovered from multiple sources that it was a New England word.  I really do not know how I am supposed to guess that “Kansas” is code for “anywhere in the USA, can’t be bothered to do the research myself”.

     

     

28. There is no exclusive club, on the contrary, I was amazed when I first started solving these puzzles by how helpful people were. There are things to learn though and guidelines to follow. One, which has already been mentioned, is that Chambers is the bible, and you really need a copy if you are to take solving them seriously.

29. Guy Barry passim: The Listener Crossword helpfully states “The Chambers Dictionary (2016) is the primary reference; the asterisked clue’s answer is in the Oxford Dictionary of English.” John (IQ ed) is not quite so prescriptive, but not a million miles away.

    £4.99 for the Chambers app is a bargain. But then you might ask why should anyone have to have a smart-phone and pay anything in order to tackle one of these crosswords …

30. #28: Well I don’t have a copy of Chambers, and anyway Chambers doesn’t say that “vum” comes from Kansas.  It just says “US dialect”.  “US dialect” does not mean “used all over the US”.  It means “used in a particular region of the US”.  This is a 19th-century word from New England.  The indication in the clue is factually incorrect.

    #29: This isn’t the [i]Listener[/i] Crossword.  It’s the [i]Inquisitor[/i] in the [i]i[/i] newspaper, which I buy for £1.20 on a Saturday.  There is no indication that particular reference books have to be used or that particular apps have to be used.

    As I said, an exclusive club.  My information is actually [b]more[/b] accurate that the information used by the puzzle setter, but hey, who cares?

     

31. ‘I’ve been doing cryptics for forty years…’

     

    I was in a similar position when I started solving thematic puzzles. That was over ten years ago, and was the start of a whole new learning process. It will be really enjoyable if you embrace learning, but painful if you expect that what you already know should suffice.

32. Late to this party, which seems to have become lively.

    I went very off-piste, mistaking the final ‘o’ of San Bernadino for a ‘d’, and so finding ‘depressed’ on the right matched by ‘a bas’ on the left, thinking we were in for an Anglo-French dust-up but quite lost with the top two. And, given the era, I thought bottomless pit would be a reference to William Pitt, and law the Scot John Law who helped the French monarchy finance their wars. Fortunately I didn’t waste too much time in the rabbit hole.

    Still, I enjoyed the solve – while agreeing with Guy Barry’s point about clueing obscure words with other obscure words (although if he really wants these puzzles to follow his spec, his best bet is to set, and solve, them himself).

    Thanks to Eclogue and kenmac for the entertaining blog.

     

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