Guardian Quiptic 1,088/Carpathian

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A carefully constructed Quiptic from Carpathian this morning, which I think will provide an entertaining challenge for newer solvers. A fine example of the art of a setter losing gracefully.

 

 

 

 

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 Separate Easter egg roughly
SEGREGATE
A straightforward anagram to please those solvers who habitually start with 1ac. (EASTER EGG)*

6 Escape without love that’s keen
AVID
AV[O]ID The O for ‘love’ is a tennis reference.

10 Reserved area idiot rejected
ALOOF
A charade of A and FOOL reversed.

11 Equipment program a traitor bugs regularly
APPARATUS
A charade of APP, A, RAT and US for the even letters (‘regularly’) of ‘bugs’.

12 Strange hymn about leaders of old men’s organisation — it sounds the same
HOMONYM
An insertion of OMO for the first letters of the sixth, seventh and eighth words of the clue in (HYMN)* The anagrind is ‘strange’. HOMONYMS are – broadly speaking – words that are either homographs (spelt identically, pronounced differently: lead is a metal/Boris is trying to lead the country) or homophones (spelt differently, sound the same: it’s going to rain/try to rein in your enthusiasm). However, at a technical level, linguists disagree about these broad definitions. For the purposes of the argument which the setter is going to get about 1dn in this puzzle, everybody in crosswordland uses ‘homophone’.

13 Old lady returning with Heather into country
AMERICA
A charade of AM for MA reversed and ERICA, which is the Latin name for the genus of ‘heather’ that you find on a moor. If you are a newer solver, this comes up often, so is worth remembering.

14 Run after distant TV director?
REMOTE CONTROL
A charade of REMOTE for ‘distant’ and CONTROL for ‘run’.

17 Facts show boxing master’s position
CIRCUMSTANCES
An insertion (‘boxing’) of M for ‘master’ and STANCE in CIRCUS.

21 In the morning, tiny bit of amanatsu zest is fantastic
AMAZING
A charade of AM, A for the first letter of ‘amanatsu’ and ZING.

22 Puffer at home gets healthier
INHALER
A charade of IN and HALER.

24 Sparkling brook Scotsman found in Bute, oddly
BRILLIANT
An insertion of RILL for ‘brook’ and IAN for the ubiquitous and archetypal ‘Scotsman’ inserted into (‘found in’) B and T for the odd letters of ‘Bute’.

25 Obstacle regarding title
BARON
A charade of BAR and ON.

26 Sent a message about pet
TAME
Hidden in senT A MEssage.

27 European, having arithmetical facility to make a list
ENUMERATE
A charade of E and NUMERATE.

 

Down

1 Audibly recognise certain beach
SEASHORE
A homophone (‘audibly’) of SEE and SURE. No-one can disagree with the first element; for the second, it depends on your accent. It definitely doesn’t work for me (I’m a Geordie, go figure); it probably does for the Queen. For me (and most solvers, I think) the clue is fine, because it leads you to the answer. Many homophones are accent-dependent, so I read homophone indicators as ‘sounds like this for at least some English speakers’, because then I can sleep at night. You may choose to think otherwise.

2 Dark brush changing hands
GLOOM
Carpathian is inviting you to replace the R in GROOM with L.

3 Doctor Bear felt intern to be a brat
ENFANT TERRIBLE
(BEAR FELT INTERN)*

4 Weak US intelligence service maintaining average returns
ANAEMIC
A reversal (‘returns’) of MEAN inserted into CIA. The insertion indicator is ‘maintaining’. MEAN is used in its mathematical sense.

5 Account for old grassland
EXPLAIN
A charade of EX and PLAIN.

7 Bitter civil riot erupting
VITRIOLIC
(CIVIL RIOT)*

8 Detectives have the ability to alarm
DISMAY
A charade of DIS (‘Detective Inspectors’) and MAY.

9 Blameless bachelor pair dancing round about
IRREPROACHABLE
An insertion of RE in (BACHELOR PAIR)* The anagram/insertion indicator is ‘dancing around’.

15 Process of setter having tea with revolting wrong man
MECHANISM
A charade of ME, CHA, SIN reversed and M.

16 Cut off from line of hills below Eastern Way
ESTRANGE
A charade of E, ST for street or ‘way’ and RANGE.  ‘Below’ works because it’s a down clue.

18 Improve on high graduate gets with drug
UPGRADE
A charade of UP, GRAD and E for the setters’ drug of choice.

19 Dog Zeus initially hides in his hut, unexpectedly
SHIH-TZU
An insertion of Z for the first letter of ‘Zeus’ in (HIS HUT)* with ‘unexpectedly’ as the anagrind.

20 Religious leader with time to talk and talk
RABBIT
A charade of RABBI and T. This one’s been round the block a bit, but someone will be seeing it for the first time today.

23 Perhaps Caterpillar tractor’s rear trapped in rock
LARVA
An insertion (‘trapped’) of R for the last letter of ‘tractor’ in LAVA.

Many thanks to Carpathian for this morning’s Quiptic.

35 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,088/Carpathian”

  2. All good fun. Does anybody not start at 1 across? I like REMOTE CONTROL. Thanks to Carpathian for a gentle start to the week and to Pierre for the helpful blog

  3. Thanks both. Re 13a – newer solvers will also find that “heather” is sometimes LING. And sometimes “ling” is a fish. Aren’t crosswords wonderful?

  4. I’m shore you’re right about 1d Pierre, and I wonder if the setter considered a homophone for 19d!
    Many thanks to Carpathian and Pierre.

  5. A bit tricky for a Quiptic. I did not parse AMERICA, CIRCUMSTANCES.

    I liked MECHANISM and the humour of REMOTE CONTROL.

    Thanks, B+S

  6. I enjoyed this – and it was very satisfying to solve some clues by recognising wordplays from previous crosswords. And of course there were, as Pierre said, some new ones for us newbies. Just one bugbear – generally Iain is spelt with two Is in Scotland so using Ian with one I to represent a Scotsman is wrong…. at least to me – and this is the second time I have seen it.

    Thanks to Carpathian and Pierre

  7. Morning Fiona Anne.  I’m afraid in crosswordland that the Scotsman is always IAN (because it’s much more helpful to setters than IAIN).  No disrespect to Scottish folk, just a convention.  And as you’ve discovered, it comes up often.

  8. Thanks Pierre – and I am enjoying learning the various wordplays and conventions – and trying to remember and recognise them in new clues. Endlessly fascinating world I have entered.

  9. Good Quiptic I thought.

    I liked REMOTE CONTROL. I’m not sure that ‘about’ is a good hidden indicator; it’s used for reversals, containments and anagrams.

    Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

  10. PS, for homophones, one has to listen to the RP of dictionaries such as Collins and Oxford (UK) and ignore all regional accents; otherwise, there would never be any consensus [but people still object].

  11. 24a was clearly “ebullient” though Carpathian had misspelt “ian”, silly fellow,  and the ll in the anagram of “bute” wasn’t obvious. Except it wasn’t.

  12. Nothing much to add – typical Carpathian, it all went down quickly and smoothly. Thanks to her and to Pierre for his usual thorough blog.

  13. A lovely Carpathian solve, which is rapidly becoming the norm.

    CIRCUMSTANCES was immaculately constructed, and – like everyone else today – REMOTE CONTROL was good for a chuckle.

  14. A very nice Quiptic.  The misleading definition in 14a REMOTE CONTROL was clever.  My only query is about 15d MECHANISM – is M really a standard abbreviation for “man”?  It doesn’t seem to be in Chambers.

    (19d reminds me:  I went to a zoo the other week – the only animal they had was a little dog – it was a Shih Tzu.)

    Many thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

  15. Thank you for this very helpful blog. I finished today’s quixotic in one go and only had trouble parsing three clues, which is a big improvement for me. I still don’t understand where the CIRCUS comes from in 17?
    Also 6d is wrong. MAY should be indicated by ‘has permission’. ‘Has the ability’ would give CAN.

  17. JS @15 – in 17a, “show” clues CIRCUS, in which M + STANCE are boxed.

    6d – May:

    Expressing ability, possibility or contingency, permission or competence, probability, concession, purpose or result, a wish, or uncertainty (used with infinitive without to)  [Chambers Dictionary (iOS) © Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd.]

  20. REMOTE CONTROL was good fun. I preferred this to today’s cryptic.

    petert@2 I habitually start with the 4 letter clues if there are any. Usually the quickest in, and provides a foothold.

  21. Arthur and petert, some less experienced solvers start by seeking out the obvious anagrams, which are generally gettable once you’ve spotted them.  As Arthur says, once you’ve got a few footholds around the puzzle, life starts to get a bit easier.

  22. It took me a long time (relative to how long these things normally take) to learn that HALER is the comparative form of HALE, which is an archaic word meaning health. Pierre – perhaps this information could be added to the post! Somewhat surprised nobody else has mentioned it—is this common knowledge?

  23. Regarding first in, I find short answers the hardest to find, because the clues are often longer than you might think could encrypt a 4-letter word. Sometimes they’re just hidden in long phrases (26a) but other times they’re just less clear about where on the surface to grasp and pull.

  24. Hi altreus, and thanks for the elucidation of HALER.  That’s exactly what the definition is: HALE is ‘healthy’, so HALER is ‘healthier’.  It’s certainly an archaic word – usually only found in the expression HALE and HEARTY.  Is it common knowledge?  Big question when it comes to crosswords, because one person’s common knowledge is the next person’s how the hell am I supposed to know that.  Anyhow, you have kindly raised and explained it, so others that were wondering will know what Carpathian was getting at.

  25. Fun and refreshing!  Though, I did groan at first on seeing ANAEMIA, having just been in a wee dust-up re ae/oe in enclop*dia (see Prize 28,237 blog).  But ae is clearly indicated here by both wordplay and crosser, so no confusion.

    [Being curious, I did seek, and sure enough found, cases (no pun) of “anoemia” online, including in apparently reputable publications/sites.  As in the 28,237 blog, one guess is that in some fonts lowercase ae/oe digraphs look similar, so may have been misread and then propagated, thus leading to oe spellings coming into (infrequently) common use.  Ah, the delightfully confounding fluidity of language!]

  27. Like pnin @11. I confidently entered EBULLIENT at 24ac. I couldn’t parse it, but it seemed like it had to be right. That held me up for a little while.

    And like Lord Jim @14, I wondered about M = MAN. I didn’t try to look it up, as I assumed that it had dictionary support somewhere, nut I do wonder under what circumstances one would find that abbreviation. M stands for at least two related words, namely “male” and “masculine”, but “man”?

  29. Sorry to post so late Pierre. Did the cryptic first. So do love your explanations. Thanks a million to you and Carpethian

  30. A belated comment to say that I really enjoyed this, and parsed it all. It took me longer than it should have done to get BARON, and I was held up at AMERICA by trying to make ‘ling’ work for ‘heather’ instead of ‘erica’. Many thanks to Carparthian and to Pierre.

  31. So I didn’t get to this one until today.  Chewier than usual for a Quiptic, but all was perfectly straightforward in the end.

    Petert @2, if you’re still listening:  I don’t start with 1-across!  (At least not in a cryptic–American-style crosswords are a different beast.)  I find that the shortest entries are my best way into the grid, usually.  So I hit up the 3- to 6-letter words first, and once I’ve got one of those, I’ll look at the words that cross it.  Failing that, multi-word phrases are often easy for me too.  So if 1-Across spans the entire length of the grid, I might not even look at it until I have a few letters in place.

    In this particular instance, my first one in was ALOOF.  Five letters, cleanly clued–a great place to start.

  32. My usual method is to start with 1a, then if I believe that I’ve solved it attempt the downers across it. (Sometimes this reveals a large gap between belief and fact!). Then continue in a similar manner through the across clues before starting on the downs. Works well with the Quick and Speedy crosswords, but sometimes on cryptics, I will attempt the crossers on any clue completed whether across or down. I tend to find that cryptic clues tend to need more than one crosser to solve, whereas, more often Quick Crossword clues can be solved with just one crosser.

  34. I may be a little late asking this question:

    I’m fairly new to cryptics & wondered for 26a, what points us to the fact that “tame” is included within “Sent a message”

    thanks,
    Clive

  35. Hi Clive.  The indicator is ‘about’.  More often this is an inclusion indicator, but here Carpathian is using it to tell you that the word is hidden in the earlier part of the clue.  It’s a bit of a round about way of doing it, I agree.

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