Guardian 28,252 Philistine

by

A very nice puzzle from Philistine: quite tricky in parts, but in a chewy kind of way that yielded to patient thought. A couple of references to fictional characters may have puzzled some. Thanks to Philistine.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. ARCHAISM Relic I discovered in a rooftop crater (8)
I in A + R[oof] + CHASM
5. STALAG Camp site oddly in the style of golf (6)
Odd letters of SiTe + A LA G
9. TREBUCHET Weapon caused the sad end of Robert the Bruce (9)
Anagram of [Rober]T THE BRUCE
11. ANGST Little time lost amongst all that apprehension (5)
AMONGST less MO (moment)
12. KINDERGARTEN Green art evolved first sort of nursery (12)
KIND (sort) + (GREEN ART)*
15. OVER Solo flight from German city is completed (4)
HANOVER (German City) less HAN (Han Solo, character in the Star Wars films)
16. INTEGUMENT ’e by gum, camping? Having covered skin (10)
E by (beside) GUM in (covered by) IN TENT (camping)
18. SAUERKRAUT A ruse deployed by Ottoman retreat round a pickle (10)
(A RUSE)* + A in reverse of TURK (Ottoman)
19,22. FREE TIME Break item? (4,4)
A “reverse anagram”: TIME “freed” gives you ITEM
21. CROSSCURRENT Angry with contemporary conflicting tendency (12)
CROSS (angry) + CURRENT (contemporary) – Chambers only gives this as hyphenated cross-current, but other online sources have it as a single word
24. AGAPE Appearing shocked by deficit in part of hospital (5)
GAP (deficit) in A[ccident and] E[mergency]
25. EDELWEISS Wild flower from the Guardian is spotted in Leeds, perhaps (9)
WE (The Guardian) IS in LEEDS*
26. ERSATZ Substitute for ‘taser’ may be ‘tazer’, essentially (6)
TASER* + [ta]Z[er]. “Taser” is actually an acronym: from “Thomas A. Swift Electronic Rifle”
27. ESURIENT Greedily eating suet pudding? Nothing French in that! (8)
RIEN (French “nothing”) in SUET*
Down
1,2. ALTO CLEF Fat cello playing? This is for viola! (4,4)
(FAT CELLO)* – music for viola normally uses the alto clef
3. ANUBIS Mummy’s God transformed Nubia’s black dog (6)
NUBIAS* – Anubis is an ancient Egyptian god (hence “Mummy’s”), depicted as a man with with a black canine head
4. SCHADENFREUDE Perverse pleasure in South African country having a dodgy referendum after scrapping borders (13)
S + CHAD (African country) + anagram of [r]EFERENDU[m]
6. THALAMUS The Alamo, USA, most of all a vital relay station (8)
TH[e] ALAM[o] US[a} – the Thalamus is an area in the brain “allowing hub-like exchanges of information.”
7. LIGHT YEARS Girl has yet to travel a very long way (5,5)
(GIRL HAS YET)* – I would hyphenate this: Chambers and other sources agree with me
8. GET KNOTTED Ravel, go away (3,7)
Double definition
10. THREE QUARTERS Next clue needs this for a diarist’s age (5,8)
A reference to Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, the next clue being 13
13. CONSECRATE Devote one’s car etc for recycling (10)
(ONE’S CAR ETC)*
14. BEAUJOLAIS Bordeaux’s appealing twice about a sweet top wine (10)
A in BEAU JOLI (two French words describing attractiveness) + S[weet]
17. PROSPECT Future is mine (8)
Double definition – a noun and a verb
20. GNAWER We rang about a rodent (6)
(WE RANG)*
23. PSST Look here‘s ship entering port empty (4)
SS (Steam Ship) in P[or]T

82 comments on “Guardian 28,252 Philistine”

  2. Terrific Philistine today and another good learning experience with three new and unfamiliar words: the two medical terms for some body parts that have started to become part of Philistine’s crossword signature – 16a INTEGUMENT and 6d THALAMUS – as well as the lovely sounding but not very pretty image in the word at 27a ESURIENT. I loved the longer German solutiions: 12a KINDERGARTEN, 18a SAUERKRAUT, 25a EDELWEISS (my “Sound of Music” earworm for the day) and SCHADENFREUDE (another lovely sound!) as well as the shorter German words at 5a STALAG, 11a ANGST and 26a ERSATZ, plus the clever use of Hanover for the fodder for 15a OVER. Further ticks for 19a22d FREE TIME and 3d ANUBIS.

    Thanks to Philistine for the enjoyment and to Andrew for the blog.

  3. We crossed, Mark. Sorry if you were trying to be cagy about the theme and I have blown your cover.

    [And a personal thanks now to you and muffin for the tip about the Peter May trilogy some time back, as well as to Fiona Anne for further recommendations of titles on yesterday’s Pasquale blog.]

  4. [Lovely little medical play on words when you mentioned “patient thought” in your preamble, Andrew.]

  5. Thanks Philistine and Andrew. Very enjoyable puzzle. THREE QUARTERS certainly had me beaten on the parsing.

    Just an ‘X’ away from a pangram. Was that deliberate?

     

  7. [Mark @1: we are at risk of confusing the community here with two of us commenting under the same name.  I thought you had – graciously – consented to post as Mark2.  I think I’m right in saying this is your second post – unless, of course, you were commenting a few years ago and then dropped out of sight for a while before returning.  In which case, I should, of course change.  The brevity of your comment probably tipped off some that it was a different Mark from usual.

    Though, JinA @3, you didn’t twig.  As I said, I’m glad you liked the Peter May and Fiona Anne was right to commend the Enzo series.  I’ve read a couple of more recent standalone stories that left me disappointed which is a shame.]

  8. I agree with other comments so far that this was an excellent puzzle from Philistine, though I needed help with a couple of the parsings. So many thanks to Philistine for the challenge and Andrew for the excellent blog.

    With regards to 3 down, Anubis was the Egyptian god of the dead and mummification (amongst other things) and so “Mummy’s God” referred to him specifically. I guess the clue came in three parts, with two definitions (“Mummy’s God” and “black dog”) separated by the anagram (“transformed Nubia’s) in the middle. As Andrew says, Anubis’ head is canine, but it’s more commonly thought to be that of an African golden wolf (at least, according to Wikipedia), although that is still a member of the dog family.

  9. A strange experience today, over and above the appearance of my doppelganger.  Undoubtedly some clever clueing and I think I’ve spotted the theme but I had a few niggles along the way and didn’t derive the pleasure I normally get from Philistine.  Or that Andrew and other posters thus far have signalled.  I suspect better minds than mine might analyse what’s wrong with ANGST but the wordplay doesn’t seem right; I always thought mining came after PROSPECTing so don’t see them as synonyms; I thought SAUERKRAUT was a ferment rather than a pickle though maybe they’re the same thing; I’m not totally comfortable with ARCHAISM for relic though maybe at a stretch.  And not Philistine’s fault at all but isn’t GNAWER an ugly word?

    Criticisms aside, there were certainly ticks: THALAMUS is a very clever construction, as is INTEGUMENT. Both DNK’s but so well clued, I was confident in entering them.  OVER did raise a smile; ESURIENT has a nice surface; like JinA, I enjoyed ANUBIS with its neat use of Nubia; a lovely spotting of the two French appeals in BEAUJOLAIS.  I loved GET KNOTTED: what a delightful use of Ravel.  You hear of unravelling but never its opposite.

    PSST is also a German word – of a sort.  I believe it’s the equivalent of Sh as in quiet.  And the second time it’s cropped up in the bottom right of a puzzle in the last week or so.

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew for the blog.

  10. Thanks Philistine, Andrew
    Heavy reliance on anagrams used to be much more common in Philistine puzzles. The prize the other day had 12, and this had 13. Add to that two other clues in which all the solution letters are in the clue and that’s less than 50% of clues in which you have to know what words mean. It gets a bit dull, I find, and I hope it’s a blip rather than a trend.

  11. We found this quite difficult today, with several new words – ERSATZ and ESURIENT to name a couple.

    Favourites were ANGST and ARCHAISM.

    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  12. Nice and quick this morning but a good work-out.   Like others, a few DNKs – INTEGUMENT and ESURIENT.  And I’m with Mark @9 – let’s start a campaign to use the word RAVEL more!

    Thank you to Philistine for the puzzle, Andrew for the blog!

  13. Julie in Australia @3 Hope you enjoy the books.

    That took a while and a little use of the crossword dictionaries although they weren’t as helpful as they were yesterday. Some of the answers just came to me (e.g. EDELWEISS KINDERGARTEN SCHADENFREUDE) and then I had to work out how to parse them. Some others I stared at for ages then suddenly worked out the answer and couldn’t believe it had taken me so long as they were lovely clues (e.g. THALAMUS, LIGHT YEARS, ANGST). Got THREE QUARTERS and BEAUJOLAIS from the crosses and could not work them out. So thanks to Andrew and to Philistine for some really lovely clues.

     

  14. One minor query: in the parsing for 26 across, I could see that it was TASER* + [ta]Z[er] (as Andrews says), but I was puzzled by the apparent lack of an anagram indicator (or was “Substitute” serving as both the definition and the anagrind?).

  17. That was lovely and I worked through it steadily, with some help from google and one across but only one put-in-a-letter-and-check. I parsed all but two: thank you to Andrew for explaining the ‘à la G’ bit of STALAG (d’uh) and also OVER which had me completely stumped. (I spell the city HANNOVER which did not help.) And very many thanks to Philistine for a very satisfying solve.

  18. I think our boys read Adrian Mole but it’s too long ago, no way was that parse going to surface. Yes, nice smooth morning exercise from the Philistine (who most assuredly isn’t one). Noted the Teutonics but didn’t take much notice. Must buy some sauerkraut though.. I actually like it and pickled things are good for you, so the healthies say. (Is it really true that they give cricketers pickle juice…wonder what Beefy would say). Interesting to see thalamus; a few brain regions have made it to public view over recent years…eg hippocampus and amygdala. Ravel in 8d brought back a short movie in which Bolero plays while the credits roll, and roll, and roll until the audience realises they’ve seen the names before and everyone starts to laugh. All good fun, thanks both.

  19. Thanks Andrew , I’ll forgive Philistine for Thalamus clue, it is a good clue now I see the last letter is dropped from the 3 words. I dislike the style after English was used twice in a puzzle once to give E and then to give ENG in another clue.   But most of for drop the ending is perfectly fair.

    I would never have thought of Adrian Mole , quite a funny one!

    And I got Hanover / Over but never thought of Han Solo maybe because I thought his name was Hans :O)

    I’ve still got my blinkers on, thanks for explaining 8d – I could not get away from Ravel’s bolero even after I got the answer.

     

    Thanks to Andrew and Philistine for a real tester.

     

  20. [The Real Mark@7 I agree with this: I’ve read a couple of more recent standalone stories that left me disappointed which is a shame. The standalone novels I picked up first were less strong and I wondered why some friends had recommended Peter May – that is until I read the Lewis trilogy.]

  24. What a delight!

    I have twelve entirely justified ticks, for various reasons, which is definitely too many to list and I’m sure they’ve all already been covered above.

    I must just pick out two: – GET KNOTTED, which made me laugh. I certainly know ‘ravel’ as a word: when I learned to knit, aged four, my wool was forever getting ravelled.

    The other is 10dn THREE QUARTERS, with its memories of our local hero, the lovely Sue Townsend, and of listening on the radio over breakfast while camping in the Loire Valley with two teenage sons to episodes of the book when it first came out.

    Many thanks to Philistine for a perfect start to the day and to Andrew for another super blog.

  25. I thought this was great.  I know it’s a cliche but I had too many favourites to list them all.  I’ll settle with applauding my first one in 8d “Ravel, go away” and 20d “We rang about a rodent”, both lovely surfaces.  And I managed to twig the German theme early enough for it to help with a few.

    Many thanks Philistine and Andrew.

  27. 20d GNAWER  I didn’t notice this as an anagram; I read it as RANG backwards (about) around WE, though the about would be double duty. The anagram is neater, though.

     

    Thanks Andrew and Philistine

  28. [Roughtrade @21 Sallying forth through Victoria station yesterday, I noticed that the International Cheese perveyor near platforms 17-19 has gone the way of the Dodo.

    Thank you for breaking my train of thought – I knew I’d heard it somewhere but couldn’t quite get there.]

  29. [Sorry Mark@23. I just saw footage of the crazy Trump-Biden debate and it was so very disturbing and dreadful. Unfortunate that Biden was drawn into name-calling by the POTUS’ provocation. Sorry that you even had that thought association due to my clumsy attempt to distinguish you from the other Mark.]

    {Loved your Sue Townsend memory, Eileen@24.

    Was “train of thought” deliberate, MaidenBartok? It made me smile too.]

  32. Lovely puzzle. All been said already. So many thanks to Philistine and Andrew for helping with the parsing of 15A OVER. I got Hanover but not the Solo connection. Having grown up in Hildesheim, just down the road from Hanover, I do like a bit of German, so the theme was perfect for me. Just wanted to add that I did this online today for the very first time and am amazed by how much more quickly I finished. I didn’t touch the reveal but just couldn’t resist that pesky check button, and I also made use of the anagram helper. So a much easier solve for me. Think I’ll be returning to the pen and paper tomorrow. I do like to keep dipping back in through the day.

  33. Phew! Great puzzle, but tough. Lots to savour, including ANGST, ERSATZ, BEAUJOLAIS and SCHADENFREUDE. Many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  34. Maybe there are three Marks (for Muster Quark?)

    This was very much up my Straße, in fact it helped to knit up the ravell’d sleeve of care. 🙂

    I zigged when I should have zagged at 3a and ended up with ASUBIN – so I learnt something new, thanks Andrew for the explanatory link, and vielen Dank Philistine.

  36. Absolutely loved this with too many ticks to enumerate but must give a tip of the hat to BEAUJOLAIS.  How cute to spot beau and joli in one  word.

    Grantinfreo @18:  Do try and recall the name of that film.  Saw it myself about a century ago and would like to find it again.

  40. A super puzzle as many others have said. The German entries were all familiar, the only unfamiliar answer being ANUBIS. I liked GET KNOTTED most of all among other excellent clues. Like Roughtrade @21, I think my first hearing of ESURIENT was in Monty Python’s cheese shop!
    I failed to parse OVER, forgetting the single N in the anglicised spelling of the city.
    Many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  42. A bit of a bumpy ride today, particularly as I impetuously wrote in SADOMASOCHISM for 4d with only the initial S to guide me before I had worked out the complex cluing properly, and with KINDERGARTEN then snugly in place. Thought this a splendid challenge, though, as others did.

  43. I was looking for the X to complete the pangram and so 6d and 11a eluded me. Otherwise, a good workout. Funny how you can dredge up half-remembered words, such as esurient, trebuchet and integument, from the little-used corners of your brain, even though I’d never have been able to say what they meant. Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  46. Thanks, Andrew.

    The near-pangram might well be accidental, but these do seem to crop up fairly often. I sometimes wonder whether setters, spotting they’ve used, say, J, Q and Z, enjoy the thought that at least some setters will spend time looking for an X that isn’t there. If Philistine had wanted to make a pangram, it wouldn’t be hard: substitute OXEN for OVER at 15a, and let 22d provide a home for the V (DIVE, GIVE, HIVE etc).

    Mark @9 – I wondered about “pickle” for SAUERKRAUT. I wouldn’t call it a pickle, but I did find some online references to lactic acid fermentation as a form of pickling.

  47. This was one of the most satisfying struggles I can recall in a while. I was pleased to work out several unfamiliar or vaguely remembered words from the wordplay alone, a testament to Philistine’s skill more than mine. OVER brought a laugh when the parsing occurred to me, and I agree with all the favorites listed above (probably all those unlisted as well). I did feel the same uneasiness as Mark @9 about ANGST. I didn’t think the instructions were quite telling me to take ‘mo’ out of ‘amongst,’ but no big deal as the intent was clear.

    Can it count as a pangram if we take the CROSS from 21a to represent an X?

    Thanks to Philistine for the fun and to Andrew for explaining BEAUJOLAIS to this non-French speaker.

  48. So I quickly spotted the theme was loan words (many of them German) which helped. I never spot the themes but this was so obvious I could not miss. I found this very tough but enjoyable; I had more than a handful of words which I only partially parsed. Some of the clueing was a bit tricksy and I expected some complaints above but the fact there is little or none probably implies the fault lies with me and a lack of true understanding.

    Many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  49. I echo Eileen @24 & trishincharente @32 in calling this puzzle “lovely” and “a delight”. Sorry that James @10 found it “dull” that the preponderance of anagrams meant that there were “less than 50% of clues in which you have to know what words mean.” I, on the other hand, find it stimulating to come across a word that is only vaguely familiar, leading to that pleasurable penny-drop moment. Such moments did not seem likely to be in prospect when my first pass produced only THREE QUARTERS (in rugby two of the three-quarters are called centres and the other two are wingers – is there a possible future clue in there somewhere?), but some of the previously daunting longish words gradually began to emerge from the gloom, leading eventually to a satisfying solve.

    Do half a dozen words of German origin constitute a theme? We also had two from French, one Egyptian and (if you count the other meaning of AGAPE) two from Greek too! Apart from the slightly loose use of mine=PROSPECT (forgiven because of the neat surface), there was almost nothing here to complain about, and plenty to enjoy, so many thanks to Philistine (and also to our blogger, Andrew).

  50. Ronald @42. “I impetuously wrote in SADOMASOCHISM” – I did exactly the same thing last Saturday in the Guardian Weekend magazine’s GK crossword! When I saw today’s clue I had a flash of deja vu, and your post brought it back to me in a full groundhog day moment.

  53. Thanks both,
    I partially completed this in the less gripping moments of a webinar on accounting for charity reserves. I wonder if there is such a thing as knowing to much about a subject when solving a clue, for example rejecting the solution ‘watt’ because the unit should be ‘amp’. 14 down had me going because of the association with wine. I’d mentally worked through the first growths before starting on less well-known ones and had missed the obvious that ‘Bordeaux’ was being used as a French language indicator like Nice or Nancy. It was definitely my CotD for the moment of auto-4 d.

    Isn’t ‘ravel’ one of those self antonyms. OED seems to think so.

  54. I did not parse 10D, 8D

    Liked SAUERKRAUT, BEAUJOLAIS, ANGST.

    New: INTEGUMENT.

    Many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  55. I loved Adrian Mole so that clue was a delight, once I stopped thinking of Pepys and trying to find a sysnonym for Commonwealth / Restoration.  And I agree, lovely to have Eileen’s memories of Sue Townsend.

  56. Tyngewick @53: yes, several sources indicate that RAVEL can equal UNRAVEL. So I guess you can ravel some string and then ravel it back. I like words like that.

     

  57. Good crossword that I enjoyed solving.

    I particularly liked TREBUCHET, OVER, SCHADENFREUDE and THREE-QUARTERS.

    Doesn’t ESURIENT mean greedy?

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

  58. Beobachterin @55 – later, my younger son auditioned for the role of Adrian Mole in the stage play, which premiered here in Leicester – he got to the last three out of 200-odd: my friend said, in consolation, that he was too good-looking 😉 – so we met Sue Townsend several times. She was a really remarkable woman – see here. I went to her memorial, where we all received a commemorative copy of her first Adrian Mole book. I’ve enjoyed all of those and a number of her other books, too.

  59. Just as well I changed my user name. I think I was the first Mark here by a good couple of years (could be wrong though), but changed to avoid confusion. Too many Marks around, that’s the problem (I blame Princess Anne). (I was in a room at work a while back – just 3 people in it – all of us called Mark.)

  60. Thanks Philistine for a stimulating crossword. The medical terms were no problem; it was ARCHAISM, TREBUCHET, ANUBIS, and THREE QUARTERS that were my downfall. ERSATZ, ESURIENT, and the amusing OVER were favourites; I also enjoyed FREE TIME with its reverse anagram. Thanks Andrew for the write-up.

  61. dnf, BEAUJOLAIS was my downfall (didn’t think I’d write that today) and I was also a failed ARCHAISM. Appreciated the German solutions though. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  62. [Hello MarkN @59: it’s not easy to find when I first posted – unless there’s a way of scouring the archives by commenter.  I think I started commenting here a couple of years ago and there wasn’t another Mark around at the time.  If I’d chosen an unusual pseudonym this wouldn’t have arisen but I think I defaulted to my first name on that first post without appreciating that would become my username.  It hasn’t been an issue thus far.  I’m pretty sure there’s another Mark with a three letter acronym and there may be other lurkers.

    Sadly, we Marks don’t get name checked that often in solutions.  More often in clues.  We could appropriate a chunk of the punctuation, I guess, but that doesn’t really help!]

  63. I’d figured out the wordplay for 16ac and penciled in INTE___ENT. Then I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out a three-letter synonym for “gum” to go in the blank.

    I definitely needed Andrew’s explanation for 10dn (THREE QUARTERS). I know of Adrian Mole — quite unexpectedly, a friend of mine chose an excerpt from it as one of the readings at his wedding! — but if I ever knew the “aged 13 3/4” part, I’ve long since forgotten.

    I found this to be a great puzzle. The clever anagram in 9ac (TREBUCHET) stood out for me, as did the constructions of 26ac (ERSATZ) and 6dn (THALAMUS), and finally the elegant simplicity of 17dn (PROSPECT).

    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew!

     

  64. Maybe, as Mark@1 was the first to comment on the theme, he could be Deutschmark?? I enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks to Philistine and Andrew

  65. Thanks P and A for ravelling and unravelling respectively. Being a nerd I knew integument only because I had heard it in a Star Trek episode! The crew encounter an advanced being and he begins by assessing the bridge occupants with various wordy phrases, one being: “Hmm, contiguous external integument”.

  67. Trishincharente @ 38 — I first entered snap time for this as it worked perfectly for me, having heard the expression frequently to describe a work break and you carry your sandwiches in a snap tin. It might possibly be Midlands dialect but could quite likely be prison slang. Perhaps I should be more careful about the company I keep.

  68. Was I the only one who put in PLAY TIME? Seemed to be more appropriate than FREE TIME but clearly got me stuck on the downers.

    This was a DNF for me, but I enjoyed what I managed.

     

  70. Thanks Andrew @69 – I’d forgotten that one, if I ever did it.  Looking at it now, I think I prefer the old clues for SCHADENFREUDE and ERSATZ.  Never mind, at least Philistine didn’t simply re-cycle his old material, and there was plenty to enjoy this time round too.

    [Also an entertaining reminder of the days of hedgehoggy – hardly surprising that, when gremlins struck, everyone assumed he’d been censored 😉 ]

  71. Thanks to Andrew and Philistine. Loved the German mini-theme, having spent four years in my youth studying the language – poorly – and more recently attended a quiz which had a complete round devoted to German loan-words.   Still waiting to see GIFTZWERG appear as an answer, presumably with a clue alluding to Michael Gove……   Yes I know it’s not a loan-word so probably against the rules of polite cruciverbalism.

  74. 14d was my LOI because I didn’t believe that Philistine could think that Beaujolais is a Bordeaux. Clever misdirection to use Bordeaux as a sign to look for French words instead of the familiar Nancy.
    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  75. That’s a great story, Eileen! How wonderful for your son to get so close, but how disappointing then not to be chosen.

  76. Re @72, how about: discovered=found, so “I discovered in” > “I (is) discovered in” > “I (is) found in”

  77. OddOtter@76 – re Dansar@72, I suspect this is another of Dansar’s rhetorical questions, where he is really saying “I know what the setter was trying to do but I think he was wrong”.

    Thanks Philistine for an excellent puzzle that beat me at the end – I missed Beaujolais for the same reason as others mentioned, not getting Bordeaux as a wine reference out of my head, and the TILT INTEGUMENT just plain defeated me.

    And thanks Andrew for the clear blog.

  78. [cellomaniac @77 – Beaujolais Nouveau day this year is the 19th November.  Whether it is inspired or a total scam, no-one really knows…]

  79. [Mark – when I first posted here about seven years ago, there was no other William in sight, but I chose to add initials ….FP in case another William existed. I assumed, for a site that had existed for some years (and given that William, like Mark, is not unusual) that it would be bad form to do otherwise. And it avoided the situation you’ve encountered.]

  80. Cellomaniac @77, thanks, did somewhat consider that… Just offering my two bits (via example) re why the clue worked fine for me.

  82. @76

    You’ve identified the problem – the solver is required to infer a verb. We are routinely asked to infer commas, articles, and prepositions (usually “that”) etc, but is a verb which changes a subject to an object a step too far?

Comments are closed.