Azed No. 2,536 Plain

14 comments on “Azed No. 2,536 Plain”

1. Thanks, PeeDee. I was not familiar with this usage of snipe, but otherwise, this seemed pretty straightforward. I agree that the clue for TEDIUM seems a little wonky.

   Is something wrong with the posting of this week’s puzzle? I am seeing only a grid.

2. Me too, Cineraria. These botch jobs are becoming more common. (And still asking us for money while suspending all crossword prizes, unlike other newspapers.)

   I thought for TEDIUM it was the duet that was the cause, not the nodding off.
   I liked ANECDOTALLY, a neat surface.

3. 2537 is available on pressreader.com. If you are a member of your local library and have online access, the chances are that you can find Azed in “The Observer – The New Review”. A warning though: press reader must have updated their website since I was last there and I found it today brutal to use. And, when you get there, I have to magnify, then I can’t get full screen, so it’s two screen grabs. But I am no longer suffering withdrawal.

   2536: it was quite straightforward but some of the words must not have been easy to clue, so leniency to Azed.

   TEDIUM was strange indeed. And it’s Trump’s stub which is snipe, and not vice versa. Can anyone tell me which tense WARRE is in to be defined by “worst”? I have been absent from Azed for very long but I recall that “during” as a containment indicator was anathema; so too was “touring”. Both seem accepted now. Yes “eve” is poetic for “evening” and “evening” means evening gathering or party. But quite right: we should raise an eyebrow about this “after-work party for poets”: a barge is a vessel and a vessel can be a tube. Does that make a barge a tube? I think we’ve strayed too far from Ximenes.

   Stefan

4. MS @3 – I just assumed the infinitive would do: “to warre” and “to worst”

5. Thanks as always to Azed for the weekly tussle, and to PeeDee for the blog.

   2537 is now properly up on the website.

6. Ta, PeeDee. My edition of Chambers, admittedly old, gives WARRE only as a Spenserian version of the adjective or adverb “worse”. It cannot be superlative “worst”. The entry makes no reference to WARRE being an infinitive.

   Stefan

7. Hi Marmite Smuggler – I think I have misread this in Chambers.

   The latest version (via the phone app) has the Spenserian spelling in the main heading, but the transitive verb is listed in a subheading as (Scots). So presumably Spenser would not have used warre as a verb, unless he was quoting a Scotsman at the time, which is stretching things a bit.

   So I think you have a good point.

8. IN my electronic C, it gives this:

   war2 /wär or wör/ (obsolete except dialect; Spenser also warre; Scot and N Eng also waur /wör/)
   adjective and adverb (superl warst or waurst)

   Worse

   transitive verb (warr’ing or waur’ing; warred or waured) (Scot)
   To defeat, worst
   To excel
   ORIGIN: ON verre

   Therefore, WARRE == worst is wrong… it’s WARRED

   Nick

9. The PDF of today’s puzzle seems fine now.
   On ‘Trump’s snipe’, Azed is being kind by pointing out the US usage.
   An American’s elevator is a Briton’s lift.
   An American’s snipe is a Briton’s stub.
   Thanks PeeDee and Azed.

10. OED only has ‘warre’ v. as Scottish. Perhaps we are to treat Scotland as a ‘local area’.

11. Gonzo – I think Scots=”in local areas” just about gets Azed off the hook.

    It looks to me like the intended parsing is in error (local areas = dialect), but a re-reading of the parsing just about works (local areas=Scots).

12. Thanks for the usual dictionary forage Azed. Enjoyable as always. And for the explanations PeeDee.
    My eChambers gives WARRE as Scottish and Northern English, which suggests the local area. I use the stand alone version on an iPad but I don’t think that is significant.

13. I’m sure we all love the bloke but let’s admit that even Azed makes a slip now and again. WARRE, verb, in Scots, in OED only, local areas? If any of us had submitted a clue like that in a competition puzzle, it would’ve been right in the bin. Nick’s put it best above. His electronic C is exactly the same as my 2006 paper copy.

    Mystogre: I don’t know what eChambers is. If you’re reading the same as Nick and myself, the Scot and N Eng has a semicolon before it: the reference is only to the spelling waur.

    Stefan

14. Marmite Smuggler – WARRE as a verb (Scots) is in the latest Chambers too. It has WARRE (adjective) as Spenserian, WARRE (transitive verb) as Scots. So no OED necessary, but still a bit of a duff clue (by Azed’s standards).

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