Enigmatic Variations No. 1479: Transmutations by Wan

As far as I can tell, this is Wan’s first EV since 2013 (although there have been a few IQs in between), so welcome back! Chambers has various chemical, nuclear-physical, biological and alchemical definitions for TRANSMUTATIONS…let us see what ‘trans’pires…

The preamble states that:

“Seven across clues contain an extra word; six of those give definitions for words in Chambers that must replace six entries, the other is a definition for the unclued thematic entry, also to be found in Chambers. Seven down clues contain an extra letter, which must be removed before solving; the letters give a source whose quote in ODQ explains the TRANSMUTATIONS. All changes leave real words in the grid; Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

I started solving and entering answers a little warily – did the replacements happen in ‘real time’, and therefore could there be clashes and untrustworthy crossers? As it turns out, my fears were unfounded, and the replacements could happen in the completed grid.

After an hour or so, I had most of the left half complete, and a few of the extraneous words – but nothing that looked like a set of things…BIRD, PLANT, CODEWORD, HERB.

That unclued middle entry was starting to look suspiciously like ASTERISKS at this point, and my mind did start to wander down the possibility that the replacements might be symbols/punctuation-related…but then SAWGRASS came along and turned the ASTERISKS into ARTEMISIA. I thought that was a type of shrub, but on checking it out, ARTEMISIA is a genus of plants, including wormwood, sagebrush and mugwort. And again I spent some time/effort wondering if this indicated a ‘transmutation’, from WORM to WOOD? SAGE to BRUSH? or MUG to WORT? By that logic, maybe SAW->GRASS was a similar example, but I couldn’t find any more to make the required six substitutions, let alone work out what the substitutions might be.

By now, after maybe 90 minutes, I had a full-ish set of extra words, and just the bottom right quadrant to finish. I also had some extra letters from the Down clues, with two Xs, an E and an R – from which I managed to interpolate XERXES I. Not a historical figure familiar to me, but off I trotted to ODQ (via the Oxford Reference website and my UK library card number, as I have mentioned before) and managed to find his one entry:

“My men have turned into women and my women into men.” Xerxes I (on the exploits of Artemisia at Salamis, 480 BC)

(So it wasn’t the plant genus Artemisia, but Artemisia I – Ancient Greek queen of Halicarnassus and surrounding islands.)

And there they were – symmetrically disposed and staring me in the face! Three men (COLIN, BENEDICT and WARREN), and three women (MAGGIE, FLORENCE and ERICA).

With a little legwork, and cross-referencing to the list of extra definitions (see parsing below), I eventually came up with some gender TRANSMUTATIONS, to turn them into DORIS, VERONICA, JULIET, MARTIN, CLARENCE and LANCE, respectively!

 

So in the end it was a sort of biological transmutation – Chambers references the transformation of one ‘species’ into another! That is all I will say, as I don’t want to stick my toe into the swirling waters of (trans)gender politics. I daren’t even contemplate what Xerxes meant by his statement…it might have been made in 480 BC, but he should have considered that one’s historical social media statements can come back to haunt one at any time…(;+>)

I felt that this was a pretty tough solve overall – with a nice PDM and dénouement, and neat grid construction, with symmetrically placed thematic material, and real words before and after the changes. I also learned a bit about Xerxes I, Artemisia and the battle of Salamis!

There were some obscure/new to me words – KEBBOCK, BOART, TARTANA (and DORIS, as a genus of gastropods). I desperately wanted MAGGIE to change to a male name starting with G – GARETH? – to get GONADS at 12A…the sniggering schoolboy still bubbling under this 50+-year old exterior!

Many thanks to Wan for the challenge, and let’s hope it isn’t another 8 years until the next one… I trust all is clear below.

(On a technical note, I have recently started using Paul Drury’s ‘blogging utilities’ site to create my grids. For years I have done them in Excel, but struggled to get superscripted numbers in the cells. Paul’s site allows you to created any size/shaped blocked or barred grids, with cell numbers and shading, and he has recently enhanced it with the ability to put ‘captions’ under the grid, which helps with the ‘commentary’ under the animated grids that I like to use.)

Across
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Extra word / letter / (definition)	Clue (definition underlined, extra letter/word in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	PRELUDIO		Italy’s opening game unfinished with game gripping Italy (8) / PRE(Y) (game, unfinished) + LUD_O (game) around (gripping) I (Italy)
7	COLIN / DORIS	(gastropods)	Bird, eagle maybe circling Lima (5) / CO_IN (eagle, maybe) around (circling) L (Lima, phonetic alphabet)
11	BENEDICT / VERONICA	(herb)	Once blessed newly married man (8) / double defn.: BENEDICT (without capital) is obsolete, i.e. ‘once’, for blessed; and a Benedick, or BENEDICT, is a name for a newly married man – from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing
13	MONADS		Money towards publicity for spirits (6) / M (money, in economic, i.e. M0, M1, etc) + ON (towards) + ADS (adverts, publicity)
14	IDEATE	CARRIAGE	Time to collect earl by carriage I imagine (6) / I ‘by’ D_ATE (time) around (collecting) E (earl)
15	ACADEME		Don made cryptic lines of the highest quality (7) / AC_E (highest quality) around (lined by) ADEM (anag, i.e. cryptic, of MADE)
16	ADAWED	WEAPON	Spenser’s weapon frightened a bird in front of him? (6) / A + DAW (bird) plus (in front of) ED (Edmund Spenser, or ‘him’!)
18	SHINGLE		Husband breaks unbroken roof tiles (7) / S_INGLE (unbroken) around (broken into by) H (husband)
19	GURNED / TURNED		Local snarled as gallon put inside vessel (6) / G (gallon) + URNED (put inside vessel)
21	RAW / RAJ	GASTROPODS	Gastropods not cooked right are chewier in the middle (3) / R (right) + A (are, unit of metric land measure) + W (middle letter of cheWier’
25	EAT / NAT	BIRD	To flap with no left wing upset bird (3) / (B)EAT – flap, with no left-most letter, or wing
xx.	ARTEMISIA	(plant)	Unclued (9) / Thematic deduction
28	DOSSER / DOSSEL		Agent takes in exhausted Scots vagrant (6) / DO_ER (agent) around (taking in) SS (ScotS exhausted, or emptied)
30	UTTERLY	PLANT	Pure lazy on vacation sitting by plant say (7) / UTTER (say) plus (sitting by) LY (LazY, vacated by middle letters)
33	FALL TO		Begin eagerly, completely gripped by newspaper round (6, two words) / F_T (Financial Times, newspaper) around (gripping) ALL (completely), plus O (round letter)
34	GLORY BE		Cut grass feeds the earth well! (7, two words) / GLO_BE (the earth) around (feeding on) RY(E) (cut grass)
35	ALEGAR		Good real ale’s first to turn into sour ale (6) / anag, i.e. to turn, of G (good) + REAL + A (first letter of Ale)
36	GARRON / GARROT	CODEWORD	German with codeword arrives on horse (6) / G (German) + ARR (arrives) + ON
37	FLORENCE / CLARENCE	(carriage)	Left men inside to guard material (8) / F_ENCE (to guard, or surround) around L (left) + OR (Other Ranks, military, ‘the men’)
38	ERICA / LANCE	HERB / (weapon)	Some prefer I call herb plant (5) / hidden word in, i.e. some of, ‘prefER I CAll’
39	NESTLIKE		This homely sort has beaten silent stroke (8) / additive anagram, i.e. beaten, of this answer (NESTLIKE, homely) and SORT could be SILENT STROKE
Down
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Extra word / letter / (definition)	Clue (definition underlined, extra letter/word in bold) / Logic/Parsing
2	REOCCUR		Pulling lead, force poor dog to come to you again (7) / REOC (anag, i.e. poor, of (F)ORCE, pulling out lading letter) + CUR (dog)
3	LEADEN / LOADEN		Inclined to change name and Lord that’s depressing (6) / LEANED (inclined) exchanging N (name) and D (Deus, God, or Lord) gives LEADEN
4	UDDER / UNDER		Mare’s organ, first to be removed from racehorse (5) / (M)UDDER – first letter removed from mudder, or racehorse
5	DISMODED		Fashion some deserted to stuff rendered out of fashion (8) / DI_D (rendered) around (stuffed by) SMODE (anag, i.e. fashion, of SOME + D, deserted)
6	ICIEST		Most hostile mum goes after one French company (6) / I (one) + CIE (abbrev. Compagnie, French company) + ST (interjection – hush, silence, or ‘be mum’!)
7	CADDIES / DADDIES	X	About six dead bats in small containers (7) / C (circa, about) + ADDIES (anag, i.e. bats, of SI(X) + DEAD)
8	OCEANS		Lots of containers storing energy (6) / O (contraction of ‘of’) + C_ANS (containers) around (storing) E (energy)
9	INTEL		Being member of service, turned up military info (5) / IN (being member of) + TEL (let, disallowed service, in tennis, turned up)
10	NEED / SEED	E	Call for note once edited (4) / NE (obsolete, i.e. once, for ‘not’) + ED (edited)
12	SAWGRASS		Plant cut at the ends losing water and sap (8) / SAW (cut) + GR (end letters of losinG wateR) + ASS (sap, fool)
13	MAGGIE / MARTIN	(bird)	American soldier absorbed by game, shot bird somewhere (6) / MAG_E (anag, i.e. shot, of GAME) around (absorbing) GI (American soldier)
17	PRATTLES	R	Grabs plate abruptly with rest tumbling (8) / anag, i.e. tumbling, of PLAT(E) (abruptly) + REST
20	HIDALGOS / HIDALGAS		Concealed star snubbed by society in gents (8) / HID (concealed) + ALGO(L) (star, snubbed, or shortened) + S (society)
22	WARREN / JULIET	(codeword)	Welsh topped infertile rabbits (6) / W (Welsh) + (B)ARREN (infertile, topped)
23	TARTANA / TARTANE	X	Police station collects 25% of road tax for wagon (7) / TA_NA (Indian police station) around (collecting) R (25% of Road) + TA(X)
24	KEBBOCK		Market delivering queen German beer and Scottish cheese (7) / KE(R)B (market, removing, or delivering, R – regina, queen) + BOCK (German beer)
26	BELGIC	E	European tree initially grown in eco-operations (6) / BEL (tree) + GIC (initial letters of Grown In Cooperations)
27	MYGALE	S	Blimey, females in the sticks close to huge spider (6) / MY (blimey!, interjection) + GAL (dialect, i.e. in the sticks, for girl, or female) + E (closing letter of hugE)
29	SORREL		Slip up charging 100 céntimos for horse (6) / SO_L (Peruvian monetary unit, 100 centimos) around (charged by) RRE (err, or slip, up)
31	TALER / TALEA		Old German ready almost to link up (5) / RELAT(E) (link, or connect, almost) upwards = TALER
32	BOART	I	Cutter for example used outside ruins diamond bits (5) / BOA_T (cutter, for example) around R (runs, cricket)
33	FARE / FARL		Risk dropping English course (4) / F(E)AR (risk, possibility) dropping E (English) down can become FARE