Guardian Cryptic 28,623 by Nutmeg

83 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,623 by Nutmeg”

1. Started in the SE and gradually worked my way outwards from there. I would say that ‘leading’ in 1a did do harm, at least to me. It was my LOI, solely from crossers and while I did get the L in TICKET in retrospect, the rest was a mystery. At risk of being accused of membership of the homophone constabulary, LOYA doesn’t work for me. But there were three fine long anagrams, plus CLOUD NINE, CHICANE, DONNE, HOAXERS, OSTRACISM to enjoy. Thanks, Nutmeg and PeterO.

2. I loved this puzzle. Nutmeg is one of my favourite setters.

   I liked CORINTH, DONNE, CLOUD NINE, LOYALISTS, and LATERALLY with top favourite being THREE BLIND MICE.

   New for me: CHIMNEY BREASTS, NAIL SET tool, NODDY tern, CHICANE = bends in track.

   Thanks, both.

3. Thanks Nutmeg for a tightly clued and witty crossword with THREE BLIND MICE (splendid surface) topping my list of favourites. I also enjoyed TEDIOUS, CANNIER, and NAIL SET; NODDY, MANTOVANI, and CHIMNEY BREASTS were new to me but easy enough to guess from the clear wordplay. Thanks PeterO for the blog.

4. I thought THREE BLIND MICE was very clever. For both the long acrosses I am more familiar with other words than the THEs – “tickle ones fancy” and “against all odds” – but no complaints.

   Regarding lawyer for LOYA: I have argued here in this space that homophones should be treated analogously to synonyms. Right now I’d like to double-down with a concrete example.

   Since maybe the earliest days of cryptics the substitution test has been mooted for proposed synonyms. Why not the same for homophones? If one pronunciation can be substituted for the other in real speech without triggering a “huh?” then they are close enough. Note I’m not saying the test is whether the intended word can be figured out with a bit of thought – that opens the door for malapropisms or E2L mistakes or even more egregious errors – the test is just can the near-homophone be inserted without causing an interruption in understanding. It can here.

5. Fairly straightforward except for 22 across for me. I tossed up between Dante and Donne and couldn’t see how either Date or Done could equal “conventional” until coming here. I’m still not convinced that Chambers supports the synonym as done=socially acceptable is not necessarily the same thing as conventional.
   CHIMNEY BREASTS took me back to my childhood and coal fires and THREE BLIND MICE made me smile at “senseless victims”.

6. Pleasant entertainment but a few hard bits with a new word in CHIMNEY BREASTS, and TICKLE THE FANCY also holding me up at the end. I liked the “lawyer”/LOYA homophone (iffy, but not too iffy and passing the substitution test proposed by Dr. WhatsOn @4) and the ‘Colourful result of hitting’ at 24a along the way.

   Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO

7. Just the thing to do during the rain delay at the Gabba (I won’t gloat, the Ashes is a long haul). Among others, ‘done’ for ‘conventional’ is very neat .. trademark Nutmeg. Lots to enjoy, thanks PnN.

8. Completely misparsed TICKLE THE FANCY so thanks PeterO for putting me straight. Dnk NAIL SET unsurprisingly give my hate-hate relationship with diy. Cotd = THREE BLIND MICE but much else to enjoy. Many thanks Nutmeg.

9. Classy from start to finish. THREE BLIND MICE, TICKLE THE FANCY and CHIMNEY BREASTS were superb (and the rest).

   Ta Nutmeg & PeterO

10. I also tried to persuade DANTE to be the poet, missed stir=can, couldn’t hear the “loya”, and didn’t get OSTRACISM until I stopped trying to make it begin with OUT… Enjoyed it anyway.
    I liked all the anagrams and the homophone-as-def for CHIMNEY BREASTS. New to me: ESTER and the NAIL SET (which I know as a punch: the clue sounds more like something you’d find in a manicurist’s kit).

11. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
    I loved THREE BLIND MICE.
    “guard” for TEND seems rather loose, though not actually wrong.

12. Thank you Gladys@10, I worked in maintenance for several years and have never heard a punch called a nail set.

13. Thanks PeterO not least for nipping my most minor of quibbles re SHINERS in the bud.
    I wasn’t sure what exactly NAIL SET nor CHIMNEY BREASTS are but was happy to google the former, the latter will have to wait until this evening just to be on the safe side.
    MANTOVANI is a name I haven’t heard for a while, inextricably but perahps unfairly linked with naffness in my mind, I don’t think I ever heard his output and he was clearly massively popular in his day.
    I agree with TassieTim@1 as the “leading” helped me with post-entry parsing of that clue – and enhances the surface I think.
    Very enjoyable all round, thanks Nutmeg.

14. I thought this was wonderful – Nutmeg is always entertaining, and this was top notch. Laughed out loud at CHIMNEY BREASTS, TEDIOUS, CLOUD NINE and THREE BLIND MICE.

15. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO. Found this one very enjoyable. For most of it, I was thinking it would make a very good Quiptic, with the long anagrams on the perimeter being very solver-friendly, but then there were several clues that proved much trickier to unpick. Nicely balanced mix, on the whole. Favourites were OSTRACISM, DONNE, THREE BLIND MICE, EXCITES, CLOUD NINE, SHINERS.

    Re 1a, why does ‘on’ indicate the order? I know this is often said, so I guess it’s accepted as a convention, but to me ‘on’ merely indicates juxtaposition in an across clue (as opposed to, say, ‘in’ indicating containment) and it’s left as an exercise for the solver to decide the order that makes most sense. (This is for across clues only, of course – ‘on’ most definitely suggests the order for down clues.)

    gladys @10 – I googled ‘nail set’ for confirmation and most of the results were indeed related to manicuring. ‘Nail punch’ is the more familiar term to me also. This definition of nail set seems perfectly legit though, so I’m not complaining.

    Anyway… today’s earworm: Mantovani by The Swinging Cats

16. NAIL SET isn’t wrong: just new to me.

17. Of course, gladys @16, didn’t mean to imply you were complaining – I was agreeing with you, really.

    I also instinctively went for DANTE too, and took a while to twig why I couldn’t make sense of it… Unlike Tim C @5, I’m perfectly happy with this sense of DONE.

18. I hadn’t heard of NAILSET until I came across it in Chifonie’s April 1st puzzle this year.

19. I got off to a good start by immediately twigging THREE BLIND MICE from the definition. But its counterpart on the right side, CHIMNEY BREASTS, needed all the crossers and much head-scratching before the penny dropped.

    My favourite was OKAPI – great to see an old crossword friend, and clued so nicely.

    widdersbel @15: the “on” question has been discussed before, sometimes quite heatedly! The Times crossword has a house rule that “on” can only mean “after” in an across clue and “on top of” in a down clue. This is just an arbitrary convention, as in ordinary English usage “on” can mean:

    Expressing contact with any surface, whatever its position (SOED)

    (For a down clue, think of “a spider on the ceiling”.)

    Many thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

20. I found that tough but it got easier once the clever 1dn became clear. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO. (For an alternative ear worm, try Mantovani’s Hits by the wonderful but short lived Yachts. It posits a grim world where Mantovani becomes as ubiquitous as Elvis.)

21. I haven’t been over-keen on Nutmeg in the past, finding her crosswords very competent but tending to be dull; however this one I did enjoy. Like others I thought the rodent trio was the best clue, but there were plenty of good ones including the other two long anagrams, and COUNTRY DANCING. Didn’t know NODDY but it was obvious as none of the other eastern seaboard states really worked around ODD. I’d seen NAIL SET before and assumed it was what professionals called a nail punch, but nicbach@12 says not. CANNIER doesn’t quite equate to more subtle for me, but it’s close enough.
    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

22. Nice earworm @15 widdersbel. This is mine – well it’s nearly Christmas and he does seem to feature quite a bit in these puzzles!
    https://youtu.be/BpfHSqLXePI

23. Lord Jim @19 – thanks, that’s a perfect explanation. I didn’t realise it was a Times thing (though I’ve probably heard that before and simply not stored the information). I hope I’ve not opened a can of worms – I was just intrigued because PeterO specifically referred to it in the blog, but I don’t think any further discussion is required on this point (let’s go back to discussing dodgy homophones instead).

24. Re: NAIL SET – it’s there in Chambers. Apologies for stuck record impression

25. This was, I thought, a much more straightforward set of clues than Nutmeg usually gives us — and all the better for it, IMHO. The CURSE clue was a really simple one, and along with CLOUD NINE, HANSOM CAB and TEDIOUS gave me some letters in the grid quickly. NAIL SET/SHINERS were my last ones to go in — the carpenter’s tool unknown to me and I parsed NAIL as ‘nothing fixed without a’ = NI[A]L and therefore hunted in vain for a three-letter carpenter to complete the wordplay. Hmmmm.
    Lots of neat clueing in here and much enjoyment had from it.

26. Another entertaining crossword from Nutmeg with usual smooth surfaces.

    SHINERS was my LOI, and TICKLE THE FANCY only just before, mainly because I haven’t really seen that – more like tickle my/one’s fancy. As well as SHINERS, I liked THREE BLIND MICE among others.

    Lord Jim @19; I’ve seen the ‘spider on the ceiling’ quoted before, but to me that means attached to rather than underneath.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

27. Robi@26: I think Lord Jim’s comment about the spider served to reinforce the notion that ‘on’ works perfectly well to mean ‘attached to’ or ‘in contact with’ in any direction — so that the setter is able to use it for horizontal, on top of, or hanging below positioning.

28. I was fascinated to learn about the “cascading” strings effect when I googled Mantovani.

29. DrWhatson@4: Regarding homophones, I would have no problem with your proposal in most cases, but in regard to non-rhotacism I’m afraid it falls down. If anyone in my circle said “loya” rather than “lawyer” it certainly would cause a chorus of “huh”s and quizzical glances.

    Other than that, I did enjoy the puzzle for the most part, however the redundant “leading” in 1a is a point against. If it’s neither part of the wordplay nor of the definition, why is it there?

    Curiously, my edition of Chambers has CHIMNEYBREAST as a single word, with no alternatives, though I don’t recall ever seeing it written that way.

30. Well took me a while but can’t really see why as I did manage to parse most of them – but often after working them out from the description and crosses and then wondering why I hadn’t seen the how the wordplay worked first.

    I didn’t parse 1 ac (where I thought the use of THE in the expression was odd – like Doctor Whatson @4) and 4dn (where *broadcast * sent me looking for a homophone instead of an anagram).

    I did like the homophone in LOYALISTS although it made me groan when it first clicked.

    Hadn’t heard of CHICANE or NODDY (well not that one anyway).

    Liked MANTOVANI, LATERALLY, CORINTH, CLOUD NINE, ESTER

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

31. pserve_p2 @27 – again, well explained, thank you.

    AlanC @22 – well, I suppose we are well into December now, so I’ll let you off! (And to be fair, it is still a great song, even if I’ll be sick of hearing it by the 25th)

32. Before any crossing letters, I had SHOAT for 21, which almost works too!

33. I read the ‘bill’ in 1ac as a ‘playbill’, whence ‘leading man’ (ie actor) is perfectly reasonable. And the envelope part of the charade is in front of HE, so is ‘leading’ this fragment. The clue worked fine for me.

    Loved the sightless rodents.

    Thanks to S&B

34. I’m reminded that NODDY was an answer in Ronny Corbett’s crossword here

35. Splendid stuff from Nutmeg today, although I needed PeterO’s help to appreciate it to the full – “senseless victims”: thigh-slappingly good.

    As usual I stir in my antiquity to rail against the inclusion of an anachronistic MANTOVANI. I remember a half-hour Sunday special on the radio enjoyed while Father strangled the goat (or whatever Mother was going to boil for lunch that day (the memories are faint and unreliable)). Has anyone under the age of, say, 60 heard of him? Is it unfair to include such periphera?

    Here’s the link to the “earworm” suggested by JerryG@20.

    [Thanks Jay@34. Made me laugh – again!]

36. Lots to enjoy with a few LoL moments and some very clever cluing. New words/applications for me were ESTER, NODDY and NAIL SET.
    Thanks to Nutmeg and Peter for the blog.

37. In 1 across, I read the “leading” as indicating that ‘ticklet’ comes before ‘he’ to form ‘ticklethe’ (with ‘fancy’ then added to it).

38. Poc@29 ok, I get it, but what if someone OUTSIDE your circle (so no expectations) said it?

    I think NAIL SET may be more common in the US. Collins seems to think so.

39. Re homophones: Chambers Dictionary gives the phonetic pronunciations of its headwords. Can I suggest that if two words are listed with the same phonetics they should be unqualifiedly accepted as homophones, and if not then the setter should indicate that there may be some deviation between them (“according to some” for instance)

40. P is the symbol for phosphorus not the adjective phosphorous.

41. Entertaining though not the trickiest Nutmeg puzzle. The four long answers were, I thought, straightforward. In fact 1d. was my FOI – I vaguely recall seeing that definition used before.

    I liked OSTRACISM, LOYALISTS, CLOUD NINE and HOAXERS (my LOI).

    I suppose the result of “hitting” could be singular or plural – depends on the extent of the assault!

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

42. Dan Milton
    To be precise, “phosphorous” refers to what is now called “phosphorus(III)” (as opposed to “phosphorus(V)”, which is “phosphoric”); hence it only applies to compounds of phosphorus, not the element.
    I’ll be generous and assume that it was just a misprint!

43. Always lovely to see Nutmeg’s name on a puzzle.

    I’ve mentioned before that I find the cheekier a homophone is the more fun it makes them for me. Anyone complaining about lawyer/loya must be unable to watch films or televison without being thoroughly confused. “I have no idea what that cockney criminal just said – it’s like he’s speaking a completely different language”.

44. Thanks for the blog , not my favourite setter but most people seem to enjoy the puzzle, I was going to mention phosphorous but I see muffin@42 has dealt with it.

    AlanC @22 I hope that is not Slade on your link ? It should not be heard until after the Solstice.

45. Thanks for providing the link Alphalpha@35.

46. Doctor WhatsOn @4: I’m tired of fighting the homophone fight, so I’m not going to. But the problem with your suggestion is that it begs the question. The difficulty people have with some homophone clues is that they don’t work in all dialects. If YOU can substitute the homophone in your speech and have it pass, that does not mean at all that EVERYONE can, so you’ve just shunted the problem along. The most egregious example I can recall is a clue where BEATER and BETA were clued as homophones (I forget which was the answer and which was in the clue). Not only do most Americans not drop the R in BEATER, we also pronounce those two words with two different vowels (BETA sounds like “bait a” here).

    But like with everything else about these crosswords, my usual reaction is to shrug and chalk it up to our cultural differences. Two countries divided by a common language and all that. And I just sort of pronounce the homophones here (in my head) with a Brooklyn accent (as non-rhotic accents go, it’s more fun than RP; I specifically imagine Joe Pesci or Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny”).

47. And I think Vinny would indeed have called himself a LOYA.

48. It doesn’t seem that long since the last Nutmeg. More power to her elbow.

    Lots to like here; I agree with the likes of michelle @2 plus TEDIOUS). CHICANE will, of course, be familiar to watchers of F1 (or other racing).

    I was wrong-footed for much of the puzzle by the excellent clues for THREE BLIND MICE and SHINERS.

    New: NODDY.
    LOI: TICKLE THE FANCY — probably because I’m more familiar with TICKLE YOUR FANCY.

    Happy to come here and not see another HomophoneGate by this time of day 😀

49. Late to the party today, and thought Nutmeg not at her very best today. Some excellent clues, including the very nice CHIMNEY BREASTS, but my last two in, the interlocking CONTEND and SHINERS not quite so impressive. Held myself up for a while by plonking CURSE where 22ac should have been…much muttering under my breath while that was rectified.

50. Mrpenney@46 the reason I made that post was that I was striving to find some criteria that we could generally agree on, in order to avoid these pointless discussions down the road. People with different speech styles communicate without problems all the time, so my thinking was that if a near-homophone was understood likewise without causing a hiccup, then it is good enough for a cryptic clue. The key is “understood”, not equality.

51. The clue to 5d requires acceptance of “reference” as a verb, which it is not, despite its frequent erroneous use in that role. Don’t quote me any dictionary – if you use something wrongly often enough, it finds its way into the dictionary.

    Cite = refer
    Reference = citation

52. Rompiballe @51
    For me “refer” and “reference” (as a verb) have slightly different meanings. “Refer (to)” is “allude to”, “reference” is to formally include a source in an article, i.e. “cite”.

53. Rompiballe@51 – doesn’t the history of the English language regularly have people using words “incorrectly” only to find a new generation grows up accepting the new usage? There are words you probably accept that were deemed unacceptable by an earlier generation. When should we freeze the language and who should do it?

    As it happens, SOED has “reference” as a transitive verb originating in early 17c. So, perhaps, far from using the word erroneously, Nutmeg is joining those who have revived an old meaning 😉

54. Rompiballe @51

    re: “Don’t quote me any dictionary” What are you using to decide what words are in the English language, then? Personal preference?

55. MarkN @54
    I do sympathise with that part of Rompiballe’s post. The “descriptive” nature of dictionaries means that they do perpetuate incorrect usage – I do wish they were more prepared to add “incorrect” to such definitions (viz. “epicentre”!)

56. Very enjoyable x/w and I didn’t parse 1a until after I’d commented under the puzzle. Just one thing, “HOAXERS”. Couldn’t the parsing be rather more rationally “HO” for hotel with the instruction to place “over” the other parts of the clue? That flummoxed me for quite some time.

57. Roz @44: I was going to dedicate to you, but you know how some people talk…

58. Nice puzzle. Ashamed to admit (as a chemist), I missed the erroneous spelling of phosphorus. I think some indication of the plural is needed in the definition of CHIMNEY BREASTS. And in the same vein, the word “results” would work just as well in the surface of 24.
    I loved TEDIOUS HANSOM CAB, AGAINST THE ODDS.
    Re: the homophone debate: I had thought that a consensus on their use would have been found by now. AORTA have more sense ;o)
    Thanks, Nutmeg, Peter and all.

59. You are too kind AlanC . Was I right about Merry Xmas Everybody ? In 2 weeks time I will be ready to listen to it.

60. phitonelly @58
    I confess that I did too, until Dan Milton pointed it out! I suppose I just read what I expected to be there.

61. muffin @55 – I’m not sure dictionaries are as whimsical as you imply. They generally wait for a sufficient corpus of the new usage to exist before they include it. Initially, the word may be labelled “informal” but if the word is used more widely, it becomes a standard definition.

    Perhaps, if those with a similar perspective to yours and Rompiballe’s had got their way in the early 17c, no one would have come along in the 21c to object to “reference” being used as a verb 😉

    I ask you the same question: in what era should we freeze the English language? Whose English is eternally “correct”: Chaucer’s? Shakespeare’s? Johnson’s, … ?

62. MarkN @54 – it may reflect the day I’ve had but your comment gave me quite a belly laugh.

63. pdp11 @61
    This is from Collins online:
    1. COUNTABLE NOUN [usually with poss]
    The epicentre of an earthquake is the place on the Earth’s surface directly above the point where it starts, and is the place where it is felt most strongly.
    The earthquake had its epicentre two-hundred kilometres north-east of the capital.
    2. COUNTABLE NOUN [oft NOUN of noun]
    The epicentre of something bad is the place where it is most common or intense.
    The city became the epicentre of the crisis.
    1 is correct, 2 is just wrong – do these idiots not know what the prefix “epi” means?
    I once heard on Radio 4 “the epicentre was 3 kilometers below the surface”!

64. muffin @63 – you’re answering a question I didn’t ask 🙂 Maybe address what I asked so I can better understand your rationale. Plainly:

    Q1. In what era should we freeze the English language?
    Q2. Whose English is eternally “correct”: Chaucer’s? Shakespeare’s? Johnson’s, … ?

    There is a reality that you’re not confronting: the meaning of words change; they always have; nouns become verbs or adjectives, and other grammatical changes happen over hundreds of years; and that is probably why the English language is as rich as it is now. If you stop the process of change, the language stops satisfying its primary purpose: to allow thoughts in one’s persons head being communicated to someone else in this time.

65. Sorry, pdp11 – I was illustrating that dictionaries do not indicate “incorrect” when the definition is incorrect.

66. muffin @65 – no worries 🙂 I’ve mentioned it before but if you’ve not read The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher, I highly recommend it. It describes how language went from “man throw spear” to the “sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies and intricately nuanced shades of meaning” we now have available to us in many languages.

    It’s not a dry academic book.

67. pdp11
    I think you re missing my point. Yes, language evolves, but when it evolves to use two words with different meanings interchangeably, it is degrading the language, not developing it. I have several examples, but I’ll just restrict myself to irritate/aggravate, and centre/epicentre. As you may have have gathered, I particularly hate the latter, as it’s used by pretentious prats for whom the more correct “centre” isn’t sufficiently polysyllabic.

68. muffin and pdp11 @various. Speaking as a one time volcanologist, I can confirm that epicenter (or epicentre if you want to spell it that way) can be used incorrectly – e.g. the epicenter of the earthquake was 20 km under X. The correct word here is focus. However, I would disagree that the second definition you give, muffin @63, is incorrect. The word is here being extended by analogy to a non-geologic application. The technical definition no longer applies. Language is enriched when words are extended beyond their original meaning by analogy. Poets would have a hard time of it if this weren’t true.
    Indeed, science itself often defines everyday words in a much more restricted, sometimes “erroneous” way, as a technical term. It is a redefinition for cetain specific purposes, not an error. I can say I had to do a lot of work to get a crossword out, but science would say that, as only tiny forces were applied over very small distances, not much work was done at all.

69. TassieTim @68
    What does the prefix “epi” mean?

70. I had COUNTRY RUNNING for 2,16, with a bit of a doubt whether cross country running, being an activity enforced by a games master, would become just country running if merely a leisure activity. This gave me a not-completely-parsed NORTH for 15a (‘Sea=NORTH (unindicated dbe), ‘bird uncommon’= ROC without C, somehow reversed, in New Hampshire and the T dangling), whose innate falsity was revealed by the (eventually) obvious LATERALLY. At which point I went for NAREY (varient sp. for ‘uncommon’= nary a seabird on the Atlantic coast, on account of all the oil spills). I mention this only in hope of distracting attention from the nascent homophone debate and providing some amusement. Ah well, another day…

    [Having heard Slade, Wizzard and oh so many old chestnuts in the pub this afternoon I do not want to hear any of them again until hell freezes over. Which it looks likely will not be any day soon.]

71. TassieTim @68. “Language is enriched when words are extended beyond their original meaning by analogy. Poets would have a hard time of it if this weren’t true.” Quite right! And crossword clues being second cousins to poetry, crossword setters would also have a hard time of it in face of the inflexible pedantry of those who reject informal (or incorrect) usage of words that were once confined to specialist uses; that is, if they were paying any attention and actually agreed.

    Yes, muffin, I know it’s frustrating when the informal, analogous use is then applied incorrectly in the situation from which the word originally came, but if this causes you to gnash your teeth you either need to stop doing cryptic crosswords or just chew on something until the gnashing urge subsides.

72. SH @71
    I’m not going to accept the misuse of epicentre wher centre is more correct, “Epi” means “on top of”, or

73. SH @71
    I’m not going to accept the misuse of epicentre where centre is more correct, “Epi” means “on top of”, or “surface”, so there can be no justification at all for equating it with “centre”. Red line!

74. [Sorry for partial duplication – fat fingers]

75. [I have just watched an episode on epigenetics – must have been on top of a sode about the surfaces of genes, I suppose 🙂 ]

76. Certainly epigenetics is on top pf genes. Not so sure about sodes, though 🙂

77. muffin @67 – language evolution is in one way similar to biological evolution: there are copy errors and mutations. This has resulted in the variety of species we have now (cf many rich languages) but it has also given us multiple variants of Covid (cf “incorrect” language usage). I’m not sure you can have one without the other: the good and bad are two sides of a coin 🙂

78. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Not sure if Lewis Carroll deserves the last word here, but I offer him for the consideration of the house.

79. grantinfreo@7 and the other Aussies
    Thanks for not gloating. As for the rain delay, long may it continue. Four days should be enough….. for this test at least.

80. Wearing Crown of England during studio broadcast

81. Hmmm … Just saying …

    How many profiles, and/or view points do you use Muffin? Obs more than one!

82. Great puzzle – thanks to Nutmeg for such an enjoyable solve, and also to PeterO. Sorry I arrived so late to the party but as others have suggested above, this puzzle certainly did “TICKLE MY FANCY”!

83. Sorry – TICKLE (MY) FANCY

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