Thank you to Paul, who’s in fine feather/feathers today. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9. Composer didn’t have ‘unfinished’, with end of symphony penned (5)
HAYDN : “hadn’t”(had not/didn’t have) minus its last letter(‘unfinished’) containing(with … penned) last letter of(end of) “symphony“.
10. Bird or insect beside plant stem (9)
CORMORANT : [OR + ANT(a social insect) ] placed after(beside) CORM(a swollen stem base of plants such as crocuses).
11. Sham flier heading north in gannet, acting like magpie? (9)
PILFERING : [ Anagram of(Sham) FLIER + N(abbrev. for “north”) ] contained in(in) PIG(a greedy person/a gannet).
Defn: …, ie. one who obsessively collects things.
12. Under spruce, hole’s opening (5)
NEATH : NEAT(spruce/well groomed) + 1st letter of(…’s opening) “hole“.
13. Shag explorer lying back, commander (7)
TOBACCO : Reversal of(… lying back) CABOT(Joh, or Giovanni Caboto, Italian explorer) + CO(abbrev. for “commanding officer”).
Defn: A coarse cut kind of which is ….
15. Rogue payment in the news (7)
CURRENT : CUR(a rogue/a contemptible man) + RENT(payment for use of a property or equipment).
17. Squawk by old bird, though not old bird! (5)
MACAW : CAW(squawk/the harsh cry of a crow or similar bid) placed after(by) MA(informal term for “mother”, or an old lady/old bird).
Blue feathers:
18. Money returned — woof! (3)
YAP : Reversal of(… returned) PAY(money earned for doing regular work).
Defn: …/a dog’s bark.
20. Bird — tit (5)
BOOBY : Double defn: 1st: A large tropical seabird; and 2nd: Like …, slang for a woman’s breast.
Blue feet and grey beak or red feet and blue beak … take your pick:
22. Terrible fear in turkey, seeing gull (7)
DEFRAUD : Anagram of(Terrible) FEAR contained in(in) DUD(a turkey/a flop).
Defn: To …/deceive.
25. Swallow against birds flying west (7)
CONSUME : CON(an argument against, as opposed to “pro”) + reversal of(… flying west, in an across clue) EMUS(flightless birds from Australia).
26. About right, brief idea for currency (5)
FRANC : R(abbrev. for “right”) contained in(About …, …) “fancy”(an idea/an unfounded thought) minus its last letter(brief …).
27. Shake tree, perhaps, where there’s cuckoo I feed a lot (9)
DEFOLIATE : Anagram of(cuckoo) I FEED A LOT.
Defn: To remove leaves from a tree, one way is to ….
30. Birds in tree almost caught by dogs (9)
COCKERELS : “elm”(a deciduous tree) minus its last letter(almost) contained in(caught by) COCKERS(small spaniels).
31. More than one bird rises up, it’s said? (5)
RHEAS : Homophone of(…, it’s said) “rears”(rises up on hind legs, as with horses and other animals).
Distantly related and distant look-alikes of the flightless ostriches and emus.
Down
1. See 7
2. Novel is by all contributors initially referring to language unit (8)
SYLLABIC : Anagram of(Novel) [IS BY ALL + 1st letters, respectively, of(… initially) “contributors” ].
Defn: Of/refering to “syllable” a unit of language pronunciation.
3. Queen caught by pelican, neatly (4)
ANNE : Hidden in(caught by) “pelican, neatly“.
4. Venom bound to stuff a bunny (8)
ACRIMONY : RIM(bound/a boundary/an edge) contained in(to stuff) [A + CONY(a rabbit) ]
5. Unfortunate scrap defended by jerk (6)
TRAGIC : RAG(a scrap/a small piece, say, of cloth) contained in(defended by) TIC(a jerk/an uncontrollable muscle movement).
6. Bird after song for competition (5,5)
ROUND ROBIN : ROBIN(a bird with a red breast or other colourful markings) placed after(after) ROUND(a song for 3 or more voices, each singing the same theme, but in turn).
Defn: … in which each competitor plays in turn against every other.
7, 1. Controlled strike at parrot in windy park (6,4)
KARATE CHOP : [AT + ECHO(to parrot/to repeat the same that’s voiced by someone else) ] contained in(in) anagram of(windy/twisting) PARK.
8. Ultimate characters seen in the magnificent Coptic church make an impression (4)
ETCH : Last letters, respectively, of(Ultimate characters seen in) “the magnificent Coptic church“.
13. Corporation documents, puffed up (5)
TUMID : TUM(short for “tummy”/one’s stomach/corporation) + ID(abbrev. for “identification”/documents proving such).
Defn: …/swollen.
14. Contract secured by quail for device used on American rails (10)
COWCATCHER : CATCH(to contract an illness) contained in(secured by) COWER(to quail/to show fear by crouching down).
Defn: …, the rails, that is, that trains run on, and not the birds.
… to sit on when not catching cows, bisons, etc
16. Herb has heard bird (5)
THYME : Homophone of(has heard) “time”(a prison sentence/”bird” in slang).
19. Dove, one perched on hand after uplifting eclipse (8)
PACIFIST : [ I(Roman numeral for “one”) placed above(perched on, in a down clue) FIST(one’s hand with fingers clenched) ] placed below(after, in a down clue) reversal of(uplifting) CAP(to eclipse/to outdo/surpass).
Defn: …, one who advocates peace not war.
21. Laud vet following surgery after duck produced eggs (8)
OVULATED : Anagram of(… following surgery) LAUD VET placed below(after, in a down clue) O(letter representing 0 runs/a “duck” in cricket scores).
23. Leader of Conservatives in bumbling oaf is humiliating disaster (6)
FIASCO : 1st letter of(Leader of) “Conservatives” contained in(in) anagram of(bumbling) OAF IS.
24. Cook cooks old birds (6)
DODOES : DO(to cook/to falsify, as in “to do the books”) + DOES(cooks/singular form of “to do”).
Defn: Alternative spelling of the plural of “dodo”/an old, in fact extinct, bird.
26. Bottom on turf, great tackle (4)
FACE : Last letter of(Bottom on, in a down clue) “turf” + ACE(great/excellent!).
Defn: …/to confront and deal with).
28. Bird laugh (4)
LARK : Double defn: 2nd: A …/something that causes laughter/a prank.
29. Some fugitive, as yet loose (4)
EASY : Hidden in(Some) “fugitive, as yet“.
Defn: …/descriptive of one inclined to casual sexual encounters or relationships.
Favourites: FIASCO, PACIFIST, DODOES (loi).
New for me: gannet = PIG (11ac); CORM = plant stem; COWCATCHER.
Thanks, both.
MACAW: I understood this way: MOA-old bird (extinct), though not O (old), becomes ‘MA’
The definition is ‘bird’
I worked for a large broadcasting corporation for 40 years where they tried to restrict the word TRAGIC to situations involving death (e.g. not when a footballer missed an open goal). But that ship has flown the stable door.
THYME:
Is bird not one who serves time?
I agree with the blogger that the clue is about thyme & time being homophones.
Just not sure if ‘bird’ means ‘time’ as well…
I wondered about MACAW and came to scchua’s parsing, but I like KVa’s @2
KVa @ 2. I concur.
KVa @4 – yes, ‘bird’ means time spent in prison.
Thanks Paul and scchua
I needed your eplanation of RIM in 4d and CATCH in 14d, and KVa’s explanation of the “not old” in 17a!
I tentatively wrote in CROW at 28d, but it was soon proved wrong.
Favourite NEATH for the neat definition.
The most difficult Guardian crossword for some time, I felt. I don’t know if anybody agrees.
Spooner’s catflap@6: Thanks!
Found this enjoyable sentence (using bird in the sense of time) online:
‘A warrant for his arrest has now been issued and he may end up doing bird rather than feeding them!’
Thanks scchua, nice pics. I agree with KVa@2 and disagree with NxNW@8 as I got this done before arriving at work, very unusual for me especially with Paul. The answers just flew in (sorry).
TUMID is a nice new word for me, but familiar with the less wieldy “tumescent” (although that is merely “slightly tumid” according to my online source) and the uglier “turgid”, I don’t suppose it is a portmanteau/Carrollism of those, anyone know?
I like a bird and liked getting my head round the various interpretations here, enjoyed a reminder of one of the first cryptic clues I ever solved (as the much easier “Below Welsh town”) but favourite was either HAYDN or that MACAW – thanks Paul.
I also had Moa (extinct NZ bird) minus “O” for old so agree with KVa @2.
Concur also with Spooner’s catflap @6. Chambers has bird as slang for prison and prison sentence.
Nice challenge.
Thanks Paul for the aviary, and scchua for the blog.
I enjoyed DODOES very much and the CURRENT FIASCO.
I think ‘didn’t have’ in 9ac is ‘had no’
northnorthwest @8, I found it a struggle, but at least I completed it. Not Paul at his best, I felt, but it may be more that I was not quite in the right mood. More groans than delight!
… and some of the G threaders thought 23d was deliciously timely, given the party video and all …
Enjoyable crossword, although some rather strange surfaces – how does a quail secure a contract, maybe I’ve misunderstood?
I originally parsed MACAW as scchua, but I think KVa @2’s suggestion is more likely the intention. I liked HAYDN, DEFRAUD, DEFOLIATE and ACRIMONY.
Thanks Paul and scchua.
Enjoyable, if another brief solve. My favourites were MACAW (I had scchua’s parsing though I see the alternative), DEFRAUD, and PACIFIST.
We are due a real toughie, surely!
Thanks Paul and scchua
I had the same experience as Gazzh @10 (apology accepted), just on Paul’s wavelength this morning I guess. I parsed MACAW as scchua did but KVa’s parsing works just as well, especially with the extinct DODOES also featuring. I agree with Robi @16 about some clunky surfaces but lots to like including PACIFIST and FIASCO.
Ta Paul and scchua for the colourful blog.
Thanks for all the bird pics scchua.
There has to be a less predictable way of cluing BOOBY. Bird on bird? The bird at the hand of the bird?
14dn brought to mind Sheldon (in The Big Bang Theory): “…while commonly known as a cowcatcher, I prefer the more accurate “cow exploder”.
And 18ac seemed to trigger a memory or two too…
Thanks Paul and scchua.
Interesting theme of birds old and new. Guessed KARATE CHOP but couldn’t parse. Thanks to wynsum @12 for spotting the timely link to DODOES and CURRENT FIASCO. Looking forward to joining the zoom discussion later with JH.
Thanks to Paul and scchua for the blog and pics of birds especially the ‘BOOBY’
Beautiful crossword, and, for me, was Paul on the easier side. Maybe because I know more birds than composers.
I think MOA = old bird is the better explanation for 17a. “Bird” is a better definition than “not old bird” for Macaw, I believe.
This was a challenge, and rather found my way in at first through the non avian themed clues. Held myself up for some time in the left half of the puzzle by misspelling the anagram of SYLLABIC. And had to come here to have the parsing of ACRIMONY and COCKERELS explained. As ever with Paul, things do eventually fall pleasingly into place after apparently hitting the odd brick wall. Many thanks Scchua and Paul/John…
Really hard but I managed to finish it after a break for some garden clearing prior to the arrival (we hope) of scaffolding tomorrow – new roof!
New to me TUMID and spelling of DODOES.
Last one in should not have taken so long – 30a.
Thank you Paul and Scchua
Although, Paul being Paul, the anatomical meaning of ‘BOOBY’ seems most likely, I obliviously parsed the DD alternatively, because ‘tit’ and ‘BOOBY’ are both slang terms for a foolish or stupid person. Chambers online (I don’t possess a dead tree version) does not offer ‘tit’ in this sense, but the CED does. In Henry Fielding’s 1741 burlesque take-down of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Pamela, titled Shamela, ‘Squire B’ in Richardson’s novel, whose name is given only ever by the initial B, is unmasked as ‘Squire Booby’. This sense of BOOBY is probably rather antique, but my head is rather over-stuffed with antique usages gleaned from earlier literature.
…and after fitting in the rather awkward looking DODOES, was reminded about the time I saw a (reconstructed?) skeleton of this remarkable bird in the excellent Yorkshire Museum a few years ago…
I don’t think YAP (high-pitched bark of a small dog) = “woof” (low-pitched bark of a big dog).
scchua — the anagram in FIASCO is of ‘OAF IS,” not just OAF.
KVa@4 “Bird” is short for “bird lime,” rhyming slang for time.
Thanks to scchua for the bird pix and the cluing-in, and to Paul for the puzzle. My email doesn’t have an invitation to his zoom session, I’ll have to track it down.
I should think Pierre is green that scchua got to blog this one!
Being Paul and a bird theme, “shag” had to appear but it’s actually a misdirection at 13a.
I never actually try to complete Paul’s puzzles, I just reveal them one by one and have a go at parsing them (as usual, I managed about 2/3 this time).
Several things I’ve never heard of: CORM, GULL = DEFRAUD, TUM = CORPORATION.
Good spot Spooner’s catflap@24, TIT = idiot or similar appeared recently in a crossword, and there is an interesting brief etymology of Boob/Booby on wikipedia under Booby Prize (where the word in that sense still lives on).
ravenrider@28 – that held me up a while as I worked through birds, carpet and other meanings first!
Thanks Paul and scchua. Enjoyed this. I thought perhaps I was on good form today, but it seems the general consensus seems to be that this was a the more accessible end of Paul’s spectrum. I liked MACAW and agree with KVa @2 on the parsing. 23d is a nice dig at The Clown, although the ‘in’ and ‘is’ need to be swapped for the surface to really make sense.
Agree with Spooner’s Catflap @24 on the meaning of BOOBY – the rest of you are just casting aspersions on Paul’s good name by suggesting he’s obsessed with anatomical humour. 😉
Shirl @3 – I refer you to the great Mel Brooks on this matter: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
Thanks Valentine. Blog corrected.
As wynsum says: thanks for the aviary (and no obscure ones, either). Like all good Pauls, this progressed slowly but steadily, though I failed to parse COWCATCHER and took ages to see the simple YAP. Didn’t know you could legitimately spell DODOES that way.
Botanical textbooks will explain that a crocus corm is technically a stem, not a bulb, but it isn’t exactly common knowledge – oh well, if you find the CORMORANT you can look up the CORM later and find out. Favourites DODOES, HAYDN, FIASCO.
COWCATCHER reminded me of this Pete Atkin song.
Pete Atkin had a long term partnership with Clive James writing the lyrics, but Atkin was very proud of doing this one all by himself!
[Having looked it up, it turns out that a bulb is also at least partly a stem, plus some swollen leaf bases: I don’t think anyone would clue bulb=stem though.]
I groaned when I saw all the bird clues as knowledge of flora and fauna is a weakness of mine, but luckily Paul did not go too obscure. Came here to understand a couple of the parsings and after recent discussions I expected some objections to the nonrhoticism required for 31ac to work! I had the same parsing as scchua for MACAW but couldn’t account for the ‘not old’, so actually I find KVa’s @2 most convincing.
Favourites were KARATE CHOP, PILFERING, DEFRAUD and DODOES. New for me are some elements in the clues: ‘corm’, ‘shag’ meaning TOBACCO and ‘bird’ meaning ‘prison time’.
Thanks Paul for the puzzle and scchua for the blog!
I spotted the theme!! (Ok, it was too obvious to miss.) As usual, Paul pushed me to the limit of my solving abilities which is why I’ve only just finished. Thank you to P and scchua for explaining a few I couldn’t parse.
Thanks both,
A pleasant and quite quick solve once I had got my head round the possible avifauna.
Shouldn’t 13ac have a DBE indicator as ‘tobacco’ is being defined by an example thereof?
Spooners Catflap @24: well done for BOOBY, that makes sense. I recently reread Tom Jones and will now seek out my dusty copy of Shamela, wherever it lurks.
Unlike northnorthwest @8 I found this the easiest Paul puzzle that I can remember. Never heard of COWCATCHER, but it seemed pretty obvious. Liked KARATE CHOP, DODOES and PACIFIST. Thanks to Paul and scchua.
AlanC @39: Thank you, and in fact ‘BOOBY’ in this sense also occurs in Tom Jones, as here in Book XIII, chapter xi:
“Jones, ever since the arrival of Lady Bellaston, had been ready to sink with fear. He sat kicking his heels, playing with his fingers, and looking more like a fool, if it be possible, than a young booby squire, when he is first introduced into a polite assembly.”
Inspired by a recent crossword I briefly had Noddy for Booby. CORMORANT is one of those clues where you acquire the general knowledge from the answer rather than use it to solve the clue.
Accessible puzzle from Paul with, mercifully, no ornithological obscurities. Some pretty rum surfaces made this, for me, not one of this great setter’s best outings.
I parsed MACAW as scchua, but the alternative from KVa and others is more convincing.
Like LoveableJim @36 I expected more comments about the non-rhotic RHEA. Too polite to mention it again? Although my own accent is non-rhotic I wince every time this crops up. Why do setters persist in this controversial device? Laziness? (Let’s go and park the car in Harvard yard, mrpenney).
Thanks to S&B
“Bird” is cockney rhyming slang .Bird lime in full.
One of Paul’s easier ones, although I still don’t particularly enjoy his cluing I’m afraid…
Thanks for the blog and the pictures., a bird theme is my second favourite really , blue footed boobies have a very amusing courtship dance.
Booby and tit can both mean bird/breast/ fool so take your pick.
I like KARATE CHOP with the echo , PACIFIST is a neat construction and TOBACCO was nicely deceptive.
The late John McCririck, racing correspondent amongst other things, always referred to his wife as The Booby. In about 2006 he was on some kind of Wife Swap programme on TV, and Edwina Currie took him to task for his rather offhand misogynistic labelling of her…
gladys @33 – thanks as ever for the botanical enlightenment. I was vaguely aware that a corm was the base/root/bulb of some plants but the technical differences between bulbs, corms, rhizomes, tubers et al are lost on me. Stem seems close enough – and was enough to help me unravel the clue here.
Roz @46 – I leant towards Spooner’s C’s interpretation simply because I think the word for breast is more commonly spelt without a Y, but you’re right, it works equally well either way – and this is Paul we’re talking about…
Gervase@43: “Why do setters persist in this controversial device? Laziness?” Is it the controversial nature of homophones in clues that you object to? Why do solvers persist in moaning about homophones? Why do setters persist in including obscure words in their grids? Why do setters persist in defining the solutions so loosely or in such convoluted ways?
I enjoy a Paul puzzle when he’s not trying so hard to be difficult and devious. This one was nicely balanced, I thought, between tricksiness and fair manipulation in the wordplay.
I am at a loss trying to imagine how it would be possible to articulate the rhoticity of ‘rears’ in such a way that a listener would be quite unable to hear the close similarity to the same speaker’s articulation of ‘rheas’. Of course, the two phonetic renderings may not be identical (indeed, I would hardly expect them to be so), but surely one would sound sufficiently similar to the other that a cryptic crossword solver might spot the clue.
Surely the simplest approach to homophone clues in the Guardian (and in other London-based UK national papers) is just to accept that these are almost always homophones in Received Pronunciation (unless specified otherwise). Presumably everybody doing these puzzles knows what RP sounds like, even if it isn’t their own accent.
This may not seem fair to non-RP speakers, but it is the way things are.
I’m not convinced by the arguments of RP imperialists 🙂 The more careful setters use forms of words like ‘some might say’ in these circumstances. My personal view is that homophone clues should be avoided unless they are incontrovertible (ie effectively homonyms) or part of a (good!) Spooner clue, when the amusement outweighs the inexactitude.
Gervase@52 Cockney witches sound like homophone colonialists 7
I wonder if non-rhotic speakers ever wonder why the Rs are in the spelling if they are going to be ignored in pronunciation?
I have come across a more extreme example; I was on a Naturetrek trip with a woman who pronounced flowers as “flahs” and wires as “wahs”.
btw I have no trouble in pronouncing “rears” differently from “rheas”…
Muffin @54 Even to me bees don’t sound like beers.
Certainly not, Petert @55 – beers don’t buzz 🙂
….though there is one called Waggle Dance!
[muffin@56: you’re not drinking the right sort]
Extensive homophone discussion (as expected) but about RHEAS and “rears” and not (as expected) about THYME and “time”. Am I missing something? (Same thing the other day with “Thai deed” and “TIDIED”.)
I don’t think the concept of “cooking the books” is needed to bridge the gap between “cook” and “do” – I could do you an omelette? We’ve been over tat ground before.
Old joke alert! Doctor: “I’m afraid you only have tree minutes to live.” Patient: “Isn’t tere anyting you can do?” Doctor: “I could boil you an egg….”
Thanks to Paul (whom (I feel sure) would never refer to a mother as an “old bird”) and to sschuaa for the usual illumination.
muffin: why are the Rs in the spelling? As Petert suggests, sometimes a letter can perform a function in indicating pronunciation without being pronounced in its own right. The E in “hate” isn’t pronounced, but it indicates a pronunciation different from “hat”. For a non-rhotic speaker, the R in “hater” indicates that the second syllable is to be pronounced (as a schwa).
In any case, English spelling is full of silent letters! I would guess you don’t pronounce the B in “lamb”, the C in “scissors”, the G in “gnome”, the K in “knife”, the L in “could”… and so on.
Lord Jim@59: the H in THYME….
Very enjoyable birds everywhere. Yes MOA – O was my understanding. MA not quite fitting. There was a redundant “in” in the CORMORANT clue IMHO.
Thanks Paul and Peter O
Great fun. Thanks Paul – and thanks to scchua. Can’t believe some solvers get ruffled feathers over trivial things.
Sorry thanks scchua
I thought this was by far the toughest this week, with the NE holding out longest, so feeling chuffed to have finished this. Too many ticks but my favourite was HAIRDO, with the misdirection to Dylan presumably. REMBRANDT may raise an issue but I think it works OK. If I don’t include the earworm, I’m sure someone else will (or perhaps not) 🙂
https://youtu.be/0Af7ayYIJ9w
Ta Tramp & Andrew
Apologies for the above if this has created a spoiler, very careless of me
Alphalpha@58 in case you come back: I remember your comment on Thai vs Tie from the other day, did not respond then as I was not sure if it was a serious question (sorry). But do you mean that you pronounce the TH in Thai and Thyme in the same way as the Th in Think? If not then how? I can understand a slight aspiration if that’s the word but to my largely cloth ears I have never detected a significant difference in how anyone Thai or otherwise pronounce the first consonant sound of Thai&Tie, or Thyme&Time. (Three & tree on the other hand, as you allude to in your joke…)
Gazzh@66: That’s precisely it. It fascinates me that there is no differentiation within at least parts of the indigenous English-speaking population between “thyme” and “time”. I have never noticed that.
[Alphalpha @67: would you be Irish by any chance? If so we may be talking at cross-purposes (when discussing the difference between, say, the ‘th’ sound in ‘thin’ and the ‘t’ in ‘tin’) since for many Irish speakers there’s very little difference!
Gazzh @66: you definitely don’t have cloth ears! The ‘aspirated’ sound [th] is the one used by the great majority of English speakers when the ‘t’ sound is at the beginning of the word, irrespective of whether they’re saying Thai, tie, time, or thyme (see wiki).]
[me @68 – my attempt at phonetic transcription didn’t quite work! [th] above was supposed to be t, followed by a superscript h]
essexboy@68: “……since for many Irish speakers there’s very little difference.” But if I understand you correctly the same is true for English speakers, albeit the other way round. I have of course noticed the un-aspirated ‘t’ among Irish English speakers (there is an Irish language) but the obverse among English English speakers is news to me.
Enough! (imho)
Alphalpha – I’m always find it odd when I hear the TH being pronounced in the name Anthony – to me it’s always been just a T. But I do hear that occasionally. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone pronounce the TH in Thai or thyme, so I’m fascinated to learn that some people do. (Maybe I’ve just never noticed it before, but I shall keep an ear out for it from now on.)
This discussion reminds me of the rugby player Billy Twelvetrees, whose Irish club captain gave him the nickname 36.
[widdersbel @71 – here’s wiki on Anthony:
The name was historically spelled Antony, as used in William Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra. In the 17th century, the letter “h” was inserted into the spelling on the [mistaken] belief that the name derived from the Greek word άνθος (anthos), meaning “flower”. In Britain, the historical pronunciation /’æntəni/ predominates for both spellings, while in the United States the spelling pronunciation /’ænθəni/ is more common when the “Anthony” spelling is used. ]
[Last twopenn’orth from me – or actually five lots of twopenn’orth, so make that tenpenn’orth.
This is my theory (and apologies in advance if it sounds condescending; it’s certainly not meant to be):
1) In Hiberno-English (Irish English), and in some other accents and dialects, there’s a merger, or near-merger, of ‘tie’ and ‘thigh’.
2) That means that, in those parts of the world, ‘thigh’, ‘Thai’, and ‘tie’ are all spoken (by many) without much distinction in pronunciation.
3) Given that context, some speakers, in Ireland and elsewhere, may have been misled by the spelling of ‘Thai’ and ‘thyme’ into thinking that English English speakers (and Welsh, Scottish, General American, Can, Aus, NZ, …) put Thai/thyme into the ‘thigh’ group for pronunciation, rather than (as we in fact do) in the ‘tie’ group.
4) Is it possible that some of those speakers may then have adopted the ‘thigh’ pronunciation [θ] as a kind of hypercorrection when saying Thai/thyme?
5) It may help to clear up misconceptions if we all have something we can listen to. Here are two clips from Simon and Garfunkel’s concert in Central Park.
(i) The famous line from Scarborough Fair: Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
(ii) The opening lines of Bookends:
Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences…
S & G sing the words exactly as I would (if I could sing). I hear them as identical, but I would be fascinated if Alphalpha can detect a difference 😉 ]