Gila sets the Thursday challenge this week.
This had us really worried as we just could not solve 1ac. We moved on to the other clues and gradually managed to fill the grid, coming to terms with Gila’s fairly obscure synonyms and ingenious definitions. In the end, 1 across totally defeated us, even when we had all the crossing letters – the first time in many years that we have had to cheat to solve a clue.
Well…. what a start! We just could not solve this clue, even with electronic assistance, so we had to cheat! We had all the crossing letters and thought that it might end with W-A-ADOPTERS (bringing up unrelated issues?) but, needless to say, we couldn’t find anything that worked with it. So, having cheated, we feel somewhat vindicated, as we have never heard of this word before and it is certainly not in Chambers or our dead tree version of Collins. We have now found it in an online dictionary, but only by googling the answer after we had cheated! The parsing is: BOUT (fight) in an anagram (‘oddly’) of A WAR THEY
Double definition
I-PAD (tech gadget) DRESS (mini perhaps)
OVER TIME (in due course)
A homophone (‘sound made by’) of SENSOR (security device)
THE RED (sign to stop) with FA (absolutely nothing) before
SKY (telecoms company) round or ‘stealing’ TIN (money)
A C (cold) T (first or ‘primary’ letter of tart) round or ‘containing’ CEP (mushroom)
A homophone (‘utter’) of GORILLA (brute)
An anagram (‘shot’) of MESSI’S
BOY (young guy) + OTT (over the top – ‘lacking restraint’) in ClubS without the middle letters or ’empty’
An anagram (‘unusually’) of ADONIS IS + T (tense)
fAIRER (more upright) with the first letter or ‘front part’ omitted or ‘lifted’
STRESSED (worried) reversed or ‘about’ + NO OP (work) reversed or ‘sent back’ – an ‘interesting’ definition!
WELL (properly) OFF (spoiled)
An anagram (‘removing’) of CRAP IN THE PIPES
Last or ‘end’ letters of extrA effortS onlY takE iT
I (one) + alternate or ‘frequent’ letters of gUy MaD in OPEN (public)
A homophone (‘on a phone’) of TIE (connection)
RED sETTER (dog) with L (large) replacing ‘s’ (small)
PERSON (party) ALSO round or ‘featuring’ alternate or ‘occasional’ letters of ThE and R (right)
Hidden (‘piece of’) and reversed (‘mounted’) in HockneY ART SAfely
An anagram (‘upset’) of HE IS and ME round or ‘taking’ UP + E (last or ‘back’ letter of space)
An anagram (‘screwed up’) of ROUTES ARe without the last letter or ‘mostly’
ALMS (charity) round or ‘hosting’ O (round) + T (first letter of tables)
First letters or ‘leads’ from Such Old Routers in A LAN (local area network – ‘computer linkup’)
C (college) L (left) ASS (behind)
Hidden in (‘coming from’) crasS ASSistant
Wow. Not that many days I draw a blank with both my morning puzzles but so it was today. Really struggled with this and have now run out of time. Obscure and ingenious, indeed.
But it did want to highlight APPRENTICESHIP as one of the clues of the year so far.
Thanks Gila and B&J
I did manage to eventually get WHATABOUTERY, but only after a good night’s sleep – never come across the word before. Others to give trouble at the end were OVERTIME, the tricky OPIUM DEN and my last in CENSOR. Earlier I was a bit put off by the GUERILLA with only one R but I now see it is given as an alternative spelling.
APPRENTICESHIP was a top notch anagram, ‘course assistant?’ was indeed an interesting def and I liked the cynical surface for STINKY.
Thanks to Gila for a tough but ultimately satisfying challenge and to B&J
I enjoyed this very challenging puzzle on the whole although the gloss was taken off it for me by 23d, the answer to which is an unindicated Americanism, and the ghastly word which is the answer to 1a (even though it is in Collins online).
Thanks to Gila and to B&J.
@Rabbit Dave – I’m interested to know what in particular is causing consternation with SASS? Is it purely that dictionaries say it’s an Americanism and that therefore, by rule, any reference to such words in a UK crossword should have an indicator?
Not trying to ruffle any feathers here. As a setter, I’m genuinely interested as I often seem to get picked up on this, to the extent that people here and elsewhere have repeatedly questioned whether or not I am American.
do you spell guerrilla like he has? not in my book. Spanish little war
Canalonly – it is there in Chambers I am afraid. We were surprised and had to check.
One Look helped for 1a-very strange word, almost Trumpish but i seem to remember it parsing
Whilst on that subject, very tremendous puzzle1
I found that really hard-going and 1a put the tin lid on it! Eventually I made up words from the checkers and joined them together. Not very scientific but it worked – at least it did according to online dictionaries.
Top clues for me were those for OVERTIME & STINKY.
Thanks (I think!) to Gila and to B&J whom I didn’t envy in the least!
Ali @4. I replied to you over an hour ago, but my reply seems to have disappeared into the ether. Here we go again:
I don’t believe there are any rules as such about the use of non-UK words in UK crosswords. It’s a question of what editors and solvers find acceptable, and it is unlikely that such a diverse group will be in total agreement on something like this. My opinion is that if a non-UK word or phrase is in regular use in the UK (e.g.: coup d’état) , this is fair game, but if it is not (e.g.: sass) then it requires an indicator. I know several setters who compile for UK daily newspapers and they aim to follow this principle.
A further difficulty with Americanisms is that Collins and Chambers often disagree about them!
My thinking is that it is probably better to indicate foreign words if in doubt.
Good luck with your setting.
I agree about the US etc indication. As to alt spellings, I can only say that I have seen ‘for one spell’ used, in The Times I think it was, to give us all a nudge in the right direction. As for obscure words clued with anagrams, such as 1 across here, I think all of us have had a moan somewhere along the line about it. It’s actually a fine clue, but really hard to solve, as many of us have said.
Rabbit Dave. I didn’t realise SASS was a US word. As a Brit, I have seen it used a lot so didn’t object. On the other hand, I’ve never liked ASS for “behind” without a US indication (22d). Got 1a from the wordplay after having all the crossers but didn’t bother checking in any of my dictionaries. Did need a cheat for SOI-DISANT which I’ve never met before and would never have gotten from the anagram fodder. APPRENTICESHIP was a great anagram (although, “removing” isn’t the best anagram indicator imo, prefer just “moving” but not such a great surface then).
Jane@8 – no complaints from us about blogging. A couple of the clues were very good – APPRENTICESHIP was one of them. We just get worried when we struggle with a crossword we are blogging.
Revealed a few, I think my solving abilities are failing, but liked the ones I got.
Ass is usually indicated in Indy crosswords, don’t remember seeing it without, so I wonder if it’s accidental or a change of policy.
In many cases, I can’t see how indications for American words help. If UK English and American English have different spellings such as in omelet, color, ass, then yes, an alert is helpful. But a word like sass is a just a word that is either in your general vocabulary or not, and I don’t believe anyone’s success or failure to get it would depend on the presence of an indicator.
I guessed a few unchecked letters in 1a and after accounting for all the letters I could get from the wordplay I was left with ?O?T for a fight. OK, I got it, but for heavens sake there is no way anyone could convince me that that is a word.
@Rabbit Dave @9 – that’s perfectly fair, and thanks for clarifying. As is often the case in these instances, I hadn’t considered SASS to be an Americanism, so it never crossed my mind to clue it as such. I’ll defer to the ed on this one!
Many thanks to all for the comments. I’m glad I’ve introduced many of you to WHATABOUTERY, which is – willy-nilly – a perfectly cromulent word! 🙂
DNF for me as I entered what seemd a very reasonable EUPHEMISM at 14 (justifying the final M by the printing space) and therefore nowt to fit 26.
Horrible word at 1A the like of which I hope never to encounter again.
Thanks to S&B
Thanks both. I always end up saying that all is fair game in crosswords, whether it is an unknown but very clearly clued Americanism or the trickier for me SOI-DISANT evidently in use only when the wind blows strongly enough across the channel, I force myself to graciously admit defeat with the comfort very few in this blog knew 1ac. And, not a palindrome in sight despite the puzzle number….
Whataboutery of course unknown. And does anyone really consider dessert spoon to be one word?
Ericw – sorry, but actually Chambers considers dessertspoon to be one word.
Thanks B&J. I accept that’s how it is – but at least John Lewis agrees with me!
Well, total defeat for me. Only got a handful of answers all day. Seems to always happen on Thursdays.
Whataboutery might not have made it to everyone’s dictionaries yet (it’s in both my OED and Collins ios dictionaries), but it’s the perfect word for these times. In essence, it would be defending Boris Johnson having a birthday party with communal singing and a BYOB garden party by saying “What about Keir Starmer having a bottle of beer in his office?”
In recipe ingredients lists dsp = dessertspoon, so fine by me!
Well, I really liked this one. Over here across the pond “whataboutery” (or “whataboutism”) is quite frequently encountered, usually in the context of a politician dodging an inconvenient inconsistency (“oh, but what about Bill Clinton? Never mind my own egregious turpitude.”). Eimi’s example is perfect. The clue I could not get was PERSONAL STEREO. I had the STEREO and the crossers but that was it. I have never heard of that device before.