Everyman 3,930/6 February

47 comments on “Everyman 3,930/6 February”

1. Back on track this week after finding last week’s more difficult than usual.

   LEGIONS took me ages. Having got the L and G crosses and thinking soldiers might be GIs I did think of legirons for restraining devices as the definition but it didn’t fit. After an embarrassingly long time realised the definition was soldiers…..

   Liked ABSEILED (my favourite) GENTLEMENS CLUB, URBAN LEGEND, RIOJA

   Thanks Everyman and Pierre

2. I was not so keen on ABSEILED, because I thoroughly dislike what seems to be the accepted pronunciation, as if the word had something to do with sailing. The word derives from the German “Abseil”, which rhymes with “file”. But I suppose the ship has seiled.

   And pizza isn’t pie, but apart from that it was an OK puzzle, if not as good in my opinion as most of this year’s Everymen.

3. Oh, and I was rather surprised at the French word MAISON in an English crossword. Maisonettes would have been fine. Perhaps Maison is in use in English sentences and I have missed such usage.

4. Nice one. My favourite was THE USUAL for its definition, but I also enjoyed those mentioned by Fiona Anne @1. I’ve only heard of Pizza Pie from That’s Amore, but its a dish designed for colloquial spin. I remember my first visit to England being astonished by the locals eating it with a knife & fork. Thanks Pierre & Everyman.

5. Paul @4 just got to Napoli before me.

   (If you call her your pet, though she’s shaped like spaghett’, that’s amore!)

   If Monkey can reconcile himself to ABSEILED, then I’ll forgive MAIGRET 😉

   Does COME = reach? Loved THE USUAL. HEART/CLUB for the pair? Ta E & P. Bed beckons.

6. Paul @4, essexboy @5 – my recollection is that Top Cat always referred to them as ‘pizza pies’,which is authority enough for me.

7. Good point SC@6. Appears to be mostly a New York thing?

8. Thanks for the blog and the Alderney facts. I had never heard of ALDERNEYS but it did seem right because of Jersey cattle, our milkman still does Jersey milk, gold top.
   Good spot MrEssexboy@5 with H/C , I had failed ti find any pairs in this one. A lot of good clues here and my favourites already mentioned.

9. As well as Heart and Club there are two LEGs. Like Fiona Anne I got fixated on the GI for LEGIONS for a while. The USUAL was my favourite (which made another almost pair with HALF-size)

10. As I child my adult sister took me on a trek into London to go to the Chicago Pizza Pie factory, where the pizzas look like quiches. So I guess it depends where you’re from, but parts of the US definitely consider them to be pies

11. Re UPSHOT. ‘Hot’ and ‘cool may be synonyms as Pierre says, but I’ve also heard of ‘sick’ and ‘mad’.
    I liked THE USUAL too, but don’t think I’ve ever asked, or would ever ask, for that as an order in a pub. I obviously don’t get out enough.

12. Re the pairs, I wondered about ‘pitta’ and ‘pizza’ too.

13. Thanks Pierre. In addition to Heart/Club there seemed to be a French aspect but I couldnt find a way to interpret “She is Maigret (in reverse)” in 10/11A unless Maigret has transitioned.

14. Well, we are told that there is only one Everyman setter, but this was much better IMHO (and seemed to be in a different style) than last week’s, which I didn’t enjoy much.

    I ticked MAIGRET (sounded to me just like May Gray), LEGIONS and ABSEILED (again, to me the homophone is fine).

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

15. That’s Amore was constantly on the radio when I was a child and I knew pizza pie but realise I never listened to the rest of the extraordinary words. Thanks essexboy. In AA Milnes The Kings Breakfast the dairymaid asks the Alderney for a little bit of butter. Sorry to hear she can’t do that anymore.

16. I did not parse 14ac FROZEN PIZZA. I do not think of pizza as a pie, although it is basically a crust made of dough with a topping baked in the oven.

    New: Alderney cattle; PM Charles Grey.

    Thanks, both.

17. I shrugged at FROZEN PIZZA for a pie too, but there wasn’t anything else that fitted. And I too wondered about HEARTS and CLUBS for the pair. LEGIONS/LEG IRONS also held me up far longer than it should have having seen that trick recently.

18. Pleasant Sunday entertainment as usual. 14a raised a smile (and immediately made me think of “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” as mentioned by Paul @4 and essexboy @5). I liked the HOT/cool thing in 5a.

    PM Charles Grey (10a) was head of the government which introduced the Great Reform Act, but these days he seems to be better remembered for being the Earl Grey of tea fame.

    Many thanks Everyman and Pierre.

19. Pizzas seem to have been introduced into the US before becoming popular in the UK, so I suppose since pumpkin pie does not have a pastry top, and pizza was first called tomato pie in the US, pizza pie ensued.

    Thank you Everyman and Pierre.

20. Thanks Everyman and Pierre. Lovely stuff. Pizza isn’t a pie, it’s glorified cheese on toast. And I’ve never liked that song. Still, I enjoyed the clue for the amusingly punning surface.

    Monkey @2 – I only discovered a few days ago that abseil is of German origin, so I’ve never questioned the pronunciation before, but that is how I’ve always said it. It came up in a list of words that Americans don’t know – apparently, they call it rappelling, which is a term of French origin. There was a companion list of words that Brits supposedly don’t know, but I did know most of them – probably from crosswords.

21. PDM@11 , our students have been through cool= bad = wicked = bare , I am waiting for groovy to make a comeback.

22. Nice and straightforward. Nothing to see here.

23. At least in the US, pizzas are sometimes called pizza pies, or just pies, especially in the pizza biz.

    As a child I read “The King’s Breakfast” in “When We Were Very Young.” I thought (in spite of the EH Shepard drawing) that an Alderney was some kind of official and only worked out later that she’s a cow.

    Yes, Jerseys and Guernseys are still with us, but at least in the US their (presumably) German cousins the Holsteins are the cows you see everywhere.

    I think people from Florida are normally called Floridians. I’ve never seen “Floridans..” I’ve never seen “Canadans” either.

    essexboy@5 What’s your problem with “Maigret”? It is pronounced May-Gray.

    Katie@10 Your quiche-like Chicago pie would probably have been a deep dish, which I believe is how they do them out there. (mrpenney, we could use some local knowledge.)

    Cookie@19 Is a one-crust pie like pumpkin something that you wouldn’t normally consider a pie? To me there are one-crust pies like custard, lemon meringue or sweet potato and two-crust pies like apple or chicken. Both are welcome in the club.

    Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.

24. Valentine @23 – I was being tongue-in-cheek (moi?) in my comment @5. AB-SAILED and MAY-GREY both depend on the normal English pronunciations of words that have come to us from other languages, and as such I think they’re fine in an English-language crossword (though I feel Monkey’s pain). If I were being ultra-pernickety, I might argue that French Maigret is /mɛgʁɛ/, both vowels being the monophthong /ɛ/ (listen here, for example), while in English both may and grey/gray end in the diphthong /eɪ/. But that would be pointilleux. I do draw the line at lon-zhe-ray, though.

    Interesting about the lack of Floridans (apparently there were Floridanos) and Canadans. I’ve never met a Barbadoan either. 😉

25. I noticed the “Floridans” problem too. It’s too bad, because it’s such a great anagram. I’m sure the clue could be reworked to include an instruction to remove an I, but it’d lose some elegance.

    I’d never heard of Alderney cattle, and I had to look it up to make sure that it wasn’t “Anderleys”, which also looked plausible to me.

    I learned another in the long list of transatlantic spelling differences today: we’d always spell “pita” with one T on my side.

26. As Robi says, inconsistency is the word when it comes to Everyman puzzles. What will be supplied to us next week? Who knows. As for this week I thought nearly all the clues were error-free, and 10 & 23 across were really good. I didn’t really like FROZEN PIZZA as an entry, as opposed to entree if we are doing puns, or buns, and I’m fairly sure it isn’t really a pie, at least not in UK-speak. 21 across is effectively an anagram of an obscure word, so I didn’t go much on that, and 26 across is the clue that kind of has to be there as it’s ‘what Everyman does’. These days.

    Thanks Everyman and Pie-rre

27. PS agree with Val and Ted that ‘Floridans’ is incorrect.

28. Valentine @ 23

    A one-crust, no-top pie would generally be called a tart or a quiche (lemon meringue pie notwithstanding).

    And although I’m vegetarian, I remember steak and kidney pies, which have a pastry top but neither base nor sides.

    Cuisino-linguistic clashes!

29. This was very enjoyable: FA@1 has picked out many of the gems. And whether a pizza is a pie or not, the clue should be commended for the pie pun itself!

    Even though the initial letter clues are write-ins, I always enjoy Everyman’s because I feel he’s enjoying himself a lot when he conjures them up.

    For the record, the SOED has FLORIDANS (18c) = FLORIDIAN (16c). However, I’m not averse (this may be sacrilegious) to compilers creating new words in clues if it’s obvious what the word means (and improves the clue) eg creating a -ness form when -ity is the convention…, such as conventionalness.

    [tlp@26 – perhaps yesterday was an aberration: I found your contribution today much more engaging 🙂 ]

30. Inventing sacreligious might be sacrilegious. Using sacrilegiousness would not be. But for me a word (don’t get me started on phrases) should probably be in one of the serious dictionaries to be included in a crossword, and in any case, why tempt fate? It’s easy enough to fill a grid these days without resorting to gobbledygook. FYI Collins has only Floridian.

31. #28 Simon, have you never blown up a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie by forgetting to remove the lid before cooking? Rite of passage in some quarters, so it is.

32. paul b@30 It’s not unknown for me to confuse sacrilege with sacrilegious. My reading of this description is that it’s fine to describe my non-aversion to neologisms as sacrilegious because I’m describing something that’s disrespectful of something sacred?

    BTW, I was careful to say new words in clues not answers (or in the grid, as you put it). In the case of FLORIDANS, even if it weren’t a word, few (if any) would have doubted what was meant and required. That seems to me harmless, especially if it improves the clue.

33. pdp11 @32 – you’re absolutely correct. The clue is asking is to come up with a phrase that is a rearrangement of the letters FLORIDANS, regardless of whether that is a meaningful word in itself. It’s only wrong in the surface reading.

    On a related note, I came across a (seemingly legit) reference to “Texians” the other day. I’ve only ever seen “Texans” before, as far as I can recall.

34. paul b @30 – the OED has “Floridans” with several citations. Is that serious enough for you? It seems to have been an acceptable variant formerly, maybe obsolete now.

    (There is a distinction in meaning between Texans and Texians, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with Floridians/Floridans.)

35. widdersbel @33 – SOED has both TEXIAN and TEXAN as both M19c. I wonder if there was a time when the -IAN and -AN endings were used interchangeably until one won out?

    BTW, did you see my comment @29: the SOED has FLORIDANS = FLORIDIAN. Does that still make the surface reading incorrect?

36. widdersbel @34 ignore my second paragraph @35. Our messages crossed.

37. Yes, it looks like Floridan/Floridian were used interchangeably in the past, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that Floridian is now preferred (I did see your comment re the SOED but forgot it by the time I got round to replying).

    Texian seems to be used only to describe early settlers in Texas, mainly supporters of the revolution. (This came up in reading up about the Alamo.)

38. And so you’ve all arrived at the idea that FLORIDIAN is the current favourite. Good.

    The thing is, whilst the surface is entirely illusory, the setter still has a responsibility to have it mean something that’s plausible, and perhaps even incontrovertibly so. Which is why using the likes of FLORIDAN isn’t a great idea, unless you want people on 15/2 drawing attention to it, discussing its provenance, with some contributors moaning, when they might otherwise be talking about how great your crossword is. So being wrong in the surface reading, widdersbel, is something to be avoided. And some compilers, strange as it may seem, really do manage to avoid that something.

39. In case anybody’s still checking in …

    essexboy@24 By me acceptable Anglicizations use the sounds in one’s own dialect of English that most closely correspond to the ones in the foreign word, and since English speakers don’t monphthongize the vowel in “May”, the diphthong is close enough for me. Lon-zhe-ray, though, is beyond the acceptable, while lon-zhe-ree would be okay. That other version must have come from the idea that “ay” makes it sound more foreign, same idea as not pronouncing the last consonant in a French word, which produces “coup de grah.” I get my French pronunciation from that Gaulish authority Fonetix.

    Simon S@28 In the US a one-cruster is a pie, but a quiche is a quiche. We borrowed the name along with the recipe. A tart is usually a pie but smaller. unless it’s a frenchified “tarte” as in “tatin.”

40. I read some speculation on another blog this Everyman might hail from the US. I rather doubt it, given how (s)he spelled PITTA. I’ve never seen that before this puzzle.

41. paul b @38 – Obscure words regularly appear in the Guardian crosswords. Some of us enjoy learning new words. For answers, people generally accept obscure words if the wordplay is clear. In clues, obscure words are limited to a few clue types, eg anagrams or hidden words. Using obscure words in clues removes one of the tools available to the setter: a smooth surface, which would make it more difficult to unravel the definition from the wordplay for some solvers.

    Alternative spellings fall into a different category because their meanings may be discernable – either from the spelling or the context or both. In this instance the closeness of ‘sharks’ to ‘Florida(n)’ was a heavy hint as to what was intended and the surface meaning is clear once you guess that FLORIDANS is an alternative spelling. So for me this was fine and most people did not comment on it. Even if the reference was to VULCANS or DALEKS (and you were unaware of the two), you could deduce the clue was referring to a group of people unknown to you (which you could lookup if you were sufficiently curious).

    It may surprise you that “discussing the provenance” of words, phonetics, memes, and other obscure connections are, for some (most?), the very things that make this forum entertaining (beyond learning how clues are parsed).

42. I completely agree with your last para, pdp11. I’m always interested when one of my blogs generates that sort of discussion. I’m less interested in the monotonous and consistent slagging off on this forum of Everyman puzzles by paul b/Tees, an established setter.

43. Valentine &39, in the rather nasty mispronunciation lon-zhe-ray, the first syllable is also an issue.

44. I generally pronounce it “underwear.”

45. Liked this. No gripes. Thanks all.

46. Did not like Maison – the clue was clunky.

47. Good puzzle today. Nothing too easy, and no nasties. Worked hard and enjoyed it.

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