Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 28,883 by Paul (8 October 2022)

by

Paul in mercurial multi-linkage mode this Saturday Prize puzzle, with no fewer than four linked pairs of answers, and a triple-link…

(Actually, I just looked up ‘mercurial’, as I only used it above for alliterative purposes…and Chambers has ‘…active, sprightly and often changing…’. I had thought it meant enigmatic and mysterious, but you had to be active and sprightly to solve this one, jumping around the grid, and often changing context…)

The thing with linked answers, and especially triples, is that once you get them they can unleash multiple crossers to help with other clues…but you have to get ’em first!

It took me a while to get started, and none of those pairs yielded on the first couple of passes – my first two solves were the reversed hidden words of IDLE and IGNORE, followed by SETS AIL.

There were a couple of alternative takes on some old cruciverbal chestnuts – maybe because it is conker season?… ORCHESTRA (often anagrammed from CARTHORSE) and TEENAGER (ditto, GREEN TEA) must be among my earliest memories of cryptic solving, and have been seen in many forms since. Also the BRA as a ‘supporter’ in VETEBRA.

I particularly enjoyed CATH ODE as a verse to one of H8’s many Catherines; the ‘spoken’ four for SPOKEN FOR; ‘Eyes left!’ as a MARCHING ORDER; the ‘possibly combined’ machine for HARVESTER; and the grunting TEENAGER living in a pigsty – luckily mine haven’t conformed to that stereotype! The GRAMMAR/GRANDMA homophone may stretch credulity for a few solvers, but wasn’t a particular issue for me, I’m sure I heard it many times when those teenagers were much smaller…

Once I had MARCHING ORDERS, LUMBAR VERTEBRA and LABOUR FORCE, EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE was a write-in from enumeration and crossers, followed by a retro-parse of the anagram, just to be sure. And it all fell swiftly into place. I know we aren’t really supposed to discuss solving times here, but after five minutes I probably had five entries, and after about twelve I had a full grid – helped by those linked clues speeding things up…

 

 

I think it only remains to thank Paul for the entertainment, and I trust all is clear below…

Across
Clue No Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/parsing
1A SPOKEN FOR Figure, by the sound of it, taken already (6,3)

homophone, i.e. by the sound of it – four, when SPOKEN, can sound like FOR!
6A SLOT See 13 (4)

see 13D
8A FESTIVAL See 14 (8)

see 14D
9A DETACH Separate cape rounded by unpopular revolutionary (6)

DETA_H (hated, or unpopular, reversed, or revolutionary) around C (cape)
10A ORDERS See 16 (6)

see 16A
11A TEENAGER Generate slops for grunter living in pigsty? (8)

anag, i.e. slops, of GENERATE!
12A IGNORE Blank charter on Gibraltar not entirely backed (6)

reversed, hidden word, i.e. ‘not entirely’ and ‘backed’, in ‘chartER ON GIbraltar’
15A PECULATE Nick, Paul etc wasted energy (8)

PECULAT (anag, i.e. wasted, of PAUL ETC) + E (energy)
16A MARCHING (ORDERS) & 10 Those such as eyes left in the sack? (8,6)

double defn. – ‘Eyes…Left!’ can be a MARCHING ORDER on a parade ground; and MARCHING ORDERS can mean getting the sack, from a job
19A LUMBAR (VERTEBRA) & 21 Reportedly, wood supporter behind very rotten tree, back part (6,8)

LUMBAR (homophone, i.e. reportedy, of lumber, or wood) + V (very) + ERTE (anag, i.e. rotten, of TREE) + BRA (supporter)
21A VERTEBRA See 19 (8)

see 19A
22A FRINGE See 14 (6)

see 14D
24A LABOUR (FORCE) & 22D Working body in Dog and Duck caught in drunken furore (6,5)

LAB (labrador, dog) + O (duck, score of zero in cricket) + UR FOR_E (anag, i.e. drunken, of FURORE) around C (caught, also a cricketing term!)
25A MARBLING Streaky appearance put stain on flashy stuff (8)

MAR (stain, spoil) + BLING (flashy stuff)
26A IDLE Do little swivel, diver partially turns (4)

reversed, hidden word, i.e. ‘partially’ and ‘turns’, in ‘swivEL DIver’
27A HARVESTER Machine possibly combined with server that almost crashed (9)

anag, i.e. crashed, of SERVER + THA(T) (almost)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/parsing
1D STEER Pilot, one looking round back of cockpit (5)

S_EER (one looking) around T (last letter, or back, of cockpiT)
2D ON THE GO Month, eg October, not entirely busy (2,3,2)

hidden word in, i.e. not entirely all of, ‘mONTH EG October’
3D ELVIS Icon in document allowing entry to Spain, briefly? (5)

a document allowing entry for Spain might be a VISA, and applying the Spanish article EL it might loosely be called ‘EL VISA’, but the ‘briefly’ suggests losing the last letter, to get ELVIS – a pop icon!
4D FELT TIP Writer experienced upset (4-3)

FELT (experienced) + TIP (upset)
5D RED-PENCIL Sovereign taken from lender, price after adjustment correct (3-6)

subtractive anagram, i.e. after adjustment, of LEND(ER) PRICE – taking ER (Elizabeth Regina, our former sovereign)
6D SET SAIL Trouble after groups go to sea (3,4)

SET_S (groups) + AIL (trouble)
7D ORCHESTRA Players beginning in harmony in interpretation of score: music, say, arising? (9)

ORC_ES (anag, i.e. interpretation, of SCORE) around H (beginning of Harmony), plus TRA (art, or music, say, rising)
13D GRAVEYARD (SLOT) & 6A Serious rubbish sadly, or time when few watch? (9,4)

GRAVE (serious) + YARD_SLO (anag, i.e. rubbish, of SADLY OR) + T (time)
14D EDINBURGH (FESTIVAL FRINGE) & 8 & 22A Comically delivers a bunfight and something edgy — does this? (9,8,6)

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL (anag, i.e. comically, of DELIVERS A BUNFIGHT) + FRINGE (something edgy!)
17D CATHODE Something attractive: verse for just three of six wives? (7)

Three of Henry VIII’s wives were called Catherine, or Cath, diminutively – so a verse, or ode, written for any of them could be a CATH ODE!
18D GRAMMAR Relation, though not well spoken, accepted linguistic rules (7)

punning homophone, i.e. not well spoken – Grandma, or relation, can sometimes be pronounced like GRAMMAR, accepted linguistic rools
20D MAILLOT Jersey’s post collection (7)

MAIL (post) + LOT (collection)
22D FORCE See 24 (5)

see 24A
23D GONER Person imprisoned by king, hopeless case (5)

G_R (George Rex, king) around (imprisoning) ONE (a person)

55 comments on “Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 28,883 by Paul (8 October 2022)”

  1. Took a while to get the longest one but very helpful when I did.

    Particularly liked LUMBAR VERTEBRA which made me smile. Also liked GRAVEYARD SLOT, CATHODE and ORCHESTRA. Liked the definition of HARVESTER.

    Not heard of PECULATE and only vaguely remembered MAILLOT

    Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67

  2. MAILLOT was new. It took me a while to get going on this one it a pleasant solve. I wonder if the presence of IDLE made me dream of Eric this week.
    Thanks both

  3. Thanks mc_rapper67. 1 and 2d went in immediately, others followed more slowly but when the linked answers revealed themselves it was pretty plain sailing. I just wondered about the ‘in’ in 16, 10, necessary for the surface I suppose but not otherwise relevant.

  4. Many thanks to Paul and mc_rapper67.

    5D RED-PENCIL I think refers still to the previous sovereign, as you need to remove ER rather than just R?

  5. Similar process to rapper (taking multiples of his time, of course!), but different thoughts re teenagers [I once pinned a sign to middle sprog’s door saying Walk-on Wardrobe]. Peculate was familiar, maillard only faintly. The ode for the three Caths was darkly droll, and something edgy for Fringe was apt [Freo was happy to acquire your Ben Elton via a Fringe romance]. Lots to like, ta Pnmc.

  6. Thanks mc_rapper 67 – your usual thorough and interesting blog. An enjoyable Prize Puzzle from Paul with some tough ones – for instance, PECULATE at 15a was a new word for me (as it was for Fiona Anne@1) and I needed the crossers to get it. I also didn’t quite understand at the time how MARCHING ORDERS at 16,10a worked, or the parsing for ELVIS at 3d, so the blog was appreciated. Thank you to Paul for the interesting linked clues which made this a nicely symmetircal brain exercise.

  7. Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67, much to enjoy though I gibbed a bit at the definition for CATHODE – it attracts positive particles and repels negative ones equally.

  8. I had “ELVIS” but Spanish immigration checks “la visa” not “el visa”, so I’m not happy with the parsing.
    I failed on 16/10. All I came up with was an unparsed “watching brief”.

  10. Thanks mc and well said: like you CATHODE was best for me, followed by SPOKEN FOR. The anagrams as clever as ever and the bunfight led me to Edinburgh.

  11. It’s a bit roundabout, but it appears that PECULATE is related to peculiar, in its not-so-much-used-nowadays sense of particular or individual (both from Latin). Unlike a lot of unusual Latin-derived words that are similar to something everyone knows already, it appears that there is no closer word that could have been used as a bridge in solving this clue. So you just had to know it (or look it up, which I did).

  12. I usually find Paul’s extensive use of the “multi-linkage mode” annoying, especially when, as here, I couldn’t solve any of them for some time. Getting into the puzzle is difficult when there are fewer stand-alone clues to work with (only 19 this time). However, on persevering I found that my experience was much like mc_rapper’s – even my first solves were the same as his – except that my solving time was probably at least equal to ginf@5’s.

    Fiona Anne@1, I really didn’t like 19,21 LUMBAR VERTEBRA when it made it difficult to get out of bed this morning. But, as you did, I liked the clue.

    I ticked the same clues as mc_rapper, but my clue of the day was 7d ORCHESTRA. It is a challenge for a setter to come up with a new clue for this well-used solution, and Paul did it well – a clever and not obvious construction, with a superb surface.

    Thanks, Paul for the fun and mc for the excellent blog.

  13. Thanks for a great blog, my favourite has to be TEENAGER , very appropriate. Fortunately ours a little older now so I can annoy them in return. The Tour de France was helpful with MAILLOT ,
    DAN @8, how strange, it fits perfectly and almost works with the word play as well.
    Following Gonzo@7 CATHODE could have been – Something repulsive …. – both are valid really.

  14. I’m a (possibly rare) fan of multi-link solutions, and 16a/10a MARCHING ORDERS was my favourite.

    11a TEENAGER. Grunter living in pigsty, really?! Very unfair to many teenagers. Perhaps they’re just living down to expectations. This was not my experience of our one, nor her friends.

    20d MAILLOT nho, and had to do a word finder for it. The jersey meaning was not one that leapt out when googling, but eventually found it.

    I see in 21d GONER king= GR was used without specifying “former” or GEORGE. I had a discussion in General Discussion, and possibly elsewhere, about this when we were discussing the use of ER now we have a new monarch. I have no problem with this, but others do.

    Thanks Paul & mc_rapper62.

  15. This crossword was never posted on the newspaper app (which I pay for) so I ended up solving it online in dribs and drabs. The last time the crossword was missing on Saturday it appeared on Monday, but not this time.

    I also put in watching brief instead of MARCHING ORDERS, my LOI, like Dan Milton @8, but because I couldn’t make it match any part of the clue, corrected it because I could make sense of “the sack” as definition, even if I didn’t spot the “Eyes Left!” instruction.

    I actually knew PECULATE and MAILLOT when I saw them; peculate was my first in, maillot later by just following the instructions in the clue and then looking at the result. I did look it up and it’s also the jersey used for swimsuits hence the use of the French word.

    Thank you to Paul and mc_rapper667.

  16. “I know we’re not supposed to discuss solving times here, but….” after six days I had very nearly finished.
    Thank you mc for putting me out of my misery at last. So easy once you know! And thanks to Paul who absolutely hammered me this time. Still, I did enjoy it. (So pleased I got cathode.)

  17. Found SPOKEN FOR interesting, as the anagram indicator is in both the wordplay and the answer.
    Also liked the grammar in EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE, subject assumed in both clauses, and ‘does’ is appropriate. (eg I did Edinburgh FF last year.) I’ve always called it the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but I see it’s the way Paul has it.

    The (combine) HARVESTER is very familiar down here on our broad acre farms. Funnily, when I googled it, I got this spoof by the Wurzels, Combine Harvester, set to Melanie’s a Brand New Key, which was apparently a chart-topper for the Wurzels in the 1976. The lyrics are available on other sites but this tickled me. Today’s earworm.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btEpF334Rtc

    Surprised that MAILLOT is not all that well known. I’m a Tour de France tragic. Can’t ride a bike myself but love the slow TV, great scenery, and am up with the yellow, white, green and polka dot maillots.

  18. Well up to Paul’s standards for ingenuity and entertainment. Lots to enjoy, but TEENAGER, ON THE GO and ELVIS were my favourites.

    Excellent blog, mcr67, and thanks for the fun Paul.

  19. As 1961Blanchflower has just said, this was well up to Paul’s standards. I liked the linked clues and the sheer variety of the clues. The blogger has identified what are my highlights too in his intro.

    Thanks to Paul and mc_rapper.

  22. Found 11a across very amusing. Didn’t know that MAILLOT had an accepted English usage. Thanks for the parsing of ELVIS – though its validity now in dispute I see.

  23. Absolutely wonderful prize puzzle which completely mystified me at first with only IDLE going in, and which only yielded all of its intricacies and humour after, not 12 minutes for me, but a couple of days. MARCHING ORDERS was my LOI but TEENAGER drew an audible laugh and was one of my clues of the year. (As was Picaroon’s two days earlier in a puzzle that had already yielded STAG NIGHT as one of its answers: ”Group on the pull up North thus stripped off? Heavens!” (7).*)
    Pretty well every clue offered something to enjoy, on this one so thanks to Paul for an absolute classic.

    *HUSKIES

  24. Thanks for all the comments so far – much appreciated as usual – I will be out all day, so thought I’d nip in early…

    re. ELVIS – I imagined this as a pasty British tourist at Spanish immigration saying very loudly in English ‘Do yer want to see el visa?’, so a Span-glish effort, rather than correct usage.

    re. grunting TEENAGERs in pigsties, my 18 year old is actually very tidy and clean – almost to CDO lengths (that’s OCD with the letters arranged in the right order)…but we often only get a few grunts out of him! I did try to indicate it was a stereotype.

    I’m also a TDF fan, and occasional cyclist – so MAILLOTs (jaune, et vert) were quite familiar.

    Similarly PECULATE was on the FRINGEs of my vocabulary, although I thought it was more to do with financial crime/scams, but the definition is very much just to pilfer or steal.

    jbk_ing at #4 – good spot, will tidy that up if I get time

    panthes at #20 – that is a (portmanteau?) word I learned recently, but I am also sometimes guilty of using the floor space around my bed in a similar way!

    paddymelon – thanks for the link – a wonderful memory from the 70s! (Although if you read the comments below the video, they were still going strong into the 2010s…)

  25. Crossbar @14: yes, I was interested to see both ER and GR. Like you, I’m sure that we’ve quite often had GR with no indication of “former”. I’ve a feeling that we might have had VR similarly. This would suggest that setters can carry on using ER. Though for example AR (Anne), WR (William) or RR (Richard) might be pushing it a bit.

  26. mc_rapper67 @ 24

    Thank you for commenting on the comments.

    I’m not sure I share your view of the pasty British tourist at Spanish immigration. Do Brits need a visa for Spain these days? But a nice try!

    I’ve been thinking about the word visa. I am guessing it is one of those invented ‘Latin’ words – visum, the thing that is ‘seen’ at borders. I may be totally wrong. Anyway, if so, then visa should be a neuter plural. A lot of ‘proper’ Latin neuter plurals did become feminine singular in the modern Romance languages. And there are plenty of words which change their gender from language to language. I’m thinking of Latin mare (sea) (plural maria). Becomes feminine in French, la mer, but masculine in Spanish, el mar. (I suspect that the catholic church’s title of ‘Mary queen of the sea’ is due to confusion between Maria the name and maria meaning seas).

    Anyway, I won’t bang on about it any longer. Your blog was excellent, by the way. Written in good, plain English. Thanks.

  27. I had all the crossers for 16a (my LOI), and couldn’t decide between MARCHING ORDERS and WATCHING BRIEFS – thinking the latter was more in Paul’s territory until the parsing penny dropped.
    Many thanks to him & mc_rapper67

  29. Thanks for the comprehensive blog, mc_rapper67. I think a ‘two halves’ grid like this needs a number of linked clues, but most of them took me a while to get. I needed most of the crossers to get the Festival Fringe. I did really like MARCHING ORDERS with its ‘eyes left’, once I got it. CATHODE was my LOI, possibly because I agree with gonzo@7 that it really doesn’t mean ‘attractive’, but it’s a neat clue, that aside. I couldn’t see many people solving ELVIS as a standalone clue – a very general definition with wordplay based on subtraction from Spanglish – but when the crossers give you E-V-S I think Paul gets away with it, and I chuckled when I finally got it. Thanks, Paul.

  30. Really struggled with this one – could not get on Paul’s wavelength at all and some of the whimsical definitions completely bamboozled me, eg the Spanish visa, the grunter in pigsty, “something edgy”.

    Not a complaint, just a sigh of resignation…

    Thanks for the challenge, Paul, and thanks for the blog, mc.

  31. I was another ‘watching briefs’, unparsed apart from the ‘watching’.

    I liked the seer in STEER, the well-hidden ON THE GO, the original cluing of ORCHESTRA, and the CATH ODE – very nice!

    Thanks Paul and mcr

  32. Widdersbel @30. I sympathise, as I am very often not on the setter’s wavelength and take a while to tune in. But on this occasion my experience was very like our blogger’s, though I never time my solves as most such timings would be embarrassingly lengthy! I’m pretty sure I solved this one quicker than the previous Saturday’s prize, the Maskarade non-holiday puzzle which was almost universally decried as too easy for a prize.

    No one has complained about the non-homphone of Gramma/GRAMMAR, so I’ll get the ball rolling by defending the clue. I have often seen this shortened version of Grandmother in novels, where the author is reproducing the sound as used by children in addressing their grandparent, though I can’t claim to have heard it in real life and any such examples are beyond my recall at the moment. Seems legit, anyway. Though it’s not actually in Chambers.

    Thanks to Paul and mc.

  33. trishincharente @16… LOL (in a nice way) at your solving time.

    I usually have forgotten what I did in the Saturday ones by the time the blog comes round, but I did have ticks next to EFF at 14d, CATHODE and GONER (don’t understand why ER seems to have become a big no no). I also remember laughing at “grunter living in pigsty (not that it was true of my children of course 😉 ).

  34. Thanks again Paul and mc. Finished with two new words for me, PECULATE and MAILLOT. Wondering how (or if ever) I will get the chance to attempt to re-popularise peculate in everyday language.

  35. EL VISA is complete nonsense, as even the most cursory check would confirm. Shame on Paul for using this and on the editor for allowing it.

  36. poc @35. Most clues are complete nonsense in one way or another. Paul has stuck a question mark on the end to indicate he’s taken a bit of a liberty, which our blogger has alluded to with use of the word “looseness” in the blog and “a Span-glish effort, rather than correct usage” in a comment @24. It’s just a bit of fun! And it certainly brought a smile to my face.

    “Shame on Paul” seems a little over the top!

  37. Thanks Tim C. I’ve been isolating with Covid all week so I’ll pretend it’s foggy Covid brain. No excuses next week though!

  38. Much enjoyed. Have been doing the daily this week so managed to throw my copy away. But all good fun as I recall. MARCHING ORDERS a favourite though took me ages to twig. Many thanks Paul and mc_rapper67.

  39. Apparently “peculate” can be transitive. Doesn’t sound right, but I guess it must be.

    Thanks, Paul and mc_rapper67.

  40. (s)peculate and (s)peculation used to be a very common trick used by setters, along with (I)slander and E(s)tonian .

  41. I thought 1ac doesn’t actually quite work as formulated, since there is a homophone indicator in both clue and answer (as paddymelon@17 also points out). As I suggested to Paul in his Zoom meeting on Sunday, I think the same idea would be more correctly implemented by a clue such as “4 taken already?”, where “4” could be “FOR (SPOKEN)”, a sort of reverse homophone.

    Like Dan@8 & Anna@21, I had doubts about 3dn. As they say, it would be ‘la visa’, really but, of course, there is no such icon as lavis and the crossers don’t support anything but ELVIS, so it had to be. It works as a sort of joke way an English person with no real knowledge of Spanish might refer to a Spanish visa and I think the question mark helps with this interpretation (as also mentioned by SH@36).
    (I now see mc_rapper@24 has also said something similar).

    Fwiw, Anna@26, Collins has “C19: via French from Latin v?sa things seen, from v?sus, past participle of vid?re to see”.

    20dn Didn’t know MAILLOT. A bicycle fan but not a TDF follower.

    Biggles@3, regarding the “in” in 16, 10, the setter Monk once emailed the late lamented setter Alberich about use of ‘in’ as a linkword, prompting the latter to write a new page on his website, where he said:

    “The use of ‘in’ as a link word was the basis of Monk’s e-mail. I have always blithely used it, as many setters do, as a non-directional link – in other words, being unconcerned about the order of the wordplay and the definition. He suggested that as a link word, “in” implies “found in” so clues of this type should read [DEFINITION] in [WORDPLAY]. I think he’s right, and shall bear that in mind when clueing in future. The only exception is when “in” links two definitions of the answer, in which case the order doesn’t matter.”

    http://alberichcrosswords.com/pages/linkwds.html

    16, 10 appears to consist of two definitions linked by “in”, so falls into the last-mentioned case.

    I agree with Roz@13 that a CATHODE is both something attractive and something repulsive, so there’s no reason why either of those shouldn’t be used as definition.

    lenmasterman@23, thanks for the HUSKIES clue. Definitely one to remember.

    SH@32, dues the use of “not well” in the clue cover the imperfection of the GRAMMAR (near-) homophone?

  42. Thanks for the continued comments…

    re. the ELVIS clue, and Anna at # 26, I should have said ‘immigration at a Spanish-speaking country in Southern or Central America…’

    And for the proper usage, I should have heeded the wise words of Arnie ‘the Terminator’ Schwarzenegger – ‘Hasta la visa, baby’!…

  43. My last comment just crossed with Tony Collman’s forensic analysis at #41, but I don’t think we clashed on anything…
    I just realised that I had underlined the wrong definition for GRAMMAR, so have updated that.
    And Crossbar at #14 – you seem to have accidentally aged me five years!

  44. Enjoyed this one as I dabbled at it during the week. I gradually found my way through the varied clues, all reasonably logical and many amusing (such as 11ac, 16ac, 19ac, 13d). Pleased to find the new-to-me word peculate in SOED.

  47. I was a little reluctant to put in Cathode because I was sure that at least one of the wives was Katherine with a K. (That’s what I was taught anyway).

  49. Tony Collman @ 41. Many thanks, your linked website is most interesting and informative. I’m still puzzling over this though:
    The only exception is when “in” links two definitions of the answer, in which case the order doesn’t matter.
    Without an example I don’t find it easy to understand just what this means but it is in the context of the order of definition and wordplay and I don’t see that it can be a licence to bung in an ‘in’ between any two definitions. A link word surely connects definition and wordplay, not two definitions. the To comply perhaps the clue should have read ” Those such as in eyes left and the sack”.
    I could never have put it as eloquently but I do subscribe to the view that:
    Every clue should contain a definition or equivalent of the answer plus a cryptic treatment of its component parts, and nothing else. Every word in the clue must have a function as part of the whole, and there should be no superfluous verbiage. and that:
    redundant words should not be inserted into the clue just to make it flow better.

  50. As Alberich notes in that piece, even Azed uses link words sometimes.

    On the matter of “directional” link words, he also says:
    “I’ll spend a fair old while trying to get it the ‘right’ way round, but if I can’t get that to work and I think it would be too great a shame to waste what is otherwise a good clue, I’ll run with it and hope nobody notices. I would be willing to bet that the majority of solvers won’t or if they do, they won’t be the least bit bothered about it!”

    Amen to that.

  51. sheffiled_hatter@36: I agree that most surfaces are nonsense, but my comment was on the use of the meaningless EL VISA. I had assumed that this was carelessness, but if it was intentional I’m afraid it looks even worse, and adding the ? is a weak excuse in my view. I can imagine the reaction if a setter had “EL MERE” as a French allusion.

  52. I has quite a lot of fun with this despite all those split entries (I am not a fan).

    I knew MAILLOT from the Tour de France and PECULATE from crosswords 🙂

    Pity about the ungrammatical EL VISA (Anna @26: ‘visa’ is a shortening of the Latin ‘charta visa’ – paper having been seen, so is indeed a feminine participle. The Italian version is ‘visto’ – most definitely masculine!).

    And on the subject of GRAMMAR, I’m with sh@32 – I’ve come across this version of female grandparent before, give or take a bit of rhotacism.

    I’m relaxed about link words in clues, and for me ‘in’ is as good as any. To say that it can only indicate inclusion seems strange as ambiguity of meaning is such an important feature of cryptic crosswords.

    Thanks to S&B

  53. Biggles@49

    “Without an example I don’t find it easy to understand just what this means but it is in the context of the order of definition and wordplay and I don’t see that it can be a licence to bung in an ‘in’ between any two definitions.”

    I’m afraid I’m not very good at plucking suitable clues out of the blue to illustrate points, but the clue we are talking about is itself an example of the form of clue known as a ‘double definition’ (or DD):

    Those such as eyes left* [first definition] in [link] the sack [second definition]

    The original email and most of the quoted text does indeed deal with clues made up of wordplay and definition (which implies the possiblity of ‘directionality’). However, double definition clues, addressed in the last sentence cited, do not butare widely used and although the ideal form is, perhaps, when the two definitions follow one immediately upon the other, or are linked by a conjunction such as ‘and’ or ‘or’, Alberich is saying he regards the use of ‘in’ between the two definitions as valid. You may disagree, which is your right, but bear in mind that Alberich (Neil Shepherd) was a highly regarded setter of the school of Ximenes, much admired for his smooth surfaces and accurate cryptic wordplay. As such, those views he expressed which you do agree with are hardly surprising and words he wrote elsewhere under the rubric of Ximenean cluing confirm he also agreed with the thoughts expressed by Azed, as quoted by Widdersbel@50.

    Since Neil passed away earlier this year, there is no guarantee how long his website will remain available, so I would recommend that you and anyone else interested in cryptic crosswords take what chance remains to study the wisdom of this late master of the art.

    *You might normally put ‘eyes left’ in inverted commas in the first definition, but of course that (and your suggested reformulation) would give away the cryptic meaning intended by those two words.

  55. Some very witty misdirection. Took the two of us about six days, all told. Find the parsing of Elvis a bit infra dig, ie, a bit infra Paul’s dig to mis-gender the article like that, but still, I hadn’t got anywhere near visa, which was bloomin’ obvious, so I can’t really complain at the Spanglish. ‘Eyes left’ in marching orders I didn’t get until I’d decided it was definitely orders, and had gone round every type of eye including eyes in wood, eyes of storms etc etc… so good on you Paul!

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