Azed No. 2,635 Plain

14 comments on “Azed No. 2,635 Plain”

1. Thanks Cineraria.
   Circular clues like 6 are unfair, but otherwise lots to like. Particularly enjoyed getting BERBERINE from the wordplay alone.
   Thanks as ever to Azed.
   PS this weeks has an uncontroversial enumeration error in 40.

2. Thanks Azed and Cineraria
   I disagree with the opinion expressed by Gonzo@1 about 6dn. I think clues like that are fully acceptable.

3. Whenever I see “this” in an Azed clue, I am almost invariably going to have to put my thinking cap on tight.

4. I quite liked 6d. Whenever I see “this” in a clue these days I always think ‘composite anagram’. I don’t see the clue as much different to that. It’s just that ‘this’ points to an anagrind rather than the usual anagrist.
   This went OK despite not knowing half the words, so plenty of Chambers work. I did have a vague recollection of VERA. It’s interesting reading about it. There’s a youtube video of the Panorama interview about it.

5. Thanks for the blog , definitely not a non-Chambers finish this week , had to check quite a few before I risked putting them in.
   I am not sure about 6D , I sort of like clues in this style but in essence “this” is doing double duty as a definition and part of the word play instructions.

6. Gonzo@1, I regularly get a number of answers from wordplay alone! Apart from BERBERINE this week, there were BRAME, POTE, TWIGHT and a few others. As to 6dn, I don’t generally object to this type of clue. As Roz@5 says, “this” is doing double duty, but I see it as a variation on an &lit, where the whole clue is doing double duty.

7. Thumbs down for 6d here: doesn’t it fail the ‘you must say what you mean’ test? The clue does not contain instructions for getting the solution. There is no definition, in part or in the clue as a whole, nor is the wordplay described.
   Is this the puzzle that was released (online) on the Monday? Was that just a blip?

8. I have been pondering the issue of 6dn and planning a longer follow up to my earlier comment, but MunroMaiden@6 has covered the most important point, so will content myself with expressing support for that comment.

9. In answer to the question posed by James @7, I do not think the clue does fail the “say what you mean” test. The word “this” in italics is in my view a sufficiently clear indication that we are supposed to replace it by a word which makes the clue into a valid cryptic indication for itself. That is what it says, and that is what it means.

10. Pelham Barton @9 A clue with a part missing, where that part is required to make sense of the clue, is by definition a clue that does not say what it means. That may be a facile argument in some cases, but not in this one I think.
    I am happy with ‘this’ in a clue being a placeholder, though I suspect more from experience than from it being a clear indicator itself. But as an indicator, it only refers to itself: ‘I must be replaced’.
    As such, the rest of the clue must provide the indications for what to replace ‘this’ with. There are no such indications in this clue. We can’t know what to do with the wordplay because there’s no instruction, and the guff about trees is no hint towards a definition. Even knowing the solution, can you really say that trees having to blend in after being moved is a characteristic example of resettlement, sufficient for an all-in-one definition? Trees aren’t resettled, and they don’t have to blend in. It’s all wishful thinking.

11. James @10:

    Your opinion is “the rest of the clue must provide the indications for what to replace ‘this’ with”. My opinion is “the rest of the clue must provide sufficient context that we can confidently verify a plausible suggestion for what to replace ‘this’ with”. I am happy that this is consistent with Azed’s previous practice.

    Your opinion is “We can’t know what to do with the wordplay”. I say that, having found a plausible answer, I did know what to do with the wordplay, at least for any practically useful meaning of the verb “know”. The evidence is strong that other people have done the same thing. My opinion is that the process in 6dn is an extension of the process needed to solve 31ac. In that clue, we do not know in advance whether “without” means “omitting” or “outside”, or possibly something else. We only know once we have solved the clue.

    Of course the meanings of the words “trees” and “melt” do not contribute to the working of 6dn, any more than the meaning of the word “crust” plays any part in the working of 1ac. I do not claim that there is an all-in-one definition in 6dn: I would give the definition as something like “a word which, following the word ‘on’, gives a valid instruction to rearrange the letters of the preceding word(s)”. This definition only becomes apparent once the clue has been solved, but my opinion is that this is acceptable. Please note that I am not criticising Cineraria’s decision to underline the word “this” in the clue. The meaning of this underlining is adequately explained in the comments underneath.

    I am always happy to agree to differ on matters of opinion. I would record my view here that there are no rules in crosswords, only legitimate expectations, and repeat the point I made earlier that, in my opinion, the working of this clue fits those expectations given Azed’s previous practice, as already noted.

    Enough from me for now.

12. Just for interest, the competition clue for “out of order” (Comp. 2165 December 2013) contained a number of entries of similar clues to 6d, including “Too rude for me” and “Too rude for this?”, both described as self-referential anagrams, &lit.

13. Thanks for the examples Tim@12 , I think the difference here is that the whole clue can be read as a definition of OUT OF ORDER . The trouble with 6D is that the whole clue does not in any way define RESETTLEMENT so “this” has two roles.

    I will agree with Pelham Barton at the end of @11 with a slight change.
    There is only ONE rule, the setter sets and we try to solve.
    We have the right to grumble about some clues though.

    There was a similar issue with CAPO recently, a sort of circularity .

14. Yes, Roz @13, I know there are differences, but then double use is also just a convention. It seems to me that all the controversies about crossword clues come down to one word… “fairness”. Can you fairly deduce the unique solution to the clue (hopefully with not having to rely on ‘crossers’)? I can understand the logic behind not using indirect anagrams, for example, as that device produces too many options to be reasonable, because you not only have to think of synonyms but also the many letter combinations of those; whereas the use of an (indirect) synonym in a charade is reasonable (fair) because it doesn’t have the multiplier effect of an anagram.
    Could I fairly deduce the unique solution to the clue at 6d? I think I could and I did, and I liked it’s inventiveness.

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