The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29058.
At first glance, the clues to 1A and particularly 1D looked formidable, but it all worked out satisfactorily, with just enough difficulty to raise it above (what should be) Quiptic level. Thus in my book an exemplary Monday puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | TAPESTRY |
Records go into wall hanging (8)
|
| A charade of TAPES (‘records’) plus TRY (‘go’). | ||
| 5 | HEARTS |
Tries to take first of tricks in card game (6)
|
| An envelope (‘to take’) of T (‘first of Tricks’) in HEARS (‘tries’), for a group of similar card games with various other names, including Dirty Maggie. | ||
| 9 | BEGRUDGE |
Resent, say, king caught in move (8)
|
| An envelope (‘caught in’) of E.G. (‘say’) plus R (Rex, ‘king’) in BUDGE (‘move’). | ||
| 10 | FOREGO |
Refrain from warning attempt (6)
|
| A charade of FORE (‘warning’ at golf) plus GO (‘attempt’). | ||
| 12 | GUTTERSNIPE |
Instinctive bite into snappy urchin (11)
|
| A charade of GUT (‘instinctive’ as in “a gut feeling”) plus TERSNIPE, an envelope (‘into’) of NIP (‘bite’) in TERSE (‘snappy’). | ||
| 15 | AIRED |
First-class communist exposed (5)
|
| A charade of AI (A1, ‘first class’) plus RED (‘communist’). | ||
| 17 | REHEARSED |
Practised covering vehicle in vermilion? (9)
|
| An envelope (‘covering … in’) of HEARSE (‘vehicle’) in RED (‘vermilion’). | ||
| 18 | ELEGANTLY |
Worker left during lament in a stylish manner (9)
|
| An envelope (‘during’) of ANT (‘worker’) plus L (‘left’) in ELEGY (‘lament’). | ||
| 19 | ELOPE |
Run away from end of the earth, returning with energy (5)
|
| A charade of ELOP, a reversal (‘returning’) of POLE (‘end of the earth’); plus E (‘energy’). | ||
| 20 | SHORT SHRIFT |
Summary treatment of summery clothing with split around top of hem (5,6)
|
| An envelope (‘around’) of H (‘top of Hem’) in SHORTS (‘summery clothing’) plus (‘with’) RIFT (‘split’). | ||
| 24 | GOATEE |
State of India, with support for facial hair (6)
|
| A charade of GOA (‘state of India’) plus TEE (‘support’ of golf ball). | ||
| 25 | PULSATES |
Beats lentils, perhaps over a tabletop (8)
|
| AN envelope (‘over’) of ‘a’ plus T (‘Tabletop’) in PULSES (‘lentils, perhaps’). | ||
| 26 | SUNDRY |
More than one star’s sober (6)
|
| A charade of SUN (‘star’) plus (the apostrophe s, for “has”) dry (‘sober’). | ||
| 27 | OGRESSES |
Moves forward without PR monsters (8)
|
| A subtraction: [pr]OGRESSES (‘moves forward’) ‘without PR’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TOBOGGANED |
Slid down to swamp on rearing horse, encountering disaster initially (10)
|
| A charade of ‘to’ plus BOG (‘swamp’, noun) plus GAN, a reversal (‘rearing’, in a down light) of NAG (‘horse’) plus ED (‘Encountering Disaster initially’). | ||
| 2 | PAGE-TURNER |
Attendant and artist in exciting book (4-6)
|
| A charade of PAGE (‘attendant’) plus TURNER (Joseph Mallord William, – or probably others – ‘artist’) | ||
| 3 | SAUCE |
Reportedly origin for dressing (5)
|
| Sounds like (‘reportedly’) SOURCE (‘origin’). | ||
| 4 | REGISTRATION |
Record one way traitor enters area (12)
|
| An envelope (‘enters’) of I (‘one’, Roman numeral or pronoun) plus ST (street, ‘way’) plus RAT (‘traitor’) in REGION (‘area’). | ||
| 6 | EXONERATE |
Absolve former partner before single judge (9)
|
| A charade of EX (‘former partner’) plus ONE (‘single’) plus RATE (‘judge’, verb). | ||
| 7 | REEL |
Somewhere else to hold dance (4)
|
| A hidden answer (‘to hold’) in ‘somewheRE ELse’. | ||
| 8 | SNOW |
Second present is type of shower (4)
|
| A charade of S (‘second’) plus NOW (‘present’). | ||
| 11 | HIGHLY STRUNG |
Sensitive, like a tightrope walker? (6,6)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 13 | ASSOCIATES |
Co-workers like endlessly convivial time with reps regularly (10)
|
| A charade of AS (‘like’) plus SOCIA[l] (‘convivial’) minus its last letter (‘endlessly’) plus T (‘time’) plus ES (‘rEpS regularly’). | ||
| 14 | ADVERTISES |
Promotes distributing sedatives across river (10)
|
| An envelope (‘across’) of R (‘river’) in ADVETISES, an anagram (‘distributing’) of ‘sedatives’). | ||
| 16 | DRAWS NEAR |
Approaches part of hospital, upset by tin organ (5,4)
|
| A charade of DRAW, a reversal (‘upset’ in a down light) of WARD (‘part of hospital’) plus SN (chemical symbol, ‘tin’) plus EAR (‘organ’). | ||
| 21 | HASTE |
Modest, when caught out in a rush (5)
|
| A subtraction: [c]HASTE (‘modest’) minus the C (‘when caught out’, using C as the abbreviation of ‘caught’ in cricket records). | ||
| 22 | AGES |
A long time in storage space (4)
|
| A hidden answer ‘in’ ‘srorAGE Space’. | ||
| 23 | BARN |
Obstruct new agricultural building (4)
|
| A charade of BAR (‘obstruct’) plus N (‘new’). |
Now this is my kind of puzzle. Nothing controversial or obscure, and almost every clue elicited a smile. Thanks Carpathian & PeterO.
Re 10A: I think we’ve done this before, but I prefer to distinguish between FORGO ‘refrain from’ and FOREGO ‘precede’.
A first for me–completed the puzzle in one go and soon enough to be an early commenter! As a Canadian, have to pick 1D as my favourite.
Flavia @ 2, I understand where you’re coming from, but I’ve given up tearing my hair out over this. The error is so common that it’s no longer regarded as an error in most circles — I guess this is how the language evolves.
Anne-Marie @3. Likewise for us. It takes two of us to get there but romped home today. And we are with Flavia @2. The “e” matters!
And on the subject of pedantry vs accuracy, is anyone else annoyed by the misuse of “fulsome” as just meaning a whole lot and not implying insincere?
Two sessions for me, one just before bed, and one just now. The top left held me up, so I didn’t think this was as easy as others seem to find it.
Some clever misdirections, for example, the “rearing horse, encountering disaster initially ” in 1d. I was looking for a horse beginning e-a-, until I realised the “initially” applied to both words.
Thanks PeterO and Carpathian for an enjoyable puzzle.
And so to bed again. Notice I didn’t mention 3d.
Thanks Carpathian for a solid crossword.The NW corner was the last to fall after a bit of head scratching and a second glass of wine but overall this was about right for a Monday. My top picks were ELOPE, SHORT SHRIFT, OGRESSES, PAGE TURNER, and ASSOCIATES. Thanks PeterO for the blog. [Now I need to get back to Neo’s Jumbo from the Saturday FT.]
Thankyou Peter O. I had to look thrice at HASTE before I could bend my mind in the right direction.
Agree with Geoff Down Under@1.
I liked SHORT SHRIFT, a stuffy phrase I hadn’t heard for years, but dealt with here in good humour. I had never looked at its origin before. I’ll give it a bit more respect in future.
Dave Ellison@7. I noticed 3d only when you didn’t mention it, so I won’t mention why I think you didn’t mention it. Itduzzenmaddatome.
Link didn’t work. Here’tis https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/08/the-long-and-the-short-of-shrift.html
Thanks, Carpathian and PeterO!
Merriam-Webster says:
Although forego and forgo have distinct meanings—forego meaning “to go before” and forgo meaning “to do without”—it is not uncommon to find forego in place of forgo. Most standard dictionaries find such use acceptable, so feel free to express that you “will forego dessert” or “will forgo it,” with the only caveat that you will have to explain why you would do such a thing. 🙂
paddymelon@10
The long and the short of shrift: Interesting info. Thanks.
(What a catchy title!)
Agree with what everyone else has said. Nice puzzle, without being too easy (for me, anyway). Thanks C and P
Happy Mayday, everyone.
Needed PeterO for the parsing of GUTTERSNIPE but, other than that, over in a trice.
Pretty sure I’d have found a reference to tomatoes hard to resist in cluing SUNDRY.
I agree this was a very good puzzle to start the week. I tried to be too clever with 1a, thinking of “arras” rather than the more common TAPESTRY. I enjoyed working out the various components of the word play of several clues such as GUTTERSNIPE, TOBOGGANED and REGISTRATION. Interesting to read the link from paddymelon @10 about the origin of SHORT SHRIFT – thanks.
Just to back up KVa @11’s comments about FOREGO v “forgo”, as an example of one “standard dictionary”, Collins gives the former as a variant spelling of the latter.
Thanks to Carpathian and PeterO
Looked at the crossers at 5a, saw game in the clue and biffed ‘tetris’. Doh.
Excellent start to the week, thank you Carpathian and PeterO for the blog. I enjoyed 20ac and 12ac but there were lots of others to enjoy.
A good Monday puzzle. Everthing was in place within thirty minutes, with the exception of 10A. I had a complete blind spot with this one, which on reflection I really should have got. It didn’t help that as someone who has never played golf I thought it was “four” rather than “fore”: you live and learn. (Who was it who described golf as a good walk spoiled??) A pleasant start to the week. With thanks to both.
I’m with Geoff Down Under @4: there was a time when I would have huffed and puffed about it, but these days I just stay calm and play some Jethro Tull on my 8-track.
I enjoyed this more than the usual Vulcan, apart from the excruciating ‘homophone’.
A pleasant puzzle to start the week, with some good clues, as mentioned.
Thanks for the interesting link, paddymelon @10. We also have the past tense of ‘shrive’ in Shrove Tuesday.
Like WordPlodder, @15, I immediately thought ‘arras’ for wall hanging, as I always do.
I won’t add to the discussion re forego / forgo, except that it seems a long time since we’ve seen ‘fore’ as a warning. Years ago it was an absolute staple.
Nuntius @18 – usually attributed to Mark Twain but see here https://marktwainstudies.com/the-apocryphal-twain-gold-is-a-good-walk-spoiled/
Thanks to Carpathian and PeterO.
Enjoyable Quiptic-like puzzle.
New for me: card game HEARTS.
Thanks, both.
Thanks to commenters above for pointing out the difference between forego and forgo. I don’t recall ever having seen the latter before and I consider myself fairly well-read. My online dictionary has forego as variant spelling of forgo and vice versa. I wonder if forgo appears in any Jane Austen novels – if so, I must have missed it.
michelle @22 Just one example off the top of my head, from Northanger Abbey: “From the dining-room, of which, though already seen, and always to be seen at five o’clock, the general could not forgo the pleasure of pacing out the length, for the more certain information of Miss Morland, as to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen …”
Nuntius @18: The earliest reference any one can find was in a letter to an Enniscorthy newspaper by someone calling themselves A Northen Gael.He also blasted cricket, tennis and various other English sports as being unsuitable for Irish youth.
An excellent crossword for this holiday Monday. Loved SHORT SHRIFT, TOBOGGANED and REGISTRATION. My Chambers (2003) also gives FOREGO as a valid alternative spelling of FORGO.
Used to play a lot of HEARTS in my formative years in Liverpool and there are so many alternative names for this fun game. We used to call it “Black Maria” up there – same name as the police prisoner transport van ! A Liverpool crossover to a T.
Thank you Carpathian and PeterO.
1A Not as crosswordy but record(s) / wall hanging = Tapestry ( Carole King 1971)
George Clements@16: with you on TETRIS: first of Tricks in (tries)*= game (and HEARTS is a card game I’m not familiar with), but on closer inspection there isn’t an anagram indicator and nothing for card to do. Oh well.
SAUCE has the homophone police up in arms on the Guardian site, as expected.
Favourites GUTTERSNIPE, TOBOGGANED, GOATEE, SHORT SHRIFT.
Pleasant Monday puzzle, with a good variety of constructions, though I found the surfaces a bit strained, with the exception of HEARTS – a perfect clue.
Re FOREGO/forgo, a likely source of confusion is that these verbs are seldom used in all tenses. FOREGO is usually only found as a past participle: foregone (almost always with ‘conclusion’). ‘Forgo’ is only used in the present, or with modal verbs, including the future construction. Does anyone say ‘forewent/forwent’ any more? Hence there is rarely any overlap in modern usage.
Thanks to S&B
PS In standard Scottish usage, the past participle of ‘go’ is ‘went’ – even educated Scots often say ‘I have went’. Does that mean that Scots would talk about a ‘forewent conclusion’? Caledonians please enlighten 🙂
Am I allowed to asked for help with 13d please?
I have no idea how to begin solving this.
Spooner’s catflap @23 thanks for the example of the word forgo in Northanger Abbey. Forgo is clearly a word that passed under my radar while reading (as in, I never gave it any thought even if I noticed it). It is great to have learnt about this today 🙂
My first stab at 5a was as an anagram of TRIES and T – TETRIS. But then it’s not a card game 🙂
Gervase @29. I find that assertion utterly baffling. As an arguably over-educated Scot, I have never and would never use the construction, ‘I have went’, nor have I ever heard it used by other educated Scots. Among the circles of the educated Scots in which I have moved, it would never be regarded as anything but a grammatical solecism.
Steffen @30, what don’t you understand about the explanation for 13D?
Co-workers like endlessly convivial time with reps regularly (10)
Co-workers is the definition.
Wordplay:
AS =‘like’
SOCIA[l] = ‘convivial’ (minus its last letter = ‘endlessly’)
T =‘time’
ES = rEpS regularly
Regularly is one of those terms that often means alternate letters, but can occasionally mean every 2 or 3 letters. And you sometimes see oddly or evenly (so here).
Thank you to Carpathian and PeterO for a fun puzzle. I was slowed down by HEARTS, FOREGO, REEL and SNOW.
The meaning of SHRIFT I’d absorbed, too much Book of Common Prayer I suspect, but not SHORT SHRIFT in all its nuances, thank you paddymelon.
S’s c @33: I lived in Central Scotland for ten years and I can confirm that I have heard this usage. Perhaps not from graduates but certainly from intelligent folk. In Scots, rather than the Scottish form of standard English ‘gae, went, went’ is usual. English has lost the original past tense of ‘go’ and resorts to suppletion with the old past tense of ‘wend’ – which originally conjugated ‘I wend, I went, I have went’, like the verb ‘send’. Scots uses this past participle.
5a HEARS/TRIES…I don’t understand this.
Hi Steffen @36
hears/tries are synonyms in the sense of hear, try, judge, sit in judgement on a court case, ie in a court of law.
Steffen @36: as in court trials. Pleasant solve.
Ta both.
Steffen@36 ‘hears’ as in hearing a case in court. Also one ‘tries’ a case in court.
Sorry michelle and AlanC. You posted while I was typing.
Carpathian’s trademark accurate cluing for a good Monday solve.
Most went in fairly quickly, but I got a bit stuck in the NW corner. I’m rather annoyed that I didn’t see TAPESTRY earlier but PeterO also seemed to have stumbled here at first. I liked the snappy urchin and the rearing horse in TOBOGGANED.
Thanks Carpathian and PeterO.
I agree with all the positive comments above about this particular Monday Cryptic puzzle. Thought it ELEGANT throughout, a certain assured style in the way this setter put the clues and resultant words together. There’s a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment to be had even when the difficulty level is not too taxing. My last one in was GOATEE, which brought a satisfied smile of realisation and resolve. Many thanks Carpathian and Peter O…
Thanks for the blog, very good puzzle in the Monday tradition . Crisp and accurate clues with a lot of variety, I would have loved this when I was a beginner. GUTTERSNIPE is a lovely word and put together very well, the same for SHORT SHRIFT , BARN could have had a particle physics angle.
Happy Beltane to all, try and celebrate in the traditional way.
Steffen@36: it’s worth remembering hear=try because it shows up frequently in crossword clues (in both directions).
Maybe I’m not at my sharpest today, but I bought his quite difficult by Monday standards. Not that I’m objecting, I regard that as a welcome development. GUTTERSNIPE my loi. Thanks to Carpathian and PeterO.
Charles@45. Definitely not at my sharpest, thought not bought…
…looking again at my post @42, as “resolve” has an alternative meaning, I should have used the word “resolution” as my final word there. Critical conversation with myself, apologies…
I struggled with parsing 4D, trying to fit an anagram of TRAITOR into the solution somehow. I filled it in anyway and came here for the explanation. Thank you, PeterO.
[Happy Holiday to All]
Thanks to carpathian for an enjoyable light hearted puzzle, also thanks to PeterO for his blog. Ticks for 1D, 13D and 12A.
Thx Michelle @37 for helping in such a non-judgmental way. I wish all posts giving advice could be like this. We all need encouragement in order to grow.
Entertaining puzzle, blog and comments with lots of ‘woody’ words: BEGRUDGE, FOREGO, SHORT SHRIFT, OGRESSES, EXONERATE, GUTTERSNIPE. What’s not to like? Thanks both and all.
Excellent Monday cryptic – thanks to Carpathian, whom we are always happy to see as the setter, and PeterO for his clear and helpful blog.
Like Roz, I think guttersnipe is a lovely word: I can remember as a child my mother and her two sisters joyously using ‘Dublin guttersnipe’ to describe one of their sisters-in-law to be. All long gone, of course.
A very pleasant Monday crossword. Favourite was the neat hidden answer in REEL.
(When solving this I thought I’d try to predict which clues would spark argument or discussion on here, and I marked three. I was right about the FOREGO / forgo issue in 10a. The second was the SAUCE / source homophone which has provoked one objection. I was wrong (so far) about the third which was that I thought someone might object to “into” in 1a. Is it a valid link word? I suppose the elements from the wordplay do turn into the answer, so maybe.)
Thanks Carpathian and PeterO.
Thank you for the help/guidance.
Very enjoyable. I ticked some others already mentioned but also liked 11d HIGHLY STRUNG. Echoing thanks to paddymelon@9 and 10 for the background to 20a SHORT SHRIFT. Thanks to Carpathian and PeterO.
Thanks to all. Enjoyed the puzzle. Especially thanks to Carpathian and PeterO.
[SydneyWokerati@6: yes, but it can provide incidental amusement, such as a Tory apologist’s “Boris Johnson has made a fulsome apology”. Indeed he had.]
[SydneyWokerati@6: We all (no doubt) have our pet peeves and I hesitate to join in opening that particular (perhaps off-topic?) can of worms. Nevertheless I can’t resist the opportunity to air my angst at anyone pronouncing it ‘excetera’.]
A good crossword for our May Day holiday. Thank you.
Sydney@6. Yes, it really annoys me as well. Had an email newsletter from the general secretary of a school leaders’ union – he misused “fulsome”, and he is a former English teacher!
I’m another with TETRIS and there is a card game of that name.
HEARTS has many variations , the most common now seems to be Black Lady also called Black Maria and something very rude. I annoy the students by secretly collecting all the penalty cards which returns my score to zero.
Ian SW @60. I’m afraid it is just the way language and semantics change, of which the now interchangeability of ‘forgo’ and ‘forego’ (see earlier comments) is another example. The mutation of the word ‘officious’, from meaning ‘conscientious in the discharging of one’s duties’ (early 18th century) to ‘being an intrusive and irritating jobsworth’ (currently) is a case in point, in which I have taken an interest, but I’ll spare you the quotations that carry that transition. I once had a student write an analysis of Samuel Johnson’s poem, ‘On the Death of Dr Robert Levet’, in which Johnson praises Levet for being ‘officious, innocent, sincere’. The student was so locked into the pejorative meaning of ‘officious’ that she dogged;y read the whole poem as ironically denigrating its subject. I am currently holding out for ‘whom’, but I feel that it is dying the death, even in supposedly responsible journalism.
Gervase @29, As a Dundonian versed in the vernacular I have never in my life said, or heard, “I have went” but in Arbroath they’ll say I “jamp” rather than I “have jumped.”Great crossword and blog, thanks.
[There’s a fulsome (!) discussion of ‘fulsome’ here.]
Working from northwest to southeast, I was prepared to congratulate Carpathian for having devised an entire puzzle without a single anagram…until arriving at the extreme southeast corner where 14D turned out to be the lone example. Nevertheless, only one is impressive. Especially as REGISTRATION, on first blush, seems to be crying out to be parsed using the letters of “traitor”, as Jacob @48 points out. “Rats!” to coin a phrase, that was not the case.
Spooner’s catflap @33 et al. Sadly, the Scotland rugby coach, Gregor Townsend (MA History & Politics) makes this mistake a lot when interviewed.
Perfect Monday puzzle, thanks Carpathian and PeterO for the blog.
Gladys @ 27 et al:
“Tries to take first of tricks in game” = Tetris would have been a good clue if we let “in” be the anagrind.
Dave J @68: if we let “in” be the anagrind…and if this puzzle was not trying as hard as possible to shun anagrams
Andrew @68. Point taken- I’ll go with “Offensive knight moves backwards in game”
Gladys @27 and Lord Jim @50, concerning that offending homophone…
…at first in 3D, I took “reportedly” not to be a homophone indicator, but a reference to the “report” offered by the Book of Genesis. Until the 9A crosser intervenes, S _ _ _ E can easily be construed as SHAME, which turns out to be a neater solution for 3D than SAUCE — at least for those who pronounce the “r” in “source”.
Gladys@27: I see only one reference to the ‘homophone’ on the Guardian site, and it’s very mild.
Barging in on the slightly tangential debate about the past participle of “go” started by gervase @29, may I suggest that both regional and accepted p.p. usage may be a fair bit subtler than conventional grammarians and rule-deducers suppose.
Thus I think some English regional dialects might use “went” as p.p. in some constructions (eg the past (impossible) conditional – I’d have went – but not others. Also, colloquial standard English seems to select either “gone” or “been” as p.p. depending on the degree of connection to the present (which is not necessarily implied at all by the German perfect).
Perhaps I’m just tediously over-analysing (and tardy to boot). If so, apologies.
And many thanks to PeterO and Carpathian.
shalom, notable blog on suety loss. the like helped.