The standard of these clues seems to me to be pretty high nowadays. Where I take issue with Everyman is in his use of question marks: he doesn’t always use them when he should, and he sometimes uses them pointlessly. There are several clues where the answer is a complete anagram of words in the clue. Very clever, but is the device overused? 3dn and 12dn are I think the pair, in that one begins with ‘Old’ and the other with ‘New’. 1dn is the self-referential clue and 22dn is the first letters clue.
Definitions underlined in crimson. Indicators (hidden, homophone, anagram, reversal etc.) in italics. Anagrams shown (like this)* or *(like this) [yes you’re right of course, Tony Collman@27]. Link-words in green.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | INTRODUCES |
Brings in reductions – in confusion (10)
|
| (reductions)* | ||
| 6 | EPIC |
Characters in the picture Gladiator, for example (4)
|
| Hidden in thE PICture — characters = letters | ||
| 9 | LINE DANCES |
They’re accompanied by country music and silence, bizarrely (4,6)
|
| (and silence)* | ||
| 10 | ANNA |
Woman, one looking unchanged in the mirror (4)
|
| ANNA reads the same forwards as backwards — (actually there may be other womens’ names with this property, but I can’t immediately think of any) — if one is being very picky then it isn’t unchanged, because in the mirror Ns look like those Cyrillic letters | ||
| 11 | CHAMPIONSHIP |
Defend vessel in contest (12)
|
| champion ship — champion = defend, ship = vessel | ||
| 15 | AMASSED |
Brought together, in a church service, English and Dutch (7)
|
| a mass E D — a church service = a mass, E = English, D = Dutch | ||
| 16 | GAWKING |
Looking vacant, initially giving affected wave, His Majesty (7)
|
| g[iving] a[ffected] w[ave] King — I’d always thought that gawking was staringly embarrassingly at something; Collins does give ‘gape’ as a secondary meaning of ‘gawk’, so perhaps Everyman is just OK | ||
| 17 | ESTONIA |
Flies to Niagara, taking in country (7)
|
| Hidden in FliES TO NIAgara | ||
| 19 | PRECEDE |
Lead putting energy into public relations? Give up! (7)
|
| (PR (E) cede) — PR = public relations, E = energy, cede = give up — “leed” not “ledd” | ||
| 20 | FACE THE MUSIC |
Side on border; America in charge; take the consequences (4,3,5)
|
| facet hem US i/c — facet = side, hem = border, US = America, i/c = in charge — Everyman, unlike The Times, which requires BA, allows A on B in an across clue to be AB, and I’m perfectly happy with that. | ||
| 23 | LULL |
Three learners maintaining university is quiet (4)
|
| L (U) L L — the three learners are L, L and L [thanks Norbrewer@15] | ||
| 24 | CASPIAN SEA |
Sloshing space, Asian? (7,3)
|
| *(space Asian), &lit. — I can’t understand why there’s a question mark: the Caspian Sea borders Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, among other countries, so is unquestionably Asian | ||
| 25 | SIRE |
Give life to Lord (4)
|
| 2 defs — if you sire a child you give life to it; a sire is another name for a lord, as in lord of the manor, although Collins gives the man of high rank sense of ‘sire’ as obsolete | ||
| 26 | DEPRESSING |
This makes a button do its work? That’s sad (10)
|
| 2 defs — I suppose the first one has a question mark because there is some doubt over whether a button really has to be depressed to do its work: are you depressing a button when you’re doing up a shirt? | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ILLS |
Everyman will start to specify afflictions (4)
|
| I’ll s[pecify] — the self-referential clue | ||
| 2 | TONE |
Skipping intro, make-up of rock music’s smallest section? (4)
|
| [s]tone — stone is I think the make-up of rock; I’m not confident here but I think it’s what it is: the idea is that a tone in music is a very small interval, such as the one from C to D; but it’s not so small as a semitone, such as the interval from C to C sharp, and there are even smaller intervals, so a tone is definitely not the smallest section — maybe there are better explanations of this clue | ||
| 3 | OLD CHESTNUT |
A joke that’s been told often? Told ten such, sadly (3,8)
|
| (Told ten such)* | ||
| 4 | UNNAMED |
Not identified, curiously mundane … (7)
|
| *(mundane) | ||
| 5 | EVENING |
… getting flat later in the day (7)
|
| 2 defs — as with so many clues of this type, I can’t see the need for an ellipsis | ||
| 7 | PUNCH LINES |
Comedian’s necessity: drink on the job, son (5,5)
|
| punch line s — punch = drink, line = the job (what job/line are you in?), s = son | ||
| 8 | CHAMPAGNES |
Reportedly fake aches? Here’s some drinks! (10)
|
| “sham pains” | ||
| 12 | NEW MEXICANS |
Six men we can corrupt; they’re Americans (3,8)
|
| (Six men we can)* — corrupt not a verb, as the surface suggests, but an adjective | ||
| 13 | WATERFALLS |
Fats Waller altered natural features (10)
|
| (Fats Waller)* | ||
| 14 | PARTICULAR |
Choosy, wanting item (10)
|
| 2 defs — choosy = particular, item = particular | ||
| 18 | AVERAGE |
Not especially impressive batting statistic (7)
|
| 2 defs — not especially impressive is average, and an average is a batting statistic — but it’s also a bowling statistic, so here is where Everyman should I think have used a question mark | ||
| 19 | PLUMPER |
One choosing to be more generously proportioned? (7)
|
| 2 defs — one choosing is a plumper. and more generously proportioned is plumper (why ‘more generously proportioned?’?) | ||
| 21 | ASTI |
Ace! It’s flipping fizzy wine! (4)
|
| A (it’s)rev. — A = Ace | ||
| 22 | FANG |
Primarily, ferocious animal’s nasty gnasher? (4)
|
| The first letters clue &lit. |
Another good solid Everyman crossie. WATERFALLLS is well spotted. I had the same thoughts about ANNA – not strictly the same in a mirror. My first thought was ELLE, but the ‘mirror’ problem made me look further. I did try all the combinations of A, I, O, T, H, V, W, X and Y, without success, before entering ANNA. The TONE quibbles, on the other hand, passed me by completely. Thanks, Everyman and John.
Thank you John. Everyman’s long anagrams of a single word are, I think, as much a part of his shtick as the others you’ve mentioned in your intro. Not sure why your question why plumper? Which part of the double def?
LINE DANCES made me laugh. Yes, you can’t hoot and holler while you’re struggling to breathe keeping up with the pace.
Too early for an earworm.
GAWKING, PUNCH LINES and OLD CHESTNUT also chuckleworthy. Liked FANG for cluing the g with gnasher, especially as you don’t really pronounce the g at the end of FANG, or at the beginning of gnasher in the same way as each other, or as a g followed by a vowel.
And I’m not sure about TONE either.
Only I had the make-up without introduction parsed as (A)TONE.
Normal service resumes after last week’s themed puzzle with an antonym pairing rather than a rhyme. Nothing too taxing, but I had accuracy issues with 10a and 2d. Mirror must mean if you hold it to a mirror it looks the same, not just a reversal.
TONE I think is meant to be a cryptic def. I was also working on the Rolling Stones unsuccessfully. John mentioned Everyman’s use of question marks, and I’m not sure if here it indicates a cryptic def, or that he’s aware that a TONE is not the “smallest section” of music, or both.
Ok, time for an earworm. 47 seconds of a 5 minute world breaking LINE DANCE in outback Australia. Over 5, 800 people.
We know how to have fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzV6VXe0UUw
Thanks to a lovely interlude boot-scooting in the desert, could this be setting the TONE?
(A) TONE (make-up minus first letter}, rock (anagram indicator) > NOTE, music’s smallest section.
A kind of reverse anagram?
Gawk with eyes out on stawks. Sorry. [pdm @7, saving yr earworm till after the music show playing on RN, today a retrospective on singers: Holliday, Baez, Mitchell, Cash et al]. Came here and realised I hadn’t done the puzzle. Pottered through it happily, thanks E and J.
[Thank you gif! I missed it this morning over East. Will pick it up later.].
paddymelon@8
That’s some pongling stuff! 🙂
Thanks for the blog it has covered my points along with the comments, still unsure about TONE, very clever from PDM@8 but maybe the same issue with NOTE. Perhaps a musician will be in later to give details on “smallest section” . I always thought that GAWKING was staring nosily but Chambers has GAWK = to stare and gape , so the clue is fine .
ESTONIA a genuine country for Jay’s list, not the first time I suspect.
Another enjoyable Everyman. I took tone in its sense of note, rather than time measure, and was happy with a single note being the smallest section of a melody. Thanks John and Everyman.
I’m not sure that (A)TONE works with ‘of’ in the clue. I went with (S)TONE as in the blog. Re 26a, a BUTTON is a circular object pressed to make a machine work, so I think the clue is fine. Just a minor point, John, the U in LULL is in the wrong place. Thanks to you for the thoughtful blog, and to Everyman for a pleasant start to a Sunday morning.
I bunged in TONE my LOI but couldn’t parse it.
Enjoyed it, but thought there were too many double definitions which I often struggle with.
Thanks Everyman and John
Perhaps the ? for CASPIAN SEA is because you would not normally say an Asian lake, but a lake in Asia.
As we describe intervals below a tone as a fraction of a tone, perhaps the ? here is just a cheeky reflection of that.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to address these quibbles, they seem to minor to bother about, ditto ANNA.
Thanks John and Everyman for the blog and a puzzle pitched perfectly.
I was uncertain about TONE, too, but couldn’t see anything else.
This was back to a quicker solve Everyman for me after a few weeks of longer and really long.
Thank you to John and Everyman
DEPRESSING
A button could be ‘depressed’ to make a thing work. Another button could be depressed to make it stop. Maybe that’s why there is a ?
I think the clue refers to buttons on/for machines, appliances etc., not shirt buttons.
The OLD and NEW pairing was a nice touch for a puzzle printed on the first of January.
Thanks to John and Everyman
Thank you to Everyman and these comments which I largely agree with. 16ac = I put in ‘GAWPING’ which I thought was better for “looking vacant” before changing it to ‘GAWKING’ because of His Majesty.
Oh dear, I meant 31 December of course.
Fiona@16 I could have copy and pasted your comment as my own! My resolution of 2024 is to have a go at Everyman every week and for the 1st time ever I finished it minus mistakes so must bode well ? …thanks to everyone here for your precious help and guidance always. Thank goodness I found u all…
Roz@13, yes, well recalled, we had ESTONIA twice in 2023 and once in 2022. 2023 also saw two outings for IRAN, CHAD and ERITREA.
Not sure about TONE either, but I’d gamble on ATONE minus its intro, with ‘rock’ to be added to the definition. Still not great, and the rather Guardianish make-up (with the hyphen) is really not correct for the required meaning in this clue.
Liked WATERFALLS.
Perhaps the ? in 24a due to the fact that the Caspian sea also borders Europe?
I think you mean an asterisk denotes the anagram fodder, rather than the indicator.
“There are several clues where the answer is a complete anagram of words in the clue.”
I.e. ‘full anagrams’. I counted seven of these. The Times only allows five, but in a puzzle that’s supposed to be easy, the more the merrier. Of course, Everyman’s trademark (one of them) is anagrams of single whole words, of which there are two here.
I also wondered about TONE.
Ui Imair@25, the hyphen in make-up is only wrong if you use the [a]TONE parsing, so maybe you lose your gamble?
New for me: GAWKING.
Like John, I parsed 2d as [s]TONE = ‘make-up of rock’ less the first letter but I agree with others that a tone is not music’s smallest interval/section.
Thanks, both.
John thinks there are too many anagrams, and Fiona@16 thinks there are too many double definitions. Poor Everyman can’t win.
I think the ellipses between 4 and 5 are there so that the two clues together can be read as a single surface.
I too am unsure of what Everyman intended with 2d’s “music’s smallest section”. In music TONE can have three different meanings: the quality of the sound (e.g. piercing, lilting, hushed, etc.), the pitch of a note (i.e. its frequency), or an interval between two notes (as John stated). The second of these is closest in meaning to a single note (think A = 440), which could be taken to be music’s smallest section. If you accept that, then you don’t need rock as an anagrind and the (S)TONE parsing works.
Thanks, Everyman and John for the fun and stimulation.
“Tone” has two meanings in music: one is a sound of distinct pitch (aka “a note”) and the other is an interval which in diatonic music is the step from C to D (aka “a whole tone”). Music is made up of notes and so there there can be no quibble about 2 down.
There are several professional musicians in my family, and I am pretty sure that none of them would describe a TONE as being a ‘section’ of anything.
I also wondered about ‘wanting’ in 14a. ‘Choosy item’ would work just as well.
PDM @4: after reading your comment, i realised that I had your parsing for 2d. The musicians here are discussing the exact meaning of ‘TONE’, but as a geologist, I baulk at taking stone to be the make-up of rock. Rocks are not made up of stone, but of minerals. Rock and stone are synonyms.
That’s what steered me away from sTONE: make-up of rock???
Perhaps we haven’t cracked that one yet 😀
Update: Chambers has ‘the matter of which rocks consist’, so like it or not, Everyman is fully exonerated!
12 minutes – a new record! 😀
I had TONE for my LOI too, and I particularly enjoyed CASPIAN SEA and CHAMPAGNES.
To round off the year, here is my list of Everyman’s country/geographic references for 2023…
Somalia, New Zealand(er), Botswana, Sucre, Chad (2), Eritrea (2), Crimea(n), Avignon, Soho, Tasmania, (Tour de) France, Togo, Gobi, Angola, Orleans, Kingston, Iran (2), Iraq, Bangladesh, Oslo, Copenhagen, Ontario, Oceania, Siberia, Indiana, Kenya(n), Estonia (2), Gulf of Aden, Ayia Napa, Bavaria, Pakistan, Croatia, Bali, Orleans, Antigua, Toronto, Strasbourg (2), Fray Bentos, America, Pamplona, Red Sea, Pompeii, Algiers, Palermo, Armenia, England, Catalan, Nicaragua(n), Montenegro, Lake Ontario, West Indies, Asia, South Africa(ns), Capri, Bengal(i), Elba, South Korea, Bethlehem, Argentine, Assisi, Nairobi, Micronesia, West Bengal, Tenerife, Tunisia, Lesotho
And here is the list of single word anagrams…
Fodder word / Grid entry
ENDURINGLY/UNDERLYING
SEGREGATION/SAINT GEORGE
IDEALISERS/SERIALISED
PERSISTENT/PRETTINESS
IDEALISTIC/ITALICISED
PROPOSERS/OPPRESSOR
DISCRETION/DIRECTIONS
REDUCTIONS/INTRODUCES
ASPERITIES/PATISSERIE
INTERPOLATED/LATENT PERIOD
INDISCREET/IRIDESCENT
SUPERSONIC/PERCUSSION
DECORATION/COORDINATE
WESTERNISED/DESERT WINE
STIPULATED/PLATITUDES
REORGANISE/ORANGERIES
SECTARIANS/ASCERTAINS
PREDECESSOR/REPROCESSED
BORDELLO/DOORBELL
INTERMIXES/IN EXTREMIS
MOUNTAINEER/ENUMERATION
TEMPURA/UPSTREAM
SPRINGIEST/PERSISTING
COUPLET/OCTUPLE
STREETSCAPE/PACE-SETTERS
SENORITAS/NOTARISES
INGREDIENTS/TENDERISING
ANNOYED/ANODYNE
MEMORIALIST/IMMORTALISE
WHINGERS/GERSHWIN
PREDOMINATES/IMPERSONATED
ANCIENTS/INSTANCE
ANDERSEN/ENSNARED
ALPINIST/TAILSPIN
TEATIMES/ESTIMATE
PERMISSION/IMPRESSION
LAUDING/LANGUID
OARSMEN/MOANERS
REGIMES/EMIGRES
GRADIENT/TREADING
SENATORIAL/RATIONALES
PRAETORIAN/REPARATION
CHEESIEST/ICE SHEETS
SUPERSONIC/PERCUSSION
SIMPLEST/MISSPELT
SWEATSHIRT/SWARTHIEST
DENATURE/UNDEREAT
SIEMENS/NEMESIS
GRITTINESS/STRINGIEST
EXCITATIONS/INTOXICATES
PACKETED/TAPE DECK
INCOGNISANT/SANCTIONING
FRIENDLIES/INFIELDERS
REDUCTIONS/INTRODUCES
MUNDANE/UNNAMED
Jay@ 38
Wow
And people (ok I’ll stop now)…
Lindbergh, Houdini, Nureyev (2), Nabokov, Liszt, Maigret, Wordsworth (3), George Bush, Isaac Newton, Stephen Sondheim, Grace Kelly, Tom Hanks, Moliere, Lewis Carroll, Isaac Newton, Sting, Tolstoy, Anna Pavlova, Lauren Bacall, Berners-Lee, Marconi, Tesla, Donne, Henry Moore, Lenin, Marcel Proust, Bede, Tyson, Caravaggio, Raphael Nadal, Mae West, Charles Babbage, Gershwin, (Ella Fitzgerald), Castro, Russell, Aristotle, Edison, Dylan Thomas, (James) Bond, Richard Burton, Alan Turing, Michael Caine, Hitchcock, Coleridge, Mary Magdalene, Whitney Houston, Noel Coward, McEnroe, Rembrandt, Arthur Miller, Einstein, Oppenheimer, George Lucas, Archimedes
I got 2d for the (s)tone reasoning and because, having gone through the alphabet, it couldn’t be anything else – not even TUNE could be made to work – but music’s smallest section? Couldn’t work that one out for the life of me.
John
I had ELLE as FOI @10
If semitone were music’s smallest then a section of it could be TONE perhaps? Feels a bit indirect for Everyman but no more so than (A)TONE
While I concur with most of the quibbles, none of them held up the solve for long or detracted from the fun
Cheers J&E
@Jay that’s incredible work!
Well done Jay@several amazing lists , I hope you did not have to type these out , it would take me all day. Have you got a list of all lists and does it contain itself ?
I’m confused about the dissatisfaction with 2dn (TONE). I agree with Paul, Tutukaka @14 about the definition — a tone is a single note, which is the smallest unit of a piece of music. And John’s explanation of the wordplay is fine.
My understanding of question marks is that they can sometimes indicate aspects of the clue (e.g., a definition by example or a somewhat dodgy definition), but like other punctuation they can also be used at will for the surface reading.
Enjoyed this one, and all the wonderful comments above from solvers much cleverer than myself. I always get down to less than 5 to go, but don’t always complete the Everyman. This week I did so a great start to the year. nb. I never complete on the day of issue, which was last year, answers often comes to me days later! Faves were 5 and 15 down, I love DDs. Thanks all.
To those people saying that NOTE and TONE are synonymous, this is not so. A note has two mandatory attributes, and an optional third (and maybe more that I’ve forgotten)
A note has duration and pitch eg. A crochet B-flat for example. Pitch can be synonymous with TONE but that doesn’t adequately describe a note, since the duration is absent. Hence a section of music is made up of notes, but not tones.
As cellomaniac mentioned, TONE can also refer to timbre, as in “that cello has a mellow tone”. Timbre actually refers to the composition of harmonics that a musical instrument produces. This is specified in a musical score by assigning a specific instrument to a part, or in the case of some instruments (such as the guitar) by instructions in the score (e.g. “dolce” for a warm tone).
Ui Imair@35: note that the definition you quote says “the matter of which rockS consist”, but the clue says “rock”. A rock (= pebble, a stone, etc) is not the same as “rock”, the material. If we are being super pedantic, that is…
After posting that comment, I got a “click to edit” message – two minutes to do it. How welcome is that?
Roz@45, a list of lists containing itself? What devilry is this… I sense you are being mischievous 😉
Russell’s paradox, Jay.
Phil@48, without engaging in an argument over musical notation (which I am bound to lose) I fully concur with your points that a note is a tone of specified length and that music is comprised of a number of notes. It therefore follows that a single tone can reasonably be described as the smallest section of music (in so far as the latitude and logic typically offered to crossword clues).
So, what is the smallest section of John Cage’s composition 4’33”?
@cellomaniac The first section is the smallest at 30″. The Adagio (slow second movement) is 2’23” and the Presto (third movement) is 1’40”
Paul @53. I would say that you are misusing the word tone. The phrase “single tone” would commonly refer to the range of an instrument, e.g. “a paper and comb can only produce a single tone.” (Which is accurate, since the instrument can produce different durations of the same tone) You would not use the phrase in the way you suggest, because the more accurate “note” is available to you, less ambiguously.
And, as cellomaniac notes, tone is actually not necessary to specify a note; in addition to 4”33’ there is also music for untuned percussion.
In addition, the clue could have been written “Skipping intro, makeup of rock musical interval”, with definition being “musical interval”, which is a much better definition of tone.
In music, although “tone” and “note” are not exact synonyms, both can mean a sound of definite pitch.
@49 Tassie Tim thanks. But Chambers has ‘rocks’!
Cheers guys. Re that, I wasn’t hugely troubled. Except by being embarrassed in that I made a mess of the parsing in the first place! I’m more excited now by the extraordinary list Jay has provided, and the new site feature.
@Tilly, that’s not this puzzle… you’ll need to wait until next Sunday! The famous Rufus clue does come to mind though…
On review, the TONE clue was dealt a fatal blow by Roz@13’s comment: “Perhaps a musician will be in later to give details on “smallest section” .” I believe for clues to be fun, fair and accessible their definitions should pass the test of general equivalence. Once critiqued by a specialist, their expertise is invariably applied to raise the bar to (dis)proving an exact match, with any allusive or cryptic element discarded.
In my rather humble, that is, very unprofessional opinion of a non-native speaker, TONE’s was a fair clue: Collins lists “1. sound with reference to quality, pitch, or volume” and “3. US and Canadian another word for note” which both can be surely regarded as “music’s smallest section”, especially considering the question mark in the clue?
I like Everyman’s anagrams, e.g.: Old Chestnut; Line Dances; Waterfalls (Fats Waller. Another famous Fats’ fans too dim, bizarrely). Also liked: evening and champagnes. Of course, liked (nay, couldn’t have done it without): primarily; self-referential; opposites/rhymes. Didnt’ like: Tone.
@32 poc
I’m don’t think “Choosy Item” makes sense as a surface. What does It mean on its own? Add the word wanting and despite being a little inelegant the phrase is now comprehensible.
I was held up by Tone and thought maybe Limestone without the intro. Whatever. Nice crossword, on the easier side.
I wasn’t sure if 2d was tone or tune: after all the important thing is the beat. I decided that tone is less important than tune. Otherwise it was one of those days when the answers jump out at you.
Got it all out, but “tone” (LOI) was a hammer-and-hope insertion.
A good crossword clue should make it very difficult to see the answer, but once the answer is seen it should be obvious that it is correct. The 2 down clue fails that test.
What a lot of comments about 2d. I wonder if Jay keeps a list of the most contentious clues? Thanks to all involved for a very enjoyable puzzle.
I am of the firm belief that there are 2 Everymans, Everymen?
Last week’s guy was the difficult EM and this week’s, the easy EM!
I’d like there to be a third EM, a semi difficult, semi easy one please.
Enjoy the great summer we are having.
CHAMPAGNE our favourite this week; GAWKING another goodie. TONE our LOI, no quibbles at all. Easier than last week for sure! Thanks all. Gorgeous day here in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland.
CHAMPAGNE our favourite this week; GAWKING another goodie. TONE our LOI, no quibbles at all. Easier than last week for sure! Thanks all.
On the easier side, and not so hot here now in Epsom NZ
Rob
Too easy. Tone got us as we guessed tiny which was not a great guess.
Do not like the clue – a tone is not the smallest section in music.
A&C @73 (lovely rhyme), me too! I agree with RinB @ 67, the scales should have dropped from the eyes at reading the solution.
@52Tassie Tim: that’s why I come to this blog. I would never have heard of Russell’s paradox without coming here. Awesome thanks. And of course many thanks to E&J.