Guardian Cryptic 29,325 by Pasquale

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29325.

A crossword with several double definitions in which one is a colloquial expression, and the other takes the words literally – hence “Definition and literal interpretation”. A Donnish puzzle, with answers including two composers, one well-known (15A DEBUSSY) and one less so (7D VARESE – his entire surviving output lasts about three hours) with a well-known one in the clue. 12A CANYON is my pick as favourite.

ACROSS
8 DOMINICA
Nomadic drunk going round India or some island (8)
An envelope (‘going round’) of I (‘India’) in DOMNICA, an anagram (‘drunk’) of ‘nomadic’.
9 PIETAS
Sculptures of at least three Greek characters (6)
A charade of PI plus ETAS (at least two of the latter, so ‘at least three Greek characters’ in all).
10, 2 LIVE WIRE
Dynamic individual that one should avoid contact with (4,4)
Definition and literal interpretation.
11 TEA PARTIES
Foody occasions – relations will eat each bit (3,7)
An envelope (‘will eat’) of EA (‘each’) plus PART (‘bit’) in TIES (‘relations’).
12 CANYON
Great rift when cleric embraces heresy finally (6)
An envelope (’embraces’) of Y (‘heresY finally’) in CANON (‘cleric’).
14 LAMENTER
Mournful type‘s hit record (8)
A charade of LAM (‘hit’) plus ENTER (‘record’, verb).
15 DEBUSSY
Socialite and seductress ditching husband, a composer (7)
A charade of DEB (debutante, ‘socialite’) plus [h]USSY (‘seductress’) minu the H (‘ditching husband’).
17 ANATOMY
A man involved in no branch of science (7)
This seems to be an envelope (‘involved in’) of ‘a’ plus TOM (‘man’) in ANY (‘no’? – I can think of no use where they conincide).

But see KVa @2, the first of many.
20 APPOSITE
Program location containing nothing suitable (8)
An envelope (‘containing’) of O (‘nothing’) in APP (‘program’) plus SITE (‘location’).
22 BREAKS
Stops and starts (6)
Double definition, the second being eg. day breaks.
23 COLLEAGUES
Fellows having little energy and fevers on Scottish island (10)
A charade of COLL (‘Scottish island’ in the Inner Hebrides) plus E (‘little energy’) plus AGUES (‘fevers’).
24 BAIL
Release a bit of cricket equipment (4)
Double definition.
25 CORNEL
American university’s short tree or shrub (6)
A subtraction: CORNEL[l] (‘American university’, an Ivy Leaguer in Ithaca, NY) minus its last letter (‘short’).
26 AQUARIUS
Sign given by head of militia abandoning tanks (8)
A subtraction: AQUARIU[m]S (fish ‘tanks’) minus the M (‘head of Militia abandoning’).
DOWN
1 BONIFACE
One VIP turning up to confront saint (8)
A charade of BONI, a reversal (‘turning up’) of I (‘one’) plus NOB (‘VIP’); plus FACE (‘confront’). St. Boniface was an Ango-Saxon of the eighth century, particularly revered in Germanic regions where he was a missionary.
2
See 10 Across
3 MILTON
Poet gets post but not a great deal (6)
A charade of M[a]IL (‘post’) minus the A (‘but not a’) plus TON (‘great deal’).
4 BANALLY
Bar friend with a platitudinous style (7)
A charade of BAN (‘bar’) plus ALLY (‘friend’).
5 SPEARMAN
Soldier with Eastern weapon within reach (8)
An envelope (‘within’) of E (‘Eastern’) plus ARM (‘weapon’) in SPAN (‘reach’).
6, 24 GETTING THE BIRD
Job of gun dog being derided (7,3,4)
Definition and literal interpretation.
7 VARESE
Some of these Ravel rejected as a composer (6)
A hidden (‘some of’) reverse (‘rejected’) answer in ‘thESE TAVel’.
13, 18 YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP
Your legs collapsed, climbing the stairs? That’s unimaginable! (3,7,4,2,2)
Definition (sort of) and literal interpretation.
16 SAILABLE
‘Relatively calm’ perhaps is a label at sea (8)
An anagram (‘at sea’) of ‘is a label’.
18
See 13
19 PERUSAL
Reading University impeding a girl (7)
An envelope (‘impeding’) of U (‘University’) in PER (‘a’ -“two a penny”) plus SAL (‘girl’).
21 PROMOS
Concert with huge pieces of publicity (6)
A charade of PROM (promenade ‘concert’) plus OS (out- or over-sized, ‘huge’).
22 BUST-UP
Result of wearing bra creates a row (4-2)
Definition and literal interpretation.
24
See 6

picture of the completed grid

70 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,325 by Pasquale”

  4. I concur with KVa’s erudite explanation of ANATOMY. That’s how I saw it.

    I enjoyed today’s, my only hitches were never having heard of Coll island, spearmen, or getting the bird. But I have now. The second definition of BREAKS (“starts”) didn’t make sense, so thank you for elucidating, PeterO.

    I’ve expressed reservations before about OS meaning “huge”. It’s a garment size that’s only a little larger than average, isn’t it? When I think “huge” I think 3XL, 4XL, even 6XL, in the new money.

  5. Worked ANATOMY same as KVa@2. Never heard of Varese but worked it after getting two crossers. “Some” island threw me for a little while…if it had been, say, “an” island, would have got it much faster, but then where’s the fun? Thank you PeterO and Pasquale for the puzzle.

  7. SAILABLE, whole clue as definition + anagram? ”Relatively calm”, a label/description used at sea.

  8. Ague always gets a flicker of amusement as it reminds me of the one in Sir Andrew’s cheek. Gentle fun puzzle, ta Don and Peter.

  9. Thank you Peter O for your blog. I love it when I just happen to look here, and there you are, bright and early, thanks to your time zone (and mine). I notice there is another ”any” in CANYON, and there is a Y in 4 clues around the centre, but probably just coincidence.

    BUST-UP and DEBUSSY. I do get tired of these references to women’s anatomy and seduction or predation. Hardly any equivalents for men.

    Some bras are designed not to push one’s bust up, but quite the opposite, especially for sportspeople. But I did like the misdirection. The first thing that came to my mind was that the result of (a) wearing bra could be nasty red marks and irritation.
    Anyway it prompted me to look up the etymology of hussy, which doesn’t matter now. What interested me is that hussy is also a folder for needles and thread, something to go with your etui. ?

  10. Thanks Pasquale and PeterO. I got the ‘start’ meaning of 22A BREAKS thinking about the start of a snooker game.

  11. Another vote for NAY.

    I didn’t find it got much easier as the crossers appeared, so on a hunch I dug up some old software I wrote (and reported about here) years ago. What it does is analyze the helpfulness of crossers based on an entropy-like calculation (e.g. Z and J very helpful, E and T not so much). As suspected, when compared with a random sample of a few hundred cryptics, this puzzle’s crossers ranked almost at the bottom in helpfulness. Not against the rules of course, just makes it less fun (personally speaking).

  12. @PeterO and MaggieCanberra@10. My sense of ‘starts’ in BREAKS was an opening, a beginning in employment, or some kind of opportunity. All possible. I’m sure there are more.

  13. Yes, definitely NAY. I thought it was a wonderful puzzle by Pasquale—challenging but doable. My last fill was LIVE WIRE which I thought was brilliant. Thanks also to PeterO for a great job!

  15. Good research question re gender and risqueness, pdm @9. You do get the odd roué and lech/er, and perhaps the very occasional ref to men’s anatomy, but yes I’m sure the refs to women’s are more frequent.

  16. Beaten by LIVE WIRE which I just could not see with only the two Is as crossers. And by PERUSAL – I am always forgetting the ‘a’ = PER equivalence and was never even close to SAL as a random girl’s name. However, I did spot NAY which I was pleased about, even if it was to be a container for a random boy’s name. CANYON, PIETAS, MILTON and BANALLY were my ticks.

    Thanks Pasquale and PeterO

  17. paddymelon @9: My old dad, a WW2 soldier, told me once that his army-issue pouch of needles and thread was known as a housewife, pronounced hussif – thus perhaps contracted to hussy?

  18. NAY feels right but another alternative would be to say NO can mean ANY as in “I can’t take this no more” as may be heard in some songs and colloquial language.

    Thanks for the great puzzle and blog.

  19. Paddymelon we do get cads, roues and rakes in crosswords as well as debs and hussies. The hussy that holds sewing equipment is also called a housewife (Guides have a challenge to make one in an interest badge.)

    Chewy, but doable. My last ones in were LIVE WIRE as I find those tetragrams with one crosser hard.

    Thank you to PeterO and Pasquale.

  20. paddymelon@9
    BUST-UP and DEBUSSY
    Your comment is apt (tho I try to see all these words as just words to the extent possible).
    Women’s Day…Hmm

  21. Nay, nay, thrice nay, as Frankie Howerd would have exclaimed. I thought this was a gentle enough offering, despite the unfriendly grid. I also thought, as PeterO mentions, there might be a composer theme in the top half, prompted by SPEARMAN, which I thought was a strange word. Google revealed there is a jazz composer of that name and there is also John MILTON, father of the poet and someone named BONIFACE. However, I doubt that this was Pasquale’s intention. Favourites were CANYON, LAMENTER and the amusing YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP.

    Ta Pasquale & PeterO.

  22. DrW @11 your science confirmed my intuition that there were an abnormally high number of unhelpful crossers – chapeau!

    I initially thought Pasquale had been super-precise defining DOMINICA as “some island” as Haiti forms the other part. Then I remembered that’s the Dominican Republic. Doh

    I was a bit flummoxed by the absence of any really obscure words for a change so kept over-thinking clues

    Top ticks for PIETAS, PERUSAL, and YCMIU

    Cheers P&P

  25. As PeterO, couldn’t see past AN(A+TOM)Y for quite a while, before twigging A+NA(TOM)Y.
    LAMENTER – a ‘lift and separate’ of “hit record”, adjective/noun to get two verbs. And “record” has to be pronounced diiferently, to boot. Very nice.
    tiLts – hUSSY derives from housewife; VARESE was a composer – I only knew him as part of a record label, followed by “Sarabande”.
    Loi – BONIFACE – from this church in Whitechapel, that only has a German Wikipedia page.
    Thanks P&PO

  27. bodycheetah @23: I did notice that pair on my customary NINA hunt, but thought best left alone. Probably better to link to GETTING THE BIRD.

  28. The usual frustrations when it comes to this “four quadrants” grid, so I plodded through this one. Couldn’t get 10a2d LIVE WIRE despite my best efforts, so I had to come here admitting a DNF. I liked 9a PIETAS, 14a LAMENTER, 15a DEBUSSY, 1d BONIFACE and the long clue 13,19d YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP – I think all of those have already been mentioned in dispatches.
    Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO.

  29. Strange how one can struggle – less than half of this completed – before I went away and came back with a slightly different/fresh mindset to finish this off. Really liked AQUARIUS, and the SE corner yielded last of all, with COLLEAGUES and PERUSAL particularly difficult, I found. Not entirely convinced by BREAKS, but overall an excellent challenge set by Pasquale today…

  30. Mostly doable and enjoyable but I had to reveal a couple at the end, which I generally prefer to avoid. I like Pasquale but one of my pet peeves is the vagueness of something like ‘girl’ to indicate SAL.

    I did like the two multi-word down clues though, both clever and not too tough.

    Thanks both.

  31. [Happy International Women’s Day, paddymelon – there’s still a long way to go, even in Crosswordland as you have so rightly noted. Sisterhood is powerful!
    One day there’ll be more men who are self-reflective before they take to the keyboard.
    I now regret saying I liked DEBUSSY at 15a. Like you, I can’t think of a male equivalent of HUSSY. The nearest might be “STUD”, an appellation which most men and some women might actually admire. Sad really. Thanks KVa@20 for getting that]

  32. Tough but enjoyable. LHS was hard for me, especially the SW corner. I failed to solve 10/2.

    Favourites: PIETAS.

    New for me COLL island (for 23ac).

    I parsed 17ac in the same way as KVa@2a – A + TOM in NAY.

    Thanks, both.

  33. A fun puzzle – I was relieved to think of PERUSAL and back-parse it, as I was originally looking for a longer girl’s name to go around the U. GETTING THE BIRD required a similar bolt from the blue.

    The over-abundance of derogatory words for promiscuous women is an unhappy feature of English (and presumably many other languages). But provided they avoid the more egregious examples, I don’t think crossword setters are the frontline here.

    PIETAS was my pick.

    Thanks PeterO and Pasquale.

  34. Relatively gentle for the Don, I thought.

    I liked TEA PARTIES, AQUARIUS, PERUSAL, and YCMIU. Wow, I’ve used an Oxford comma!

    Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.

  35. For some reason, little sprang out at me at first PERUSAL of the top half, apart, bizarrely, for VARESE. So I worked up from the bottom – and then wondered why I had the problem at the beginning…

    I liked PIETAS and ANATOMY (I went for NAT rather than TOM). I have no quibble with the ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ device. It just requires a bit more lateral thought. Someone recently suggested that ‘river’ was less vague, but in reality there are many more of them!

    Terms for sexual predators are considered pejorative if they apply to females, but even admirable if they apply to males. Tradition and Abrahamic religions have much to answer for. Why should women be demure and submissive? Perhaps is time that some of these words are rehabilitated, just as ‘queer’ has been taken up as a badge of pride.

    Thanks to S&B

  36. Gentle and fun – thank you Pasquale.
    Unlike Paddymelon @ 9, BUST UP and DEBUSSY made me grin. I thought both were clever and witty.
    I’ve also encountered plenty of equivalent “male” solutions: casanova, lothario, womaniser, rat and creep, springing instantly to mind.
    Thanks also to PeterO for the blog: the parsing of LAMENTER completely eluded me, having never heard of “lam”.

  37. I’m beginning to think there may be more to the ANATOMY/ BIRD thing going on from posts above. Bodycheetah looking at you 🙂 and AlanC.

    Yes, hussif is a variant of housewife from Middle English huswif, and that’s apparently where both hussy and the needle case hussif/hussy come from. So is the way to someone’s heart through darning their socks?

    Cue Annie and Aretha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4
    HIWD Kva@20 and Jia@28.

  38. MILTON Babbitt, when he eventually turned his hand to writing electronic music, would almost certainly have been inspired by the trail blazer in that field, Edgard VARÈSE. In turn, VARÈSE was influenced by his acquaintance, DEBUSSY. All of which is probably coincidental here.

    YCMIU made me smile, and I liked CANYON.
    Thanks to Pasquale & PeterO

  39. COLL is a very useful Scottish island in crosswordland. So too are MULL, IONA, RUM and UNST. I’ve seen SKYE, ARRAN and JURA too. Also, an INCH can be any one of hundreds of little Scottish islands.
    Thankyou Pasquale, PeterO and all commenters.

  40. Thanks PeterO and Pasquale.

    I took 22A as a cryptic definition. If I take a break from a task, I stop and then start again.

  42. I made my way through this better than I generally do with Pasquale’s puzzles, but there were still plenty of challenges and surprises. I particularly enjoyed PIETAS and BREAKS.

    GETTING THE BIRD is not an expression I’m familiar with. In the US, we “flip the bird”, meaning “perform the rude gesture of extending one’s middle finger.” I’d also never heard of COLL (there are a lot of islands in the world!) or VARESE, but both clues were gettable. I failed to parse ANATOMY, but KVa @2 showed the way.

  44. A tough end to the week for me, with several unparsed or only partially parsed, and the two long clues coming only at the very end with all the crossers.

    I take a little solace from the fact that LIVE WIRE went in almost immediately for me – and for a while was my only solution!

  45. Thanks for explaining PERUSAL, I too forgot the a=per. NHO Cornel; bit ignorant on the horticultural front!

  47. Thanks both,
    Re ‘hussy’. Is the frequency of use of words by different groups relevant? My feeling is that ‘hussy’ is used much more frequently by women about other women than it is used by men. Conversely, say, ‘wanker’ is probably used more by men about other men – but not often found in crosswords.

  48. Some philosophical musings, while my morning coffee is kicking in. If two different-sounding actions always occur at the same time and situation, does that mean they are the same? If a day breaks and starts at the same time, does that really mean that breaks means starts? Even if the answer is No, that doesn’t mean the substitution is inadmissible in cryptic crosswords, since we can always say we have extended the meaning of synonym for the purpose, and them’s the rules we use. But at some point we run into red bus/London bus, where I think most would agree that substitution does not work, without some further qualification. I think this all reinforces the view that good setting is an art, and I applaud all our setters for mastering it. OK, caffeine has arrived, onward …

  50. Enjoyable puzzle overall–thanks for the puzzle Don and the blog PeterO! Praise for using an American University that isn’t MIT!

    however I want to grumble about the proper name thing; TOM for “man” and SAL for “girl” are very unspecific, and at least here a girl is more likely to be named Aja or Rylee than Sal these days. ANATOMY even has a completely different man in it, I was trying to figure out where the “my” came from in A + O (no) around NAT! Seems like that clue could’ve used “cat” instead of “man,” and, eh, “a short girl climbing” (LAS[S]) for the other one? Well there’s a reason I don’t set the clues.

    [paddymelon@6: The examples have to be double negatives, because the negative sense of “any” is what’s called a negative polarity item–a usage that can only appear within negatives, conditionals, questions and similar contexts! Another example is “ever,” I can say “I don’t ever finish the Genius puzzle” or “If I ever finish the Genius puzzle without cheating, it’ll be a red letter day” but to say “I ever finish the Genius puzzle” is at best archaic not to mention false.

    “Any” is a little unusual though because it has a positive meaning but it is different. So “I can solve any puzzle” means “I can solve a puzzle, no matter what it is,” but “I can’t solve any puzzle” means “There’s no puzzle I can solve”–as opposed to “I can solve every puzzle” meaning the same as “any” but “I can’t solve every puzzle” meaning only that there’s at least one that I can’t solve.

    This is a topic I go off on because it’s interesting to me as someone who dabbles in linguistics and who also has to teach students to put these kinds of sentences in logical form! Anyway (!) it sort of explains why the examples are all double negative.]

  51. I wondered if PI was the “at least three” and ETAS were the “Greek characters”.
    A friendly outing for a Friday.
    Thanks P&P

  52. I half expected to see Paul today but was nonetheless delighted to see Pasquale’s name. This did not disappoint, though it was a bit “Carry on.. ” in places… I was held up for some time in the SE with PERUSAL, but on reflection I should have got AQUARIUS first. I had heard of VARESE, but it is years since I heard any of his music, and I can’t say I liked it; but perhaps I should give it another go. Debussy is a different matter. It reminds me of something that the much missed Bernard Levin once wrote: that if he had an unwanted guest he’d put Debussy’s opera Pelleas and Melisande on the record player. Levin’s view was that it is the most boring and dreary piece of music ever written and would surely drive them away. There’s no accounting for taste. Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.

  53. Wellcidered @51: I didn’t parse it that way but I like your thinking!

    I was on Pasquale’s wavelength this morning so I really enjoyed ending the week with an affirmation of my brain health, although I did need help getting DEBUSSY even with the crossers and I confess to googling a list of cricket equipment. I came very close to entering “keep” instead of MAKE IT UP, but fortunately I avoided that humiliation.

  54. Thanks Pasquale for a nice set of clues with my favourites being TEA PARTIES, DEBUSSY, AQUARIUS, BONIFACE, MILTON, and YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP — the latter brought to mind some days at work which seemed to be an oddity parade. Overall, I found this on the gentle end of the Pasquale spectrum. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
    [GDU @4: “A little larger than average” is certainly ‘huge’ in the US given that the ‘average’ person here is obese.]

  55. Thanks PeterO and KVa for explaining ANATOMY which I should have known thanks to the Wild Rover. Dr Whatson I appreciate your crosser analysis too, my heart sank when the anticipated U appeared as a crosser in 19d and on top of that we only got an E and an A! But it all eventually fell into place, NE last for me. PostMark@16 I think we got a good lesson in a=per=each=ea today. Really enjoyed this, perfectly pitched challenge for me with some wit too and of course some new knowledge gained, thanks Pasquale.

  56. Thanks for the blog, another sticklebrick grid but I am grateful we were spared another dreary theme.
    Good set of clues, MILTON stood out for me.
    For those who do not know VARESE the clue was very fair, Frank Zappa was a very big fan.

  57. Roz@56: I went to Youtube around an hour ago to listen to some VARESE. I noted how many comments were from people who said they were there via Zappa…. I agree with you on MILTON.

  58. Nuntius@57 I have inherited an original vinyl copy of “We’re Only in it for the Money” with the Beatles spoof cover.
    On the sleeve notes Zappa quotes Varese – The present day composer refuses to die.

  59. 9a – PIETAS. I have read and read the explanation given in the blog but it baffles me.

    PI = a Greek letter

    What are the other two?

  60. Steffen @59: It’s a PI (π) and at least two ETAs (ηη or possibly Ηη) (since it’s plural, you know there’s more than one).

  61. 11a reminded me of
    Here’s to a temperance party
    With water in glasses tall,
    Coffee and tea to end with
    And me not there at all.
    25a I’m familiar with “cornus” as a shrub and even have one in the garden for a some winter colour from the stems but I’ve never heard of “cornel”. I bunged it in nevertheless, assuming that I didn’t know how to spell Cornell.
    Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO

  62. [By the way, the history of the letter eta is fascinating. It started its life as a consonant–more or less the H it looks like. But then Greeks started dropping their H’s like stereotypical Cockneys, and eta became a vowel. Later on, a vowel shift occurred, and eta represented a different vowel (roughly, the vowel in piece instead of the vowel in hey). Neither of these changes had happened by the time the letter reached Etruscan and thence Latin, so H stayed a consonant in the Roman alphabet. However, both changes had occurred by the time St. Cyril taught the Russians to write, so the Cyrillic letter И, which is derived from eta, is the first letter in the name Ivan.]

  63. Took a long while to get to the end of that one, and I gave up on PIETAS with the i still missing. I really enjoy the commentary on here, with matt w@50 and mrpenney@62 being particular favourites today, and the ideas brought up in the conversation between paddymelon and Julie in Australia. JiA@31 – I think that ‘lothario’ or ‘gigolo’ might be better equivalents for ‘hussy’ with a similar level of opprobrium, but that doesn’t detract from the validity of your argument nor diminish my support for it. Thanks Pasquale for the challenge and PeterO for the parsings that defeated me.

  66. Gervaise@35 & JinA@31
    If it’s any consolation, I had a (girl)friend who gloried in the name “hussy” and described herself as one with genuine pride.

  67. As a graduate of Cornell… NHO CORNEL. Nor COLL. Nor OS as “huge”. PER SAL for “a girl” was never going to happen. SW corner was impenetrable. The rest of the puzzle was pretty straightforward and fun.

  68. I agree with Shanne@19: “Chewy, but doable. My last ones in were LIVE WIRE as I find those tetragrams with one crosser hard.”. Indeed, once I got it, LIVE WIRE along with YOU COULDN”T MAKE IT UP was my favourite.

    I have only done a couple of Pasquale puzzles and they may not be representative of his work, but he does not strike me as a setter who lets his sense of humour into his puzzles.

    Thanks Pasquale and PeterO

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