Guardian Cryptic 29379 Pasquale

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Thank you to Pasquale. Definitions are underlined in the clues.

ACROSS

1. Flimsy stuff mostly rejected by one wanting firm material (6)

CALICO : Reversal of(… rejected) “lace”(flimsy stuff/a fine open fabric) minus its last letter(mostly) plus(by) I(Roman numeral for “one”) plus(wanting) CO(abbrev. for “company”, a commercial firm).

Defn:  …, in this case a fabric.

4. Bits in rows (6)

SCRAPS : Double defn: 1st: Leftover …; and 2nd: …/quarrels.

9. Fool taking role inwardly confused (4)

PRAT : PART(a role/character in a play or movie) with its 2 middle letters exchanging positions(inwardly confused).

10. Traded as a couple of females – fooled about (10)

TRAFFICKED : [ A + F,F(twice/couple of abbrev. for “female”) ] contained in(… about) TRICKED(fooled/swindled).

11. Eminence of Henry first to last – last Henry being that (6)

EIGHTH : HEIGHT(eminence/a piece of rising ground) with initial “H”(symbol for “henry”, unit of electrical inductance symbol) moved to the end(first to last).

Defn: What the last in the line of King Henrys of England was. Coincidentally, H is the eighth letter in the English alphabet. This could have been another definition if not for the last “last”.

12. Scattered folk regathered in a Paris do (8)

DIASPORA : Anagram of(regathered in) A PARIS DO.

Defn: Folk/a population that has scattered into regions separate from its geographical origin.

13. Story of citizen a bishop penned (9)

NARRATIVE : NATIVE(a citizen/a national) containing(… penned) [A + RR(abbrev. for “Right Reverend”, a term of address for a bishop) ].

15. Girl in jungle said to be this believer (4)

JAIN : Homophone of(… said to be) “Jane”(Porter, the girl partner of the fictitious Tarzan of the jungle).

Defn: … of Jainism or Jain Dharma, an Indian religion.

16. An inn set about establishing a health scheme (4)

BUPA : Reversal of(… set about) [ A PUB ](an inn/drinking establishment).

Answer: The trade name for the British United Provident Association Ltd., a multinational health insurance and healthcare company.

17. Returning chums bond for comedy (9)

SLAPSTICK : Reversal of(Returning) PALS(chums/mates) + STICK(to bond/to adhere to).

Defn: Type of ….

21. Smell one gets eating everything with egg and cheese (8)

HALLOUMI : [ HUM(smell unpleasant/stink) + I(Roman numeral for “one”) ] containing(gets eating) [ ALL(everything/every single one) plus(with) O(letter in the shape of an egg, almost) ].

Defn: A mild white Cypriot ….

22. Final message is being sealed in case (6)

VALISE : VALE(“Goodbye”/final message) containing(… being sealed in) IS.

24. A mother ran out – one in London race? (10)

MARATHONER : Anagram of(… out) A MOTHER RAN.

Defn: …, the London Marathon, that is.

25. One going with the wind – conceited, reportedly (4)

VANE : Homophone of(…, reportedly) “vain”(conceited/excessively proud).

26. Drops a message saying we should get a move on (4,2)

LETS GO : [ LET’S GO! ](a message/exclamation to us in the group that we should move on/go!).

27. Legal principle introduced by chancy president (2,4)

CY PRES : Hidden in(introduced by) “chancy president“.

Defn: …/doctrine that means “as near as possible”.

Down

1. My short journey coming to a bullfight (7)

CORRIDA : COR!(like “My!” an expression of surprise) + last letter deleted from(short) “ride”(a journey on a horse or cycle or in a vehicle) plus(coming to) A.

2. Act of lust a hindrance to companion (5)

LETCH : LET(a hindrance/an obstruction) plus(to) CH(abbrev. for “Companion of Honour”, a special Commonwealth award).

Defn: Informal term for a lecherous act.

3. Problem with computers etc? Face criticism (5,2)

CATCH IT : CATCH(a problem/a hitch) plus(with) IT(abbrev. for “information technology”, synonymous with computers, etc.).

Defn: …/receive a scolding.

5. Garment a foot short seen in prison (6)

CAFTAN : [ A + FT(a./short for “foot”) ] contained in(seen in) CAN(slang for a prison/jail).

6. Somehow enact pact, going with the flow? (9)

ACCEPTANT : Anagram of(Somehow) ENACT PACT.

Defn: …/willingly receptive.

7. Nasty stain here he removed – something fatty (7)

STEARIN : Anagram of(Nasty) [“stain here” minus(… removed) “he“].

Defn: …, in this case, an organic compound found in most animal and vegetable fats.

8. Performers consisting of very slow mover turning up to grab a superior baddie (13)

VAUDEVILLIANS : V(abbrev. for “very”) + { [reversal of(… turning up) SNAIL(a slow mover, literally and figuratively) containing(to grab) [A + U(letter indicating something superior/upper class) + DEVIL(a baddie/a wicked one) ] }.

Performing what?:

14. Parent upset about measure that can be offputting (9)

REPELLANT : Anagram of(… upset) PARENT containing(about) ELL(a former unit of measure of length).

16. In fight notice something piercing? (7)

BRADAWL : BRAWL(a fight/a scrap) containing(In …) AD(short for” advertisement”, a promotional notice).

18. Maiden maybe beset by compassion, not one in need (7)

POVERTY : OVER(in cricket, an example of which/maybe is a maiden, when no runs are scored during the over) contained in(beset by) “pity”(compassion/condolence) minus(not … in) “I”(Roman numeral for “one”).

19. People may lose money in them when dipping into loose coins (7)

CASINOS : AS(when/at that moment, as in “as you enter …”) contained in(dipping into) anagram of(loose) COINS.

20. As little house with good bit of seafood (6)

QUAHOG : QUA(as/in the role of, as in “the soldier acted qua soldier, and not as a civilian”) + HO(abbrev. for/little “house”) plus(with) G(abbrev. for “good”).

23. Tennis champion in revolutionary show exuding energy (5)

LAVER : Reversal of(revolutionary) “reveal”(to show/to uncover) minus(exuding) “e”(symbol for “energy” in physics).

Answer: Rod …, former Australian tennis champion.

67 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29379 Pasquale”

  1. After yesterday’s mauling I fairly breezed through this last night. Too many ticks although I didn’t like the sound of MARATHONER. I only knew QUAHOG from the animated Fanily Guy. Superb puzzle with confidence restored.

    Ta Pasquale & scchua for the typically colourful log.

  3. Biffed the legal principle and then looked it up. I don’t think I’ve seen LETCH, just LECH, but Chambers says they’re equivalent. I liked CALICO, EIGHTH, VALISE and NARRATIVE, and the homophones were unobjectionable, so points for that.

  7. Another solid cryptic from The Don.

    I find it most pleasing to derive something unfamiliar from the cluing, and find it’s correct in the dictionary.

    Examples today included DIASPORA, CY PRÉS, STEARIN, QUAHOG, and VAUDEVILLIANS.

    Also admired the height/EIGHTH ruse.

    Many thanks, both.

  8. Thank you scchua for your, as ever, very clear and beautifully illustrated blog.
    I’ve noticed that the Guardian cryptics don’t seem to any longer regularly indicate foreign language or informal vocabulary. Today we have qua (Latin) and letch.
    The word quahog , new to me, is apparently an approximation of a word from the North American indigenous language of the Narragansett.
    Here is one from Iceland which was supposedly over 500 years old, the world’s longest living animal. I noticed that there’s the name Anna, at the top. Our Anna? Not the clam, it was called Ming.

  9. 7d. Fun to invent new chemicals – seratin, setarin, starine, snarite – before the stern crossers boringly demanded the dull truth.

  10. Am I the only one getting bored of Pasqual and his “alternative” spellings? The repellent lech in a kaftan. The main problem I have is, the more AI scrapes the internet for misspelt words and validates them, the more impenetrable these cryptic clues will become.

  11. Very enjoyable. Faves 11 and 15. Never come across quahog before (don’t eat shellfish) but easily gettable.

  12. Andy@10. Since letch is a word spoken before written and caftan is a transliteration of a foreign word , it is a bit tough to demand orthographic rectitude. Isn’t it more fun to be a bit bewildered than wholly certain? I personally revel in Pasquale’s playful toying with expectations.

  13. Thanks Pasquale and scchua
    I had an unusual start, with only two letters entered on the first pass of across clues – the JA in 15a, as the last two were ambiguous.
    It went quicker after that, with favourite DIASPORA. Never heard of CY PRES, but the crossers made the hidden easy enough.
    Rod LAVER’s heyday was around 60 years ago!

  15. Really enjoyed this – had to leave LETCH & CATCH IT pencilled in until the end – never sure if that’s a sign of a good clue or not?

    Friday faves; HALLOUMI, VAUDEVILLIANS & PART for the almost indirect anagram of which I’m all in favour

    Spoilt for choice with ear-worms – initially thought about Demis Roussos in his (K|C)AFTAN but in the end it had to be either Chaz Jankel’s Ai No CORRIDA or Enery the EIGHTH

    AD@10 I see what you did there with PASQUAL(E) 🙂

    Cheers P&S

  16. Thanks Pasquale and scchua

    The OED gives caftan as the prime spelling, with kaftan as a variant. When I first came across the word, donkeys years ago, it was invariably spelt with a c, possibly because, again from the OED, it possibly came via the French ‘cafétan’.

  17. The only one I didn’t know was my LOI, CY PRES, but as a hidd n, it had to be. I know QUAHOG from books set in New England, as something eaten on Martha’s Vineyard or those islands.

    I didn’t mind LETCH or CAFTAN as I’ve seen both written before the current spellings – stuff from the 70s. I’d usually spell the action as LETCH anyway.

    Quicker solve than the last two days.

    Thank you for the blog, scchua, and to Pasquale for the crossword.

  19. Last one in had to be QUAHOG – what? And of course the usual nho before with Pasquale setting things up. JAIN absolutely another one, and the fat one at 7d. But all eminently gettable from the clueing. Something I something H something H for 11 ac had me mouthing What The…? for a while, but so obvious ultimately, and became my favourite clue today. I desperately needed the spine of the puzzle, the grand VAUDEVILLIANS towards the end and to pull things together to completion. A good work along the way…
    And I suppose another nho, CY PRES might have been clued with the truncated tree, but the solution was plainly in view as Pasquale has set it…

  20. Andy @10, The word lech is from the late 18th century. I don;t think AI was very prominent in those days. And then kaftan, caftan, qaftan, khaftan…… don’t get me started. In fact AI scraping has nothing to do with what’s in reputable dictionaries.

  21. Me @19…”AI scraping has nothing to do with what’s in reputable dictionaries”… at least not yet.

  22. I initially wrote in kaftan, but changed it immediately, also JANE, but that didn’t last long either. I also realised that if I stuck a T in LECH, it would fit in the grid and make sense of the wordplay. I had bunged in the CH at the end.
    I’ve never heard of QUA or QUAHOG but I had the little piggy, so I looked up QUIHOG in Google and it kindly asked me if I meant….? The other nhos were easier.
    Thanks both.

  23. [If STEARIN is heated with sodium hydroxide, the sodium salt of stearic acid, sodium stearate, is formed. This is better known as soap!]

  25. As ever with Pasquale puzzles, my pathetic vocabulary caught me out…
    DIASPORA
    JAIN
    CY PRES
    CORRIDA
    STEARIN
    QUAHOG
    All unknown though JAIN and CY PRES I got from the wordplay.
    Eventually lost the will to continue…
    Much harder than yesterday.
    Thanks both

  26. I usually learn something new from a Pasquale, and mostly I immediately forget it, but occasionally something sticks. CY PRES is an interesting legal concept and I’ll try to remember that. I thought this was an excellent puzzle with the unknowns being fairly clued and gettable from the crossers and wordplay.

    paddymelon @8: I don’t think QUA needs a foreign language indicator because it is in use in English. Chambers: “adv in the capacity of”.

    Next time I’m in my local seafood restaurant I’ll be torn between TAUTOG (Pasquale 27,940) and QUAHOG.

    Many thanks Pasquale and scchua.

  28. As usual with Pasquale, if you follow the instructions, you get the answer, except for JAIN, where I confidently put in JANE at the beginning (I think the clue is ambiguous, unlike the other homophone for VANE).

    I liked the wordplays for HALLOUMI, VAUDEVILLIANS and POVERTY. I DNK CY PRES but there it was in plain sight!

    Thanks Pasquale and scchua.

  29. Lord Jim@25. Chambers is old school, n’est ce pas?, and of use to cryptocruciverbalists, but who else uses it? Who says qua otherwise, apart from people from academia?

    cy-pres, on the other hand I’ll let go through to the keeper, because at least the definition is legal principle and you’d expect some archaic and foreign language stuff there.

  30. As usual, Pasquale gives us a solidly clued puzzle with some vocabulary curiosities.

    The only unknown for me was the Norman French legal term, but fortunately it was hidden in plain sight. QUAHOG did take a bit of head scratching before I remembered it.

    I’m not exercised about the spellings of CAFTAN (which seems to be the original) or LETCH (without the T It looks more like a Polish hero).

    CALICO, HALLOUMI, STEARIN, DIASPORA and POVERTY were my pick of the day.

    Thanks to the Don and scchua

  31. PM @28; here’s the example from the ODE: shareholders qua members may be under obligations to the company.

  32. The crossing BRADAWL and BUPA were nho, so I’m slightly proud of myself for getting them from the wordplay. Similarly with LAVER, where I needed all the crossers, and decided he had to exist.

    Lots of fun today, thanks to both Pasquale and scchua

  33. And what about cy-pres, sans hyphen? Another anachronism? A language mish-mash?

    Robi@30. When was that entry recorded? Again it’s inside language.

  34. Who else uses Chambers? pdm @28… my grandson for one. I bought him a copy to give him a good start in life. It has lots of common English words in there. Old School, bah humbug! 🙂

  35. I enjoyed learning about bradawls and cy pres, and I was pleased to already know about quahogs and stearin, (which is obscure enough to get the red-line treatment from Google) but I thought 10 ac had a pretty offensive surface considering the answer.

  37. Again, I think for the fourth day in a row, held up by one word and DNF. Yesterday it was “Sundew”, today it was “Quahog”
    Didn’t find this as hard as yesterday’s, but still pretty difficult.
    “Halloumi” was new, liked “Jain” (got the homophones easily, which I rarely do) and dredged “Cy Pres” from somewhere in my memory (though it was obvious)
    Thank you to Pasquale and to Scchua, as ever, for your blog.

  38. Not too difficult for a Pasquale, with his usual collection of odd words. The only one I had never heard of was CY PRES (which on the strength of 2 crossers I thought might be BY LAWS until I saw what was staring me in the face). I didn’t much like all the variant spellings (REPELLANT was REPELLENT) and the sort-of words like MARATHONER that you probably wouldn’t bet on existing in Scrabble or Countdown.

    I got EIGHTH without noticing the Henry unit. Liked HALLOUMI, DIASPORA and VAUDEVILLIANS.

  39. Tim C.@33. Good on you for giving your grandson such a great start in life. (No irony intended.) You may be surprised to know that for my 21st birthday over 50 years ago, when I could have had crystal, or whatever was the go then for 21 year old women, I asked for Skeats Etymological Dictionary, probably worth a couple of weeks of my parents’ income. Still my greatest treasure.

  40. Defeated only by QUAHOG (new to me). JAIN brought a smile to my face. With thanks to Pasquale and sschua.

  41. A tricky final few, but otherwise a pleasant solve. Thank you Pasquale, or should that be PasQUAHOG?

  42. What an etymological mix, the Latinate qua as ‘as’ as part of an indigenous name for a clam. Love it.

  43. Enjoyed this. It was fun working it out – I had to check a few, such as CY PRES, but I could deduce them from the clue itself. All except one – I failed on QUAHOG – so thanks to everyone for introducing me to them!
    VAUDEVILLIANS is an excellent word, with really fun cluing. My favourite today.
    Lovely blog. I like the images. Thanks.

  45. NHO quahog nor cy pres, but arrived at both from the wordplay, and did not parse 1D. Otherwise, a fun romp.

  46. The long loose robe was usually spelled “kaftan” when I was young and looked nothing like the dress in the accompanying picture.

  49. Hey, I remember some stuff from law school! CY PRES was one of my first ones in. (My property-law class was very good, and the case we read to teach that concept was an interesting one. I’ve never seen it or needed it since the bar exam.)

    Also knew QUAHOG from Family Guy (set in the fictitious town of Quahog, Rhode Island; the titular character’s favorite watering hole is called the Tipsy Clam, in honor of the town’s name).

  50. Nho of QUAHOG so a dnf for me. The rest were fine with the legal term hiding in very plain sight.

  51. Filled in all but some of the NW corner; I had to try letters with the check button till I found words that worked. Never heard of BUPA or cy pres.

    I’m not the only American in this group, but I may be the only New Englander, from the home territory of quahogs. muffin@20, the word is pronounced co-hog, so you may have read a phonetic misspelling.

    William@7 When you put together an unfamiliar word from the wordplay and find that it’s a real word (very satisfying!) the word for that in this community is “jorum,” dating from when that finding that word happened to somebody. I thought it was Eileen, but apparently it wasn’t, but I think it’s fair to say that Eileen brought the awareness of the word to us. You can read more about jorums in the FAQ above.

    pdm,@@23 thanks for the bivalve link. The article mentions geoducks (pronounced gooey-duck), common to the US northwest, and that requires me to post a geoduck earworm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JjhZfJ4dto

    Thanks Pasquale and scchua.

  52. [Valentine @50
    Site search found two examples of COHOG as the solution to clues. Both were from some time ago, but I’m sure I’ve seen it more recently. Perhaps in a puzzle not blogged here?]

  53. Mostly straightforward for the Don: fun and fair clues, some challenges, and a couple of obscure solutions as expected (CY PRES, STEARIN and QUAHOG, mainly). Surprised to solve it all quite quickly, and sorry to see it end.
    Thanks to Pasquale and to scchua for the pictorial blog

  54. [Re dictionaries, my grandparents had a battered copy of Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary – probably the 1901 edition – and it has always been my favourite of the single volume lexicons, in later editions of course. It has a lot of Scots dialect words, being originally an Edinburgh publication, which was useful during the ten years I lived in Scotland. These days I use it mainly via the app. I also have a copy of the two volume Shorter Oxford Dictionary, which is useful for the really arcane, and for information about the earliest recorded usage of a word or a meaning.

    For other languages, Wiktionary is very useful, being multilingual. And for words of Proto-Indo-European origin it chases etymologies all the way back to their roots, which is entertaining, at least for me 🙂 ]

  55. Nice work from Don.

    I wrote in QUOHOG instead of QUAHOG – probably because I remembered the word being spelt that way in Moby Dick – and I thought QUO might equally fit for ‘as’. These Latinisms can be a pain!

    Apart from that the other stickler was of course CY PRES – it was obviously something to look up, but even Wiki didn’t enlighten me, had to resort to Google. As a ‘hidden word’ clue the word break comes in the same place in the clue as in the solution – isn’t this something setters usually avoid? I’m loath to criticise the Don, whose crossword ‘bible’ is always at hand on my desk, but this isn’t his best.

    Everything else is fine though it took me a long time to recall STEARIN. According to a certain Scrabble guru, the seven letters A E I N R S T are the most anagrammable of any set of seven and are a boon when you have them on your rack. But that doesn’t mean they’re so tractable when they come up as crossword fodder!

    Likes for EIGHTH, DIASPORA, HALLOUMI, LETS GO, CORRIDA, BRADAWL, POVERTY. Fairly random selection.

    Thanks to Don and scchua.

  56. I persevered and completed it before the blog appeared. A first Pasquale finish for me. Had to google the meaning of cy pres. I ate quahogs in Newport Rhode Island and they were so good that I asked for and got the recipe written by the chef on a page from a receipt pad. I knew about Stearin from a TV series called The Newsroom. Scratched my head over the parsing for Halloumi because I didn’t know a smell was a hum. Grilled Halloumi is a staple on my bbq. Thanks Pasquale and schuua.

  58. Took me ages to solve this but I enjoyed every minute. Many thanks Pasquale – I learned a lot and the cluing was very fair. Many opportunities for discovering new words. William @7 says it beautifully and thanks to Valentine @50, I now know that’s a JORUM. I always wondered what it meant but was too timid to ask. sschua, thank you for the wonderful blog, I especially liked the weather vane pic. My favourite words today were VAUDEVILLIAN and CASINOS. Have a great weekend everyone 😎.
    [muffin @35, yes Being There is a wonderful film. Valentine @50, thank you for the link. The Gooey Ducks looked quite rude, but that could just be me…]

  59. [Muffin@56 – yes OK, though some letter-counts put H before R – mainly because of its occurrence in ‘the’. Hence the well known gremlin of that bygone newspaper era with Linotypes: ETAOIN SHRDLU…

    P.S. I’d love to see those words in a crossword one of these days. Might even try in one of mine. Has it been done before?]

  60. A very busy day today – I did solve (and enjoy) the puzzle but had to be out before the blog was up and so I have nothing to add to the comments.

    Just a note to William @7, if you’re still there – it’s a very special feeling, isn’t it? I was the one who described it, with reference to ‘jorum’ in the puzzle I was blogging. A regular solver at the time said their mum had often described the feeling and said that s/he would always think of it as a jorum. I replied that I would, too, and others picked it up and ran with it.
    I’ve spent a lot of time over the years not ‘disowning’ it but disclaiming the credit for it. I’m really chuffed that it caught on. My thanks to Valentine @50 for the clarification.

    Pauline in Brum @57 – please never feel ‘too timid to ask’. 😉

  61. Thanks Pasquale for an excellent crossword. I missed the nho BUPA as well as LETCH but all else eventually fell into place. My favourites were CALICO, PRAT, SLAPSTICK, LETS GO, CASINOS, and LAVER. I know all about QUAHOGs as I’ve dug them up for years on the South coast of Cape Cod. Thanks scchua for the visually pleasing blog.

  63. [Laccaria @54: yes, when in doubt, always retain the letters in RETAINS.

    STEARIN
    RETAINS
    RETINAS
    RETSINA
    ANTSIER
    NASTIER
    STAINER
    RATINES
    ANESTRI

    The one time I had that rack in an actual game, I went with RETSINA–I needed one of the ones with the S in the middle position.]

  66. Nobody else thought DRILLS for 4ac? It’s just as valid as SCRAPS, with drill bits and rows for planting seeds on an allotment.

  67. Very late as I’m travelling and well behind on my daily fix but am I the only one to notice the mini theme? VAUDEVILLIANS, SLAPSTICK, PRAT or is that too few?

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