I’m standing in for scchua today, as Imogen rounds off the weekday puzzles in fine style.
An enjoyable challenge, with a good mix of clues, including a couple of less familiar words. Brilliant anagrams at 5dn ONEIROMANCY and 12 YES MINISTER, neat misdirection at 9ac ADVENT, 18ac MIGNONETTE and 21ac PATERNITY LEAVE, ingenious constructions, including three clues where we had to change the order of letters (ticks for all of them) and lovely surfaces throughout. I have a minor quiblet at 22dn but nothing to spoil the fun.
Many thanks to Imogen for an enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Make known Imogen is to leave (6)
IMPART
I’M (Imogen is) + PART (leave)
4 Force moving mass to part of gut (8)
MOMENTUM
M (mass) + OMENTUM (part of gut)
9 A depression around 5 December, mostly (6)
ADVENT
A DENT (a depression) round V (5)
10 Prepare me a blunt sedative (8)
NEMBUTAL
An anagram (prepare) of ME A BLUNT
11 Little pests come silently: by end of day, crop is flattened (6-8)
CREEPY-CRAWLIES
CREEP (come silently) + [da]Y + CRAW (crop) + LIES (is flattened)
13 My view is available on request (2,3,3,2)
IF YOU ASK ME
(not very) cryptic definition
14 Love what fallen hero becomes, they say (4)
ZERO
Reference to the expression ‘from hero to zero’, for a fall from grace
16 Gently persuade to announce drinks (4)
COAX
Sounds like (to announce) ‘cokes’ (drinks)
18 Green annual meeting not disrupted? (10)
MIGNONETTE
An anagram of MEETING NOT, with a ‘lift-and-separate’ misdirection
21 Dad’s right, each year’s a very long time – after the first, go (9,5)
PATERNITY LEAVE
PA (per annum – each year) + [e]TERNITY (a very long time, after the first letter) + LEAVE (go)
23 Left impression, puncturing smart politician (8)
BLAIRITE
L (left) + AIR (impression) in BITE (smart, as a verb)
24 Book Suzi? Time to move on (6)
QUARTO
(Suzi) QUATRO with the T (time) moving on one space
25 They pick the last of the readers (8)
ELECTORS
[th]E + LECTORS (readers)
26 Second sight of the French uniform on volcanic island a bit off (4,2)
DÉJÀ VU
DE (French ‘of’ – not ‘of the’) + U (uniform) after JAV[a] – I don’t think the omission of ‘the’ would have affected the surface reading
Down
1 One is a Muslim leader (4)
IMAM
I’M (one is) A M[uslim] – I omitted to add ‘&lit’
2 Feebleness of verse amid superior work, rhymes initially out of place (7)
POVERTY
V (verse) in POETRY (superior work) with R[hymes] out of place
3 One making hasty repair, taking only a second (6-2)
RUNNER-UP
Double definition – I queried ‘repair’: Collins has ‘to make by sewing together quickly’, which is how I’ve always understood it – but Chambers gives ‘to make or mend quickly’
5 Dreamy prediction of creamy onion soup (11)
ONEIROMANCY
An anagram (soup) of CREAMY ONION – this reminded me of Ronald’s account of his weird dream yesterday!
6 Bent pipes fitted in fuel bowser (6)
ELBOWS
Hidden in fuEL BOWSer
7 Songsters no end shy, internally tense on edges of copse (7)
TITMICE
TIMI[d] (shy) round T (tense) + C[ops]E
8 Distance indicator in case somebody takes motorway first (9)
MILESTONE
LEST (in case) ONE (somebody) with MI (motorway) first
12 Strange mysteries in TV series (3,8)
YES MINISTER
Anagram (strange) of MYSTERIES IN – a sadly missed series indeed
13 Old American, light skinned, holding British to be useless (9)
INCAPABLE
INCA (old American) + PALE (light skinned) round B (British)
15 Non-tenured job that’s a cushy one, getting in at the top (8)
INSECURE
SINECURE (job that’s a cushy one) with the IN moved to the top – a brilliant surface!
17 Champion, uptight inside, has to get going (7)
ACTUATE
A reversal (up, in a down clue) of TAUT (tight) in ACE (champion) – neat ‘lift-and-separate’ of ‘uptight’)
19 Article on tax turning up in restaurant (7)
TAVERNA
A reversal (up, again) of AN (article) + RE (on) + VAT (Value Added TAX)
20 A rook and a rodent revealed when flood receded (6)
ARARAT
A R (rook – chess notation) + A RAT – Mount Ararat is where Noah’s ark came to rest after the flood
22 Naff way Americans treat colour (3-1)
NON-U
Americans omit the ‘u’ in ‘colour’
I gleefully declared this was a pangram on the G thread last night but upon further examination, I discovered there was a missing letter, or as someone quipped to me, it was a case of Japanese dance drama. So many favourites including CREEPY CRAWLIES, PATERNITY LEAVE, QUATRO, YES MINISTER (if only comedy was still that good) and the two 13s. Not sure if ‘of the’ = de in DÉJÀ VU as I thought it was just ‘of’, but I’m sure someone will know. ONEIROMANCY and MIGNONETTE were nho but were generously clued. Not particularly difficult but very enjoyable.
And why not, she was great fun
https://youtu.be/8qwIC2CLEsM?si=sO420DAL7r7NxKA7
Ta Imogen & Eileen.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen!
COTD: PATERNITY LEAVE (High-frequency generator? The ’long time after the first’ is dope!)
Other faves: IF YOU ASK ME (even otherwise, a nice one), IMAM (A prays-worthy &lit. 1 down is No. 3. Ain’t it?) and ACTUATE (relaxed after getting ‘up-tight’)!
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
Very enjoyable. Favourite ADVENT. I didn’t parse POVERTY.
26a didn’t need “volcanic” as well as “the”.
YES MINISTER and QUARTO might faze overseas solvers!
Eileen, this blog is appearing as “Guardian 29,409 / Guardian” rather than Imogen
I see you had a quibble with the French ‘of’ as well Eileen and I agree it didn’t need ‘the’. You have missed the capitalised S in ELBOWS fyi. I agree muffin about ‘volcanic’ although it did narrow the options somewhat.
I hope 1 across is not a hint of Imogen’s departure… Lovely puzzle. Thank you Imogen and Eileen for the precise blog.
An enjoyable end to the week – thanks Imogen. Thanks too, to Eileen for standing in. In 18A the anagram fodder should read MEETING NOT
Thanks Shirl and Alan – corrected now.
… and ditto to Larry.
When all was done and dusted with this tricky in places Imogen puzzle I think my favourite clue was the simple Hero to ZERO one. Like Muffin@3 I couldn’t quite figure out how POVERTY worked, so thanks Eileen. And very glad that ONEIROMANCY could be arrived at through an anagram. Last one in the elusive TITMICE after staring at all the crossers in place with a perplexed expression. For some unexplained reason whenever I see that word I’m thinking Small Mammals, rather than Feathered Friends…
I liked PATERNITY LEAVE and ZERO. [AlanC I thought the link was going to be her advice to crossword setters’ overuse of toilet references]
Enjoyed this one.
SINECURE parsing much classier than my thought of the simple IN on top of SECURE.
Thanks I&E
The top half went in quite quickly but then I struggled and revealed the last three in the SW.
Some lovely clues tho I needed some help parsing a few.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
Petert @11: brilliant 👏
Enjoyable puzzle although I slowed down in the SE corner. Was pleased to complete it 🙂
Favourites: QUARTO, DEJA VU, INSECURE. I enjoyed YES MINISTER – haha, that was a great show, and currently I am re-watching The Thick of It.
New for me: NEMBUTAL; TITMICE; CRAW = the crop of a bird or insect (for 11ac); ONEIROMANCY; MIGNONETTE.
Like Eileen, I also wondered about ‘repair’ in 3d.
muffin@3 – Suzi Quatro was famous all over the world, even down in Australia where I grew up 😉
Thanks, both.
MOMENTUM ≠ FORCE
Good fun – thanks both. I thought 13a was just about two separate definitions: “my view is” (as in: if you ask me, Imogen is one of our best crossword setters) and “available on request” (as in: there’s more information if you ask me). But the meanings are fairly close.
simonc – I was expecting some reaction earlier than this (not my area of expertise)!
Don’t shoot the messenger: Chambers – ‘force of motion gained in movement’.
simonc@16: yes, but the definition is “force moving”, which I think gets us close enough to F = ma for a crossword clue.
Thanks, Quirister – so I was right to (tentatively!) underline ‘moving’ – and I see your point about 17ac)
I too hope that 1a is not a factual statement.
A hint of a theme with MOMENTUM, RUNNER-UP, MINISTER, BLAIRITES and ELECTORS?
I loved the surface of INSECURE, the anagrams (with their indicators) ‘prepare me a blunt’ and ‘creamy onion soup’, and the ‘uptight’ ace.
Thank you Imogen and Eileen.
If you move the comma to after “puncturing “ in 23 across you get a sarky &lit. Thanks both.
Quirister @19. If you’re going to start quoting equations, then P (momentum) = mv. mv ≠ ma
Great puzzle with some excellent clues – I second Eileen’s choice, with the addition of the clever ‘sinecure’ to INSECURE transformation (though this may be one of the letter-switchings that she mentioned).
I agree that ‘the’ in the clue for DEJA VU is extraneous. ‘Force moving’ isn’t quite right for MOMENTUM, but near enough for crossword purposes.
Nothing unfamiliar here, as it happens. I loved the creamy onion soup, being a fan of ‘mancies’. Like named phobias they are always entertaining. My favourite is ‘coscinomancy’ – divination by means of a sieve and a pair of shears (there’s some doubt as to how this was actually done 🙂 ).
Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen
A real workout for the GK, most of which I got except Mignonette, which I didn’t know either as the plant or the oyster dip.
Americans leave out the U not the O in Colour of course. Those of us from a certain generation know Suzi Quatro as a minor rock star (not as big there as in the UK) who played Pinky Tuscadero’s leather-clad sister on Happy Days. Yes, Minister is less well known but did air on some US public TV channels.
13 and 14 were a little weak but more than compensated by great surfaces and wordplay elsewhere including 1d, 12, 15.
Very enjoyable, thanks Imogen.
I understood MIGNONETTE to be a type of lettuce, well it is in Australia, so it’s a green. Is it the same plant as in Eileen’s link? Anyway, I liked this clue.
I enjoyed the neat device of moving a letter within the clue eg POVERTY, INSECURE, and my favourite, QUARTO.
The YES MINISTER anagram was wonderful, as was the show. (Yes, Suzi and YM were well known beyond the UK.)
PATERNITY LEAVE is also great, though took it me a bit of staring at it to parse.
New words ONEIROMANCY and ACTUATE, but both well clued and gettable.
Thanks Eileen for explanations of MOMENTUM, the CRAWLIES part of C-C and ‘hero to ZERO’. And thank you for stepping in with your very clear blog.
I take the point that ‘volcanic’ isn’t strictly necessary, but without it ‘island’ is as vague as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’, which some posters regularly grumble about 😉
I agree with simonc@16. And, no disrespect Eileen, we have commented many times in the past how crap the Chambers entries can be on mathematical and scientific words. ‘force of motion gained in movement’ in my view is meaningless: is it the force that is gained in movement; or the motion gained in movement? ‘force moving’ doesn’t make much sense either.
Enjoyed this otherwise.
Thanks Eileen – just a small typo, I think: Americans omit the ‘o’ in ‘colour’ should be ‘u’
Thanks also Imogen
Gervase @24 – yes, INSECURE is my top favourite today, for the transformation device and the precise definition: ‘adj (of an academic post or lecturer) not possessing or carrying a guarantee of permanent employment’ – certainly no sinecure, then!
Thanks, RogerGS @25 – yet another careless error, which I’ll correct now.
[Here’s that TOTP clip again: Suzi QUARTO’s Devil Gate Drive – her second (and last) UK No. 1, in February 1974, a 50th anniversary]
Dave Ellison @28 – I think you know I hold no particular brief for Chambers (and I only consulted it after the comment @16.) The clue was clear enough to indicate MOMENTUM to me, based on my inadequate knowledge!
Nothing much to add here apart from it was enjoyable and I did like ELBOW for the “bent pipes”.
Also, how many times do we have complaints on here that a word isn’t used in a scientifically/technically accurate way. It should be realised that the words in a crossword are defined using the common usage reflected in dictionaries. Common usage often has wider meanings than strictly technical meanings. Saying “that shot at goal had some momentum” is the same thing in everyday language as saying “that shot at goal had some force”. How else do you obtain momentum without applying force in the first place. Hence the strictly technically inaccurate definition in Chambers quoted by Eileen @18 is how most (mostly non-technical) people would use it. Just get over it and realise that crosswords aren’t scientific treatises.
A bit late to post today and much has already been said. A fine puzzle with a few tricky bits: although it’s clearly clued, I did not get the nho MIGNONETTE and I didn’t correctly interpret the def for DEJA VU. YES MINISTER is COTD for me – an amazing spot.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
To be sure, MOMENTUM does have a precise meaning in physics, but the word is commonly used metaphorically, in which sense ‘force moving’ is not so far off.
Sorry, TimC – I missed your comment!
Gervase@24 – yes, I particularly like dormancy, a subset of which is oneiromancy 😊
Lovely puzzle with some great surfaces and fabulous anagrams. I’m not sure why people are asking if Suzi Quatro would be known outside the UK given she was American…
I think the only way for us scientists to soften the blow of utterly inaccurate definitions like the one for momentum is to consider them purely as a non-scientific term. Newton did not use the term momentum but the “quantity of motion” (Quantitas motus) in definition 2 of the Principia Mathematica (luckily, a copy is just to my left as I type!). Eventually, words get adopted and refined as being well-defined scientific terms but science does not have an exclusive claim to them. Momentum as a scientific term, like power, force, current etc has to share a space in the dictionary with many other meanings.
Occasionally there are absolute scientific howlers in these puzzles, and we should call them out. Likewise, no-one should be trying to justify that the two terms are scientifically close enough because science definitions don’t do “close”, they do “exact”. I see someone yesterday trying to justify power = I because it’s the same as current. If a setter had tried that, I think we could rightly complain it was an outright error. But if a setter equated power with energy, I’m sure Chambers would justify it outside the scientific sphere.
Many thanks to Eileen and to Imogen for a lovely end to the week.
[Tim C @34 we overlapped I now see!]
Very enjoyable – lots to admire. Big ticks for 9, 16, and 21 across and 7 down and 13 down. Thanks Imogen and Eileen
Enjoyed this until I hit a wall with four intersecting, rather awkward in my opinion, words. I could see the anagrams at 18ac and 5d, but without resorting to a word finder would never have unscrambled them. Also had trouble with 4ac.
Personal blind spot – no matter how many times they turn up in puzzles I never remember who has the N and who has the M for 1d – the Somali supermodel or the religious bloke.
Did like the CREEPY CRAWLIES.
Thanks both.
So many to like and very fairly clued. I particularly liked INSECURE and NON-U. Thank you very much Imogen and Eileen. Also thanks to AlanC@1 for the earworm of Suzi, such a groundbreaking role model back in the day. Have a lovely weekend everybody 😎.
Yesterday’s and today’s puzzles both fairly straightforward but none the worse for that. Favourites already mentioned. I liked MIGNONETTE because botany is one of my interests, but not all mignonettes are annuals (some are, so the clue does work). SueM48@26 – the plants called mignonettes in the UK are are not at all related to lettuce.
There have been a couple of comments about whether ‘volcanic’ is necessary in wordplay for DEJA VU – my take on it was it’s a bit of misdirection – I can imagine the word being used as an anagram indicator.
I did reveal MOMENTUM, never having heard of the gut component – I might have got it if I didn’t have a scientific background and was looking for a strict definition. Nevertheless I agree with those saying the definition was fine for crossword purposes.
Thanks Eileen and Imogen.
The “blunt sedative” in action…
Some unusual words but all pieced together eventually.
I liked the CREEPY-CRAWLIES, PATERNITY LEAVE, MILESTONE and YES MINISTER. I’m not sure which dictionary editions Eileen is using, but here are the definitions from my electronic versions:
MOMENTUM: (Chambers)
1. physics The product of a body’s mass and its velocity. Symbol: p. ▶ See also angular momentum.
2. The impetus of a body resulting from its motion
3. Driving power or strength
REPAIR: (Collins)
To restore (something damaged or broken) to good condition or working order
(Chambers)
To mend, fix, put right (something broken, out of order or condition, etc)
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
Thank you beaulieu@40. ‘Mignonette’ as the name of a lettuce in Aus is probably just a common name then. Funnily, I have seen it written as ‘minuet’ by some fruit and veg traders (green grocers in UK). Cuter than a misplaced apostrophe.
Re NON-U, I came across these Guardian readers comments about the meaning of NAFF under the topic of Semantic Enigmas. Date not indicated.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-18768,00.html
If Chambers is going to be cited as the ultimate unquestionable Authority on the legitimacy of synonyms (as it so often is), then it has to be accepted that it’s always right – even when it’s wrong, as it seems to be here with MOMENTUM. I’m no scientist, but I have often run into this contradiction with other words.
“But x does not = y”
“Chambers says it does. End of argument.”
Annoying, isn’t it.
Thoroughly enjoyed this crossword – favourites have already been cited by others.
Re 42, sorry! The definition of MOMENTUM was from Collins.
Chambers:
1. The quantity of motion in a body measured by the product of mass and velocity
2. Force of motion gained in movement, impetus (informal)
I see AlanC@1 beat me to it with SuziQ – sorry ;( – A more recent earworm – reversing the wordplay of 14a – ZERO To Hero – from Disney’s Hercules (1997)
The lyrics are quite clever. There’s even a ‘Grecian urn’ gag. (I had to Google SRO = Standing-Room Only).
From 12a YES MINISTER – (on 25/11/82, apparently):
Sir Humphrey Appleby: “Minister, I think there is something you perhaps ought to know.” — Jim Hacker: “Yes Humphrey?”
Sir Humphrey: “The identity of the Official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion, is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.”
Jim Hacker: “I beg your pardon?” — Sir Humphrey: “It was … I.”
Non-u and and naff deffo diff, non-upper versus sort of wet, lame. Non-fluent solve here, one eye on a footy game. The dreamy thing anagram was a grind, and mignonette, as SueM says @26 and 43, is a lettuce here in Oz. All sweet tho, ta Im and Eil.
🙂 FrankieG, those scriptwriters have such a lot of fun!
There was another French of/of the confusion recently by Kite, wasn’t there? That one was plain wrong, but this one can be argued to be fine if you pair the “the” with “French” in your head to get “the French for”. But leaving it out altogether would have been better.
As for MOMENTUM, this isn’t the first and won’t be the last time an answer word has a precise technical meaning and a slightly different “casual” meaning, which of course is in Chambers so it’s technically ok. I just wish the setters wouldn’t do it. I wonder whether if this were pointed out to them they would say “i didn’t care” or “I didn’t know”.
DrWhatsOn @50: There are words like power, force, mass and compound which lived a quiet civilian existence long before scientists arrested them and put them in straitjackets – using these in a general, colloquial way is surely perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, there are words like MOMENTUM and epicentre which started life as precise scientific terms but have come to be used metaphorically, often in inappropriate ways. We scientists may wring our hands but usage is usage!
That was a nice end to the week. At first, the across clues yielded very little, but the down ones soon started to fill in the gaps.
At first, I was concerned it was a goodbye message from Imogen, and wondered if Richard was abandoning this pseudonym. There seemed to be a lot about leaving, parting and “time to go”. I hope it was just a mini-theme in this excellent crossword.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen and happy Friday to everyone here!
MOMENTUM
I am with Eileen, Tim C, Jack Of Few Trades, Gervase and others.
I have seen mass and weight used interchangeably. Similarly,
power and energy. Many other examples can be given. In
such cases, we will go by common parlance rather than by scientific
definitions.
In today’s case, ‘force moving’ works for me all right as the def.
ARARAT
I am less comfortable with the def of this clue than the above
(Eileen has made a point in the blog. In addition, I am not sure
the part of the speech matching is good).
Nice crossword. I actually thought the part of the gut in 4a. MOMENTUM was tum – I then put that together with the initial m to get momentum, never having heard of omentum. 🙂 Better to be lucky than to be good I suppose!
Can’t get too worked up about imprecision in everyday language when it comes to scientific terms. The only one that used to get me irritated (but not any more) is ‘quantum leap’ which in every day usage has come to mean the precise opposite of its scientific usage. A quantum change is the smallest change possible not a transformative leap, but there we go. Maybe a setter can make something of that.
I thought 23. BLAIRITE was a very nice clue, although it was a guess and justify for me. My admiration for anyone who can ‘forward solve’ a clue like this.
Many thanks to Eileen for a very nice blog, and to Imogen for the challenge
I’ve been out since late morning at an Exhibition launch – thanks for all the comments in between.
KVa@53 – I’m not sure what ‘point’ you are referring to. I didn’t see anything iffy about the clue: I parsed the definition as ‘(that which was) revealed when flood receded’ – it had been under water until then – which we see quite often, I think. It was one of my favourite clues.
I’ve enjoyed the various interesting comments re MOMENTUM. (I’m quite surprised not to have seen mention of epicentre, muffin. 😉 )
Great fun! Loved BLAIRITE, PATERNITY LEAVE and INCAPABLE.
Re MOMENTUM I am bemused by those who think because a word has a particular, precise meaning in one field(eg physics, mathematics, religion or law), it cannot have another, perhaps looser, meaning in a different context.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
ARARAT
Apologies Eileen.
You mentioned something about 22 D in your intro, but I mixed it up.
Yes. ARARAT has appeared a few times in earlier puzzles. Thanks for
your response on the part of speech issue raised by me.
I don’t know why I feel slightly uneasy with this type of defs. Should the
parts of speech of definitions and solutions not fully match without any
need for assuming some missing words? Or is my understanding flawed in
this regard?
Wow – a lot of scientists on here. I once got 4 out of 10 for my chemistry homework and when the teacher asked me to do it again somehow l managed to get 2 out of 10. I think l know that 4 across is physics… It seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting today…is that even possible?
Matematico@54 me too 😎. Many thanks to Gladys@41, SueM48@43 and FrankieG@46&47 for enhancing an already fab solve. Thanks again to I and E.
Gervase @51: I share your pain, but more with epicentre than momentum. The latter, which the OED dates to pre-1150 in a non-scientific sense, seems to me utterly fair game for more poetic usage. The latter grates because the non-technical usage neglects both the etymology and the scientific meaning and is simply a synonym for a word we already have (i.e. centre!). In other words, using it the way people do non-technically, is both ignorant and unnecessary.
Matematico @54: I used to make the same complaint, but then it occurred to me that a quantum leap is distinct from other kinds of leap in that it does not involve passing through any inbetween states. I can see cases where that could be applied to a technological breakthrough which is not simply incremental or continuous. Of course, you are right in that it is also mis-used simply to mean a large jump.
Gervase @51 – my apologies for overlooking ‘epicentre’ in your comment!
I know YES MINISTER fairly well–it was rebroadcast on PBS here, a couple years after it aired in Britain. My brother became a huge fan, and eventually bought the boxed set. I can’t claim to have seen every episode–he can–but anyway, it did reach these shores.
I had not heard of Suzi Quatro, or at least didn’t recall her, so that one I had to cheat on. Turns out (from the Wikipedia page) she’s an American, but had a grand total of one hit song here (Stumblin’ In, which I have heard, but didn’t know who sang)–all her success was abroad.
I also didn’t know MIGNONENTTE. I followed Eileen’s link, and learned that the plant’s scientific name is Reseda. That word is more familiar to me as the name of a part of LA, which is prominently featured in Tom Petty’s evocative–what would you call it, ode? parody? let’s go with “reverse ode”–to the San Fernando Valley, Free Fallin’. (Tom Petty is probably not too well known in Britain–of our classic rockers, he was one of the more thoroughly American. Sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from Ms Quatro in that respect.) Anyway, it turns out the place is in fact named after the plant. So, something else I learned today. Thanks to Eileen for all the links (and other explanations).
[mrpenney@62 – I think Tom Petty was pretty well-known in the UK (at least I knew of him, and my popular music knowledge post early 1970s is patchy). Both the Heartbreakers and the Traveling Wilburys were popular here (the latter’s personnel being 40% and later 50% British).]
Gervase@51 I don’t disagree. Given the pressure we were under during O-levels or whatever to “get it right”, it just grates. What I’m wondering is whether setters should be sympathetic or intentionally take the mick.
MIGNON by the way is French for cute. Learned that last month in Paris.
I raised the force/momentum issue a long time ago in the crossword comments (I forget who the setter was). I don’t think there are any circumstances in which they are interchangeable, even colloquially. It’s like using, say, capital and turnover interchangeably and nobody would get away with that. The chambers def is meaningless.
Having said that, I enjoyed the puzzle. The offending one was one of the last in because of the wrong definition.
Looked back and it was Paul #27444 in 2018!
Eileen re 3d RUNNER-UP: I have seen “repair” used to mean “go to” as in “Let us repair to the pub for a pint” and in that context a runner could be making a hasty repair without reference to sewing.
I enjoyed, not for the first time, the lively discussion of scientific versus non-scientific use of certain words. This is such a fun blog to read.
Thanks FrankieG @ 47 for my all-time favourite “Humpy” quote. Classic.
And thanks Imogen and Eileen for generating all this fun.
Thanks for standing in with the blog, bit of a Spock puzzle, easy to start and tricky to finish with 3 unusual words crossing. INSECURE was very neat . Watch out for DEJA VU in exactly the same place in tomorrow’s grid.
I have RUN-UP a repair with tacking stitch leaving a proper job until later.
MOMENTUM = Force moving, if my students did this they would be sent to Bio-Sciences to do some colouring in, but this is a crossword. The setters can’t be experts in every area and need to rely on dictionary support sometimes and they just reflect common usage so fair enough.
I read 1a and 9 as a declaration of departure on 5th December. Hope I am hugely over-reading!
Roz – very superciliuos and patronising as is your wont
@68 Roz. Take no notice of the Scot. I find your comments pertinent and clear. Thank you.
Roz@67 – love your deja-vu comment.
Angus@70 I’m pretty literate in a number of sciences, and generically find the input from Roz esp. wrt physics interesting and on-point.
Surprised Angus’s comment passed the censor, or don’t you have one here.
Like Beaulieu, I think Tom Petty is pretty well-known in UK. I think the TW albums are underrated, pretty well the last decent recordings BD has made.
I join the cons on 26d and not keen on 3d.
Enjoyed the rest.
The best way to get a nasty comment past the censor is to spell it incorrectly as the censor is probably set up to spot real words. A cunning ploy, indeed
Too many obscurities for me, as I am very much a “definition then try and parse” type of solver.
Thanks both.
An unexpected ear worm just for my pal Roz.
https://youtu.be/p1a_4CN4onA?si=tqoisqG6w6ZPIFOp
I was too distracted today to make a proper go at this one, so a definite dnf.
To begin with I bunged in ORNERY CRITTURS (one of my favourite expressions) for 11a, hoping the parsing would work. Of course it doesn’t, but it almost fits with the crossers.
As another applied scientist, I’ve long since stopped fretting about absolute meanings of technical terms versus common usage (witness ‘spiral staircase’).
Thanks Imogen & Eileen
Best attempt of the week with the usual unknown words faced by others. Non-u probably my favorite (sic). Given arguments about momentum I can’t wait for the response from mathematicians if ever diamond is used as a shape but then again these are crosswords not text book glossaries. Thank you Eileen, Imogen and Sir Humphrey.
Late to the party. Lovely crossword. And great blog from Eileen as always. Am I the only one who confidently entered TEAS for 16 ac? Held me up no end.
Xjpotter@79 nope I did that as well. Teas for two?
Pianoman@80: Earworm for you then! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeztLHt_ZNs
Jack @81: fantastic!
For what it’s worth, I’m a physicist, and I’m OK with the definition of MOMENTUM. Cryptic crosswords only work because words have multiple meanings. The definition doesn’t match the technical meaning of the term in physics, but it does (nearly enough, in my opinion) match the way the word is used in other contexts.
[A dear friend of mine, who was also a physicist, had to have his omentum removed due to cancer. That’s when I learned the word. I asked him if they’d saved it after removal, because surely omentum should be conserved. (Sadly, if you were to infer from my use of the word “was” whether the cancer treatment was successful, you’d be correct.)]
I think Cellomaniac @66 has the right idea regarding 3dn: I suspect that the (archaic) use of “repair” to mean “go” is what’s intended.
I confess ignorance of Suzi Quatro, and I’d never heard of MIGNONETTE. I’m never quite sure how to use the word NAFF (which isn’t found on my side of the Atlantic).
Although the MOMENTUM definition is technically incorrect, I accept that it is fair enough through common usage. Someone earlier said that words in common usage are kidnapped into more precise meanings in science, so some flexibility is fine.
“Epicentre”, on the other hand, is a term invented by science that has become misused, inexcusably, in common parlance. As someone said earlier, “centre” is a perfectly valid word.
I’m even later with a comment but I didn’t finish the crossword until an hour ago!
@Eileen. I read 13ac as a double definition
My view is, as in “If you ask me, I think…”
[and] Available on request, ie “You can have something if you ask me”
I normally count British television along with cricket as areas where I have no hope of recognizing anything, but Yes Minister is a show I’ve actually seen and loved. I particularly remember an episode where Jim Hacker thinks they may name a college at Oxford after him. Someone mentions an industrialist (?) as one of only two people whose name is also a college at both Oxford and Cambridge. “Who was the other?” asks Jim. “Jesus.”
Suzy Quarto, on the other hand, was a total blank. Did anybody else think the answer might be an anagram of B+Quarto+T?
Mignonette wasn’t quite a jorum for me, because it sounded vaguely familiar as I put the bits together, but was surprised on googling to discover that it’s not only a plant (which I sort of knew) but a special sauce for oysters!
Enjoyed this, though having to use check a bit for some clues. Thanks to Imogen and to Eileen for stepping in. I hope the Guardian sends you an extra box of cookies!
Xj@79 I had TEAS too until the crossers wouldn’t let me.
Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.
Martin @85
Please see comments 17 and 20.
I’m going to bed now!
Thanks, Valentine – you posted while I was typing.
Eileen @87. Oops, I missed that. Sorry! I’m off to bed , too
Jack of Few Trades@36
I was the one who thought that current could = power. I gave up Physics at 15 (not from choice) and only learnt that I = current from a crossword, not having asked myself why it appeared on various electrical appliances around the house. To me if something is powered by electricity an electric current must be involved and so I could be clued as power in a crossword. Just demonstrates my ignorance.