Guardian Prize 29,404 / Philistine

50 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,404 / Philistine”

1. Thanks Eileen. As you say, not the most challenging but one of the most enjoyable. I never did quite come to terms with EMBARGO having convinced myself that prohibition=bar and being unable to account for GO. LOI was SPELT because I only had the first and last letters for a long time and I knew all along I would be kicking myself when realisation dawned.

2. Enjoyed the puzzle. Many clues to like. Thanks for the excellent blog. 3d and 4d are missing, though.

3. Liked REINDEER a lot.

   SPELT
   We had ‘Promised W-H-E-A-T’ (5) a few months ago elsewhere.
   Took it as &lit. Saw the wheat species as the def and the spelling part as the wordplay
   (difficult to argue if someone takes the second part as another def).
   We have seen ‘double def &lit’ clues in the past but not with this type of construction.

   SUNBATH
   Took it as an extended def/CAD.

   Thanks Philistine and Eileen!

4. I agree with KVa@3 – homophone usually stands for ho-hum, but REINDEER was exceptional and I also liked it a lot.

   Eileen covered my thoughts about the puzzle so well, I have little to add except thank you Philistine and Eileen

5. Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog. No surprise there.

   I had been wondering how to classify SPELT – I think KVa@3 has it right.

   Thanks P&E

6. For me this was a perfect prize — an excellent crossword that I solved over five days, savouring each bit. There were no bad clues — I picked ten favourites — ECTOPIC BEAT, BRUTALIST, CHARIOTEERS, BLASPHEMER, TOPICAL, ENAMEL, REINDEER, OPTIMISE, APPEASES, and SPELT. Thanks Philistine, and thanks, as always, Eileen for the blog.

7. I really enjoyed this, laughed out loud at REINDEER and I’m not a lover of homophones (I’ve moved around the country – the accents in my head change pronunciations to make most homophones uncomfortable). I had to look up ECTOPIC BEAT to make sure it was what I thought it was. I liked SPELT, wrote it in as I did the puzzle, but gluten-free offspring means I’m very aware of wheat.

   Thank you Eileen and Philistine.

8. I had ‘split’ for the wheat, under the impression that ‘split wheat’ was a thing. I may have been thinking of cracked wheat. This kept me from getting SOUNDBITE right up to the very end when I realised ‘split’ must be wrong and I finally saw how the dashed clue was meant to work. That aside, as others have been saying, a very enjoyable puzzle. (The pedant in me liked seeing DATUM make an appearance.) Thanks, Philistine, thanks Eileen.

9. KVa @3, how does the ‘promised’ work in that previous spelt clue?

10. gif@9, ”promised” in the sense of something or someone spelt trouble, or the dark clouds spelt rain.

11. SPELT
    grantinfreo@9
    As in ‘it SPELT trouble’, though the words SPELT and promised don’t look like exact synonyms.

    Edit:
    paddymelon@10
    You beat me to it

12. Thank you Eileen. I would describe the clue for SPELT, w-h-e-a-t , as a rebus, a picture word puzzle. I don’t know there is any other way to define it.

13. Thank you, WordSDrove @2.
    I’ve no idea how those two dropped out – restored now.

14. SPELT
    paddymelon@12
    I like that idea. A rebus type wordplay and a def. Still &lit, I guess.

    PLASTICITY
    Reads like a CAD (not &lit tho).

15. KVa@14. I was just about to ask the question about PLASTICITY as an @lit when I saw your post@14. Whatever it is, I liked it.

    My favs were EMETIC for Philistine’s self-referential humour. Another chuckle for the surface of ERUDITION.
    SOUNDBITE (decent mouthful) clever and amusing, although I would disagree with the definition. To me, most soundbites sound anything but ”memorable”. Just 30 seconds of spin.

16. I enjoyed this clever, tightly clued and amusing puzzle that was also doable.
    SPELT was my favourite clue, a very clever construction, and REINDEER made me laugh. ECTOPIC BEAT and BLASPHEMER were neat anagrams. I also liked BRUTALIST, CHARIOTEERS, PLANTAGENET, SOUNDBITE, TACITURN.
    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

17. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourites: SOUNDBITE, EMBARGO, SPELT (loi and I laughed that it took me so long to see this because I use spelt flour for making sourdough bread).

    New for me: ECTOPIC BEAT, BRUTALIST architecture,

    Thanks, both.

18. Yes enjoyed that gentle solve over the weekend. Spilt wheat occured to me first before spelt appeared. Reindeer was beautiful. Thanks one and all.

19. A really lovely puzzle and (for once) well within my realm. I loved the brevity of BRUTALIST. [That solution and also PLANTAGENET appear in teal rather than black on my phone. Not sure why.]. Do we need to explain that Dancer is a chum of Rudolph the reindeer?

    Many thanks, Philistine and Eileen.

20. Anyone else still raise an eybrow at “ilk” used to mean “kind” and “datum” as an item of data? Old books on English usage say they mean “the same word” and “reference point'”. But by now the “wrong” versions will have got into the dictionaries.

21. Not a criticism of the puzzle, but I had to think about when I should use SUNBATH instead of SUNBATHE which I have only ever used – as both verb and noun. I suppose though, the former could be the location for the latter.
    Another special tick for Reindeer here.
    Thanks to Eileen (again) and Philistine

22. Great treat to have Philistine setting the prize – my favourite setter and this was all a crossword should be: witty, clever, challenging with a little exasperation (with my own shortcomings). Spelt was LOI and took me ages before l reached the “DOH!” moment. Many thanks to the wonderful Philistine and to Eileen

23. Choldunk2@19 the teal colour indicates that Eileen has embedded a link which takes you to a page providing further information.

24. Many thanks, Judge@23. I was more Dumbo than Dancer there.

25. A very enjoyable puzzle. I agree with KVa @14 that PLASTICITY was a great CAD (or semi &lit to use the alternative terminology).

    Did the surface of ANGELFISH make anyone else think of Esther Williams? Her autobiography is really interesting – she certainly had some flings, and took LSD with Cary Grant.

    Many thanks Philistine and Eileen.

26. Badgerman@20

    Re ‘ilk’ – there are two usages, distinguished in both Collins and Chambers.
    Collins: ‘ilk:1. a type; class; sort (esp in the phrase ‘of that, his her etc ilk’
    2. of that ilk Scot of the place of the same name: used to indicate that the person named is proprietor or laird of the place named
    USAGE Although the use of ilk in the sense 1 is sometimes condemned as being the result of a misunderstanding of the original Scottish expression of that ilk, it is nevertheless well established and generally acceptable.’

    Re ‘datum’: as the singular of the Latin data (often misused!) it means ‘a thing given’, so ‘a single piece of information’ (Collins). Like KeithS @8, I was pleased to see Philistine’s precise use of it!

27. Choldunk2 @19

    ‘Do we need to explain that Dancer is a chum of Rudolph the reindeer?’
    I did ponder (but only for a few seconds) whether to identify Dancer but thought there was no need.
    (But actually, you know, he wasn’t. 😉 – see here: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/25/461005670/the-history-of-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer
    See here for Dancer &co: https://www.twasthenightbeforechristmas.com/the-poem/

28. I enjoyed this one from one of my favourite setters. A huge variety of devices and a certain amount of pushing (some people’s) boundaries. ‘W-H-E-A-T’ was a great example of an uncategorisable clue, with additional fun to be had seeing other commenters here trying to categorise it!

    I particularly liked the double use of an innocent-looking ‘perhaps’ in SUNBATH, where it is needed both to indicate the anagram of HAS BU[R]NT and the definition by example, though some might argue that the question mark does the latter.

    Thanks to Philistine for the fun, and congratulations to Eileen for not mentioning the scythes on the chariots. 😉

29. Thanks for the blog, very well set puzzle, PLASTICITY is very clever along with SUNBATH. You can also have a moon bath or even a forest bath .

30. Enjoyed the puzzle which I stretched out over the week. Pleased to agree with Eileen and other bloggers above. Many well-crafted clues, all very logical, so no need for any computer aids to find obscure words, and just a few word checks in the dictionary. Is there a type of wheat called SPELT? Yea!
    I would still write that “data are consistent” in scientific papers, but journalists never do so nowadays. I didn’t notice the ‘ILK’ question, until just now. The SOED supports Badgerman@20.

31. Thanks Philistine & Eileen – lovely puzzle.
    Liked the ‘dry celebrity’, the ‘hair-raising finish’ and ‘reform with ease’.
    And EMETIC threw up a chuck-le.

32. JohnJB @30

    ‘I would still write that “data are consistent” in scientific papers’ – Bravo!

33. Thanks Philistine: very enjoyable. I needed to look up ECTOPIC BEAT to be sure such a thing existed, but as Philistine is a lad who knows about these things, of course it does.

    Favourites BLASPHEMER, REINDEER, EMETIC and the gloriously unclassifiable SPELT.

34. Oh of course, pdm and KVa @ 10, 11, how dim of me! [Slow response, watching the Freo Dockers getting slaughtered, aargh!] But thanks 🙂

35. JohnJB@30 I still, rather pointlessly, write “item of data”. Ordnance Survey maps used to say their “datum” – a special reference point – was mean sea level at Newlyn, but that’s gone now and it didn’t make their meaning any clearer. Interesting to see how these things evolve in the absence of any language-police for English (unlike French and German).

36. Very enjoyable crossword from the reliable Philistine.

    I liked the CHARIOTEERS, where I couldn’t fit in Iceni, the well-hidden CABLE, the REINDEER Dancer, the good anagram for ANGELFISH, and the dingbat SPELT.

    Interesting about the use of data from the Guardian Style Guide:
    data
    takes a singular verb (like agenda), though strictly a plural; you come across datum, the singular of data, about as often as you hear about an agendum. And in Chambers: plural noun (sing daˈtum) or singular noun or Collins: noun (functioning as singular or plural) For even more, see the OED:
    In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in ‘the data were collected and classified’. In modern non-scientific use, however, it is generally not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as ‘data was collected over a number of years’ are now widely accepted in standard English.

    Many thanks Philistine and Eileen.

37. Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

    Took me a long while to get SPELT but drew a chuckle once I finally cracked it. Got within 3 clues of finishing this, which is rare for me as a Prize, and it was really just PLANTAGENET (new word for me) that stopped me from cracking the bottom left corner.

38. I was on Philistines wavelength to start with, but things slowed down about 2/3 of the way through. I had to come back to finish, but as Eileen, and almost everybody else has said, it was well worth it.
    I still have two clues to go on today’s Prize.

39. Badgerman@35 – at least in the US, nautical charts still refer to the “chart datum”, which is the water level from which depths and soundings are measured. Typically the chart datum is the mean lower low water for the area shown on the chart.

    Thanks to Philistine and Eileen – this was great fun as usual.

40. How can a celebrity be an A-LIST? One is a person, one is a group.

    Wouldn’t “Reign, dear” be a reply by, rather than to, the King’s sweetheart?

    Loved the angelfish! Thanks, Eileen.

    Did most of it last week, filled in the last few this morning. Thanks, Philistine and Lucky Eileen. Your wit brightens the morning.

41. Valentine @ 40 Both ‘celebrity’ and ‘A-list’ can function as adjectives.

42. I read A-list as Simon did.

43. Glad to learn that I am not alone in my customary use of the plural ‘data’. Approval from Eileen and others, and useful overview from Robi@36. I noticed its evolution into a ‘mass noun’ in the past few decades, but I still shudder when I read that ‘data was collected’. My data are always numerical and so I can write ‘data point’ for a single item rather than Badgerman@35’s ‘item of data’. My newest OS map (copyright 2015) still refers to ‘datum’ for a mapping reference point, and Chris Baum@39 confirms that US nautical charts do the same.

44. I’ll be brief. A super puzzle, with an interesting blog and many interesting comments. Thanks all.

45. Late to comment, I’m afraid, so nothing much to add. Great fun – all my favourites have already been mentioned.

    Re the increasing re-analysis of the Latin neuter plural ‘data’ as a singular noun, it is interesting that that same thing happened in some cases in the evolution of (colloquial) Latin into modern Italian. The Latin word for leaf was the neuter ‘folium’, plural ‘folia’. This plural has become the standard Italian feminine singular ‘foglia’. Even more extreme, the neuter Latin word for ‘herd’ – ‘pecus’ -had the plural ‘pecora’, which has become the standard Italian word for (a singular) ‘sheep’.

    Thanks to Philistine and Eileen

46. Thank you for the blog, Eileen. I read it all because you do it so well, but for once I didn’t need your help to parse the puzzle. Even when I had to work hard to get the answer, the parsing part made it all clear and I’d shake my head at myself for not seeing it earlier. That indicates a true master setter in my book.

    This was a joy to complete and reminded me why I love cruciverbalism (if it isn’t a word, it should be!) My favourites have already been listed above, multiple times. The clue that gave me the most satisfaction when I finally twigged was ECTOPIC BEAT mainly because it was a completely new combination although I knew both words individually. Thank you, Philistine, for a top rate puzzle.

47. Agree fully with Alan B@44.
    Philistine and Eileen – firm favourites!!!

48. Thoroughly enjoyed this and completed it too!!!! Yay!

49. Badgerman @20
    I have the Concise Oxford Dictionary 5th edition 1964 reprinted with corrections 1974 on my bookshelf (largely because it was my father’s copy). It supports the usages of ilk and data in the clues, so I’m afraid your “wrong” versions have been in dictionaries for a long time.

50. I know its polite and very English but can we not take it as read that we are grateful to have this ‘blog’! Secondly pretty sure the setters are compensated for their work. Harrumph!!

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