Azed 2716 – Spoonerisms

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The Spoonerism puzzle is a format invented by Azed that crops up every year or so. There hasn’t been one under the exact title since number 2551 in May 2021, but the last Christmas puzzle was one of this type, under the Spoonerised title “A Cool Yomp”.

To save myself some typing, I’m copying some text I wrote some years ago:

I’ve marked A or C against the numbers to indicate the type of clue – A where a Spoonerism of the answer is defined, and C where the definition itself is “distorted by a Spoonerism”, as the rubric puts it. Type C clues are often fairly easy to spot, after which they become as easy or hard to solve as normal clues; type A can be trickier, as what is defined is usually not a standard word or phrase, and sometimes is just two unrelated words. I think this, along with the fact that in type A there is no definition of the answer, is a bit of a flaw in the format.

I’ve shown the spoonerised versions – and sometimes some extra notes – under the answers. There’s one that I haven’t been able to understand (25 across).

I still have my reservations about the format, and I must say that I found some of the Spoonerisms, particularly in the Type A clues, rather contrived. Nevertheless, thanks to Azed for the challenge.

Thanks to several commenters who have put me right on 25ac. I miscategorised 13ac as type C, making me think 25ac had to be type A; in fact it’s type C, with “gold I” -> “old guy” = NESTOR.

 
Across
1A COLLYWOBBLES
Wally (silly fools) cobbles (works at a last)		 Silly fool is working at last, evasive about lines, slow ebb restored (12)
LL (lines) in COY + (SLOW EBB)*
10A RUEDA
Ou (South African word for a man) Raider – I found this very hard to work out		 S. African male, one attacking, regretted advance (5)
RUED + A
11A ICE-RINK
Rye Sink		 Cereal dip, rice turning sepia? (7, 2 words)
RICE* + INK
12C AGGER
Fort’s Mound		 Maybe Mort’s found hanger with front missing? (5)
[s]AGGER
13CA PEACOD
Key Pod		 Vital school, a company in block? (6)
A CO in POD (school of whales etc)
15C LATTEN
Tin Coating		 Kin toting lad initially having just reached double figures (6)
L[ad] + AT TEN
16C SITE
Plot of Land		 A lot of planned devious items will hide them (4)
Hidden in deviouS ITEms
17A MASTIC
Miss Tack		 Compère imbibes wine to leave out food (6)
ASTI in MC
18C MATELASSE
Quilted Jean (type of cloth)		 Something like jilted queen to marry girl, English (9)
MATE (marry) + LASS + E
21A ONE-PERSON
Pun Worsen		 Word play to deteriorate? Not once found in Spooner’s creation (9)
NE (obsolete “not”) in SPOONER*
25AC NESTOR
I can’t see this one – maybe Or (gold) + something? See note in my introduction. It’s a type C, with spoonerised definition “old guy” 		Gold I found concealed in mine stores (6)
Hidden in miNE STORes
29C ORAL
Said by Mouth		 Marine ‘rocky’ stuff, carbon-free, in Med by south (4)
CORAL less C
30C ATONAL
Missing Key		 Kissing me, roaming Lantao (6)
LANTAO*
31C STOTIN
Folk in Bled (town in Solvenia, where the Stotin was once a unit of currency)		 Sum involved in crime – bit of cash for bloke in Fed once? (6)
TOT in SIN
32C ROILY
Deep in Slough		 River showing signs of slick, sleep in dhow? (5)
R + OILY
33A BELTANE
Tell Bane		 Give account of death, strangely tenable (7)
TENABLE*
34A DONEE
Know Dee (Scots “die” = end)		 Be informed of end of Scotch, finished with life finally (5)
DONE + [lif]E
35A TRAINSPOTTER
Pains (undergoes) + Trotter (a horse that may pull a sulky – a one-person cart)		 Country horse pulling sulky undergoes instruction to progress without hurrying (12)
TRAINS + POTTER
Down
1A CRAB-STONES
Stab Crones		 Brats naughtily tucking into ice cream wound old ladies (10)
BRATS* in CONES
2C OUGLIE
not Fine to the Sight (i.e. ugly, which this word is an old form of)		 Such pints’ll spoil one pugilist – not sign to the fight once (6)
Anagram of ONE PUGILST less PINTS*
3A LEGATEE
Teg (sheep) Alee		 Entrance in meadow having sheep on the sheltered side (7)
GATE in LEE
4C YARTA
My Honey		 A salver coming up? High money (5)
Reverse of A TRAY
5C WISEST
Topping in Brains		 Wife lives with dancing set bopping in trains! (6)
W + IS + SET*
6A BEEFALO
Feeble Owe		 Worker demolished loaf? Very weak to be in debt (7)
BEE (worker) + LOAF*
7C BRASS
Some Money		 Bits of underwear beginning to slip? Mum sunny (5)
BRAS + S[lip]
8A LICIT
Sill (rock bed) + It (sex)		 Rock bed with sex to importune? Not so (5)
SOLICIT (to importune) less SO
9C ENOKIS
Fungus		 Gun fuss of a kind? Kelvin’s caught in awful noise (6)
K in NOISE*
14A DICE-PLAYER
Place Dire – this Spoonerism is both consonantal and vocalic (as defined in the rubric)		 Formality in data processing course? Location dreadful (10)
ICE (formality) in DP LAYER
19C AEONIAN
Eternal		 Tea urn’ll answer Scotch for John, one brewed inside (7)
ONE* in A[nswer] + IAN (Scots form of John)
20C SPRAINT
Tarka’s Dung – Tarka being the otter in the novel by Henry Williamson (also a 1970s film)		 Amateur appearing in short run, dark as tongue? (7)
A in SPRINT
22A NEUTER
Tuner (a flap on an organ pipe used for tuning)		 Organ’s adjustable flap, never containing old ‘doh’ (6)
23A SITREP
Set (started) Rip (rush forward)		 How things stand in the field started rush forward (6)
Two definitions, the first (rather confusingly) of the actual answer
24A MALLEE
Meal Ah		 Food, alas, the French fed to fellow (6)
LE in MALE
*26C SHOLA Jungle thicket (5)
The competition word, for which a clue of type C is needed
27C TUTTI
Whole Band		 Some piecework and it’s taken up the bowl hand (5)
TUT (piecework) + reverse of IT
28A SORDO
Door So		 Flock of mallard duck entrance thus (5)
SORD (a flock of mallards) + O (duck)

24 comments on “Azed 2716 – Spoonerisms”

  2. I thought Spoonerisms were fun when I was 12 years old, but now I find them tedious. Still, I found this puzzle very approachable, when it could have easily been impenetrable. These specials are a lot of work to write up, so good job on the blog.

  3. Exactly Andrew, and Cineraria: 25A has to be the ninth Type C, so it’s a Spoonerism of “Gold I found” or possibly “Gold I found concealed” and it’s defeated me all week.

    I have a different 35: SPAIN (country) + TROTTER (horse pulling sulky). And ‘trains’ (undergoes instruction) and ‘potter’ (to progress in an unhurried manner). Check the exact definitions in Chambers.

    You wonder why Azed didn’t come up with ‘U’ (Burmese male) at 10—there must be more Burmese males attacking nowadays than South Africans.

    Brilliant blog Andrew, thank you.

    And to Azed. Like Mr Thomas, I find these a treat. I will usually give Azed some leeway for the effort he puts in compiling them. Some of the “contrived” Spoonerisms add to the joy. ‘…bopping in trains’ indeed!

    Stefan

  4. Thanks Andrew and Azed.
    Definitely “Spain Trotter” for 35, just a slip by our blogger I think.
    I suppose the ‘wordplay’ for SITREP can just be a definition if Azed wishes. All good fun.

  6. I agree with Cineraria @1 about the pronunciation of OU as a S. African man being wrong. OU as a Scottish interjection is closer to the ‘oo’ that’s needed.
    AGGER I parsed as (d)AGGER as a hanger is a short sword.

    I had 13 across as an ‘A’ and 25 across as a ‘C’ (“Gold I” is “Old Guy”, King in the Illiad)

  7. Yes: I was just recounting as Tim C came in. At 13, the Spoonerism is in the answer, not the clue. Else we have more than nine.

    I must be missing something: how does ‘Old guy’ = Nestor?

    Stefan

  8. I agree withTimC@6 about the classification of 13 and 25, and about [d]agger, although I think [s]agger works, too.

    One definition in Chambers for Nestor is “an old man.”

  9. Yes, as Cineraria says, “an old man” is one of the definitions by extension in Chambers. It’s also the Indy pseudonym for the setter Roger Phillips, of course.

    This was hard, but a lot of fun. It took me 4 or 5 days to come up with a clue for the competition that just about worked – at which rate it would take me 6 months to compose a puzzle. Azed presumably wrote this in one week!

  10. Super blog Andrew! Thanks!

    PEACOD
    Why is it not C? Could someone explain this to me? It looks like C to me and I must be wrong but I don’t see why.
    TRAINSPOTTER looks like C.

    MALLEE
    Does the Spoonerism work all right? Won’t ‘Meal ah’ become ‘all mee’ or ‘lee mah?
    Someone may please explain this to me.

  13. KVA, if PEACOD were a C you would have a Spoonerism of the definition in the clue, so you would have Schital Vool as the definition. It’s an A because you have to Spoonerise the answer to get the definition “Vital school”. TRAINSPOTTER is an A again because you have to Spoonerise the answer to get the definition “Country horse” in the clue.
    MALLEE is a vocalic Spoonerism.

    Is “Spoonerise” a neologism?

  15. OK KVa… every time I do a Spoonerism puzzle it take me ages to get my head around the two different types. I like Andrew’s idea of calling them A and C rather than A and B or 1 and 2, indicating A (Sp. in Answer) and C (Sp. in Clue).

  16. Thanks for the blog, so clear for something so tricky to explain. I will use your A and C in future , I usually think Type 1 change the answer, Type 2 change the clue.
    Brilliant puzzle and I did not find it too bad because the wordplay is totally normal and the exact length of the answer.
    SIT REP , we have had this type before, would normally be just a double definition. Note that Azed refers to subsidiary indications which in this case is just a normal definition.
    SPRAINT the best for me out of many fine clues, must be so hard to set.

  17. I’m with Cineraria @2 – I find Spoonerisms tedious. I battled to the end of this puzzle, but I really didn’t enjoy it! Couple of comments: 21ac doesn’t really work, unless you pronounce ONE to rhyme with pun (I can’t even get my mouth round that). 16ac: what does “them” refer to? I can see how it fits the surface reading, but SITE isn’t plural (and nor is plot of land).
    13ac: the wordplay is actually A CO in PED (“a naturally-formed unit or mass of soil, such as …. a block”, according to C98). Small point; the blog was really excellent on such a tough puzzle to parse/explain.

  18. Well, finally completed this Monday afternoon, but it was a bit annoying. Many answers I could see what was to be entered but I couldn’t always work out why.

  19. MM@17: I took “them” as possibly referring to the four hidden letters of S-I-T-E, but I was bit confused by this one, too.

  20. MunroMaiden@18 , a lot of places in England say one= WUN , I am always quite tolerant for Spoonerisms because they are being spoken.

  21. As someone born oop nawth I can fully understand one=wun Roz. Even if not , surely one and pun aren’t that far apart. Having struggled for a week trying to write a type C clue for SHOLA I’m in awe of Azed’s ability to write a puzzle full of Spoonerisms, so I’m happy to forgive a few “near misses’.

  22. Tim C@21, I guess you mean the north of England? In the wilds beyond that, it’s generally wan, yin or ane.

  24. Probably no-one will read this. Had a busy weekend- a round trip to celebrate my brother’s and sister’s birthday, then a couple of hours on Sunday’s Azed plus a sporting overload. Anyway greetings all.
    Thanks as always to Azed and to Andrew for the excellent blog.
    As I hinted last week the Spoonerism was a (frequently groaning- e.g. “Tea-urn’ll” ) bit of fun. RUEDA took a long time to “parse” and whether the e would be grave or acute.
    Like a lot of characters in the Iliad Nestor is an archetype for an “old guy” along with Hector, Ajax etc.

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