Guardian 29,479 – Qaos

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An entertaining puzzle for an overcast Wednesday morning. Thanks to Qaos.

Looking for the inevitable theme, I see a number of words that can go with SALAD: FRUIT, OLIVIER (I had to check this one), CHICKEN, WALDORF, PASTA, GREEK, CAESAR, TOSSED and GREEN. And they could all be prepared by a CHEF.

 
Across
1 ATOMIC ENERGY A cat knocking over nice grey power source (6,6)
A TOM (cat) + (NICE GREY)*
9 FRUIT Food group is regularly wrapped in paper (5)
Alternate letters of gRoUp Is in FT (newspaper)
10 CAFETIERE In America, it makes Joe eat fierce curry (9)
(EAT FIERCE)* – Joe is US slang for coffee, as in “a cup of Joe”; the origin of this is uncertain
11 OLIVIER 24 down bored by current Republican actor (7)
I (electric current) in OLIVE + R[epublican]
12 CHICKEN Yellow bird (7)
Double definition – yellow and chicken both mean cowardly
13 DEALERSHIP Heard spiel about car showroom (10)
(HEARD SPIEL)*
15 SMUT Spot of blue material (4)
Double definition
18 CHEF One dismissed by head cook (4)
CHIEF less I
19 SUPERTONIC Note wonderful fashion, I see (10)
SUPER (wonderful) + TON (fashion) + I C; the supertonic is the second note of a diatonic scale: see also 24 down
22 WALDORF A world-beating fine hotel (7)
(A WORLD)* + F[ine]
24 GRANITE Touring end of pier eating assorted rock (7)
[pie]R in EATING*
25 ARMISTICE It’s a crime to break truce (9)
(IT’S A CRIME)*
26 PASTA Old man sat cooking dish (5)
PA + SAT*
27 HAND GRENADES Rickety garden shed stores North American weapons (4,8)
NA in (GARDEN SHED)*
Down
1 ALUMINATE A lecturer to ponder – starter’s missing salt (9)
A + L[ecturer] + [r]UMINATE
2 OUTLINES Sketches exposed columns (8)
OUT (exposed) + LINES (columns)
3 INCUR Over race, I pick up bit of cramp and suffer (5)
C[ramp] in reverse of RUN (race) + I
4 EFFECTIVE Powerful drug, strong etc working in 5 (9)
E (drug) + F (forte, strong) + ETC* in FIVE
5 ENTAIL Involve roughly 10 + 1 + 49? (6)
A trademark Qaos numerical clue: TEN* + A (1) + IL (49)
6 GREEK European consents to remove coat before king (5)
[a]GREE[s] + K
7 AFFORD Give fines during road trip (6)
F F in Road*
8 RENNET Over £10 for an apple? (6)
Reverse of TENNER; rennet is a type of apple: the word is an anglicisation of “reinette” (little Queen)
14 SQUIFFIER Small tuft of hair? That’s right, more than tiddly (9)
S[mall] + QUIFF + IE, (that is) + R
16 MANTISSAS Soldier meets elite soldiers to gather tops of trees, including small parts of logs (9)
The “tops” of “of Trees Tncluding Small in MAN (soldier) +SAS (elite military unit). Ijn Ye Olden Days when we did calculatuins with logarithms, they were divided into the characteristic and mantissa, before and after the decimal point
17 STRAPPED Bound to be caught after initially slogging (8)
S[logging] + TRAPPED
18 COWPAT Wife quietly wearing fur, treading carefully around this? (6)
W[ife] + P (piano, quyietly) in COAT (fur)
20 CAESAR Monarch raising some plesiosaur (a sea creature) (6)
Hiddden in reverse of plesiosauR A SEA Creature
21 TOSSED Drunk upset by heads of shandy, each drink chucked (6)
Reverse of SOT + first letters of Shandy Each Drink
23 LEMMA Lover not finished with woman’s proposition (5)
LOVER less OVER (finished) + EMMA (woman)
24 GREEN New information surrounding 19 (5)
RE (the second note of the scale: do RE mi, the supertonic) in GEN (information

78 comments on “Guardian 29,479 – Qaos”

  1. After FRUIT and GREEK it was simply a matter of finding the other salads. WALDORF went in as soon as the word ‘hotel’ was traced. Not sure if that improved the puzzle. Lots of other nice stuff, and some googles to check clear solutions, but as Andrew says, entertaining. Thanks both.

  2. Thanks Qaos and Andrew

    Lots of salads. Helped towards the end.

    Fun to solve with few problems. Still takes me a while to see lecturer giving L.

    Iirc log tables only showed the mantissa as the characteristic was easily calculated. Glad that’s all done with. Never had to actually use logs – I am of the calculator generation

  4. Didn’t see the theme (as usual) until alerted by comments on the Guardian page. Salad isn’t the first word that comes to my mind after GREEK, but I suppose WALDORF and CAESAR should have made it obvious. I don’t think it would have helped the solve anyway, but it was clear and entertaining enough. Liked MANTISSAS and GREEN when I worked it out. Wasn’t aware that ‘Joe’ was US slang for coffee, so spent time trying to involve ‘GI’, but the anagram was clear after crossers.
    Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

  5. I was delighted to piece together MANTISSAS, having encountered the word at some point but not knowing its meaning. Irritatingly, I dismissed RENNET as a possible answer, having not heard of the apple but being familiar with the dairy application. Such a simple reversal and I did enter a TEN reversed! Doh! A gentle theme, well-executed as per. GRANITE jumped out as a particularly nice clue when solving, along with ARMISTICE, ALUMINATE, DEALERSHIP, AFFORD and INCUR.

    Thanks Qaos and Andrew

  6. I’m so thick theme-wise, looked over the finished grid twice, not a glimmer, even though earlier, with Waldorf, I’d immediately thought “salad”; talk about dim! But anyway, pleasant puzzle, thanks both Q and A, though I’d forgotten about my Barraclugh’s log tables terminology, and I thought rennet was for making cheese.

  7. Very pleasant solve, on the easier side for this setter.

    Regarding SUPERTONIC, this clue only works in the movable solfège system whereby the tonic is always ‘doh’. In the fixed system, ‘doh’ is always C, regardless of the key. So if playing in, say, the key of F, the supertonic becomes ‘soh’, not ‘re’.

    I’ll get my coat…

  9. I noticed the theme about halfway although I can’t say it helped much. I remember having my first CHEF salad when visiting my uncle in Florida in 1976. Like PM @5, I was also delighted to get MANTISSAS, helped by the generous wordplay, to complete this solve. A challenge indeed but on the gentler side for the setter.

    Ta Qaos & Andrew.

  10. Tough one. NHO: MANTISSAS, CAFETIERE. And I couldn’t see the number play for ENTAIL – I was fine with TEN* but 49 is XLIX every day of the week and switching 1 for A seems cruel. Not much fun but a good workout. Thanks to the setter and blogger.

  12. Very tough. Was tempted to give up after solving half of it. I needed help from google for GK and unfamiliar terms.

    New for me: ALUMINATE, LEMMA, SUPERTONIC, MANTISSAS, RENNET apple (loi).

    Favourite: EFFECTIVE.

    Thanks, both.

  13. Great puzzle, very enjoyable.

    My understanding of Joe = coffee is that it came from alcohol being banned from US naval vessels, meaning coffee became the default drink. The person behind the ban was Josephus Daniels, hence it ended up being known as ‘a cup of Joe’.

    I’m sure there are other possibilities, but that’s the one I know.

  14. Oh and regarding my comment @12, I finally read Catch 22 last year. I can’t quite remember if that explanation is in the book, or if references to a cup of Joe were frequent enough that I felt the need to find out the possible source.

  15. I really enjoyed this, but did have to cheat a little (by my personal standards) to solve it in a reasonable time. So two or three clues partially solved by judicious use of the check button. It was nice to see a couple of references to half forgotten maths, and my general knowledge was stretched to the limit.

    There was a theme?

  16. I have seen lots of “reinette” apple varieties, but never met the anglicised version of the word: I only knew it as the stuff my mum used to buy to make milk into junkets, and like PostMark@5 I dismissed it as a possible answer until it was obviously unavoidable. I’d forgotten about mantissas (mantissae?) in the 50+ years since O Level Maths. The theme might have helped if I’d seen it sooner, but I didn’t. COWPAT made me laugh.

  17. Spotted the salad theme quite early – it helped with checking more than finding the answers (WALDORF excepted). I live in the Apple Isle, and I have never heard of an apple called RENNET. SUPERTONIC as a note is another TILT, as is a cup of Joe. I liked the MANTISSAS when the penny finally dropped (parts of logs, indeed). All in all, the usual high and entertaining standard I have come to expect from Qaos – to whom, thanks, and to Andrew.

  18. Well, at least I saw the theme half way through and it did help with some answers. It didn’t occur to me that OLIVIER might be a salad but, prompted by Andrew, I looked it up and discovered that it’s also called Russian salad, for which I found umpteen variations, including one by Jamie Oliver. 😉

    Several new words for me and technically a dnf, because I couldn’t parse the unknown LEMMA, being fixated on leman =lover, which I’ve met only in crosswords. Other unknowns were MANTISSAS (although I used to quite enjoy looking up logs) and ALUMINATE but both were gettable from the wordplay. I didn’t know Joe = coffee, either, so it was worth getting up today, as my husband would say.

    I had ticks for ATOMIC ENERGY, FRUIT, GRANITE, HAND GRENADES, EFFECTIVE and GREEK.

    Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

  19. Yes, Ricardo @9. I seem to recall previous complaints about shorthanding XLIX to IL, or 99 to IC instead of XCIX. But then what rankles one is another’s shrug. I don’t like butt instead of bum, or the way “the way” is compulsorily followed by “in which” these days. Hey ho.

  21. Managed this with some difficulty (there was a theme? to echo Monkey) but sorry, I still don’t understand the parsing for 11a. I bunged it in as it meant an actor, but where does ‘olive’ come from in the wordplay? And NHO ‘I’ for electric current. Otherwise enjoyable, thanks Qaos and Andrew (up to a point!)

    PS my nickname at school was Monkey!

  22. SinCam @20 – I think the ‘olive’ bit comes via the reference to 24 down, namely OLIVE = GREEN, but yes it’s not stated explicitly in the above parsing.

  23. Admin 19 & granting freo@ . OK, the question mark allows the setter to do whatever he wants. I know we’ve been over this with Qaos but rules is rules.

    “Not all symbols can be subtracted
    Be careful because this is the exception that gives our student most difficulty! Only the symbols I, X and C (1, 10 and 100 respectively) can subtract and can only subtract the 2 symbols that are immediately larger. So, I can only subtract V or X, X can only subtract L or C, and C can only subtract M. That is, there are only 6 possible subtraction combinations: IV = 5 − 1 = 4; IX = 10 − 1 = 9; XL = 50 − 10 = 40; XC = 100 − 10 = 90; CD = 500 − 100 = 400; y CM = 1000 − 100 = 900.”

    ‘Carn the Doggies !

  24. I recall learning mantissas and exponents at school, rather than characteristics but I see the latter is more formally correct so a TILT for me. I saw the theme eventually (also went down a Waldorf -> Monty Python route initially) and thought there were fewer themesters than normal. Also none of Qaos’s “part-word themesters” i.e. where the theme word is part or most of a solution, which I think he does very well, and is a trick which allows him a little more leeway in choosing grid entries.

    Eileen @17: Lemma may be new but having to choose between two propositions (a dilemma) is both well known and of good classical etymology for a scholar such as yourself. But I know how easy it is to get fixed on a near-miss solution. I had “net” in 8d and it took me for ever to realise I had not fully satisfied the £10 part of the clue.

    SinCam@20: “olive” comes from “green”, the answer to 24d. And as for “current” = “I”, it’s worth storing the standard physics symbols for future use as they come up a lot, this one most often because of the ease of using the word in another context. That’s a bit trickier with voltage or capacitance; easier with power or charge.

  25. This seems to be a week of easyish puzzles, for me at least – though this was a bit more challenging that the previous two, and very enjoyable.. Especially liked MANTISSAS, also CAFETIERE partly because I learned what a cup of Joe is. A couple of other TILTs as mentioned by others.
    Ricardo@9 – It’s worth making a mental note that Qaos almost always includes a numerical clue in the style of the one for ENTAIL. It may be cruel, but that’s just the way it is with this setter – personally, I like these clues, but wouldn’t want too many of them.
    Thanks Qaos and Andrew

  28. Mantissa does seem a little obscure, given that the characteristic and mantissa version of a logarithm mentioned by Matthew Newell @2 is only useful when calculating base 10 logarithms with a log table.
    For those who are interested, when using a log table you had to multiply the number by a power of 10 (the characteristic) to get a number in the range of 1 to 10, then look up that number in a table to get the mantissa, which was always between 0 and 1. The logarithm was then written as (characteristic).(mantissa) with a bar over the characteristic if it was negative. For example given log(120) = 2 + log(1.2) = 2 + 0.07918 , and log (0.012) = -2 + log(1.2) = -2 + 0.07918 = -1.92082. When using logs to do multiplication or division, you wouldn’t bother to do the final conversion to decimal, but you did have to add or subtract the two parts separately.
    When my time in secondary school began electronic calculators were almost unknown and when it ended they were almost universal.

  29. Blind to the theme as usual, and didn’t know that meaning of RENNET. I think the Caesars would have objected to being called monarchs, even though they effectively were.

  30. simonc @26 I learned “the ton”= “fashionable society” from watching Bridgerton, and I’ve never seen it used elsewhere; posh people maybe still use it, I wouldn’t know.

  31. I found half of this to be a write-in, and the other half quite tough. Not sure how much I enjoyed it, but am sure it was good for me. Didn’t a Waldorf salad feature in an episode of Fawlty Towers? Perhaps I’ve misremembered….Do people still eat them? With thanks to both.

  33. 4d. Doesn’t FF = fortissimo = very loud. If FF = strong , does PP = weak? (There is probably a terribly childish joke lurking in there. Sorry.)

  36. It’s Qaos, so there will be a theme. After getting WALDORF (which raised a Fawlty Towers’ smile), I realised it was salads but that didn’t help much with the solve.

    I liked the anagrams for DEALERSHIP and HAND GRENADES, the WALDORF extended definition, and the wordplays for EFFECTIVE and COWPAT (another smile there). 🙂

    Thanks Qaos and Andrew.

  37. … BTW, I found this while researching £10 slang:

    Dirty Den 10 pounds
    Big Ben 10 pounds
    Pavarotti 10 pounds
    Bill and Benner 10 pounds (tenner)
    Cockle 10 pounds (tenner)
    Ayrton Senna 10 pounds (tenner)
    Yul Brynner 10 pounds (tenner)

  38. Rather stumbled my way through this. For a while had Blot instead of SMUT, Passed instead of TOSSED. Nho of LEMMA or MANTISSAS before. 1d could have been any salt out of a multitude of them ending in -ATE, but a very nice clue when the illumination came and I eventually twigged it. My favourite clue, raising a smile, was COWPAT, something we referred to more gently as Cowsht as we carefully avoided yet another in the green fields of my youth.
    Last to yield was the NW corner and that salt.
    And many thanks Andrew for elucidating some of the more tortuous parsing this morning. A thorough and enjoyable challenge for me…

  40. @32 Alec – F=‘strong’ in 4d; the other F is the beginning of FIVE. Nice to see forte properly defined as ‘strong’ rather than’loud’ – with this and the ‘re’/supertonic I’m getting lovely genuine musician vibes from Qaos. Thanks Qaos and Andrew!

  41. Another who missed the theme. Just glad to struggle through to the end.
    I expect a toughie tomorrow to break my streak.
    Thanks both

  42. I always look for the mathematical clue first with this setter and when I saw the “49” for once my memory was triggered and I remembered seeing a clue in which 99 led to IC so immediately knew that the answer ended in IL. Very please to remember that (notwithstanding previous comments about it – sorry).

    Like others failed to spot the theme even tho I knew there would be one and despite immediately thinking salad on getting the hotel……

    Thanks both

  43. Amused by the misleading definition for cafetière which in my part of America is called a French Press. And I didn’t remember mantissa until it was complete and staring at me between the eyes Thanks Q and A

  44. I only got CHEF and COWPAT on my first pass through the clues, though I had spotted the long anagrams and had hoped to get some crossers before attempting them. Managed to solve HAND GRENADES with the help of the enumeration only, and soon everything opened up.

    LEMMA was one of the few things I can remember learning at university, and MANTISSAS were old school friends. I agree with Kenmac@19 and Fiona@41 that seeing ’49?’ is enough to write in IL at the end of the light, though for any solvers who have never come across this before it will be a bit of a culture shock. Qaos can be so tricky, and his reputation was enough to make CHICKEN, SMUT and PASTA seem much more difficult than they in fact were!

    So, there was a theme, eh?

    Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

  45. 12ac was a nice reminder of Bob Dylan

    ‘The sun ain’t yellow, it’s chicken’

    Thanks to Qaos and Andrew

  46. Even though I’ve learned to look for a theme when it’s Qaos, I couldn’t find this one.

    I’ve always assumed “cup of Joe” somehow was a reference to Java, another word for coffee.

    The clue for chef is pretty feeble, since chef is the French word for chief or boss. Chef/cook is short for “chef de cuisine,” or “kitchen boss.”

    I didn’t guess rennet, just put in the backwards ten part and figured it was another of those British apples I’ve never heard of.

    Eileen@17, see “The Three Ravens,” an old Scots song, Child#26. The last verse ends (without the refrain lines) “God send every gentleman
    Such hawks, such hounds and such a leman.”
    Do look up the song. To hear it sung (I’m sorry about the monster link, but I don’t know how to shorten it)
    go to https://www.google.com/search?q=the+three+ravens+lyrics&sca_esv=c7a01837b1eb8e0f&ei=C03YZvyQJf2r5NoP5IeMyQQ&oq=the+three+ravens&gs_lp=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-iAM&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:976b7df4,vid:kduh1CG8KWA,st:0

    Thanks, Qaos and Andrew.

  47. ronald@37: I had BLOT too, after a lot of trouble with the NE corner–I’d had CAFETERIA though that doesn’t work with the anagram. Then when I picked through the real anagram I thought “Do we call those cafetieres in the US? I’ve only ever heard ‘French press'” though I guess the reference to America was for “Joe.” Also had somehow thought TANNER was a kind of apple though looking it up I see it is much less than ten pounds!

    Enjoyed the puzzle though I somehow missed the theme, despite thinking “Oh Waldorf salads have apples in them and that’s a kind of fruit.” Especially liked the clever definition of MANTISSAS though I can see it’s a bit obscure. I do want to protest against cluing EMMA as “woman” though that came from crossers. Thanks Qaos and Andrew!

  48. [Valentine@45: If you type in some text, highlight it, and click on the “link” button above the comment box, it should generate a link for you without displaying the monster text: link text goes here

    You can also do it directly by typing <a href=”monster link text here”>link text goes here</a>, if the trickery I am using to try to display that worked! …editing to add, it did work!]

  50. Thanks Qaos and Andrew
    Sorry, Qaos, I didn’t enjoy this at all. Too much I hadn’t heard of (Joe and rennet apple) or loose clueing. I didn’t see the theme. Columns for lines is loose, as is all of INCUR. Why is AFFORD “give”?
    I am getting fed up with Qaos’s “trademark numerical clues”, especially when frequently he gets them wrong. 49 isn’t IL, it’s XLIX (the subtracting number must be at least a tenth of the number it’s subtracted from).
    Why both “touring” and “assorted” in 24a? The latter seems unnecessary.

  51. [Sorry, I missed the earlier complaints on 49.
    As an aside, I was sure that the yellow bird would be CANARY until I counted the letters. There’s an interesting derivation – the islands were named after dogs; the birds were named after the islands; the colour was named after the birds.]

    Caesar of course was a family name rather than a title.

  53. Riccardo @22: Thank you btw for clarifying the rules on Roman numerals. May I ask if there are definitive sources to back up the author of the article you quoted? It’d be useful when I next correct someone!

    I had not appreciated the rules and would have, like Qaos, tended to bend them. However, I am a stickler for them when they fall into my areas of knowledge e.g. when I refuse to equate “current” with “amps” so in this instance I very much feel your pain.

  54. William@7, A minor (not diminished) correction to your comment re (😉) 19a SUPERTONIC: That clue is perfectly OK – it’s the reference to 19a in the clue for 24d GREEN that requires the moveable solfege system to work properly.

    I’ll get your coat as well as mine.

  55. I can’t comment on whether the theme added to the enjoyment, as I missed it completely. My favourite was WALDORF for a very neat surface (though I can see it would have been a total gimme for anyone who’d grasped the theme). I had a raised eyebrow about CAFETIÈRE, but only because I’d completely misunderstood that “in America” refers to the coffee itself rather than to the maker. I tend to enjoy the quirks that Qaos brings into their puzzles, so for me this was a satisfying puzzle to solve.

  56. An enjoyable one, although the across clues yielded very little on first viewing!

    I’d NHO “ton” for fashionable, but the ever-reliable OED tells me that it comes from the French (natch), “bon-ton” meaning “good mannered”. I suppose that just goes to show that I’ve never been part of the ton set.

    Thanks Qaos and Andrew, and thanks Ricardo@various for reminding me of the subtraction rule with Roman numerals.

  57. For 23d LEMMA – Oed.com introduced an ‘Additional sense (1997):
    ‘1951– Lexicography. [Used earlier in this sense in German and Italian] A lexical item as it is presented, usually in a standardized form, in a dictionary entry; a definiendum.’ — with this quote:
    ‘1983 The ‘lemma’..a distillation of the word from which all non-essential features have been eliminated. R. R. K. Hartmann, Lexicography i. 7′
    It’s the dictionary definition of a dictionary definition …

  58. … The trouble is they’ve stuck in a non-essential Latin word, making it needlessly obscure. You have to look up definiendum:
    ‘Logic. 1871– That which is, or is to be, defined; the phrase of which a definition states or purports to state the meaning; in Mathematical Logic, the word or symbol (or the formula devised to contain the symbol) that is being introduced by definition into a system. (Cf. definiens n.)’ …

  59. … and then definiens:
    ‘Logic. 1871– The defining part of a definition; the phrase that states the meaning; in Mathematical Logic, the verbal or symbolic expression to which a word or symbol being introduced by definition into a system is declared to be equivalent. (Cf. definiendum n.)’ …

  60. Thanks Qaos. Weird words aside, I enjoyed this with ATOMIC ENERGY, FRUIT, DEALERSHIP, PASTA, ENTAIL, and GREEK being my top picks. I saw the theme but didn’t know OLIVIER was a salad. I revealed RENNET, SQUIFFIER, and MANTISSAS, all unknown to me. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  62. [Valentine@47: For me it’s above the comment box, but it might not appear on mobile or in certain browsers? In any case, if you can’t do it, typing <a href=”text of URL”>text you want to appear</a> should do it. The link button seems to be a way of automating that.]

  64. Thanks both,
    My problem with 23d is that a lemma is a small theorem proved as an intermediate step in a larger theorem. As the lemma has been proved, it is not a proposition. YMMV.

  65. ‘Ton’ is used repeatedly in the works of Thackeray (eg Pendennis) as a synonym for fashionable society and more recently in Bridgerton.

  67. Thanks Qaos and Andrew

    Tyngewick @ 63 From Chambers:

    “lemma1 /lemˈə/
    noun (pl lemmˈas or lemmˈata)
    1. A preliminary proposition (mathematics)
    2. A premise taken for granted (mathematics)
    3. A theme, argument, heading or headword”

    Whether or not that is correct, Qaos is off the hook.

  68. First met ‘ton” in a send-up of Romeo and Juliet by Aussie poet CJ Dennis:

    Now me and Doreen we been to see a show
    Swell rwo-dollar touch, bong-tong y’know
    The drama’s writ be Shakespeare years ago
    ’bout a barmy goat called Romeo … etc

  69. muffin @49,
    I don’t think I saw anyone address your questions.
    7d: Mixing aqueous silver nitrate solution with aqueous sodium chloride solution affords/gives a thick white precipitate of silver chloride.
    24a: “touring” is the containment indicator, “assorted” is the anagrind.

  71. Surprised at the technicality of Supertonic.
    The degrees of the scale go
    Tonic
    Supertonic
    Mediant
    Subdominant
    Dominant
    Submediant
    Leading note

  72. L for lecturer and C for cramp are pushing it. I get L for learner, as in L plates, but it’s not on to just use first letter of random words like this

  73. Liz @71; it’s ‘bit of cramp’ for the C. Somewhat inaccurate but other setters use ‘bit of’ to indicate first letter sometimes.

  74. There’s probably no-one still looking here today, but I had two queries about SUPERTONIC – the TON=fashion bit has been answered, but why is SEE=’C’? I understand that they sound the same, but there is no soundalike indicator, or a least none that I can see/c.

    This was one of 3 I had to reveal, and the only one I wasn’t able to parse after revealing.

    Still enjoyable, so thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

  75. TanTrumPet@74
    For some reason I’m less bothered about IC=I see than I am about C=see on its own. Perhaps because its more familiar, as in YYUR,YYUB, ICURYY4me.

  76. Pino @75

    Thanks for that – I hadn’t thought about it being a combined ‘I see’=IC, which does make more sense (and thanks for bringing up the YYUR thing – brought back memories of my mum showing me that as a child).

  77. In the blog for LEMMA it says E<MA. Is that a typo? I thought the EMMA was simply a woman’s name referred to in the clue.

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