Everyman 4,077/8 December

44 comments on “Everyman 4,077/8 December”

1. Enjoyable, and not including even one of Everyman’s annoyingly obscure clues. I can’t help noticing that some setters consider a soft S (GHOST WRITER) to sound like Z, as in “goez triter”.

2. I liked this – was amused by the definition of Youth Hostel as for kids. If you’ve ever been in one recently, my daughter has often been the youngest person there, and she’s not a kid – other than those there with families. I started using them as a teenager walking and most people seem to have done the same and continued.

   All I know about The Bodyguard was Whitney Houston was involved and that belted out ballad I WIll Always Love You was used in it (originally a Dolly Parton song) (It’s that song that no-one would stop singing that stopped the stage show last year).

   Thank you to Pierre and Everyman.

3. When I put CRY FOWL in, I thought “but it isn’t that sort of fowl/foul” before the D’oh moment hit. A fun solve. Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.

4. Thanks Pierre and Everyman.
   Liked CIRCUITOUS and GHOST-WRITER (Monkey@1: not precise but punny enough, I guess).

   SIDE DISHES
   Under ‘dish’, Chambers has ‘to ruin (informal)’ among other meanings.

5. Did not get METHUSELAH, LILT, ENAMOURED.

   Thanks Pierre and Everyman.

6. Anyone else go down the Ontario path for 19a? Supporting evidence:
   1 defn Great Lake
   2 R in right place from crosser
   3 O is in the anagram fodder for 19d.
   4 it would give the geographical solution

   Fortunately I did not lock it in.

   Today’s earworm (no link provided) is the Dolly Parton version of I’ll Always Love You from the movie The Best Little W***ehouse in Texas. It’s on You tube.
   Thanks to Everyman and Pierre

7. Thanks for the Australian bushLARK, Pierre, and for the explanations, especially LILT.
   I enjoyed this puzzle, thanks Everyman.
   CIRCUITOUS was an excellent primary letter clue and cad.
   METHUSELAH took a little thought because, who buys champagne in such quantities, but I liked it for the indicators ‘improved’ and ‘inspires’.
   I also liked the surfaces of SCOTLAND YARD and YOUTH HOSTEL.
   Thanks P & E.

8. After recent weeks, here was an Everyman that I could actually finish. For me the spoils/dishes link goes to dishing out the spoils of war. Thanks Pierre and Everyman.

9. I don’t get why a panic-monger is an unhyphenated cry-wolf,
   I’m with you Monkey@1. /z/ is not /s/. And I don’t think I’m being picky about soundalikes (PC here for homophones).

   With you Shanne@2 about youth hostels no longer being for only youth.

10. The only one I couldn’t parse is REPORTEDLY and I still don’t get it. Anyone? Thanks

11. Morning Peter. The definition for REPORTEDLY is ‘they say’. ‘Fifteensquared, they say, is one of the best crossword sites around.’ Then it’s the insertion as mentioned in the blog. ‘Carried’ for PORTED is used, for example, when you change your phone and you ‘port’ the number across to it.

12. No, I didn’t get L’IL = dainty either.
    Paddymelon@9: it’s a verb, not a noun. To panic-monger is to CRY WOLF.

13. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourite: PIED-A-TERRE.

    Thanks, both.

    re panic-monger = cry-wolf. I hadn’t thought about it until I read the comments @9 and @12. Now that I look it up in Collins, I find that panicmonger (no hyphen) is a noun / a person who spreads panic but cry wolf is a verb.

14. Thanks Pierre!

15. LIL=dainty doesn’t work for me. Not a word in Chambers and even in common usage doesn’t convey the same meaning.

16. Outstanding crossword this week. Started not too bad but the last few clues kept me wondering all through the week – three clues in the end which were beyond me with one silly mistake which slowed me down – anyone else do something silly for 19d?

    Live Solve: https://youtu.be/jSN8Rnq8JdE

17. paddymelon @4. Soundalike is what the Quick Cryptic calls the clues that play with similar (in some accents) sounding words or phrases in the introduction listing the four clue types used this week. As I blog them, that’s the descriptor I’ve started using. Not sure it’s PC or de rigueur on this site.

18. Didn’t get REPORTEDLY, got fixed on the notion that it was a homophone of “bank’s welcoming” meaning carried.

19. This was quite accessible and enjoyable. Likes: APPS, both from the rhyming pair, REPORTEDLY, PIED-A-TERRE, METHUSELAH.

    (The Bodyguard was slammed by critics and nominated for Golden Raspberries in all major categories, but a huge box-office hit worldwide nonetheless. Its soundtrack album remains the best-selling one of all time.)

    Thank you, Everyman and Pierre

20. I did raise an eyebrow at the description of THE BODYGUARD as a romantic film–yes, there is a romantic plot line, but that’s not what one primarily remembers. To summarize, Whitney Houston plays a superstar singer–big stretch for her there–who hires a bodyguard because she has gotten death threats. While she does fall in love with him and vice versa, the main point is trying to track down and stop the person who wants her dead.

    [Kevin @6: the song is older than “Best Little Whorehouse”. Parton wrote it at the time she was leaving the Porter Wagoner Show to essentially go solo. (She was not actually seeing him in any way–the “love” involved was the friendship kind.) I am with you in preferring Dolly to Whitney on this one–she got more nuance in there.]

21. Way back when, “Li’l” as a diminutive of little was used in American comic strips ‘Li’l Abner’ and ‘Li’l Folks’. The latter was the precursor to ‘Peanuts’.

    Also am I the only one to notice that this was a missed opportunity to have a M*A*S*H theme?

22. Good puzzle and thanks for solutions. Not difficult but always one or two I cannot get in Everyman. Here it was lilt – I played around with lala for jaunty air but cd see the rest did not work, I had deportment for a while for 24a as something that is carried, clearly wrong but rely as banks I don’t get, does this mean rely on?

23. Louella @18 and Michael @22 – if you rely on something you bank on it in the sense of “something that can be betted on or relied on” – which is a long way down the 3rd meaning of bank in my Chambers (1999)

    It’s a trick that comes up occasionally, using rely as an equivalent for bank.

24. For 19d, I took “panic-monger” as a verb (“He’s panic-mongering”), although I see that C doesn’t acknowledge this. Then “cry wolf” seems OK, and both have some sense of false alarm.

25. Probably my fastest Everyman solve ever coming the week after probably the slowest!

    Wasn’t entirely sure about L’IL(t) and would have been a little quicker had I know what PIED-A-TERRE is and that it isn’t anything to do with feet or potatoes.

26. thanks Shanne @23 that clears it up – though something does still sound grammatically wrong to me in the clue!

27. 9a CIRCUITOUS is possibly the best primary clue Everyman has devised. It alone was worth the price of admission.

    As for The Bodyguard as a romantic film, one critic described the performance of the stars as “two statues trying to mate”. Enough said.

    Shanne@17, soundalike is a good term, but still might not satisfy the homophonic sticklers. Often the aural wordplay is a pun, and the best (worst?) puns can stray wildly from the pure soundalike. If only people could enjoy rather than bemoan the variations in pronunciation that make English such an amusing language at times.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre for the fun.

28. i didn’t get REPORTEDLY… i just shoved the word besottedly in, randomly hoping that it made sense… which it apparently doesnt

    i thought PIED-A-TERRE was PIE and then ERR inside DATE, for fruit ‘slip up’ in(side)… err feels more like ‘slip-up’ than ‘slip’ to me, but i guess both make sense

29. This is the first Everyman I’ve completely solved (with some input from family members.) I don’t get 26a. How is a conference pear-shaped?

30. Hello Annette, and well done on the first solve – we all remember that one, I think.

    The CONFERENCE bit in 26ac is a punny reference to the fact that Conference Pears are a well-known variety of the fruit.

31. I’m late getting to this, but here are some thoughts anyway.

    Like others, I was confused by the apparent part-of-speech mismatch in 19dn, but i guess I buy that “panic-monger” can be a verb (as “fearmonger” certainly can).

    I still wonder about “spoils” = DISHES. Both can mean to tell something that one is arguably not supposed to tell — the former as in spoiling the end of a movie, and the latter meaning to gossip. But I can’t get any closer than that.

    BAMBOOZLED doesn’t mean “in a daze” to me. I would only use it to mean “cheated”. Various dictionaries seem to give “confused” or “frustrated”, but that still doesn’t seem terribly close to “in a daze”.

32. I didn’t understand CONFERENCE, and still didn’t after reading the blog. Had to then use google to discover it is a variety of pear. Apparently common in the UK, but rare here in Australia.

33. I’m with HG, fastest ever EM solve after last week’s train wreck of a crossword. These cannot be the work of one person.

    Think Cry wolf was poorly clued, it would have been easy to make it more obviously a verb. Reportedly was also clunky.

    Liked pied a terre, conference and goes triter although the s/z sound mishmash of the last was a bit of an eyebrow raise.

    It’s crosswords like this that have me returning to Everyman. Just wish he’d sack his other smarty pants subsetters and keep this one on.

34. For NZers who need another crossword fix, today’s Styx (just above the EM) is quite good.

35. What an unexpected pleasure to finally solve an Everyman in its entirety again! It’s been a while.
    Just the right mix for me and long may this Everyman reign!

36. Far too easy. Disappointing Everyman.

37. Jaq, Auckland
    What an unexpected pleasure to finally solve an Everyman in its entirety again! It’s been a while.
    Just the right mix for me and long may this Everyman reign!

38. Done in one sitting – huzzah! PIED-A-TERRE and BAMBOOZLED our top picks this week. Off to enjoy a sunny long weekend here in Tamaki Makaurau. Happy Auckland Anniversary weekend!

39. Ye, Barrie, I’ve long said that EM has a brother who is kinder and more gentle on we avid solvers.
    Today was a pleasure, but maybe a bit too easy? What am I going to do for the rest of the day?

40. Rod could be right. This was certainly more straightforward than usual. I liked Pied a Terre and coterie -at last my reward for five years studying French! Also liked Scotland Yard and herd.
    THANKS Barrie. I didn’t see goes triter as I had enough letters no to go that far.Nice twist. I was expecting an extra toughie to run over to Monday.

41. Lots of very easy clues, a few impossible ones (e.g. 23 across; l’i’l meaning dainty is too much of a stretch. Definitely a mis-match of parts of speech in 19 down. “Hide” does not mean “run away (25 across).

    I am one of the great unawashed who thoroughly enjoyed The Bodyguard.

42. Not writer – triter

43. One session wonder.
    Cool bananas.
    Alan and Cath

44. I enjoyed both this and the Styx. Probably the best Styx I’ve seen, as he often uses a very obscure plant or animal to fill a tough gap.

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