Guardian 29,586 / Pasquale

79 comments on “Guardian 29,586 / Pasquale”

1. A good challenge.

   New for me: ANADEM, OSTRACOD, EARLAP, MIDINETTE, HIERATIC.

   I could not parse 12D.

   Thanks, both.

2. Thanks Eileen – I love the fact that your enjoyment, whatever anyone else thinks, leaps out of your contributions. A lesson for us all, perhaps?

   Meanwhile, back at the crossword, there were too many new words for me (CLOTHO, ANADEM, OSTRACOD, PEPSIN, HIERATIC, MIDINETTE) to really enjoy this – too much use of the check button.

   Thanks to Pasquale. As Eileen said, despite the new words, all fairly clued.

3. The NW corner yielded last of all with CLOTHO, ANADEM and HIERATIC all new to me, so no surprise. MIDINETTE was new as well, but very gettable from the clueing. As with Eileen, the two long anagrams were a great help in getting started this morning…

4. I, too, wondered about “start with hymn” for “h” and “end of Christmas month”, which had me thinking it ended “ism” for a while. Not the sort of looseness one normally sees with Pasquale.

   I took some good advice from a blog the other day – when confused look for a hidden word, which is how “cent” dropped out for me as my POI (penultimate one in). I knew of “heirophant” and got tied up with “errant” so “heiratic” took a while to disentangle.

   I really liked “anadem” as a new word. The “an” was clear, as was the short anagram and, as Eileen says, if you know “diadem” it’s a reasonable guess for the last four letters. Rare words have to be findable somehow, and I thought this rewarded a literal lateral thinking.

5. Agree, a few new words but gettable from the clues. I did have astrocod for 10A (some kind of space fish?!) until I checked the spelling! Was also confused by the extraneous wording in 7D, but otherwise a pleasant diversion for a Wednesday morning.

   Thanks Pasquale and Eileen 🙂

6. Lots of NHOs. Will have to check parsing of some of the others too. Luckily the NHOs all clued so they were gettable anyway.

   Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

   Liked Clotho, Victoria Sponge and many others.

7. Lots of NHOs. Will have to check parsing of some of the others too. Luckily the NHOs all clued so they were gettable anyway.

   Addendum – note or notes. Not important enough to quibble over. The additional notes at the end of the OED are the addenda.

   Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

   Liked Clotho, Victoria Sponge and many others.

8. @Crispy #2
   Well said! We too love Eileen’s blogging.

9. Dec is one end of December. The beginning or first ‘end’. The other end would be Ber.

10. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen, I enjoyed this. It’s always rewarding to learn new words, especially when they’re clearly clued.
    I like the reference to 14a (coin seen here) in ANCIENT.
    I assumed it was the front end of December in DECLINE.

11. Crispy @2 whether words are “new” or not is of course personal opinion. Of your list Midinette was the only one I am sure I haven’t seen before. (Does English really need a specific word for a type of Parisian shop worker?). I don’t mind a few new (to me) words if they are relatively easily constructable from the wordplay and look like they could be words. As a side note, I knew hieratic but if I hadn’t, I also know that hierarchy originally meant “rule by priests”.

    My favourite was nominative, with a smooth surface concealing the definition.

    A question for others: do you solve longer anagrams when you find them or put them aside to see how many crossers you get on the first pass through the crossword? I’m in the latter camp, perhaps just being lazy because I can often see them at sight with a few crossers but struggle without any.

12. HIERATIC is also the name given to the script which was used for ‘other’ purposes in Ancient Egypt. It started off as a handwritten form of hieroglyphs and eventually developed into Demotic script. Hieroglyphs were only used for formal and grand purposes, on the walls of temples, in burial chambers, and the like.

13. I like your thinking Anna @9

14. Ravenrider@11. Of course a list of new words is personal opinion, which is why I said “for me”.

15. Tim @ 13
    Wow! Nobody’s ever said that before! Thanks.

16. As many here will know, Chambers does occasionally allow its compilers to wax lyrical – as, famously, they did with mullet and eclair. When checking to see if MIDINETTE was a word, I encountered the delightful ADDENDUM in parentheses: A young female worker, esp a shop assistant, in the Paris fashion or millinery business (apparently much seen in cafés at lunchtime)

17. Anna @9 and wynsum @10 – hmm, I suppose so but the length of the ‘end’ is rather arbitrary – something that’s often discussed here.

    [ravenrider @11 – as I’ve often said, I boringly just tackle the clues in order.]

18. Is there a bit of a grammatical mini theme here with NOMINATIVE, PREPOSITION, and DECLINE (as in declension of a verb), not to mention the language related ORATION and RHETORIC?

19. This was a tough challenge for me, mostly because there were a lot of unfamiliar words. I managed to solve everything eventually but could not parse PREPOSITION. I thought there should have been an indication that MIDINETTE was a French, specifically Parisian. Perhaps a reference to some of the fodder in 11A.

    My favourites were the anagrams and DISCOVERIES.

    Thank you to Eileen for the great blog and to Pasquale for the challenge.

20. Tim C @18
    That occurred to me, too and I nearly mentioned it – but Pasquale is not usually one for themes.

21. I enjoyed this crossword too – and found I could solve most of the unknown to me words by following the instructions in the wordplay.

    Surely we engage in this game to play with words, occasionally learn something and keep our brains active in varying proportions, so does it matter if some days we do more playing with words with one setter or learn more new words with another?

    Thank you to Eileen and Pasquale.

22. What’s a puzzle from the Don without a few jorums? (jora 🙂 ). Mine were ANADEM and EARLAP today, though the latter rang a vague bell (but that might be false memory syndrome). Knowledge of Greek mythology and invertebrate taxonomy was undoubtedly helpful today.

    Why list my favourites when the ever wonderful Eileen has already done it for me?

    Many thanks to Pasquale and Eileen

23. This felt like Pasquale had been let off the leash after doing a few Quick Cryptics. Ravenrider@11 I also need some crossers for long anagrams. I am always impressed when people talk about long anagrams getting them started.

24. Gervase @22 – I think Kite’s Prize puzzle last week lent authority to ‘jorums’. 😉

25. Echoing Shanne@21 – my LOI in a Pasquale is rarely one of the obscurities, which says something both about how kindly he clues those and how devious he can get with the others.

    Thanks, Eileen, for the blog, and especially for parsing ENTHRONE. I find that I’m consistently poor at uncovering this specific kind of literal deletion so maybe I should just look for that perforce next time I’m stuck. 😀

    And thanks to Pasquale for the challenge!

26. Eileen @24: Of course it’s ‘jorums’ – I was only being facetious. It seems that the etymology of the word is uncertain; it may be from the Arabic word which is also the origin of ‘jar’, but it is definitely not Latin 🙂

27. ravenrider@11 – I feel like single-word long anagrams are good candidates for first-pass entries.

    I got DISAPPROBATION straight away but needed three crossers for VICTORIA SPONGE (might also have to do with the Brittiness of the clue though).

28. Quite the puzzle today. Thanks Eileen for finding a dictionary that contained MIDINETTE as an English word. Like you, I don’t see why ‘end of’ is in the clue for DECLINE. Not convinced by Anna@4’s explanation (but grateful for it all the same); I can see DEC as an abbreviation of December, but would think that D and R are the ‘ends’ of December. Thanks Pasquale for a chewy challenge, and Eileen for yet another exemplary blog.

29. [Gervase @26 – I knew that: so was I, of course!]

    paul @28 – it’s in both Collins and Chambers.

30. Ravenrider@11. The technique that I find really helpful with anagrams is to write the component letters out with the vowels on the left and the consonants on the right. I’m not sure why but then the answer quite often springs into mind even with no crossers. Today it worked a treat for disapprobation but failed miserably on victoria sponge.

31. Summed up for me by Crispy @2, incIuding his tribute to Eileen. I also noticed, like wynsum @11, that ANCIENT was referring to 14a or else ‘seen here’ is surely superfluous. Tough but fair, even if I don’t remember the new words in future, apart from CLOTHO, which I think will stick.

    Ta Pasquale & Eileen.

32. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

    As 19 is a down clue, I took ‘over’ just to mean ‘on top of’ rather than ‘surrounding’.

33. wynsum @10 and AlanC @31

    Doh! I was tempted to say that it was a pity that CENT occurred twice. 🙁 My apologies to Pasquale.

    Thanks, Simon S @32 – I think you’re right.

34. Blaise @30 When, as is usually the case, I can’t do them in my head, my technique on paper is almost the same except I write the vowels under the consonants, usually in the order they appear in the clue but sometimes I try to break up pairs like ch, th, or sh. I think the key is to destroy any structure/pattern from the clue to help the mind shuffle the letters. My father used to write the letters in a circle but that never worked for me. The tool on the website helps but I don’t find it as effective as the above technique.

35. I’m certainly not averse to expanding my lexicon by one or two words per puzzle, but I found myself googling and wikipedia-ing rather more than I’d like, never having heard of OSTRACOD, EARLAP, MIDINETTE, ANADEM, HIERATIC, CLOTHO, VICTORIA SPONGE or Ingres. I was unfamiliar with “tin” for a small coin and could find no reference in the dictionaries I consulted. Likewise “ram” for a lustful man.

    How is “in” “associated with”? I’d have put “say” at the end of the clue for COLOUR, but I suppose the question mark sort of indicates that it may be definition by example. I couldn’t parse PREPOSITION, as I’d never have thought of that meaning for “rep”.

36. Geoff Down Under @ 35

    I expected a query about ‘associated with’ in 26ac rather earlier on!
    Collins has RAM: slang, a sexually active man – so perhaps a rather extreme definition. I couldn’t find it in Chambers at all.
    As in the blog, I think COLOUR is a DBE.
    At one time, we used to see REP quite frequently for theatre. Now it’s more usually ‘agent’ or ‘salesman’.
    To be fair, neither the clue nor the blog suggests tin = small coin.
    VICTORIA SPONGE https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mary_berrys_perfect_34317
    is a classic teatime cake over here

37. Clotho, Anadem and Ostracod sound like Beckett characters. Stared at the crossers for loi cent, finally thinking Oh well I suppose it could be tin as in money, put it in and checked, and only then saw the hidden; talk about dim! Enjoyed, ta PnE.

38. I enjoyed this very much, including the new or less familiar words – part of the fun of doing cryptic crosswords, as Shanne@21 notes. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

39. Thanks, Eileen @ 36. I read your parsing of CENT in a hurry — sorry.

40. Thanks, Geoff @39. 😉

41. Tougher than many Pasquales I recall but mostly fun. At the end I impatiently resorted to a few sneaky reveals, all of which I should have persevered with. The more obscure words were, on the whole, fairly clued (as an amateur setter myself, one of the best pieces of advice I received was “Easy clues for hard words, hard clues for easy words!”).

    I do however think a certain, ahem, ‘leeway‘ crept into a few clues (unless I’m missing something)… not sure why ‘associated with’ denotes IN; ‘start with hymn’ for H is grammatically odd; ‘not right’ to remove only one of the Rs in ER(r)ATIC was uncharacteristically imprecise; ‘by’ as a juxtaposition indicator in a down clue in MIDINETTE is arguable (and I felt that really needed a Fr. indicator); as noted, the ‘end of’ in DECLINE is odd, unless one takes it purely as a positional indicator (though the clue would work fine without it).

    Many thanks both.

42. I enjoy that cryptics can be set with unfamiliar words, but that apparently doesn’t mean I always enjoy it when they are! Partly annoyed at myself because I “got” ANADEM and CLOTHO but my mind went from there to ‘diadem’ and ‘clothe’, and so it was only after using the Check button and Google (DDG as it actually happens) that I admitted to the correct solution being correct.

    MIDINETTE was an especially awkward one for me though – a word I’ve never heard of clued with another word I’ve never heard of. So with all the crossers and understanding the wordplay of the clue it remained impossible for me. That and a few others meant a tough DNF for me today, and a slight feeling of frustration about some of it, but largely still enjoyable.

    Thanks Pasquale and thanks especially Eileen for a comprehensive and understandable parsing of everything

43. Well, that was a bit of fun! Plenty of solving then wondering if that word exists! Luckily for me, they did. Which demonstrates how clear the clueing was.

    Like Eileen, I found the longer clues the easier ones and so the way in to cracking the puzzle.

    Mystified by “end of” in 7d but accept that Anna @9 has probably come up with the best explanation.

    That felt like a good work-out.

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

44. The occasional ‘new’ word is OK if the clueing is clear, but it detracts from my enjoyment if I have to Google 3 times in the first 3 minutes. This setter doesn’t seem able to construct a puzzle without using obscure words, which is why he is my least favourite.
    I do appreciate the skill and effort that has gone into setting and blogging.

45. When one reads Pasquale’s name, it’s clear that there will be unusual words, which are usually well-clued.

    The Google AI added this about CENT: No, cents are not made of tin, but they have been made with tin in the past. And, of course, a bit is an eighth of a CENT. The main dictionaries give ENTHRALL as a N. Amer. spelling, so, although mrpenney will be happy, it really deserves an attribution, IMHO. I liked the long anagrams, the priest’s greeting HIERATIC, and the imprisoned monk in SABOTAGE.

    Thanks to Pasquale for the fun and to Eileen for a comprehensive blog.

46. I am usually very much on Pasquale’s wavelength, but today I struggled. Eventually everything but 18A fell into place, although in hindsight it is one of my favorites. I also failed to parse 12D.

    The intersecting OSTRACOD and MIDINETTE were new to me, albeit gettable, and I dredged HIERATIC up from some unknown depths.

    Thank you Eilleen and Pasquale.

47. Anna @15: I, for one, am happy to say it again!

48. Juandango @ 47
    Thanks!

49. One small point of contention re 25: I’ve always spelt ‘enthral’ with one l.

50. That all went swimmingly, including much self-congratulation on deducing OSTRACOD, MIDINETTE, EARLAP and HIERATIC, then I messed it up by confidently entering DIADEM (well, Di is “a name”, isn’t it and a diadem might do for a wreath), which left 1d unsolvable so a DNF in the NW. I might have spotted the error if 1d had been worded “Nipper is caught -“ but with ‘gets’ I was sure the wp/def were the other way around. Still, a lot of fun, so many thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

51. Juandango @49

    Both Collins and Chambers give both spellings, with ‘enthrall’ as ‘esp US’.

52. A point I tried to make earlier, but didn’t explain myself clearly, is that I believe there should be an indication when a clue contains a definition by example. So I’d be happier if the clue for COLOUR was See inside enclosed area cut green, say. Does the question mark fulfil the same purpose?

53. Don on top form as usual. With Don you always learn something new. Regarding solving long anagrams I’ve always arbitrary put the letters in the shape of a cloc with some letters for the hands. Works for me! Thanks for a super blog: as always.

54. [Totally irrelevantly: ‘ostracod’ had me imagining a 5th-century tribe of fish rampaging through Northern Italy. I’m going to have trouble shaking that one out of head.]

55. Eileen @51 – well then, ‘enthrall’ is just not British! Less bombastically, would an indicator of the US spelling be called for?

56. Geoff @52 – yes, a question mark is a valid and pretty common DBE indicator.

57. Right, thanks, Rob T.

58. Geoff Down Under – the question mark as a definition by example indicator comes up in the Quick Cryptics too – so it’s pretty understood generally.

59. Pasquale’s crosswords always remind me of Reith’s BBC principles : “to inform, educate and entertain”. All three values handsomely delivered, thank you Pasquale and Eileen! PS I uncheckingly put CRAB instead of CLAW 🙁

60. [Re solving long anagrams, it is true that even one or two crossing letters help enormously.

    An aunt of mine, who introduced me to cryptics, suggested putting the letters in a circle, like Cedric @53. I have found that putting them in a rectangular arrangement (like the grid for Boggle, if you’re familiar with that game) works best for me – with vowels and consonants interspersed.]

61. What Shanne@21, Zyzzyva@25, the blog, and lots of others said …
    I really enjoyed this. My favourite clues were all the ones where I’d never heard of the definition, but worked it out from the word play (and then Googled the word). There were lots of these. But every single one was so well clued that I could solve it.
    What a gem of a crossword.

62. I think 7dn just goes like this: “Christmas month” is DEC, and LINE comes after the end of it. The “end of” part isn’t necessary in the cryptic reading: it’d be just as correct to say that LINE comes after DEC as to say that LINE comes after the end of DEC. But it’s perfectly correct to have “end of” in there, and it makes the surface work.

    I generally find Pasquale difficult, and this was no exception, but I found this extremely satisfying and was proud of myself to have finished it. I particularly liked the anagram for VICTORIA SPONGE and the construction of PREPOSITION, but there were lots of other good clues.

63. Fine puzzle. Never heard of ANADEM or OSTRACOD. I had apparently heard of a MIDINETTE, since the word surface as I puzzled, but I can’t imagine ever using it.

    According to numismatists, CENT is the correct word for the American coin. I say phooey. Everybody I’ve ever heard calls the copper coin a penny, as they do in the UK.

    I follow the anagram techniques described above, separating the vowels and consonants, but put both groups in alphabetical order to displace the (often decptive) “structure” they have in the clue.

    Robi@45, a bit is one eighth of a dollar, not a cent — hence “two bits” being twenty-five cents, or a quarter. An eighth of a cent would be an unusably small amount — what would be the point?

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen, both for the blog and for popping in to keep the conversation going — always a pleasure to spend a morning with you;

64. Very enjoyable puzzle today – thanks Pasquale and Eileen for the blog.
    Did anyone else think that:
    24 Newest info from the French game (6) could be wordle? – with ‘word’ meaning new info, as in ‘word from the Eastern front’

65. Thanks Pasquale for the stimulation, both in the crossword and in its subsequent discussion. I was able to solve the ‘odd words’ — CLOTHO, ANADEM, OSTRACOD, and MIDINETTE but failed with HIERATIC. Embarrassingly, I also failed to see CENT, right there in plain sight. My favourites were NOMINATIVE, PEPSIN, PREPOSITION, SABOTAGE, and STUN. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

66. I’ve lived in France for almost 50 years so although I know midinette it didn’t help much cos I’d no idea it was an English word. It was used in the 90s maybe to refer (rather rudely) to not very intellectual girls, but I haven’t heard it for decades and didn’t know it’s origin.

67. I realised after I wrote the answer that I knew MIDINETTE as part of a song title – Midi- MIDINETTE. Looking it up I found it was a German pop song from 1960. I must have heard it as a 16 year old while staying with a family in Aachen. Apparently it, or something with the same title, has been around recently.

68. Thanks both and since it’s Eileen I’ll just say ‘Bambi’… (Perhaps I shouldn’t even say that…)

69. As ever with the Don, beautifully clued, but to many obscurities to be enjoyable.
    Thanks both

70. 64 – Yes, I wrote in Wordle during my first pass!

71. Well beaten today, with several unsolved. Nothing unfair in the clueing, but by sheer coincidence the solutions included the largest number of words previously unfamiliar to me (seven!!!) that I’ve come across in a single puzzle for many years. I just couldn’t get all of them! Enjoyed lots of it and my favourite was CAPE VERDE.

72. Lots of unfamiliar words but I mostly found them gettable from the wordplay. LOI was the substring CENT – doh!

    “After end of” in 7d sent me down an ISM rabbit-hole too. It doesn’t seem to add anything to the wordplay but I accept it as a harmless indication to finish DEC before adding LINE

73. Mandarin @71 and Tangerine @72 – are you two related?!

74. This was more a test of vocabulary knowledge than a test of solving ability in my humble opinion.

75. Nice to get a BRAVO across the bottom squares for finishing this one!

76. Oops, I meant the above comment for today’s puzzle. Apologies to all.

77. As a relative newbie to anything other than beginner cryptic I found this one almost impossible – a lot of archaic elements and indicators that lacked clarity

    Not a criticism at all – just me needing to know more

78. I’d forgotten about this one from last week until yesterday and got all but half a dozen fairly quickly. As someone else mentioned, MIDINETTE is unhelpfully clued with another unknown word, dinette, in the wordplay; I’ve heard of a kitchenette but not a dinette.

    And two other unknowns were clued with anagrams that can go either way – I hate having to look things up before solving, so plumped for the incorrect ANAMED & ASTROCOD. I think better guesses would have incorporated a bit of lateral thinking – reference diadem, for example, as Eileen mentioned, for the first, and not reference starfish (doh) for the second. But I think a red mist descended in both cases.

    Last in was PEPSIN, another unknown to me, and pep itself though known is also not part of my vocabulary. Altogether a bit of a struggle, but pleased to have got there in the end.

79. The dictionary got a real workout today. I was pleased to correctly solve all the “obscure” words mentioned above, except PEPSIN. I also had DIADEM instead of ANADEM, figuring “Di” was weakly clued as “a name”. Sorry for doubting you Pasquale

    Also pleased to catch the container, which I often miss — “publiCENTrance”

    Missed a few others, and some mistakes, like PREMONITION for PREPOSITION, and CODE for CLAW

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