Inquisitor 1908: Labor Works by Twin

14 comments on “Inquisitor 1908: Labor Works by Twin”

1. Much enjoyed here — thanks to Twin and HolyGhost. It took a long time to get started because the dread words “required entry method” suggested we might have to do something significant to, perhaps, every answer? But they seemed to join up without problems, and I pushed ahead until eventually struck by the presence of so many all-vowel diagonals. Of course, as well as having the property, LABOR hinted at the play.

   My favourite bit of Long Word trivia is that the Bacon-wrote-Shakespeare lot seized on it as an anagram of “hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi” — “these plays, F. Bacon’s offspring, are preserved for the world”.

2. FWIW my view is that the preamble should have said the grid has a particular property rather then the puzzle. I failed to see the pattern, mainly because my focus wasn’t solely on the grid. I’m not sure there was a fair hint to the theme either, notwithstanding the undoubted skill of grid design.

3. Clearly a tour de force by the setter both in grid construction and in squeezing one (and only one) alternating word into each clue, with the correct initial letter. But I agree with HG, it was perhaps ‘more pleasing for the setter than the solver’ as in some instances the clue surfaces were a bit strained.

   My main issue was the use of ‘required entry method’ in the preamble, which as David @1 says implied that we should not enter the answers in the grid without some kind of treatment. It was only after I’d solved 20 clues, got bored and entered them anyway that I realised they would fit normally. Simply using ‘an instruction’ would have avoided this.

   Also, HG, you forgot to highlight in your blog the ‘source of the superlative word’, which is LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST ACT V SCENE i as shown by the extra words.

   Overall it was still very enjoyable and a very impressive (perhaps too impressive) first showing for TWIN. So thank you to her/him/them (?!) and to HG for the blog.

4. As a crossword, this puzzle was top-notch, and I had the enjoyable experience of solving the clues, filling the grid and collecting all the letters. However, I didn’t understand what was meant by ‘thematic property’ or ‘entry method’, and my only success in the endgame was finding what could indeed be called a ‘superlative word’ symmetrically placed in the grid: HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS. Which I duly highlighted.

   Thanks to Twin and HolyGhost.

5. As it happens, HG, Tiburon of the Magpie did a puzzle based on hapax legonemon.

6. Having read the blog (for which many thanks HolyGhost), I realise what a fine construction and challenge this was. Just a shame, in my view, that the instructions weren’t a little clearer and hence a bit more helpful, eg by suggesting that each solution (or perhaps better, the grid as a whole, as Bingy suggests) exhibit the property. I spotted honorific, but wasn’t familiar with its longer relation, so wondered whether the theme was to do with words like honour and labour with alternative spellings – and inevitably hit a wall. But many thanks to Twin, I very much look forward to your next offering.

7. Grid filled in, but the rest was far too vague for me to get through the endgame.

8. arnold @3: in the blog, just before the chequered grid, you will find ‘Chambers soon settled it – honorificabilitudinitatibus, “a superlatively long word in Love’s Labours Lost V.1.37”.’
   Admittedly, I didn’t bother repeating the source in my final paragraph.

   Kirsanov @5: indeed – in Dec 2016.

9. Very clever by the setter, but a little frustrating for this solver. I got as far as many others in solving the puzzle, the instructions and the mega word in the middle, without ever seeing what the “property” was, having directed my attention to the initial letters of the answers containing 4 or more letters- which of course got nowhere. Grateful to HG for the enlightenment and admiration to Twin for the achievement of the puzzle, even if I missed its point.

10. thanks to both B[logger]+S[etter]. While solving I was obsessed with trying to understand why the title used the US spelling. However, once the theme emerged (yes, the diagonals helped!), I finally ‘gotit’.

11. We also wondered whether we had to alter some of the answers before entry. We were extremely busy and a week later we still hadn’t completed the puzzle.
    We couldn’t parse a number of the clues and were hooked on the fact that these may be ‘thematic’. We had noticed HONORIFIC and the fact that the diagonals were all vowels.

    We ended up looking for inspiration elsewhere and found that we were looking for a 27 letter word. A search online for words of that length revealed the superlative. Whilst one of us was doing this, the other one was checking the initial letters of all the relevant words in the clues. We both reached the dénouement at the same time amazingly.
    A tour de force in terms of construction so congratulations to Twin. We agree though that the rubric would have been better with a slight change to include ALL entries.
    Thanks to HolyGhost for the blog.

12. I’m in the camp of: filled the grid; found the very long word; felt stumped about the ‘property’; abandoned. It is very clever, but there were an unusual number of clues I could not parse, even with the answer, which points to a problem noted elsewhere about the ‘surface’ of the clues suffering because of the construction. Still very interesting, thanks to Twin and HG

13. Congratulations to Twin – an absolute triumph, and an audacious idea perfectly executed. Just magnificent. I don’t share the gripes in earlier comments, and I’m sure this will get some of my vote for IQ of the year.

    Emphatically no, the rubric should not have been any easier! I came to the solution via a different route. After solving most clues and deducing the first hidden message, I was a bit stuck, but the rubric told us to look for something superlative to highlight and the central row looked like part of a word and seemed to ring a bell. Then the full word leapt out – I had seen it before – and Chambers gave me its ‘source’. The rubric and first hidden message together then made clear that Love’s Labours Lost Act V Scene I had to be found in the initial letters of the latter portion of clues, and ‘v’ being scarce had to be from ‘venerated’ in 43 across. This led me to see that the whole source could be found in successive clues this way, and I wrote out all candidate words (e.g. spoke/support/saga in 2 down, since I still didn’t know the property). Now, which words in the first half of clues were going to spell the message? A few words (Sunak, NASA, limo, Lima) had always felt just slightly out of place, and I added these to my list. Why bazar instead of bazaar? And the penny dropped. Labor works, but Labour isn’t working. A third hidden message?!

    Funny to think that the whole triumph hinges on the fact that h25s has the property. If the bard had given it just one misplaces consonant … no puzzle.

14. I struggled with the “property”… until I got it, and then I loved it!
    Some very tough clues using interesting meanings.
    Very challenging puzzle, very enjoyable, very impressive, very satisfying at the end.

    I feel out of step with many of the comments. Maybe it depends on whether you get the property?

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