We have a new setter for this week’s Inquisitor. Welcome to Ruli!
The preamble was of medium length, but it packed a lot in. It told us that” Eight across clues (none to 3- or
4-letter entries) comprise wordplay to the entry but a definition of a shorter word forming part of that entry. The remaining parts must be highlighted. The highlighting, considered collectively, will assist solvers in determining how the (silvered) four-letter answers must be systematically changed to new words before entry, and how a word in each clue to a three-letter entry must be similarly changed before solving. The process must be identified (six letters) under the grid”.
As usual, I just tried to solve as many clues as I could and then see how the preamble related to what I found in the grid. I managed to solve three of the eight clues where the definition related to part of the word and guessed that they probably came in four pairs in four different rows with the letters that didn’t form part of the definition being at the end of the left- hand entries, and at the beginning of the right-hand entries. We had AMENTA in row 6 left, DELISH in row 12 left and IN BRIEF in row 12 right. It also seemed likely that four rows in question were evenly spaced suggesting rows 3, 6, 9 and 12.
As the rest of the grid built up these initial thoughts were confirmed, giving us
SHEMALE / PHARES in row 3
AMENTA / VLEIS in tow 6
MICROBE / THOWLS in row 9, and
DELISH / IN BRIEF in row 12
At this point I had ALEPH, TAV, BETH and SHIN highlighted in the grid and the only thing I knew about them was that they were all characters in the Hebrew alphabet.
I had a lot of the rest of the grid filled at this time as well, but I hadn’t solved all the clues to the four-letter words. I had HOLY at 1 across, FIRN at 38 across, BLIP at 45 across, and LEVI at 3 down, but hadn’t solved 18 across, (possibly PRO_ or FOR_) and 39 down (___L?)
The relationship between the answers I knew and the letters in the grid for each of the six clues was:
| Clue | 1 across | 18 across | 38 across | 46 across | 3 down | 39 down | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer | H | O | L | Y | G | F | I | R | N | B | L | I | P | L | E | V | I | L | |||||||||||
| Entry | L | O | I | L | U | R | I | Y | R | V | E | R | I | ||||||||||||||||
Eventually the penny dropped when I realised that the systematic change worked backwards and forwards with L changing to O / O changing to L, I changing to R / R changing to I and similarly for E and V. Seeing also that B changed to Y, I could see that we had a transformation as shown below.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
| Z | Y | X | W | V | U | T | S | R | Q | P | O | N |
in either direction.
Based on this transposition, I could deduce some of the missing letters in answers and entries to extend the first table to
| Clue | 1 across | 18 across | 38 across | 46 across | 3 down | 39 down | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer | H | O | L | Y | R | O | G | F | I | R | N | B | L | I | P | L | E | V | I | I | R | L | |||||||
| Entry | S | L | O | B | I | L | T | U | R | I | M | Y | O | R | K | O | V | E | R | R | I | O | |||||||
A bit more thought generated the answer PROG for 18 across, leading to an entry of KILT , and an answer GIRL for 39 down leading to an entry of TRIO
The three-letter entries TUG (25 across), ZEN (28 across) and VET (23 down) were fairly clear from the definitions and/or the crossing letters (pull, mindful state and VET). Application of the transposition cipher shown above indicated that the word to change in each clue were:
25 across GIFT to TRUG;
28 across far to UZI; and
23 down LOW to OLD.
The resulting wordplay is shown in the detailed table below.
Although I had filled the grid completely, I was still unclear about the reason why everything fitted together. In the end, it was doing a bit of research on the cipher that cracked the endgame. Apparently the cipher is generally written out as follows:
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| Z | Y | X | W | V | U | T | S | R | Q | P | O | N | M | L | K | J | I | H | G | F | E | D | C | B | A |
and is known as the ATBASH cipher. ATBASH is a monoalphabetic substitution cipher originally used to encrypt the Hebrew alphabet. This gives the link to the four words highlighted in the grid. Even more so, when you realise that ALEPH is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, TAV is the last letter, BETH is the second letter and SHIN is the second last letter, thereby representing the cipher. Having said that, I’ll be impressed by any solver who deduced the theme was the ATBASH cipher when they filled the grid and read the highlighted letters.
The cipher can be modified for use with any known writing system with a standard collating order, such as the Latin alphabet, so that the first letter becomes the last letter, the second letter becomes the second to last letter, and so on. This is what we have used above to modify the four-letter answers and the clues for three-letter words.
I enjoyed the challenge even though, for me, the pennies didn’t drop in the order that the setter Ruli had hoped.
The title of the puzzle BY-BLOW could be written using synonyms of its component parts as AT–BASH which is the word to write below the final grid.
The clues were quite challenging as well with some intricate wordplay in places. Knowledge of Latin would have helped in at least three clues. Full parsing is shown in the detailed table below. Thanks to Ruli for an interesting first puzzle.
ATBASH
In the detailed table below, I have used background colours to highlight the different types of clue as follows
| Type of clue | Colour |
| Clues with wordplay to the entry, but a definition of a shorter word forming part of the entry | |
| Clues to four letter words where answer is systematically changed before entry | |
| Clues where one word is changed before the clue can be solved | |
| Normal clues |
| No | Detail | Entry |
| Across | ||
| 1 | Sanctified place, completely within earshot (4)
HOLY (a sacred or sanctified place) HOLY (sounds like [within earshot] WHOLLY [completely]) HOLY |
SLOB |
| 5 | Son moving away, promoted in Wellington, maybe (6)
BOOTED (wearing a Wellington BOOT perhaps; BOOTED maybe) BOOsTED (promoted) excluding (moving away) S (son) BOOTED |
|
| 12 | Not that many are left after split (7)
SEVERAL (more than one, but not very many; not that many) SEVER (cut; split) + A (are [metric unit of area]) + L (left) SEVER A L |
|
| 13 | Pulled up about nuisance sustained (6)
UPBORE (sustained) UP (I’m not sure what purpose ‘pulled … about’ is serving in the clue other than to make the clue read more smoothly) + BORE (nuisance) UP BORE |
|
| 14 | Arkwright’s young relative perhaps intended for marketing, maintaining edge (7)
SHEMALE SHEM (son [young relative] of Noah [special kind of shipwright who built an Ark, therefore he could be an Arkwright) SALE (something on offer to the market; intended for marketing) containing (maintaining) HEM (edge) S (HEM) ALE |
SHEMALE |
| 15 | Greek god has former reputation shredded (6)
PHARES ARES (Greek God of war and courage) Anagram of (shredded) HAS and REP [early 18th century [former] American word for reputation) PHARES* |
PHARES |
| 18 | Provisions when travelling in favour of little weight (4)
PROG (provisions, especially for a journey) PRO (in favour) + G (gram, a small weight) – alternatively G is an abbreviation [little] for a weight) PRO G |
KILT |
| 19 | Establish point before Sorbonne elder’s cut short (6)
ORDAIN (establish) ORD (obsolete term for the point of a weapon) + AINé (French [Sorbonne] word for elder) excluding the final letter (cut short) É ORD AIN |
|
| 20 | Liquids for spraying oil in each end of pinion after revolution (7)
NEBULAE (liquids for spraying) (EA [each] + LUBE [lubricant, oil for example] + N [last letter of {end of} pinioN]) all reversed (after revolution) (N EBUL AE)< |
|
| 21 | The final word of thanks after name’s restored (6)
AMENTA AMEN (the final word) Anagram of (restored) NAME + TA (thanks) AMEN* TA |
AMENTA |
| 23 | Floral wreaths; lives lost (5)
VLEIS LEIS (floral wreaths) Anagram of (lost) LIVES VLEIS* |
VLEIS |
| 25 |
Pull in $1000 following gift, regularly chosen (3), amended to Pull in $1000 following trug, regularly chosen (3) TUG (pull) TU (letters 1 and 3, regularly of TrUg) + G (1000dollars) TU G |
|
| 26 | Ex-service irregular leaving without one begging letter (7)
SCREEVE (begging letter) Anagram of (irregular) Ex–SERViCE excluding (leaving) (X [abbreviation for ex; Latin for without] and I [Roman numeral for one]) SCREEVE* |
|
| 28 |
Hearts of men end far off in mindful state (3), amended to Hearts of men end uzi off in mindful state (3) ZEN (a mindful state) Anagram of (off) E (middle letter of [heart] of mEn) and N (middle letter of [heart] eNd) and Z (middle letter of [heart] uZi) (Z E N)* |
|
| 29 | Spent savings vehicle turned to advantage (5)
ASSET (advantage) TESSA (from 1991 to 1999 [former; spent] tax-empt special savings account) reversed (turned) ASSET< |
|
| 31 | Italian town unaltered, keeping saint alive at its heart (6)
ASSISI (town in Italy) (AS IS [unaltered] containing [keeping] S [saint]) + I (middle letter of [heart] alIve) AS (S) IS I |
|
| 32 | Little computer crime resolved, by the way – it’s hidden (7)
MICROBE MICRO (small computer) OB (obiter, Latin for ‘by the way’) contained in (it’s hidden) an anagram of (resolved) CRIME MICR (OB) E* |
MICROBE |
| 35 | Wiseacres in this way appearing in arts publication in short (6)
THOWLS OWLS (wiseacres) HOW (in what manner; in this way) contained in (appearing in) TLS (Times Literary Supplement which is an arts publication containing book reviews, essays, poems and more) T (HOW) LS |
THOWLS |
| 38 | Glacial snow layer in hollow never a condition to go back (4)
FIRN (snow on high glaciers while still granular; glacial snow layer) (NR [letters remaining in NeveR when the central letters EVE are removed {hollow}] + IF [condition]) all reversed (to go back) (FI RN)< |
URIM |
| 40 |
Brood have the better of old-fashioned idiot (6) NIDGET (archaic [old-fashioned] word for an idiot) NID (pheasant’s nest or brood) + GET (gain a decisive advantage over; have the better of) NID GET |
|
| 41 | First item in regular issue put together afresh (7)
REMERGE (put together afresh) R (initial letter of [first item in] Regular) + EMERGE (issue or come out) R EMERGE |
|
| 42 | Upmarket grocery model is ham sandwiches (6)
DELISH DELI (DELIcatessan; upmarket grocery) DELISH (hidden word in [sandwiches] moDEL IS Ham) DELISH |
DELISH |
| 43 | Set of instructions below, keeping bribe out of book (7, 2 words)
IN BRIEF BRIEF (a statement of the aims of an advertising campaign, etc; instructions for a lawyer) INF (abbreviation for INFRA, Latin for ‘below’) containing (keeping) BRIbE excluding (out of) the second B (book) IN (BRIE) F |
IN BRIEF |
| 44 | Printing plate shoddily restored without frame (6)
STEREO (abbreviation for STEREOtype [printing plate]) Anagram of (shoddily) rESTOREd excluding the outer letters R and D (without frame) STEREO* |
|
| 45 | Ancient colonel amusingly losing money in temporary setback (4)
BLIP (temporary setback) BLImP (reference an incurably conservative elderly military officer, Colonel BLIMP as drawn by the cartoonist David Low [1891 – 1963]) excluding (losing) M (money as in M1, M2 etc, indices of money supply in the UK) BLIP |
YORK |
| Down | ||
| 2 | One responsible for some subtle harmonies? (5)
LEHAR (reference the Austro-Hungarian composer [one responsible for subtle harmonies) Franz LEHAR [1870 -1948]) LEHAR (hidden word in [some] subtLE HARmonies) LEHAR |
|
| 3 | Patriarch primarily lifted to the summit of wickedness (4)
LEVI (example of a biblical patriarch from whom the tribe of LEVI was descended) EVIL (wickedness) with the final letter L [first letter of [primarily] Lifted) moved to the front [summit] to form LEVI) LEVI |
OVER |
| 4 | Pities chumps nursing more elderly (7)
BEMOANS (pities) BEANS (both BEAN and chump can be defined as ‘head’) containing (nursing) MO (archaic [elderly] word for ‘more’) BE (MO) ANS |
|
| 5 | Support active independent outside party in SA (5)
BRAAI (BRAAIvlets [a South African term for a barbecue [outside] party, often shortened to BRAAI) BRA (an item of underwear acting as a support) + A (active) + I (independent) BRA A I |
|
| 6 | Engraving technique cutting one line used up ester (5)
OLEIN (a glycerine ester of oleic acid) NIELlO (a method of ornamenting metal by engraving) excluding (cutting one used) one of the Ls [line]) and reversed (up; down entry) OLEIN< |
|
| 7 | Selection from Excel putting up defined set of data (5)
TUPLE (a set of data that relates to, and may not be separated from, an object in a database; defined set of data) TUPLE (reversed [up] hidden word in [selection from] excEL PUTing) – the fact that Excel is a spreadsheet and not a database is irrelevant in the clue as we are simple selecting a string of letters from the consecutive words excel and putting TUPLE< |
|
| 8 | Greek teen perhaps representative of youth in Athens previously under extreme pressure (6)
EPHEBE (in ancient Greece, a young male citizen from 18 to 20 years of age; Greek teen, for two of those ages) EP (extreme pressure) + HEBE (a daughter of Zeus and Hera, cupbearer of Olympus, a personification of youth) EP HEBE |
|
| 9 | Mustelids cross river finally, clean ashore in seconds (6)
ZORILS (African skunk-like musteline animals) ZO (a cross between the male yak and the common horned cow) + R (river) + ILS (second letter [seconds] of each of fInally, cLean and aShore) Z OR ILS |
|
| 10 | Some clergy please themselves at first with right to be unorthodox (8)
PRELATES (churchmen of high rank; some clergy) Anagram of (to be unorthodox) of PLEASE and T (initial letter of [at first] Themselves) and R (right) PRELATES* |
|
| 11 | See winter’s winds become like those in the Rockies (10)
WESTERNISE (to give a western character to; the Rockies are situated in the West of the USA and Canada) Anagram of (winds) SEE WINTER’S WESTERNISE* |
|
| 16 | Carnivore caught wallowing in mud, one keeping the right way up (10)
COATIMUNDI (a tropical American plantigrade carnivorous mammal of the genera Nasua and Nasuella, related to, but larger than, the raccoons – just another word for coati) (C [caught) + an anagram of [wallowing] IN MUD) + I [Roman numeral for one]) containing (keeping) TAO (the [right] way to be followed in TAOism) reversed (up; down entry) C (OAT)< I–MUND* I |
|
| 17 | Trap in nostrils, ending at the top (5)
SNARE (trap) NARES (nostrils. especially those of a hawk) with the final letter (ending) S moved the beginning [top of this down entry) to form SNARE SNARE |
|
| 22 | Humidifier not provided, upsetting local government office (8)
MUDIRIEH (office of a MUDIR or local governor) Anagram of (upsetting) HUMIDifIER excluding (not) IF (provided) MUDIRIEH* |
|
| 23 |
Dempsey’s low guard perhaps essential to deceive Tunney (3), amended to Dempsey’s old guard perhaps essential to deceive Tunney (3) VET (General Martin Dempsey [born 1952], former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is associated with the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment [The Old Guard]. A member of his Regiment would be considered to be a VETeran) VET (hidden word in [essential to deceiVE Tunney) – the boxers Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney fought each other more than once for the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship VET |
|
| 24 | Watermill feeds folds with no end of sheep (5)
LEATS (trenches for bringing water to a millwheel, etc; watermill feeds) pLEATS (folds) excluding (with no) P (last letter of [end of] sheeP) LEATS |
|
| 27 | Secret doctrine rarely frightening about nothing in silence (7)
ESOTERY (secret doctrine) EERY (strangely frightening – not sure how ‘strangely’ relates to ‘rarely’. Chambers doesn’t list the meaning as archaic) containing (about) (O [character representing zero or nothing] contained in [in] ‘ST [hush; silence]) E (S (O) T) ERY |
|
| 29 | Acting decidedly, ignoring torn document in a sarcastic way (6)
ACIDLY (in a sarcastic way) A (acting) + deCIDedLY excluding (ignoring) the letters of DEED which are torn into two parts DE and ED within the word A CIDLY |
|
| 30 | Painful in the extreme, therefore stop (6)
SOREST (most [in the extreme] painful) SO (therefore) + REST (stop) SO REST |
|
| 33 | About eight gallons ultimately adequate for dip (5)
BATHE (dip) BATH (the largest Jewish liquid measure, containing about eight imperial gallons) + E (last letter of [ultimately] adequatE BATH E |
|
| 34 | Fiery cracks avoiding capital, at first resulting in small change to Reykjavik (5)
EYRIR (Icelandic monetary unit, one hundredth of a krona; small change to Reykjavik [capital of Iceland]) Anagram of (cracks) fIERY excluding (avoiding) the first letter (capital) F + R (initial letter of [at first] Resulting) EYRI* R |
|
| 36 | Love Island male, both vacant and sculpted? (5)
HIMBO (A man who is attractive [sculpted] but dull and unintelligent [vacant]; male equivalent of bimbo; stereotypically an assessment of a male competitor on the television programme Love Island) Anagram of (sculpted) O [character representing zero, the love score in tennis) and I (island) and M (male) and BH (letters remaining in BotH when the central letters OT are removed) HIMBO* |
|
| 37 | Cowboy builder once concealed date in financial records (5)
LEGER ( someone who swindles by scamping work, using bad materials. For example, a cowboy builder) LEdGER (financial records) excluding (concealed) D (date) LEGER |
|
| 39 | Unmarried woman sometimes nastily fighting suit ends in refusal (4)
GIRL (unmarried woman) GI (one of the spellings of [sometimes] a judo or karate costume; fighting suit) + RL (first and last letters of [ends of] RefusaL GI RL |
TRIO |
We’ve seen this setter before! Give him an atbash :-). Thanks for the blog.
The preamble was daunting and I found the bit in parenthises confusing at first until I realised what was meant (surely no entries have no letters!) – perhaps “not” rather than “none to” would have been clearer. I decided to tackle the non-thematic down clues first with a steady rate of success. I then found 3 of the eight specials, giving me BE-TH and TA, which strongly suggested that 4 pairs down the middle were required and the rest were found without too much trouble. So, 4 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, indicating what? Stupidly, I failed at that stage to check the order of said alphabet in Chambers. My breakthrough was solving FIRN for 38A, which had the entry URI? I spotted the link between F and U and found that it also worked for RI. The rest was a systematic completion of the remaining shaded entries, then the 2 missing letters in 25 and 28.
The word required for the Process had me stumped for a while, a technical term, ending in “nym” perhaps, but found nothing. Eventually, I spotted WOBBLY the anagram of the odd title, meaning “moving from side to side”, so entered that below the grid. Oh well!
As Phil K says, we have seen this setter before (many, many times). When I had another look at the seemingly new setter and another penny dropped, a master stroke from Ifor!
Thanks to him for an unsual and enjoyable theme and to Duncan.
Definitely a challenge! All thanks to Ruli and duncanshiell. The term ATBASH was new to me, but staring at the Hebrew letters did eventually suggest a shift of ALEPH to TAV and BETH to SHIN, and (pause to check the Hebrew alphabet) the corresponding English A to Z, B to Y….
I think the “rarely” in 27D applies to the answer rather than to “eery” — ESOTERY is flagged as (rare) in my oldish Chambers.
@1 — Ooh, I never thought of doing that! Well spotted.
Duncan: In 13a, pu is an abbreviation of pulled up (horse-racing), & about indicates a reversal. It was the final wordplay that I understood, and it took a long time.
Thanks for the blog and RULI/Ifor for the puzzle.
I found that a Google of Aleph Tav Bet Shin produced a link to a basic cryptography site and identified the Atbash cipher, which enabled me to solve and parse the last two or three code words, and I’m impressed by anyone who filled the grid without this. But while I tried applying the code to the title, without useful results, I didn’t think to try the setter. Thanks to HolyGhost for the parse of 13A, to Duncan for the blog, and to the setter, under whatever name, for the puzzle.
Really fun and educational puzzle, but shouldn’t it be BET rather than BETH? That’s what comes up online anyway.
Re 23d: I assumed the Dempsey was Jack Dempsey so the surface is boxing related and the definition cryptically alludes to the Americanism.
I managed to solve most of the clues and had an inkling that we were looking at some sort of cipher, but couldn’t quite make the final connection. The few clues that I couldn’t solve were key to identifying the Hebrew letters, which also didn’t help. If I had world enough and time I might finally have cracked it, but I had a date with a Marvel movie. A rather poor 4/10 this week, as despite solving most of the grid I didn’t really get anywhere with the game. Kudos to Duncan for a thesis of a blog!
arnold @7: Chambers has BETH as the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Phil K @8: I made the same assumption as you about Dempsey referring to Jack Dempsey, the boxer.
My thanks to Duncan (“comprehensive” doesn’t begin to describe this blog). He’s right in his supposition about the anticipated solving order – I had envisaged most solvers initially ignoring the encryptions, obtaining the letters and then googling them “collectively” as advised to get the theme. My thanks also to those who commented favourably and / or cleared up uncertainties. As has been noted, where alternative transliterations exist I chose the Chambers spellings.
14 Across – seriously?!
I’m disappointed that slurs against vulnerable minorities seem to be fair game for the Independent now. Into the bin unfinished for me I’m afraid.