Guardian Cryptic 27,473 by Chifonie

49 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,473 by Chifonie”

1. Quite enjoyable apart from a fair number of single-letter abbreviations.

   Some of them not to my taste: man=N (16ac), man=M (17ac), sinsiter=L (27ac), master=M (3dn), boy=B (5dn).

2. I struggled to see STROKE as putting pressure on as well, and thought the same as Trivatore@1 about the liberal use of iffy single letter abbreviations. VIRILE was my loi and whilst there were lots of nice enough clues I didn’t find many stand out ones. Favourites were ARMIES, STEVEDORE and VANDALISM as I said to Mrs W “do you know a museum called Vanda?” before the penny dropped.
   Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick.

3. Thanks Chifonie and loonapick

   The dislikes outweighed the likes, I’m afraid. VANDALISM was very nice.

   I agree about the looseness of STROKE, and TRIAL for “distress” seems loose too. “Moral” appears in 27a and also as the solution to 2d.

   A couple of words that are needed for surface but spoil the cryptic grammar – “in” in 9a and “leading to” in19d.

4. Vis-a-vis STROKE. My iPad English dictionary and thesaurus has no less than 26 definitions for said. Definition 19 I think comes pretty close.

   An attempt to obtain some object: A bold stroke for liberty.

5. I enjoyed this – at first glance couldn’t get into it, but worked my way through. Misparsed STALIN as TAL in SIN, and couldn’t understand it – now see what’s going on. Liked PROMINENCE, STEVEDORE and VANDALISM. Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick.

6. found it quite easy, why is pi used for relationship? it is a ratio or am i missing something?

7. I was surprised by how much I disliked this. STROKE is not related to pressure. DO does not mean ‘organise’. ‘Paddy’ in the sense of TEMPER is a reprehensible word with racist overtones. PI is not a relationship except in the loosest possible sense, it’s a ratio, etc. I became so annoyed I didn’t finish it.

8. Also Virile doesn’t mean forceful and tribal doesn’t mean native.

9. @6 mynollo and @7 poc – pi is a ratio expressing the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle.

   I suppose I liked this most of all because I finished it, but like others I was a bit dismayed by some of the loose definitions. I am happy with pi as a relationship, but not with STROKE for pressure and TRIBAL as a synonym for “native”, to take two examples.

   But thanks all the same to Chifonie and loonapick.

10. Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick.
    Agree with affirmations for 14d VANDALISM, a pleasing clue. I also liked to see the interesting anagram at 19d ELATION, derived from TOENAIL, and a clever double definition at 26a TEMPER.
    Like muffin and others, though, I circled some of the extraneous words/repetitions e.g. “in” as part of 9a, and “row” repeated in clues for both 4a and 11a, as well as “Copper/coppers” in 7d and 10a.
    Just wondering if the wordplay in 2d MORAL works – does “into” imply insertion of the “m”?
    Still, good to be back in the groove.

11. Trismegistus@9: Every ratio is a relationship but most relationships are not ratios, and nothing in the clue indicates that a ratio is meant.

    I did notice TRIBAL as well, but forgot to include it in my list.

12. Agree with a lot of the comments especially about single letter abbreviations, which I think is a lazy device, and the loose definitions such as tribal, pi (which is a ratio defining a realtionship rather than a relationship per se) and stroke. 4ac and 5d both therefore held me up in what was otherwise a comfortable stroll in the park.

13. Sorry poc@7, we crossed. Had never considered “Paddy” at 26a as potentially racist. We use it in Australia to refer to temper tantrums particularly by toddlers. Interesting how unconscious we can be of the potentially offensive nature of language.

14. Giod to have you back in it JinA – and I hope the blues weekend was fun.

15. Didn’t understand PI = relationship at all, and didn’t like the double-shift needed to get N from “man” (but I rather liked M for spymaster and L for sinister, so there’s no accounting for tastes).  I usually do have the kind of reservations about some of Chifonie’s definitions expressed here today, but thought it was just me not being on the wavelength.   Likewise never considered that “paddy” in that sense might be racist.

16. I can’t see how ‘Paddy’ (26a) could be construed as racist by anyone, apart from the most paranoid of offence-seekers. Fair enough, if there had been some Irish connotation to the clue. But there is none. Many thanks loonapick.

17. I thought that this was a tad easier than Vulcan yesterday.  And I also thought I was supposed to be the arch-moaner as regards single-letter abbrevs.  Apparently not!  I’ve got so used to them now (though I’ll always steer clear of the more dubious ones – as a setter) that I hardly raised any eyebrows!

    I have some doubts about definitions though.  I don’t think I apply pressure when I STROKE a cat, and I know what would happen if I did, and it would lead to an angry miaow! and some painful blood-letting!  Equating native with TRIBAL might be objected to in some circles.  Also I don’t equate ENDS with boundaries.  But on the whole I have no problems.

    Gladys @15 – we had PI (the mathematical symbol) = ‘ratio’ (between circumference and diameter) a few days ago.  So that might explain the ‘relationship’ bit.  I agree it’s not the best of definitions.

    Liked COMPARTMENTAL for its misdirection – I’ll bet I’m not the only one hunting anagrams of (COMMANDER A BIT)*.  And STEVEDORE – although I couldn’t help thinking – what about Lilith? (for those who haven’t heard of her, a bit of googling will explain – though some hits won’t be work-safe 😮 .  Have fun!).

    Anyway, thanks to Chifonie but hoping for bigger challenges ahead.  And loonapick (don’t think you were ‘too easy on Chif’).

18. Bullhassock@16: There doesn’t have to be “some Irish connotation to the clue” for the word to be offensive. The Oxford on-line gives the origin of paddy for temper as “Late 19th century: from Paddy, associated with obsolete paddywhack ‘Irishman (given to brawling’)” and acknowledges Paddy for Irishman as “derogatory.” That seems clear enough to me.

19. No, Laccaria, you weren’t the only one hunting for an anagram of COMMANDER A BIT!

20. rather like @Bullhassocks @16, I can’t see where the racism, implied or overt, is in the reference to Paddy….even if the term was spawned by a particular Irishman given to bouts of temper, I hardly see how this traduces the nation.

    What surprises me much more is the used of crazy, sectioned and mental in a supposedly socially progressive newspaper in 2018

21. Having read the arguments, I looked up ‘paddy’ too.  Chambers puts the meaning ‘tantrum’ under the same heading as the offensive term for an Irishman (unlike ‘paddy’ meaning rice-field, which comes from the Malay word for rice-plant).  And the surface reading doesn’t help matters much, either.

    So, yes, after giving it a bit of thought – this clue should have been avoided.  Agree with others on this matter.

22. PI as ‘ratio’ is almost old hat in crosswords, and justifiable for that’s what it is: the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. But try putting ‘relationship’ in that definition and it doesn’t work. Nuff said.

    Indeed Chifonie today is somewhat below his normal precise standards, what with VIRILE, STROKE, ATHEIST et al. But at least it didn’t take much time out of my day.

23. A very similar experience to yesterday’s Vulcan, albeit less of a challenge. The bottom half went in smoothly and quickly, but I came to a stop in the NE corner, leaving 4a STROKE and 5d TRIBAL unsolved. (On coming here I can see why!)
    I too thought ‘relationship’ for PI was loose, and although ‘man’ indicating N can be justified (because all pieces and pawns are ‘men’ in chess) I don’t think ‘man’ indicating M is valid (as I may have commented at other times).
    I liked STEVEDORE, VANDALISM and TEMPER especially.
    Welcome back, JinA.
    Thanks to Chifonie and Loonapick.

24. poc @11: Definition by example, then?

25. If PADDY did have derogatory connotations regarding a particular nation (so never ‘racist’ in the first place) it lost them many years ago. It is not remotely a racist term. TRIBAL as a synonym for NATIVE is, however, a real shocker.

26. I’ve read all the comments, and yes, I agree with some. But I like any puzzle that Mr Paddington Bear and I can finish, even if we have a few groans in the process. So thank you Chifonie and loonapick.

27. So much for the tougher Tuesdays theory – this was a Monday puzzle in all but date, apart from one or two that required a little more thought.

    Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick

28. I seem to be a bit out of step in not having found this all that easy (but still much easier than yesterday’s) – for me it was very much a case of one solution unlocking two or three more, then coming to a grinding halt for a while, and repeat. I take comfort from the fact that all of the ones I left blank (STROKE, TRIBAL, DONATION and VIRILE) have attracted some level of criticism/adverse comment above!

    I also thought that I was going to be seeking enlightenment on the use of PI in crosswordland for the second week in a row, but I think that subject has been amply covered in the blog and comments….

    Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick

29. Crazy=mental?

    Nation=race?

    Native=tribal?

     

    Thanks but no thanks

30. Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick. I had trouble spotting VIRILE (my LOI) and did not get the connection between paddy and TEMPER but otherwise proceeded smoothly. Pi and the various single-letter items struck (stroked??) me as familiar parts of crossword-land.

31. Nation can certainly mean race. Were an employer to treat me less favourably because of the fact I am from Ireland or France or the UK (or any other nation), he or she can expect to face liability for race discrimination.

32. I thought this was easier than yesterday’s Vulcan and finished it quite quickly with the exception of,you’ve guessed it,STROKE and TRIBAL. I think the former could have done with a little more thought on the part of the setter, and the latter was rather dodgy. I don’t really agree about PADDY,though,
    I immediately thought of temper when I saw it and it was only after coming here that I saw that some thought it a problem. I wonder if anybody who is Irish would see it that way?
    Anyway,not one of Chifonie’s best!

33. What’s the problem with STROKE, as pressure is an essential part of the waving of a hand becoming a stroke rather than a waft? Per the Oxford Living Dictionary “… An act of moving one’s hand across a surface with gentle pressure …” .

34. Who would have thought that the Tuesday Controversy would come from gentle Chifonie. Boatman yes, along with one or two other persistent offenders, but not our Chiff. Anyway, I suppose I should add my annoyance at some of the stuff in this, but it’s the same old story — The Guardian needs a better editor, in the final analysis. That’s just my view, of course.

    Thanks Chifonie and Loonapick.

35. Thanks both,

    I’m another who was taken aback by ‘tribal’ being equated with ‘native’. Both are perfectly good words when used precisely and without implied value judgements but they mean different things. They are only the same thing in an older kind of loosely racist language. ‘Paddy’ should probably have been avoided too. I was OK with ‘virile’, but spent some time trying to fit HMIT into the clue.

    We seem to go for a while without ‘man’ being used for a single letter abbreviation for a chess piece, and then have a spate of them, so I shall be alert for it in the next few weeks.

36. I have failed to make it here to 15^2 for the last four blogs (if you include the Prize, which I decided to tackle again the weekend of the 24th), so I am pleased just to be back here today.  I enjoyed this puzzle, but, to borrow from Trismegistus @9, “I suppose I liked this most of all because I finished it.”  (A sentiment also echoed by Mrs Paddington Bear @26.)  As noted by many/most others above, I thought a number of the clues contained some iffy elements, but I still thought every one of them could be worked out with the wordplay and the crossers to a reasonably good certainty.  It’s all in good fun.  My favorites today were STALIN, OVERTONES, and my CotD, VANDALISM.

    As an American of predominantly Irish heritage, I was not aware that the P-word (“Paddy”) was a racist and offensive term.  I’m not sure that it is considered such in this country — although perhaps this is primarily due to the fact that (in my experience) it is very infrequently used here.

    Many thanks to Chifonie and loonapick and the other commenters.

37. Yes indeed much care should be taken with words like tribal, native and Indian. But The Guardian puzzle has sometimes not been known for its tact, if I recall correctly.

    I feel there is a struggle to replace or in some way ape Rufus which is also causing stylistic bother, but I am sure things will level out.

    Not my most enjoyable-ever Chifonie solve, but I still rather like this amenable compiler.

38. I agree with commenters who enjoy crosswords one is able to solve! Even more if able to parse most of the clues. There can only be a finite number of similies for each word until modern usage produces another. Unless a setter stretches definitions, cryptics will begin to pall.

    I’d like to add another definition of PI that I no longer have to endure being retired. A visit to a patient (sorry – client) was a Personal Interaction written as a PI.

    Many thanks to Chiffonie & loonapick.

39. I am often amazed at the comments on the 225 blog. It seems many people like a puzzle for being “challenging”, when I think it was cheaply and artificially made difficult by loose definitions.

    Today, many people disliked the loose definitions – myself included, but then I usually do.

    I will maintain that “pi” as a relationship is pretty much standard for the kind of loose definition we get in libertarian crosswords such as the Grauniad…

    So I don’t blame Chiffonie for the loose definitions. Though maybe he thought he was catering to your tastes 🙂

40. Well, it’s nice to finish it, but it did feel like a bit of a slog today. Loose definitions, unusual single-word abbrevations and all the rest as noted by many others above. I could only justify a parsing of 16A PANT as PT containing A N, where N=man as in “Do you, N, take M as your lawful… etc.”, as in the prayer books we used when I was very small (maybe they still do). I’m still a bit more convinced (?) by that than loonapick’s parsing. Like several others, I got most of the cross-clues in for 8D before the penny dropped and I stopped trying to make it an anagram of “commander a bit”; still not 100% happy with “COM” for commander – I’d have thought CO or even CDR was a more usual abbreviation. I liked STEVEDORE though.

41. Thanks to both for a gentle afternoon’s solve.

    I was pleasantly surprised when things seemed to trot along and pop into place although I did look sideways at a number of the definitions, all of which others have mentioned, but things did go in OK.

    However there is one that has not yet been mentioned and that is STEVEDORE. This became one of my later entries because I considered it early on and discarded it as there is no nautical reference in the clue. Yes, a stevedore is a workman but specifically a workman who loads and unloads ships. To me, that makes the clue too loose, although the parsing is fine. Unfortunately.

    It was nice to get two crosswords done before lunch this week.

42. Thanks to Chifonie and loonapick. Got to this late after travelling the length of the country. Got to it about teatime and generally found it a straightaforward solve. However, guess what? Got stuck on tribal and stroke and decided it was too late in the day to spend any more time on it, therefore a DNF. Still it passed an hour or so and thanks again to Chifonie and loonapick

43. So glad to find I was not the only one to be unhappy with so many of the clues to the extent that for example tribal and stroke were the last ones in. Didn’t like all the one letter abbreviations either. Favourite vandalism.

44. Peter Aspinall@32: You ask if anybody who is Irish would see PADDY as offensive. Well, I’m Irish and when I first heard the term (some years ago) I was genuinely offended. It’s not something I’ve ever heard used in Ireland. As others have pointed out its origins are undeniably racist and derogatory, and though I have no doubt Chifonie used it with no mailgn intent, I thought it incumbent on me to point this out.

45. [poc@44 – thank you for your comment. I’d never equated the term “paddy” with anything Irish before I read the comments above, and now I’ve seen yours I shall proceed in a less ignorant fashion (not that it’s a word I specifically recall having uttered – though I presume I must have at some time….?)]

    Again, I would dismiss most of the quibbles above – I found this typical Chifonie elegance. But I do agree with beeryhiker – one expects more of a challenge on a Tuesday. Indeed, unlike others, I was grateful for STROKE and TRIBAL (the former a rather good clue in my opinion) as they were the only two which gave me pause for thought. I do, however, remain unconvinced by m for “man” as I questioned on this site’s General Discussion when last it was used – with no explanation received. I may now add b for “boy” to this…… I was happy with all the other abbreviations.
    Thought PRACTISE, COMPARTMENTAL lovely clues with smart surfaces and VANDALISM was a fantastic clue.

    Many thanks to Chifonie and loonapick.

46. poc@44. Thanks for answering what was a genuine question. I would say,however,that one of my neighbors, whose given name is Patrick and hails from Ireland, introduced himself to me as “Paddy” when I first met him. I do hope that my question didn’t offend as this was certainly not my intention.

47. Peter @46

    You probably won’t see this. However I think that there is a subtle but significant difference between called “Paddy” and being referred to as “a Paddy”. Would you agree?

48. Peter Aspinall@46 and Muffin@47: my own first name is Patrick and although I cringe if referred to as Paddy I do accept that it’s a common enough abbreviation. My relatives in Dublin even talk of St. Paddy’s Day, which would have caused my parents a good deal of annoyance back in the day. However Paddy as a generic Irishman, and even worse Paddy as a temper tantrum should be out of bounds.

49. Re: Paddy.

    Paddy is always the Irishman in the “Irish are stupid” racist jokes.  In most of those jokes you can replace him with the nationality you consider to be your inferior if that’s your intent.  As kids, Paddy was the clever one in the “Paddy The Irishman, The Englishman and The Scotsman” jokes.

    The Irish, like the Aussies, are great for nicknames and short forms.  I’ve known (and still know some) Patricks who call themselves Paddy, Pat, Patsy, Paddo, Padser.  Adding a “o” or “ser” or “y” was very common.  Charles would become Charlo.  James would become Jemser.  Michael would become Mickser.  I’m Thomas, I’ve always called myself Tom but have been called Tommo, Tommy and Thomashefsky (there was a Polish goalkeeper Tomaszewski  in the 70s).

    In the 50s there was a 10 year old Irish Whiskey called Paddy.  I remember a playmate pointing to the ad on the bus on his 10th birthday, Paddy is 10 Years Old.  His identical twin, Johnny, wasn’t impressed.  The Paddy whiskey is now a blended malt I believe.

    In Ireland in the 60s (and later) Paddy was certainly used as a derogatory term. I remember a priest urging us from the pulpit not to pray for “the drunken Irish Paddys who disgraced themselves and their country when they emigrated”.  We should confine our prayers for the missionaries who were out converting “Black Africa”.  (This man and his ilk hastened my journey towards me being an Atheist of Conviction, not a trace of scepticism I must add.)

    Personally I wouldn’t be offended if someone referred to me as a Paddy (or a Mick, another derogatory name).  But I have friends who would be mortally offended if they were called a Paddy (unless that was the version of Patrick they used) especially by someone who didn’t have an Irish accent.

    Dangerous ground.

    Tom (of Janet and Tom, Toronto)

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