Inquisitor 1538: Mistake by Ifor

10 comments on “Inquisitor 1538: Mistake by Ifor”

1. All thanks to Ifor for a solidly good puzzle and Hihoba for the clear analysis. My first four across solutions were from the six whose single letter to be deleted was R, leading to a theory that “mistake” cryptically meant “not Right” and a temporary struggle with nonce-words like ROMEO and OCHREATE. Also I was afraid the phrase would be some hideous anagram and didn’t even start to look for it until I had nearly all the “more serious” problem answers. It was generous of Ifor to make “picking up the pieces” so much easier than an IKEA flatpack.

   Shortly before getting to the end I was puzzled to find myself thinking of the children’s fantasy The Phantom Tollbooth, featuring an island to which characters involuntarily jump if they make a certain kind of mistake. The island is of course called Conclusions. Me and my subconscious …

2. Not too difficult this week, but thoroughly enjoyable. I got myself into a little pickle at the close, thinking we needed the letters from all across clues to construct the phrase, despite the clear preamble, but once I’d spotted the error of my ways, well, getting the phrase couldn’t have been easier.

3. I didn’t quite complete this one as, like Jon @2, I thought that all the omitted letters had to be used to construct the phrase.  I had far too many letters to make anything conclusive.  Sadly, unlike Jon @2 I didn’t spot the error of my ways and eventually had to give up. I enjoyed the puzzle despite not finishing.  Thanks to Hihoba and Ifor.

   I sympathise with Hihoba on the “thinking deeply” issue.  I usually attempt the IQ in bed at night and my wife ironically admires my apparent ability to “read with my eyes shut”.

4. Firstly, thanks to Hihoba for the blog and we hope that your recovery goes well.

   Secondly, thanks to Ifor for the puzzle. Like Jon, we thought we had to use all the letters from the across clues but then realised that the three words were going to be very, very long.

5. Well I found this tough and slow going. But then it wasn’t until I was filling in almost my final answer (the obscure 17A) that it clicked it was always the penultimate letter that was dropped! This cleared up my frustrations with the ambiguity about NAIR/NAIA at 23A and a check in the dictionary confirmed the existence of ROMO rather than the confidently penned in ROME at 33A.

   This revelation made me realise what an achievement the grid was, so hats off to Ifor for compiling an entire grid of across clues with an answer that remains a real word when the penultimate letter is removed (or rather, a grid comprised of words that remain real words when a letter is inserted in the in the penultimate position). Given that constraint, it is no surprise the removed letters don’t form anything, as I also was half thinking they might.

6. Thank you for your kind wishes, Bertandjoyce. Recovery seems to be progressing as expected.  I confess, OPatrick that I also had ROME in 33A for some time and had to realise the pattern before choosing between NAIR and NAIA. A nice little bit of misdirection, I thought.

7. As always, my thanks to blogger and commenters.  I think the matter of which pieces were to be used has been largely dealt with – I’d just add that the punctuation in the preamble was intended to indicate that just the “more serious mistakes” were to be picked up.  Also, I suppose it’s inevitable that changing word-order in a clue will lead to differences in interpretation, but for what it’s worth 3d should read “pinching revolutionary” (so CHE in MIR) 8d “to husband (= surround ) a” and 31d parses as batting / in then weaker players / tail.  I’d like to think that the ROMO/E and NAIA/R ambiguities were deliberately included, but in fact they were simply a consequence of the gridfill and only seen by me as a desirable extra afterwards.

   And of course I’m pleased to note your reply to B&J – best wishes for further progress, and I hope the solve and blog served to ameliorate the aftermath of the operation.

   Ifor

    

8. I do hope that Ifor pops back & reads this because I thought that the puzzle had a stunning grid construction yet again, and was most enjoyable. I twigged the Across answer/entry mods very quickly, but was slightly held up by the Down clue mods as the first ones I solved all had the word moving from second place to the end. And it was only when I had finally sorted out the first three  “more serious mistakes”, namely MPIN, JU & GTO, that I myself could Jump to Conclusions and resolve the other four.

   So, thanks also for the blog, and a slight ticking off to OPatrick @5 for using “comprised of” – as noted in Chambers, “comprise vt to contain, include; to comprehend; to consist of (often, incorrectly, with of).”

9. I’m certainly somethinged off! Feeling suitably chastened I started reading this, but soon lost the will to live. I did however skim through to this bit:

   Overt defenses of “comprised of” are uncommon, but Harvard University psychology professor Steven Pinker considers its deprecation to be one of “a few fuss-budget decrees you can safely ignore”.

   That’ll do me.

   (But a genuine thank you for this interesting little aside.)

10. HG@8 – I have indeed “popped back” to thank you for your kind remarks.  I’m glad you enjoyed it.

    On a different theme, my hackles rise when I see IMPLY and INFER treated as interchangeable; I’m aggravated by the misuse of “aggravated”; and I deplore the erosion of meaning that’s rendered the useful phrase “begging the question” largely worthless.  I’d better stop there, though.

    Ifor

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