Guardian Prize 27,932 by Brendan

by

A pleasure to see Brendan’s name in the Prize puzzle slot again, some four months after the last occasion.

As it happens, I was the blogger on that occasion when the puzzle was “covertly themed” .  This puzzle was not perhaps quite as clever as that one, but entertaining nonetheless.  Timon and I filled in most of the grid in the time it took to drink our first cup of coffee (we’re not very rapid drinkers!) but were left with two answers we couldn’t parse (one of which later proved to be wrong!) and one incomplete.  I think I’ve resolved all the issues now but if I’ve missed something, no doubt someone will fill in the gaps.

Many thanks to Brendan.

 

Across
1  SYNONYM Speciality of doctor (see 9) exemplified in case, for instance (7)
Case and instance are synonyms, although the two phrases “in case” and “for instance” are not, in my view, synonymous.
5  BOTHERS Worries British people apart from us (7)
B OTHERS.
9  ROGET Author who used commas a lot (5)
Dr Peter Roget was the author of the original work whose name is now itself a synonym for “thesaurus”.  From the crossers we had RIGHT originally: wrong!
10  LITERATIM Organised time trial for 14 (9)
*(TIME TRIAL).  It means “letter for letter”.
11  PRONOUNCED Very noticeable, it’s said (10)
Double definition.
12  VERB 14 describing action concealed by clever boy (4)
Hidden in “clever boy”.
14  WORD FOR WORD 6 or 21, or 16 (4,3,4)
Three definitions (by example, really).
18  EXPEDIENTLY Trimmed text with revised line typed in appropriate way (11)
(t)EX(t) *(LINE TYPED).
21  BOND Promise that’s repeated about James in agent’s introduction (4)
“The name is Bond, James Bond…”.  I would define it as more of an obligation than a promise.
22  SPERMACETI Waxy substance ruined unfinished masterpiece (10)
*MASTERPIEC(e).
25  THESAURUS He has put in sign that’s used to find another 14 (9)
HE’S in TAURUS.
26, 19  TO THE LETTER 10, from landlord’s point of view (2,3,6)
Cryptic definition.
27  MASTERS Daisy’s family members introduced by male teachers (7)
M ASTERS.  Arguably, “male” is doing double duty here as part of the wordplay and as part of the definition, but I don’t think it matters much.
28  TOREROS Fighters in ring charged for spectacle (7)
A very clever & lit clue cryptic definition, although there is no wordplay, just a misleading use of the word “charged”.  I spent a little time assuming that the ring = torus, which very nearly works.
Down
1  SCRIPT Secure input intermittently for text (6)
Alternate letters of SeCuRe InPuT.
2  NO GOOD Sign agreement importing stuff that’s sticky and worthless (2-4)
GOO in NOD.  I think that “sign” here indicates a gesture, not a signature.
3  NATIONWIDE I win on date arranged for cross-country? (10)
*(I WIN ON DATE).
4  MILAN Foreign city that’s lost nothing in translation (5)
In Italy, they call it MILANO.
5  BUTTERFAT Dairy product, say, fellow’s taken into club (9)
UTTER F in BAT.
6  TERM Evacuate the room for a certain period (4)
Outside letters of ThE RooM.
7  ENTREPOT Trading hub located in centre, potentially (8)
Hidden in “centre potentially”.
8  SOMEBODY Person of importance, or no one in particular (8)
Double definition.
13  GREY MATTER Anatomist speaking on less shiny part of head (4,6)
Homophone for Gray (the anatomist), MATTER (more matt, so less shiny).
15  RE-EXPORTS Stuff sent abroad again in middle of Brexit — breaking stories (2-7)
(br)EX(it) inside REPORTS.
16  VERBATIM Unusually brave little boy in story copied exactly (8)
*BRAVE, TIM.  I’m not sure which story Brendan is referring to here.  A Christmas Carol, perhaps?
17  OPENNESS One’s surprised, initially, about writer’s candour (8)
PEN in ONES S(urprised).
19   See 26
20  SINEWS What’s numbered 14 — 14 as source of strength (6)
Silicon has atomic number 14 and is also in column 14 in the periodic table.  I’m not sure if NEWS is a cross-reference back to answer 14 in this puzzle.
23  RESIT Take a break about one in second test (5)
I in REST.
24  NAME 14 with capital English worker raised (4)
E MAN (all rev). An underwriter at Lloyds is known as a name.

*anagram

47 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,932 by Brendan”

  1. Thanks Bridgesong, another great crossword from Brendan, though I still don’t understand where the commas come into 9 – I haven’t a copy of his work, is it simply how the synonyms are separated?
    In 1ac it’s just ‘case’ and ‘instance’ that are synonyms.

  2. A few comments on the nice blog, bridgesong:

    I took 1a to use “exemplified in” as a link, leaving “case for instance” (e.g. A for B) as an example of a synonym.

    In 37a, if you interpret teachers=masters (even though they are hypernym/hyponym) then M doesn’t have to do double duty.

    I don’t think 28a TOREROS is an &lit., since that would require two different readings to give the same answer. I’d call it a clever cryptic definition.

    I was a bit puzzled too by SINEWS. The best I could come up with at the time was the word = the news, but not terribly convinced.

    Thanks.

  3. Thanks bridgesong (and Brendan) – I was completely beaten by 20d, and even when the answers were finally revealed on the Guardian website I couldn’t parse it.  I think you’re correct: SI = Si = Silicon, atomic number 14; then NEWS = word (as in “the word on the street”), hence a reference to 14a “word for word”.

    Isn’t 28a a cryptic definition, though, not an &lit?  I stared at it for ages trying to find the wordplay, before deciding there wasn’t any.

     

  5. Yes, I parsed 20 as NEWS being a ‘word for “word”‘.
    In 24 I think the reference is also that NAME is a type of word (perhaps Brendan couldn’t fit in NOUN).

  7. Thanks to Brendon and bridgesong. I did not spot the MILAN-Milano connection and had trouble parsing SINEWS. I vaguely remember that the original version of Roget’s work did separate the synonyms with commas.

  8. I loved this puzzle about words, which for me are the stuff of life.

    I didn’t get SINEWS either, so thanks for the suggestions, everyone. SPERMACETI was U/F but gettable from the anagram and crossers.

    BOND, SOMEBODY, GREY MATTER and VERBATIM were my faves.

    A fine puzzle from Brendan and a helpful, thorough and very positive report on the solve by bridgesong and Timon. Gratitude to all three.

  9. [I just parsed NAME at 24d as English = E and worker = man reversed and ignored the “capital bit”, so thanks to bridgestone for that info regarding the Lloyds underwriter in 24d, another U/F word/concept for me. Does that make “with capital” part of the definition or part of the wordplay? Now I have confused even myself about how to parse it as I don’t see fully how it relates to 14a.]

  10. I did 24 like you JinA, but including the ‘with capital’ bit, ie: name is a word for for a word with a capital. It works, I think.

  11. My favourites were BOND, SYNONYM, MILAN, TO THE LETTER.

    New for me: SPERMACETI.

    I ended up with guesses @ 24d NAME and 20d SINEWS or BICEPS – but could not parse any of them.

    Thanks Brendan and bridgesong.

  12. Yep great puzzle, but I’d put it aside last Saturday without a solution for 20d then forgotten all about it until coming here, so a dnf, damn! Parsed 27a as per Dr. Wh, m[ale] + asters being simply teachers. My Latin amounts to almost zilch, Dulce et…, Quo Vadis, and the like, so clues like 10a are always a punt. Couldn’t quite get 14ac to click, and have an ‘f’ in my margin with an insertion arrow to make it read ‘term FOR bond, or verbatim’. All good fun though, thanks B and B.

  13. 20d was my last one in, a couple of days after finishing the rest, and I failed to parse it.  Was thinking along the lines of SI units, forgetting totally about the periodic table.   Chemistry  was never my strong point.

  14. Thanks Brendan and bridgesong

    Generally fun, but I thought the cryptic definitions at 28 and, especially, 9 were weak. Why didn’t he reference 25 in the latter? Too easy?

  15. Another who failed to get SINEWS. I take it “news” = “word” as in “What’s the word from …”

     

    Thanks Brendan and Bridgesong

  16. An enjoyable puzzle – until I got to the last few clues!  Guessed SINEWS and SYNONYM but failed to parse them properly.

    Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.

  17. Most enjoyable, intertwined puzzle, and a theme dear to everyone’s hearts, but I did end up with quite a few not satisfactorily parsed – and SINEWS, which I’d decided must be right, but only because Chambers actually defines it as “(a source of) strength…”. I felt that was good enough for me, but I had absolutely no idea why. And I still think the tearing, charging, matador clue was a bit odd. I just took my copy of Roget (a 1972) edition off the shelves, and it does indeed have a lot of commas, which I remembered. It also has a lot of semicolons, which I’d forgotten. Quibbles aside, great work from Brendan, and thanks for the blog, bridgesong.

  19. Same as other contributors for me – an enjoyable puzzle but I failed on SINEWS which like grantinfreo I realised I hadn’t solved when I came here – and I’m not surprised I didn’t get it. Well done to those who did. I also didn’t notice the other parsing queries so remained blissfully ignorant :-).
    Thanks to Brendan and Bridgesong.

  20. Very underwhelmed by 9ac – more a statement than a clue I thought, or perhaps a clue more suited to a straightforward xword than a cryptic. Did enjoy 28ac, though it was a new word to me. And, like so many, I put sinews in at 20 but still have no idea why, apart from the silicon reference.

  21. Toreadors came to mind for 28 so I was on the right track but I didn’t see the relevance of charged. Not sure I’ve ever seen toreros used.

  22. PS – and the Source of Strength. I did have Rivets as my other option but couldn’t see how that would work at all. So Sinews it waz.

  24. Muffin@23 – yes, I thought of biceps – having written .i.n.s and every letter from A to Z in front of it. But somehow it was BICEPS that led me to SINEWS, and Chambers clinched it.

  25. muffin @23

    I had guessed either SINEWS or BICEPS but could not parse either of them. Finally, I opted for SINEWS but did not know why.

  26. Regarding WORD = NEWS, think of ‘spread the word ‘ or ‘the word on the street ‘, nowadays extended to ‘word on the wire’ for online news.
    Regarding NAME, I don’t think this is anything to do with Lloyd’s. A name is spelt with an initial capital letter, so NAME is an example of a word for a word with a capital.
    A good puzzle, taking till Sunday evening to complete. Thanks to Brendan, Bridgesong and all.

  27. Thanks Brendan and Bridgesong.

    I, too, had BICEPS pencilled in for 20d with no idea why (except plausibly as a source of strength).

     

  31. 28a On this rare occasion I disagree with Muffin. Having given up trying to fit in TORUS which I rembered as having something to do with CERN and therefore physics and the possibility of it being charged, From the T, R, R I put in TOREROS from “fighters in ring”, a not very c cd with the rest of the wordplay just padding. Once I had eventually got past “charged” as in batteries or fees and connected it with what bulls do to toreros I thought it a very good clue. Later research shows that even a doughnut is a torus, and only charged with calories.
    20d I too put in SINEWS from the definition and might just as well have put in BICEPS if I had thought of it. Anything to do with atomic numbers or all but a very few abbreviations of elements is, unfortunately, outside my GK.
    Thanks to Brendan and bridgesong.

  33. trenodia@32 – perhaps, but more likely, I think, as bridgesong suggests, A Christmas Carol, where a central character is Tiny Tim, ie a little boy.
    By the way, thanks , bridgesong@28 and WhiteKing@29, for your agreement.

  34. sjshart@33. I am sure you are right but the Ardizzone title is an exact fit and it brought back such happy memories of an excellent all-round artist I could not hold myself back.

  35. Pino @31

    On reflection, the misdirection in TOREROS makes it a better clue than I gave it credit for.

    ROGET, on the other hand, is just feeble!

  37. This one seemed v easy at first, whipped through almost everything. Then fell short on SINEWS (did not get, not sure I would have judging from comments here), TOREROS (okay, the £0.01 finally drops — clever). and NAME (which I saw but couldn’t parse ) Going by the comments here, it looks the the ‘word for word’ theme was stretched a wee bit too far in SINEWS and NAME.

    V enjoyable challenge though for which much thanks to Brendan, and to bridgesong for explaining it so well. And to all the learned contributors on here.

  38. I too could not think which of SINEWS, BICEPS and RIVETS could fit the parsing, so thanks to Bridgesong for pointing out Silicon’s atomic number and those here reminding that ‘word’ can be news (“any word of X yet?” seems the simplest example).

    I think ‘teachers’ encompasses MASTERS, so there is no double duty.

    I thought 28a, TOREROS was a clever cd, but 9a not so much so, unless there’s more to it than has been revealed here.

  40. Muffin@39

    Although without the WORD FOR WORD context of the whole puzzle it couldn’t really stand as a straight def, could it? So maybe that’s the equivalent of having some wordplay with what seems to be a straightforward, if slightly vagye, definition?

  42. 35a Muffin
    I do agree about 9a. Slightly improved by the fact that Roget was a physician, as indicated by bridgesong, but still weak

  45. Like others I had trouble with 20 down- guessed but did not parse. I think the dash was unhelpful as it could have been a minus sign between two numbers.

  46. bridgesong@44, ah yes, right!  I wondered what that was about at the time, but SYNONYM seemed obviously to be what I was looking for and I forgot about it. Thanks.

Comments are closed.