Guardian 27,937 – Picaroon

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A clever construction with the usual excellent clueing by Picaroon today.

As the easy 1d soon revealed, all the answers (except 1d itself, and a dubious 22d) are loan words from various European languages. Very nice – thanks to Picaroon.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
8. QUISLING Traitor in Paris who has basic weapon (8)
QUI (French “who”) + SLING (primitive weapon). Vidkun Quisling was a puppet leader of Norway under Nazi occupation, and the name is used generally for a traitor
9. AUREI Not all in bureau re-invested coins (5)
Hidden in bureAU REInvested – Roman coins, so a Latin word
10. LOCO Can containing one hundred bananas (4)
C (100) in LOO (toilet, can) – Spanish word for “mad” – “bananas”
11. OSTPOLITIK Sixties’ approach of westerners in pool: sit with kit off (10)
(POOL SIT KIT)* – German word describing the West’s approach to Eastern Europe from the 1960s
12. SEMTEX Met radical in Congress, which is explosive (6)
MET* in SEX (congress) – plastic explosive developed in Czechoslovakia
14. TAILLEUR Follow fashion rule in women’s clothing (8)
TAIL (follow) + RULE* (“fashion” indicating the anagram) – French
15. INTER SE Italian footballers spoke vacuously amongst themselves (5,2)
INTER (Inter Milan, football team) + S[pok]E – Latin for “amongst themselves”
17. BANSHEE Plague overtakes woman, one likely to wail (7)
SHE in BANE – female spirit whose wail heralds a death in Irish mythology
20. AMBIANCE West African church lacks good atmosphere (8)
[G]AMBIAN + CE – French word, usually written “ambience” in English
22. IN SITU Appropriately placed university not very funny (2,4)
Anagram of UNIVERSITY less VERY – Latin for “in place”
23. WUNDERKIND Very successful young person with sub-species? (10)
W (ith) + UNDER (sub) + KIND (species) – German word for a child prodigy
24. BOER Settler right behind City institution (4)
BOE (Bank Of England) + R. Dutch for a farmer, used to describe settlers in South Africa
25. SAUNA A Spanish female with appeal? This’ll get hot (5)
SA (Sex Appeal) + UNA (Spanish feminine “one”). Sauna (word and thing) is originally Finnish
26. ANGSTROM Fear Gypsies dropping back a short distance (8)
ANGST (fear) + ROM[A] – the Angstrom (one-tenth of a nanometer) is named after the Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström
Down
1. EUROPEAN Like the origin of all solutions here, maybe a pure one (8)
(A PURE ONE)* – the key to the theme. Not completely accurate, as this word is not particularly “foreign”
2. OSLO Endless protest in capital (4)
GO SLOW with its “ends” removed – Norwegian capital
3. BIJOUX Sexually fluid reporter not half cross to get trinkets (6)
BI[-sexual] + (I presume) half of JOUrno + X (cross) – French for jewels
4. AGITATO Player’s instruction is a grunt, rubbish on ball (7)
A + GI (soldier, grunt) + TAT (rubbish) + O – Italian “agitated”, used as an instruction in music
5. MAJOLICA Officer, almost 51, about to provide pottery (8)
MAJO[r] + LI (51) + CA (circa, about). Type of pottery, from Italian, originally spelt Maiolica (old name of Majorca)
6. BRAILLISTS French writing experts start from bad track records (10)
B[ad] + [T]RAIL [L]ISTS – experts in the writing system for the blind named after the Frenchman Louis Braille
7. MILIEU Note fake news for all to see in context (6)
MI (note, as in do-re-m) + LIE (fake news) + U (film classification) – another French word
13. THE TIN DRUM Film screened by Lean, director with odd post-war story (3,3,4)
ET (film) in THIN (lean) + D[irector] + RUM (odd). Novel (originally Die Blechtrommel) by the German writer Günter Grass, set in the early 1950s
16. SANGRIAS Performed musical works without opening drinks (8)
SANG [A]RIAS – Spanish drinks
18. ENTRESOL Lose rent rebuilding mezzanine (8)
(LOSE RENT)* – French again
19. OEDIPAL Kind of complex reference work, one on China (7)
OED (Oxford English Dictionary) + I + PAL (china – rhyming slang: china plate = mate). From Greek myth
21. MOUSSE Sweet pout, maintaining smiles on the outside (6)
S[mile]S in MOUE (pout) – more French
22. INDIGO Enjoying popularity, like old colour (6)
IN (fashionable, enjoyong popularity) + DIG (to like) + O. Originally used in English as “indico”, from Spanish, but it has been naturalised a long time, so a bit of a borderline case for the theme, I think
24. BETA Character‘s whisker, as some say? (4)
Homophone of “beater” (one who beats or whisks) – second letter of the Greek alpohabet

49 comments on “Guardian 27,937 – Picaroon”

  1. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

    I got EUROPEAN from the anagram fairly early on, and thought “I’ll come back to the significance of that later”, but forgot to look again.  I was going to comment on the number of solutions I was unfamiliar with – this is now explained!

    DNF for me, as I had BYTE at 24d – a byte is the number of bits needed to define a character in computing, and “I’ll have a bite” = “I’ll have a whisker” was close enough for me.

  2. Ouch – this was very hard and seemed to take me an inordinately long time. I admit that I cheated AGITATO at 4d and MAJOLICA at  5d, so I was very unhappy with myself.

    However I was thrilled with the clues for 8a QUISLING, 10a LOCO (my LOI), 12a SEMTEX (my FOI), 20d AMBIANCE, 19a OEDIPAL and 21d MOUSSE. I had to check the U/F 26a ANGSTROM which I guessed from the ANGST part. Somewhat delayed by an unparsed SALSA at 25a, but when I recalled “THE TIN DRUM” (only partially parsed and deduced from the crossers) at 13d from somewhere in the dark recesses of memory, I had to have a rethink. I also started with SETA at 24d until I finally twigged to 24a BOER. [muffin@1, I thought “BYTE” was quite a clever alternative.]

    I enjoyed the EUROPEAN words in the solution which formed an unusual kind of thread rather than a “pure” theme per se. Thanks for the tough challenge, Picaroon (a win to you!), and to Andrew for a very helpful blog.

  3. Nice steady chewy number from the pirate today and yes wondered about indigo, and also whether the Irish banshee was really a member of the EU. Had Eh? next to in situ, having totally missed the subtractive, d’oh. Took a minute or three to remember GI for grunt instead of looking for a music term with ugh or argh in, like a shorter larghetto. Majolica came easily as it was a Mrs ginf favourite, and entresol was an educated guess. Aurei was a nho but do what it says, now to go alongside dinari, talent, etc., tho I’ll no doubt forget. Very enjoyable, thanks Pickers and Andrew.

  4. What a fantastic puzzle! I was very pleased to finish, and could parse everything except (oddly) GO SLOW. I didn’t get EUROPEAN till about halfway through, which slowed things up. Loved WUNDERKIND, AGITATO, IN SITU, AMBIANCE and BANSHEE in particular. Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

  8. Interesting that the keyword not only is, as Andrew says, not completely accurate but (entirely forgivably) also not really definitive enough, since if you go back to Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman times, 99% of the language is European. It did help, though, when the wordplay was heading in unfamiliar or unusual territory.

    Thanks.

  9. 1dn is “not particularly ‘foreign’”, but is certainly ‘EUROPEAN’. Good that this was an easy solve and very helpful because I hadn’t made much headway until this point.

  10. Grand challenge. Hard work but really worth the effort. Thanks once again to Picaroon, whose puzzles are a consistent delight.

  11. Thanks, Andrew, for sorting out the parsing of 22. I vaguelly suspected it might be IN SITuation, University which isn’t very funny, but the real parsing is excellent.

    PS there’s a minor bug in the explanation of 6D. B + RAIL = track rather than TRAIL.

  12. I loved this puzzle and was greatly assisted once I picked up on the theme.

    My favourites were THE TIN DRUM, IN SITU, BETA, OSLO, QUISLING, OEDIPAL (loi).

    Thank you Picaroon and Andrew.

    I saw some typos in the blog:

    14a should be

    TAIL (follow) + anagram (fashion) of RULE – French

    6d should be

    B[ad] + RAIL LISTS

    13d should be

    ET (film) in THIN (lean)

    and yes, I parsed 3d as BI[-sexual] + half of JOUrno + X (cross)

  13. Is BETA generally pronounced in the UK with the first syllable as in “bee” the insect? Here in the US I’ve only ever heard the first syllable as “bay.”

  15. Hadn’t heard of a number of these but all impeccably clued so gettable with the telegraphed theme – surely the sign of a great crossword. I thought ANGSTROM was a 1970s Swedish midfielder – the two tribes again! Thanks to both.

  17. Thanks, Eileen! I’m used to having to think non-rhotically when figuring out homonyms, but when the main vowel changes it’s really tricky!

  18. I had a feeling I’d be in the minority with this one – I found it hard and not very enjoyable with the clues feeling very bitty to me. I had lots where I thought “I wonder if that’s where it’s going – I’ll check that bit before I spend any more time down the wrong rabbit hole”. I also dnf with BOER and BETA eluding me and SAUNA unparsed. Good to see that everyone else appreciated the puzzle as it helps me see it in a different light – and there were several clues I did like with OSTPOLITIK standing out for me.
    Thanks to Picaroon, Andrew and other contributors for countering my grumpiness.

  20. I really enjoyed this too, though strictly speaking I was a DNF, as I had ‘ambience’ on the grounds that Gambian in French is gambien.

  21. Many thanks to Picaroon for a terrific puzzle, and to Andrew for the blog.

    Beta – hmm: when I learned the ancient Greek alphabet, the first syllable always rhymed with ‘bay’, likewise eta, theta, zeta.

    But now we have ‘bee-ta’-blockers …

  23. Gosh I found this very tough indeed, but very satisfying when I got there. For a long time I did not think I would get there, and last one was TheTin Drum. I was not helped by having a not particularly well parsed salsa at 25. Having said that there was a lot of dictionary checking because a number of the words were unfamiliar. I did like quisling and the neat loco. Thanks to Picaroon for the challenge and vocabulary enhancement and Andrew for the blog.

  24. judygs @21 I learned most of the Greek alphabet through maths from the late seventies onwards, with Beta being one of the more common ones. It was always bee-ta when spoken, but then probably very few mathematicians have a background in classics.

  25. Loved this, for the surfaces and the solutions. THE TIN DRUM was clever, with the director Lean. OEDIPAL was  a hoot.  Did anyone else try for an anagram of AGRUNTO …. and fail?  A-GI-TAT-O. Brilliant! And what about the sexy 13a? My FOI. Wasn’t there a Congress a day or so ago?

  26. howard @24 Yes, of course, I recognise that. I just think both pronunciations are acceptable – as with ‘omega’ 🙂

     

  27. Thanks both,
    Needed a word search in oed for 6,14 and 17. I hadn’t thought of tailleur as naturalised into English. ‘Omega’ can go at least three ways – omayga omeega and omiga (with the stress on the first syllable).

  28. I agree with KLColin that 1d is definitely European, but I always thought that 24a was Afrikaans, rather than Dutch, which (just maybe) would put its 1d-ness in question (yes, Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, but is it European?).

    A joy to solve, with the unfamiliar words (5d, 6d, 14a) relatively easy to get from the definitions.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.2

  29. For INDIGO, The Oxford English dictionary has “mid 16th century: from Portuguese índigo, via Latin from Greek indikon, from indikos ‘Indian (dye)’” so I think Portuguese was intended by Picaroon. I enjoyed this very intricate bit of compiling, but couldn’t see THE TIN DRUM, so thank you Andrew for explaining that.

  30. Thank you Picaroon for the linguistic challenge and and Andrew for the helpful blog.

    Bear of little brain @28, boer is Dutch for farmer.

  32. This was a DNF for me, as I had to cheat on the homophone at BETA.  As others have said above, Americans simply never pronounce that word even remotely like “beater.”  So it goes in the Too British For Me bin, and I can’t feel too bad about not finishing.  (It’s always amusing to me that the British tend to butcher the pronunciation of foreign loan words much worse than we do.  Sorry, but you know it’s true. 🙂 )

    The upper right was a bit of a challenge, with OSTPOLITIK, TAILLEUR, and MAJOLICA all being new words for me.  But I got there. And I’m another who tried, longer than I should have, to anagram (“rubbish”) A GRUNT + O at AGITATO.

     

  33. Too tough for me, so more admired than enjoyed, though I had several satisfying moments when I was able to piece together an unfamiliar word from the wordplay.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

  35. Oh, on the pronunciation of loan words thing:  Based on end-rhyme, we know that Coleridge thought Kubla Khan rhymed with “ran” and “man,” and that Byron thought Juan (in his “Don Juan”) rhymed with “new one.”

  36. Oleg @31 It’s all Greek to me.

    Very tough, because I didn’t get 1d very early. For some time I had Brailleurs fixed in mind, until banshee dropped. Never heard of the tin drum movie…and dnk quite a few.

    Thanks to all.

  38. This was sheer joy but sadly for me a DNF because I just could not pick-out BANSHEE or OSTPOLITIK. I marvel at Picaroon’s ingenuity in filling the grid with all of the loan words and I’m not sure that the comments here have praised this aspect enough.  Favourites were THE TIM DRUM, for reminding me of that great novel which I read with glee so long ago, QUISLING and the brilliant WUNDERKIND.  Thank you Picaroon and Andrew for the, as ever, insightful blog.  Someone mentioned Yesterday that we were having a great crossword week:  this is/was the icing on the cake IMHO!!

  39. [Off topic, I know, but was there something missing from Wednesday’s “medium” Sudoku? We complete the Sudoku nearly every day (including this week’s “Hard” ones), but after two and a half days we have only managed to add 6 numbers to this grid!]

  41. Hadn’t realised that 1 Down was a relatively easy solve and indicator of what was to come.  This took some time to break into therefore.  Much to admire, but my rudimentary knowledge of French wasn’t enough to cope with it all.  A DNF therefore.

  42. howard@24 This mathematician has a background in Classics, as I took Latin at grammar school in my first year; and Greek in my second, persuaded by my headmaster, as I did so well at Latin – which really was no more than memorising declensions and conjugations in the first year. My interest in both declined thereafter.

    I was pleased to see Picaroon used “as some say” in the near homophone for (British) BETA – I have railed against others for not using such a construct in the past.

    WhiteKing@2 – I am a member of your minority. I had to use “Crossword Solver” to reveal such answers as OSTPOLITIK and TAILLEUR; I gave up on the last few as I had lost interest.

     

    Thanks Andrew and Picaroon

     

  43. Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

    A real challenge designed to separate the sheep from the goats. [Baaa…]  I’m (as often it seems) with DaveinNCarolina@33 – life is too short, but much to admire and I got a little gluteal frisson from MOUSSE.  Anyway hats off to Picaroon and to those who struggled through.  I’ve found it a clunky week.

  45. As I was plodding through this (and being from the US…), I was getting a little peeved. I started thinking, “WTH, was there some kind of sale on foreign words for today??”… Then, *after* getting about 2/3 of the puzzle done, I got 1D.

    Then I laughed! 🙂 🙂 🙂

  46. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

    Oleg @ 31: OEDIPAL doesn’t need to be a European word. As per 1D, “the origin of all solutions here”: the root is European, the solution may be a development thereof.

  48. This was tough I thought. Very clever but tough with too many obscure words for me to persist with. I enjoyed those I did get relatively easily. It was fairly clued and a very clever grid fill but not really my tasse de thé.

    Thanks anyway for the challenge, well done all those who did enjoy it and saw it through and finally cheers to Andrew for the expert parsing and blog.

  49. I’m sure BOE is a legitimate abbreviation, but not one I’ve ever met. TAILLEUR in this meaning is a new one to me as is BRAILLISTS. Enjoyably defeated by a brilliant crossword.

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