Financial Times 16,335 by MONK

31 comments on “Financial Times 16,335 by MONK”

1. Another good Monk puzzle – I did notice the double letters down the middle

   Thanks to him and PeeDee

2. Very nice. I assume your intro refers to the fact that every row and column containing two solutions has the last letter of the first match the first letter of the second. Spotting this helped me get NEOLITHS, my LOI.

   25a is missing full explanation. (H)ABIT + CUM< + H. CUM meaning “associated with”.

   In 4d, HAG should be HANG and in 17d ELL should be EEL.

   Thanks to Monk and PeeDee.

3. The expected good challenge from Monk. I had to half-guess ROUSER and ROSIE LEE and couldn’t parse some others such as BUREAU.

   I liked the “mirrored” unches – TSETSE, CANCAN, MURMUR and BYE BYE in the middle of the grid. I don’t know if these words have any significance to the rest of the puzzle.

   Favourite clue was the “spay sage” for ‘Doctor Solomon’.

   Thanks to Monk and PeeDee

4. Missed that aspect of the nina. Thanks WordPlodder.

5. Thanks Monk, PeeDee

   I was grinding to a halt when I saw the words in the middle.

   I didn’t write in STERNE.  I don’t buy ‘something that has the bow before’.  If anyone can put it in a convincing way I’d be grateful, and surprised.

   Liked TOFFEE, EVERYONE, SPACE AGE

6. James @5. I had the same problem with STERNE. Forgot to mention it. Clue doesn’t work for me.

7. Monk’s puzzles are rare in the FT but top-notch, thanks to him. COD YESMEN.

8. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

   If you look forward from the stern, you have the bow before you. Works for me.

9. …and if you look backwards it’s behind you. Don’t get your point.

10. Hi Hovis, I have seen “bow before” used for STERN before.

    It isn’t great in my opinion, but it seems to me that one has to be deliberately obtuse not to see how it works.  In cars the front seats go before (in front of) the back seats, in aeroplanes the nose goes before the tail, in boats the bow goes before the stern.

    What you see if you look forwards (in the normal orientation when speaking of crafts) from the stern is the bow, what you see if you look backwards from the stern is the sea.

    It maybe not stand up in a court of law, but it’s hardly impenetrable.

11. I don’t see how it works.  I do understand the bow is front of the stern.  I knew that already, and I knew that before can mean in front.  I don’t understand how ‘bow before’ can mean ‘something the bow is in front of’.

     

12. James @ 11

    Pearls before swine?

13. Ok but still don’t like it. By that reasoning, the bow comes before every part of the boat/ship not just the stern. I never expect to like all the clues (or even necessarily understand them) so no real complaints.

14. James @11 –

    To see how bow before gives STERN one has to mentally add in a few extra words: something with the bow before it

    I would certainly agree with anyone who said that this “bow before” construction doesn’t come naturally, and that is the just the reason that I don’t especially like it (at least not in daily puzzles, in advanced puzzles the gloves are off).

    Another example of this sort of thing is 12 across “revolutionary guards” meaning “guarded by a revolutionary”.  One would not hear someone use the phrase that way in natural speech, it only really exists in archaic sayings and cryptic crosswords.  It probably isn’t a coincidence that Simon’s example @12 is from the Bible.

    However, contorted use of language is a long established feature of cryptic puzzles and even if these constructions have only a niche usage in “real” English they are alive and kicking in cryptic puzzles.

    Just so there is no misunderstanding, I’m not suggesting here the clue is wrong or that it should be different.  Just that for me in daily puzzles the clues that achieve a great PDM with natural English are the cream of the crop.  Those that achieve the same with with contorted English are also enjoyable, but not on the same level.  A setter would be superhuman if every single clue he or she produces could be read naturally in both the cryptic and surface readings yet still be devious and have a great PDM.

15. I had trouble with this one – stuck with PO+URE+R for3 down. Could not fit it to the def. of course!

16. Frankly, trying to pretend BOW BEFORE can be sensibly interpreted as STERN is fanciful and smacks of a desperation not to criticise an excellent and highly experienced setter.

17. Hi Mark, so how do you explain the clue?

    If you have a better way then I would be very grateful if you would let me know.

    I am not being facetious here: this is a genuine request. I can use the explanation next time I see this device crop up.

18. Thanks to PeeDee and Monk

    I couldn’t parse 10a either.

    I had two thoughts while solving, neither of which I found convincing (so much so that I wasn’t sure until today that the answer was “sterne”)

    1. “Before” indicated an old usage from when “bow” might have applied to either end of a boat with one being the stem bow and one the stern bow.

    2. That there is a nautical term in which “bow before” might be replaced by “stern” – perhaps in relating to wind direction. A ship travelling with the wind directly to the “stern” is said to be going “before the wind”, but I can find no instance of “bow” being used in this context.

    I would be surprised if Monk would clue “stern” simply by indicating that the bow is before it.

19. Oh dear, Dansar was my last hope for a sensible explanation.

    PeeDee, I think the reason this is rumbling on is that we are at cross purposes.  I am not looking for elucidation of your parsing of the clue.  I understood that when I read the blog.  Given that nobody has come up with a better explanation, I’m sure your explanation is the right one, even though I agree with Dansar’s last sentence.  You have to explain the clue for the blog’s readers, so that’s fair enough.  What I am arguing against are the attempts to justify your explanation.  Crossword English may be occasionally contorted but it’s still English.  I say ‘bow before’ as an indication for ‘stern’ does not work, in crossword or natural English.  I don’t like being asked to believe that it does.

    I don’t agree that revolutionary guards is comparable.  In that clue, we have subject, object, verb; in an unusual order, but all present and correct.  ‘The ball the batsman hits’ is in the same order.  ‘The ball rising the batsman pirouetting hits’ has the same added complications as the clue, and makes sense.

    The only similar device I can think of is ‘ …in France’, for example, as a clue for a French place name.   This is less common than it used to be, but some, eg Chifonie in the Guardian, still use it.  But it’s much disliked, because it goes against the general rule that there should be some sort of grammatical equivalence between what’s in the clue and what’s in the solution.  By that rule, it doesn’t work.

20. Hi James, sorry if I came across as patronising, I generally work on the assumption that people ask questions for help, unless told otherwise.  You obviously know how to solve a cryptic already!

    In general I’m not a big believer in a clue being universally justifiable or unjustifiable.  For me there is a sliding scale that ranges from the vary safe, that nobody would question to the very tenuous that almost nobody would consider OK.  Every setter/editor/solver has has their own take on what matters for them.  For me this varies from day to day, depending in the setter, publication and the overall style of that particular puzzle.  For me bow before does get the benefit of the doubt in this instance but only just! I don’t suggest this is  the “correct” way to think, or that anyone else has to have the same feeling.

    I don’t feel any real disagreement with most people, just a different personal feeling on what counts as a showstopper and what doesn’t.   I think of “correct” grammar (both language and crossword varieties) as a somewhat arbitrary set of rules anyway, arising through historical accident and the personal opinions of those who write books on the subject.  There is a limit to how upset I can feel if a setter chooses not to follow them all, why should they?

    When blogging I try and go with the setter’s standpoint: if they think something is OK to go in their crossword then I try and explain it from their standpoint as best as I can.  It is their puzzle not mine.

    Having said all that, there are those who believe cryptic crosswords do have an absolute set of rules: what can and what cannot be justified is not something that one can simply decide for oneself.  I think this is where the real disagreements lie: one can’t both think of two views being acceptable and also believe that there is only one correct view possible.  There is no way to get around this one.

    Sorry to ramble on so much, sometimes I just can’t stop myself.

21. Thanks, I didn’t feel at all patronised, just realised we weren’t going to meet in the middle and thought I’d better say so.  I’m a little embarrassed for having used the word elucidation.

22. Hi PeeDee

    I assume you mean me.

    The clue doesn’t work pure and simple. I do a lot of test solving and lots of clues don’t work for various reasons. Occasionally they make it to publication, probably because people assume they are missing something and are too embarrassed to question the setter.

23. Hi Mark, I do some test solving too.  It is certainly possible that this is some early draft or copy error that has has slipped by unnoticed into production.

    It is also possible that Monk really does think this clue is OK for one of his puzzles.

    My view as a blogger is that the criteria for what can be published in a Monk puzzle are determined by Monk and his editor, not by me or anyone else.  My interpretation of the clue is based on the assumption that that in this puzzle Monk sets the rules and if he says this sort of device is allowable then that’s how it is here.  That is the justification for my explanation.  Whether I think it works personally isn’t really that relevant.

    In my early days as a blogger I used to question the clues frequently.  This certainly resulted in embarrassment, but the egg usually ended up on my face.  Older and wiser I now write blogs on the assumption that the puzzle does not contain errors until until the setter or editor tells me so.  Until then I only have a failure to explain things to everyone’s satisfaction.

    Of course I may have got the interpretation wrong, and if someone comes up with a better one then I would be very happy to ditch mine and use theirs.  And if Monk feels inclined to drop in and tell us what his real intention was for the clue that would be great too, but there isn’t any obligation on him to do so.

24. Isaac Stern perhaps?

25. I’ll elaborate:

    If one allows “bow” as a metonym for “violinist” then Isaac Stern is close to the top of a list of possible candidates.

    I assume this interpretation of “bow” is supported in Chambers – if not, it should be.

    Only Monk really knows, but it will stop we wondering until I hear otherwise.

26. Nice idea, though if Stern is close to the top of the list, it’s only because there are almost no violinists with sensible crossword names.  I have looked into this previously.  Mutter, Bell & Little were the only others I found.

27. I think in crosswords it’s “fair” to refer to a person by their occupation if they are famous enough. We see it often with painters,composers, and footballers for instance. It’s difficult to define how famous is famous enough, but perhaps a reasonable test is – “Do they get their own entry in Collins”.

    Stern passes this test, as does Mutter and Bell (Tasmin Little is not quite there yet).

    In the course of confirming these entries I noticed that Alan Shearer has an entry whereas Geoff Hurst doesn’t.

    Odd.

28. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

    Wasn’t feeling well when I started this one and made hard work of it at the start.  Unfortunately as I improved, am afraid I kept having to grind through this one and with the tenuous STERNE entered with a ‘it can’t really mean that’ as my third last in and SPACE AGE (which was biffed in and remained unparsed until coming here) as my last one in, there was a feeling of relief rather than enjoyment.  ROUSER was another worked out from a great wordplay, but had to struggle to find the link back to ‘astonishing’

    Maybe more a case of “It’s not you, it’s me !” …

    Missed the clever dual words around centre bits, which was a shame.  I usually really enjoy puzzles by this setter and maybe I’ll make sure that I’m on top of my game next time.

29. I could not finish this puzzle, but i did get Sterne and I like the STERN + E parsing.

    I was fascinated by the above cryptic-erudite exchange!

    As for cryptic clues, I liked 26a particularly

30. Very late to this, but (12a) I am unconvinced as to “lire” as the plural or “lira”. Chambers does not have this and Wikipedia claims there is no plural.

    On the other hand parsed 10a by accident forgetting the bow was not the stern.

31. Hi Alex, Chambers 13th Edition (paper) and the Chambers Android app both give the plural of lira as lire or liras.  

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