Guardian Prize 28,237 by Paul

69 comments on “Guardian Prize 28,237 by Paul”

1. Thanks PeeDee. There was much to admire here as we have come to expect of Paul and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge but in this forum I don’t think minor reservations are out of order. In 2a I am old fashioned enough to think that ants are insects rather than animals though I’m sure evidence will be produced to the contrary. I’m not sure either about IMPLIED in 20d, it sent me on a wild goose chase which maybe was the intention but would not simply SAID have served the purpose? I queried the use of SEE last week and don’t think we reached a consensus but my on line version of Chambers does not give it as the third letter of the alphabet. Nor does the OED though it does ascribe that definition to CEE.

2. Thanks peedee, really enjoyed this one. Favourite clues were probably what’s up and crane, but plenty fun throughout.

3. An easier Prize (note: ‘easier’ is a comparative – I didn’t say easy), which I managed to complete by Sunday evening. I found this more accessible than last week’s. There were a few that I suspected long before I had the confidence to enter them. PEPSI COLA only went in when I linked Anglican to EPISCOPAL, and worked out that they were anagrams. And I had MELON in mind on first pass, but waited until all the crossers made it certain, since I couldn’t parse it. Indeed, it is only now, when I have finished, that I have thought to look if a Mush Melon is a thing – and it turns out it is. Favourites include NONPLUS (really good pdm there), ANTITOXIN, ENGLISH GARDEN and B SPOCK. I have never heard of KISSIMMEE – and I thought my American geography wasn’t too bad. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.

4. Biggles A @1. I think you would find that insects are in the kingdom Animalia.

5. Several witty clues as usual from Paul, including my foi MELON, NONPLUS, and the typically Pauline GLUTEUS MAXIMUS. Also typical of Paul, there were a few convoluted constructions, such as MILLINERY, which took me forever to untangle and was my loi. I thought KISSIMMEE would be tough for UK solvers, but then SALOP was tough for me, so perhaps we’re even. My sole quiblet was with CRANE, where the intent of the clue was clear, but I don’t think the construction quite works. (“X with Y could be Z” points to X as the answer, but “X with Y in Z” seems to point to Z.) As I said, a mere quiblet, as the answer couldn’t have been Ukraine. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.

6. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee. Too tough for me. Finally, I did get CALLIGRAPHIST and that helped with related down items, but I did not get MILLINERY, struggled with CHIANG MAI, and took forever to figure out CRANE Ukraine.

7. Not too bad for a “Prize”.

   Kissimmee is right next to Walt Disney World, so if you’ve been to the latter you might well have been to or through the former, thinking you were in Orlando.

   Isn’t there a bit of a logical glitch with NONPLUS?  If the cryptic meaning of PLUS is positive, then NON-PLUS is negative or zero.

   Finally, I’m a bit puzzled by PeeDee’s comments on RADICES.  I view Chambers (the tree-book) as the dictionary-of-last-resort.  A large number of online dictionaries, including online Chambers, give radices as the plural of radix (think index-indices), which in turn means root.  No mention of obsolete.

8. Dr. W, the mathematical pedant in me echos your reservations about NONPLUS, but the clue is too good for me to complain about it.

9. As Biggles A (@1) said, “there was much to admire here as we have come to expect of Paul and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.”

   There was an abundance of good clever and witty clues, the only ones I was less fond of being BENJAMIN SPOCK, CRANE and WHAT’S UP.

   Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.

10. A dnf, as I forgot that I’d left it last weekend with 7dn still to get. It’s probably in one of Mrs ginf’s historical series (eg the Follett cathedral one), but if so I’ve forgotten. While on archaicisms, radice as root is familiar from the Italian, but don’t think I’ve seen it in English before. Took ages to remember Spock after entering Benjamin from the crossers, even though his book used to be a household standard, laughed out loud when the ‘s pock bit dawned. Knew cheek would be something bottomy, like loos yesterday, so that helped. Gill, and knocking back, remind me of The Barley Mow, first heard in ‘t Bothey Folk Club, upstairs in a pub in Preston when I were nowt but a lad. Sigh. Nice one Paul, ta for the reminiscences, and hi to PeeDee, feels like it’s been a while (although that could just be aging brain syndrome 🙂 ).

11. I was a big fan of this one. Hard, but not too frustrating and perseverance had its rewards. Still, I ended up being a DNF, with a guessed ‘radocks’ for the unknown RADICES.

    Favourite was my LOI BENJAMIN SPOCK – maybe because I’m one of his products!

    Thanks to Paul and PeeDee

12. Thanks PeeDee. 1A went straight in and the Shakespearian quote too and with 11 and 12A so typically Paul I thought I was on a roll. It got heavier and stickier and then there were three – the subzero puzzle, SNORKEL and the unheard-of Florida town which I guessed as ‘Kissiamme’ and so it was a technical dnf. Good fun though.

13. WhatsOn @7’s gripe about NONPLUS reminds me of Charles Babbage’s letter to Tennyson upon reading the lines “Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.”

    Babbage wrote:

    ” … If this were true,” he went on, “the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death. I would suggest [that the next edition of your poem should read]:

    Every moment dies a man,
    Every moment 1 1/16 is born.

    “Strictly speaking,” Babbage added, “the actual figure is so long I cannot get it into a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.” 🙂

14. Often not a Paul fan, usually struggling (and w/o much fun), but this was much lighter on Britishisms than many of his so I (here in CA) stood a better chance… or maybe I’m just improving with practice!  Anyway, completed in just over 1hr, and fully parsed all but two: tripped up by the double US in 4/14 (duh!), and unable to groc 20D at all til coming here.  One quibble: the AE in 26 is neither cross-checked, nor indicated by wordplay, and OE is a valid alternate spelling (many examples online); I used the latter and consider it equally correct.

    Props to our setter, blogger and commenters!

15. Re 18=NONPLUS, there’s punctuation to consider.  The defn (puzzle=nonplus) seems quite clear, so the “?” would cleave to the wordplay, and justifies any wee laxity in logic?  One might even view “subzero” as a by-example defn (it covering the vast majority of non-plus nos), so the “?” would fully justify it?

16. Yep that’ll do me, OddOtter@15, the ? indicating a dbe to get round the necessity to include zero.

17. Ta for the witty Babbage quotes, Adriana @13. Otoh, we could do with sub-replacement reproduction for a century or two…

18. I needed a map of Florida to find KISSIMMEE, but most of the rest went in slowly but surely. ET TU BRUTE seemed obvious immediately, but I struggled to parse it. I was amused by GLUTEUS MAXIMUS and by realising PEPSI COLA and EPISCOPAL were anagrams. But I agonised for a long time at the end before writing in CRANE, which is really obvious now you explain it, PeeDee, but which I just couldn’t justify. (Not made easier by my wife helpfully mentioning that a crake was also a bird that would fit.) However, that blind spot aside, lots to enjoy, as usual from Paul.

19. Thanks, PeeDee, for putting me out of my misery on 20d.   The answer was obvious from the crossers, but for the life of me I couldn’t see the wordplay.    Like other commentators I had to scan a map of Florida to find the city.    I did find this a very satisfying solve, requiring perseverance and concentration, but with no answer too obscure.   But then, I always enjoy puzzles from Paul

20. I had to groan at 20,26a, WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIA. Clearly it is now a dated term – one of my nieces was recently dubbed “Wikipedia” by her classmates as she has a very broad general knowledge, so I guess times have changed. Favourites were 10a ET TU BRUTE, 12a JETTY, 4d,14a GLUTEUS MAXIMUS and 19d SNORKEL. Couldn’t parse several so it was a slow and not entirely satisfactory solve. I had trouble with 21a PEPSI COLA which I didn’t parse fully, though I did get EPISCOPAL at 13a.  I liked the second part of the clue (the definition) for BENJAMIN SPOCK at 8d but couldn’t see the rest, and I didn’t totally understand 24a CRANE or 20d WHAT’S UP either. Despite filling it in, the aforementioned (by several posters) Florida city 25a KISSAMMEE, was totally unfamiliar, so for me, a case of solve from word play and crossers, then check. Overall, some similar experiences to others above. I really needed the blog so thanks to PeeDee. Thanks also to Paul the indefatigable for keeping me on my toes.

21. Really enjoyed this. Challenging and ultimately satisfying. Thank you Paul. Grinned at the Pepsi Cola/episcopal anagram, Walking encyclopaedia was brilliant. Witty surfaces – too many to mention. Thanks to PeeDee for the blog and for parsing What’s Up, which evaded me.

22. This was the first prize I have completed without resorting to max word or similar, so I was very pleased. Google and OneAcross were needed to get me to a few, but that us not the same as looking up an answer, in my book at least, Biggles A., I agree that ‘see’ is not how I spell the name of the letter C, but IC is standard text speak for ‘I see’ (however annoyingly) and therefore I found it quite legitimate. Indeed it was my way into HOMICIDAL. Like TassieTim I got EPISCOPAL from Anglican and knew it was an anagram of PEPSI COLA which I otherwise could not parse, so thank you PeeDee for that. Otherwise I parsed everything, though I thought the clue for WALKING ENCYCLOPAEDIA very weak. KISSIMNEE was my foi, from the wordplay; I just had to google to see if it existed! Many thanks to Paul for a very satisfying puzzle and to PeeDee for the blog.

23. Unlike TassieTim @3, I found this flowed less smoothly than last week’s but got there in the end with RADICES being last one in (nho radix so took a punt on the – totally inaccurate – basis that it reminded me of radicchio which is part of the chicory family which has edible roots!  Googling then corrected my misunderstanding).  KISSIMMEE didn’t go in at all so a dnf.  It seems to have flummoxed a few of us but, as DaveinNC points out, if American solvers are supposed to get SALOP, then we Brits have nothing to complain about.

    The point was made yesterday re ‘loos’ and today re ‘GLUTEUS MAXIMUS’ that knowing the setter’s proclivities helps the solve and it did again on this occasion.  I rather liked two that have caused some comment already: CRANE worked for me and I rarely manage to spot that kind of construction and NONPLUS certainly raised a smile.  I also enjoyed the succinctly clued LOBBY and MELON (which reminded me of Philistine’s clueing for TESLA as ‘musky product’ earlier this year).  CALLIGRAPHIST, MILLINERY and ANTITOXIN were clever constructions and WALKING ENCLYCOPAEDIA very smooth (OddOtter – I had no idea it could be spelled with an OE – which looks horribly wrong.  I wonder whether it’s an older form – several of the online examples are dated, but by no means all.)  For me, unlike Alan B, COTD was WHAT’S UP.

    Thanks Paul, PeeDee for the blog and Adriana @13 for the delightful Babbage anecdote.

24. A dnf for me as I just couldn’t see WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIA, but I did enjoy it – it’s very rare that I don’t like a Paul xword. Among my favourites were BENJAMIN SPOCK and MELON – the latter for its elegant simplicity. I did wonder about NON-PLUS not necessarily being sub-zero, but like OddOtter@15, decided the “?” made it perfectly fine.  KISSIMMEE was vaguely familiar, but only because (I’m pretty sure)  it’s recently been in another crossword somewhere.

25. Hi Dr WhatsOn – the free online version of Chambers seems to be a condensed version of the paper dictionary and the phone app.

    For example, the paper/phone app gives 4 definitions for radix, but these have been condensed into 2 in the online version.  The distinctions between which are current and which are obsolete has been lost.  I usually go to the phone or paper book for that reason.

    The OED has more definitions still, but again the ones that mention the word “root” explicitly are annotated as either rare or obsolete.

    I don’t think any of this really matters in the context of a puzzle by Paul, I only mentioned it out of interest.  Strict adherence to such detail would be more AZED territory.

26. PS thanks to Adrianna @13 for the Babbage quote.  Wonderful!  It explains the NONPLUS situation perfectly.

27. Only point I wanted to make today is that ‘mysterious spelling of magician’ is an outrageously silly bit of anagrinding that made me chuckle to myself all week.

28. Beobachterin @ 22. Thank you, I never thought of that. I did say I was old fashioned and while I text occasionally the texting language itself is a foreign land to me though I think I might have encountered CU later.

29. Biggles A – see as the name of the letter C is another example of the Chambers online dictionary being a cut-down version of the main dictionary:  3 headings in the main dictionary, only 2 in the online version.  I suppose if they gave away the main dictionary for nothing then there would be no reason for anyone to buy a copy.

30. Thanks again PeeDee. I don’t suppose many people are in the market for the OED but it is given away for nothing!

31. Biggles, where do you get the OED for nothing?

32. PeeDee @31; if you are a member of a UK library you can usually get free online access to the OED by using [county/library name] and member number.

     

33. PeeDee. Well, I am a ratepayer but it costs me nothing to join the library and that gives me access to the OED.

     

34. I was away from home last weekend and doing this on my phone.  Never having heard of KISSIMMEE, I decided I needed a little assistance with 25a and looked on Google.  I’d got as far as typing in “cities” when it came up with the prompt “cities in Florida”.  Wow!  Either an amazing bit of electronic mind-reading, or perhaps loads of people had done the same search while doing this puzzle.

    I enjoyed the crossword, but it’s not as satisfying on the phone as with pen and paper.  Apart from anything else, I haven’t got a note of what my favourites were!

    Many thanks Paul and PeeDee.

35. Thanks Biggles, I misunderstood you before. I use the OED though the National Library of Scotland.  I don’t imagine the OUP gives it away for nothing though, I expect the library pay a sizeable sum to have it!

    I remember there used to be a similar but slightly cut-down version of the OED on the web that that I used for a while but I can’t find it now.  There is also the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Oxford English Dictionary which are separate publications.  It used to confuse the hell out of me, still does!

36. PeeDee @35; the ODE is a fairly concise dictionary that gives modern usage, as opposed to the OED, which is ‘voluminous’ and has all the archaic references.

37. PeeDee. You are right of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch but it costs me nothing.

38. Thanks to Paul & PeeDee, like others commented this seemed tough to start with then steady progress with some great clues on the way.

    I finished on CRANE but that was a bung in and hope — I lingered between that bird, CRAKE and the thought that maybe it was not a bird of the feathered kind at all (e.g. slang for prison term). I think DaveinNCarolina @5 has expressed how my feelings about this very well and concisely; just doesn’t feel quite right.

    The city in Florida is also a bit convoluted – would ‘Kiss me’ really translate from ‘my very friendly invitation’? I vaguely knew of the said city prompted by the starter K from snorKel, so just looked up the spelling and to check it fit — cheerfully admitted cheating by me, can do that as there is no actual prize on offer.

    While confessing to cheating, I only found the ‘bottom muscle’ while searching for the entirely imaginary (by me) phrase GAUDEUS MAXIMUS which I thought (with v little knowledge of Latin) might mean too much on principal !

    Reference online dictionaries, I was inspired (by someone on here) to look into the ‘app’ for Chambers – took the plunge and paid about £7 for both the dictionary and thesaurus. There are excellent, and well worth the money in my opinion. Not only for crosswords but general use. Having them to hand means things can be looked up easily and it is both more definitive and less intrusive than relying on online sources (do you really want Google, Microsoft etc knowing that you searched for some of Paul’s more outre definitions!) .

     

    Thanks again Paul for a great challenge, PeeDee for the brilliant explanations and to all the learned contributors on here.

39. Enjoyed the nod to the late great Radix of the Listener, Roddy Forman – if it was a nod. Hat tip to Adriana@13 as well.

     

    Anyone else have CATHARITE for 2D, or was that just me? I was rather pleased with myself until it caused me to grind to a halt for half an hour; not that I know whether a catharite neutralises anything, but I suppose all chemicals probably neutralise something, don’t they?

40. PeeDee@25, yes, you’re right of course it doesn’t really matter, but I was a bit surprised at the inconsistency.   @31 I remember I had free access at work to a networked version of the OED in the 90’s, but a colleague of mine had been working with Oxford to get the OED converted/ingested, so this may not have been available to the public at large, I just don’t know.  One day it disappeared mysteriously, which was quite a bummer because none of the current online resources were up yet.

    I got my copy of the OED (Compact, meaning the whole thing but you need the magnifying glass that comes with it) for just $19.95.  It was offered as the “enticement” for joining a Book-of-the-Month Club, which of course you quit as soon as you’ve received said enticement.

41. I wish I could justify the eye-watering expense of a full 20 volume OED.  I don’t know why I want one, it would be less use than the online edition I get for free from the library.  I just do, and have done for years.

42. A proper prize with plenty to chew on. I’d just rewatched Gladiator so MAXIMUS was fresh in my mind albeit in a somewhat different context 🙂

    BENJAMIN SPOCK held out almost until the end despite having got BENJAMIN very early and being a recipient of his Vulcan child rearing ideas

    LOI was CRANE which did make me LOL for the sheer silliness of it

43. Thanks for the parsing on 20d.  Not my LOI (that was ATELIER, new to me), but the only one remaining that I still couldn’t explain a week afterwards.

    Did anyone else pick up on the rhyme shared by the three “sounds like” answers?

44. lexico.com is a condensed/free offering from OUP; full OED online still reqs membership (personal, or via an org like a library).  Per lexico: radices is plural of radix (as already agreed), and radix is literally “root” in Latin… so there you go.

    Related to radices (but amusingly not spelled alike) are radical (mathematical square root) and radicle (embryonic root of a plant seed).

    Lexico is searchable in UK & US “flavors”… e.g. UK lists the verb for trouser (as in to steal), US doesn’t.

    I’d no issue w/CRANE.  A good test: does “(ans) is (defn)” work?  Take “(crane) is (with you in country)”,  allow homophones (“did you say?”) and swap Ukraine/country, and we get “(kraine) is (with U, in Ukraine)”… seems fair.

    Like DaveinNCarolina, I’d an edge on KISSIMMEE, being in the US (and w/many relatives in FL)… turnabout, fair play, and all that :^)

45. Also meant to add… scanned versions of the OED can be seen at https://archive.org/details/texts?and%5B%5D=oxford+english+dictionary

46. Thanks for the fun and explanations but, am I the only person who has absolutely no idea how pock, Benin and mark align with African nation? Sure I got the answer and I know a pock is a skin mark, but this one was just too much of a reach for me. But I did enjoy everything else.

47. OK, I am a slow learner – the penny has finally dropped.

48. Great puzzle! I loved “Subzero puzzle” from the moment I saw it and it lingered at the back of my mind as I looked at the rest of the puzzle and absolutely it was delightful when I realised what the answer was. I love those Uxbridge English Dictionary definitions like JETTY, too and 3dn, LOBBY was a beaut.

    Stunning pair of anagrams in EPISCOPAL and PEPSICOLA. I got the latter first. Those churchy words always frighten me as I wasn’t brought up with it all. No worse than Greek mythology or opera really, though. Would ‘Anglican’ be a dbe of EPISCOPAL? Dunno.

    I was one of the people that helped bring “List of cities in Florida” to the top of the search suggestions. KISS ME was a much friendlier invitation than I’d considered till I saw the list.

    My old paper Chambers has ‘root’ first entry for Radix.

    Completely missed the wordplay in 20dn, WHAT’S UP, but biffed it anyway. Thanks, Peedee, for explaining. Btw, in 6dn, are you missing “one” = I?

    Oddotter@14, there is a lot of bad spelling online in general. Many of the hits you find with ‘oe’ in the page name have the word spelt correctly in the the page itself, e.g. “Chamber’s (sic) Encyclopoedia“. Btw, lexico.com is the ODE, as mentioned by Robi@36.
    

    Biggles@28, CU L8R, surely?

49. *it was absolutely delightful*

50. Of course Tony, I did say it is a foreign land!

51. Thanks to Paul and to PeeDee. A superb puzzle for the “prize” and one which kept me busy until the small hours of Sunday – unlike tbis Saturday’s offering which I dashed off in 30 minutes! Too many favourites to list individually but a big “well done” to Paul. Oh and just like Dr. WhatsOn I too acquired the Compact OED cheaply as a joining offer from a book club – the dictionary itself is rarely aired, but the magnifying glass has proved invaluable !!

52. Tony @48, just to clarify, comment @36 doesn’t mention lexico… nor did I claim (nor mean to imply) lexico=OED, simply observing it “is a condensed/free offering from OUP”, in response to the @35 comment about no longer finding a “cut-down… OED” online.  Lexico is surely far more than “slightly” cut-down, so may not replace what PeeDee is remembering, but for other readers I thought it relevant to mention lexico as OUP’s free online offering.

    Re “oe” I think there are too many instances spread over too much time, including academic websites/papers and even physical printing (e.g. “Harper’s Encycloedia of United States History”, Barry’s “Encyclopoedia Heraldica”, in the subtitle to Nicholson’s “Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening”) to simply dismiss it as bad online spelling.  I’ll allow, on further review, ae is much more common in historical British usage; perhaps encyclopoedia did start as misspelling… but many common/accepted elements of language start as errors that are perpetuated into common usage.  Perhaps it’s a UK/US thing (like -re/-er); I recall (here in the US) seeing oe in Encyclop?dia more often than ae over many years (both are uncommon today).  I still maintain oe is an acceptable alternate, esp. given the leeway often afforded nonstandard/uncommon usages in cryptics.

53. OddOtter – thanks for the lexico.com link.  Separate indexes for the US and UK looks useful and the Spanish translation a bonus too.

54. I might have missed it but why is MANOR one’s  local area?

55. Hi paddymelon,

    It’s UK slang, especially by police and more generally in London. The sort of dialogue that writers of TV police dramas love to use. Have a look here https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/manor

     

56. Are Biggles, A and Boggles, A the same person ?

57. @Oddotter, yes, I was just saying, lexico.com is the (online version of) the ODE, as mentioned by Robi@36. Did you read Robi @36? That thing Robi was talking about is the paper version of the thing you’re talking about.

    Maybe one of those people with the OED can tell us what it says about ‘encyclopoedia’? Lexico (and therefore the ODE, not the OED) has the typical American spelling ‘encyclopedia’ as the main entry and ‘encyclopaedia’ as a variant, but no ‘encyclopoedia’. It always used to be printed with a single character for the digraph ‘ae’, as on the cover of the “Chamber’s” I linked, but you don’t really see that much now, do you?

58. BigglesA, also “
    Mi hvrcrft iz fulof eelz”

59. Encyclopaedia is derived from the ancient Greek pais, a child, gving the root paid as also in paedophile. In British English pedagogue is a word that has the same root transliterated as ped, as is general in American English for words with this root. Hard to see how poed was arrived at.

60. Pino, yes, I was sure it was derived from some Greek word or other with ‘ae’ as the usual transcription of the particular sound. The ‘oe’ digraph, as in oesophagus (esophagus in America), is used for a different Greek combo, isn’t it?

    I think it must be right that ‘encyclopoedia’ at least began as a solecism. I don’t think it will ever gain enough momentum to reach the dictionaries (assuming it hasn’t), since the simple ‘e’ seems most likely to prevail, anyway.

    Unsurprisingly, you can get a lot of hits on internet search with “poedophile” (include the quotes).

61. https://languages.oup.com/dictionaries/ is where you can find out about Oxford Dictionaries from the horses mouth.

    Lexico.com is a relatively new (months old) collaboration with dictionary.com and has replaced the former online version of the ODE which was at (something like) en.oxforddictionaries.co.uk. That may be what Peedee is referring to @35?

62. Sugarbutties @56. Sorry, yes finger trouble with my IPad. Thanks Tony, I enjoyed that.

63. Biggles A @62, that’s too bad!  I was delighted to find Biggles and Boggles on the same forum, and was looking forward to being joined by Buggles.

64. Tony @57… um, did YOU read @36?  I have, many times, and as I said… no mention of lexico at all.  Yes, there’s such a thing as the ODE… I’m well aware of that; but lexico=ODE is your assertion, not Robi’s (I’m sure he’d rather not be in the middle).  I already agreed lexico!=classicOED (though, perplexingly, they muddy things by calling lexico the Oxford English Dictionary).  I agree it’s much more akin to ODE… but I’ve found no ref directly equating them, so can’t be certain re lexico’s basis… unless you’ve another ref?

    Have seen encyclop?dia with oe digraphs as well as separate.  One guess: in some fonts lowercase ae/oe digraphs aren’t well differentiated… some may have confused them and read/propagated oe instead (and OCR would struggle too).  E.g. Encyclop?dia Heraldica, circa early 1800s: archive.org/details/encyclopaediaher04berr; the pg5 digraph is clearly lowercase ae, but pg7 is clearly uppercase oe (in different font), and pg9 (a 3rd font) is apparently lowercase ae, but it’s subtle and might be mistaken for oe (esp if actual oe isn’t there for comparison).  Wouldn’t be the first time typographical confusion/issues found their way into (at lease somewhat) more common usage.  But you’re right, I’ve not found oe in a major/established dictionary, despite low level usage for some time (it’s in defineitfast.com and ae is not… a dubious source).

    We’ve likely flogged these horses beyond others’ patience… shall we call it a day?

65. Biggles/boggles – why do you type your name each time you post ? You can save your name for each time you post. Unless you have to clear your history frequently for some reason !

66. Sure, I usually use my PC but this time my Ipad was handier and I hadn’t logged in on that before.

67. Very late to the party to thank you PeeDee for explaining quite a few parts of clues, especially Whats Up which was my last one in and a real “hit and hope”, first time I have correctly finished a Paul Prize which is a nice feeling, helped by some lucky punts early on for Atelier and Radices but even more important a very enjoyable solve with lots of smiles and lightbulb moments. I know Dr B Spock from a Trivial Pursuit question (relying on his non-alien origin) otherwise would never have got that one! Possible cheat as I had to google Floridian cities to get Kissimmee – look forward to seeing “Hypoluxo” next time perhaps. I have enjoyed the discussions above wrt a few quibbles – I now think that some mild imprecision is tolerable in exchange for the fluid and amusing clues/surfaces, thank you Paul.

68. Gazzh — I googled Hypoluxo, having never heard of it (or Kissimmee either), and found out about “barefoot mailman,” a term coined in 1939 to describe walkers on the local postal route in the late 19th Century, when the route included long stretches of sloping beach that were easier to walk barefoot than shod.  The things you learn on this site!

    And now that I’m here — thanks Paul and PeeDee.

69. Kissimmee is pretty obscure, even to an American like me. I happen to have been there, but it’s still quite far down on the list of Florida cities that come to mind. And I would have thought that Benjamin Spock was also pretty difficult, at least for younger solvers.

    I do have to observe that snorkeling and diving are quite different activities: the whole point of a snorkel is lost if you dive.

     

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