Guardian Cryptic 28,294 by Tramp

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28294.

This unfolded for me as a good crossword should: at first glance impenetrable – it was nor just that I could not come up with answers, but, for clue after clue, I could not see how they were structured – but, once I ferreted out a few which I found more straightforward, things began to fall into place.

ACROSS
9 OUTNUMBER Have more than old-fashioned dress? (9)
A charade of OUT (‘old-fashioned’) plus NUMBER (‘dress’ “She was wearing this sexy number”).
10 OP ART Love role in moving pictures? (2,3)
A charade of O (‘love’) plus PART (‘role’); the pictures are only apparently moving.
11 BRIEFED Initially, bid’s rejected — is estate agent told? (7)
A charade of BRIE (‘initially, Bids Rejected Is Estate’) plus FED (Federal ‘agent’).
12 MELODIC See: doctor to nurse is sweet (7)
An envelope (‘to nurse’) of LO (‘see’) in MEDIC (‘doctor’). The word order is tortuous, but I think, acceptable.
13 NOPE Spread out cycling? Absolutely not (4)
OPEN (‘spread out’) ‘cycling’ the N to the front.
14 WELSH CORGI Dog chew girl’s thrown to save ball (5,5)
An envelope (‘to save’) of O (‘ball’) in WELSHCRGI, an anagram (‘thrown’) of ‘chew girls;.
15 TORMENT Curse as no room squeezing into big top? (7)
An envelope (‘squeezing into’) of O (zero, ‘no’) RM (‘room’) in TENT (‘big top’).
17 TAPPING Secretly listening to Prince during recording (7)
An envelope (‘during’) of P (‘Prince’) in TAPING (‘recording’).
19 ON THE BLINK Drunk hen to flash bust (2,3,5)
A charade of ON THE, an anagram (‘drunk’) of ‘hen to’; plus BLINK (‘flash’).
22 ACAI Ace American’s one nicking intro from Chuck Berry (4)
An envelope (‘nicking’) of C (‘intro from Chuck’) in A (‘ace’) plus A (‘American’) plus I (‘one’).
23 LEFTIST Red felt tip’s missing top, finally running out (7)
An anagram (‘running out’) of ‘felt ti[p]s’ minus the P (‘missing toP finally’).
24 OWN GOAL To have ambition is a self-inflicted disadvantage (3,4)
A charade of OWN (‘to have’) plus GOAL (‘ambition’).
26 CLOVE Cold? Warmth in small bulb (5)
A charade of C (‘cold’) plus LOVE (‘warmth’).
27 FAN LETTER Cool character that’s written for star (3,6)
A charade of FAN (‘cool’) plus LETTER (‘character’)/
DOWN
1 COMBINATION LOCK Means to open case to nick Colombian criminal (11,4)
An anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘to nick Colombian’.
2 STRIPPER Thong for a revealing entertainer (8)
A charade of STRIP (‘thong’) plus PER (‘for a’).
3 BUMF Poor father’s opening junk mail (4)
A charade of BUM (‘poor’) plus F (‘Father”s opening’).
4 OBEDIENT Disciplined old criminal to stop breaking in (8)
An envelope (‘breaking in’) of DIE (‘stop’) in O (‘old’) plus BENT (‘criminal’).
5 FRAMES Boxes in deserted farmhouse containing stuff to go to Sweden (6)
A charade of FRAME. an envelope (‘containing’) of RAM (‘stuff’) in FE (‘deserted FarmhousE‘) plus (‘to go to’) S (‘Sweden’, IVR).
6 FOOLSCAP Takes in cover and old sheet (8)
A charade of FOOLS (‘takes in’) plus CAP (‘cover’), for a size of paper.
7 LADDER Left one building up steps (6)
A charade of L (‘left’) plus ADDER (‘one building up’).
8 STOCKING FILLERS Presents left in sock: girl’s excited (8,7)
An anagram (‘excited’) of ‘left in sock girls’, with an extended definition.
16 EYELINER Sailor forgetting pop on ship: might one go on the lash? (8)
A charade of [pop]EYE (‘the ‘sailor’ man’) minus (‘forgetting’) ‘pop’ plus LINER (‘ship’).
17 TANGOING Dancing and moving behind beat (8)
A charade of TAN (‘beat’) plus GOING (‘moving’).
18 INCHOATE Wearing coat he is perverted and immature (8)
A charade of IN (‘wearing’) plus CHOATE, an anagram (‘is perverted’) of ‘coat he’.
20 TEFLON Plastic felt over bottom of pan (6)
A charade of TEFL, an anagram (‘plastic’) of ‘felt’ plus O (‘over’) plus N (‘bottom of paN‘), with an &lit definition.
21 LET OFF Trump excuse (3,3)
Double definition, both verbs, the first to fart.
25 NEED Want date on evening to turn up (4)
A reversal (‘to turn up’ in a down light) of D (‘date’) plus E’EN (poetic ‘evening’).

 

image of grid

91 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,294 by Tramp”

  1. Thanks to Peter for the parsing of obedient. It was my LOI, and I was annoyed at not being able to make anything of the cryptic. Everything else was clear enough, but still took a while.

  2. A quite unusual puzzle. A couple of obvious anagrams were solved while it chugged out of the printer (the long outsides) – and told me it would be a rapid solve from outward-in – wrong on both accounts. At one time I had the bottom half solved and almost none of the top. The grid was unhelpful, but added to the fun and struggle of solving. When completed I had a record number of un-parsed answers (six!), and it took a further ten minutes to winkle them out (last-one was BRIEFED). No exceptional clues but OP ART was perhaps the best of a previous dozen assorted clues I’ve dropped across for this art-form, and I got a real spinach-kick out EYELINER. Thanks, setter, for an hour well spent.

  3. Yep, bit like Peter, nothing til I think it was tapping at 17ac, then a few more, then a steady unpick with the long ‘uns helping. Tramp’s obliqueness needs one’s ‘laterals’ working, eg melodic for sweet and die in o bent, and mine can be slow, like rusty old railway points…grrroink. Liked the old sheet and the immature pervert. Enjoyable, thanks both.

  4. As flagged by OddOtter yesterday, there are couple of ‘[clearly] defined by description but don’t plug and play’s, viz 27ac and 16d. Interesting as a category, and how they work cognitively, but they don’t offend me at all.

  5. I usually associate Tramp with constructions that are unusual or unexpected but ultimately fair.  This puzzle had a few that were on the brink, imo.

    In MELODIC, I sort of see how nurse can indicate an envelope (visions of fingers cradling a drink), but I couldn’t justify it logically.  Or did I just do that?

    In FAN LETTER, strictly a fan just moves air, which in turn causes cooling.  Kind of like the causal equivalent of a synonym of a synonym, which is always risky, but I think it works here.

    A counterpoint to the pronoun-oriented discussion by GinF@4 et al.:  In general I think the best clues occur when the word or phrase providing the definition has two meanings, and the meaning in a smooth surface is different from that in the definition so the answer doesn’t at first sight seem to resemble the clue in the slightest.  LEFTIST was a good example here.  My question is, do we have a word for such clues?  If not, can anyone invent one?  I think it will be useful in this space.

  6. Dr. WhatsOn@5:
    Could you call it a “double misdirection”, in that the surface misdirects in its entirety, and it also directs you towards the wrong choice of synonym for the definition? Of course, another word such a clue is “ brilliant”.

  8. Rather enjoyed this in a 3 bears sort of way… not too hard, not too easy, just good cluing offering a glow of satisfaction once solved. Some DNK Britishisms slowed me down (bust, FOOLSCAP, BUMF), with the last defeating me (guessed rumf), otherwise got/parsed the rest, though OBEDIENT took a while to groc. No major standouts for me, but would go with STOCKING FILLERS as COTD just for the lightness and fun of it.

    Thanks, grantinfreo @4, for highlighting the two “defn by description” clues. I’ve no issue w/this type of clue either; just find interesting the variability in how they’re discussed/described/blogged, in contrast to defn by synonymy clues to which we so easily apply grammar & plug/play tests. Here, all seems clean and clear.

    Cheers for our setter, blogger, and commenters!

  10. The west went in reasonably quickly but eventually got there. I liked BUMF, STOCKING FILLERS, ON THE BLINK, FOOLSCAP and EYELINER. I would like to participate in the discussion above about plug/play etc but I’m afraid it’s going way above my head! Ta PeterO and Tramp.

  11. Agree with others, a slow and steady solve, challenging but doable.

    We thought the surface for LEFTIST was great, also enjoyed EYELINER.

    Thanks to Tramp and PeterO!

  13. AlanC: We’re all here to learn/unterstand/share, regardless of experience level (I’ve certainly learned oodles in the last few months 🙂 ). If there’s anything I can help clarify re the above-mentioned discussion, feel free to ask away!

  15. Like others, on first viewing this was a “what the…” with one clue yielding (3d BUMF).  But on more careful reading it all started happening – slow, but got there in the end.

    COTD 16d.  (And 21d but mostly because I’m puerile).

    Thanks Tramp, PeterO and other bloggers!

  16. Well I really enjoyed this one.  Rather like Brendan’s most recent: fair, challenging in places, clever, pleasurable and some good surfaces.  All clued very economically.  I don’t keep any statistics but would not be surprised if Tramp is one of the pithiest of setters.

    I like how often I find I’ve interpreted wordplay one way only to find I’ve been misled and the solution lies in viewing it another, just as Dr WhatsOn has outlined.  LEFTIST is indeed a great example, as is FOOLSCAP.   Both Tramp’s envelope indicators (I liked ‘breaking in’ and ‘to nurse’) and the pronouns played their part.  Finally, I relish surfaces that are relevant to the eventual solution and STRIPPER, STOCKING FILLERS and the delightful TEFLON, of course, do that beautifully.

    Lastly, I had ticks for TANGOING and LADDER with its different clueing of one of our favourite snakes and, yes, the schoolboy in me snickered at the wordplay for ON THE BLINK and INCHOATE as well as the double def LET OFF.

    Thanks Tramp and PeterO

  17. Like Postmark@16 and others, I really enjoyed this though it was hard to crack at first. Got COMBINATION LOCK fairly early on, which helped (although surely a lock is primarily a means to close, rather than to open). Favourites were TORMENT and EYELINER. Many thanks to Tramp and PeterO.

  18. I agree – looked impenetrable and then the two long anagrams eased the way. LOI was ACAI.

    Thanks PeterO and Tramp.

  20. pserve_p2, re ACAI: I believe it’s “American’s”=”American has”, with “has” then acting as connector for “American” and “one”.

  21. Many thanks to Tramp and PeterO for a great puzzle and blog. Now for Rodriguez (Picaroon) in the Indy – another really good day!)

    OddOtter, sheffield hatter, essexboy and Valentine – many thanks for your interesting late comments to yesterday’s Crucible blog, which I didn’t see until this morning and have just responded to.

  22. [Eileen, thanks for the follow up, and no worries… being 8hrs behind your neck of the woods, I’m used to the commenting being at times wildly asynchronous. A bit sleepless tonight, but finally about to drop off myself 🙂 ]

  23. Peter, what have I missed that suggests room becomes rm?  I’m in my 3rd month of doing cryptics and I am still learning the tricks of the trade.

    No zero in room does it (with a lot of imagination for me), reducing room to rom instead.

    Sorry if it is obvious  ..

    15
    TORMENT
    Curse as no room squeezing into big top? (7)

    An envelope (‘squeezing into’) of O (zero, ‘no’) RM (‘room’) in TENT (‘big top’).

     

    Your intro echoes my experience exactly!

    I got “On the B****” before going to sleep last night, convinced it was On the booze but Check all denied that!

    I used ‘flash’ as the anagrid? (is it the right word) instead of ‘drunk’!  Was very amused when the penny dropped.

     

     

     

     

     

  24. OddOtter@20: Aha. OK — I see that now. Thanks.

    I enjoyed this, despite some misgivings about the definition of TORMENT as “curse” and what I took to be an indirect anagram at NOPE. The really tortuous ones (like the inverted enclosure indicator of ‘nurse’ and ‘medic’ at 12a) were balanced by some nice easy ones (1d giving us a whole load of openers) so that I didn’t get horribly stuck. Am I right in thinking that Guardian grids rarely provide a long left-hand side 1d or top edge 1a? So this one was refreshing.

    Thanks to our blogger and setter.

     

  25. Slow getting onto the puzzle this morning.

    I would have been happier with a question mark or a ‘perhaps’ in the TEFLON clue.  Not all pans are teflon-coated and personally I avoid it like the plague.

    EYELINER – the clue is lovely in its ambition but for me it doesn’t quite work.  Eyeliner is not supposed to go on the lashes, that’s mascara.  Of course, eyeliner often gets on the lashes.  Ah, you might say, but the verb ‘might’ covers that.  Yes, but then we have the problem with the pronoun ‘one’.  Needs to be ‘some’ or ‘it’ to sound natural …

    WELSH CORGI is a tautology surely?  Corgi is a Welsh word.  COR (dwarf) and CI (dog).  I won’t bore you by pointing out the soft mutation (treiglad meddal) of CI to GI.  My copy of Chambers lists CORGI but not WELSH CORGI.

    Mainly enjoyable, though.

    (Can anyone tell me why I’ve got red wavy lines?  And how to get rid?).

  27. Yes, as with Rodshaw@2, I too thought this might be a swift solve with the long down anagrams going quickly in. Then rather laboured through, with the NW corner the last to yield. ACAI was a bit hit and hope, as with BUMF…

  28. As said above was hard although I got the two long anagrams  and ON THE BLINK quickly which should have helped (but didn’t really). Somehow missed  reading the clue for EYELINER which I got straight away once I did read it and which was my favourite. Also liked FRAMES, FAN LETTER.

    Could not parse OBEDIENT or MELODIC and, like akaRebornBeginner @23, was also puzzled by room becoming rm although I think I have seen it before – must add it to the list.

    Thanks to Tramp and to PeterO for the help parsing.

  29. A very enjoyable test of the cryptic grey matter – I particularly liked the &Lit 20d

    Thanks to Tramp and PeterO

  32. Enjoyed EYELINER, even though I agree with Anna @25 that ‘some’ would have worked better.

    [I seem to recall England wicketkeeper Paul Downton acquiring the nickname ‘TEFLON’ during the early 1980s after he dropped several catches. Then he was dropped.]

    Thanks to Tramp and PeterO

  33. Enjoyable. Fell at Valentines brook on the 2nd circuit with 6 to go.
    A small moan, ‘nurse’ to indicate an envelope in 12a? I understand that it helps the surface, but that is pushing it a bit.
    Thanks for the how and why, thanks Peter.

  34. Rm=room is in both Chambers and lexico; in the US it’s quite common, esp in house/apt listings.

    Anna, re TEFLON: Unlike PeterO, I saw the defn as just “plastic”, which I think defuses the issue you raise… tho one might then ask if plastic=teflon is adequate sans qualifier.

    Re EYELINER, might that be taken as the applicator itself, not just the make-up that was applied (Collins online seems to define it thus)… in which case a slip with “one” might end up on a “lash”?

  35. Anna @25: good point re CORGI.  Apparently two breeds are recognised  the Pembroke WC and the Cardigan WC – despite the tautology.  (I can’t recall if it was on this site but I recently read something about the number of geographical features that are tautologically named – River River and Hill Mountain etc – but had no idea the issue could apply to dogs as well).  On the ‘one’ in EYELINER, whilst it’s not precisely the point I think you’re making, if you haven’t yet glanced at the late exchange on the subject of pronouns in yesterday’s blog, I’d commend it to you.

    And the red wavy lines for me are normally the result of the Rioja the night before!

  37. OddOtter @ 34

    TEFLON.  Hmm, I tend to agree with PeterO’s parsing.  Is teflon a plastic?

    EYELINER.  Hmm again 🙂  I’m not convinced, but it’s a theory!

  41. Hard but fair as they say, though MELODIC was a bit of a stretch for me.

    [Penfold@32. I hear he wasn’t very Abbey about being dropped]

    Anna@37 I wasn’t convinced that TEFLON was a plastic but I looked it up and apparently it is.

  42. Was wondering about 26a “clove”.
    As far as I know (not very far at all) you can separate a clove of garlic from a garlic bulb, but they are different things (you’d certainly know about it if you used a bulb of garlic in a recipe rather than a clove) and cloves used as spices are buds not bulbs.
    I don’t want to be pedantic – and we solved the clue anyway – but I just wondered if it had caused a small eyebrow raise in anyone else?

    Thanks to both blogger and setter as always – giving us entertainment and the strength to carry on in these troubled times 🙂

  44. [And if you’ve not heard the amusing anecdote re teflon’s discovery, see the history section on its Wikipedia page… as Buckminster Fuller once said, “There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.” DNK teflon’s role in the Manhatten Project though!]

  45. OddOtter and Petert

    Thanks for that information about teflon and the 3D picture of the molecule.  It’s the sort of knowledge we get from crosswords, which I just love.  It is, I hope, stored up for future use.

  46. Stonerose@42 Technically a full bulb of garlic is a compound bulb. The separated cloves will all grow into garlic plants so they are indeed little bulbs.

  47. Like rodshaw at 2 I got the long anagrams on each side pretty quickly and foolishly thought that, for once with a Tramp puzzle, the rest would be relatively plain sailing.
    It wasn’t.
    A couple of clues really foxed me: I hesitated for ages about the ‘blink’ part of 19a since, for me, ON THE BLINK means something is playing up (and due for an overhaul or replacement) but not actually bust yet. I also agree with Anna’s point that “on the lash” is the one place where EYELINER isn’t meant to go. It can happen, of course, but only accidentally – usually when one’s in a tearing hurry. However, I readily admit that these are quibblets.
    LEFTIST, OWN GOAL and ACAI were pleasing, and I grinned at BUMF and LET OFF.
    Thanks to Tramp for the challenge and PeterO for the ever-informative blog

  48. StoneRose @42: there is a single clove garlic which might get Tramp off the hook – though I didn’t know it when I solved!  I sort of rationalised that the clove grows into the bulb but you’re right in that a seed couldn’t be defined a small petunia, for instance.  There are certainly recipes calling for a whole bulb – if it’s roasted in its skin you can easily eat the entire thing.  The strength of flavour diminishes considerably during the cooking.

    [My mother once cooked a garlic flavoured soup for my father, early in their marriage.  Having spent some time over a hot stove she didn’t feel like eating that night so my father, conscious of the newness of their circumstances, dutifully finished the soup.  The rest of the meal did rather taste of garlic, he recalled, as did his breakfast cereals for the next fortnight!]

    [OddOtter @44: thanks for pointing me at the teflon history which torpedoes an urban myth I’d heard that it was a by product of the space race.  Totally off-topic but inspired by the same, have you seen how the Post-It note came about in similarly accidental circumstances? ]

  49. [Anna @25. Thanks for the totally non-boring reminder about soft mutation in Welsh (treiglad meddal), which I was aware of from many trips to Wales, but had never bothered to find out the rules before. Facinating stuff!]

  50. Meandered through the across clues with only OWN GOAL to show for it. But then in went the two long down clues, and it was all going to be easy! But no. My this was tortuous, a real challenge, and no bad thing. Looking back, I was only two parsings short – MELODIC and my LOI BRIEFED – so Tramp was being fair with us. And do him some credit: I’d suggest that the difficulty level of the long downs was lowered a notch or two so that us mortals had some sort of chance.

  51. I eschewed my normal method of going through the clues in order when I saw the two long ones at 1d and 8d, thus following unaware in the footsteps of rodshaw @2: the “obvious anagrams were solved while it chugged out of the printer”. Though I don’t use a printer, I could probably have solved those two on the way back from the paper shop, if it hadn’t been so windy today. A fairly steady solve thereafter, with only EYELINER and TORMENT holding me up for a time.

    I thought MELODIC was very good – I quite like clues where the parts are in an unexpected order. Enjoyed also the subsequent discussion about the little Welsh dog, whose name in Welsh turns out to be “little dog”.

    Thanks to Tramp for a most enjoyable solve and to PeterO for the blog, although just for once I managed to parse everything without any need for clarification.

  52. I enjoyed this although I found it quite hard.  So nice to be reminded of ACAI which I gradually got a taste for when living for two years in wonderful Belem do Para where it is something of a religion.  Acai flavoured ice cream – jet black and delicious – is something I still miss.  If anyone knows where to purchase it here in the UK I’d love to know! Thanks to Tramp and PeterO

  53. Regardless of the correct etymology around garlic bulbs and cloves, mixing up the generally understood use will result, as StoneRose@42 suggests, in a somewhat differently tasting dish. A sadly long lost friend’s arrival at college in London from the garlic-free wastelands of the NE in the early seventies didn’t alleviate her from cooking duties, which continued even after making the aforementioned error. Her next task was to bake a cake containing some less legal ingredients. Sadly, the bulb/garlic incident had not taught her to question the amounts and the whole of the small package her boyfriend gave her was duly baked in the cake. She was extremely popular with every member of the household (barring her boyfriend of course) for days!

  54. Many thanks, Anna @43, for being so encouraging; always a bit scary posting as a newbie.

    Also gratitude to Petert  @46 andPostMark @48 for educating me – feel reassured that it’s my botany that’s at fault, not my cookery skills.

    I have cooked recipes involving a whole bulb (or bulbs) but also check quite carefully first.

    [Don’t know if anyone else used to read the Chalet School books, but during a cookery lesson described in one, in which they tried to make apple pies, there was a nasty mix-up between cloves and garlic cloves…

    Anna, I also enjoyed hearing about soft mutation as well.

    I went to school in Wales and should have done three years of Welsh before we chose our O level subjects. However, my father’s job took us to South America for years 2 and 3 of that. We’d just got to soft mutation by the time I left.

    For some reason, that first year took native Americans as its topic – back then they were called “Red Indians” and the whole thing was very much of its time, I’m afraid.

    It’s left me unable to eg ask my way to the bus stop, but entirely able to point out that “the buffalo are running on the prarie”!

    One day that may come in useful. Possibly:)

  56. Thanks PeterO for the super blog.

    I was thinking EYELINER was the pencil itself. I had to ask my wife does the eyeliner actually go on the lash. The clue for clove is weak. I must do better.

    Neil

  57. Tramp @ 56

    Yes, as someone said earlier, it can be.  Both the thing you buy in the supermarket (can you buy me an eyeliner, please) and the substance (grr, I’ve got eyeliner all over my top).

    Lipstick seems to work the same way.

    In the former use, it’s countable.  In the latter, it isn’t.  That was why I felt ‘one’ was inappropriate in the clue.

  58. Anna@25.  Welsh corgis are obviously found by the River Avon  (for the rest of you, the Welsh word afon=river)

  59. Doc @ 58

    Oh yes, indeed.

    I do miss Wales and couldn’t get to Eisteddfod this year.  (It was cancelled anyway).  Here’s hoping for next year.

  60. StoneRose @54: I’ve always thought this site quite welcoming to newbies – whether that’s new solvers or new posters.  You may not have posted that frequently but, with the Chalet School books and the Basil Brush LP, I’m getting a clear sense of your formative years!  I’m afraid I missed out on the former, somehow, but we share appreciation of the latter.

    [Deegee @53: lovely story.  A girlfriend at uni was mortified when her grandmother gave her some decorative flower pots for Christmas explaining, as they were unwrapped in front of the family”…I heard you telling your brother that your pot plants are growing well at college”]

  62. I managed to solve one clue on the first pass, so needed a walk and lunch before completing.

    Good crossword overall with BRIEFED, LEFTIST and STOCKING FILLERS that I particularly liked. One or two rather strange surfaces (throwing a dog chew to save ball?)

    Thanks Tramp for the challenge and for popping in (always good to hear from the setter). Thanks also to PeterO for an informative blog.

  63. [Nothing to add about the crossword, but on the subject of rivers called “river” etc: here, we have a lot of those, since Europeans weren’t good at translating local names. Though more often the native word was descriptive rather than just “river.” The Platte, a river mostly in Nebraska, has a French name suggesting the nature of the river (“a mile wide and an inch deep,” was the Anglophone settlers’ only-slight exaggeration about it). The Native name for it, the Nebraska, translates into French roughly as “Platte.” Yet the French name seems to have arisen independently–it’s not a translation from (IIRC) Pawnee.]

  65. Extremely well-crafted puzzle, which I found the trickiest for a long time. Nothing to add to the specific comments above; thanks to Tramp and PeterO.

    Anna@25: Loved your apophasis re the glorious soft mutation.

    And on the subject of tautologous place names, Pendle Hill In Lancashire is a triple tautology: ‘pen’ (Celtic) and ‘dal’ (Norse) both just mean ‘hill’.

  66. Valentine @64: River deep, mountain high?

    PostMark, you were right @35 – we had a ‘tautological place names’ discussion on the blog for Qaos’s Spinal Tap puzzle in July – see here (comments 65-69 from Valentine, TheZed and myself, and a response from JinA @83)

  67. Apart from the two long anagrams which went straight in, I found this very tough, as others have said. Never heard of açaí berries but they sound delicious. I was absolutely with Anna about the eyeliner. It’s mascara that goes on the lash with eyeliner above or below (as I think Tramp has now conceded). I put OPT OUT for 21d LET OFF as a sort of double anagram being TOP (anag of OPT) means TRUMP with OUT the indicator. Thought I was being clever. Wrong!! Could someone please explain what plug and play means? And yes, Stone Rose, I also find being a newbie here rather terrifying. Many thanks to Tramp for another enjoyable workout.

  68. I wrote this some hours ago, and had to abandon it to make a doctor’s appointment. Reading the intervening comments, it still stands.

    akaRebornBeginner @23

    It is standard practice in cryptics to use a word in a clue to indicate its abbreviation in the answer, with no further explanation. The justification “The abbreviation is in Chambers” does not carry the weight that it once did, but is still a good guide, even if it allows some pretty unusual forms. In this case, however, I think that rm for room is one of the more common ones – as drofle @28 points out, think small ads for rentals, particularly if they are charged by the letter.

    Anna @25

    In this post, I have red wavy underlines on cryptics, rm, drofle and a typo which I corrected. They are a standard part of the text editor used here, and indicate a word that is not found in whatever lexicon the utility uses (and in the case of drofle, does not have a capital letter to pass as a name; also the editor wants a period after the abbreviation). As you seem to have found out @26, they are there just for the benefit of the writer; I do not know if it is possible to turn off the feature – but why should you? Obviously, non-words and unusual words will come up regularly in discussing cryptic clues, and the warning may be ignored; but the feature does allow you to correct (at least some) typos. You may also come across green wavy underlining, indicating what the editor thinks may be grammatical errors (although I do not seem to find this feature in this editor).

  69. Welcome, StoneRose! I still fondly remember the warm welcome I received just a few months ago, from none other than Eileen herself (whose graciousness I hold in high regard), and I hope your experiences here will be as rewarding as mine have been!

    [Thanks for the post-it link, PostMark… another fine example of Mr. Fuller’s maxim. Velcro is another product with a delightfully random discovery story, including a botany connection, which always makes me smile.]

    trishincharente: “Plug and play” is the concept, particularly in electronics & computers, of being able to plug something in and have it ‘just work’. This has been a hallmark of Apple computers & their peripherals starting with the Mac, in contrast to PCs, where the user often had to perform cumbersome installation procedures to get new hardware to work. Here in the cryptics world I’ve used this to describe the common defn/answer equivalency test in which a valid sentence with one of the two then has the other swapped (or “plugged”) in to see if it still “just works” (i.e. does it “play”)… thus, the “plug and play” test.

  70. trishincharente @67. What I understand by plug and play is that the definition in the clue can be replaced by the equivalent word in the answer and whatever sentence results will be good English.  OddOtter used it in yesterday’s blog (see #63) when critiquing “stimulated by this” in the clue 19a ADRENALINE. In that case, “this” was the definition, but was, in OddOtter’s view, insufficient to derive the answer, requiring the hint or nudge, as I put it (#64), of “stimulated by…”. By contrast, 24a ATRIUM was clued by “courtyard”, which would be a plug and play type of clue. (I suppose it comes from live music, where you just walk up to the amplifier and plug your guitar in, without having to make any fiddly adjustments.)

  72. Thanks for chiming in, sheffield hatter. To clarify a wee bit further, I’d no issue with yesterday’s 19a clue itself, focussing just on the challenges in discussing/blogging such “defn by description” clues (as I now like to call them), to which plug and play does not readily apply. With your valuable input (and essexboy’s too) it turned into a fine little minithread and I’m delighted others seem to have found it of interest as well 🙂

  74. Hi OddOtter @69 and sheffield hatter @70 re ‘plug and play’ – thanks for that: I’d been too timid to ask!

    trishincharente @67, I’m more concerned re the tense (find) in the penultimate sentence of your comment. I thought you’d recently settled in really well and I’ve certainly been valuing your comments. (I still do remember the really scary moment, years ago, before clicking’ Post comment’ for the first time.)

  75. Thank you both OddOtter and sheffield hatter for taking time to explain. I think I get it. Certainly the Apple analogy made perfect sense. So we’re talking about either a direct synonym for the definition part of the clue (Apple Mac) or a more roundabout approach (Microsoft). Really interesting how lockdown is allowing time to delve deep. Up until now I was just “doing the crossword “!

  76. trishincharente: Ha, ha… hadn’t quite directly thought of the clue types that way, with those companies as metaphors (and perhaps should just recuse myself, having actually worked for both during my career)… but sure, I think that works.

  77. sheffield hatter @70 – it would be appreciated by those of us who are not always able to do the crosswords in the order that they were published if you could not reveal the solutions to clues in another puzzle in a particular blog. Thank you.

  79. [OddOtter @69: Specifically, “Plug and Play” were technologies included in Windows 95 by Microsoft using “hooks” into the Intel chipset so that plugging in new peripherals would cause the drivers to be automatically installed and configured rather than the previous case which usually meant loading up a diskette/CD.  The Apple technology to do this had existed as you say for many years but was not referred to as “Plug and Play.”  The term was then applied more widely to things like blocks of code that could be taken en-masse and “plugged” into other code.

    I don’t know that Microsoft of Intel ever trademarked the term.   Universal Plug-and-Play is a very common way of discovering other devices on a local network – if you’ve streamed to a Chromecast for example, chances are that uses UPnP – everything is automatically “found” without you having to go through any complex configuration process.

    The original Windoze technology was not (and is still not) reliable and driver clashes, mis-installs and general SNAFUs are still common.   Hence the birth of the phrase “Plug and Pray.”]

  80. Thx for added context, MaidenBartok. While Apple, might not have used the phrase in marketing (I honestly don’t recall), internally it was regularly used in the Cupertino engineering hallways when I was there ’90-’93. Hadn’t heard “plug and pray” before… though have certainly have had the experience many times!

    Interestingly “plug and play” is actually in both Chambers and lexico, with essentially the same tech oriented defn as discussed above… now I feel old…

  81. [OddOtter @80: We used it interally quite heavily as well – 300 E Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA, c.1998 – as we were desparate to include something similar to it in our kit but never did preferring overly-complex command-line configuration every time.  But we sold it on how easy it was to “plug-and-play” which it ceratinly wasn’t…]

  82. Thanks Tramp for a lovely puzzle. I thought BRIEFED a great clue.
    Thanks PeterO for the blog.
    Chambers has for ‘nurse’ (inter alia) : ‘to hold, carry or cuddle’.

  83. Got bogged down on 1 down trying to work Escobar into the answer – then remembered criminal was an anagram indicator.

  85. Anna @ soft mutation, wherever it is …  Many years ago I signed up for a class in Welsh at a church in New York City, taught by the minister there.  He asked where I’d found out about the course and I told him I’d seen a notice on a bulletin board at Yeshiva University.  He then went on a bit about similarities between Welsh and Hebrew, and I had no idea what he was going on about.  But eventually I made the connection that both languages have “mutations” that change the first consonants of certain words in certain grammatical positions.  I don’t know how common that is in the Semitic languages, but as far as I know the Celtic ones are the only languages to do it in the Indo-European family.

    You probably won’t read this, it’s so late in the day (or night for some), but just in case …

  87. Van winkle @77 Hear Hear. I haven’t looked at yesterday’s either. Sheffield hatter @70 has been either selfish or thoughtless and might have ruined my enjoyment had the prolix (and not always relevant) ‘comments’ here of recent months not forced me to start skimming 225² rather than reading and enjoying.(cookie’s gone too which is a shame)

  89. Van Winkle @77 & William F P @87. I admit it didn’t occur to me that people reading this blog might not have completed the previous day’s crossword, or I would not have revealed two of the answers. Does that make me selfish, or thoughtless?

    In my post @70 I referred specifically to “OddOtter [commented] in yesterday’s blog (see #63)”, which surely would have been sufficient indication that the clues in that puzzle were going to be discussed. If I had been in your position, I would have stopped reading at that point. However, I’ll certainly be bearing this in mind next time I decide to write one of my “prolix (and not always relevant) ‘comments’ here”.

  90. William F P @87

    It was neither selfish nor thoughtless; it was a desire to help.

    A little context may be useful.

    One of our newer commenters had been encouraged by the comments on this blog (Eileen @21, PostMark @35, Anna @39) to read the interesting discussion that took place late in the evening on the previous day’s (Crucible) blog.

    There (I’m guessing) she came across a phrase (“plug and play”) which was unfamiliar, and so, along with her comments on Tramp’s crossword, asked if anyone could help by explaining it (@67).

    OddOtter  @69 and sheffield hatter @70 both took the time and trouble to do so, and for that both the enquirer and Eileen @74 expressed their appreciation.

    Given that context I disagreed with VW’s criticism @77.  However at least his comment was expressed in polite language.

    Unfortunately the same cannot be said of yours.

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