Quiptic 1,097 by Carpathian

by

Thanks to Carpathian for an enjoyable Quiptic as ever: not always easy, but always fair.

Some of the definitions took a bit of thought, but that’s part of the fun; everything makes sense once you see it. Carpathian’s clues are concise as always, with some great surfaces. I enjoyed the two ingenious reversals in 14a and 8d, and the long anagrams in 9a and 25a.

There are lots of standard crossword tricks here; if you’re a beginner and don’t understand something, please ask and I’ll explain further. (I’ll be out this afternoon, but I’m sure someone else will chip in if necessary.)

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

ACROSS
1 BRASSIERE Support section of the orchestra that is backing the Queen (9)
BRASS (section of the orchestra: trumpets etc) + IE (that is), then ER (Elizabeth Regina = the Queen) reversed (backing).
6 PESTS Domestic animals eating small bugs (5)
PETS (domestic animals) containing S (small).
9 WASHING-UP LIQUID Cleaner bizarrely dug his in-law quip (7-2,6)
Anagram (bizarrely) of DUG HIS IN-LAW QUIP.
I understand that this is a specifically British term; English speakers elsewhere will probably call it dishwashing detergent or something similar.
10 YOLK Cook loyally holds back part of egg (4)
Hidden answer, reversed (. . . holds back) in [coo]K LOY[ally].
11 MISSPENT Wasted young lady to hedge bet finally (8)
MISS (young lady) + PEN (hedge, as a verb = surround to prevent escape) + final letter of [be]T.
14 PHENOMENA Wonders of flower returned by gutted pharaoh (9)
ANEMONE (a flowering plant), reversed (returned), then P[harao]H (gutted = contents removed).
15 THETA Two articles about tense letter (5)
THE and A (definite and indefinite articles) around T (the dictionaries say this is an abbreviation for tense, so crossword setters have been using it for years, despite regular grumbling from commenters here).
The Greek letter corresponding to TH in English.
16 SCENT Track broadcast on the radio (5)
Homophone (on the radio) of SENT (broadcast).
For scent = track, think of a dog following a scent trail.
18 MULTITASK Cover up includes ultimate appeal to perform several jobs (9)
MASK (cover up), including ULT (abbreviation for ultimate, according to Chambers) + IT (old slang for sex appeal).
20 ELOQUENT Persuasive doctor to queen crossing line (8)
Anagram (doctor, as a verb = fix) of TO QUEEN, around (crossing) L (line).
Eloquent = persuasive = (of a speech) well-argued and convincing.
21 BOSS Leader browses regularly (4)
Alternate letters (regularly) of B[r]O[w]S[e]S.
25 SLIP OF THE TONGUE Wayward word uttered by hopeful setting out to claim love? (4,2,3,6)
Anagram (out) of HOPEFUL SETTING, containing (to claim) O (zero – love in tennis scoring).
26 DREGS Red Reg slurps contains sediment (5)
Hidden answer (. . .. contains) in [re]D REG S[lurps].
27 RETREATED Went back and dealt with issue again (9)
TREATED = dealt with an issue (especially a medical one); RE-TREATED = did so again.
DOWN
1 BAWDY Blue wife died in parking space (5)
W (wife) + D (died), in BAY (parking space).
Blue = bawdy = (of a joke) sexually suggestive.
2 ABSOLVE Pardon sailor on crack (7)
AB (short for able seaman = sailor) + SOLVE (crack, as in a detective cracking / solving a case).
3 SOIL Start to scrub grease stain (4)
Starting letter of S[crub] + OIL (grease).
Stain (as a verb) = soil = make something dirty.
4 EDGE Heads of education department guarantee exam advantage (4)
First letters (heads) of E[ducation] D[epartment] G[uarantee] E[xam].
5 EXPLICABLE Former partner flexible about contact initially — it can be understood (10)
EX (former partner) + PLIABLE (flexible), around the initial letter of C[ontact].
A word that’s used much more often in its negative sense inexplicable.
6 POINSETTIA Plant opiate isn’t distributed (10)
Anagram (distributed) of OPIATE ISN’T.
Plant with bright red leaves, popular as a Christmas decoration.
7 SQUEEZE Embrace beau? (7)
Double definition: the second is a slang term for a romantic partner. Though not a strict double definition because I’d guess it’s derived from the first meaning?
8 SIDETRACK Divert silicon carried up with potassium (9)
SI (Si = chemical symbol for silicon) + CARTED (carried) reversed (up, in a down clue) + K (chemical symbol for potassium).
12 POSTHUMOUS Blog entries about unpleasant odour old upper class produces after death (10)
POSTS (blog entries), around (about) HUM (unpleasant odour) + O (old) + U (upper class).
13 TERMINATOR Film session with popular thespian dropping cocaine (10)
TERM (session) + IN (popular) + A[c]TOR (thespian), dropping the C (cocaine).
Title of a series of sci-fi films featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
14 POSSESSED Bedevilled groups spend oddly (9)
POSSES (posse = group of people engaged in a task) + odd-numbered letters (oddly) of S[p]E[n]D.
17 EMOTIVE Awkward English test I have (7)
E (English) + MOT (short for Ministry Of Transport test = annual check of a vehicle’s roadworthiness) + I’VE (I have).
Emotive = awkward = provoking an uncomfortable emotional response.
19 AMONGST In the middle of a day golf starts to sound terrific (7)
A MON (a Monday = a day) + G (golf, in the radio alphabet) + starting letters of S[ound] T[errific].
Amongst = a variant form of among, but it’s less commonly used (and very rare in US English).
22 SPEED Seas to rise and move rapidly (5)
DEEPS (as in “ocean deeps” = seas), reversed (to rise = upwards in a down clue).
Speed as a verb = to go fast.
23 BEST Heartless creature is worst (4)
BE[a]ST (creature), with the middle letter missing (heartless).
One of the English language’s oddities: best and worst are usually opposites, but used as verbs they can both mean to beat someone in a fight.
24 JOKE First person in France to accept passable pun? (4)
JE (French for I, grammatically the first person singular), containing (to accept) OK (passable).
A pun is one possible type of joke, hence the question mark to suggest a definition by example.

 

25 comments on “Quiptic 1,097 by Carpathian”

  1. Thanks Carpathian and Quirister

    Very good, although EMOTIVE = “awkward” is more than a bit of a stretch. Favourite PHENOMENA – very neat!

  2. BEST bamboozled me for a while [as George did many a defender]. I vaguely recall a discussion here recently about opposites as synonyms? But, overall an enjoyable Quiptic.

  3. Very entertaining and I agree with Quirister about the two large anagrams. I also agree with your query Muffi@1 and also had PHENOMENA as my favourite. An orchestra section also in the Cryptic this morning. Ta Q & C

  4. Yep thought the same re emotive, copmus, but before getting to the familiar ‘moving, poignant’ etc, my old Collins has ‘delicate, touchy’ and similar… live and learn eh. Phenomena can be just entities or events, not necessarily wondrous, though phenomenal has come to mean something pretty ‘out there’ 🙂 . Have always pondered the subtleties of among vs amongst (and while vs whilst). Always exploring, thanks C and Q.

  6. In my experience AMONGST isn’t that rare over here, tho perhaps less often used in writing (esp. formal) than speech. MOT/test, on the other hand, was entirely off my radar screen, so BESTed by EMOTIVE… actually thought of it but couldn’t justify (and defn did’t feel right) so figured it had to be something else. Oh well, sometimes that’s the way the Britishism bounces.

    Over here we might say dish-washing liquid, or simply dish soap.

    Found EXPLICABLE merely explicable, but thought ELOQUENT quite eloquent 🙂

    Nods to setter/blogger/commenters!

  7. Another EMOTIVE? so thanks to gif for his comment and another PHENOMENA as favourite.  Isn’t it remarkable – and a boon to setters – how some words can reverse to form all or part of others.  Who’d have thought anemone and phenomena?

    Several other ticks generated during a fairly straightforward solve (it’s a Monday of all Mondays today with everything I’ve tried being rather straightforward but I’m not complaining) including BRASSIERE, MULTITASK, BAWDY, ABSOLVE and SIDETRACK.

    OddOtter @6: several of us clearly found EMOTIVE slightly emotive and I thought BAWDY rather bawdy and, if I hadn’t seen it before, I might have found BEST to be best…

    Thanks Carpathian and Quirister

  8. Not sure that Possessed and Bedevilled are really the same. Bedevilled seems to be more like bothered or harassed.

  9. I enjoyed that – but didn’t get the parsing of Multitask until checking here.  A pangram too.  Thanks to Carpathian and Quirister.

  11. Many thanks for explaining a few (I couldn’t parse SCENT as “sent” misheard rather than a mishearing of “on the radio”, and the ULT and T abbreviations were new to me as a very novice solver, though I guessed T).

    2d – should CRACK and solve be the other way around?

  12. Postmark @7, my favourite palindrome (ignoring spaces, of course) is the remarkable “Satan oscillate my metallic sonatas”.

  13. Evelyn Williames @8, perhaps a cryptic definition, taking “bedevilled” literally?

    anceps @11, ult is used in (old fashioned, formal) letter writing to mean the previous month, e.g. “ your communication of 15th ult.”. “Inst.” stands for this month I think.

  15. I think MERE = only just about works with abstract nouns e.g. It wasn’t malice it was MERE/only stupidity, as you might say of an unintentional bully.

  16. Monkey @ 12 and PeterT @ 14 Just for fun I once set a palindromic crossword on an entirely blank 15×15 grid. It spiraled from the outside into the center. There were 26 forward clues and 30 reverse clues – the latter started at the center and wound outwards along the same spiral. I constructed it for a friend who was a crossword enthusiast who had fun solving it. Setting it was quite a challenge.  I did it purely because of my own love of palindromes.

  17. MERE can be used with concrete nouns as well, Petert.  For example, it was a mere scratch.  But the slightly unusual thing about MERE is that it can only be used as an attributive adjective, and not as a predicative adjective.  So you can say ‘it was a mere scratch’; but you can’t say ‘the scratch was mere’.  Change ‘mere’ to ‘deep’ and you can say both.  But in any case, you’re in the wrong thread – the clue appeared in the Vulcan cryptic, not the Quiptic.

    Good puzzle and blog, btw.

  19. rodshaw @16 (& Monkey @12 and Petert @18): I share the love but am woefully short of the ability.. What an undertaking.  At least it would get easier once you got to half way!  😀

    For others who might visit here and are interested in the subject, taking to the extreme (which some might argue is producing a palindromic crossword!), there are two books in English, Satire Veritas by David Stephens and Dr Awkward and Olson in Oslo by Lawrence Levine that are palindromes.  The second has 32,000 odd words!  And, to give a flavour of what such an undertaking might look like, there’s also a poem called Dammit I’m Mad by Demetri Martin which I copy below (apologies for the length; I could have posted half, of course…)

    “Dammit I’m mad.
    Evil is a deed as I live.
    God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
    To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
    Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
    Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
    I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
    Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
    In my halo of a mired rum tin.
    I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
    Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
    No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
    Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
    Be still if I fill its ebb.
    Ew, a spider… eh?
    We sleep. Oh no!
    Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
    Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
    Both, one… my names are in it.
    Murder? I’m a fool.
    A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash.
    A Goddam level I lived at.
    On mail let it in. I’m it.
    Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
    A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.N
    ame not one bottle minus an ode by me:
    “Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
    Evil is a deed as I live.
    Dammit I’m mad.

  20. anceps @11: sorry, I wasn’t paying enough attention when I wrote this, and I’ve been out all afternoon so didn’t see your comment.  Fixed now.

  21. I found this to be a very enjoyable Quiptic. Thanks to Carpathian and to Quirister!

    My only question is whether the surface of 26ac means anything. The cryptic reading is perfectly sound, of course.

  22. Enjoyed this so much. Many thanks Carpathian and Qurister. Loved the palindromes and in awe of the one posted by PM. How is that even possible? Wow!

  23. PeterT @ 18:  Thanks for being impressed.  It took an interesting day out of my life.  If you are still reading I’ve still got the 225-character sequence (hope I’ve transcribed it correctly).

    DECIDESSERPICOLATINARENASNIAGARALUGERMARTYRGNAWEDLIMPETSTRAWSWEPT

    OVIDKNOWALLIVORYROREROTTENNOBELOPERAWASTEBARELYTROOPSSUMACSLEET

    SOOTYLLAMASTENON

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