Azed No. 2,551 ‘Spoonerisms’ – Competition Puzzle

22 comments on “Azed No. 2,551 ‘Spoonerisms’ – Competition Puzzle”

1. Thanks PeeDee,
   Great fun, some Spoonerisms took a while to sink in but got there eventually. TAUPE is from the French for mole, the animal so that makes sense. Could have done with a DBE indicator for Andalusian.
   Thanks as ever to Azed.

2. Oh, for 5d I thought ‘pinned arrest’ but either works.

3. Thanks for the blog . I have a few slightly different ideas.

   10ac. BARE PATCHES
   11ac TAW that whips. Taw was in recently.
   14ac TAUPE is from the French
   30ac PLANE-TREES one word hyphenated in Chambers 93

   22 d is an awful definition.

4. Sorry Gonzo I was slow typing. I had pinned arrest as well but both do work.

5. ‘Age of sold’ to ‘sage of old’ is an edge case – swapping ‘s’ with ” 🙂

6. I had anticipated that this was going to be a frustrating disappointment (like last year’s Christmas Special), but I actually managed to finish this, finding it mostly enjoyable. I do think that “settlement” is an awfully broad clue for “pa”–even “Maori settlement” would have struck me as not especially fair, and I have never heard of GRAPO–is that political faction something that Europeans would be familiar with??? But for the crossers, and the standard-issue “river entering” clue, I would have had no idea how to solve that one. Also, for me, “taw that whips” sounds nothing whatsoever like a spoonerism for “war that tips.” I had guessed “whips that tore”???, which sounds closer to me, but then the plural/singular does not work. Those quibbles aside, thanks again Azed and PeeDee.

7. Gonzo @5: Isn’t “well-boiled icicles” a classic spoonerism, of the same basic structure?

8. Quite superb: Azed in tiptop condition. Thanks for BARE PATCHES, I was sure Azed would not confuse a plural. I struggled with many dictionaries at 30 Ac before the penny dropped. “Planetaries” were indeed cosmologists once and I assumed there might have been a variant spelling “planetries”. But I couldn’t get the clue to work and thought it a weak Spoonerism. I wonder why Chambers dropped plane-trees.
   I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times.
   Is one of the three proper names in a Chambers more recent than mine?
   Stefan

9. Yes of course, three proper names but only two as solutions . None in my Chambers 93. Martin Rees is really an astronomer although he did do some early work on CMBR.
   Grapo is also given as a capital in my Chambers and as an abbreviation.

10. BUSTER KEATON; LE PEN; MESSI.
    I’ve idled away hours of my life under a plane-tree, often with an ouzo or several. In Australia, they are an invasive pest. Councils used to plant them because they were cheap, grow from anything and provide shade. Then they have to spend thousands of dollars collecting the leaves: the leaves do not break down and clog up drains and waterways.
    Stefan

11. Yes of course , how did I miss Buster Keaton, thank you. We have what are called London planes which are made to be good at absorbing road pollution.

12. 11ac I had TAW THAT WHIPS – see TAW1 (noun) – I can’t see RAW THAT WHIPS is a spoonerism.

    and

    33ac CORE STEEPING – see CORE2

    Again, I thought 1ac was clever.

13. Like MarmiteSmuggler @8 I thought this was superb – great fun from beginning to end. It look me some time to see BUSTER KEATON, which slowed things down. Couldn’t parse GRAPO or IDEAL. Thanks to PeeDee, and to Azed as ever.

14. I found this a bit frustrating. I did complete it but often I got the answers from the crossers and had no idea what the Spoonerisms were.

15. Thanks all for the corrections.

    “r/taw that whips” was just a typo. I failed to spot the plural in “bare patches” and didn’t think to look in any older versions of Chambers for the hyphenated PLANE-TREE. Presumably they have now dropped it for consistency, such words can be constructed simply and don’t require a dictionary entry. Thanks to Roz for those.

16. PS I remember seeing Custer Beaten/Buster Keaton used by Boatman in The Guardian a few months ago.

17. PeeDee @16 – I didn’t remember the Boatman Clue, so looked it up. It was on 5th November last year, but not a Spoonerism:

    Funny rebuke about person who did good work a hundred years ago, a comic genius (6,6)

18. Thanks drofle, interesting. I didn’t solve the printed puzzle, only a proofreading copy. It was a Spoonerism in the draft puzzle, I guess the editor must have wanted it changed for the published version. I can’t see why, I think it is a great Spoonerism. Presumably Azed did too, putting it in prime position at 1 across.

19. PeeDee – Maybe the editor thought it was so brilliant that it MUST have been used before!

20. found this very difficult though enjoyable – separating the two types of spoonerisms was more difficult than i anticipated, let alone finding a suitable definition for SPAVIN. i remembered seeing the BUSTER KEATON spoonerism a few months ago; indeed Anto in september 2020 gave:

    Actor embodied outcome of Little Bighorn, according to Spooner (6,6)

21. I’ve seen the Buster / Custer Spoonerism a few times, and it turned up in The Times very recently as “Comic summary of Little Bighorn for Spooner?”. I’m pretty sure Azed knew it was an old favourite and was generously using it as a potential gateway clue.

22. I think you are right Blorenge, and also 1 Down. Always the most helpful because of initial letters. Azed did a similar thing with the recent Carte Blanche .

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