Everyman 3,906/22 August

46 comments on “Everyman 3,906/22 August”

1. This blogger has used the word “charade” twelve (12) times in this blog. Can someone explain what is meant (in crossword jargon)by “charade”?

2. Favourites: STACCATO, ORATORIO, OFF-PISTE, LIBRETTO, HAT TRICK.

   New: EMBAYS = stops; Harp Lager (Irish lager created in 1959) for 5d.

   Thanks, both.

3. Thanks Everyman – a pleasant little solve.
   In 14a I think the “rabbit” refers to the tail end batsmen who are notoriously easy to dismiss.
   I did enjoy the construction of 5d.
   Thanks for the blog Pierre.

4. 24a took me a while. I thought of ORATORIO immediately from the wordplay, but rejected it because I would never think of it as an orchestral performance. That’s like calling an opera an orchestral performance with some singing added.

   Otherwise an excellent puzzle. My favourite was 5d SHORT SHARP SHOCK (“from a cheap and chippy chopper…”) I thought the construction of 8d APOPLECTIC was very good – getting each = A POP was an aha moment.

   Thanks Everyman and Pierre, this was fun.

5. Lots of “S” words across top and bottom, and down the middle – though the horizontal ones don’t make phrases. I thought of the magician for 14a, though the tailender theory adds some extra zing to the clue. A charade, James @1, is a term used by some but not all bloggers to mean adding bits one onto the other to construct the word. Thanks, Eveyman and Pierre.

6. Tassie Tim @5 it is actually SH words, we sometimes get this alliteration when we do not have our rhyming pair.
   I thought this was pretty good overall, APOPLECTIC and LIBRETTO my favourites.
   Thanks for the blog.

7. James @1
   A charade clue splits the solution into several parts, and the wordplay describes each of those parts. The parts are then assembled to give the solution. The name “charade” comes from the game of Charades (also called “Dumb Charades”), in which players guess a word being acted out: one technique used in this game is to break and act out word parts individually.

   Lifted from here https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2008/11/charades.html?m=1

   Hope that helps.

   Thought it was quite tough for an Everyman but always enjoyable.

8. Thanks Everyman and Pierre. Just the right level of difficulty for a Sunday for me, and some neat clues.

   Harp lager is a bit of a throwback, isn’t it? Don’t think I’ve seen it since the early 80s – I remember the TV ads though (“Harp stays sharp till the bottom of the glass”). But I looked it up and apparently the brand is still going strong in Northern Ireland. Well I never.

9. For quite a while now I have been trying to do Everyman puzzles without using aids and have been pretty successful – usually only fail to get or parse a couple and occasionally get the whole thing.

   Not this one. Don’t know why but I found this one really tough and had to resort to aids yesterday to get a fair number of answers. I do sometimes struggle with charades and that was the case here I think.

   Hope I am more in tune with this week’s puzzle.

   Thanks Everyman and Pierre

10. Thanks, TassieTim and Journeyman, for answering James’ question about ‘charade’. It does indeed come from the parlour game – it’s just assembling the answer from individual particles suggested by the clue. A bit like Lego, really. It’s probably one of the most common types of cryptic clue.

11. Like cellomaniac @4 I winced at ORATORIO as “orchestral” – there’s at least one solo singer and a (probably massive) choir involved.

12. EMBARS was new to me but easily worked out, unlike APOPLECTIC which I failed to parse. Like cellomaniac, I initially rejected ORATORIO, as although an orchestra is usually involved, it’s essentially a choral work.

    I liked SHORTS HARPS HOCK and HAT TRICK.

13. I would think the charade as a clue type comes from the classic literary riddle format, where each syllable is clued individually before the whole is defined, eg from Jane Austen’s Emma:
    “My first doth affliction denote,
    Which my second is destin’d to feel;
    And my whole is the best antidote
    That affliction to soften and heal”
    (This one takes a slight liberty with the pronunciation of the first syllable though!)

    The parlour game charades surely came later and gets its name from this.

14. [Re ‘charade’, I wonder whether the derivation is from the modern parlour game – ‘dumb charades’ or ‘acted charades’ – or from the original ‘literary charade’. Wiki explains:

    A charade was a form of literary riddle popularized in France in the 18th century where each syllable of the answer was described enigmatically as a separate word before the word as a whole was similarly described.

    This typically took the form ‘My first…. my second… my whole…’ and was common in Jane Austen’s time. There’s a well-known example in Emma (Vol. I, Chap. IX):

    My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,
    Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.
    Another view of man, my second brings,
    Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

    But ah! united, what reverse we have!
    Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown;
    Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
    And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.

    Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,
    May its approval beam in that soft eye!

    Emma correctly guesses the solution – COURTSHIP – but woefully (and hilariously!) misidentifies the intended recipient of the compliment.

    This original form of ‘charade’ is the one still dominant in France, where it is a very popular kind of word game. I quoted one of my favourites on last week’s Philistine blog (various clues in subsequent posts, and solution at the end of the thread).]

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

15. [Sorry, widdersbel, we crossed – but at least we quoted different charades! 😉 ]

16. [Anyone puzzled by widdersbel @13’s charade can find the solution here.]

17. I’m with you Fiona Anne @ 9. I have been enjoying Everyman and usually completing. Not this time! A few unsolved this week – which has shaken me out of my complacency. I loved 5d. Really interesting about origin of “charade”

18. Thanks to all!

19. Thanks for the charades eb and widdersbel. It is nice to think of Jane Austen as a precursor of crosswords.

20. eb – Your explanation has the merit of being more complete! I did think of mentioning your recent French example, but went for the classic Emma instead (one of my all time favourite books, incidentally).

21. Thank you widdersbel@13 and MrEssexboy@14 for the delightful enlightenment on charades. This is exactly why I enjoy these blogs so much.

22. Yes, I thought this was more difficult than some previous Everyman’s, but none the worst for it.

    I took a while to see A POP = each. I liked GEORGE BUSH, and the SH*. A bit unfortunate that the clue for 6 had fellow, which was the answer for the intersecting 10. Most of the clues good, I thought, but the surface for 11 was rather nonsensical, IMHO.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

23. Yes, a bit tougher than the usual. Like others I failed to parse 8. Despite being familiar with the term “a pop” I just couldn’t see it. I also think student makes a better L than lecturer.

24. Can somebody explain the explanation for 8 down please? I guessed the answer but still don’t know how.

25. Rod @24

    Each = A POP (as in Pierre’s example, ‘£25 each’ = ‘£25 a pop’)
    lecturer = L (common abbreviation, at least in Crosswordland)
    frantic = HECTIC; ‘scratching head’ here means ‘take off the first letter’, leaving ECTIC

    Put the charade together, and you’ve got APOPLECTIC ( = ‘seething’).

26. Rod @24: A POP = each (as the blog says, think of “the entrance fee is £25 a pop” = £25 each); L = abbreviation for lecturer (it’s in the dictionaries, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used outside crosswords); [h]ECTIC = frantic, with “scratching head” = removing first letter. That was hard, though!
    Re oratorio: as a choral singer I didn’t think much of “orchestral performance” as a definition. But from the choir’s point of view, an oratorio is a performance with an orchestra (as distinct from one with organ or unaccompanied), so it just about works.

27. L for lecturer may be an abbreviation, but it isn’t a common one in my experience. Since dictionaries are usually compiled deep in the heart of academia, maybe it is there. (And of course, in Crosswordland, any word can mean its first letter: somebody somewhere will produce a justification for it.)

28. Like TT@5, I thought of rabbits out of hats. These days, tailenders can bat a bit (Lyon, Cummins, Starc and no doubt others).

29. Gladys @27, L for lecturer is in Chambers only and is arguably too obscure for a classic Everyman puzzle.
    But the current setter has used it before, and I think we know that Everyman puzzles have changed in style now, no longer so suited to relative beginners.

30. [Odd isn’t it? L would seem to be acceptable for both lecturer and learner. ]

31. And ‘learner’ would have worked in the clue perfectly well.

32. I’m way to late to get an answer but you just never know… What indicates the replacement of the P in sheep with TS in 26 across?

33. Er… that’ll be *too* late!

34. Hi Tom near Oxford @32 – I just saw your query after commenting on this week’s blog.

    You have to interpret ‘detail’ as ‘remove the tail’, i.e. take the last letter off. So you have SHEEP (ovine) without its last letter, giving SHEE. You then have to understand ‘by’ in the sense of ‘next to’, as in ‘by the sea’; SHEE next to TS (Eliot) gives SHEETS.

    [I remember the ‘detail’ trick stymied me for years when learning to solve cryptics – long before the days of 15²!]

35. Thanks, essexboy @34, much appreciated. I get it but it seems a bit too “cryptic crossword exclusive” a meaning to me, reinforced by the absence of that definition in my OED!

36. Tom – yes, it is a bit ‘whimsical’, as some might put it, or ‘cryptic crossword exclusive’ to put it another way. But then the same goes for so many cryptic conventions. Only in Crosswordland could a banker be the Ouse, a winger be a goldfinch, or a barman be Shostakovich!

37. How right you are. I don’t mind this kind of clue when I get it, it’s just when they elude me that I find them unfair!

    Thanks again for your help. I find fifteensquared really helpful but I’m never free on a Sunday morning to joint the chat.

38. Good crossword other than 11A, which was a pants surface.

    A Pop was nice

    Thanks Pierre and Everyman

39. I don’t know Barrie, 11 is saucily evocative of someone deciding to throw out their latex trousers because the impossibility of removing them outweighed the pleasure derived from wearing them. Everyman does get a little racy from time to time.

40. I’m all for sauciness Duane, but the sentence hardly trips off the tongue. I note I wasn’t the only one to pick up on it.

41. Found this one very tough. 8 down was imparseable; just got it from the cross letters. Never heard of Rita Ora, nor of Harp Lager. An oratorio is, as others have pointed out,
    NOT an “orchestral” work. Bars are not hostelries . A hostelry is “an inn, a hotel, a lodging house”. (And “embars” was a new word to me).

42. This was the hardest ever, at least for me. Was really stuck on 8d. Apoplectic fitted but didn’t get the “a pop” – very nice – and have only understood the definition in terms of a stroke victim. Do we use the word as in “seething” in this southern latitude? I’ve just never heard it used that way. As for “embars” it’s enough to drive me to drink! But happy for the education session today.

43. Very high on difficulty scale for me too- could not understand 8d but can now thanks to kiwi contribution
    Did not get 16d 23ac 12d suppose should feel pleased I got any at all
    11a I agree is clumsy and In 10a don’t think wolf and man are interchangeable
    Liked the easy start with 1a tho!

44. We got completely bamboozled by 26ac, have learnt to read detailed in a new way now! Didn’t get 16dn, harrumph – very obvious to us now. Overall very enjoyable and thanks to living in the UK for 20 years we knew Harp Lager!

45. A libretto is not a book.. qed. An unfortunate Finnish to a good crossword.

46. Hat trick is 3 wickets from 3 consecutive balls, rabbit ref comes from stage magician disappearing act, don’t need tail enders etc to parse I don’t think.
    Cheers Richard

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