Guardian 29,097 – Imogen

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A fairly easy run today, though I was held up a little at the end in the SW corner. I was nearly stumped by the tricky parsing of 18a, but it hit me just in time. Thanks to Imogen.

 
Across
1 PLIERS Implement rule in travels regularly (6)
R[ule] in PLIES
4 USEFUL ‘House full’: getting out of it is beneficial (6)
Hidden in hoUSE FULl
9 DENNIS THE MENACE Troublesome boy developing he-man tendencies (6,3,6)
Anagram of HE-MAN TENDENCIES
10 VIEWED Observed to struggle midweek (6)
VIE (to struggle) + WED[nesday]
11 DEPICTED Showed how Scotland once suffered reduction of population? (8)
If the Picts died out then Scotland would be DE-PICTED
12 SEIGNEUR Lord reigns wickedly over Europe (8)
EU (European Union) in REIGNS*
14 OOLONG Loves extended tea (6)
O O (two “loves”) + LONG
15 MARMOT Rodent‘s limb grabbed by cat from behind (6)
ARM in reverse of TOM
18 FEDERATE Racketeer shortly receiving cheers about to join in league (8)
Reverse of TA (thank you, cheers) in FEDERE[r] (Roger F, tennis player or “racketeer”)
21 TRIPLING Youth doesn’t start growing a lot (8)
[s]TRIPLING
22 ARMPIT Weapon — mine is hollow (6)
ARM + PIT
24 TAKING NO CHANCES Avoiding risk as a hopeless fielder? (6,2,7)
A chance is a possible catch in cricket, which a hopeless fielder might fail to take
25 SUTURE Tense, but succeeded replacing fine stitching (6)
FUTURE with F[ine] changed to S[ucceeded]
26 CAPERS Escapades that could end in a pickle (6)
Double definition
Down
1 PRECISE Strict church is over in force (7)
Reverse of CE in PRISE
2 I KNOW One nerd turns up: here’s the answer (1,4)
I + reverse of WONK
3 RUSHDIE Hurry to finish his novel? (7)
RUSH + DIE
5 SEMI-PRO One may have another job showing remarkable promise (4-3)
PROMISE*
6 FUNICULAR Cabled: ‘Entertainment, no role in particular’ (9)
FUN + PARTICULAR less PART (role)
7 LECTERN Hannibal’s new desk (7)
LECTER (character in The Silence of the Lambs) + N
8 CHADOR A cover-up, the result of punching soldiers (6)
CHAD (result of punching paper or card; a word many of us may have learnt from the controversies of the 2000 US presidential election) + OR (soldiers)
13 GAME POINT Imogen apt to convert an advantage (4,5)
(IMOGEN APT)*
16 ARREARS A bum’s said to be something outstanding (7)
Homophone of “a rear’s”
17 TRIGGER One sets off, going from the outside into German city (7)
G[oin]G in TRIER
18 FAGGOT Fuel gives smoke and a rising measure of warmth (6)
FAG (cigarette, smoke) + reverse of TOG (unit of warmth for quilts etc)
19 DRACHMA Opening Aeschylus’s work, check what he could have been paid (7)
CH[eck] in DRAMA (such as Aeschylus wrote)
20 TRICEPS As afterthought, after a moment one straightens elbow (7)
TRICE (a moment) + PS (afterthought)
23 MINKE Warm coat at last to save whale (5)
MINK + [sav]E

125 comments on “Guardian 29,097 – Imogen”

  2. Thanks Imogen and Andrew. Glad you found it easy, Andrew. I found it a bit of a slog, but satisfying to complete. Never heard of wonk or chador.

  3. An unfriendly grid but a nice puzzle set within it with some lovely defs and some cute tricks. I did like the anagram for DENNIS THE MENANCE – great fun – as is DEPICTED which brought a big smile. A clever use of the tennis player in FEDERATE and of the cricket phrase in TAKING NO CHANCES. DRACHMA made lovely use of its surface and was followed by two beauties: the amusing surface image made MINKE a delight but the def for TRICEPS topped it for my COTD.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew

  4. A pretty quick solve with – bizarrely, in retrospect – I KNOW being my loi. I’ll cast another vote for DEPICTED but lots of other characteristically smooth clueing from Imogen. Thanks to both.

  6. Crispy@2 Virtually none of us had heard of chads until the Gore-Bush election, when hanging chads were briefly central to the future of American government. But recalling that led inevitably to CHADOR, which I think I first encountered when Khomeini was kicking the Shah out of Iran.

  7. Thanks Andrew and Imogen, just the right difficulty for me today.

    I was tickled when the penny finally dropped on Racketeer, though I am sure this must have been used before.

    ARM used twice, though with different definitions

  8. A slow start for me, but it picked up. I tend to avoid long anagrams if I can’t see them easily until I have a few crossers, but my turning point was when I resorted to using the anagram tool for 9, when the answer jumped out at me. The rest was then a steady solve as I followed the new crossers.

  9. Thanks Imogen and Andrew
    Nice puzzle. Good start with DENNIS THE MENACE jumping straight out at me (as he might have done). Favourites DRACHMA and TRICEPS. I had never heard of CHADOR either, but remembered the hanging chads, which made it a good clue.

  10. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourites: FUNICULAR, DRACHMA, FEDERATE (first time I saw Roger Federer referred to as a racketeer!); TRICEPS; DENNIS THE MENACE; DEPICTED.

    New for me: CHAD = a piece of waste material removed from card or tape by punching (for 8d) but I have a recollection of “hanging chads” in the Gore/Bush election.

    Thanks, both.

  11. I enjoyed this very much. Was there a mini tennis related theme? SEMI PRO, GAME POINT, FEDERE(R) or maybe sport more generally with fielders not taking chances ? Maybe not, but it was all jolly good fun. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

  12. Very well done puzzle. I finished the grid but didn’t have the wordplay for DEPICTED (never heard of the PICTS on this side of the pond) and FEDERATE (what a head slapper—-quite clever indeed). Thank you Imogen and Andrew. It’s setters like you that make me look forward to the daily puzzle.

  13. This was a lovely puzzle.

    I knew CHAD from when I was a programmer in the late 60’s (!) and I had to empty the paper tape hole punch receptacles.

    In fact, I retrieved a lot of memories from the clues and solutions including this earworm

    https://youtu.be/yTSAZAHiOa8

    and visions of the Lynton/Lynmouth cliff railway.

    Was also reminded of my regular childhood deliveries of The Beano, LECTERNs from many readings and lectures performed and a very splendid afternoon’s tour of TRIER, prior to Moselle wine tasting – a beautiful city and the birthplace of Karl Marx.

    Thank you Imogen and Andrew.

  14. Unlike you Andrew, I had to plod through this very slowly. Favourites were DTM, DEPICTED, FEDERATE, TRIPLING, TNC, RUSHDIE, DRACHMA and TRICEPS. I knew CHADOR, but like others, not the chad bit. I was also thinking along the same lines as you SinCam @11.

    Ta Imogen & Andrew.

  15. Certainly no write-in for me, but it yielded steadily. Fine puzzle with no themes or trickery but a good variety of clues.

    Favourites were DEPICTED, TRICEPS, DRACHMA, TRIPLING, MINKE. CHADOR was familiar and I remember ‘chad’ only from the Bush/Gore election [after which the city of Lichfield was surprised to get a large number of hits on its website – until it dawned that this was because the cathedral is dedicated to St Chad]

    Thanks to S&B

  16. [Incidentally, when on Met police surveillance, you were encouraged not to ‘chad’, by popping your head around street corners or over walls, in case you were clocked by the subject. Of course everybody did].

  17. I found this one tough at times but worthwhile. I was in the same boat as some others regarding the unfamiliarity of WONK and CHAD, but 2d had to be I KNOW given the crossers and definition, and I was familiar with the word CHADOR at 8d (lovely double meaning there for “cover-up” given the fascinating story of the “hanging chads” election which I went back to read about, prompted by references on the blog. I remember the 2000 election being considered a bit dodgy but didn’t actually recall the Bush-Gore punch-card controversy). Others have mentioned the clues I particularly enjoyed but I also smiled at 26a CAPERS. Thank you to Imogen and Andrew.

  19. Like AlanC, I am familiar with the CHADOR, but not CHAD, I don’t remember that part of the controversy. I can’t say I found it easy but it was not very difficult. I will add my vote for DEPICTS, also liked the two long ones, OOLONG, CAPERS, I’ll stop now, before I repeat the puzzle.
    Thanks both

  20. What Postmark said @3 and ticked Gervase’s ticks@15.
    I also liked GAME POINT for the innovative, self-referential IMOGEN. Hands up whoever started off trying with wordplay using I/ME etc? That’s a lot of letters using the setter’s pseudonym in the wordplay. The ”racketeer” would be impressed.

  21. I liked DEPICTED, though I spent a long time trying to work the Highland clearances into an answer. TRICEPS was very good too. Thanks to AlanC for Kilroy was here. I had a vague memory of a cartoon Chad.

  22. I knew about chads from my days in IT long ago, when I used to be a dab hand at punching 80-column cards, but CHADOR was my last in even so. Liked DEPICTED, the DENNIS THE MENACE anagram and the trick in FUNICULAR.

  23. One G-threader was saddened at the de-Picting of Scotland.
    [And yes, those hanging chads in Miami … how different might the world have been!]
    Nice puzzle, ta Imogen and Andrew.

  24. Some enjoyable solves, with DEPICTED making me laugh. Like Flea@13 and Gladys@22, I knew CHAD from the days when punched cards were the input to a mainframe computer. Many memories stirred by today’s puzzle, thanks I and A.

  25. Found this tough, particularly the SE but got there in the end with only a couple unparsed.

    Like Petert @ 21 I started off thinking highland clearances and like PDM @ 20 tried to start the answer to the Imogen clue with I/me

    Favourites have been mentioned but just to say I really liked FUNICULAR (like Gladys @22 – neat trick)

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew

  27. I agree with all PostMark’s favourites @3 and would add FUNICULAR – as for Flea @13, it evoked the song and happy memories of the cliff railway.

    Like Fiona Anne and Petert, I thought first of the clearances for 11ac and I’m again with Petert in remembering the cartoon Mr Chad (‘Wot no …?’) regarding war-time shortages.

    I seem to have smiled rather more than usual this morning – thanks to Imogen and to Andrew.

  28. I don’t like the 3d sort of clue. What exactly is the definition?

    More cricketing arcana at 24a. The answer had to be what it is but I couldn’t see why.

    Those quibbles aside, I enjoyed this a good deal.

  29. Slow start, which is par for the course for me with Imogen.

    I liked the misleading ‘regularly’ in PLIERS, the racketeer in FEDERATE, the no role in FUNICULAR, the surface and wordplay for CHADOR, and the wordplay for DRACHMA.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  30. ‘Twas the SE corner that yielded last with me. But pretty much had a whale of time with this till MINKE splashed in last of all. Absolutely loved DEPICTED and FUNICULAR, though couldn’t quite see how SHADER worked. 24ac the opposite idea to what Bazball is attempting to do tomorrow when the Ashes series begins against the baggy green caps. As in taking lots of chances with the willow on ball, and hanging on to those catches…

  31. …except I’ve now looked at the finished grid properly – in a bit of a rush today – and see that 8d is in fact meant to be CHADOR…

  32. Thanks both and I ran out of time and ended up revealing a lot – my review was that I wasn’t going to be getting too many too quickly but should have persevered (my loss – there was an amount of wit in play in eg DEPICTED, FEDERATE, RUSHDIE).

    I was reminded of that old tv ad whereby a struggling crone is dragged from her medieval bed then tied to a stake and surrounded by FAGGOTS to the accompanying voice-over “And all because the lady loves – Black Magic”.

  34. I liked a lot of this one and found it fairly easy but not CHADOR. I got fixated on the punch implying something inside the soldiers O…R
    RUSHDIE made me wince and I expected the cricket reference to be hard for some foreigners.
    Thanks Imogen and Andrew

  35. Unfamiliar with CHAD apart from the country so thanks for blog
    Someone on the Graun thread has a prob with SEMI PRO-dunno why as most of the setters are semi pro in that sense
    IT would be a tough ask to exist on what these er Broadsheets can manage to pay.
    I have heard of setters having to supplement their incomes by doing part time cardiac surgery or lecturing in ,mathematics
    I’ll get me coat

  39. As always I am in awe of long anagrams. Thank you Imogen, and thank you Andrew for a couple of parsings that escaped me, notably TRIGGER

  40. Marina Hyde is sometimes laugh out loud funny for me (when I can follow her references which isn’t always). Looks like we might be onto the final act now as BJ flees from the furies of the privileges committee.

    Apologies for lack of crossword content!

  41. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus
    …tells me that Aeschylus’s nephew’s play beat Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex in competition – I demand a recount.
    And that Aeschylus’s son beat both Sophocles and Euripides.
    But if Aeschylus only earned one drachma for a play such as The Eumenides, it’s no wonder he had to moonlight semi-pro as a tailor…

  42. The expression on my face when I got 18 down! In the US that word only has another meaning. (I wasn’t that fond of this one anyway; surely the three-letter f word is just a short form of the six-letter one? NHO “tog” but I do see it’s reasonably widely used in the UK.)

    Nice puzzle, I liked 9, 10, and 21 especially. For 25 I saw how it would work quickly and then somehow got stuck on “perfect” as a tense and overlooked the right one. There’s a US Dennis the Menace comic about a troublesome boy as well! Though in recent years his amount of menace has been steadily decreasing.

  43. In the summer of 1971 I paid 10 DRACHMAe for a seat perched high up in the ancient theatre at Epidaurus to watch one of the Euripedes Orestes plays. Though I knew the plot, it was all Greek to me…spoken in the modern version of their language

  44. Ronald@43 – I was there in 1983 for one of Aristophanes’s comedies. We didn’t get the jokes, so I’ve been trying to make up for that here.
    Just one more, and it’s in Wiktionary:
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schm-
    ‘Etymology – Imitative of many Yiddish words such as schmaltz or schmuck.
    Prefix schm- (chiefly US) Used to form a reduplicated rhyming compound of any word in order to express disparagement, dismissal, or derision.
    I have to tell you, madam, that your son is suffering from an Oedipus complex. —Oedipus, Schmoedipus! What does it matter, so long as he loves his mother?’

  45. Yeah, matt w@42, I was kinda shocked to see that word too, the first time it showed up in one of these puzzles a few years ago. For the baffled, it’s an exceptionally offensive term for a gay man, so much so it’s considered unprintable in American newspapers. But I know that’s not what Imogen meant, so I’m not offended, just so that’s clear.

    I sort of ran out of steam, and time, when I hit the southeast corner, and I started hitting reveal, probably unnecessarily.

  46. matt w@42 – My son regards the F-word at 18d as the gay equivalent of the N-word.
    Imagine his surprise, when we went to the Savoy for lunch, and F-words were on the menu.
    I don’t think it ever had the US meaning in Ireland in the ’50s when my aunt called us all “little F-words” regardless of gender.
    In the UK, I think it’s censored when Fairy Tale Of New York gets played at Christmas on BBC Radio 1 – but not on Radio 2.

  47. yeah, including 18d, in the middle of Pride month no less, was a horrible thing to do. (Yes, I know it was defined in another sense. No, I’m not interested in hearing why that makes it OK.) Soured the crossword for me, which is a pity as it includes some absolute zingers, especially 11a.

    In the spirit of constructive criticism, here’s a clue for a word that is not a violent slur that would fit in the same place in the grid:

    Arc over bay containing island (6)

  48. I had some difficulty getting into this, but it all started to fall after a while. I rolled my eyes a bit at 18a, having guessed that ‘Racketeer’ meant tennis player, but which one? I care no more for tennis than I do for cricket, which is not at all.

  51. Robin @47 perhaps a bit of leeway is allowable when a British (I assume) crossword compiler setting for a British newspaper (although with a US edition) uses a term that is perfectly acceptable and with no negative connotations in Britain? The US does not have the right to dictate how we Brits use our own language.

  52. Robin@47 Whether you’re interested or not, the word faggot never really got much purchase in the UK as a “violent slur”, probably because “fag” was already ubiquitous as slang for a cigarette. And faggots and peas were pretty frequently on the menu when I was a kid. Not sure that a UK-based publication is under any obligation to steer clear of references that may be regarded as pejorative in other cultures.

  54. Yesterday we had MANTRAP and SEXPOT, so the Guardian seems to be going out of its way to give offence to the maximum number of solvers!

    There is another meaning of the word in the UK, possibly obsolescent: in the traditional feudal culture of the more exclusive English private schools, younger boys acted as valets to the older students – and were known as fags. No connection with US usage (despite what duties they might sometimes be made to perform) but unfortunate nevertheless.

    ‘Finocchio’ is an extremely perjorative term for a gay man in Italian – but it’s also the word for ‘fennel’ so is widely used to refer to the vegetable without causing any embarrassment or offence. Context is all.

  55. Thanks for the blog , a lot of very good clues , I will just add FUNICULAR to the list from MrPostMark@3. The wordplay for RUSHDIE is fine but the definition is somewhat imprecise.
    CHAD has a brief cameo in the classic Steptoe and Son episode ” Divided we Stand”.

  56. Robin @47
    I’m baffled by your post. FAGGOT as a bundle of sticks used for fuel, as defined here, is a perfectly valid usage, whatever other connotations there might be. It also means a savoury pudding made from pork and offal. Would you ban “hairdresser” as it has been used as a euphemism for male homosexual?

  57. Faggots are available to purchase in any butchers and every supermarket. There are hundreds of recipes online and in most of my cookery books. Surely that means Imogen can clue faggot? And if faggot can be clued as food, surely it can be clued as a bundle of firewood which is its secondary definition in Chambers and clearly the way in which it is being used in the clue. The whole surface is referencing combustible fuel. The fact that it happens to be an offensive term when used in a particular context, particularly in the US, in no way disqualifies it from being used by a compiler. There are other words which, clearly, should never appear but we shouldn’t be writing off a word that has been used in its acceptable contexts since at least Norman times

  59. Robin@53. I don’t care where you live. Faggot is a perfectly acceptable word in British English, given that it has two long- established meanings that have nothing to do with sexuality.

  60. Thanks Andrew, enjoyed this which even featured a couple of nods to my new and old homes, but mostly of course the quality clueing, just deceptive or obscure enough for me to feel a sense of achievement on completion. (I am a bit behind this week but another fine run of weekday puzzles as far as I am concerned.)

    I had wondered if “wonk” originated as a description of someone who might “know backwards” a particular subject, which might have put me off that one a little, but wiktionary suggests not and all is well with the world.
    Thanks Imogen.

  61. @56 A euphemism not a slur. I plain refuse to believe anyone is actually dim enough to believe that’s comparable.

  62. I dare anyone who thinks it’s “perfectly acceptable” in modern Britain to go and shout it in the nearest pub.

  63. @61
    Why can a euphemism not be a slur? I plain refuse to believe that anyone is actually dim enough to belive that it can’t be.

  64. Tell you what, I’ll go to my nearest pub and shout “hairdresser”. We’ll see which of us comes off worse.

  66. Robin@62
    I too live in Scotland and I will happily take that bet.
    If I call someone a faggot, that is a slur. If I call a bundle of sticks a faggot and you choose to take offence, that is entirely your problem.

  67. A cryptic crossword blog is an interesting place to argue that one meaning of a word exists in isolation from all others

  68. Robin@67
    Not in isolation, but not inextricably linked either. If I sit on a stool I have not necessarily soiled myself. And we need to take responsibility for our own reactions. It is infantile to snits on one’s right to be offended when no offence is intended or can reasonably be inferred.

  70. Nice crossword. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew. And thanks for an interesting discussion. I was going to say that I messed up with13. GAME POINT, as I immediately saw the anagram as GAIN TEMPO (a term from chess for those who might not know), and did not think to look any further as it also more or less fitted (should I say ‘fit’ here to keep our American audience happy?) the definition! Can’t be too many times that two anagram solutions for a relatively long clue with the right enumeration?

  71. Robib@67 and others

    A Faggot was originally an old woman who gathered sticks for burning.
    [The use of faggot to mean a gay man is originally an Americanism and appears in the early twentieth century, an extension of the epithet for a woman, emphasizing the stereotype of effeminacy, much like queen or fairy. This sense appears in a 7 April 1913 letter by John Reed, in which he uses the word to refer to a drag act:
    Mr. Max Hoffmann is very anxious to put on their vaudeville revue, to do this it will be necessary to cut out the “Garden of Girls” scene, […] also to eliminate “The Fagot Number.”(Wordorigins.org)]
    So when there is a Pride Month the Setters must not use answers or clue such as Gay, fairy, queer, queen, Dorothy, Uranian, pink, in any context, in case they are interpreted as offensive, despite these words having perfectly good and old English definitions.

  72. Snits! How dare you Charles@68!

    That was what my grandfather’s next-door-neighbour’s uncle-in-law used to call Gramps’s tropical fish that failed to win prizes at some competition or other. That led to ‘Snits Phalpha’, a soubriquet which haunted him to his urn. How dare you throw it in my face?! I am deeply offended.

    I share memories with FrankieG@46 of being called a FAGGOT, meaning a mis-behaving child, (because we weren’t much given to other manifestations of the word involving eg bonfires (but inevitably with an intention of burning some poor sod (sorry)) or offal-eating) and ask how it got from there to being an offensive wepithet.

    If it can’t and mustn’t and shouldn’t and wouldn’t and couldn’t (and won’t) be used to mean what it can be taken to mean, can we please have our word back?

  73. Just for the record: I’m as gay as the day is long – a June day, at that – and I was not offended in the least. And even if I were, it wouldn’t be because it’s Pride month.

    I found this very gentle for Imogen, with lots of the expected cleverness. Like others, FUNICULAR was my fave.

  74. I’ll say this: having been called a f’n faggot back when things were worse, I do not care to repeat the experience. Words change. The way people use them changes them. The fact that it’s been hurled at homosexuals in America has changed the word faggot to beyond where anyone in Britain can save it. I’m sorry if you think it’s meatballs or firewood. The N word was also once perfectly acceptable. And you can’t hide behind “this is a British newspaper,” because it isn’t–they intentionally market in North America.

  75. Talking of American vs English usages: in the United States, it is normal to refer to a tennis “racket”; but in Britain, isn’t it still a tennis “racquet”?

  76. Mrpenny
    I don’t think that N was ever acceptable, like P and W it was a word specifically developed to be an insult to a certain group of people from Africa, Asia or the Caribbean. Faggot was adopted, and may be a bad homophone of dragact, and throughout the world the original meanings are more understood than the Americanism, the word originates from the French fagot, which I can happily buy in many French farm shops and vineyards. No one ever seams offended
    The Guardian markets in the US but it includes a British cryptic crossword, a style of crossword. Americans can always do American cryptics which will no doubt have words acceptable in the US but offensive elsewhere. I am sure the many Guardian crossword fans would like to have an American cryptic as well as their British one.

  77. Yes mrpenney@74 but the ‘n word’ has no other meanings. To concede objection to the casual use of FAGGOT in one of its remaining meanings would license objection to, inter alia, ‘hoe’ (I can’t think of any alia (help me out here)). I know a couple of French ladies called Fanny – that would be offensive in different ways on different sides of the pond but it’s just their name and used to a common abbreviation for ‘Frances’ on the eastern side.

  80. Steffen–“plies” is “travels regularly,” as in “the ship plies the waters of Lake Erie” or whatever.

  84. While I was not personally offended by this crossword, it is enough for me to note that someone was. It’s just a crossword … so it doesn’t seem too much to ask for setters to note that some people found the clue/answer offensive, and steer clear of causing the same offense in the future.
    Otherwise, I loved the crossword today.

  85. mrpenney@78: I love her too. But not as much as Liza.

    Steffen@79: A ferry (for instance – although I can think of nothing else that ‘plies’) will ply from say Dover to Calais (and back again, perhaps obviously 🙂 ), hence ‘travels regularly’. That’s a tough one. See also Gervase@37.

  86. Veronica @84
    It’s defined as “fuel”, not “homosexual”. Two clues use “arms” – might not armless people, thalidomide victims, for example, be offended by those?

  89. Alphalpha @77. Other “alia” might be “puff” for a breath of smoke or “bender” for a drunken binge: words which have perfectly acceptable meanings as well as their more offensive ones.

  90. Steffen@79 – apparently from ‘plying’ meaning to tack against the wind in a ship, and more generally to steer a course.

    Here’s a little from the OED:
    b. intransitive. With about, off and on, to and again, up and down, etc. Also figurative. Obsolete.
    1590 J. White Fifth Voy. in R. Hakluyt Princ. Navigations (1600) III. 291 Plying too and fro betweene the Matanças and Hauana, we were espied of three small Pinnasses of S. Iohn de Vllua bound for Hauana.

  91. [Readers of Agatha Christie and Jerome K. Jerome (in the original versions), among many others, will recall that the N word used to be considered commonplace and unremarkable. Times change, and I for one am glad they do.]

  93. (I always forget whether that’s Conrad or Mellville, which means that I just typed the N-word at work to look it up. One of those classic novelists who PLIED the waters of the nautical world.)

  94. Alphalpha @ 77: If you are using a hoe inter alia then you must have a lot of weeds between your garlic and onions.

    I’ll get my gardening coat…

  95. Thank you troops. I actually managed 6 or 7 clues today…a genuine rush.

    Some great new words for the vocabulary.

  96. I’m with Robin. Does Imogen use other names in other papers so I can be sure to steer clear of this setter in the future?

  97. The ludicrous fuss that has been made here by some contributors relating to the use of the word ‘faggot’ to mean a bundle of firewood, has further reinforced for me that I should just disengage from this forum.

  98. Spooner@97 Yeah, I’ve been trying to phase it out … . You should by this principle ban any setter who uses the word ‘mother’ coz in certain areas it is short for a mortal insult wh some might take great umbrage at.

  99. Spooner’s catflap@: No please. Always enjoy your contributions. (and polyphone, don’t belie your name).

    Jack Of Few Trades@94: Wonderful lol. 🙂

  101. Robin@62 I don’t think anyone would deny that words which would be perfectly acceptable in one context could be unacceptably provocative in another. That does not in itself mean we should stop using them, whatever the other argumenys for or against might be.

  103. The N word used to be more “commonplace and unremarkable” in the UK in my childhood (my school uniform was officially described as N***** Brown) – but it always had only the one meaning, a derogatory racial description that became increasingly acknowledged as offensive as time went by.

    Faggot, on the other hand, has various inoffensive meanings (in the UK anyway) as do most of the words listed by CliveinFrance@71, and the word was explicitly defined as one of the harmless meanings. I don’t think he is seriously suggesting that setters are expected to refrain from using “queen” or “pink” because they can be insults in the wrong context – unless they were defined that way. For instance, I wouldn’t have been bothered by yesterday’s MANTRAP if it had been described as the illegal contraption set by a game keeper to catch poachers – but it wasn’t.

    We also have the UK/US cultural divide, where words regarded as offensive here are harmless there, and vice versa (I remember discovering to my surprise that EXOTIC is now seen as racist in the States). Unfortunately, once the US has decided that a word is unacceptable there, cultural imperialism ensures that it will become unacceptable here. So I expect that is the last time we will ever see FAGGOT in a Guardian crossword.

  104. Maybe the last word on the 18d furore, maybe not:

    Most of the discussion seems to circle around the word itself and its multiple meanings in different places. What’s been less discussed is the choice of word made by the setter and any potential issues that could or should have been taken into consideration around it. A setter is fundamentally someone who works with the polysemous nature of words; it’s their stock in trade. Misdirection in clue-writing is based precisely on this whole principle.

    So my take is: for a crossword setter to not know that this particular word has a meaning that is extremely offensive to a significant proportion of Guardian readers is a somewhat surprising gap in vocabulary; for a setter to know and to use it anyway shows an equally surprising lack of sensitivity, regardless of any ‘dictionary definition’ defence.

    Personally I would put that word in the ‘to be avoided’ category.

    But once again I’ll bring up my own pet peeve: even if the setter has a ‘blind spot’ for a particular word, it should really have been queried by either a test solver or that mythical beast, the crossword editor.

  107. Robin@47’s replacement clue is very nice – ie PRECISE.
    “Arc over bay containing island (6)” – FOGBOW – WO(BG)OF< — A 360 degree white rainbow seen in fog
    WOOF suggesting the dog-whistle politics in play around this Brexited Benighted Kingdom of GB (& NI)
    FOG for the old FOGies who can't see that the F-word is not just offensive in the US.
    BOW for half of the rainBOW flag of LGBT+ Pride
    It's also the second most common result on OneLook, so the setter has no excuse.
    https://www.onelook.com/?w=f?g?o?&ssbp=1
    Here's a picture:
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fogbow#/media/File:360_degrees_fogbow.jpg
    The F-word has no place in a crossword – or on a menu – anymore. The Guardian and Observer style guide should say so.

  108. Didn’t get to this yesterday.

    Couldn’t parse VIEWED, FEDERATE, TAKING NO CHANCES (cicket!), FAGGOT (tog = “unit of warmth” for quilts?!!?).

    I tried too long to work elephants into the Hannibal clue.

    CH = check in DRACHMA?

    Flea@13 ‘s earworm reminds me of Noel Coward’s song about Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster, the widow cutting loose on the Riviera singing “Funiculi, funicula, funicuself.”

    Petert@21 Me too with the Highland clearances.

    Thanks, Imogen and Andrew.

  109. The proudly gay conductor of our orchestra takes great delight in referring to the bassoon section as the fagotts.

    The clue next to 19d was TRIGGER. Was Imogen anticipating something?

  110. I am strongly on the side of the sensible majority, not the perpetually and professionally offended, when it comes to the ‘faggot’ clue. Are setters supposed to stop cluing ‘ass’ for ‘donkey’ or vice versa to avoid offending Americans (dare I say, making them ‘butt hurt’)? The only time I’ve ever heard ‘faggot’ used to refer to an old woman was in ‘Carry On Cabbie’, are we now expected to censor or ban that too? How absurd!

  111. [FrankieG @107 – thanks for the FOGBOW. I was too lazy to work out Robin’s alternative clue, which is indeed very nice. The shadow puts me in mind of the Brockengespenst effect, and FOGBOW itself sounds like a combo of two mnemonics used for remembering a list of German prepositions which can be translated as both FOR and AT which always take the accusative case – DOGWUF and FUDGEBOW 🙂 ]

  113. Long Time Lurker @110
    “Ass” is a very good xcample. Of course it’s ARSE over here.
    It reminds me of an Everyman puzzle I solved early in my solving career. I can’t remembere the exact clue, but it was an anagram, and I had UP TO HIS ???? IN IT. The letters remaining were A R S E.

    It turned to be EARS.

  115. [Roz @112 – spot on as per usual:
    Unnaturally large shadow, wildly berserk concept (7,7)
    28746, Vulcan, 2 May 2022 – just after Walpurgisnacht!

    (Too late to meet Faust & Co this year, but just in time for a Night on the Bare Mountain on St John’s Eve. Large gatherings of broomstick-fliers expected over Denmark on the night of 23 June, en route to the Brocken, but take care to fly round the bonfires.) ]

  118. asking this as an american (so please forgive any cultural imperialism herein): is it terribly common, over there, to find yourselves in situations where you’re dealing with a bundle of sticks used for fuel but need a more concise way to refer to said bundle, such that it would be debilitating to remove f****t from the lexicon? or is the worry more that Imogen would be unable to set grids with such a crucial word removed from his arsenal?

  119. FrankieG@107 Mr Penney @ 74 – (the latter has always been one of my favourite commenters – until now) I’d hazard that millions of people in these islands eat faggots (happily advertised and sold by our stores and supermarkets, as another has stated) and have done so continuously for centuries.
    How dare you hijack a fine and decent word and then mutilate it into something that suits your irrelevant* sensibilities and, seemingly, hypersensitivities. Why should we, who adore our beautiful language, sit back while you assail it by excising an everyday word; such behaviour is linguistic invasion, eugenicism – in short, fascism as demonstrated by FrankieG@107. When will you start burning books Mr Pennydreadful?!! I would have thought before today, Mr P, that you would have found it difficult to declaim so illiberally

    (*I mean irrelevant to usual meanings of “faggot”; I’m not saying that your sensibilities are in any way irrelevant in and of themselves)

  120. e.a.@118 – is this deliberate sophistry? The argument proposed by the liberal FrankieG@107 is that this word should cease to be used. He presumably wishes millions of my compatriots to stop eating faggots – or, at least, refuse to mention or discuss what we eat. And how do we communicate our needs to the butcher or grocer? Some of these precious quasi-fascist Americans – no wonder we let them go! ?

  121. essexboy@111 – I thought you were having me on with DOGWUF and FUDGEBOW but I found the former on Mumsnet – “Durch, Ohne, Gegen, Weider, Um, Fur”…

  122. …and the latter here on the wonderful BBC Bitesize – the one-stop shop for all your GCSE revision needs.
    …The trouble was I was Googling “dogwuf mnemonic” – Google it yourself (GIY) and see – and Google gave me this url, which contains neither word…
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zq6rk7h/revision/2
    …but does contain fudgebow. How the fudge did that happen?
    Für-for Um-(a)round Durch-through Gegen-against Entlang-along Bis-until Ohne-without Wider-against
    It even has a picture of some fudge packed in cellophane and tied up with a pretty blue bow.

  123. I couldn’t help noticing that there’s a real word FUDGE-BOX, (hyphen optional), that would immediately follow FUDGEBOW in a dictionary.
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fudge_box
    ‘Noun – fudge box – (plural fudge boxes)
    1 (journalism, printing, historical) A mechanical contrivance into which linotype slugs containing late-breaking news are clamped.
    2 (journalism, by extension) A small blank area left in a newspaper layout for the insertion of late-breaking news.’
    It’s the Stop Press on the back of the Evening News (RIP Halloween 1980 and 1987) where they’d print, say, the result of a football match in 1966.

  125. @121ff I’m glad, at least, that my late comment was not fudge boxed in pointlessly, to the extent that I now know you wouldn’t denounce a restorateur, or restorateuse for putting faggots on his, or her, menu. The rest of your loosening follows by simple inductive extension. You can now freely enjoy a faggot or two; yummy with chips – less for you to shoulder. Bless

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