The second Prize puzzle by Picaroon in successive weeks.
No complaints from me about this repetition, but I do look forward to seeing how often Picaroon has appeared in the annual lists which Mitz compiles and publishes here every year. I may be wrong but it’s very rare to have the same setter appear in this slot twice in succession.
Unlike the previous one, this one had an obvious theme in that all the across clues (except 8 across itself) had a reference to 8 across. Timon and I couldn’t initially solve 8 across, so we started on the down clues and this gave us some crossers to help with the across clues. The relatively easy anagram at 26 across was our gateway to the theme, although the answer itself was new to us. I wondered if QWERTY would put in an appearance, but sadly it did not, but we did have the rather more obscure DVORAK arrangement. It may be churlish to complain that the puzzle, lacking as it does a J, a Q and a W, is not also a pangram but it does have a Nina of sorts on the bottom line which I have highlighted.
It is a remarkable achievement to find and execute a theme like this involving all the across clues, none of which seems particularly artificial or contrived.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | KEYBOARD |
Major poet gathers old writer may use this (8)
|
| KEY (major) O(ld) in BARD (poet). The thematic clue. | ||
| 9 | DVORAK |
Kind of 8 for Bohemian composer (6)
|
| Double definition: the Dvorak keyboard never really caught on. | ||
| 10 | HOME |
I’m surprised about this person’s 8 part (4)
|
| OH (I’m surprised – rev) ME (this person). The home keys on a keyboard are (for the index fingers on each hand) the F and J keys, often marked with a small raised bar, to help a typist orientate to the correct starting position without having to look at the keyboard. | ||
| 11 | GLENN GOULD |
8 expert in valley with old gnu running wild (5,5)
|
| GLEN (valley) *(OLD GNU). | ||
| 12 | DELETE |
8 part appearing oddly in duet and Lied then (6)
|
| Odd letters in DuEt LiEd ThEn. A key from the top row of a computer keyboard. | ||
| 14 | SPACE BAR |
8 part is special – great bit of music on piano (5,3)
|
| SP(ecial) ACE (great) BAR (bit of music). I don’t think that “on piano” is necessary to the clue or does much for the surface. If however you take the abbreviation for “special” to be S, then P for quietly is needed, although then the order of the elements in the clue doesn’t accurately reflect the answer. | ||
| 15 | TYPISTS |
8 experts, irrational during dates, run away (7)
|
| PI (an irrational number) inside T(r)YSTS. | ||
| 17 | CELESTA |
Elects to jazz up a kind of 8 (7)
|
| *(ELECTS A). | ||
| 20 | ART TATUM |
8 expert‘s skill with Parisian you dressed in hat (3,5)
|
| ART (skill) TU (you in French) inside TAM (a kind of hat). | ||
| 22 | INSERT |
Still welcoming Schubert’s prelude for 8 part (6)
|
| S(chubert) inside INERT (still). Another key from the top row of a computer keyboard. | ||
| 23 | FRANZ LISZT |
8 expert‘s country record on the radio (5,5)
|
| A homophone for France, followed by one for list (record). | ||
| 24 | TUNE |
Fan recalled electronic 8 production? (4)
|
| NUT (a fan) (rev) E(lectronic). | ||
| 25 | CARETS |
Characters on 8s playing set behind saloon? (6)
|
| CAR (saloon) *SET. The caret symbol is on the 6 key on a computer keyboard. | ||
| 26 | UNA CORDA |
Surprising candour with advanced command for 8 user (3,5)
|
| *(CANDOUR A). It’s an instruction to a pianist to use the soft pedal. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RECOVERY |
Place to play a bit of cricket close to Surrey, making comeback (8)
|
| REC (a place to play) OVER (a bit of cricket) (surre)Y. | ||
| 2 | ABLE |
Bright student gets poor grade after better ones (4)
|
| L(student) inside AB (good grades) and E (a poor one). | ||
| 3 | BANGLE |
Band – girl band that hasn’t succeeded (6)
|
| The BANGLEs were an all-girl band. | ||
| 4 | ADVERSE |
Releasing book, what poetaster writes is unfortunate (7)
|
| A poetaster writes (b)AD VERSE. The definition in Chambers is worth quoting: A writer of contemptible verses. | ||
| 5 | EDENTATE |
Country deposing leader after PM is lacking bite (8)
|
| EDEN (former Prime Minister) (s)TATE. | ||
| 6 | MOROSENESS |
Being miserable on drinking wine in canteen (10)
|
| ROSE (wine) inside ON inside MESS (canteen). | ||
| 7 | PAELLA |
Return of spring by city in the Spanish Main? (6)
|
| LEAP (rev) L(os) A(ngeles). The definition is nicely misleading. | ||
| 13 | EXISTENCES |
Entices changes in failing sex lives (10)
|
| *(ENTICES SEX). | ||
| 16 | TOTALISE |
I appreciate that fifty-one’s contained in digit in sum (8)
|
| TA (I appreciate that) LIS (51’s) inside TOE (digit). | ||
| 18 | THRENODY |
He’d try on pants, having mournful air (8)
|
| *(HED TRY ON). | ||
| 19 | SMASH-UP |
Squash drink bottles – this leads to a big accident (5-2)
|
| MASH (squash) inside SUP (drink). “Bottles” here is an inclusion indicator. | ||
| 21 | REREAD |
Once again, study school subject, not quite prepared (6)
|
| RE (Religious Education, school subject) READ(y). | ||
| 22 | IN-TRAY |
Where you could find mail train, running by railway’s terminus (2-4)
|
| *TRAIN (railwa)Y. | ||
| 24 | TROT |
Revolutionary wrong after revolution (4)
|
| TORT (a wrong) (rev). |
Unusually for me FOI was 8 across, and then I slowed up! Loved Franz Liszt.
10ac, HOME: I think it’s referring to the name of a key (cf DELETE, INSERT), rather than the home position for touch typists.
14ac, SPACEBAR: I think the order is fine with S=special and P=piano:
S (special), then {ACE (great) BAR (piece of music)} on P (piano)
17ac, CELESTA needs “jazz up” to be intransitive but Collins, for example, only has it as a transitive phrasal verb.
26ac, UNA CORDA: didn’t know this but got it from the anagram. Interesting to note why the Italian for ‘one string’ means ‘use the soft pedal’.
13dn, EXISTENCES: *entices in *sex, more accurately.
17ac, CELESTA: I actually had this as SELECTA, a common misspelling on the internet for the Mercedes Selekta typewriter. Hadn’t heard of the CELESTA.
This was a complete failure because I could not solve 8A. Once i could Reveal that it took 25 minutes! I did not know UNA CORDA but the word play left no choice.
I also parsed SPACE BAR as for Tony @2.
Favourite has to be PAELLA for the misleading definition.
Thanks bridgesong. Like Antonknee @1 I lucked in straight away for once with 1a and that helped the rest to follow on. Had to resort to Google for confirmation of 11, 20 and 26. I spent a bit of time trying to account for ‘celeste’ in 17, hadn’t heard of the alternative spelling. LOI was BANGLE which had to be the answer but again I hadn’t heard of the band. I have a home button on my keyboard too.
Thanks Picaroon for a most enjoyable prize. I solved a number of the across clues which then helped me solve KEYBOARD. My top picks were TYPISTS, the brilliant FRANZ LISZT, CARETS, the very clever PAELLA, and EXISTENCES. I did use assistance to get DVORAK, UNA CORDA, and RECOVERY, all beyond my orbit. Thanks bridgesong for the blog.
I got DVORAK and EXISTENCES early, and like bridgesong thought we were headed for a pangram – so much so that I too was looking for a place to put QWERTY. Wrong and wrong!
All in all a nice mixture of the two meanings of the theme. PAELLA very clever.
Thanks
Back to back Picaroon’s, ya can’t go wrong. Enjoyed this puzzle though I had a small issue with the pronunciation of “FRANZ” for 23A. I guess if you used the American pronunciation it would be OK as a homophone for FRANCE.
Thanks, Picaroon and bridgesong!
Liked TYPISTS, ADVERSE and REREAD.
UNA CORDA
A very minor point
CANDOUR* + (with) A (advanced)
Rats @9: All the Americans I know pronounce FRANZ LISZT as “frahns” not “frans.” However, FRANZ Ferdinand is pronounced as “frans.” I guess it wouldn’t be a complete 15-squared blog without a homophone debate.
I finished this fairly quickly, ie it was still Saturday, but I solved KEYBOARD reasonably soon, I managed a couple of across clues and that helped with 8a.
Last week seems a long time ago to remember, but I do recall the penny dropping with PAELLA. I loved that one.
Thanks both.
Thanks, bridgesong. I didn’t get 8a straight off, but felt I was looking for some sort of writing implement, and I think it was getting INSERT that got me to KEYBOARDS, and then DVORAK confirmed it (I did know of the keyboard, but have never used one). Usually, I do these as a solo effort, but my daughter and her musician boyfriend were around and I brought them in, and with three quite different minds at work we rattled through the rest. It reminded me how much fun it can be to do a crossword as a group effort, and may have sparked an interest in cryptics in one musician! Even he didn’t know UNA CORDA, but there weren’t many options once the crossers were in. I particularly liked TYPISTS, the misleading ‘Spanish Main’, FRANZ LISZT, and DVORAK (which neatly combined both music and computing). Thanks, Picaroon.
I enjoyed this puzzle very much. Thanks, Picaroon for the entertainment.
I agree with all the points made by Tony Collman@2 and like Biggles A@6, I had celeste, never having seen the alternative spelling. Favourites have all been mentioned already. UNA CORDA was my TILT and I was surprised to find it was a mechanical device rather than a keyboard virtuoso. ?
FRANZ LISZT was a write in for me and I never stopped to wonder about homophones. Just as I came to the clue, my radio started playing Lang Lang performing La Campanella by Liszt. Was it a gift or just coincidence?
Thank you, bridgesong for a lovely clear blog. Now to today’s offering.
I wonder if the Mercedes produced a ‘Selekta’ and a ‘Selecta’ model for different markets. Selecta
PAELLA, the Spanish Main, my fav. Like others I knew of the DVORAK keyboard and was looking for QWERTY.
I think both bridgesong and Tony C@2 are right about the HOME key, on manual and electronic keyboards, and credit to Picaroon for the clue.
Bridgesong’s second reading of SPACEBAR is the one I believe must have been intended, as otherwise piano isn’t needed. I think the word order works.
I don’t think the homophone for FRANZ/France works in any language, but we’ve been there before, (cf prints/prince, mints/mince), and Essexboy isn’t here to back me up. Oh, and here in Oz, only South Australians (mostly) have the ”frahnce” pronunciation, and they also say ”dahnce”. The rest of us say the vowel as in Dan the man.
But I got it, and as some (here) say, close enough is good enough, (and I would add, without a spectogram.) Things like that are important though if you’re doing forensic analysis of phone-tapping etc for legal proceedings. But here amongst friends, eh, it’s aural wordplay.
Thanks for the blog , Tony @2 has made a lot of my points. Poetaster from 4D was in a few days before this one. Many theme words linked to computer keyboards, could there be anything more interesting ?
I am not a fan of the same setter twice in a row for the prize, unless the Guardian has discovered a stack of unused Bunthorne puzzles , I live in hope.
DELETE was my FOI of the theme answers and I started thinking of computer keys. Then got GLENN GOULD whom I had not heard of but WIKI told me he was a pianist – penny dropped and got KEYBOARD.
Liked EDENTATE, ADVERSE, TYPISTS, ABLE, PAELLA, TOTALISE
Thanks Picaroon and bridgesong
[ For the many fans of Arachne she sets as Rosa Klebb in the FT today, I suspect it is easy to find online ]
Thanks Picaroon and bridgesong
I loved PAELLA for the misleading definition.
UNA CORDA: normally each note on a piano has three strings that the hammer hits. The “soft” pedal actually moves the whole striking mechanism sideways so that the hammers only hit one of the strings; hence “one string”.
I’m confused again. My guardian online is showing number 29231 by Vlad??
And 29225 is shown for November 11??
Enjoyed this very much, having luckily got DVORAK and ART TATUM early on. I remembered UNA CORDA from childhood piano lessons, but assumed that BANGLE = a band worn round the wrist = bracelet, having not heard of the girl group. Failed completely with 10ac for no good reason. Thanks to setter and blogger.
Loved this.
CELESTA – *(ELECTS) + A – [Thanks muffin@21 for explaining “one string”]
UNA CORDA – *(CANDOUR) + A – KVa@11
ABLE – L(student) after AB (good grades) and E (a poor one).
BANGLE – The BANGLEs still are an all-girl band.
EXISTENCES – *(ENTICES) in *(SEX) – Tony Collman@2
Stu@22 Saturday is a prize puzzle with a closing date on Friday . The Vlad today will be blogged NEXT Saturday . This blog is for the prize puzzle from LAST Saturday.
Unable to solve 8ac immediately, I decided to start on the down clues first but did not have much luck there either apart from THRENODY. Returning to the across clues, I solved GLENN GOULD which gave me a hint to the theme and finally managed to solve KEYBOARD after 15ac TYPISTS. Difficult but quite enjoyable.
I got 17ac wrong, having entered SELECTA which I thought was a typewriter model.
New for me: UNA CORDA, CARETS, HOME key (I use a Mac so I have never seen a Home key), DVORAK keyboard (but I knew the composer).
I could not parse 21d REREAD = once again, study.
Favourites: PAELLA, MOROSENESS.
Thanks, both.
Found this puzzle a real struggle. A DNF (did not finish) because I too couldn’t manage HOME.
Not a fan of cryptics that mix in quite so much knowledge. It’s hard to think of CELESTA, UNA CORDA and DVORAK as general knowledge.
Pleased that others enjoyed this more. RECOVERY, TROT and PAELLA my favourites.
A joy to solve. I scrolled back through the app to see what last week’s prize crossword was and smiled broadly when I realised it was “the keyboard one” .
Like many above Paella was fave.
Thanks Setter and Blogger
Thanks Picaroon and bridgesong
Expanding on the wordplay for SPACE BAR, I think it works because implicitly from the hyphen splitting the clue ‘on piano’ only applies to the elements after the break.
I haven’t done the research but I’m fairly sure that we’ve seen successive Prize puzzles from Paul. I had no cause for complaint this time!
I’m not particularly interested in the lay-out of computer keyboards – DVORAK was a surprise but, like michelle, I know (and love) the composer) – but I enjoyed the clever double use of the theme and learned some things along the way.
My favourites were 11ac GLENN GOULD, 15ac TYPISTS (a change from intoxicated secretaries), 26ac UNA CORDA, 4dn ADVERSE, 5dn EDENTATE, 7dn PAELLA and 24dn TROT.
Many thanks to setter and blogger.
9a being one of my favourite composers, I got 8a pretty quickly, which I needed.
Having solved 2D and 4D early on, I then managed to get KEYBOARD, which allowed a few Across write-ins, and the rest followed on.
I liked ADVERSE, MOROSENESS and PAELLA.
Thanks Picaroon and bridgesong.
I only tackled this today and got the gateway clue pretty quickly, though that didn’t translate into a quick finish, as I needed to come back to it a couple of times for everything to fall into place. A well worked surface theme, if a little heavy on ‘general’ knowledge. Favourite was PAELLA.
Thanks both
Thanks Picaroon and bridgesong. DNF this one. Five still unsolved at the end. Tried for a long time to find a keyboard player called Something Young. I think PAELLA would have been my favourite clue, too, if I had got it!
Michelle@17
I too had SELECTA at 17a and I find it hard to treat it as a failure. It fits and parses which is good enough for me. That said, I’m surprised that CELESTA didn’t occur to me first as I had heard of it before but had to check SELECTA.
I had SPACE KEY @ 14a which parses if you accept KEY as a piece of music. Eventually the penny dropped on 7d and I realised my mistake.
Never heard of The Bangles @ 3d but that’s not surprising.
GLENN GOULD might be obscure for younger solvers. He died in 1982. Apart from his award-winning pianism he was famous for his eccentricity, including giving up playing in public and humming along with the music.
Thanks to Picaroon and bridgesong
Ats@16, good find, and a very plausible explanation of the ubiquity of the SELECTA spelling on the internet.
Wee Stu@22, maybe best to post this on General Discussion?
Frankie G@25, “EXISTENCES – *(ENTICES) in *(SEX) – Tony Collman@2”
And your point is?
Pino @ 36 Glenn Gould may have hummed along with the music, but on some close-miked Keith Jarrett recordings you can hear him humming what he’s going to play next!
Pino @36: I think I’m towards the younger end of the spectrum around here (which is sad, since I’m pushing 50), but I’ve certainly heard of GLENN GOULD. That’s the thing about classical music: we don’t necessarily want the latest recordings; we’ll take the best, and we now have over a century’s worth to choose from.
I’m another who tried Selecta before CELESTA, but the Internet failed to convince me. The penny-drop moment about two minutes later was more of an “oh, duh, of course” moment.
Following on to Muffin’s explanation of UNA CORDA, the opposite instruction (“time to lay off the soft pedal”) is tre corde, which makes sense once you understand what the mechanism does. Also, the average upright piano doesn’t have a proper soft pedal. On uprights, that pedal just moves the hammers closer to the strings, which is less satisfactory–one of many reasons grand pianos are preferred wherever practical.
Here was yet another heavily themed puzzle that was anything but heavy-going. I got into the theme not from KEYBOARD directly but from DVORAK, which I remembered as being a keyboard layout (an alternative to QWERTY). I enjoyed very much working the theme through all of the Across clues: from keys on keyboards to musicians and instruments. I knew all the musical references, including UNA CORDA, which muffin @21 has explained perfectly, and GLENN GOULD, which took me a bit longer to remember.
Thanks to Picaroon and bridgesong.
Oh, I forgot to mention: I know a couple people who use DVORAK keyboards and swear by them–apparently the layout puts the more commonly needed letters in more convenient positions. By contrast, QWERTY was designed in part to keep old mechanical keyboards from jamming, which is no longer a concern. Of course, the thing is that once you’ve learned on a QWERTY, it’s hard to unlearn, which is why Dvorak never caught on.
I saw the unfriendly grid – one of several that week if I recall correctly – and decided not to bother.
Very enjoyable: thanks Picaroon and bridgesong (would that be the 59th Street
bridge song by any chance?)
I needed Google to confirm the DVORAK keyboard, and it’s too long since my childhood piano lessons to remember UNA CORDA.
The Spanish Main made me laugh when the peseta dropped.
Ignominious failure here, despite getting KEYBOARD and the theme early.
I’ve heard of Glenn Gould, Art Tatum and Franz Liszt, so no problems on that front but biffed in TOTALITY for TOTALISE so failed on the CARETS (and of course the ANIN) and couldn’t figure out HOME for the life of me (not really a touch typist in my defence).
Thanks Picaroon for ingenious theming and clueing and to bridgesong for explaining it all!
I had SELECTA like Tony C@3 and others. I agree with Pino@36 that SELECTA was a reasonable alternative fit. I didn’t get CARETS, sadly. I didn’t know this word even though I have used the circumflex accent for decades in spreadsheet formulae. I got the keyboard theme quite early, but I didn’t really enjoy this puzzle for the same reason as Choldunk@28. Too many solutions were unknown to me – types of keyboard, musicians and musical terms. A do-able slog with Google.
PAELLA defeated me.
Ingenious puzzle. Thanks both
Thanks, all for your comments: I’ve been out all day (on a bridge training course) so haven’t had the opportunity to respond until now. I accept the various minor amendments to my suggested parsings.
SELECTA was unknown to me, so I didn’t consider it, but I sympathise with those who, er, selected it.
Gladys @43: no, not a Simon and Garfunkel reference, just a concatenation of two of my leisure interests.
As a Canadian, I am embarrassed to admit that my way into 8a was ART TATUM, not GLENN GOULD (both are favourite pianists).
The FRANZ/France complaints could have been avoided had bridgesong not used the dreaded h-word in his blog for 22a. As paddymelon noted @17, it’s a fine piece of aural wordplay.
I liked, of course, all the musical clues, but my favourite was the very clever 7d PAELLA.
Thanks Picaroon for the nicely themed fun and bridgesong for the excellent blog.
JihnJB @ 45 – for me, anything but a slog; rather, a simple pleasure for which my gratitude to Picaroon. I had never heard of a DVORAK keyboard nor the alternative spelling for a celeste but there was no need for Google as the clueing was impeccable
JohnB @ 42 – What a shame! You missed out on a particularly joyful solve. As for being an “unfriendly” grid, I’ve been solving these things for more decades than I care to recall, but have never considered the grid before starting! Given what you’ve missed, perhaps you shouldn’t either?
No! bridgesong, Rats @ 9, Tony Santucci @ 12, Paddymelon @ 17 – since when did Picaroon (or any of the other setters about whom we hear these constant Zoilist quibbles) claim it to be a homophone? It’s simply a (brilliant) ‘sounds like’ type clue as indicated by “on the radio”; the setter makes no claim for exact equivalence! Is it time to retire/ban the word “homophone” from this site?!
But what a beautiful creation! One of those we will remember – the ‘keyboard’ one from our pirate
Many thanks, Picaroon, luvverly stuff. And a great blog from the generous bridgesong, as ever
This one was right on my wavelength so I didn’t have any big problems: managed to solve 8a early on (when there are so many cross-refs to it, a wise move!).
Getting the theme into every across light is certainly an achievment, shows what a master at the art our Pickers is!
I couldn’t parse BANGLE never having heard of the said girl band. I assume the “hasn’t succeeded” bit refers to dropping the final ‘s’ off ‘Bangles’. Not my favourite clue, I’m afraid.
But much to like elsewhere. Amongst the non-themers, EDENTATE, ADVERSE, PAELLA. IN-TRAY deserve special mention. And in the themers, I enjoyed putting in GLENN GOULD – no mystery to me, but I can well understand why some others were stumped.
Now if Pickers had contrived to squeeze YUJA WANG into this puzzle! :-0 – just speculating…
Thanks to Picaroon and Bridgesong.
Cellomaniac @ 48 – hadn’t seen yours when I posted (distracted by something or other) but you make the point about “h-word” better than I …… I wasn’t sure whether the quibble was with bridgesong using the word or if the others were joining in; either way, I’m glad we think similarly (though not homothoughts!) After all, a homophone is simply where two words are different yet sound identical. Nothing else!
William F P @49: I had no issue with FRANZ LISZT; in fact, I called it brilliant in my initial post. I know the difference between “sounds like” and “sounds exactly like.” I do, however, sometimes enjoy the hair splitting that inevitably occurs over such trivia.
Oh dear another ‘homophone’ debate! We’re all, surely, accustomed to the fact that one person’s homophone isn’t another’s – it all depends on one’s local accent and dialect.
My father’s first name was Franz, as it happens. I think as a child, listening to grown-up conversation, if I heard the word ‘France’ I probably thought it was a mention of my father. So there must have been a similarity in my mind.
As to LISZT – well that’s exactly the same spelling as LIST once you understand that in Hungarian, the hissing sibilant (English ‘s’) is always written ‘sz‘ – whereas the hushing sibilant (English ‘sh’) is written just ‘s‘. A look at transliterations of non-Hungarian words will illustrate this.
[I knew The Bangles from this track from one of my favourite bands.]
I’ve just checked and discovered that I’ve been blogging on this site since 2008: you might think that I would have learned by now to avoid the term “homophone”. Honestly, I just use it as shorthand for “sounds like”, but I will try and be more precise in future.
[bridgesong @55 – We need a word for “sounds a bit like in some accents”!]
JohnB@42, unfriendly for the solver, but much easier for the setter when they want to place a large number of themed entries in the grid. Also useful, of course, for including perimetrical ninas. Either of those features should help the solver, in principle, so the lack of all those first letters is (somewhat) compensated for.
bridgesong @ 55 and muffin @ 56
The word you are looking for is PUN (as I’ve been pushing for several years now!).
Alan B@40, you enjoyed the different ways KEYBOARD was interpreted here, yet the other week commenting on Paul’s 5/9 puzzle, I think you said you would not have been happy if that had referred to the ‘other’ 5/9?
Simon S @58
Unfortunately a pun is a play on words, rather than sounds.
It’s a play on how the words sound!
From Chambers
(as a verb): To play on words alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning
From the OE
(as a noun): The use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect; a play on words
(as a verb): To make puns; to play on words
QED
Insert D after OE
Simon S, muffin et al @various, homophones, near-homophones and puns are all slightly different forms of aural wordplay. I don’t see the need to differentiate them in a crossword blog. That’s why I (and now many others) prefer the term “aural wordplay”.
cellomaniac @ 64 a pun is, by the definitions I gave earlier, aural wordplay
Why use 4 or 5 syllables when 1 will do?
Simon S, I don’t disagree with you, and I would be happy with pun as the operative word, but unfortunately some people insist on making a “distinction without a difference”. I suspect it is because some people regard puns as a low form of humour, not worthy of the exalted air of a guardian cryptic. “Aural wordplay”, on the other hand, has a certain aesthetic cachet about it, as well as being in itself a form of wordplay. What I like about it is that it puts the emphasis on “play”, which is, after all, what we all are engaged in here.
Laccaria @ 53 et al @54 onwards – As I suggested, is it not time to retire this word and the irksome Zoilism it oft snoringly engenders here?! 🙂
bridgesong, cellomaniac, SimonS – I have to agree with Simon that these “aural wordplays” (an expression I’d not enjoy in a teacup, I’m afraid) are simply “puns” – a perfect description! Please don’t think your usage irritated me, bridgesong, I’d have thought nothing of it were it not for the inevitable wittering that followed!
Tony Collman@37 – for my post @25 I was listing 5 errors in parsing. Then, reading previous posts, I discovered that you and KVa had already seen two of them.
I was jusr agreeing with you both.
Well, seems I’ll just have to step in and rally to the defence of “homophone”. According to Chambers:
Homophone n. A character representing the same sound as another; a word that is pronounced the same as another but is different in spelling and meaning.
In my books “pun” doesn’t quite work in the same way. Here is a memorable instance from Alice in Wonderland:
Then again—‘before she had this fit—’ you never had fits, my dear, I think?” he said to the Queen.
“Never!” said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke.
“Then the words don’t fit you,” said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence.
“It’s a pun!” the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed.
You see what I’m getting at? The two versions of ‘fit’ are spelt exactly the same, but have different meanings – with a comical effect. That’s indeed, as the king says, a ‘pun’.
But – ah well, if we’re going to make the word ‘homophone’ taboo, lots of books will need to be re-written, such as my copy of Chambers Crossword Dictionary. (*sigh*). Is it worth the effort?
No one has mentioned that the clue for 9a is not in the least bit cryptic – it requires two bits of general knowledge. Having never heard of the DVORAK keyboard, I hesitated to write in the composer’s name until the crossers appeared. Couldn’t the setter have thought of a homonym? 😉
In fact, I had almost the entire NE corner blank until this morning, mostly because of not being able to remember GLENN GOULD’s name. Doh! Another GK fail. (I remembered ART TATUM, though.)
Thanks to Picaroon and bridgesong.
me@71. Homophone, obv. That’s what happens when I let my fingers do the talking.
sheffield hatter@71
Being without crossers for 9a as it was the second clue I attempted I was reluctant to enter the Bohemian composer DVORAK as it sounded an unlikely name for a keyboard. Briefly considered Puccini (La Boheme) and Mercury (B Rhapsody) but they didn’t fit. I’ve just looked and there is a Mercury keyboard.
As for keyboard virtuosos youd have difficulty going past Tatum and Liszt and nice to see Glen humming along
I loved this puzzle particularly for including Dvorak as a keyboard and PAELLA as Spanish Main
Thy dont come much finer
Thanks JB
copmus@74. Certainly innovative, but I’d have liked to see some wordplay instead of two GK clues. You know, like it’s a cryptic crossword?
What about “God willing, replacing article in jacket for kind of 8”?
SH @ 71: re DVORAK.
“Couldn’t the setter have thought of a h********?”
Unlikely, since they’re pronounced differently. The composer’s name was, more correctly, “Dvo?ák“, with the ‘?’ pronounced roughly as “rzh”. The lesser-known keyboard inventor was an American (of Czech descent) named August Dvorak – and he, unsurprisingly, pronounced his name as written, with an ‘r’.
But I agree, the clue is a bit GK-heavy. I now realise that the reason I had heard of the keyboard was because “Dvorak keyboard” appears at the top of a page, and hence in the corner indexing, in my Chambers (page 480). The words must have caught my attention while I was thumbing through the dictionary.
Also unsurprisingly, this blog can’t support the Czech letter ‘r’ with a ‘caron’ over it. Sorry. See here.
FrankieG @69. I see. Thanks. I thought you were criticizing my notation, perhaps.
As Laccaria@70 seems to point out, isn’t the essence of a pun humour? The fact that words sound similar is not sufficient to class one as a pun upon the other: there has to be a comical effect, imo.
Isn’t /fraents/ the standard American pronunciation of France? Maybe the homophone could have been perfected by referring to an ‘American country record’?
Laccaria@76. My copy of Chambers doesn’t have page numbers, and the keyboard named DVORAK is halfway down the right hand side of a page headed Dutch-dyarchy and had never previously come to my attention. My suggestion of a homophone (which my typing digits rendered as homonym) was sarcastic, of course, but the setter had many cryptic devices available and chose not to use any of them, which is disappointing.
[Tony @59
Unfortunately for me, you have a good memory! In Paul’s puzzle, the cryptic reference ‘5/9 of CROSSWORD’ could have reasonably indicated one of two possible words, CROSS and SWORD, and I felt in that puzzle that if, as a definition, it could randomly mean either one or the other, it would have been simply irritating and not an interesting or fair cryptic device. (Unlike KEYBOARD here, which is always a keyboard.)]
SELECTA is a type of electronic keyboard (musical)
William F P@ 67
“As I suggested, is it not time to retire this word and the irksome Zoilism it oft snoringly engenders here?! ?”
I had to look up Zoilism. Archaic? 🙂
I was hoping to be able to resolve the CELESTA/SELECTA debate by reference to the annotated solution, but I discovered that no annotated solutions for Prize puzzles have been published on The Guardian’s website since the one for puzzle 29,177, back in September.
True bridgesong @84 about the annotated Prize solutions. The only confirmation we have is when ”Reveal All” is available a week later.
The last annotated one I found was 22 Sept when I was looking for it for someone else. Something’s going on with the Guardian crosswords. The Editor seems to have dropped off the radar (hope he’s well). Glitch after glitch with the puzzles. What’s happening?
Paddymelon@85: I don’t know what’s happening. There was a comment by a setter in a post recently to the effect that Hugh (Hugh Stephenson, The Guardian crossword editor) was unavailable to discuss a particular clue, but that’s the only indication there’s been.
Yes, bridgesong, @86, I saw that comment from one of the setters too and it’s all been in the same period. Surprised the grapevine isn’t working, or maybe it’s just coincidence. But no announcement to say the Prize annotated solutions are being discontinued is surprising.
Manhattan@82, that’s interesting. Have you got a reference?
Thanks both. Pace Laccaria@70, for me this was a ‘fit’*.
*finished it today
Can someone explain he Nina?
Julian @90: it appears to be TYPES (which you would do on a keyboard). It’s reversed, but many ninas go clockwise round the perimeter from top left, in which case it’s the right way round. It may of course just be a coincidence.