This is the thirty-fifth Guardian Quick Cryptic, a series of 11 x 11 crosswords designed to support beginners learning cryptic crosswords. The whole point of these crosswords is support and encouragement of new solvers, so special rules for these crosswords apply – see here – those rules include not posting solving times. There is a summary of the tricks used in the first six months here. This puzzle can be found here.
Following a number of comments we are continuing to tweak the blog. The first suggestion was to to hide the answers and the last couple of weeks, following another request, we hid the wordplay descriptions too, to mixed reviews. To find that hidden information, click on “Details” and it will pop up. The definition is in bold and underlined, the indicator is in red.
This week we have the return of Maskarade, who has set a couple of Quick Cryptic crosswords, sets the occasional other crossword and the bank holiday specials. He has continued consolidating clue types learned earlier in the series, but this time has used soundalikes, charades, reversals and double definitions, none of which use letters in the clue to give a foothold, so it will be interesting seeing how people get on with this.
A recent Guardian Crossword blog is called the ultimate beginner’s guide and has tips which may be useful for some solvers. One of the crosswords this week was from Arachne, which was beautifully clued if anyone wants to try a cryptic crossword.
Fifteen Squared uses several abbreviations and jargon tricks, there’s a full list here, of which I’ve used the following in this blog:
- underlining the definition in the clue – this is either at the beginning or end of the clue
- indicators are in red.
- CAPITALS to indicate which bits are part of the answer, e.g. PASS (qualify) to get PORT (drink)
- charades – the description below only gives the example of words being added together, but charades can be more complicated, adding abbreviations or single letters to another word. Examples previously used in this series are: Son ridicules loose overgarments (6) S (son) + MOCKS (ridicules), Get rid of dead pine (5) D (dead) + ITCH (pine) – D ITCH, and early on DR (doctor) + IVE (I have) to give DRIVE
- soundalike / homophone is indicated by “Wilde” (Oscar, the playwright) for WILD, see below.
- reversal is indicated by < to show the letters reversed so in the example below DOG< (pet) becomes GOD
- CAD or clue as definition– where the whole clue gives the definition, sometimes called an &lit.
- DBE or defintion by example – e.g. where a dog might be clued as a setter – often using a question mark, maybe, possibly or e.g. to show that this is an example rather than a definition.
- surface – the meaning from reading the clue – so often cryptic clues use an English that could only be found in a cryptic crossword, but a smooth surface is a clue that has a meaning in English, which can be pointed or misleading.
TODAY’S TRICKS – from the crossword site – which can be found at www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick-cryptic/35 – because the clues have moved on from the clue descriptions below, I am now adding more to the descriptions above.
Clues begin or end with a definition of the answer. The rest is one of these:
-
- Soundalike Something that sounds like the answer
‘Excited as Oscar’s announced (4)’ gives WILD - Reversal The answer backwards, and a hint that we’re reversing
‘Deity’s pet comes back (3)’ gives GOD - Charade A combination of synonyms
‘Qualify to get drink for ID (8)’ gives PASSPORT (pass + port) - Double definition Both halves are definitions!
‘Search scrub (5)’ gives SCOUR
- Soundalike Something that sounds like the answer
| ACROSS |
Click on “details” to see the solutions | |
| 1 | Deal with details on envelope (7) |
ADDRESS
|
|
double definition with the first referring to the verb – to deal with something and the second a noun
|
||
| 5 |
Rhode Island’s old city (3)
|
RIO
|
|
charade of RI (Rhode Island) and O (old) for this city – and RI is the US state 2 letter abbreviation.
|
||
| 7 |
Brief period of enchantment (5)
|
SPELL
|
|
double definition – using two different definitions (nouns)
|
||
| 8 |
What batsman made? 20 (5)
|
SCORE
|
|
double definition – what batsman made is a definition by example, so has question mark – other examples could be from other sports or games. For 20, think three-score years and ten.
|
||
| 9 |
‘With milk’ the Spanish shout aloud (2,4)
|
AU LAIT
|
|
soundalike (aloud) of “ole” (Spanish shout) – for the French phrase describing “with milk”.
|
||
| 10 |
Look back at stronghold (4)
|
KEEP
|
|
reversal (back) of PEEK < (look) – the clue grammar here does say that the PEEK (look) is reversed (back), but I wasn’t sure and needed the crossers to confirm it.
|
||
| 13 |
To knock senseless, on reflection, is crazy (4)
|
NUTS
|
|
reversal (on reflection) of STUN< (to knock senseless) – and the grammar here wasn’t that clear either, but it does read forwards – so STUN (to knock senseless) reversed (on reflection) – but that’s not always the case in the full-fat cryptics.
|
||
| 15 |
Trifling disregard (6)
|
SLIGHT
|
|
double definition – the first an adjective – a trifling thing, and the second the verb – to disregard someone.
|
||
| 18 |
Verify money order’s sound (5)
|
CHECK
|
|
soundalike (sound) of “cheque” (money order) – this one the grammar is clearer as it gives: definition, soundalike, indicator – so it’s clear that we need verify as the definition.
|
||
| 19 |
Jumbo on the prairie, we’re told (5)
|
PLANE
|
|
soundalike (we’re told) of “plain” (prairie) – think Boeing 747 for the definition
|
||
| 20 |
Return advance payment for transport (3)
|
BUS
|
|
reversal (return) of SUB (advance payment) – adding later a sub is short for subscription – a payment in advance.
|
||
| 21 |
Road surface: snake has to stop (7)
|
ASPHALT
|
|
charade of ASP (snake) + HALT (to stop) – asp is one of those crossword words that is worth remembering, along with the other favourite snake, the boa.
|
||
|
DOWN
|
||
| 1 |
Sailor Mark is not to vote (7)
|
ABSTAIN
|
|
charade of AB (sailor) + STAIN (mark) – AB stands for Able-Seaman a merchant seaman rank showing at least two years experience and is one of many, many abbreviations used for sailors in crossowords. Others to look out for are salt, tar, jack, OS
|
||
| 2 |
Live in Germany, in good health (5)
|
DWELL
|
|
charade of D (Germany – from car plates, among other places) + WELL (in good health)
|
||
| 3 |
Confection from City of London hide-out (6)
|
ECLAIR
|
|
charade of EC (City of London postcode) + LAIR (hide-out). The EC postcode for the City of London is worth remembering as it comes up all the time.
|
||
| 4 |
Frame Nordic airline before start of hijack (4)
|
SASH
|
|
charade of SAS (Nordic airline) + H (start of Hijack) SAS stands for Scandinavian Airlines and think this type of frame
|
||
| 5 |
River horse, so to speak (5)
|
RHONE
|
|
soundalike (so to speak) of “roan” (horse)
|
||
| 6 |
Upset magazine boss with love poem (3)
|
ODE
|
|
reversal (upset) of charade of ED (magazine boss – short for editor) + O (love) to give EDO<
|
||
| 11 |
Doctor’s charge keeping cool (7)
|
PATIENT
|
|
double definition – the first a noun and the second an adjective
|
||
| 12 |
School children overturned – a minor mistake (4-2)
|
SLIP-UP
|
|
reversal (overturned) of PUPILS< (school children)
|
||
| 14 |
Rows, crying, so it’s said (5)
|
TIERS
|
|
soundalike of (so it’s said) of “tears” (crying)
|
||
| 16 |
Store, reportedly, in African country (5)
|
GHANA
|
|
soundalike of (reportedly) “garner” (store) – which when I checked in Chambers means to gather into store or a store.
|
||
| 17 |
Seabird and others going north (4)
|
SKUA
|
|
reversal of (going north) of AUKS < (seabirds) to give this seabird
|
||
| 19 |
Bread for swan (3)
|
COB
|
|
double definition – for this type of bread and the name for a male swan (a female swan is a pen – which is also used a lot in crosswordland).
|
Did anyone else find this very difficult?
There were a lot of words I rarely use (I have not heard “au lait” for many many years, for example) or words I simply do not know (such as SKUA, auks). I also failed to spot the homonyms for AU LAIT and GHANA, even after getting the answers.
No favourites I am afraid.
Thanks Maskarade and Shanne
Martyn@1. I was also struck by the “foreign” soundalike clues, but especially AU LAIT which is a soundalike from 2 languages other than English. I don’t think I’ve seen that done before.
Haha, totally missed that 20 was part of the clue for 5A (but got it anyway).
Never heard of “sub” meaning advance payment, use of “EC” to mean “City of London”, or thought of “garner” as meaning “store” (gather/collect, yes, but “store” seems beyond what how I’d expect to see the word used, even if it’s present in at least one thesaurus as a synonym). Fortunately nothing that made the clues unsolvable, just left me wondering what I’d missed.
Lovely puzzle, I enjoyed it.
I was also struck by the fun “foreign” soundalikes AU LAIT and OLE but so many drink and food-related foreign words have been adopted into English that they don’t seem foreign anymore – I’m thinking of words such as espresso, cappuccino, latte, pasta, ravioli, lasagne, ragu, pizza, cassoulet, ratatouille, lassi, chai, tajine, tahini, enchilada, tortilla, and so on.
As for OLE – it might be the one Spanish word that most people know 😉
Slightly spicier start to the week than I expected, some tricky wordplay and a couple of words that were new to me.
Thanks Maskarade. Thanks Shanne of Fifteen Squared.
Link to live solve: https://youtu.be/RpDHWW_4BPs
Link to crossword: https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick-cryptic/35
I couldn’t get the SKUA / AUKS pairing. What was Maskerade thinking when briefed to set a puzzle aimed at beginners?!? And where was the Editor to push back? Think that’s only the 2nd QC I’ve been unable to complete.
My otherwise satisfactory livesolve available over at … https://youtu.be/FwWHuIyphOI … for anyone looking for tips and tactics on solving strategies and how to approach.
Coming from Bristol I didn’t have a chance with Ghana / garner, since clearly Ghana is pronounced “gaa-naa” whereas garner is pronounced “gaRRRRR-neRRRRR”.
Only got skua because of the missile https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/collections/british-aerospace-dynamics-sea-skua/
I managed to get them all apart from skua because my knowledge of seabirds is lacking but I got Ghana because it was the only African country ending in A with 5 letters then I worked out the soundalike. Au lait/olé was my favourite. In getting better at these. Thanks.
DylanN @4 – garner as a noun means store and garner as a verb means to gather in and store as defined in Chambers. Look out for numbers in a clue – they are a regular.
HG @7 – I do actually know what AUKS and SKUAs are – puffins are from the auk family and the most common auk looks a bit like a black and white puffin. But as you can see from my blog, I wasn’t sure it was that well known or unhelpful to an international audience. I tend to add links to things I suspect may be obscure – like specific wildlife answers.
Brizzle @8 – you and me both, I went to school and lived for a while in the West Country. But in the UK, rhotic accents are less common, so the majority accents don’t sound the r’s in garner. (And the Mayflower finally set off from Plymouth having collected people at several ports, so it makes sense the American accent has West Country in it, including rhoticism – fall and sidewalk I heard as a child in the local dialect.)
My 2c worth.
Far too difficult to give to a beginner.
PLAIN or PLANE wasn’t clear enough, neither was KEEP or PEEK. And as for GHANA, a dodgy pronunciation for an obscure reference was a step too far.
Definitely the least enjoyable QC so far.
Admin – I agree, I wrote in STUN in, not NUTS, as well as PEEK not KEEP and needed the crossers to get them right, although I knew I might not have them the right way up as they were reversals. I wasn’t impressed by ODE which is a reversal of a charade – ED + O reversed – a full fat cryptic clue combining two clue types. I had to look up SAS, Scandinavian Airlines, to check I had the right airline and wasn’t imagining it. But the first Maskarade I blogged in this spot had Hunts clued as a county abbreviation, which disappeared in 1975, and VA for the Victoria and Albert Museum (and they abbreviate themselves as the VAM), so I expect a bit of looser cluing when I blog Maskarade and don’t start until I have a dictionary next to me.
It’s interesting watching the live solves because different people struggle with different bits. Both live solves struggled.
Thanks Maskarade and Shanne
Hardest so far. I agree about the ambiguous clues, and I hate the disregard of rhotic speakers regularly seen in crosswords.
It took me a bit longer than previous Quick Cryptics have but I completed it and enjoyed it. I loved the soundalike clues and had no problem with AU LAIT. I couldn’t parse 1d, 4d or 16d. I’m absolutely a beginner – only started with the first Quick Cryptic – and didn’t find this unfair. Yesterday’s cryptic, however, completely stumped me though comments on here suggested people thought it straightforward. Brains work in different ways, I suppose.
Yes not having anagrams to start off with was a challenge! But then again i found it good to have lots of practice in the clue types that I usually leave till last. skua /auks was straightforward for a very basic birdwatcher.
Thanks Maskerade and Shanne.
Oops. Sorry about my earlier incorrect spelling of Maskarade. That sort of attention to detail is needed if we are to progress in cryptic crosswords.
…although it is a soundalike I guess
Found this the trickiest of the QCs for a long while but got there with some guesses and some crossers helping (like getting GHANA; and didn’t really see the soundalike word until reading here). Agree that ODE was actually a mix of 2 clue types and RIO was also an acrostic in the clue so possibly confusing when that wasn’t one of the designated clue types. And just had a ‘doh’ moment on that reading the blog as the charade is actually obvious 🤦♂️
Thanks Shanne for the usual very clear explanations, and Maskarade for the puzzle.
Though I thought this was the trickiest Quick Cryptic so far, I happened to solve it quite quickly and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I’m a fairly experienced solver and had the general knowledge I needed. It’s rare that I am unsure of having the correct solution for a Quick Cryptic clue until I have all the crossing solutions, but there were several such today. Indeed when I had completed the puzzle I clicked “Check All” with less than complete confidence.
Pleased to see I wasn’t the only one that struggled. I had to reveal several in the end, which I’ve not had to on QCs for a while now.
RHONE/ROAN was tricky for me – had never seen or heard the word roan in my life! And GHANA/GARNER – have heard of “to garner praise” which I’d always taken to be to earn/receive rather than store.
Some useful bits to learn and remember though, like EC – as a non-Londoner I’ve never paid much attention to London postcodes, so something to remember here.
Thanks for the blog Shanne, helpful as always!
Shanne @10 – thanks for the link to the SKUA. I suspect both it and AUK come up occasionally in the bigger crosswords.
I hope it’s okay to add this – I’ve done a follow-up video talking through the corner I perceive Maskerade backed themselves into and ending up with SKUA. I had to change five clues to get something perhaps more approachable (and even then I’m not sure what the clues would be). As an experiment, it highlighted how difficult the four clue type limitation can be for the setters.
The follow-up video is at https://youtu.be/Wud3ZLGflio
I’ve only been at this a little while, so would definitely put myself in the “beginner” camp. However, from the comments here it seems that I should also put myself in the “opposite of many other people” camp as I found this one much easier than many of late. I couldn’t quite parse them all (which is partly why I came here!) but there were no terms or words that I wasn’t aware of or familiar with, which, I find, there often are. Oh well, to reference Monty Python we’re all individuals, I guess.
I’ve been doing these QCs since they started and now after some months think of myself at Quiptic level, and found this an enjoyable workout for the types of clues included. I think this would have been a huge struggle for complete beginners to QCs given the lack of anagrams and hidden words etc. Thankfully all the previous QCs are there to have fun on and build up skills. I think this still qualifies as a QC as the clues meet the categories described.
Agree with the comments about 17D, got it from AUKS but have never heard of SKUA.
Thank you Shanne for another excellent blog.
Being Scottish, I was never going to link GHANA with garner. Just doesn’t work. This is two of these in a row I’ve been unable to finish. Couldn’t parse 5D and couldn’t get 15A or 11D as was bothered too with KEEP/PEEK.
Definitely found it one of the trickiest so far. RHONE required all the crossers and feels like it’s stretching general knowledge on both aspects.
Enjoyed ASPHALT.
Having tackled the last three superb cryptics (Wednesday’s Arachne a delight) it seems my puzzling skills have improved a lot. I confess I skipped past many as I went through to see what offered themselves up quickly and needed crossers to help with several like DWELL and GHANA and others. The Ole/Au lait pair were divine, not seen that combo before. Both very well known loan words in English I feel.
The Auks/Skua debate. I had the K, thought of Skua and realised it was also Auks “going North” i.e. up. Neat. Also if you had the A a quick word search would hav offered just 5 answers for ?K?A. Don’t be afraid to use ‘resources’ to help when stuck, no different to having a dictionary and thesaurus to hand pre internet. It’s expected/accepted. The Roan….horses, like cricket are common themes as they provide lots of short ‘clips’ for Charade type clues:- nag,gg,dun,dray,grey,bay etc. Finally…the Rhotic conundrum, a source of frequent eruptions on the blogs as can work against non-rhotic folks at times too. The consensus is, get your key word and say it with and without pronouncing the ‘r’. One of these may get you there. I thought STUN/NUTS and PEEK/KEEP were ace. Double definitions and reversals in one, not ambiguous, we’re not doing misdirection yet, read from left to right, no lift and separate. “on reflection, is crazy” might give STUN in a ‘big’ cryptic, but to me the reflection belonged to knocked senseless.
Now that we’ve seen a good mix of setters, might be time to actually learn about them.
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/series/meet-the-setter
I find it helps to keep the vitriol toned down when you are familiar with the object of your ire.
All in all, a very good puzzle, made tough by the enforced clue styles. Thanks to Maskarade and the awesome Shanne.
This was trickier than usual, but also really enjoyable.
When I saw the four types of clue I knew it would be harder for me – I struggle the most with homophones, and double definitions often require you to be on the setter’s wavelength, which can take a while to sync.
But some of the harder clues were lovely: Ghana/Garner was nice, and gettable as you can trawl through African countries. Agree Rhône/Roan was on the obscure end of each – but Roan has been in one of the Quiptic/Everyman (can’t remember which) very recently and will become more familiar to people with the rise of Chappell Roan.
Skua was the most obscure but agree with Taffy@26 that it’s easy enough to look up and helps you understand the clue type fast.
The toughest for me was DWELL, which was another really instructive clue – the surface looks like a double definition when it’s really a charade.
Nicely done, I thought.
Thank you so much for this blog, it’s really helpful as I often guess answers with the crossers but don’t know why they’re right.
I found the au lait/ ole clue easy but that’s because it’s used as a joke in one of the Fawlty towers episodes.
Auks/skua I hadn’t heard of.
Cob I know was bread but hadn’t got the swan connection.
Rhone/roan I got by crossers but had never heard of the horse.
Despite that I really enjoyed this one. I appreciate a good pun (though normally not good at spotting the answers)
Being a novice of only 34 previous cryptics I can say I found this the hardest so far, especially as no anagrams. That said, I finished all but two relatively straightforward clues (3D & 7A) – due to unaccountable brain fog I think, but had to leave it twice and come back to it. I found it thoroughly enjoyable and feel well chuffed at progress made over past weeks. Many thanks.
For fun…and please, please don’t get disheartened, it’s all part of the art….have a look at the AZED blog for last week. Words you’ve never heard of (all in Chambers!). The first Shakespeare one is nuts to unravel.
Got them all, but did struggle with 16 and 17 down. Garner is a word i know but have probably not come accross in a very long time, solved by using the 3 letters from the across answers. Sea birds… only because i knew Auks.
Would never have know EC was a London post code and 5 down had me looking at Hippo for a long time.
Roan… my daughter rides, as did i once so not a difficult one for me.
Like many here i have followed the series from the start and have enjoyed every one of them. Its interesting to see how different solvers get on with the different clue types. Age and background play such a large role in our vocabulary and how well we reconise names, places etc. I think we all quickly devlop affinity with certain setters, finding the one easier to follow than an other.
An excellent quick cryptic so thankyou Makarade and Shanne to for the invaluable insights.
Yeah, the GHANA-garner homophone was pretty outrageous, not just because it’s non-rhotic, but also because the definition of garner is loose at best. I thought that there must have been a UK supermarket chain called Gana or something, and I came here hoping to be enlightened in that direction.
[Shanne: the main reason that most North American accents are rhotic is that emigration from Britain to the mid-Atlantic US overwhelmingly came from Scotland and Ireland in the 18th and early 19th centuries; that mid-Atlantic region (the corridor from New York through Virginia) came to be the dominant one culturally. Note that the stereotypical New England accent–the one part of the US where earlier immigration from England did dominate–is non-rhotic (“pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd”). There are a few other notable US non-rhotic accents–New Orleans (where they stereotypically pronounce their city “Nawlins”), Brooklynese, Gullah, etc.–but the cultural dominance of the mid-Atlantic ensured that their accent became the standard. In a similar way, the posh accents of London slowly started pushing British rhotic accents to the periphery beginning in the 19th century.]
I have a total blind spot for anagrams so nice not to have to wrestle any into submission today.
Enjoyed the peregrinations of the seabirds and the halted asp, appreciated olé/AU LAIT (as I suspect other Pratchett fans may have?) but got stumped by the ECLAIR and the accursed RHONE. Couldn’t parse GHANA but it was obvious from the crossers so counting that as half a win.
I struggled with a few and ended up having to reveal a couple. I’ve always pronounced roan (perhaps incorrectly) as row-an and am unfamiliar with French rivers so RHONE was never going to come to me. Didn’t get SASH but I’ll garner the ‘SAS’ clue for later. Speaking of garner, I also struggled with that one.
There were some fun ones in there, too. I really enjoyed 14d; had me working in the wrong direction for a while before a satisfying ‘aha!’ moment.
I also mixed up NUTS/STUN and PEEK/KEEP as others have mentioned but worked out to switch them around eventually. For my 2nd QC, I’m happy, but I found last week much easier.
Wow, there were so many terms I’ve never heard in this one!
At the same time I feel that the hours I’ve put in are rewarding me now, as I did manage to finish, even if I didn’t understand everything. If this was my first cryptic I would have given up entirely! 😀
I want to give credit to the setter though, as I was able to figure everything out thanks to crossers and the overlap between definition and wordplay, despite some elements being unknown to me.
I only had to resort to guesswork for RHONE and GHANA, as I only knew roan as a term for horse colouration, rather than the animal itself, and didn’t know the archaic ‘granary’ definition of garner.
A hard one, but one I enjoyed!
Thank you for filling in the blanks on the terminology. 🙂
Found this one harder than usual. My wife is now learning cryptics the same way I did, with the Quick first, and she found this quite a bit of a jump from what she’s completed so far.
I hope weeks like this are in the minority, there’s a little too much crosswordese and obscure vocabulary (roan, auk, cob) to be truly welcoming for newbies IMO.
@mrpenney I also got stuck wondering if there was a shop chain called Gana, it was the only thing I could think of to make it work. It seems I’m with the majority here in finding Ghana/garner to be a very tenuous homophone.
Thanks for the blog Suzanne, and to Maskerade for the puzzle.
I also found this hard, I got GHANA and AU LAIT without understanding them, but NHO auks or skua. Roan and SAS both ring a bell now that you mention it but I didn’t see them at the time.
I found the other clues fairly straightforward though.
Thanks Shanne and Maskerade.
A trickier Quick Cryptic in terms of the actual words but the parsing was quite straight forward for me. My favorites in this one were SLIPUP, AU LAIT (genius!), and GHANA (this setter is a wordplay wiz). Never heard of a SKUA or ROAN for horse either and for some reason it never occurred to me that others could refer to other breeds of seabird.
Thank you Shanne and Maskerade
Thank you Shanne and Maskerade. Loved it! Especially au lait which made me laugh. I do appreciate these quick Monday ones as I progress to the Quiptic and one day I hope the actual Cryptic.
Thank you for the explanation for 16, I had to come here to find out what word was supposed to sound like GHANA.
Frankly I don’t accept that is a soundalike in any accent 🙂
Actually, this is one of the few that I’ve completed – it’s a thumbs up from me….
Loved this, laughed out loud at asphalt. Didn’t have a clue why 16d was Ghana and no idea why roan is a synonym for horse (i thought it was a colour of horse) but definitely get on with Maskerade more than a couple of the last few weeks’ setters!
Also glad others saw hippo for river horse
Skuas are also called bonxies in Shetland and the far north i believe