Guardian 26,055 by Puck

52 comments on “Guardian 26,055 by Puck”

1. Is “to begin with” just padding in 12D? Seems unfair to complicate such tangled parsing even further…

2. It was hard for me to get a start on this puzzle until I solved the long anagram at 5d, and then it turned out to be very enjoyable. I particularly liked 13a, 5d, 6d, 8d, 3d, 9a and my favourites were 2d MACK & 17a SCOTTISH PLAY

   New words for me were FELO DE SE, PIU MOSSO, HECATOMB, DAGGA – all solvable due to the very fair wordplay of the clues.

   Thanks Puck and manehi.

3. Thanks manehi and Puck

   An entertaining puzzle. My fabourites were also 11a and 6d.

   There seems to be a slip in the parsing of 12d where the second ‘c’ is missing and an extra ‘s’ is added. Shouldn’t it be C[lues] ‘clues to begin with’?

4. Blaise @1,

   No – it is last of (dow)N and C(lues) to begin with.

5. Thanks Puck and manehi.

   Pretty tough this morning but still playful. Got only COMA from my first sweep of the acrosses, but FINE-TOOTHED COMB leapt out followed by DOWSE and SPORTSWEAR which gave me the crossing letters of CAWDOR and I was away. Still loads to do even once the themed clues had fallen out.

   I guessed “pio musso” but didn’t put it in without a google check, which set me right. HECATOMB was completely new, but gettable from the clear anagram. Loved PSYCHO being weaved into the anagram fodder for THE SCOTTISH PLAY.

   One slight error manehi: 12 – (I C U SOLVE [dow]N C[lues])*

6. Got there in the end, but had the same uncertainties as manahi, so checked my guesses before insertion. Initially thought that 23a was going to be ‘pilots’ with ‘pi’ as the base, ‘lots’ as the large number, and ‘camps’ as padding, but he crossers put me right before committing to the error. Not sure about ‘mack’ as an abbreviation for ‘mackintosh’ – I would expect ‘mac’ – but I’m sure that Puck is right.

7. Thanks, Manehi, for an excellent blog.

   This puzzle was so far up my street as to be practically in my house – a delight from beginning to end, which came too quickly. [I’m not saying it was too easy – just that I could have sat at it all day.]

   My way into the theme was 10ac and the rest of the themed entries followed fairly straightforwardly but parsing them was a different matter – and great fun! I particularly enjoyed unravelling 17,18, 20ac and 12dn. Other favourite clues: 11ac and 17dn.

   I was lucky that the only unknown for me was DAGGA, which, of course went in very easily.

   Lovely story-telling surfaces throughout, as ever.

   Huge thanks, Puck.I loved it.

8. Corrected 12dn – thanks all.

9. Thanks Puck and manehi
   I got into it by way of CAWDOR, after which it went fairly easily. Favourites were FELO DE SE, LUCIDITY and DOWSE.

   Is DAMND (DAMN’D presumably) OK in 20 ac? My printed version of Shakespeare, as well as all the primary sources I have found on Google, gives DAMNED; Google gives some instances of this, but they all seem to be misquotations of the original.

10. I meant to add that I had no idea at all for BETH from the clue – I got it solely from the remaining letters in HECATOMB.

11. This was enjoyable but it wasn’t exactly easy, and I needed to check PIU MOSSO and FELO DE SE. I entered “coward” at 10ac without bothering to wait until I was sure what the theme was, and I didn’t remember to revisit it until I realised 8dn had to be SPORTSWEAR. BLASTED HEATH was my way into the theme.

12. Thanks to manehi and Puck.

    An enjoyable but slow solve for me today.

    I found it unusual to see dagga being used as a homophone for dagger – the South Africans pronounce the ‘gg’ in dagga closer to the scottish consonant ‘ch’ as in ‘loch’ or ‘och aye the noo’ (although I did eventually find it pronounced as dagger in an online dictionary)

13. For me, little other than COMA and BETH yielded on first pass but this led to HECATOMB and the B led to the long anagram … one thing leads to another, as they say.

    Oh and there was obviously a play theme, could the BETH have anything to do with that? So I loved the way this puzzle unfolded. Perfectly fair to assume knowledge of the 17 18 I think, but would we say the same if, say, Cymbeline were the theme?

    Honesty requires me to admit to entering FOLE not FELO in 5a. Moral is always check new words (which I had done with DAGGA).

14. Not really my cup of tea; too much Googling required.

    Thanks manehi; I also thought of Coward for 10A and then thought for a while about his plays.

    George @6; my ODE has mac (also mack) for mackintosh. As muffin @9 says there are a number of references to damn’d on the Web, so maybe it’s an alternative.

15. Thanks manehi. Same early results as Trailman. Not full bottle on Macbeth, but did manage it all without aids – despite for a good while having ‘coward’ for 10a. Excellent Puck puzzle.

16. Took me a long time to see the theme, and my Macbeth knowledge isn’t nearly good enough to get most of these clue. I was convinced 2d was HEIR (“air” being what is worn in the shower) which left me searching in vain for a homophone indicator.

    Muffin @9: No version of Shakespeare’s original Macbeth exists as written, only a bastardized Folio published 20 years later, which would likely have been based on someone writing down what they heard during the performance. “Out damn(e)d spot” occurs in a prose section, rather than one of the parts written in iambic pentameter. In that case, it would be the actors own choice whether to say “damn’d” or “dam-ned” (since it doesn’t matter if they change the rhythm of the prose). Arguing about whether “damn’d” is a misquotation is as futile as arguing whether Martin Luther King said “color of their skin” or “colour of their skin”.

17. Shroduck@ 16
    I take your point, but I was wondering what source Puck had for his “damn’d”, as the published versions seem to include the E.

18. Entertaining but not always good tehcnically, which made it MUCH harder than it mhgt have been. This iswhy I like the ‘fair’ compilers best, they are helpful to us.

19. Perhaps it didnot fit in the crossword, tee hee hee!?

20. @rowland #18 – exactly what are you talking about – this puzzle was perfectly sound technically.

    SitePolicy #2 “The reason for any dissatisfaction should be clearly indicated”

    There’s nothing clear in that comment. It’s just part of your regular slagging of setters who don’t conform to whatever your own unstated concept of “cryptic grammar” is. Why don’t you specify precisely which clue(s) you are referring to or else keep quiet.

    We all know in advance which Guardian setters you are going to attack. It begs the question why an intelligent person, knowing full well which setters’ work they dislike, would persistently solve those puzzles and attack them.

21. A good puzzle with some reasonable misdirections which fell into place once the penny had dropped. I did like Blas – Ted Heath…

22. I am very tempted to suggest that JollySwagman looks up what “beg the question” actually means (but I won’t).

23. muffin @ 22
    I know what you mean, but I’d take a look at Collins (online) if I were you.

24. You mean that they have got to Collins too!

    See:
    http://begthequestion.info/

25. Thanks, Puck and manehi. Like Eileen, I loved it!

    Always up for Shakespeare-themed puzzles – Cymbeline, too!

    There was also a link to Mack The Knife – DAGGA was super – linked to Psycho, too, I thought.

    Please keep them coming, Puck.

    Giovanna xx

26. muffin @ 24
    What a splendid organisation. These damned descriptivists get everywhere.

    I have sent BTQ £10.

27. NMS@26
    Perhaps I should as well.

28. Excellent puzzle! Thanks a lot, Puck. It took me two sessions but I just about got there without assistance. I had the anagram fodder for 16 but guessed PIO MUSSO rather than PIU MOSSO. Feel I’ve been pleasantly stretched today, which is satisfying.

29. Well, I’m disappointed to see that I’m on a CROSSWORD site where people don’t understand English. You know who you are.

    To be frank I wasn’t really bothered by that error or by the posts that preceeded it, but whether or not the guy was pulling JS’s tail, I did chuckle at his next suggestion that Puck misspelled the quote because it wouldn’t fit the grid. Now that’s cheek!

    Enjoyable one for me, okay, a few points of order, but so what.

30. This may help the person concerned, who normally offers an expert opinion, it should be said:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

    Re today’s technical issues, I can spot one or two, but then I’m quite good at that.

    In other, more important matters, I should say I’m currently ensconced watching the Man U vs Leverkusen game. For some footer enthusiasts on 15^2, maybe the game involving the other lot is of more interest? I don’t know if any of you are from … that place.

31. Thanks all
    A pretty tough workout for me. There were so many hints leading me onwards to Macbeth that I wasted a long time wondering why 17ac had one too few spaces!
    ‘piu mosso’ was completely new to me as was 5ac which I took to be “self”.
    Very enjoyable.

32. I’ve never seen the play but heard the quotes and folklore so often it didn’t matter.

    A very enjoyable solve with a range of nice devices.

    Thanks all.

33. Thanks to Puck and manehi. Liked the puzzle very much although it was on the difficult side for me because the only thing I knew about the play is was I have learned in crossword puzzles. Tried to make COWARD work at 10ac. FELO DE SE seemed new to me although I may have come across it in an AZED at some point. Agree with JS’s remarks @20.

    Cheers…

34. I can see how you construct 2dn but where is the definition?

35. And of course, as soon as I post that, I answer my own question. Thanks

36. muffin @ 24,

    Thanks very much for the link.

    I’ve never used the expression as far as I can remember, because I didn’t know for sure what it meant.

    I now know that I truly did not, but I do now, and it’s useful.

    Thanks again.

37. It all hangs on the third meaning here, then:

    beg (bg)
    v.begged, beg·ging, begs

    v.tr.
    1. To ask for as charity: begged money while sitting in a doorway.

    2. To ask earnestly for or of; entreat: begged me for help.

    3.
    a. To evade; dodge: a speech that begged the real issues.

    b. To take for granted without proof: beg the point in a dispute.

38. I thought I’d struggle to finish this before bedtime as I watched the Man U game first. It was a Puck after all!

    However I polished it off in an hour 🙂

    After the first pass I only had a few but BETH gave me the idea of MACBETH and that was confirmed by THE SCOTTISH PLAY then being fairly obvious.

    From then on the answers just came with some good guesses and “subconscious voodoo” (some days the answers just come out of the ether)

    I’d not heard of FELO DE SE or PIU MOSSO but both were anagrams with enough crossers to help.

    Thanks to manehi and Puck

39. Of course, we heard of Macbeth [understatement].
    But even my PinC (22d is her name …. :)) wasn’t very confident about today’s theme.
    So, 10ac was Coward until 8d brought us back to earth.

    We entered quite a few answers of which we thought ‘they must be right’ – 5ac, 10ac, 11ac, 25ac, 16d, 21d.

    And, hurrah, they were all right!

    Puck did a good job, didn’t he?

    Thanks manehi.

40. @muffin #22

    I am very tempted to suggest that JollySwagman looks up what “beg the question” actually means (but I won’t).

    Oh very well – I will.

    Collins – beg the question

    3 to suggest that a question needs to be asked

    OED

    1(of a fact or action) raise a point that has not been dealt with; invite an obvious question

    Priceless – absolutely priceless.

    Paul B #30 (agreeing with Rowland yet again)

    Same regular breach of the rules – a broadside slagging with no specific detail.

    “Re today’s technical issues, I can spot one or two, but then I’m quite good at that.”

    No you’re not – you’re nearly always wrong – but still – do share your perceptiveness with us. The rest of us, in our ignorance, obviously failed to notice.

41. Paul B’s link @30 addresses the question very well. Wiki often does.

    Muffin’s link @24, on the other hand, is full of all sorts of tosh.

    To argue that one meaning of an expression is incorrect because it is also used as an etymologically obscure label
    for a logical fallacy is itself fallacious. Even the simple example is wrong. “I think he is unattractive because he is ugly”
    does not belong in the formal discourse of “logic and philosophy”. It neither assumes nor concludes.

    Raising and evading questions are both commonplace. Petitio principii is not.

    (Having said that, though, Rowland seems to argue that “the ‘fair’ compilers are best” because “they are helpful to us.”
    Is he begging the question both ways? Tee hee?)

42. JS @40
    It’s the same argument as we were having the other day about “epicentre”. Some people are happy to accept that if a word or phrase is frequently used incorrectly, this incorrect meaning becomes valid; others prefer to try to retain the original correct meaning. A matter of taste?

43. You can find a website to support almost any point of view:

    http://www.theflatearthsociety.org

44. @muffin #42

    I don’t think epicenter was the problem there – focus was.

    What it means in everyday parlance and earthquakespeak are different. Paul was entitled to invoke Afrit and choose which he wanted when.

45. @muffin #42

    ‘begging the question’, ‘epicentre’, ‘prosecute’. Matters of taste? Well, making assertions about what is “correct” is not to my taste.
    I am especially reluctant to say that Chambers and Collins are “wrong”.

    Do you think that their definitions of ‘berk’ are incorrect and only use it in the “original” sense?

46. Stephen Fry’s program English Delight on radio 4 last week was interesting and all about dictionaries. Pretty much all of the dictionary compilers interviewed or quoted asserted that dictionaries merely catalogue words the English language, not define them. Dictionaries are a reflection of the current and historical usage. Looking in a dictionary to determine the ‘true’ or ‘correct’ meaning is a pointless exercise.

    One dictionary editor (I think it was from Collins) explicitly stated that if the dictionary entry and the real-world usage differs then it is the dictionary that is wrong.

47. Plenty of people agree with you KJolly Swagman, but I do not make silly play of it. You are a bully (please note Gaufrid).

48. muffin@42 – I agree it comes down to personal taste – some people accept all new meanings, some don’t. But to say there is an ‘original correct’ meaning to retain is certainly contentious. In the English language there is no objective reference for ‘correct original’ meanings.

    Correct only indicates “the meanings I like, not the ones you like”.

    Regarding ‘original’ – most words have a string of origins that go back hundreds or even thousands of years. Which of these is the original? Where do you stop? Again it just boils down to personal choice, the ‘original’ is just “the one I choose, not the one you choose”.

49. Hi PeeDee
    You are generally right, but is was thinking of “epicentre” again. This was a word INVENTED to have a technical meaning in seismology, derived from the Greek prefix “epi” (not in the original Greek!) meaning “above”. Hence using the term to mean “absolute centre” is a shift from a well-defined “original correct meaning” of “above the centre”.

50. True enough, in that case there certainly is an original meaning.

51. Rowland @ 47
    I don’t think you’re being bullied. You’re simply being asked (not for the first time) to explain what you mean by saying that Puck’s puzzle is ‘not always good technically’.

    The same goes for Paul B @ 30. Why don’t you share with readers and contributors here what ‘today’s technical issues’ are?

    I for one would like these failings to be spelt out. I’m sure Puck could benefit from your combined insights too.

52. Like newmarketsausage@51. Nice complex puzzle, Puck, excellent blog, manehi.

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