Guardian 26,577 by Qaos

74 comments on “Guardian 26,577 by Qaos”

1. Yes, very nice. Took me some time to get going, then Biblical theme emerged. Favourites were JERK, REVELATION, OCCUPIED, GENESIS and DARK ENERGY. Thanks to Qaos and manehi.

2. Thanks Qaos and manehi

   A very enjoyable puzzle. Re your rubric, manehi, if 4D LEMON PIE isn’t a book of the bible it certanly should be 😉

3. Simon – oops :P! Edited, thank you

4. Wikipedia gives Erebus as a primordial deity – son of Chaos…

5. Thanks all
   I do not recognise themes often and especially books of the bible!
   I failed with 24a/d.
   Not sure budget is cryptic.

6. Thanks for the blog, manehi.

   The theme quickly emerged and was a help and a hindrance, as I kept looking for NUMBERS!

   Lots of lovely clues and surfaces, as ever. My favourites were RANDOM, since Brando was a Method actor, HEBREWS and BEHEMOTH, for the laugh, LEMON PIE and INSCRIBE – among others.

   Many thanks to Qaos for another very enjoyable puzzle.

7. Re 2dn: I thought it was rather odd that Qaos should reveal the theme like this and wondered if it was a reference to Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’.

8. Many thanks for the blog, and to Qaos for a fun puzzle.

   I thought 25a was a double definition: Budget as adjective (economical / inexpensive) and noun

   4d can also be MELON PIE!

9. Sorry, I meant to add ‘but, having spotted the theme, my first thought for 2dn was ACTS, which, too, would have given the game away’.

10. dazedandconfused: the second and third paragraphs of that wiki entry describe the meaning used in this puzzle

    Eileen @7,9: it could still then have been ACTS=”book”=script of a play! Though I agree, I was a little surprised that the theme was pointed out like that. (And also that something with DIS/EREBUS wasn’t used in 8dn.)

11. Looks like I’m the first to admit that I threw in DARK MATTER for 13d rather hastily – “cause” giving MATTER – although that would have been double duty perhaps – so that slowed down the bottom left rather until fixed.

    Excellent puzzle – which I thought 75% excellent prior to realising my own mistake – so now 100%.

    Missed the theme of course – always do unless there are dependencies on it.

    Very enjoyable. Many thanks both.

12. PS Not having spotted the theme I too took Jude to refer to Jude the Obscure – no doubt literary types refer to it that way – in the same way that theatrical luvvies refer to A Midsummer Night’s Dream as “Dream” etc.

    One of those Hardy novels of which (it’s been frequently observed) at the end of every chapter you think things couldn’t possibly get any worse – in the next one they do.

13. Oh dear – just realised I had MELON PIE!! I thought it sounded rather unusual. But it fits perfectly well, and apparently there is such a thing.

14. Thanks Qaos and Manehi; I too was left wanting more. For once I saw the hidden theme in time for it to be of help. I cannot say that it improves the clue greatly, but 25A BUDGET does have a whiff of a double definition (“a budget holiday”).

15. Guidice @8

    Sorry – I really should refresh occasionally.

16. I started off slowly and thought I was going to struggle, but I gradually got there. Seeing the theme two-thirds of the way through helped me get REVELATION and the JOEL/JERK crossers. I also considered “Acts” for 2dn before a checker told me it couldn’t be, and the same goes for “dark matter” at 13dn. Although I had the correct LEMON PIE I wondered if there was such a thing as “melon pie” which also fitted the wordplay. Because melons are mostly water I don’t think they’d react to any kind of cooking process in an appetising way.

17. JollySwagman @11, you’re not the only one. I confidently threw in DARK MATTER and then (of course) got held up in the SE. After hitting the check button, MATTER disappeared and I realized my error, grumbling a bit at the ambiguity, and insisting that DARK MATTER is still a better answer 😉 Other than that, and after that, everything pretty much fell into place, save for the JERK/JOEL crossing. Having a possible maximum of only one letter for both entries did not help matters. Despite all that, I still look forward to Qaos’s offerings!

18. And yes, I did notice the Bible book theme, but I couldn’t think of any books off the top of my head that would fit either slot!

19. Thanks Qaos and manehi.

    Enjoyed this, particularly CUTEST and HEBREWS!

    Another division between heaven and hell is topical at the moment. The Canadians are trying to claim the Northwest Passage for Canada after finding the wreck of HMS EREBUS in September last year. With global warming this could become an important shipping route. Artifacts from Franklin’s expedition went on display last week at the Canadian Museum of History.

20. Thanks Qaos and manehi
    Very enjoyable, though I failed on the two 24s. Nice to see some science references. I guessed DARK ENERGY from the definition, but I thought that the wordplay was a bit loose; I did toy with DARK MATTER instead, but the definition would have been completely wrong, of course.
    Favourites were GENESIS and BEHEMOTH.

21. Manehi @10

    Yes, I know. What I was trying to point out was that Qaos was making a little joke. Erebus, son of Qaos?…

22. JollySwagman @11 Andy B @ 16 and Steve B @17

    With 17A GENESIS (‘big bang’) and 13D DARK ENERGY we have a cosmological mini-theme. However, current cosmology postulates dark matter to keep a galaxy together, while dark energy makes them fly apart from one another – or, more strictly, accelerates the expansion.

23. I realised the theme only when I had HEBREWS (FOI), LUKE, JUDE & EXODUS – so I suppose that I was a bit slow on the uptake. But it did make me think that Mr and Mrs Law were very clever to name their son Jude!

    For some reason, I found the SW corner the most difficult, and I failed to solve EREBUS. New word for me was DARK ENERGY – I always find the science (and soccer) clues very elusive.

    I liked 15a, 7a, 26a, 12a, 23a, 1d, 2d, 16d and my favourites were 11a and 20a.

    Thank you Qaos and manehi

24. The “hidden” theme came to me practically right away, since the first thing I plunked in was ACTS at 2d (Eileen and I apparently think alike). As I often do wiith double-definitions, I immediately hit the “check” button, so ACTS went away–but biblical lines of thought didn’t. My main complaint is that once you do have the theme, and with it being a closed set like this, too many of the clues became write-ins.

    Scanning the clues, I was half-expecting the one with “Yank” to be RUTH, as in the Babe (or the book), but alas.

    Not knowing Ms. Shrimpton or “ton” for fashion, I put in Shrimp as the only possibility while remaining baffled by the clue. Thanks for explaining.

25. d&c@4 and 21

    Oh yes, very clever – I like your comment about Erebus, son of Qaos/Chaos!

26. Thanks Qaos and manehi.

    The bible’s not my specialist subject so missed the theme entirely. Some very nice clues, though.

    I particularly liked GENESIS & HEBREWS.

27. P.S. Jean Shrimpton was known anyway as ‘The Shrimp.’ Now that’s a better theme………

28. Being a Son of the Manse, the Jude/Judges connection in 6d gave me the theme very early and turned much of the crossword into a “fill in the blanks” exercise where the clues were only needed to confirm the entry. One of those where the later the theme were recognised the greater the enjoyment.

29. I was using Chambers 10th edition, so for me it had to be “DARK MATTER”. Dark energy is in the 11th edition; so a relatively new term appearing some time between 2006 and 2008. I suppose I really should use my 12th edition!

30. Hmm godly stuff.

    It is worrying that i some clues copmpilers do it properly and in others not. If you could sit them down and explain I do not know if even that would work! 😀

    7a a CD is not a record, it is a recording; 11a DE is Delaware, I don’t know about Germany; 17a shoud use ‘explosive’ to be correct, also ‘big bang’ is hardly to be equated with any religious idea of beginning; 22a the apostrophe is for what exactly?; 24a again apostrophe spoils the cryptic grammar; 25 2 x same meaning; 4d is this in dictionaries? I know of lemon meringue. Also, as people have said, it leads to at least two solutions and so is unsound; 6d grammar ‘first goal’; 13d what? I really do not see how one may solve this clue except by guessing; not sure about ’emit’ as in get rid. There’s no need for second anagrind either; 19d apostrophe I would not say is necessary after 1960s; 21d not defined correctly; 22d not defined correctly; 24d J for card is so indirect it could be said to be unfair.

    Cheers
    HH

31. Thanks, manehi.

    For once, I spotted the theme very early – perhaps because, like Eileen and mrpenney, I first put ACTS in for 2d. EXODUS led to JUDGES, which caused a rethink and a sudden 23a. LOI for me were the 24s – in common with many other solvers, I suspect; two 4-letter words with only one crosser each is always likely to be tricky.

    Lots of well constructed clues with good surfaces, as we have come to expect from Qaos. I agree with PeterO @14 that BUDGET does have an element of double def, but the two overlap so that this clue is not up to the high standard of the rest. I wonder if this was an editorial change? They aren’t always for the best, as we have discovered.

    My favourites were HEBREWS, BEHEMOTH, ACCURATE and INSCRIBE.

32. A milestone! ‘Record’ has become CD at last and not EP or LP, although as mentioned above a CD is not really a record. And btw, Queen Victoria’s dead!!!

33. If you REALLY wanted to be picky, you could point out that ‘Is he an insect’ and BE HE MOTH are not equivalent, as the former is indicative and the latter subjunctive (and therefore means ‘if he is an insect’) but wotthehell. (I’ve just got back from Italy, so my head is still full of subjunctives).

34. “Be he” isn’t subjunctive, it’s just a bit old fashioned.

    I’ll own up to writing in DARK MATTER too, despite once having read a tiny bit of Paul Davies and thus knowing it was wrong. Can only blame myself there.

35. Dear HH@30

    Hi, its me again.

    .de is the interweb address for German websites.
    Genesis is in common use for any beginning, why does it have to be religious?
    You really don’t like apostrophes do you.
    Lemon Pie is delicious, I agree it is better with meringue on top but its not compulsory.
    I thought it was great to get some physics into a crossword and for me dark energy was easy (though I will confess along with others that dark matter was in first.
    21 and 22 I thought were very clearly defined – but what do I know.

    As always, lots of love

    Andy

36. I enjoyed this one – not too difficult, and the theme was helpful, though I failed to parse REVELATION because I thought Twist was the definition. Also carelessly wrote in DARK MATTER but it didn;t take long to spot the error. Liked RANDOM.

    Thanks to Qaos and manehi.

37. HH@30

    Glad to see you enjoyed this one!!

    7a [a CD is not a record, it is a recording] A compact disc is a record in a certain format, in the same way that vinyl is.

    11a [DE is Delaware, I don’t know about Germany] DE has been an abbreviation for Germany for ages.

    17a [should use ‘explosive’ to be correct, also ‘big bang’ is hardly to be equated with any religious idea of beginning] An ‘explosion’ of seeing seems good enough to me.

    22a [the apostrophe is for what exactly?] Hmmm – I agree with you.

    24a [again apostrophe spoils the cryptic grammar] I think this is OK. Yank = (is) clothing, slips off hip.

    25 [2 x same meaning] Not really, as I see it.

    4d [is this in dictionaries? I know of lemon meringue. Also, as people have said, it leads to at least two solutions and so is unsound] Not all compounds are in dictionaries! But I agree about the two solutions.

    6d [grammar ‘first goal’] Normal usage in crosswords as I understand.

    13d [what? I really do not see how one may solve this clue except by guessing] A bit of lateral thinking is required.

    18d [not sure about ’emit’ as in get rid. There’s no need for second anagrind either] Emit is OK in the sense of pushing out. The second anagrind indicates that the letters aren’t in the same order.

    19d [apostrophe I would not say is necessary after 1960s] Both forms are commonly used (with or without apostrophe)

    21d [not defined correctly] You have a point. According to Wikipedia Erebus was “place of darkness between earth and Hades” rather than between heaven and hell.

    Whew!

    22d not defined correctly;

    24d [J for card is so indirect it could be said to be unfair] Nope – often used.

38. [hh @30 – for such a grammatical pedant, some of your sentence constructions are very confusing – I can’t parse the one beginning “It is worrying”]

39. Thanks to Qaos and manehi. Like others I started with DARK MATTER (though I knew it did not fit) and ACTS and took a long time finding BUDGET. I got INSCRIBE from the crossers but here I agree with HH that “emitting (vs. “omitting”?) puzzled me. I much enjoyed BEHEMOTH.

40. Well Andy and Drofle (Elford?) if you are not used to the finer points, and why would you if all you have ever done id Guardian stuff, then fair enough! There’s a way of doing things, a form, (including having answers defined in the correct part of speech) that the best (to me) compilers use, and they are very creative and also very fair within that. If you are getting your ‘entertaining surfaces’ by being unfair then you are not a great writer IN MY VIEW.

    BTW You are taking some of my remarks as absolute when they are conditional, as in ‘something is not necessary’ as with that anagrind on the compoundanag. The reason it is not necessary is because ONE POSSIBLE solution is INSCRIBEROAR. Yes, you can have it, but you don’t need it.

41. I have been patronised by HH, I now feel I have arrived.

42. Re @30 et al, ” ‘big bang’ is hardly to be equated with any religious idea of beginning”

    I’m obviously missing something :-

    1. The Scientists want us to believe that in the beginning there was nothing, then there was an initial act of creation followed by developments which led to the universe we know today
    2. The Creationists want us to believe that in the beginning there was nothing, then there was an initial act of creation followed by developments which led to the universe we know today

    And on that basis they then scream at each other saying their theories must be mutually incompatible?

43. Derek @ 42
    I think that it’s the “act of creation” in #1 that the scientists would disagree with – an act implies an intentional creator.

44. Every effect has a cause, so we are told. So no scientist can truthfully dismiss the word act. They may have private feelings on quite what that means, everything from something to nothing, but not one of them has any evidence to dismiss the word with.

45. Hooray, I got the theme for once and I must admit that it made the puzzle much easier. Snap on ACTS and DARK MATTER but, after a slow start, this gave up its secrets quite easily. LOI JUDE. Too many favourites to list and I’m getting out of here before the Creationists and Scientists come to blows.
    Thanks Qaos.

46. Derek @44
    Mmmmm – not necessarily in the quantum world.

47. Thanks to Qaos for another enjoyable puzzle, and thanks to manehi for the blog; I had a slow start adjusting in to Qaos’ dialect, but once I tuned in it was more straightfoward than at first sight. I also missed the theme.

    Cookie @19: The exhibition is already over, after a measly 5 days. Canada has always claimed ownership of the Northwest Passage(s), but not all agree, especially the US and Russia. We have a prime minister who considers pre-confederation (1867) events as part of Canadian history, so Franklin’s last adventure (1845-?) is now part of Canadian history, no longer that of ‘British Colonies in North America.’

    @HH: I hope you actually enjoy the solving experience: one of my most memorable courses in my engineering education was a unit where we had to solve problems where too much information was given (admittedly word problems resulting in math equations). I can imagine your everlasting joy if crossword clues were written like that. IMO ambiguity rules, surface is king: an extra ‘s, a creative angrind or a non-standard abbreviation doesn’t actually interfere with my solving (or enjoyment thereof). There’s much creativity in cryptic clues to admire.

48. I read the definition in 17a as “or big bang?”

    So, Genesis or big bang?

    As for HH, it seems to me that he believes that you can only write a clue one way and everything else is wrong. For that kind of rigidity you will be wanting Sudoku.

49. Very good puzzle too, but being aware of Qaos” themes makes things a little easier.

50. Having struggled with yesterday’s puzzle, which I didn’t get round to trying until today, this was a nicely relaxing solve by comparison. I did spot the theme eventually (GENESIS and EXODUS being stronger hints than the books I found first), but I don’t think it helped as of the three left, two were obvious from the wordplay and I’d forgotten that Joel is an OT book.

    My favourites were BEHEMOTH, TOURNAMENT and EREBUS.

    Thanks to Qaos and manehi.

51. So hedgehoggy is no Creationist?

    I think that creativity where unrestricted can often be a bit crap, since – if you have but an ounce of it within you – you can wheel it out all day long. Put the pressure on a bit, let’s think of, say, Modernism for example, or, at the cheaper end of the range, ‘setting puzzles while adhering to some fairly basic, completely reasonable and easy-to-understand guidelines’, and the results can be quite stunning. At the very least it turns the banal into the passable, at best the good into the great.

    I believe that today’s crossword is intelligently designed, and that Derek is a quantum effect.

52. Paul B, you may be right, something weird is happening. Went to the dentist today to find out why the inner side of my right lower wisdom tooth and surrounding area has been sore for a while. Apparently I’m teething! I’m 66 and teething! Maybe it’s a quantum effect tooth, lol.

53. Saw the theme very early but of course it was no help as the Bible is a “closed book” to me. 😉 However I did vaguely recognise the entries as they appeared.

    Almost LOI was WOOD ANTS for which I didn’t particularly like the definition of “Social workers”. My knowledge of film directors is almost zero so although I had deduced the answer I was trying to parse it using WOODY. (Mr Allen being one of the few directors I am aware of)

    I also must admit to entering DARK MATTER which did hold me up for a while.

    Still enjoyable nonetheless.

    Thanks to PeterO and Qaos

54. Freddy @47, I believe they had to keep the exhibits under water, temperature might also have been a problem, hence perhaps the five day limit. Yes, I know there has always been controversy over the Northwest Passage, but it was not of much importance in the past; now, with global warming, the passage could be open for a longer time each year.

55. HH@40 – you have unmasked me. My name is indeed Elford.

56. Enjoyable puzzle – thanks Qaos and manehi.

    24ac – in the real world does anyone actually use “hip” and “in” to be fashionable any more?

57. Derek Lazenby @52, a Sussex farmer who I used to help in school holidays with the cows, a Mr Waltho, grew a whole set of new teeth at your age, but they were not much good. Best of luck!

    Just been checking, it is an Old Norse name as is yours, perhaps your families are related!

58. Really nice crossword despite (!!) the theme that is very far away from me.

    Our first entry was ACTS (in 2d) but alas.
    It couldn’t be right as 2d also gave a C.
    I knew that 13d had to be Dark ‘Something’ but it was Beth who entered Dark Matter, at the same explaining to me that it had to be Dark Energy.
    How right she was.

    I am not going to reply to HH’s points.
    But, yes, I was surprised to ‘First goal’ for G in 6d.
    I know, for the surface it’s better than ‘First of goals’ but I didn’t think Qaos would do this.
    Just like Gervase also not convinced by BEHEMOTH (20ac.
    And, as others said, BUDGET (25ac) is unbelievably weak.

    But as Qaos once said himself, it’s about the bigger picture, not about every single stroke.
    A joy to solve.

    Thanks manehi for the blog.

59. As usual, I missed the theme; I was also another DARK MATTER person, and failed on JERK/JOEL.

    I appear to have been alone in thinking 2d was RULE, which is a good answer if the clue is a DD.

    Can’t see what’s wrong with BUDGET, which is a good DD.

    Thanks for puzzle and blog.

60. Sil @58

    Okay this is probably too late but I must comment on this continued criticism of what is now standard practice, at least in The Guardian. I am of course referring to the indication of a particular letter of a word in the wordplay. e.g. First goal

    These are general comments and not particularly directed at you Sil.

    Most of realise that it is desirable for the surface of the clue to read like a meaningful sentence and be grammatically correct. We equally know that the actual meaning of this sentence is often nothing to do with the answer but is actually more likely to be used by the setter to lead us away from this.

    So now we come to the pedants who insist that even indications in the wordplay should be constrained to grammar rules as if they were stand alone phrases. This is nonsense in my opinion.

    Consider the following paragraph:

    I am going to spell out a word by indicating the ordinal position of a letter in a series of words to spell out another word. Third base, first introduction, seventh programme, second apple, fourth ball, first entry.

    Would you really insist on the “in” or “of” being present in each of theses phrases?

    As the phrase “I may indicate a letter position somewhere in this clue.” is implicit in all cryptic crossword clues why do some people make such a fuss.

    The misdirection of the surface is surely part of the joy of solving a cryptic and these attempts to hinder that are at best counterproductive or at worst pure pedantry.

61. B(nto) @60, and others …

    My own attitude is that the most important factor is whether a clue gets most solvers to the answer by a fair yet challenging route. If we insist on “third of base”, that would not only spoil the surface reading in many cases, it would also signal the parsing so obtrusively that the setter might as well highlight the relevant letter in bold, or just give it to us directly.

    As far as I am aware, there is no definitive formal rulebook for cryptic crosswords, just conventions and recommendations which can change over time. Some well respected setters in the past imposed constraints upon how clues should be written. Some current setters (and solvers) like to stick to the same constraints, but others take a more flexible line. Both approaches are fine. It is just personal preference – there is no right or wrong approach. The Guardian names the setter of each puzzle, so if someone hates the style of a particular setter, they can choose to avoid those puzzles. There are other sources of cryptic crosswords. No-one is compelled to do the Guardian crossword every day. As for those people who seem to hate the style of Guardian crosswords in general, I wonder why they keep doing them at all.

62. jennyk@61 – I agree wholeheartedly!

63. [jennyk @61 – well said. Welcome to the libertarians club!]

64. There is no ‘surface grammar’ which is the mistake people make.

65. hh @64

    Collins English Dictionary thinks there is.

66. Thanks Qaos and manehi

    Enjoyed this a lot !

    First in was ACTS which stayed there until OCCUPIED was my third last in, followed by JUDE and LUKE. Think that I had written in BEHEMOTH before looking at 13d, so the ‘dark matter’ issue never cropped up.

    Sheepishly admit that I completely missed the Bible books theme – a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

    Jean SHRIMPTON was always gettable from here – she made headlines at the 1965 Melbourne Cup by wearing a mini-dress that was outrageously 5 inches above the knee ! :).

67. Disagree with jennyk on both counts (unless that’s her little joke at 65).

    There’s no excuse for crap grammar, no matter which style writers say they follow. Arch-Libertarian Araucaria invited criticism of his clueing on surprisingly few occasions given his jumbo-sized output, and he proves the point: the best writers know what they’re doing even when they’re bending so-called rules. Speaking of which, I’ve never come across a set of Ximenean rules, so beloved of the likes of Swagman and now jennyk. If I can receive my copy, please advise.

    Bad style is bad style, erm, full stop, erm, and it seems there’s quite a lot of it about at the moment.

68. Paul B @67

    “I’ve never come across a set of Ximenean rules, so beloved of the likes of Swagman and now jennyk.”

    I’m not sure where you got that. I said “As far as I am aware, there is no definitive formal rulebook for cryptic crosswords”. It’s others who suggest that there are rules which are being broken.

    “Bad style is bad style, erm, full stop, erm, and it seems there’s quite a lot of it about at the moment.”

    “Bad style” here is style which you and some other people classify as bad, but not everyone agrees. It bothers me a lot if the surface of the clue is ungrammatical, but not when the cryptic indication (e.g. “third base”) is not the same as it would be if it was a normal sentence. It’s a matter of opinion whether that is a major sin.

    I’ll ask what I’ve asked before. Given that some people strongly dislike the style of particular setters or the house style of particular papers, why do they do those crosswords? If other people enjoy them, why not let them do so in peace? Does it offend the critics so much to know that such clues exist anywhere in the crossword world that they must chase them down? I just don’t understand it. If you feel a particular style of music is unmusical, do you seek out places where that music is played and then complain about it, or do you look for places where the music you enjoy is played? I prefer to do the latter. I’m told there are places to find crosswords which don’t offend the purists, so if I was one of them, I’d look there for crosswords I would enjoy.

    Anyway, that’s enough time wasted on an argument which is never going to be resolved. Dinner is nearly ready. 🙂

69. Since a grammar is (inter alia – Collins #2 http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/grammar) a “system of rules” there is inherently a rulebook for each such one,

    Obviously the term “rulebook” is being used metaphorically to suggest a set of rules – not an actual bound book as such. Anyone complaining of a solecism of any kind is inherently indicating that one (or more) such rule has been broken.

    The word “grammar” can have a plural form and kicking around these ideas or formalising them is a branch of mathematics.

    This comes as something of a shock to those untutored in that area, many of whom think that mathematics consists solely of number-crunching, times tables and the kind of stuff they themselves struggled with to get a scrape pass at O-level so that they could continue their higher education (sic) in softer subjects; at least by their denial they identify themselves as belonging in that group – and as such they are poorly qualified to comment on a subject for which they are manifestly a long way out of their depth.

    @jennyk – absolutely spot on. It is the equivalent of a bunch of football (ie soccer) fans who turn up at rugby matches, knowing they don’t like rugby, to complain about breaches of the soccer rules – in a rugby match.
    The Millwall crowd turning up at Twickers if you will – thinking it makes them look clever.

70. HH is a Millwall fan?

71. jennyk@68 There are some of us who contribute to this site (and a much larger number who don’t) who do the crossword because it is in the newspaper that they buy. I think that we are perfectly entitled to expect on most days a crossword that is approachable and doesn’t rely on a detailed experience of and forebearance for the setter’s foibles. We don’t want to have to go searching elsewhere.

    So JollySwagman@69, it is more like going to football match and finding the pie stall replaced by an oyster bar, where someone hasn’t bothered to write the menu out properly because those who will really appreciate the fare will understand.

72. Well thanks all four of you.

    I can’t remember that the finer points of cryptic grammar ever gave me much cause for concern until I got to know a bit more. OTOH, once we do get the picture, I can’t see why bad grammar WOULDN’T annoy us. I mean, aside from those excellent books where it’s used and abused knowingly, and for a knowing audience, we wouldn’t expect poor technique in a novel. And to imagine, as some here do, that corrections in this area would in some way detract from a setter’s character is surely wrong. It can only make things better. You can’t polish a turd of course, but still.

    Btw, (for jennyk) the ‘surface grammar’ for crossword solvers is the apparent grammar in a clue as read without reference to its cryptic elements, i.e. without reference to its real meaning. This set of instructions merely generates a surface, which, as such, is always illusory (unless it’s a CD, for example). This is true even of &lits, where the surface (albeit via skilful engineering) just so happens to define the required word or phrase. If it helps, you’ll often see discussions here whereof corrections to jerry-built cryptic grammar make a mess of the apparent grammar, and yet still offer a preferable version for solvers to use.

73. Pau B @72

    I did know what “surface grammar” means, both in crossword discussions and in linguistics. I did linguistics as part of my degree course. It was also at university that I discovered the joys of cryptic crosswords, though not of crossword blogs as they had not been invented back then. I just did the puzzles and enjoyed them, without analysing their grammar in great detail.

74. So it WAS your little joke, then. Okay.

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