A pleasant Tuesday challenge.
I don’t know if it’s because I was still recovering from a tiring weekend in Paris, or whether I was trying to do two things at once (always an issue on Tuesday morning where I am working as I try to solve the crossword at the same time), but this took longer than I would have anticipated to solve.
I would be interested in the opinion of my fellow solvers and bloggers on the use of words that I find superfluous in some of the clues?
Examples include:
IN (1dn, 3dn)
OF (25ac)
A (6dn)
| Across | ||
| 1 | SEND DOWN |
Commit to pen when mail crashed (4,4)
I can see where the setter is coming from here, but it’s a wee bit of a stretch. |
| 5 | PLACID |
Unruffled about going in tartan (6)
PLA(C)ID |
| 9 | FLAUNTED |
Showed off and took flight with relative on board (8)
FL(AUNT)ED |
| 10 | INFUSE |
Brew which is fashionable? Fine with milk (6)
IN-F-USE Don’t think I’ve seen MILK = USE before, but Chambers has “manipulate” as a synonym, so should be OK. |
| 11 | TELLTALE |
Sneak is utter whopper (8)
TELL TALE |
| 12 | EMBERS |
Cinders associates with maiden over leaving (6)
(M)EMBERS |
| 14 | RED HERRING |
Husband with cocked derringer causes distraction (3,7)
*(h derringer) Personally not a fan of these split anagrams. Would have preferred the h to have been indicated as being IN the anagram rather than WITH it. |
| 18 | CLOVE HITCH |
Something to connect cloth I’ve torn in church (5,5)
C *(cloth ive) E I wasn’t a boy scout, but it’s handy to know the names of common knots to solve crosswords. |
| 22 | DESERT |
Leave sweet having cleaned out its centre (6)
DES(s)ERT |
| 23 | SELLOUTS |
What promoters want – somewhat less returning yobs (8)
<=LES(s) LOUTS |
| 24 | MURDER |
A flock of crows eat voraciously (6)
Double definition – a murder of crows and murder as in “I could murder a burger right now” |
| 25 | FOCACCIA |
Fellow ordered carpaccio but not third or fourth slices of bread (8)
F *(caaccio) – removing the third and fourth slices of caRPaccio.
|
| 26 | CLEVER |
Conservative bar is bright (6)
C-LEVER |
| 27 | ST HELENA |
Famously isolated place where the lanes are windy (2,6)
*(the lanes) When parsing this, I find it difficult to justify the “are” in this clue, but could be convinced otherwise? |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SAFETY |
Talk about fair cut in refuge (6)
SA (FET(e) Y See my preamble. |
| 2 | NEARLY |
Almost noon and still morning? (6)
N EARLY |
| 3 | DONATE |
Give in playing during engagement (6)
D(ON)ATE See my preamble |
| 4 | WHEELIE BIN |
With tilt, that is, rubbish leaves this (7,3)
W-HEEL-i.e.-BIN This only works if “RUBBISH” and “BIN” are synonymous, which they aren’t. |
| 6 | LANDMARK |
Well-known feature left with a blemish (8)
L-AND MARK The “a” before “blemish” in the clue is superfluous. See my preamble. |
| 7 | CRUDE OIL |
Energy source would be cloudier if unrefined (5,3)
*(crude oil) |
| 8 | DRESSAGE |
Duke with reservation knowing equestrian event (8)
D-RES-SAGE |
| 13 | CHICKEN OUT |
Duck and another bird set free? (7,3)
|
| 15 | ACADEMIC |
Scholar of no practical relevance (8)
Double definition |
| 16 | CONSERVE |
Safeguard lags before ever getting fixed (8)
CONS *(ever) |
| 17 | DERRIERE |
Rider is off and on before being behind (8)
*(rider) ERE |
| 19 | PLEASE |
Place with quiet charm (6)
PL-EASE |
| 20 | MUSCLE |
Might section with canine get into drug-runner? (6)
MU (S C) LE I assume dentists may use C as shorthand for “CANINE” but I can’t find reference to it in Chambers or online. |
| 21 | ESPANA |
Where to get tortilla?! Especially with an adult (6)
ESP-AN-A In Spain, a tortilla is an omelette, not to be confused with the Latin America tortilla. |
Agreeable few minutes, but I’m inclined to agree about redundant words. in 27 I’m happy with “are windy” as the anagrind, but that makes “where” superfluous. c=canine can be found at
http://www.dentalvet.com/encyclopedia/m04968.htm
but that’s too obscure a reference work for a daily puzzle I think.
Unless I’m misremembering, there was a setter called Jason from the Guardian in the 1970s. Is there any connection between the two?
18a, C (cloth i’ve) H ?
Sorry, cookie, that was a typo. You’re right of course.
loonapick
You’ve raised an interesting question in your preamble.
However, I would think that most solvers will not consider any of those little words that you cite as redundant.
In clues, sometimes the use of articles such as a or the becomes a necessity to improve the overall surface reading.
I seem to have read somewhere that WP/in/def is being seen increasingly in clues nowadays.
Similarly, there should be no problem in seeing ‘of’, ‘from’, etc, as links between WP and def.
Recently in a CWC, I wrote a clue where I used ‘the’. I consciously decided to keep it as I felt that that was necessary for the language to be idiomatically correct.
This is my opinion. I am willing to hear what others have to say.
Thanks for your input, rishi.
I accept that these “redundant” words are creeping in. IMHO, however, adding them simply to aid thje surface reading is not acceptable, as I believe, and I may be being overly pedantic, that every word in a clue should relate either to the definition or to the wordplay. Allowing the small superfluous words may be the thin end of a wedge.
Redundant words are an interesting subject. For me, ‘of’ in 25a is slightly questionable, but the rest are fine. In particular, ‘a’ in 6d may be helpful as it specifies the noun def (both can be verbs but I suspect many of us use them more readily in the noun sense). A similar discussion happened recently when ‘to’ was used before the def for a verb in part of the wordplay. In that instance, removing ‘to’ would have created additional meanings for the def, making the solve trickier.
Thanks Jason and loonapick.
This was a pleasant solve after struggling with the parsing of a Puck puzzle earlier.
1a, I assume “commit to pen” means “send to prison”, as well as one being obliged to use one’s pen when the e-mail crashes.
18a, I implied @2 that it was CH for “church”, not CE. 7d, typo *(cloudier). 19d “charm” to be underlined?
Now I’m feeling school-marmish!
Re comment against 4d, why, when you ‘rubbish’ (v.) something, you ‘bin’ (v.) it.
Cookie @7
Yes, that’s how I saw 1a as well, it was the “send down” when actually it is the whole programme that is down that represented the stretch IMO.
Thanks for pointing out the typos (although I’m fairly certain I did underline CHARM).
As I said in my preamble, and in my defebce, I was solving the crossword at a time when the day job should really have been my prioirty!!
Rishi @8
Do you? I’ve never come across rubbishing something, meaning to put it in the bin, and I’ve never come across binning something, meaning to devalue or insult something. Am I missing something obvious here?
At some point, one hopes that rubbish does leave the bin. I see no problem there. Similarly, with 1d, ‘in’ the word safety, you have the characteristics clued. Just my interpretation.
I agree with your comment against 14ac.
I like WP where it is a letter plus an anagram or an anagram plus a letter. Of course, there can be a part anagram in a charade or a component in an anagram container. And so on.
As far as I can see, here H is contained in an anagram of a word. I don’t think it is indicated properly.
I don’t consider ‘with’ as a c/c indicator.
Re Comment under 20d.
Chambers XWD A Dictionary of Crossword Abbreviations has
Canine C
and
C canine (among others)
Perhaps it is common in what are called ‘advanced cryptics’ which I don’t do much.
XWD, published by Chambers, often has abbreviations that are not in the BRB.
Is there any limit to the number of Comments a solver may make? In any case, please permit me to make yeet another. (I am at home and in bed, recovering from a heart bypass surgery that I had five weeks ago.)
In 27a, I don’t consider ‘are’ as intrusive.
Only I was wondering if ‘winding’ or ‘sinuous’ might have been a better choice as an anagram signal.
Incidentally, I would not know about St. Helena. Are the lanes there ‘windy’?
Should such a geographical/meteorological clue adhere to actual conditions?
OK, I will keep quiet.
Hi Rishi, the trade winds blow almost continually, so guess St Helena is “windy”. The terrain is rugged and of volcanic origin, the lanes look very windy, but not sure that could also act as an anagram indicator.
Have just checked the Wiky site for anagram indicators and it does give “winding”.
Well, WINDY should probably be pronounced WINE DEE to get the sense here. Seems okay to me as an anag-ind. You’ve seen a lot worse! ‘Where the lanes ARE windy’ is also fine, is it not? Plural usage is allowable for either THE plus LANES = two entities or t,h,e,l,a,n,e,s as ‘some letters’, so I can’t see a problem. And ‘where’ surely means ‘in the case that’: I think that clue is totes pukka myself, though I would agree that in a crossword puzzle blogged regularly elsewhere on this site, redundant As and THEs are catastrophically over-supplied.
Thanks Jason and lunapick
Only got to this one today … and whilst I find this setter usually quite straightforward, I couldn’t fit him into last week’s tasks ! Think that this one may have been a little tougher than his normal offering. But when I finish with SAFETY as my last one in, maybe I was just having an off-day too.
Sort of agree with your arguments with superfluous words to a certain extent, but I don’t get overly precious about them. My mantra is that if I can end up with the same grid of words that the setter started with, then his/her object was fulfilled. The enjoyment factor becomes the bonus where there is extra humour, cleverness or a witty theme intertwined amongst the answers. This one had a run of the mill ‘fun factor’.
I did like what was being tried in 1a and think that it mostly works – it brought a grin at any rate !