Independent 9108 by eXternal

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No Dac today I’m afraid, even though it isn’t the last Wednesday of the month. Christmas I suppose. But this is perfectly serviceable and fills the gap very satisfactorily. It seems that most of the parsings are straightforward and can be given in one short expression, and there doesn’t seem to me to be anything controversial. Some slightly unusual anagram indicators, perhaps.

Definitions underlined.

Perhaps continuing the 5dn laid down by Dac and Quixote, eXternal doesn’t seem to have given us a Nina today. Or has he?

Across
1 SOUP UP
Pimp contracted embittered young man (4,2)

sou{r} pup — a slang verbal meaning of ‘pimp’ is to decorate in a flashy way
5 PALATIAL
Splendid friend, regularly a stoic ally (8)

pal a {s}t{o}i{c} a{l}l{y}
9 START OUT
Tutor sat prepared to begin (5,3)

(Tutor sat)*
10 GRUDGE
Envy good and simple Dickensian (6)

g Rudge — Barnaby Rudge, who according to Wikipedia, is a simple man
11 BUMMER
Recalled difficulty receiving Madame’s bad reaction (6)

Mme in (rub)rev.
12 ENTIRETY
Sum being divided by figure minus two-thirds (8)

enti({figu}re)ty
13 DEMONSTRATOR
Wicked person’s backstabber – I must leave shower (12)

demon’s tra{i}tor
17 LUNCHEON MEAT
Processed food from can, hotel menu misrepresented (8,4)

(can hotel menu)*
20 CONSIDER
Judge alcoholic drink containing fruity nose, mostly (8)

(nos{e})* in cider, the anagram indicated by ‘fruity’
23 TAHINI

Middle-eastern ingredient not abundant around area west of Italy (6)

t(a)hin I{taly}
24 OTIOSE

Futile notions to sacrifice two knights before end of game (6)

{N}otio{N}s {gam}e
25 UNBROKEN
French article suitable to put in gun is not surpassed (8)

un br(OK)en
26 ASSEMBLE
Spring lamb sees flock (8)

(Lamb sees)*, the anagram indicator ‘Spring’
27 EVENED
Made regular eleven edgier to some extent (6)

Hiddn in elEVEN EDgier
Down
2 OUTGUN
Best known expert (6)

out [= known] gun [= expert] — I was thinking that gun = expert comes from ‘top gun’, but apparently it’s an informal Aus/NZ word associated with sheep-sheaping
3 PARAMEDIC
Pair Maced horrifically might require one (9)

(Pair Maced)*, &lit. — I think it’s the chemical Mace, which at first sight seems unnecessary because surely there is a verbal sense of ‘mace’ meaning something like ‘to club, strike with a mace’, but apparently no.
4 PROGRAMME
Schedule for king once – in the morning meeting compiler (9)

pro GR a.m. me — GR is King George
5 PATTERN
Sound made by tiny feet on northern model (7)

patter N — “the patter of tiny feet”
6 LIGHT
Kindle is not difficult to carry (5)

2 defs
7 TRUER
More loyal lorry-driver, not fickle at heart (5)

Tru{ck}er, the ck coming from {fi}ck{le}
8 ANGSTROM
Unit for measuring liquid – not grams (8)

(not grams)*, the anagram indicated by ‘liquid’ — an angstrom is a very short distance used in measuring the wavelength of light, etc.
14 TREATABLE
Singer eating a steak in regular chunks is not fatal (9)

tre(a {s}t{e}a{k})ble
15 AITCHBONE
Cut the bacon I cooked (9)

(the bacon I)*
16 CULOTTES
Show much appreciation verbally for women’s garment (8)

“coo lots” although I’d always thought that it was “cue lots”; but according to Chambers either pronunciation is possible
18 NURTURE
Training set up European with routine work (7)

(E rut run)rev. — rut = routine and run = work I think
19 ANNEXE
Vote during year in France for extension (6)

anné(X)e
21 SMOTE

Cats reviewed, based on Eliot’s capital poetic hit (5)

(toms)rev. E{liot} — I’m not totally convinced that ‘smote’ is poetic, but Chambers says that it is literary and archaic, which is just about OK I suppose
22 DWEEB
Little is taken in by dumb vacant nerd (5)

wee in d{um}b
*anagram

13 comments on “Independent 9108 by eXternal”

  1. Yes, I thought ‘maced’ might mean ‘hit with a mace’ though I wondered why the capital M. And in 21dn SMOTE is certainly poetic in that it is found, for example in “Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum’s helm” from Matthew Arnold’s poem which I remember from schooldays all those years ago.

    No nina that I can see, although a few random words can be found in the unches.

    Thanks, eXternal and John.

  3. 16D Didn’t think of the parsing given above, thought it was “queue lots”, which would show one’s appreciation, admiration for what one was queueing, if it were, say, for for a performance/show of some kind. “Coo”-lottes is an unpleasant anglicisation of this French word; unnecessary since there’s nothing difficult about pronouncing the first syllable “cu”, as spelled.

    Thanks to eXternal and John.

  4. @3
    I have nothing against anglicisation anyway, but even if you do surely the French pronunciation is closer to “coo” than “queue”?

  6. Seriously, they don’t have that “kyoo” sound in French. It’s koo-lot. (The oo sound is different from ours, of course, though.) Queue-lots (kyoo-lots) is further from the French pronunciation, and also doesn’t really fit the clue.

  7. Herb, in French it’s pronounced “cu” as in cucumber (or, for that matter, queue). End of story.

    Thanks Polly.

    Where’s K’s D when you need him?

  8. @7
    Larousse confirms the pure vowel sound in the French ” culottes” (u, as in “bu” (~drunk), not ou as in “boue” (mud)). All English dictionaries confirm queue is k, y then that second vowel (approximately) – oo as in cool. Larousse online will even recite culottes for you.

    Try saying queue with the French “u” and no “y” sound – it’s quite amusing.

    I think that really has dealt with it, refs and all. Let’s move on.

  9. @8 Your first sentence confirms that the “u” in culottes is pronounced as in, or very close to, our cucumber or the french “bu”; in any case, decidedly nothing like “coo”.

    Now I will “move on” provided there is no further correspondence (especially in the form of a purportedly ex cathedra injunction to do so).

  10. Merry Xmas to all and thanks to John for the blog.

    Re CULOTTES, the clue is for the English word. But you got me thinking maybe unpleasant anglicisms and their homophones could be good material for a barred crossword. Another contender is ‘nougat’, my wife’s family pronounces it as ‘nugget’. I’d never heard that before!

  11. @9
    Yes, the vowel sound in coo is the same as the one in queue (they rhyme – see e.g. OED) and therefore different from the one in “bu”. In queue and cucumber it is also preceded by the semi vowel “y-“, which is absent in the French. The “kyoo” sound is characteristically English, very rare (non-existent?) in French.

    No, the first syllable of cucumber is not the same as the French cu in culottes. That is why I was able to corroborate my assertions with the oed and Larousse.

    You seem to have conceded this, at least in part, by saying “the same, or very close to…” this time. As the only shared phoneme is the “k”, and ” coo” shares it too, I disagree, but I suppose “very close” is a matter of opinion. But originally you were saying it was the same as the French pronunciation, which my sources, and my experience, disprove, surely? Queue does not contain the vowel in “bu” any more than “coo” does.

    You seemed to say “queue lots” was the French pronunciation, and to reprove others for anglicising it, but in fact it’s an anglicisation itself (I’m not sure why you didn’t object to the sounded “s” by the way, also absent in French).

    Finally, I was trying to put you right, which may have been rude or impertinent, but at least my conclusion began with “I think” and my final suggestion with “let’s”, and more to the point my post was corroborated by the dictionaries. I was not simply asserting my own view “ex cathedra “. You, on the other hand, offered no corroboration or appeal to another authority; you just repeated what you’d already said and added “end of story”.

  12. @10
    That’s the nain point of course, yes (and the French garment is normally rather different too – breeches, rather than a divided skirt). Thanks for the crossword – always enjoy you (even managed an Inquisitor once I think). Merry Xmas one and all. Including the phonetically waspish M. Gwep.

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