Sunday Times 4706 by Jeff Pearce

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
9:36, but with one stupid error: I put CASES at 24dn. It sort of works, if you’ve an eye to finishing in under 10 minutes, and make a connection between ‘requests’ and CASES in a vaguely legal sense, but it doesn’t really stand up to proper scrutiny, does it?

This week’s controversial clue is the spoonerism at 2dn, which is not a spoonerism as the term is commonly understood. Some on the club forum put forward the view that this is permissible on the basis that the Reverend in question sometimes sangled his myllables in ways other than a simple transposition of initial phonemes. I don’t think I’d accept this as a justification for a use of the word ‘spoonerism’, since what the Reverend actually did is no more relevant in determining the current meaning of this word than goings-on in the Roman army are relevant to the meaning of the word ‘decimate’: usage is meaning. However the clue doesn’t actually use the word ‘spoonerism’, so if this is the way Spooner spoke (another spoonerism there), then this formulation seems perfectly legitimate. And besides, the answer is obvious from the checkers and perhaps more importantly it’s just a bit of fun.

This puzzle wasn’t hard, but I enjoyed it a lot, and in my blog-related post-solve parsing I came to the conclusion that it’s a first class crossword. 2dn was a particular highlight, and I enjoyed the appearance of PSEPHOLOGIST: such a good word. 6dn is an excellent &Lit, and if this is the first time 27ac has appeared then it’s genius (I expect someone will be along to tell me that it’s an old chestnut, but hey, I enjoyed it). 16ac is also very good, the surface of 20ac is super-smooth… even the gimmes (and there are a few) are elegant. 10ac, for instance, is just my kind of double definition. No cheating with obscure vocabulary, it’s all perfectly familiar: your brain just has to work out how it connects.

So thank you Jeff, and here’s how I wink it all therks.

Across
1 Election experts oppose slight changes about term for voters
PSEPHOLOGISTS – (OPPOSE SLIGHT)* containing voterS.
10 Unpleasant drive
OFFENSIVE – DD.
11 Persian starts to fret as Ruby strokes it
FARSI – first letters of ‘fret as Ruby strokes it’. The official language of Iran.
12 Strip by extremely trendy pool
KITTY – KIT (strip), TrendY.
13 Clear moat with a group of conservationists
TRENCHANT – TRENCH (moat), A, NT (National Trust).
14 Distinguished artist’s model may say this
IMPOSING – or I’M POSING.
16 Start to burn a collection of books?
KINDLE – DD, and a very neat one too.
19 It’s plain aunt is angry about medico
TUNDRA – (AUNT)* containing DR.
20 Good shot behind farm building bags large type of goose
BARNACLE – BARN, AC(L)E.
22 I’m 19 and end up unemployed
REDUNDANT – (TUNDRA, END)* where TUNDRA comes from 19ac and ‘up’ is the anagrind.
24 Animal arrived then left
CAMEL – CAME, L. A very simple, very easy but very neat clue. I wonder if this idea has been used before? Seems likely, although I don’t remember seeing it (and I’m not suggesting Jeff copied it).
25 One after fish bones
CARPI – CARP, I.
26 Use lower gear, as many do on Friday
DRESS DOWN – I think this is just a cryptic definition, but it’s not very cryptic so I wonder if I’m missing something.
27 Cabinet-maker?
PRIME MINISTER – cryptic definition, and quite brilliant IMO, even if it’s very simple and the answer is a bit obvious from the enumeration. It’s just one of those clues that is so perfect you have the sense that it was discovered, rather than invented.

Down
2 Clasp Spooner’s unhealthy looking person from Helsinki?
SAFETY PIN – or ‘pasty Finn’, as Spooner might have said it, even if it isn’t a spoonerism.
3 Soft black digit
PINKY – P, INKY.
4 Dropping old glove in centre of Margate
OMITTING – O, MITT, IN, marGate.
5 Key batsman facing new ball
OPENER – simple DD.
6 Confine it with dressing!
INFECTION – (CONFINE IT)*. &Lit, and a brilliant one too.
7 Earth civil engineer’s taken from row of houses
TERRA – TERRAce.
8 Vehicle in which Nick gets stuck between junction and traffic
FORK LIFT TRUCK – FORK (junction), LIFT (steal, nick), TRUCK (traffic). Not a meaning of TRUCK that was familiar to me. It’s in the usual dictionaries, but with quite different definitions. ODO defines it as ‘barter’, and concept that doesn’t appear in any of the Collins definitions. Just goes to show that the meaning of words can be hard to din pown.
9 Overzealous pogo dancer might combust
HIT THE CEILING – self explanatory.
15 Compound iodine turns to before initially making another chemical
STRONTIUM – (I, TURNS TO)*, Making. A very good clue, I thought.
17 Crumble lots of fertiliser in a river
DECOMPOSE – DE(COMPOSt)E.
18 Tailless cat on Roman temple
PANTHEON – PANTHEr, ON.
21 Green form of transport is what’s used in central Guatemala?
TANDEM – the three central letters of ‘Guatemala’ are T AND EM.
23 German painter displaying one of his articles about old city
DURER – D(UR)ER. UR, the setter’s go-to ancient city.
24 Many requests for lots of beer
CASKS – C (one hundred, many) ASKS. And not CASES.

13 comments on “Sunday Times 4706 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. I too noted that 2dn SAFETY PIN wasn’t a strictly a ‘Spoonerism’ – but moved on swiftly as I don’t particularly enjoy them.

    27 minutes of the usual Sunday fare with 1ac PSEPHOLOGISTS COD and WOD LOI 15dn STRONTIUM

    Certainly easier than today’s!

    horryd Shanghai

  3. As Spoonerisms are verbal mistakes, the idea that they have to follow strict rules seems a bit perverse. One of the few examples that were from Spooner rather than jesting Oxford students – “Let Kinkering Kongs their titles take” swaps vowels rather than consonants. I’m pleased that the dictionary from his own institution supports our version:

    http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/spoonerism

    1. It’s nothing to do with following strict rules, it’s just a question of what the word is generally understood to mean, irrespective of how Spooner actually spoke. As it is generally understood, and as it is defined in all the main dictionaries a spoonerism has a much more specific meaning than just a ‘verbal mistake’. In the ODO definition you link to it’s defined as the transposition of ‘the initial sounds or letters of two or more words’. So by this definition 2dn isn’t a spoonerism. But as I said it doesn’t matter because the clue doesn’t use the word ‘spoonerism’.
  4. I think this may have been my fastest ever Sunday, completed in 40 minutes. No problems at all, according to my notes, from my immediate biff of PSEPHOLOGISTS to the LOI (which I sadly didn’t note…) A good confidence-booster after some pretty awful performances from me that week, from what I remember!
  5. Enjoyed this, although not difficult as usual Sunday fare. Didn’t mind the Safety pin joke, but bristled a bit at ‘chemical’ as a def. for Strontium. It’s a metal, an element, and one wouldn’t usually refer to an element like say iron, or copper, as a chemical. Sorry, ed, a chemist rants.
  6. Sorry to upset you K but 27A is as old as the hills. Watch out for it the other way round as well – clue is Prime Minister? and answer is CABINET MAKER
    1. I thought it probably was. I did have a quick google for it and couldn’t find any examples though.
  7. Very enjoyable post-birthday-party solve. I sent out a come-all-ye invite to a BBQ last night. And they all came – at least 60 in a small garden. Dry enough to put the keyboard outside plus someone had a piano accordian. A long recovery time needed. This puzzle was an excellent wind-down with my morning cuppa. 25 mins. Ann
  8. A very enjoyable solve particularly as was able to biff 1ac PSEPHOLOGISTS on the strength of the first two words and the enumeration. I’ve no great objection re 2dn though I’m at a loss to grasp the subtle difference cited above between a clue that mentions “Spoonerism” and one that only mentions “Spooner”. And once the definitions become loose, at what point would Mrs Malaprop enter the equation?

    Edited at 2016-08-14 12:33 pm (UTC)

    1. The meaning of a word like this can depart from its origin, and in this case I don’t think 2dn contains a spoonerism even if Spooner might have said it. To take another example, you might describe a sexist man as a ‘chauvinist’, but it would be odd if you described him as ‘behaving like Chauvin’ (unless he also happened to display anachronistic loyalty to Napoleon).
  9. Here in Toronto, I’m as usual doing the puzzle 13 days late, and for once with local historical help: our Conservatives won the 1911 election on the anti-free trade slogan, “No truck nor trade with the Yankees.” (Political categories were different then.)

    Yes, I know, dear blogger, you are the only one who will see this, and I offer it mostly as a thank-you gift.

    — Jim Clarke

    1. Thanks Jim. I spent my summer not far from you and I confess this didn’t come up!

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