Jun. 14th, 2010

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
ST 4384 (Sun 6 Jun) – Worm hole

Solving time: Not taken but I think it was about 5 mins for all but 3dn; one mistake (6dn).

[Sorry this is late – my fault entirely, I had failed to email the blog to Peter (who usually posts on my behalf).]

A puzzle of average difficulty and average error count (just the one I noticed, at 18dn). I found 3dn by far the hardest clue and had to leave the puzzle and come back to it.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 MATILDA; (MALTA I’D) – as in Waltzing Matilda.
5 IMP ARTS
9 HAREBELLS; (BEER HALLS)* – nice anagram, not sure about the indicator (‘sported in…’).
10 SEPIA; (AS PIE)*
11 CONDOR; “DOOR” after CON (= ‘study’)
12 GRIDLOCK; GRID (= ‘Grating’) + LOCK (= ‘part of canal system’)
14 NEWSMONGER (cryptic definition) – this looked more likely to be a cryptic definition than a double definition, especially given the question mark, but I was slow on it.
16 [h]OUSE
18 ROLL – as in ‘roll call’.
19 CONTRAVENE – not sure I understand the definition here (‘To dispute the proposition’) which seems to suggest an intransitive verb whereas ‘contravene’ can only be transitive (according to Chambers). Perhaps there’s a legal meaning or something.
22 TIE-BREAK (cryptic definition)
23 ADDICT (hidden)
26 ICI + E.R.
27 INFLUENCE; N,N around FLUE, all in ICE – how does ‘X supporting Y’ mean ‘X around Y’?
28 SWEETEN; S + WEE + rev. of TEN
29 REFEREE; RE + (FREE)* + E[ast] (= ‘way’) – the question mark is presumably included because ‘freeway’ has to be split into two words for this clue to work.

Down
1 MOHICAN; M,O + (CHINA)*
2 T(UR)IN
3 LOBWORMS; LOB (= ‘pollack’) + (M[onsieur] + ROWS)* – the anagram here is indirect with ‘Frenchman’ indicating the abbreviation ‘M’ for ‘Monsieur’, which was probably one reason I couldn’t see the answer here, others being that I didn’t know the answer word or part of the wordplay – the lob is a new 3-letter fish to me, joining the likes of cod, ide, gar, sar and tai.
4 AILS; “ALES” – as in I’ve only had a few ales.
5 INSURGENTS; IN (= ‘At home’) + URGENT (= ‘compelling attendance’) in S.S. – not sure if ‘SS’ is a recognised abbreviation for ‘Sunday school’ or whether this is intended as two separate one-letter abbreviations. If the latter, I don’t recall seeing ‘school’ used for ‘S’ before. (Also true if the former, but you know what I mean.)
6 PESADE; (P[l]EASED)* – not ‘peseda’; not sure my brain was engaged here. This is a French word used for a dressage manoeuvre.
7 REPRODUCE; (PROCEDURE)* – good anagram which I can’t recall having seen before.
8 S + HACKLE
13 INN + OVATION
15 WOLVERINE; (WINE-LOVER)* – my favourite of a number of impressive anagrams in this puzzle. Not sure if ‘glutton’ here defines the creature or whether ‘wolverine’ is American slang for someone who eats a lot.
17 DANDRUFF; D + AND (= ‘plus’) + “ROUGH”
18 R(E.T.)AINS – and this puzzle was going so well. ‘Keep’ should say ‘Keeps’ in this clue.
20 EXTREME (2 defs) – not sure these two definitions are sufficiently different.
21 DRY ROT; DRY + (TO R[ight])*
24 INNER; “IN A” – at first I thought there was another mistake here and that ‘state’ gave NE[braska] with the ‘R’ erroneously unindicated. In fact it’s a dubiously-worded homophone (and some might argue it’s a dubious homophone too, although it works for me).
25 AFAR; A + FAR[e]

5 comments on “Jun. 14th, 2010”

  1. I had assumed that the ‘glutton’ part was alluding to the wolverine’s reputation for fierceness, but a quick look in the OED informs me that ‘glutton’ is another name for the animal. (So, it turns out, is ‘carcajou’, which I had always thought was a different animal. But then, the things I always thought turn out to be wrong rather more often than I care to think.)

    For me, ‘dispute the proposition’ is transitive, although in fact I didn’t know that definition for ‘contravene’–I thought it just meant ‘infringe’

    1. Thanks for clearing that up – it never occurred to me to look up ‘glutton’.

      I probably didn’t explain what I meant at 19ac very well. I agree that ‘dispute the proposition’ is transitive in the sense that the verb takes an object, but the answer word ought to be a direct synonym of the whole definition, so in this case should incorporate the object.

      Suppose the definition were ‘give a speech’. This could indicate the answer ORATE (which is intransitive) but not MAKE (which although interchangeable with ‘give’ in this context does not in itself define the whole phrase. In a ‘quick’ crossword this can be addressed through the use of brackets: ‘Give a speech (5)’ could define ORATE while ‘Give (a speech) (4)’ would be acceptable for MAKE.

    2. Garner’s Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (pp218-219) notes that “contravene” and “controvert” are often conflated. Maybe this is what’s going on here? Even if so, Talbinho’s point about “wrong part of speech” would still hold.
  2. 40 minutes. Several words or meanings I didn’t know prevented a clean solve and I needed to refer to books at the end to confirm PESEDA was wrong. Also to find the answer at 3dn which I was prevented from seeing by having NEWSVENDER (an indisputable alternative answer if one were solving cold) at 14ac.
  3. 14 mins with the same ‘grrrr’ moment at 18D.

    The ST Cryptic continues to frustrate and irritate. From this week’s effort I assume the ‘dead people only’ rule doesn’t apply on a Sunday?

Comments are closed.