I found this Mephisto quite difficult, and was stuck for a long while with only about 1/3 of it done. I really needed to grind to get going again, and even then each answer had to be squeezed out. Paul McKenna is working in a very unusual asymetrical grid, with four long answers scattered about. Unfortunately, only one of them was immediately obvious to me, and the one at 4 down proved particlurly elusive – until I saw it, of course, and then it was obvious, and opened up the whole puzzle. I ended up biffing Abbasid as my LOI – yeah, that looks right, that must be it.
An interesting feature of this puzzle is the two wordplay words that have two meanings, and two etymologies, but only one spelling and one pronunciation. With all the various bits and pieces English has picked up over the centuries, there are quite a few words like this, the most common ones being boss, tattoo, and groom. But when you come across a new one, you are quite likely to be a bit nonplussed, and go scurrying for you Chambers. Well, it’s all in there, although if you really want to read up on etymology and usage history, you will have to switch to the OED.
| Across | |
| 1 | Metaphor turned on a lime, say (6) |
| TEMPER – MET backwards + PER. Defined in Chambers as “lime or other substance used to neutralize the acidity of cane juice”. | |
| 5 | Loud husband standing in for lecturer is frightening (5) |
| HAIRY – (-l,+H)AIRY, a letter-substitution clue using a Scots dialect word. | |
| 9 | Fool with stiff carriage, mostly little sticks with one (9) |
| CLOTHEARS – CLOT + HEARS[e]. | |
| 10 | Extraordinary bit of info I have is able to be refined (11) |
| RAREFACTIVE – RARE + FACT + I’VE. | |
| 11 | Oddball daughter is to be more tanky than Trotsky, say (6) |
| OUTRED – OUTRE D. | |
| 12 | I delivered plant (4) |
| IRID – I + RID, yes, a plant of the iris family. | |
| 13 | Secular subsidiary finding deposit in South Africa (6) |
| LAY-BYE – LAY + BYE. | |
| 15 | Time for journo to joke in new essay about hurtful disciple (11, two words) |
| SILLY SEASON – S(ILL)YSEA + SON, where an anagram of ESSAY is used. | |
| 16 | A welcome bit of sashimi? (3) |
| AHI – A + HI, yellowfin tuna, to be precise. | |
| 20 | Work’s unit extracting boron from mountain (3) |
| ERG – [b]ERG. Berg entered the English language by way of Afrikaans. | |
| 21 | Bundle broken twigs for plant cleaner (11) |
| BOTTLEBRUSH – BOTTLE + BRUSH. The first of our double words, derived from botel, not boteille, meaning a bundle of hay. The clue features two literals as well, as a bottlebrush can be either. | |
| 24 | German that is behind weak letter to Hebrew (6) |
| LAMEDH – LAME + D.H, from das heisst. I’m not sure what this is doing in an English dictionary, but it’s in Chambers. | |
| 25 | Drink’s flipping sex and sex appeal (4) |
| ASTI – IT + SA backwards, cocking a snook at those who want these two banned from Crosswordland. | |
| 26 | Suffering complete dirty look (6) |
| DOLOUR – DO + LOUR. | |
| 27 | Small boggy pool (good tip of yours) conceivably means fungi (11, two words) |
| SHAGGY MANES – S + HAG + G + Y[ours] + anagram of MEANS. Our second double word, HAG, from Old Norse hogg, and not related to the word for witch. | |
| 28 | Must go with patchy start to enalapril … it boosts good blood (9) |
| PHAGOCYTE – Anagram of GO + PATCHY + E[nalapril]. A white blood cell that eats invaders. | |
| 29 | Transfer a hundred bucks in trade (5) |
| DECAL – DE(C)AL, as in a C-note. | |
| 30 | Tonic drink of two unknowns not quite blending (6) |
| OXYMEL – O’ + X,Y + MEL[d], I think. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Crown in commotion causes a crux (6) |
| T-CROSS – T(CR)OSS. | |
| 2 | Death is time to get into ethics (9) |
| MORTALITY – MOR(T)ALITY. | |
| 3 | Skin on poultry, say, is pale, try tossing (7) |
| PTERYLA – Anagram of PALE, TRY. A pteros is a wing in Greek, so some solvers will know where the letters go. | |
| 4 | This is what gets races off — tip off each new day with stable bet (13, three words) |
| READY, STEADY, GO – R(aces) + E(ach) + anagram of DAY + STEADY + GO. I’m not sure what’s going on with the first letter, but it can’t be [p]ER backwards, can it? | |
| 5 | Chipmunks pick up experience (7) |
| HACKEES – HACK + SEE backwards. Chipmunks are surprisingly common in crosswords considering they are a US critter. | |
| 6 | Haulage rig? It reversed in something like a curve (5) |
| ARTIC – AR(IT backwards)C. | |
| 7 | She crams on old mask (7) |
| REVISOR – RE + VISOR. | |
| 8 | Once the English knock getting going in Spenser (7) |
| YEEDING – YE + E + DING, familiar to readers of the Faerie Queene. | |
| 14 | My! Pun does flop — Lewis Carroll’s one (9) |
| PSEUDONYM – Anagram of MY! PUN DOES. | |
| 16 | Caliph’s offspring picked up discontinued female garment (7) |
| ABBASID – DIS + ABBA upside down, more usually spelt ABA. | |
| 17 | Lord Snowdon made flashy connections here in Oxford, eg (7, two words) |
| HOT SHOE – HOT + SHOE, where you attach the flash gun to a film camera. | |
| 18 | Barred absent member first to be beset by trouble (7) |
| ILLEGAL – IL(LEG,A)L, where A is a valid abbreviation for absent. | |
| 19 | Smart about relative’s ecclesiastic authority (7) |
| PRELACY – P(REL)ACY. | |
| 22 | Many amongst Sturgeon’s sort relish getting fresh order (6) |
| HIRSEL – Anagram of RELISH. Whether the leaders of the SNP use obscure Scots dialect words, I cannot say. | |
| 23 | Indian surveyor uses this pompous snort of scepticism, say (5) |
| BIGHA – BIG HA, a land measure. | |
Thanks for the little etymology lesson, v, very interesting!
Edited at 2021-01-17 10:11 am (UTC)
Midas
Other points:
“I’m not sure what this is doing in an English dictionary, but it’s in Chambers.” – that seems a pretty good summary of the Mephisto extended vocab experience.
Chipmunks: ditto for antelopes, as critters rarely seen in this country (or at least, what people call antelopes – apparently sheep and goats are “cladistically included but traditionally excluded”).
Never mind Lamedh, I’d be questioning the use of German abbreviations in the first place. ‘Must’ as the anagram indicator? I know ‘must’ can be the result of fermentation, but that’s a noun not a verb.
Unnecessary ‘bucks’. ‘Tonic drink of two unknowns not quite a mix’ would read better.
Where does the ‘hot’ come in with the Oxford shoe? (Mr Grumpy)
‘Must’ is also in Chambers as a verb meaning to powder.
HOT = in.
C: ‘the sum of $100 (N Am sl)’ (Chambers again)
Edited at 2021-01-17 11:47 am (UTC)
But if we’re questioning the justifiable inclusion of Lamedh, the English form of the Hebrew letter ‘L’, it seems odd that we can’t also question the inclusion of the pure German das heisst, which isn’t English, has no requirement to be expressed in English, hasn’t passed into English through usage, and indeed has no relationship with English whatsoever. It’s basically a random German expression/abbreviation in a dictionary of English.
It’s these inconsistencies around Chambers that make me accept some of their inclusions with a very large pinch of salt. (Mr Grumpy)