Quick Crossword 564 by Flamande

25 comments on “Quick Crossword 564 by Flamande”

1. I struggled to close this one out in 14 minutes, with REAPPEAR and STRIDENT taking me past my 10 minute target. I’m often wrong classifying &lits so I’ll leave it to others to venture opinions on the two clues you’ve queried, Emma.
2. I felt the same way as you did, Emu, about PICKUP; I think that made it my LOI. I suppose not writing it either way was a kind of compromise. I notice that again we have two hidden clues; I’m inferring that the putative ban on more than one in the 15x15s is simply not in force here. 4:56.
3. I found this difficult, but maybe my brain’s not in gear this morning. DNF
4. Found that very tricky today.

   On the &lit question, if 21a isn’t, then the clue doesn’t work does it? How would ‘if this, presumably’ lead you to demure?

   Seperately, on a point of order, my understanding was that the definition is always either at the start or end of the question. That doesn’t seem to apply to 11a, with ‘a great deal’ in the middle?

   1. Surely this is meant to be parsed as you are not rude if you are demure (i.e. &lit)?
      1. Blogger, quizshark above and I (below) all agree that 21a is an &lit, as do you, so not sure what point you are making.
         1. Agreeing with you and others on DEMURE; but also thinking WILL is &lit.
   2. I think that the definition includes the “you’ll get a …”, which arguably meets the ‘definition at start or end’ rule. The first three words serve no other purpose in the clue other than introducing the definition.
   3. There’s no rule that the definition has to be at the beginning or end of the clue, though for the vast majority of clues that is the case, to the point where it can completely throw you off when you encounter a rare exception! Off the top of my head, I think there are two main classes of exceptions:

      i. Clues often contain arguably superfluous words, for example to improve the surface or link the wordplay and definition – in today’s puzzle, examples include “That’s” (8A), “causing” (12A), “showing” (17A), “in” (18A), etc. I think the “You’ll get” in 11A falls into that category. If you imagine the clue rewritten as: “In Amsterdam anytime you’ll get a great deal”, then it would be more obvious that the “you’ll get” is performing a similar function to the above examples. The setter could have omitted the “You’ll get” entirely but the surface wouldn’t have been as good.

      ii. The harder cases to spot often revolve around the word “this”, where the “this” refers to the answer. One example is the construction to 21A (see my later comment about &lits). Another cropped up in the Championships a couple of years ago: “Female this gaunt would be something above hip” (4), the answer being LANK (if you add F (female) to LANK then you get FLANK (something above hip)), though at least in that case you got the additional help of “gaunt”.

5. Quicker today, probably because I wasn’t blogging and was therefore wider awake and with less pressure. Just inside the 10 minutes.

   Regarding the &lit question on 21a and 4d, I think the answers are Yes and No respectively. Of course, I may be wrong, and if so I’m sure others will enlighten us. But following yesterday’s little lecture on SURFACE, here’s my logic (with thanks to the same source as yesterday as a check of my understanding).

   bestforpuzzles.com/cryptic-crossword-tutorial defines &lit as a contraction of ‘and literally so’. These clues do not have a definition part – the whole clue acts as the definition. This is true in the case of 21a, which is therefore an &lit, but 4d does contain a definition, the word ‘document’, hence this one is not, in my view, an &lit.

   1. Unspammed
6. I had posted this earlier, but I think it got spammed out, so here it is again with the source link removed…

   Quicker today, probably because I wasn’t blogging and was therefore wider awake and with less pressure. Just inside the 10 minutes.

   Regarding the &lit question on 21a and 4d, I think the answers are Yes and No respectively. Of course, I may be wrong, and if so I’m sure others will enlighten us. But following yesterday’s little lecture on SURFACE, here’s my logic (with thanks to the same source as yesterday as a check of my understanding).

   The source defines an &lit as a contraction of ‘and literally so’.

   These clues do not have a definition part – the whole clue acts as the definition. This is true in the case of 21a, which is therefore an &lit, but 4d does contain a definition, the word ‘document’, hence this one is not, in my view, an &lit.

7. For 21A, the word “this” is the definition, though clearly it’s unsolvable without the rest of the clue! As stated by therotter, an &lit is where the entire clue is both the wordplay and the definition – I don’t think this qualifies because “If this, presumably” doesn’t make any contribution to the wordplay. I would probably call it an extended definition clue. Ditto for 4D, where “Document” doesn’t contribute to the wordplay.
   1. I should mention that one difference between 21A and 4D as clues is that the extended definition part of 4D is not necessary for you to solve the clue – it simply creates a nice surface that gives you a pointer as to what kind of document you’re looking for. As far as the wordplay is concerned it could equally well have been “Document wouldn’t intrigue literate llamas, principally” and still be solvable. 21A, on the other hand, needs the surface in order to make any sense of the definition.

      Edited at 2016-05-06 02:18 pm (UTC)

8. Well, for a change, a quick start was followed by a quick finish – 26mins, a new PB. Would have broken 25, but needed all the checkers for Etruscan and kept thinking Delaware was a city rather than a state, having never been to the other side of the pond. Invariant
9. For what it’s worth, that would have been my take on those clues too, however in the 15×15 they talk about semi-&lits, and that’s where I lose my confidence on the subject. Also there’s often some crossover with cryptic definitions to confuse the issue further.
10. Had to do this in 2 bites, only had 10 mins to start with and struggled, less than half done. Came back a few hours later and completed in less than 5 mins LOI DELAWARE so I don’t know if I found it difficult or not.
    As a relative newcomer I had no idea what you were on about re &lit until therotters admirable explanation above, and my humble opinion 4d isn’t at all, but 21a is, sort of, but is also COD, I believe I might have muttered “Oh nice” as I entered it.
11. At risk of committing a cruciverbal heresy, does it really matter how a clue is ‘defined’ in terms of &lit or not &lit?
    Is not the real test of a clue its solvability? In essence, could a suitably experienced and competent solver fairly come to the appropriate solution?
    How a clue is labelled is surely irrelevant.
    GeoffH
    1. You’re absolutely right to make this point, GeoffH. It’s a subject that’s interesting to those who want to take it on and understand the finer details, but irrelevant to those who don’t. It probably in no way diminishes one’s ability to solve a cryptic puzzle, whether it be a Quick Cryptic or a traditional 15×15 though some will find it useful and that’s why the subject comes up.

       I was solving cryptics for nearly 50 years before I ever heard the term and only started attempting to categorise clues when I took up blogging for TftT 9 years ago as it’s part of a blogger’s job to explain and hopefully elucidate so that newcomers can learn the tricks of the setters’ trade (if they want to, of course!).

       Edited at 2016-05-06 09:22 pm (UTC)

12. A fair start, mainly in the East and then more of a struggle with most time wasted on 2d Delaware. Got there in the end. With breaks, I’d guess (as encouragement to others!) about 90 minutes. Might have been 60 but for Delaware…
13. I found this the easiest of the week and polished it off in 13 minutes. LOI 1d and COD 15a
14. No particular hold -ups today but it was not easy. I finished in about 20 minutes working steadily through. I liked Slip Road and Demure in particular. David
15. 20:11, so a very good time for me. LOI was PICKUP, with its missing hyphen. So glad that we discussed MB for doctor, as that made 17d simple. Good clues throughout, especially COD 15a. Congrats on your new time, Invariant, I think we’re on a similar trajectory.
    1. Thanks. I think we both used to give Plett11 a run for his money, but he seems to have pulled well clear of late. Invariant
16. A fair start, mainly in the East and then more of a struggle with most time wasted on 2d Delaware. Got there in the end. With breaks, I’d guess (as encouragement to others!) about 90 minutes. Might have been 60 but for Delaware…

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