ST 4372 (Sun 14 Mar) – Edit Iranian

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 5:13, one mistake (10ac).

This might have been quicker if my Ks, Us and Ls didn’t look like Gs, Ls and Is repectively, and if I hadn’t rushed into an incorrect answer at 7dn. The clueing was mostly accurate with just a few liberties taken, and the preponderence of uninspired anagrams is offset by a couple of good ones. My last two entries were 1dn (BRUSQUE) and 10ac (OSSETIAN), the second of which I got wrong.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
4 ABATTOIR; (BAT TO) in AIR – the definition here was transparent so instead of checking the wordplay I looked at 5dn, which gave confirmation of the initial letter.
8 C + RAFTS
9 KEDGEREE; KEDGE + REE[f] – hindered by a K that looked like a G and an erroneous A from 7dn. A kedge is a small anchor; Chambers doesn’t know its etymology.
10 OSSETIAN; (IAN’S TOES)* – the ‘Ian’ in both clue and answer is rather weak. I didn’t know the region of Ossetia and guessed ‘Ostesian’ here. Ossetians are ‘Iranic’, apparently, with ‘Iranian’ generally not used in this context to avoid confusion with citizens of Iran.
11 CAD + DIE – misled by ‘club’ possibly indicating the initial C, which in fact it can’t (it has to be the plural ‘clubs’).
12 BUNG A LOW – an uncle once told me that these were so called because the builders said “Bung a low roof on it”. I believed him. The Hindi bangla (‘house’) provides an alternative explanation for the less guillible.
13 LITIGANT; LIT + (GIANT)*
16 ENTWINED; E.N.T. (= Ear, Nose and Throat) + WINED
19 GALLEONS; (GLEN ALSO)*
21 BURIAL; (BLAIR)* around U – a slightly surreal surface!
23 MINERALS; (MARLINE)* + S[pike] – dubiously defined.
24 LICENSEE; LIE around (SCENE)*
25 ASSES + S – not ‘sasses’, as my pen wrote before I properly digested the definition. ‘Spithead’ may not be one for the purists, but at least it’s obvious what’s intended here.
26 THICK(S)ET – nice.

Down
1 BRUSQUE; B + “RUSK” – I liked this, but await the usual homophonic grumbles.
2 AFTERGLOW; (GREAT WOLF)* – a much better anagram.
3 ESPIAL; I in rev. of LAPSE
4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT; (GWEN TACKLED OWEN)* – an intriguing surface reading about a Welsh domestic.
5 ABDICATE; rev. of C.I.D. in ABATE – I didn’t previously know that ‘abate’ could be transitive.
6 T + REND – a wince at ‘The first’ = T.
7 IBERIAN; (I.E. BRIAN)* – not ‘Italian’.
14 GATE (= ‘wicket’) + CRASH
15 ENCLOSES; (ONCE LESS)*
17 NOURISH; I in (ONRUSH)*
18 ANALYSE; “ANNA LIES” – referring to The King and I (or the book that inspired it). I’m not sure I’m totally happy with ‘count’ = ‘analyse’.
20 LINEAR; (NAILER)*
22 ILEAC (hidden)

10 comments on “ST 4372 (Sun 14 Mar) – Edit Iranian”

  1. 28 minutes.

    On 1D, I’m not usually picky about homophones but this one certainly doesn’t work in received pronunciation. Usually they do and we get complaints from those who don’t speak it so I suppose this one evens things up a bit.

    The cross-reference to 8ac doesn’t seem to work because the plural required at 19ac is CRAFT not CRAFTS.

  2. I got through this rapidly and ended with Ossetian. In the spirit of this crossword, I just assumed that it was a mistake to define it as Iranian. Having read Talbinho’s Wikipedia reference I am still not convinced. So Ossetian is an Indo-European language of the Iranian branch. Using the same logic we could define French as Latin.
  3. I did think the homophone for brusque was imprecise, but i am not complaining about it. It is perfectly clear what was meant, and I have been completely cured of criticising “undisciplined” clues, and even “unfair” ones, by my recent brush with those crosswords of the 1940s & 60s. Even the lightly-edited ST cryptic is an absolute model of rectitude, by comparison!
    1. I don’t understand why one would say the homophone here is imprecise. Rusk and rusque are pronounced exactly the same, unless I’ve been mispronouncing either rusk, or brusque all my life.
      How else could either of those elements be pronounced?
      Barbara
      1. Chambers gives broosk or brusk as the pronunciation so there is no problem with the clue unless you insist on the former.
        1. I just listened to the sound files in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary which offer broosk or broooosk, neither of which sounds like rusk the way I say it. I think I speak what is called RP.
          1. personally I would pronounce rusk to rhyme with dusk or tusk; but brusque to rhyme with.. er, well, nothing comes to mind… but the vowel would fit with oo as in book or took.

            but I would regard different pronunciations as just different, not “wrong.” received pronunciation is an artificial construct some like but most ignore. And it changes anyway.. listen to an old recording of the Queen for example

  5. 9:24 for me – I seem to be off the pace at the moment for some reason.

    “Iranian” = OSSETIAN seems very odd (if not downright wrong), but South Ossetia has been very much in the news in the last few years (perhaps you were away on the Planet Zog at the time and missed it all 😉 so it seemed the obvious guess.

    I thought I had an explanation for “count” = ANALYSE when I solved the puzzle, but if I did, I’ve forgotten what it was.

  6. A few years ago, I was told that the setters of the ST Cryptics made extensive use of Chambers Crossword Dictionary. In this tome, we find under analyse: judge, study, consider; under count: judge, consider; under consider: count, judge, study, weigh, examine; under examine: study, analyse; under weigh: examine, consider, evaluate; under evaluate: judge, weigh; and so on and on. It seems that it is legitimate for crossword purposes that if A = X and if B = X, then A = B, even if the sense of each is a bit different. Thus,according to this book, ‘count’ and ‘analyse’ may be considered crossword “synonyms”.

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