Times 24491 – The answers, but some questions

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time:42 minutes

Music: Holst, Choral Symphony, Boult/LPO

This one started out easily enough, but ended up being tough at the end. The correct spelling of ‘Roentgen’ is absolutely essential for finishing. I had it wrong, but realizing this I kept juggling the letters until I got it right.

There is in fact one clue that I simply don’t get, although the answer is evident enough. Audience participation is definitely welcome, although this is a reminder that it is not necessary to understand absolutely everything in order to finish the puzzle correctly, and that the most skilled solvers are able to generate the correct answers without necessarily being either polyglot or polymath.

Newcomers are reminded that obvious answers are not blogged, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Across
1 PLAY-OFF. I had carelessly begun by writing in ‘play out’, but erased it almost immediately.
5 OXHIDE, O + X + HIDE. If every time you see ‘neat’, you think of cows, then you are a hardened solver.
8 NONCE-WORD, NON-CE WOR[l]D, where ‘chapel’ has the meaning of a socially inferior Protestant sect.
9 AD-LIB, BIL[l] DA backwards.
11 CASCA, CA + S + CA. Gotten from the cryptic, since I only vaguely remember this particular conspirator.
12 Deliberately omitted.
13 TEASPOON, anagram of A POST ONE.
15 UNISON, UNI, SON. A silly clue, but you either see it at once or struggle.
17 TITBIT, TIT + BIT, the real historically correct form, not the euphemised version.
19 POLYGLOT, POLY + G(L)0T. A man of many tongues, literally speaking, as the Greeks used the same synedoche we use in English. They said ‘glotta’ in Athens, while everywhere else they said ‘glossa’.
22 ORPINGTON, OR(PING[-pong])TON. This is where you need the correct spelling of ‘Roentgen’, although you should be able to get this one by going through the usual playwrights that all the setters use.
23 Deliberately omitted.
24 SATIN, S(AT)IN, where AT is TA, Territorial Army, backwards. I do not entirely buy ‘sin’ = ‘soil’, either as a noun or a verb.
25 ARGENTINA, [m]AR(GENT)INA. Cleverly concealed literal requiring a lift and separate.
26 Deliberately omitted.
27 NOMINEE, NO(MINE)E[s].
 
Down
1 PANIC STATIONS. The evident answer, from the literal of ‘flap’, unless I am totally off-base. How the cryptic works, I am completely unable to say.
2 AMNESIA, anagram of NAME IS + A.
3 OMEGA, A + GEM + O upside down.
4 FROU-FROU, FOUR-FOUR with the ‘R’ moved up. One of the many possible meanings of ‘frou-frou’ is ‘a rustling sound, as of silk fabric’ If you don’t know that, the crossing letters are enough to give you the whole thing, if you suspect what ‘repeatedly’ indicates.
5 ODDS-ON, ODD SON. I don’t see why it was necessary to drag Paul Dombey into the clue, a rather strange definition by example.
6 HEATHENRY, HEATHE(N)RY. I saw at once that erica must refer to heather, and still had to think a bit.
7 DOLORES, D[etective] + O + LORE + S[ergeant]. I wasted a lot of time on the theory this ended in ‘-ess’ becase ‘traditions’ is plural, but not so.
10 BEYOND THE PALE, BEYOND PALE picking up THE. This particular ‘pale’, however, alludes to the fence around Baile Átha Cliath, also known as Dublin.
14 POIGNANCY, P(O)IG + NANCY. Easy enough when you see ‘Nancy’, which is the girl’s name most likely to fit. I can never recall the names of all those fancy pigs.
16 ROENTGEN, anagram of NO GREEN. A famous scientist with a tricky name.
18 TAPSTER, TA(P)STER. A ‘taster’ has a subordinate meaning of a sample when used as a noun.
20 LAOTIAN, anagram of [n]ATIONAL.
21 Deliberately omitted.
23 DENIM, DE(N[orthern]I[reland]M, where DEM is MED backwards

48 comments on “Times 24491 – The answers, but some questions”

  1. Panic is a kind of grass — honest — then you need “sons” around Tati (Jacques).
    Back later.
  2. 16 minutes. With all those breeds (strains) and materials, it’s a relief the setter was not tempted by the sorts of cross-reference to be found in another place. Ditto for the self-referential possibilties at 4dn (4,4).
    Who was it who sang “Don’t cry for me Marge and Tina”?
    2. I think it was the Tim Brooke Taylor/Bill Oddy team on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue….
  3. Needed to go for aids after 75 minutes of tough but enjoyable ploughing. CASCA and ROENTGEN unknowns, while ORPINGTON and FROU-FROU will always be associated with a rare Liberal by-election victory in the 60s and with Tim McInnerney’s camp Count in Blackadder the Third, respectively. NONCE-WORD was right up my linguistics alley.
  4. 95% simple and 5% tough. dont you just hate it when one has a few left…
    anyway not heard of Nonce Word and I am not sure that heathenry is actually a word! stumpd by Polyglot too…too early probably!

    well done setter!

    and blogger

  5. I started very slowly on this one and was unable to write in any answers until I reached the clues to the SE corner. After that things flowed steadily. I completed the whole RH side in 15 minutes and the LH in a further 14 until I ground to a halt with one unsolved at 8ac. After 10 minutes on that clue alone I resorted to aids. I had been thinking of the wrong “coinage” and convinced myself the second part was GOLD so I couldn’t make any sense of the wordplay. As it turned out I never heard of the expression.

    PANIC meaning grass was news to me too and I also query SIN = soil.

    HEATHENRY is in all the books but my spell-checker doesn’t like it.

  6. 16 m. Had heathener for a bit, and baying the moon (just because they fitted!) till obviously wrong. Liked this puzzle, helped by knowing the ox and rustle of silk.
  7. 9:04 – nothing terribly difficult but enough to keep you busy. Similarly puzzled by soil = sin – I can see soil = “sin against” but that’s not the same. I guess the use of Dombey in 5D was to get some contrast with the more obvious implied definition of ‘son’ in 15A.
  8. Rushed today so blank at NONCE WORD, CASCA and FROU FROU and doubt whether I would have finished even had I more time. Post-solve confirm for PANIC. Stuck DILORES in as possible alternate spelling (rotten clue). Question SIN for soil and don’t get ON for immediately in CRAYON.
  9. 1Down Charade of PANIC (any grass of the genus Panicum) + Insertion of TATI (film director) in SONS (offspring)

    Sheeshs, the Aussie has beaten me to it

  10. heathener meant i needed aids for polyglot, and i looked up nonce-word half way through. the setter took me to pieces on that one! i dont get on=immediately either. thought overall a decent set of clues – cod 8ac.
  11. A tricky one this. I also was slow to start, but when I did, progress was staeady enough until I hit 8ac. Am I repeating myself or jackkt. I twigged to the world bit and the correct currency but put NONSE-WORD, thinking it must come from nonsense. I had no idea about the chapel, even after I googled it. It finally hit me some time later. Nice to see frou-frou get a guernsey.
    1. All persons whose names are homophonic with “rustle” shall henceforth be known as “Frou-Frou”.
  12. I think it’s on=”immediately after”, as in “on finishing the puzzle, he started writing the blog report”.
  13. A late start today. My copy of Times was not delivered and I had to go to the newsagents to remonstrate, whereupon I was told that I had not paid the bill for two months.

    No problems with the crossword though, apart from five minutes at the end working out nonce word. I had to empty my head of the idea that the second word was gold. Even then I could not work out the Non-CE wordplay.

  14. 18 minutes today, after a late start. Did it the hard way, I suppose, starting NE and working clockwise, and couldn’t get into NW until PANIC STATIONS fell into place. Like everyone else (despite having lived and worked in a non-CE world), last in was 8. I wondered if there should have been a maybe in there somewhere, as nonce words are examples of the wider genre of coinages.
    On sin and soil, it helps to sing in choirs, where you’ll have attempted the Dream of Gerontius and the hymn Praise to the Holiest:
    “To us His elder race He gave
    To battle and to win
    Without the chastisement of pain,
    Without the soil of sin.”
    It’s also in the Advent Antiphons: “O happy swaddling bands, wherewith we have wiped off the soil of sin.”
  15. 14:12 here, should have been quicker but I got stuck on the last two for a while: CASCA and OMEGA between them added on 3 minutes at the end.
  16. So, Ulaca and I are the only people who didn’t know ROENTGEN. I’m usually okay on science stuff but this was rang no bells (although it does look a little more familiar with the German spelling – Röntgen).

    I credited the discovery of x-rays to some chap called Tornegen.

  18. I originally had STAIN, thinking it was SATIN mixed up to mean SOIL. Any takers?!

    CaroleH., Fermo,Italy

    1. “Material volunteers turned over” is a bit telegraphese for “Material with volunteers turned over”. I don’t say the Times would never use such clues, just that “volunteers turned over in soil” is a bit more convincing.
  19. Like others, struggled over the spelling of ROENTGEN until I got ARGENTINA. I am more familiar with the German spelling of the scientist.

    Had PANIC STRICKEN for a long time at 1d, even although I knew it felt wrong. I just thought that ‘rick’ was the reference to grass.

    Overall, I enjoyed this and had a smile as UNISON went in. First in was CASCA and last in was OMEGA, appropriately. Finished in just under 32 minutes, so about average.

      1. Sorry – No (I don’t know what HNW stands for, although Google suggests High Net Worth) and No (Hearts and Southampton)
  20. I’m a bit puzzled over the comments here and am not sure whether the problem was with the name or the spelling. If one has never heard of him then fair enough, but if one knows the name and has the anagram fodder, how else could one possibly spell it but correctly?
  21. I struggled for a time with this, about 55 minutes. I wasn’t familiar with PANIC STATIONS, although I saw Tati and the sons, I couldn’t understand the grass. My other problem was caused by entering POIGNANCE, leaving me befuddled for a time by the easy CRAYON. And, I never saw the word ‘blench’ before. Over here, we apparently ‘blanch’ a lot more oftern than we might ‘blench’, so I didn’t know what to make of it for quite a while. AFter all is said and done, though, nice puzzle, and a nice blog from vinyl. Regards.
  22. 25 minutes with most going in quickly and then a struggle with NONCE WORD. I had at least heard the phrase and when I looked up “coinage” and saw the bit about making words up the penny dropped.

    Can somebody who knows about these things please explain why “non CE” equates to “chapel”.

    Add me to those somewhat confused by soil/sin. No problem with ROENTGEN, put in lightly to start with and then confirmed by checking letters.

    1. chapel: it’s the partially class-laden distinction mentioned above, related to the “non-conformist place of worship” meaning for chapel, and contrasted with “church” = C of E. Of the standard references for the Times, Collins has it. As dated as the citation dates suggest, I think.

      adjectival meaning, from OED again, with citations:

      Belonging to, or attending regularly, a chapel (sense 4).
      1946 J. CARY Moonlight 234 Mrs. Wilmot was chapel. I’m sure she never went to a play. 1957 R. W. ZANDVOORT Handbk. Eng. Gram. VIII. 275, I suppose you’re Church of England? I’m chapel. 1965 New Statesman 23 Apr. 646/3 Half the parish might be pagan and the zealous few, Chapel.

      1. Thank you Peter. Sounds like the sort of thing the Victorians went in for. I associate “chapel” specifically with Christianity in Wales. Is that intended here in this snobbish usage or is “chapel” wider to embrace all the English and Scots non-conformists. And where do the Church of Rome fit into this equation. I take it that synagogues, mosques, etc are not part of the equation.
        1. Wikipedia reckons “chapel” as non-conf. place of worship is most common in Wales, but I don’t think the adj meaning is specific to Wales. I think it would have included anyone in the range of “protestant but not C of E” Christian denominations.
          1. Church and Chapel were certainly alive as distinctives on the Cotswolds when I was there, and although the reality didn’t really bear it out, there was a clear sense that the squirearchy went to Church, while the their staff, farmworkers and shopkeepers went to chapel. The Roman Catholics were neither, but joined in with the newfangled Council of Churches stuff. We all got on fine, of course.
            And thanks. Peter, for the OED tip. Must get a library card!
  23. 10.06. I also remember ORPINGTON chiefly from the Liberal by-election win in the 60’s. Main problem was NE corner with the 5’s and 9. Young Dombey made me think Paul which was just over-complicating things.
    Like vinyl I also had no idea about wordplay for 1 so I am grateful for the explanation.
    Last in was DOLORES.
  24. Thanks for that – must get an OED! I’m amazed to find it as an official order: I wonder what you were supposed to do!
    1. If you’re a member of a UK public library, check out their website – most of them have a scheme by which you can use the online OED, using your library card number as a combined userid/password.
      1. Brilliant! I didn’t know that. I’ve just checked and I do have access. Thanks for mentioning it.
  25. Further to my comment above, now I’m even more confused as you Jimbo would surely know the name so why put it in lightly and need the checking letters for confirmation? Genuinely mystified!
    1. Couldn’t quite remember where the “e” went Jack – could it be “Rontegen” I thought? 95% sure its “Roen…” but maybe? Its called getting old, mate!!
      1. Right, I hadn’t thought of your alternative version. I imagined the only possible room for confusion might be EO rather than OE but one glance would show that to be obviously wrong. I guess it helps if one knows the old umlaut rule.
  26. As this word ends in -en like a German infinitive, it was turned into a verb meaning “to X-ray.” It gives the past participle “geroentgt”. Try pronouncing that after a couple of steins of Bavarian lager.
  27. Today we had Roentgen (extra E) for Röntgen.
    Yesterday we had Monchengladbach (no extra E) for Mönchengladbach.

    Seems like an unusual lack of consistency for The Times, or is it a case of anything goes in transliterations?

    (Done in Australia, so comment is 5 or 6 weeks out of date.)

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