Times 25,438 Oodles of Argot

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 20 minutes

An entertaining puzzle that contains a lot of slang and a slightly macabre twist. There are no obscurities and even the painter is well known. I liked the “misses rowing” definition.

Across
1 JUPITER – JU(PI)T-(RE reflected); our largest planet, a ball of hydrogen 11 times bigger than earth;
5 GALLOWS – GA(LOW)LS; birds=women (slang); Tyburn for example;
9 MALAPROPISM – MALA(PROP)IS(e)-(scru)M;
10 COD – DOC reversed; bones=doctor (old slang);
11 LOUVRE – LO(U-V)RE; uranium=U; see=V; on the Right Bank of the Seine;
12 TRANQUIL – TRA(i)N-sounds like “quill”; still is the definition;
14 EDWIN,LANDSEER – (drew)* surrounds INLAND-SEE; famous 19th century painter of horses;
17 ADVERTISEMENT – two meanings 1=material for Bill Stickers; 2=plug=slang for advertisement;
21 FLEXIBLE – FLE(XI-BL)E; XI=eleven=cricket team; BL from B(a)L(l); a type of friend?;
23 CHASTE – C(H)ASTE; not a word one hears very often these days;
25 GIN – G(r)IN; mother’s ruin;
26 PRIME,NUMBER – PRIME=prepare; NUMBER (make numb)=sleeping tablet; 2 or 3 or 7919 perhaps;
27 TIME,LAG – T(he)-(mile)*-AG; silver=AG;
28 ELDERLY – (b)EL(RED reversed)LY; people aged over 90;
 
Down
1 JUMBLE – JU(MB)L(y)-E; E=ecstacy;
2 POLLUTE – (LOP reversed)-LUTE;
3 TOP,DRAWER – TOP(WARD reversed)ER; lush=heavy drinker (slang);
4 ROOK – ROO-(shrin)K; chess piece;
5 GRIM,REAPER – GR-I-M(aterials)-REAPER=combine (harvester); the angel of death;
6 LEMON – LE(M)ON; M from (far)M(ing); a turkey is slang for something useless as is a LEMON;
7 OCCLUDE – (CO reversed)-CLU(D)E; to stop the passage of say light;
8 SADDLERY – (relays)* surrounds D(isqualifie)D; tack is the definition;
13 UNYIELDING – (p)UNY-I-(g)ELDING;
15 DEERHOUND – DEE-R(H)OUND; a type of greyhound;
16 CAT-FIGHT – CAT-F-(e)IGHT; misses=women; as seen in the Miller Lite 17A;
18 VIETNAM – VIE-(M-ANT reversed); Good morning!
19 TASKBAR – T(ASK-B)AR; Jack=sailor=TAR; book=B;
20 BETRAY – BET-RAY; shop=slang for BETRAY;
22 IMPEL – I’M-PE-L;
24 MEZE – M-E(Z)E; Turkish tapas;

31 comments on “Times 25,438 Oodles of Argot”

  1. The pangram helped. But the hard-to-find defs didn’t. “Tack” was particularly hard and I agree that “misses rowing” was good. Why is a lute quiet?
  2. Decent enough crossword. My hold-ups were SADDLERY (saw the answer as tack,couldn’t unwrap the wordplay) DEERHOUND (foxed by female=DEE, and, come to that,ROUND clued by full) and UNYIELDING, with its serial executions.
    Jim, by what measure is Jupiter 11 times bigger than earth? I only ask because of a childhood memory of a lot more Earths superimposed across Jupiter’s equator.
    1. You made me doubt my memory so I’ve just looked it up

      Jupiter is 11 times the diameter of the earth. It is 1321 times bigger by volume but only 318 times bigger by mass (reflecting its gaseous construction). Its mass is 2.5 times greater than the sum of the masses of all the other planets. (Thats more than enough Jupiter—Ed)

  3. Enjoyed this; missed the pangram, of course.
    a lute is quiet, if you’ve lived next door to a boy made to learn the trumpet 🙂
    1. I live with a boy learning the trumpet, so I know what you mean. Mind you he’s not much quieter when he’s not playing it.
  4. Struggled a bit to finish this off as I couldn’t think of a painter named EDWIN and was unable to think past ‘greyhound’ for the dog crossing his path.

    Nice puzzle, but like mct I was puzzled by the quiet lute. Yet another example (following on from yesterday) of a setter adding a misleading adjective to a definition. Is a lute any quieter than an acoustic guitar, for example, and would one define that as a quiet instrument?

    1. I think that a lute is probably marginally quieter than an acoustic guitar, and it is difficult to think of any lute music being played loudly, but even so, I would agree with you and Mctext that this is a dubious bit of clueing
      1. I think that ‘quiet’ is from flute – i.e. not forte.
        Solved the bottom half reasonably quickly, but the whole top part was very recalcitrant, so had to resort to a reveal to get started there.
  5. Held up for a while by putting in GREYHOUND and TOOLBAR, even though I couldn’t justify either of them. I knew of LANDSEER and seemed to remember that his first name began with an E – fortunately the wordplay filled in the rest. Was also confused by the quiet instrument as it set me looking for a P or SH – if I was asked whether a lute was quiet or loud, I would say quiet, but I don’t know if quietness is necessarily one of its defining features.

    Liked the misses rowing definition.

  6. Found this seriously tough and eventually gave up on SE, throwing in menu, undergo and weirdo, none in the slightest justified. Added to which was saddlers not saddlery. Still, enjoyed the trickiness of it all. Some excellent and searching clues. Still chuckling over the perfect April con yesterday, seen only well after completion.
  7. Under the half hour, so I’m happy. Entertaining puzzle, brightening this cruel April day with a little welcome humour.
  8. Inventive and tricky puzzle, with some unusually devious wordplay – e.g. UNYIELDING, SADDLERY. Glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who fell for a while into the TOOLBAR trap at 19 dn. I agree that the “misses rowing” = CATFIGHT was very good. Thank you blogger and setter.
  9. 20:38 for a tough and enjoyable workout. Had to wait for a lot of checking letters before being disabused of my conviction that there was an anagram of PAINTERDREW and I.V. (an architectural abbrev., I wondered, grasping at straws) to be found.
  10. 29:46 .. quite a struggle, but I think that was more me than the puzzle. ‘Misses rowing’ the highlight, for sure.

    I did wonder if the “quiet instrument” was a FLUTE with the ‘loud’ removed.

      1. Surely not, though I could imagine ‘flute’ being clued as ‘loud instrument’.
        1. I tend to agree with you, Jack. But as a connoisseur or two-word clues, I do think ‘Loud instrument.’ for FLUTE would be a belter. Has it ever been used, I wonder?
    3. Another possibility? The setter had clued it differently, the first P in the answer clued as “quiet”. When he/she changed the clue to its final, published form somehow the “quiet” was inadvertently left in, even though not required.

      Rob

  13. A mix of easyish and tricky clues. 1 dn got me off to a quick start, followed by the planet and most of the NW corner, but I then slowed down and ended up taking 45 minutes. As others, delighted by the “miss rowing” definition. Not so keen on 17, which seems a rather weak dd, the definitions being so close.

    An enjoyable puzzle with plenty to tease out.

  14. 23:35.

    I seemed to be romping through this then came to a juddering halt.

    Flexible, unyielding, tranquil and saddlery were the last to, um, yield. The NW corner put up some stiff resistance as well.

    Landseer came up fairly recently. I remember posting a link to The Monarch of the G for a poster who didn’t think they knew of him and ending up in the spam bin.

  15. 30m. Toughie. I mostly found this a little bit of a grind, but “misses rowing” was worth the price of admission on its own.
  16. Tough for me too, about 45 minutes, ending with SADDLERY. Didn’t know of MEZE, but ‘Z’ seemed the best guess at the unknown to put inside ME?E, so a lucky one there. I agree that the ‘misses rowing’ takes the prize today. Regards.
  17. 13:51 for me, so slightly less dire than my usual Tuesday showing, but I made ridiculously heavy weather of the easy 12ac (TRANQUIL) and, like others, wasted time with TOOLBAR.

    No problem with the foodie 24dn for once, as for a number of years in the 1970s and 1980s, after the Championship final a group of us used to go for a meal at a Turkish restaurant which Mike Rich knew, where we always started with “mixed meze”.

  18. Came to this late, but eventually finished it although was unable to see why GALLOWS was right, some amusing clues and I once again was slow to remember the ‘see a U think Q’ rule for 12 ac. I still don’t see why 2 dn needs ‘quiet’ unless it is (F)LUTE as Sotira suggests, the lute is not especially quiet.
  19. I found the explanations very helpful, as this one was a hard slog for me for some reason – but where is there a pangram?

Comments are closed.