Times 26606

57 comments on “Times 26606”

1. Not much to say really. The literals were sticking out like the proverbials. So a bit of a biff-fest. Done slightly under the 15 minutes.

   Edited at 2016-12-27 12:39 am (UTC)

2. Back to some less exotic holiday fare today, undoing some of the damage from yesterday.

   Thanks setter and Jack.

3. DNK 11ac, which would have struck me as highly unlikely had it not been forced on me by LAUGH LIKE A __. Also DNK REGAL, of course; and I dithered (for no good reason) between REAL and RIAL. Other than that, what McT said.
4. …with most of it done in 20, but a lot of problems in the SW. I spent 15 minutes alone on ‘seafaring’, my LOI. It probably should not have been so hard.

   I had never heard ‘laugh like a drain’, so hesitated to put in the last word until the checkers were in place.

5. About 45 minutes. Didn’t know REGAL as an instrument, NESCIENT or the expression at 11, though all went in OK from wordplay. The one that held me up was the complicated SUBGENERA – I suppose we’ve had SUB for ‘edit’ before, but I can’t remember it and I was also thrown by ‘returned about’. No real highlights but I liked INAMORATO and the surface for MISCHIEF.

   Thank you to setter and blogger.

6. I accidentally saw the first two or three answers when I looked at the blog too early! It’s always fun to learn a new word or expression by decrypting a clue. I found it hard to believe that “laugh like a drain” could be right, but, damn, the Brits say the craziest things! Haha.

   Edited at 2016-12-27 04:09 am (UTC)

   1. It’s interesting that you saw the answers by coming here too early, Guy, as today is the first time I have used the Live Journal “Read more/Collapse” feature to conceal them and require an extra click to reveal them. It works for me in the browsers on my PC and on my phone and tablet but not apparently for you, so it would be helpful for me to know what device and browser you are using?

      The only other way of revealing the answers that I know of is to click on the “Comments” link underneath the introduction, which then opens the whole page.

      Edited at 2016-12-27 04:53 am (UTC)

      1. The answer is simple, like me: I didn’t look closely enough at the number and I clicked through. It was totally my own fault. I do appreciate your usage of the “Read More/Collapse” function, though I failed to take advantage of it this time!
         1. One way to avoid this problem is to go here first:
            http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/calendar

            Then scroll to the current month and click “View Subjects”.
            That way, you only get the blog titles.

         2. Ah well, it’s a lesson learned, and I’m pleased you have confirmed my experiment with the technology worked.
            1. jackkt — I was also surprised to see Guy’s comment as I was just about to remark on your use of the Read More thing and encourage its widespread adoption. It makes the front page of the blog easier to navigate as well as decreasing the chances of people accidentally seeing answers. Nice one.
               1. Yes, it’s a tip I picked up from George a couple of days ago and is dead easy to do by just highlighting the text to be hidden (in LJ visual editor) and clicking the “insert cut” icon (it’s another one that looks like a little hamburger). It then inserts scissor lines above and below. The result doesn’t appear in previews, which is a bit confusing, but on posting to the blog it comes to life.

                  I’d encourage other posters to use it, especially those who post in the early hours, but as always it’s up to individuals to do as they wish.

                  Edited at 2016-12-27 09:55 am (UTC)

                  1. I’ll have a look at this for my next TLS blog. It’s worth a try since there aren’t usually very many comments/readers so there’s no point in busying up the front page.
                  2. How would you do it if you are using HTML instead of the visual editor?
                     1. Here’s what George posted on Sunday: In the visual editor you can highlight all the text you want hidden and while it is highlighted click the icon that looks like a pair of scissors. [it looks like a hamburger in my version – jackkt]

                        In the HTML editor, it is a piece of coding specific for LJ – type in lj-cut inside triangle brackets at the start of what you want cut, and /lj-cut at the end (I can’t include the brackets symbol in the comment or it gets interpreted as HTML. There’s a similar one on wordpress – fifteensquared use it for all their posts.

7. 16:28 .. might have been a lot faster but I ‘lifted and separated’ the ‘reportedly’ in the REDPOLL clue and had it as ‘redpole’ for a long time, making the malevolent spirit extremely puzzling until I spotted the mistake. I’ve been very error-prone over the festive season (can’t think why), including messing up a chance to have the Christmas No 1 (on the leaderboard) for a couple of hours by typing snowshoed as showshoed … and I wasn’t even drunk at the time.
8. Sneaking in under 14, just, despite the long words ending in a vowel, the ancient organ, I or E in Archimedean, A or E in Obeisance and so on. And since SEAFARING caused most trouble to me too, let’s have a quibble. Isn’t the whole point of the poem that he isn’t any more? “I pass, like night, from land to land”, with a compulsion to tell the tale.
   1. Hm. But surely by that reasoning a sailor is only a sailor as long as he’s at sea?
9. Done and dusted well within 30 minutes – which was actually much quicker than I took for today’s Quick Cryptic!
   I first came across INAMORATO years ago in its female variant in The Hippopotamus Song: “His inamorata adjusted her garter…” Pure genius.

   Edited at 2016-12-27 09:29 am (UTC)

   1. Well almost quicker… Having done the QC first and found it tougher than usual, I raced through this and was amazed to see I had completed both in exactly the same time. 11:19.
   2. Thanks for the reminder of the cleverness of their lyrics. The final verse of my favourite song of theirs goes, if memory serves me correctly…

      For days and days among the trees,
      I sleep and dream and doze.
      Just gently swaying in the breeze,
      suspended by my toes.
      While eager beavers overhead,
      rush through the undergrowth,
      I watch the clouds beneath my feet….
      How sweet to be a sloth.

10. Top half polished off fairly quickly, I slowed down on the bottom half and finally ground to a halt on the crossers of 17 and 23. In the end, I gave up a minute before the end of my hour.

    I cheated a little by looking up where the Black Sea was—I’ve been brushing up my geography, but not well enough yet—and that was enough to get me INAMORATO. Which made sense and rang a vague bell; I think it’s come up here once before. But then I still couldn’t get the REDPOLL, perhaps because I had no idea of the bird or the pole/perch/rod thing.

    Oh well. I still have a lot of yesterday’s puzzle yet to do, too!

11. Also delayed by SEAFARING as was looking for something to do with weddings, too clever by half. I have never ever heard anyone use the phrase LAUGH LIKE A DRAIN, must be a huge anachronism. DNK CHICHI, REGAL, NESCIENT, but all correct hence a sub 20. Thanks jack and setter.

    1. Brewer’s has: to laugh loudly and coarsely, like water gurgling down a drain.
12. As mctext says, a biffers paradise. Long word beginning with F meaning partiality? Scribble it in. Greek Mathematician who is not Pythagoras? Ditto etc

    At my first school (ages 5 – 8) we used to have to chant as a class
    Five-and-a-half yards – one rod pole or perch
    4 rods poles or perches – one chain
    Ten chains – one furlong etc

    And dont get me started on gills quarters quarts bushels etc!
    17:32 and thanks setter and jack

13. It must be the magic pen my daughter gave me for Christmas with ‘Best Dad’ on it but I zipped through this in less than 15 minutes. She said she was being ironic. I know this really needs to be independently verified (maybe by Deloitte, they’ve nothing to do for six months) but if so I’ve pipped Sotira. Usually my aim is less than 3 Sotiras. DNK REGAL as an organ but all the rest came readily to mind. No doubt I will be back down to earth tomorrow.
14. No problems today with left to right top to bottom solve with no hold ups

    I think LAUGH….. has disappeared from common use. I associate it with my parents and don’t use it myself.

15. It should be referendums in 1ac. Referenda is wrong but since it’s now used too often it gets into the dictionaries, so the setter can’t be blamed.
    1. When enough people say or spell a word in a certain way, or change a word’s meaning, it enters the lexicon. That’s how language develops. There is no hard and fast right or wrong.
    2. I had not noticed that. Chambers as you say gives the choice of referenda or referendums. Is datum – data also wrong?
       1. Ooh, you shouldn’t start that one off, Tone! Just as well today’s going to be quiet day.
          1. I may be corrected by those who know better, but methinks REFERENDA is OK as the plural of the Latin neuter gerundive REFERENDUM. cf AGENDA. Hmm. Can you have a singular AGENDUM for a meeting, I wonder?

             Edited at 2016-12-27 03:36 pm (UTC)

             1. I think the argument that REFERENDA is ‘wrong’ is based on the fact that, whereas AGENDUM and DATUM are nouns whose plurals are respectively AGENDA and DATA, REFERENDUM is a verb form and therefore does not pluralise to REFERENDA. This is an example of the etymological fallacy: the mistaken notion that modern usage has to conform to the original meanings/forms of words. The much more simple reality is, as Andy says, that if people use REFERENDA then REFERENDA it is.
                ‘Agenda’ is actually a perfect example of this: it’s a plural in Latin but in English it’s a singular, the plural of which is ‘agendas’. This is just as ‘wrong’ as REFERENDA.

                Edited at 2016-12-27 05:46 pm (UTC)

16. Worth the admission price for a reminder of one of the great poems of all time, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the sequel to Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato (sic), which is not too shabby either.
    1. I studied Spenser with Bart Giamatti at Yale Grad School, before he became Commissioner of Baseball. He really emphasized reading Tasso and Ariosto as a background to studying Spenser. Fortunately, he let us read them in translation.
       1. You were fortunate Vinyl. A sombre reminder of someone who died much too young, but what a resume!
17. I’m a muppet. I got through this in 12 mins but I misspelt FAVOURITISM as “favouratism” (no idea why) and didn’t blink at the incorrect “starring” at 13ac.
18. 
    OK, this was fairly straightforward, but I love the days when I can post a decent time.

    I biffed and I guessed and I whacked them in like a pro.

    Are we allowed to say “dull hiker” ? Sounds a bit hikerist to me. I may have just invented a new category of Political Incorrectness.

    Time: 25 mins. with all correct.

    Thank you to setter ( sooooo much ) and blogger.

19. Somehow dumbass me put in NASCIENT, so a DNF today, better luck tomorrow
20. 8:50. No problems today, lots of biffing as others have said. I was familiar with the expression LAUGH LIKE A DRAIN, but not the organ.
21. That was definitely easier than yesterday’s. 25 minutes all correct, although I didn’t know the organ, and like kevingregg dithered between real and rial for the Brazilian cash. Fortunately I fell off the fence on the correct side. NESCIENT and CHICHI were new to me, but didn’t cause any problems. The phrase Laugh Like a Drain was familiar to me, so no problem there either. I didn’t spot the parsing for BREADTH, so thanks to Jack for that, and to the setter for an interesting puzzle that gave me some confidence back too.
22. I also went through this with no problems. I DNK NESCIENT or the guffawing expression, but they didn’t present any real problems. About 15 minutes or so. Oh, I didn’t know the REGAL thing either, but I did know the currency. Regards.
23. I have complained about this before. There are two Latin words “referendum”. There is the gerund of “refero”, to carry back, refer. This is used in English when we allude to the act of referring something to the people, as happened on June 23. And there is the gerundive, to use the old term, or future passive participle, an adjective meaning worthy to be carried back. In English we occasionally use a Latin gerundive to mean a thing to which the adjective applies: e.g. corrigendum, plural corrigenda. If we used referendum in this sense the plural would be as at 1 across and the meaning would be an issue important enough to be referred to the people, such as whether we prefer to live in a democratic independent country free to trade all over the world or continue to be ruled by the unelected racist clique in Brussels. However we do not use referendum in that sense: we only use the gerund. Last time I complained about this I wrote “Every schoolboy knows that the Latin gerund has no plural,” and the then editor published this in the newspaper adding his comment that things have been dumbed down since my schooldays. Inventing a Latin plural where none exists is not merely an error; it is a genteel malapropism.
    1. You are Simon Heffer and I claim my £5.
       1. But is the plural Heffers or Theyfer is what I demand to know.
          1. I don’t know but the collective noun is ‘fallacy’.
    2. Any swot know that. Let gerunds be gerunda sa Molesworth.
    3. Easy on the UKIP ads, mate; this is a crossword blog, not the Daily Express.
       1. *like*
       2. Although on reflection that wasn’t really an ad for UKIP.
          1. Good point, k. They don’t have UKIP where anon lives – in 1950. 🙂
24. I have no idea why some people think foreign language grammatical rules should dictate how a word is treated once it has been absorbed into English.
    1. Well, the echt English form would be “referendums,” je crois bien. “Referenda” came about because people regarded “referendum” as Latin and imagined that would be proper.
       On a similar note, at The Nation magazine we still insist that “media” is plural, though even The New York Times (often, now, if not always) uses it as singular. It’s singular in French, too, which language one might imagine to be closer to Latin.
25. How odd. This was a write-in for me. Normally I need 25-30 mins. Done in under 10 for this one, would have been faster if the Android tablet version of the paper wasn’t so flaky in the keyboard department. Redpoll LOI, otherwise it was by the numbers.

    -Neb.

26. 6:40 in a clean sweep, held up at the end by dithering over OBEISANCE – which really had to be the answer but I couldn’t see how the wordplay worked.

    No problems with either REGAL (met often enough in crosswords, and even occasionally outside them) or LAUGH LIKE A DRAIN. No complaints about REFERENDA (except that damned Brexit one).

27. On the easier side, though slowed up in the south. Surprised so many haven’t heard the expression LAUGH LIKE A DRAIN.

    Two answers were given/gifted to me by my daughter, who was trying out Cortana (?) on her new phone. She and I discovered that the clues and answers are on the web (elsewhere than here) – I’m surprised at this, but I guess there must be money in it.

28. Still we did not get POTATO

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