Times 27,329: Confidence Is A Preference For The Habitual Solveur

45 comments on “Times 27,329: Confidence Is A Preference For The Habitual Solveur”

1. 18:45 … and a satisfying one to complete.

   I vaguely remembered ROWEL from somewhere, which was just as well as I couldn’t get the wordplay.

   Coos of admiration for EXPURGATE (love that ‘wherein’) and especially AFTERWARDS. Sweet.

2. Had never heard of SILD, but so it had to be.
   As Wiktionary says, PRETTY MUCH is “Similar in meaning to more or less; however, [it] sometimes implies a higher or more satisfactory degree of completeness”—which latter definition is the one with which I most readily associate the phrase.
   Now, I never knew this about LEECH: the word meaning the aquatic blood-sucking worm and the word meaning a physician are simply two separate terms, with distinct etymologies, which merely happen to be spelled the same. The supposedly medicinal usage of the worm did not, as commonly supposed, have anything to do with it.
   1. The OED is a bit equivocal about it .. it seems clear that as you say, the word has had two (in fact more, it’s a nautical term too) distinct meanings throughout most of its life. Both derive originally from the Old English word lǽce though. Interesting article about it, here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-lee1.htm
      1. Hmm. According to Wiktionary, the etymologies are distinct.

         Etymology 1
         From Middle English leche (“blood-sucking worm”), from Old English lǣċe (“blood-sucking worm”), akin to Middle Dutch lāke (“blood-sucking worm”; > modern Dutch laak).

         Etymology 2
         From Middle English leche (“physician”), from Old English lǣċe (“doctor, physician”), from Proto-Germanic *lēkijaz (“doctor”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēg(‘)- (“doctor”). Cognate with Old Frisian lētza (“physician”), Old Saxon lāki (“physician”), Old High German lāhhi (“doctor, healer”), Danish læge (“doctor, surgeon”), Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍃 (lēkeis, “physician”), Old Irish líaig (“exorcist, doctor”).

         Edited at 2019-04-19 07:00 am (UTC)

3. A very enjoyable 31 minutes here wih a couple of answers (PERI, ROWEL) arrived at only from wordplay. We’ve had a few easier puzzles this week so I’m wondering if we are in for a stinker tomorrow.
4. Forty minutes, but it felt like a lot longer. Took ages to find my way in, finally getting a toehold in the SW corner with 25d ZETA and others after a few false starts elsewhere.

   Then I worked my way from bottom to top with decreasing speed! LOI 11a ROWEL, just after MORELLO. Apparently I can’t tell my Maraschino from my MORELLO, so the “sour” confused me. Gets my COD because of the lovely surface.

   WOD ROWEL; I didn’t know it, but it led me to the Wikipedia page which contains a host of other terms a setter might throw at us in the future—anyone for a jingo bob?

5. For a very long time I had RETRY but once EXPURGATE went in, it obviously couldn’t be that.
   COD to AFTERWARDS with EXPURGATE in second place. I still remember a clue which involved something like ‘a real scandal’. The solution was PROPAGATE.
   On the mercifully few occasions I have found leeches on me, etymology has not been at the forefront of my mind.
   PS…Joe MORELLO played drums for Dave Brubeck.

   Edited at 2019-04-19 07:13 am (UTC)

   1. And Tom MORELLO was the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine.
      1. The less successful Welsh entertainer Ivor MORELLO never got any awards named after him, sadly.
6. PRETTY MUCH a testing little number this. FOI was the unknown SILD. Held up a bit by assuming that the knight was N, which it usually is. Then AFTERWARDS I MADE SHORT WORK OF the rest of it. LOI was PERI which I knew from Iolanthe which if I remember correctly we did at my prep school. Took a long time to get that one because I was fixated with the last letter of quay.
   A very precisely clued crossword, well done to the setter and thanks, V
7. Not your normal Friday fare, but satisfying. I demi-biffed EXPURGATE on the basis of ‘pure’ and ‘kiss’. NHO SILD. I was rather chuffed at remembering YORKER. I have ‘COD’ scrawled in the margins by 12ac, 1d, and 14d, but I think I’ll go with 14d.
8. 35 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
   ‘Insurgent’ is an interesting reversal indicator. I guess it is ok, but I don’t remember seeing it before.
   Mostly I liked: New Yorker, Afterwards, Piggy toe, and COD to Gratis.
   Thanks setter and V.
9. 18:10, held up for 3 minutes at the end by 25d and 26a trying to think of a famous spartan worrier. DNK ROWEL but the wordplay was clear. I liked this a lot with little ticks all over my paper copy. Hard to pick a favourite. AGREEMENTS, TOASTIE and NOBLE all made me smile, but AFTERWARDS was the neatest, I think.
   1. The Spartans were famous for not worrying!
10. 35 minutes, with LOI the unknown SILD. I constructed ROWEL immediately prior to that, and decided for some reason best known to myself that rowels must be parts of rowlocks. No need for further comment. I’ve looked the word up since and see that it was the ROWEL at the end of his boot which caused Aguero to be offside on Wednesday night. Against Spurs of course. April is the cruellest month.Tulle earlier in the week was good practice for the backward Toile. COD to AFTERWARDS for using what I’ve always called my pudding. If only ZETA had worked, Waterloo Bridge would be open to traffic today. Very enjoyable. Thank you V and setter.
11. Have seen SILD at the supermarket, it comes it small rectangular tins. Liked PRETTY MUCH.

    Flying this morning, sitting in the garden, 14′.

    Thanks verlaine and setter.

12. Best of the week IMO, an unhurried 28 minutes with one coffee, knew my parts of the spur, bur ashamed to say my LOI – which took 5 minutes – was 8d. Eventually I twigged the wordplay and remembered seeing the word on those flat tins of sardine-family stuff.
    Pretty much all good clues, but would pick out NEW YORKER and AFTERWARDS as favs.
13. 18.55 after a very slow start on the basis of “it’s Friday, so these clues must be harder than they look”.
    I was happy with the insurgent at 25d being ETA as a rough description of a Basque separatist, so I didn’t notice the worried bit of the clue. Wrong, but right.
    I was pleased that TENTACLED turned out to be not a technical term for a squid I hadn’t heard of.
    After my slow start, only putting MAKE for MADE gave any kind of pause. No stand out clue, just appreciation for all round quality.
    1. Me too on ETA, but I did worry
       1. Sorry, logged in now. I also mis-parsed 28ac – got Aready all in one from a jumble of always poised. Good thing I wasn’t blogging.
14. 24’35, with sild feeling right from the start though I wouldn’t know I knew it. Some neat clueing (esp. perhaps 14). Would like to have made shorter work of it but am lumbered with my level which at least is fairly constant pro tem. Eliot a non-balladeer if ever there was one.
    1. A sild sprang up from the puzzling ocean for a Saturday puzzle back in May, which I think must’ve been how it got into my brain.
15. Twenty minutes, meaning that this one was relatively gentle, at least for me. ROWEL, SILD and GAWAIN were all sitting there on the bottom shelf of my memory waiting to be picked up, by good fortune. I didn’t really get the parsing of 15ac and Verlaine’s explanation, though clear, doesn’t convince me that this was a great clue. Otherwise, though, all very enjoyable.
    1. While I admire the clue. The grammar does take a little thinking about but everything works.
16. 14:29. I did know SILD, but I initially took ‘swapping hands’ just to indicate swapping an L for an R and put in ROWER, which didn’t make much sense but slowed me down anyway. I was also a little bit worried that ZETA might be XETA.
    1. There’s no reason why it couldn’t be, is there?
       1. Only that XETA isn’t a Greek letter. It probably helps to know the Greek alphabet for crosswords, as random Greek letters do crop up a lot as answers. I suppose at least this one covers the classicists and the engineers in terms of general knowledge!
          1. Oops, replied before I saw you answer.
             Even I’m not going to object to a working knowledge of the Greek alphabet as a reasonable expectation for the Times solver.
       2. Only the fact that XETA doesn’t exist!
          1. I feel embarassed about my comment as of ciurse it’s XI. And I did Greek to OLevel! Thanks for the helpful comments.
17. A good Good Friday puzzle (I was afraid we might get something really testing to mark the holiday). Nice work by the setter, with some interesting words; ROWEL is one of those specialist names for things you didn’t know had names, which I always find pleasing (see also aglet).
18. ….as I breezed through in a little over 30 minutes, constructing ‘morello’ and ‘sild’ from the wordplay. It was ‘peri’ that gave the most trouble, until I tried another approach, that is.
19. 25 mins. Nice tidy crossword, with challenging but fair clues. Good blog, V; thanks.
20. But racing the clock, I put Morillo for Morello. B*gg*r! Because I was pretty pleased with my time. Tough but fair.
21. After a leisurely breakfast, most of the family trooped off to Inverness, leaving my grandaughter, who is revising for her AS Levels, Sonic the Greyhound, who appears worn out by the exertions of the last few days, and myself in our peaceful cottage in the woods, with the sun lighting up the bushes outside the window. This obviously helped my concentration, as I romped through this puzzle in 23:20. PERI went in first, with RETRY and TRYSTED following until my erstwhile LOI EXPURGATED caused me to revisit 2d and replace it with REPLY. ROWEL was vaguely remembered once I’d constructed it. SILD was well known as it was a regular teatime snack on toast when I was a bairn. As has been said, a pleasure to solve with the precise cluing. Thanks setter and V.
22. 21:14 not too testing but a fun solve.
23. ….and I was on a ROWEL until getting bogged down with the last three remaining clues. I finally spotted REPLY, biffed ZETA, and the big, bad wolf fell eventually.

    FOI PERI
    LOI AIRFLOW
    COD AT THE REASY
    TIME 12:43

24. Easy enough, though not a threat to be a PB. I liked the cleverly hidden definitions, and the expansive vocabulary. Too many pleasers to choose a WOD or COD. Knew Rowel and Gawain, with Sild and Morello almost accessible w/o the wordplay help.
25. Slow again, but still getting over the line.
    1. Well done, Danny. You’ll get quicker, but it’s more fun to enjoy the highways and byways.
26. 2-3 hours on and off throughout the day, in between gardening, chiselling away at an ancient door frame and preparing for a three day bicycle tour with camping thrown in. Shot myself in the foot with ‘MAKE SHORT WORK…’ which left me thinking for eons about wordsmiths beginning with K (kafka, kerouac, keats…) . Finally lack of appropriate entries in Chambers Bio dictionary for people with 9 letter names beginning with K, led me to believe something was up, then realised it was MADE not MAKE as the clue indicated past tense. Yikes! SILD, PERI, ROWEL were all new to me, and BALLADEER, TRYSTED, MORELLO and GAWAIN were known but hardly words I use more than every decade or so. So got there in the end but not without help from dictionaries. I wonder if people think that’s cheating? I try to get as far as I can with only my brain, but usually that isn’t far enough for the grid to start making sense. Today was a bit different, except at the end in the top left and top right corners. It’s not a competition, so I guess you can’t really cheat if you’re having fun! LOI 9D. Biffed a few including 28A as never seen AY=ALWAYS (why?) and failed to pick up on TT=DRY.

    Score 2/4 completed, 3 month challenge.

    Thanks for a manageable grid!
    WS

    Edited at 2019-04-19 11:40 pm (UTC)

    1. Hi woodspiral … time has never been my driver for completing a puzzle and still often go over the hour of actual work that can span across many days if they are tough enough. It’s always satisfying to write that last one in. And as you can see, don’t particularly mind doing them many months after they have actually been published – have rarely seen one that has gone stale !!!
       1. Keep at it! I’ve been a bit quiet on here recently due to life pressures. I’m still doing the daily crosswords, but mainly the Quick Cryptic. I’ve also started doing O Tempora! (the latin one on Saturdays), the Monday GK and occasionally the main 15×15 times. I’ll try to post more often when I complete one of the Quick ones.
          1. I’ve been keeping at it for many years … usually do the Financial Times puzzle but I copy the syndicated Times crossword from our Australian newspaper and do one when I get some spare time. Also do the Sunday Times puzzle that comes out in our weekend edition.
             Use the experience for the logical gymnastics and the amazing amount of new learning that one can still learn rather than for a speed competition. Think that many of the contributors here are entrants in the annual Times competition which is purely based on how quickly one can do it.
27. Thanks setter and Verlaine
    Started off well enough with SILD the first in, quickly spotting the alternate letter trick. ROWEL became the second soon after – have seen that around crossword land for years ! Took another 3 shortish sittings to work my way through the rest of the puzzle, ending like many in the SW corner with ZETA, TOASTIE, ELIOT and the elusive GAWAIN the last in.
    Nice crossword with clever misdirection and enough words on the perimeter of the knowledge base to keep it interesting. Didn’t see get the ‘walk in the park’ phrase until coming here, embarrassingly enough.

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