Time: 20:36
Music: Ravel, Mother Goose Suite, Cluytens/OCS
This was not too difficult, only I started a bit too confidently and had to think again. This setter seems to be very fond of first and last letter types of clues, along with anagrams. Some of the cryptics are a bit complex, but the answers are often easy to guess and then reverse-engineer. There is nothing obscure here, unless you think that edentate and synecdoche are a bit off the beaten path.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | One often depressed during a long sentence? (5-3) |
| SPACE-BAR – Cryptic definition. I had put SHIFT KEY, but I saw that wasn’t working out and tried again. | |
| 5 | Eccentric gang occupying the outskirts of Stepney (6) |
| SCREWY – S(CREW)Y. | |
| 9 | Obvious role of mother, say, following return of father (8) |
| APPARENT – PA backwards + PARENT. A bit of a chestnut. | |
| 10 | Artist wearing an adequate coat (6) |
| ANORAK – AN O(RA)K. | |
| 12 | Hand looking green, perhaps, after this graft goes wrong (8,5) |
| STRAIGHT FLUSH – Anagram of THIS GRAFT + LUSH. | |
| 15 | Pipe initially really isn’t secure enough, right? (5) |
| RISER – First letters of R[eally] I[ns’t] S[ecure] E[nough], R[ight]. | |
| 16 | Recent resurgence from one side (9) |
| LATERALLY – LATE RALLY. | |
| 17 | Partner’s dependency on firm made trouble ultimately (9) |
| COHABITEE – CO + HABIT + [mad]E [troubl]E. | |
| 19 | Come through close to here on the way out (5) |
| PASSE – PASS + [her]E. | |
| 20 | Just not giving a damn (13) |
| DISINTERESTED – Double definition. Disinterested and uninterested are a pair of words that tend to swap meanings every hundred years or so – check which century you’re in. | |
| 22 | Cowardly manner in which to express pain? (6) |
| YELLOW – YELL OW! | |
| 23 | Imaginary, fabulous bird eating most of insect (8) |
| ROMANTIC – RO(MANTI[s])C. One of the many meanings of romantic. | |
| 25 | Passionate, somewhat wayward entrepreneur (6) |
| ARDENT – Hidden in [wayw]ARD ENT[trepeneur]. | |
| 26 | Toothless ex-PM had to follow Thatcher’s lead (8) |
| EDENTATE – EDENTATE EDEN + T[hatcher] + ATE. One I biffed first and parsed later. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Overawed by fame, begin circling middle of massive crowd (10) |
| STARSTRUCK – STAR([mas]S[ive])T + RUCK. | |
| 2 | Support for speaker on stage from first-class politician (3) |
| AMP – A M.P. Evidently B and C grade MPs are also available. | |
| 3 | Aristocrat meeting one former queen some time ago (7) |
| EARLIER – EARL + I + ER. | |
| 4 | Hammering thing in with a nail badly (12) |
| ANNIHILATING – Anagram of THING IN + A NAIL. | |
| 6 | Best nut, so it’s said (7) |
| CONQUER – Sounds like CONKER. | |
| 7 | The real cost must be re-worked, for convenience? (5,6) |
| EARTH CLOSET – Anagram of THE REAL COST. | |
| 8 | Books regularly checked by the old couple (4) |
| YOKE – Y(OK)E. Ye for the is not a real word – it is an 18th-century ligature for TH that looks like a Y. | |
| 11 | Not for release, as lesser album tracks can end up being (3,3,6) |
| OFF THE RECORD – Cryptic hint, as the artist listens to the session tapes and decides what to use. | |
| 13 | Seducer held out and found another date? (11) |
| RESCHEDULED – Anagram of SEDUCER HELD. | |
| 14 | Figure of speech synchronised, shifting constant line players mustn’t cross (10) |
| SYNECDOCHE – SYNCED, with the C for constant moves forward + OCHE. Another one I biffed first and parsed later. | |
| 18 | Be up front — because, shortly, you might blow it (7) |
| BASSOON – B[e] + AS + SOON. | |
| 19 | Piece absorbing colour before it gets light (7) |
| PREDAWN – P(RED)AWN. Yes, that kind of piece. | |
| 21 | Creature that flies some miles up (4) |
| MYNA – ANY M upside-down. | |
| 24 | Caddy could provide this support for golfer, we’re told (3) |
| TEA – Sounds like TEE. The sounds like hint is placed so that there can be no mistake what answer is meant. | |
How very odd that the blogger and I both put SHIFT-KEY at 1ac before changing it to SPACE BAR, as shift key doesn’t begin to fit the cryptic and it would possible to write a very long sentence indeed without needing to use it more than once, if at all. Sadly I have to admit that I was actually thinking of the space-bar at the time and imagining its function, but then I misnamed it as the shift key.
I struggled on a number of other clues and lack of of progress caused me to nod off at times. At least that meant I lost track so I have no solving time to report. Just as well, but I was pleased to finish all correct eventually.
I compromised and had SPACE KEY.
Ditto!
Ditto ditto.
With ANNIHILATE and CONQUER, I have to wonder if the setter needed to let off a bit of steam. Catharsis by crossword?
I put in ‘space-key’ pretty confidently to get ‘started’, and have never heard of an EARTH CLOSET. CONQUER and SCREWY were last in – the latter being something I associate with a state of mind a bit further off the map than mere eccentricity.
18:39
Re earth closet, you are fortunate. If you ever need to use, one take a clothes peg for your nose in with you..
I threw in the towel at about 20 with SYNECDOCHE unsolved. Didn’t know it, didn’t know OCHE. Biffed STARSTRUCK but that turns out to be quite the cryptic. If it’s OFF THE RECORD it is, by definition, not an album track, but hey…thanks V.
From If You See Her, Say Hello:
Sundown, YELLOW moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she’s passing back this way, I ain’t that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up, if she’s got the time
Synecdoche, earth closet, and edentate unknown but got through the cryptic. An educational offering including the less orthodox (to me) definitions of words e.g. romantic. 26ish.
16.48, on the wavelength this morning. COHABITEE is rather neutral; a woman I know was burgled while living in Paris with her boyfriend, and when they went to the police station to file a report, the gendarme, needing to clarify the nature of their relationship for bureaucratic purposes, handed them a form headed “Déclaration de Concubinage”.
Thanks V and setter
32 minutes. As the title of the blog points out, good to see our SNITCH meister and TfTT guru crack a mention at 1d.
Most answers went in without too much trouble, although I had a MER at DISINTERESTED for ‘not giving a damn’; thanks to our blogger for the explanation. I recognised the word SYNECDOCHE, but not being able to define it or give an example, this was a lucky one. Like ulaca, the not very difficult (at least from wordplay) SCREWY and then CONQUER were my last two in.
Maybe thirty years back, I went through a phase of trying to understand linguistics, so I knew SYNECDOCHE but I’d forgotten what it meant.. I’d also forgotten what EDENTATE meant too but the nice thing about crosswordland is that you are given crossers as well as clues. LOI RISER, COD MYNA. I also didn’t think OFF THE RECORD quite worked, but whichever version of If You See Her Say Hello. Bob chooses to put on is beautiful.
Yup, another SHIFT-KEY here til I saw AMP, BUT i gave up on 50 mins with the unknown SYNECDOCHE beating me.
Otherwise fairly straightforward but some tricky clues as our blogger has mentioned.
I liked STRAIGHT FLUSH.
Thanks V and setter.
Happily on the wavelength today, finishing in 19 minutes. Amazing what waking up a bit late for work can do for one’s solving time. An anticlockwise solve from FOI SPACE BAR held up only briefly by putting CALLOW in for YELLOW. Happily I’ve seen Synecdoche, New York, before which I couldn’t even pronounce SYNECDOCHE, let alone define it, and that let me loop back up to finish on SCREWY with minimal time spent on what could’ve been a tricky SE corner.
45:37
Just needed one aid, a four letter synonym for “gang”, saw “crew”, for SCREWY, which helped finish the NE corner. Mis spelling LATERALLY was holding up EARTH CLOSET. Spent ages checking spelling of ANNIHILATION.
Had OFF THE CHARTS for the fate of a poor album track.
12 minutes.
– Couldn’t have told you what EDENTATE means, though I’m sure it’s come up before
– Trusted the wordplay and anagrist for the unknown EARTH CLOSET
– Enjoyed the clue for YOKE, simply because it used ‘Books’ without it indicating B or OT/NT
– Also not confident what SYNECDOCHE means, beyond knowing that it’s a figure of speech
Thanks vinyl and setter.
FOI Amp
LOI Passe
COD Rescheduled
7:58. No dramas this morning. Fortunately there was no need to know exactly what SYNECDOCHE means.
Thanks for parsing the central section of SYNECDOCHE. – I was confident of the answer, assumed Sync, and got the Ochre part, but the letters in the middle remained persistently in the wrong order
12.41, with ANNIHILATING giving most pause, as both the crossers and the anagram fodder looked so unlikely. I believe I have used SYNECDOCHE in a blog on several occasions, though I’ve usually had to look up both the spelling and the assurance that I have the correct figure of speech.
Pleasant start to the week, though not making up for the missing MCS. That said, The Listener this week is an absolute cracker, making up for a run of ho-hum puzzles and an impenetrable Numerical the week before.
38:28 needs recording for SNITCH because this is the first time I have submitted outside the top 100 for many months.
Nightmarishly off-wavelength, finally submitting LOI SYNECDOCHE from the wordplay knowing OCHE.
Reading the blog, vinyl makes it all sound perfectly reasonable now but not my cuppa at all. Thanks both anyway.
15:11 which is amongst my best times but unfortunately one letter out for the second weekday running. SYNECDOCHE was unfortunately off my beaten path and the wordplay led me to SYNENDOCHE.
COD EDENTATE
Thanks blogger and setter
I find it really annoying when an easy crossword is ruined by a completely unheard off “MYNA”. I was on for some kind of record time, but spent about 10 minutes staring at MYNA knowing that I just didn’t know the answer. I suppose I should have worked out the wordplay… Otherwise this would have been sub-15 mins.
Otherwise, I had fun filling it in, mostly quickly, though with some delays in the NE and for “ROMANTIC”.
Assuming miles = m you will have MY_A, which does rather narrow the possibilities!
This is true – I suppose because I didn’t know it, I thought there was a word for ‘some miles’ which I also didn’t know, which needed to be reversed (a word like league). I’m not sure I can really blame anyone but myself. But frustrating nonetheless, when everything else was known and quick.
Indeed, been there, done that! I share your pain.
Note that some = any is also a common cruciverbal thing. It catches me out sometimes because I wouldn’t use the words interchangeably.
No problems today except SYNECDOCHE rang a bell so vague I had to check the word existed.
Also a MER at disinterested. I am aware that some think it indistinguishable from uninterested, but I think the difference between the two is worth preserving, and regard that usage as unfortunate. The OED says: “not interested, unconcerned. Often regarded as a loose use.”
The meaning you don’t like is older than the meaning you do like, so if we’re preserving something…
I will stick with the OED, thanks all the same
The OED is my source! First citation for the much-maligned meaning is 1631, for the ‘correct’ one 1659. You can prefer one usage over another of course but if you’re doing it on the basis of preserving something against newfangled change you’re on a sticky wicket.
Heavens, K, it’s just a word! Do calm down.
The OED quote above, is what I will stick with. 1631 will have to look after itself.
No more from me.
I’m perfectly calm, it’s just a discussion. I find these common misconceptions quite interesting.
I discovered a similar misconception of my own recently. I dislike it when people use the word ‘fulsome’ to mean ‘thorough’ instead of ‘lavish, extravagant’, but it’s another case where the ‘wrong’ meaning has actually been around for longer!
First time in ages attempted the grown ups’ cryptic and pleasantly surprised to find I made good progress to almost finish in an hour (NHO SYNECDOCHE). No problem with EDENTATE, a common medical description, somewhat more professional to note rather than “No teeth”. Many to like. It is Monday, so probably at the easier end of the scale and filled the time waiting for a MOT.
Thanks setter and Jackkt.
My thanks to vinyl1 and setter.
I enjoyed this, and no it wasn’t terribly challenging.
6a LOI Screwy.
2d FOI (in faint pencil) Amp.
14d Synecdoche biffed, I didn’t see the oche, nor did my foot cross it. TBH I recognised the word but had no idea what it means until I looked it up.
18d Bassoon also biffed, I assumed we were supposed to shorten because to bas which I thought a bit iffy, whereas b + as is fine.
24d Tea, yes there can be a mistake and I wrote Tee then rubbed out the second E because I suspected I might have misread the clue.
If ANNIHILATE had been an across clue, I may have avoided my careless ANNAHILATE. Drat! Sixteen thirty seven WOE. FOI AMP, LOI SCREWY. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
“Ye for the is not a real word – it is an 18th-century ligature for TH that looks like a Y”. I would argue that ‘ye’ for ‘the’ is a real word as it can be found in all dictionaries. Its dubious etymology is irrelevant; it has become part of the lexicon.
It is not a real word in the sense that no one in the 18th century, when the ligature was current, said it.
Granted, but valid in a crossword clue in the 21st century.
11:14
This felt very fast, even if I had forgotten the meaning of SYNECDOCHE. Like BoltonWanderer, I learnt a lot of old-fashioned terms for figures of speech at one time, but if you don’t use them, you lose them. Didn’t really get DISINTERESTED, I just thought that was a poor clue. Not heard of EARTH CLOSET before, and had to redouble my thinking powers to come up with CREW for 5a. LOI MYNA.
Thanks V and setter
No problems here, although I didn’t know the ‘just’ sense of DISINTERESTED, which I’d always thought was defined as by the OED in JerryW’s post. If I knew how to post my time in some way and bothered to find out it would have been a rare (probably unique) visit to the top 100. Since I’d normally be embarrassingly well outside that list it doesn’t seem to be worth it.
Could someone explain what “looking green” is doing in 12d? Is it green as in go/good because the hand is a good one, as well as helping with the surface?
SYNEDOCHE is one of many words I only know from doing cryptics, but learning is part of the fun.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
Looking green, perhaps = LUSH.
Oh, of course! I should have read the blog more carefully. Thanks for the explanation.
Just over 20 minutes to get all but 14 dn. I then spent another fifteen trying to make sense of it using the cryptic direction. Having not a clue I then threw in the towel, and now I can add SYNECDOCHE to the list of words I’ve never heard of. I’m surprised on reading the comments above, just how many people had heard of it.
18.21 WOE
At least I am in good company with the estimable John D. Written out, it’s a gruesome spelling error!
Otherwise, I’ll never complain about a sub-20 but I was a bit off the pace. Kudos to everyone who biffed SYNECDOCHE and then parsed it. Only here…🙂
Thanks Vinyl/setter
13:23. Held up by putting in CALLOW rather than YELLOW. Turns out only one of them really means cowardly.
I didn’t much like the DISINTERESTED clue – both definitions feel pretty similar to me – but it didn’t force me to do a bit of research not giving a damn. I recall an Inspector Morse exchange where he argued it should be “dam” (and old coin) and blindly going along with that. Turns out other usage predates that theory. As others have said, an education today.
I romped through this over lunch-and no errors , unlike the QC.
LOI CONQUER ( homophones are not my strong point) after SCREWY.
I wish I’d timed it as I was well under 30 minutes which I rarely achieve on the 15×15.
Excellent puzzle- I liked the surfaces.
David
27 mins, five of which were spent on DISINTERESTED having stupidly entered ANNIHILATION for ANNIHILATING. Incidentally, I always understood that DISINTERESTED meant ‘Just’ while UNINTERESTED meant ‘not giving a damn’ – is that a 20th century thing? I didn’t know EARTH CLOSET or PREDAWN, but I suspect both words are in quite common use. Thank you, Blogger, for explaining STARSTRUCK. First one in was LATERALLY (closely followed by SYNECDOCHE, one of my favourite words), and last DISINTERESTED. My favourite clue was to TEA. Thank you to Setter and Blogger.
Late night and early golf meant I dozed off, so no time. Nevertheless I did seem to take a while on this, albeit I knew all the words (though had forgotten what SYNECDOCHE meant).
Even knowing there was an ‘m’ in there somewhere, LOI MYNA took a long time. Didn’t particularly like “OFF THE RECORD” nor “DISINTERESTED”, neither quite worked for me.
Thanks Vinyl and setter
To me this was an ordinary Monday until it was not but I did enjoy the challenge thanks to all. Ye olde chestnut again. Nowadays i just shrug.
I found this one almost completely a doddle, perhaps a week of what I assume was flu has cleared the brain a little. Ultimately DNF defeated by SYNECDOCHE, “synced” being the missing ingredient. Not completely convinced by “not for release” but no other grumbles, a tidy puzzle. Thanks for the blog.
Fell at the last hurdle with the nho Synecdoche. The crossers looked so unpromising that I double checked the contributing answers, before deciding that it wasn’t going to be my day. Myna, Edentate and Romantic/Imaginary had probably already used up my ration of good fortune. Invariant
39:47 on the clock, but a bit of that was spent faffing around with other things. As ever, I’m pleased to get to the end of the 15×15 unscathed. The only thing that really threw me was the hyphen in SPACE-BAR, but it doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone else so I assume it’s fine.
Thank you for the blog!
Long-ago Latin lessons helped with both EDENTATE and ANNIHILATION (I couldn’t see where the extra ‘I’ should go until I remembered ‘NIHIL’). Growing up in the 70s and 80s helped with MYNA, since every bungalow in those days contained either a myna bird or a budgie. And watching old movies helped with SCREWY. Has anybody said this since about 1950?
24 minutes. Nice crisp Monday crossword.
I hate it when solvers say a crossword is ‘easy ‘, but I must admit this was easy!
Hi, can someone help me understand how you get ‘oche’ in 14 down. Never heard of this word before.
Also, 26 across how you get ‘ate’ I guess this one. Need to know.
I regularly watch Simon on cracking the cryptic.
Thanks
The oche is the throwing line in darts. And have = eat (I went to the restaurant and ate/had the chicken)
The OCHE is the line on the floor behind which darts players have to stand when they throw their darts.
ATE is used as a synonym for HAD in the sense of CONSUMED, as in ‘I had a boiled egg for breakfast’ – a common trick in crosswords.
Biffed SYNECDOCHE, familiar from school Latin. It means “part for whole”, eg in the expression “boots on the ground” where boots means soldiers. In poetry you sometimes need a 3-syllable word like eg “carina” (keel) rather than the 2-syllable “navis” (ship).
Was held up by assuming that 18d was going to be Balloon, so took a while to get DISINTERESTED. Otherwise sailed through. Nice puzzle, tx all.
I had /ATE scrambled eggs while solving this puzzle (intended reply to RN)
DNF. All bar one done in 30 minutes, the exception being 22dn. NHO MYNA, spelt in this way (though it features as an alternative spelling in my ODE), and I did not find the clueing very revealing – perhaps I should have done. I biffed LYRA, since it is a constellation some miles above the Earth and I hoped beyond hope that it might be an alternative for the lyrebird. Agree with some of the above comments on 20ac. It was dinned into us at school that UNINTERESTED was not at all the same as DISINTERESTED. We also had figures of speech dinned into us, so OXYMORON, HYPALLAGE, SYNECDOCHE, along with several others, are all old friends, even if I don’t meet up with them very often.
FOI and COD – SPACE BAR
Thanks to vinyl and other contributors.
A very easy puzzle until I got to LOI SYNECDOCHE, where I had barely heard of the word, had no idea what the first instruction was and couldn’t think of a line in sport that fitted. Even when I looked it up I had to check the meaning from the dictionary. Disappointing, but thanks to Vinyl and setter.
Held up at the end by the easy-to-everyone-else SPACE-BAR. I ended up doing an alphabet trawl. Otherwise all pretty straightforward. Remembered to ignore accent on PASSE. 20’52” all up.