Times Cryptic 27950

74 comments on “Times Cryptic 27950”

1. I failed the NAHUATL fence by guessing the equally improbable NAHTAUL. Chambers says it is a race of people from Mexico (and a language). EXCURSUS was my LOI after trusting the wordplay despite not knowing the word. The coffee is not very well made if there are grounds in your DEMITASSE.
   1. Yes, sorry I didn’t make it clear in the blog that I found it was a race of people. What I meant was that the definition in the clue is referring to the language.
2. BTW I am guessing it was 20A and 19D where you got stuck at the end. NEGATION is pretty straightforward (19A)
   1. Not that straightforward for me, who tried to make ‘say’ the definition and ‘denial’ included in ‘state’.
   2. Wot Kevin said.
3. 19d wasn’t quite as bad as Waitangi Day the other week, but it runs it a close second as Worst Clue of the Year (so far). Needless to say I guessed wrongly – considered Nahuatl (after axolotl we had recently, also a native Mexican word?) but plumped for Nahtaul.
   Otherwise a fine puzzle, with a bit of a guess needed for both botchy and excursus. Loved the bathing machines, didn’t see how sat meant met, so thank-you for that.

   Edited at 2021-04-13 03:11 am (UTC)

   1. Well, I rated 19dn far, far worse than Waitangi Day. For one thing, the helpers there clearly showed it was some day or other. For another, the wordplay was a delight once you got there!

      Here I can’t find a redeeming feature! Or, to coin a word, harumph!

      1. I agree – how are we supposed to decide between NAHTAUL and NAHAUTL? Luckily I went for the latter but only because I liked the TL ending. And I thought it would be a bird of some sort rather than a language (because you hear its birdsong).
         1. Forgive me for sounding quite picky
            But I found NAHUATL most tricky
            I feared the thing heard
            Might be some type of bird
            It wasn’t, but I still felt a thickie
      2. “I rated 19dn far, far worse than Waitangi Day”
         Well you would say that, wouldn’t you? 🙂 I believe you live in the city with the largest population of Kiwis in the world – Sydney – so of course you’d have extensive NZ knowledge, by osmosis.
         1. I live in sunny Hampshire, but put me down with those who felt cheated today. I didn’t on Waitangi Day.
         2. Nice try, but not true. According to the ABS, there were 128K NZ-born people in NSW, not just Sydney, in June 2016. The population of Auckland is about 1.4M.

            Actually there are more Chinese-born than Kiwi-born people in NSW, especially here in Chinawood. Xie xie!

            Still, I am prepared to own up that I have visited NZ, and returned, as they say there, *inunjured*.

            Edited at 2021-04-13 08:25 pm (UTC)

         3. I just moved from Patagonia to New Zealand and had no problem with Waitangi Day, but I haven’t yet learned it’s date or what it commemorates.
   2. The field of runners for Worst Clue of the Year is pretty extensive. And we’re not even at the end of April. At this rate qualifying heats will be needed. (Mr Grumpy)
4. After a long period of inactivity, I finally had a spurt of solving in the last 5 minutes or so to get HORSEBOX, BIRDBATH, BATHING MACHINE, and most of the SW. I couldn’t remember what goes on in Badminton, but finally thought of horse racing. Luckily we had ISINGLASS recently, as I didn’t know its fishy sense; where I come from its a (dated) word for mica. I never did see the anagram in BATHING MACHINE; the habit-changing did it for me. I liked CONFETTI; isn’t that an &lit? I sympathize with Jack and Paul re NAHUATL (my LOI), but I was irritated with myself for not seeing how to arrange the anagrist until I had the checkers, since I knew the word. (Rather neatly, Guadalajara, Mexico is–I think–in the Nahuatl language area.)
5. Another NAHUATL victim with the U and T in the wrong positions for a 57 minute DNF. A pity, as I was pleased I could get some which I found quite difficult such as ISINGLASS (instant word association with “Oklahoma!” for me too) and the unknown EXCURSUS. Also missed the clever &lit for CONFETTI which I just bunged in, dismissing it as an example of one of yesterday’s chestnuts.

   Thanks to crosswords, I now remember eight Muses (though I couldn’t say what each inspires), but try as I might, I just can’t get that ninth one without looking it up.

   Thanks to Jack and setter

6. ….since I had heard of the Aztec language, and vaguely remembered it, and knew it was likely to be spoken in Guadalajara, making the clue an &lit. I did know it ended in -tl, like many Aztec words, so it wasn’t difficult to arrange the other letters.

   I also had a hard time remembering bothy and seeing negation, but otherwise I moved forward pretty briskly….for me.

7. I think 19d was probably a case of the setter running out of steam when compiling the grid, finally needing a word that fitted the N-H-A-L checkers and not wanting to change what he had already constructed to accomodate a more resonable word. Anyway, as guesswork is a regular feature of my solving experience I suspect I found this a less annoying clue than many will have.
8. NAHTAUL. Meh. Enough said.

   Commiserations to topicaltim on the Mastermind semi final, but well done on making it close. It was a great contest, especially after your storming GK round.

9. …And here beneath it is all as bad,
   For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;

   25 mins pre-brekker left a guess at Nahuatl based only on expecting it to end …atl. Terrible clue.
   Thanks J.

10. 31 minutes, held up for ages in the SW. I came here with what I thought was a stupid sequence of letters for the idiotic 19d, only to find it was right. I think it was far worse than WAITANGI, which I knew! I know the entry and exit of a Church are usually the same place, but I think the bride might be distinctly unimpressed to be showered with CONFETTI on her way in. I didn’t parse DEMITASSE either, SAT to mean ‘met’ still escaping me. And I was going quite nicely before crossing the Tamar. COD to BRAN with its nice regular pun. Thank you Jack and setter. And bad luck to Tim last night.
    1. Does the example given in my blog not work for you then? I’ve just seen that Rob (below) is also still pondering it, so you are not alone. I must say I find that a little odd although I admit it didn’t come to me immediately, but having thought of that equivalence it seemed perfectly clear.

       Edited at 2021-04-13 07:38 am (UTC)

       1. Sorry Jack. I must have missed your example, and it was the first place I went to! I’m getting old. It does make sense.
11. One of those days, flying. Knew NAHUATL, still pondering met =SAT, worked out the nho EXCURSUS.

    Are SOUR and bitter the same?

    Really liked NEAR MISS.

    12′ 36″, thanks jack and setter

    1. They are often the same at my local. Shepherd Neame ..
12. 19d is a terrible clue. Apparently in NAHUATL avocado means testicle.
    1. Well, aguacatl or something close. They grow in pairs
    2. At least the setter didn’t try an anagram with the Nahuatl word for goodbye, Ixquicha Nimitzihtaz
13. Just incase anyone misses it, there were some splendid clues in this thing, which stretched me to 23.12 after the NW corner falsely promised an easy ride. Three decent &lits (well two and NAHUATL) and 5 X-words, two of them with the X at the end.

    I can’t find it, but we had ATLATL recently (possibly in a Listener) which pushed me in the direction of the ATL ending for the weird word. But it’s potl uck for most of us.

    A shame Tim’s scorching GK round was not quite enough, but it had the winner worried Mrs Z and I send congratulations and condolences.

    1. Even though ‘Mastermind’ sadly doesn’t reach Shanghai, I would like to add my congratulations. What were Tim’s specialist subjects, pray?

       1. In the semi final, R.E.M., a popular music combo apparently.

14. I sailed through this an was really enjoyig life when I met 22 ac RAGTAG and casually stuck it in at 20ac – that locked me off from 15dn and and the dreaded 19dn NAHAUTL which I had an inkling of but I was eternally doomed! Nothing worked! (BOTCHY where did that come from? I never saw it – as it was ticked off!)

    FOI 5ac BIRDBATH – however, swifts use sand to clean up and not the implied water! So there! Mr. Clever Dick Setter! Pip?

    (LOI) 18dn EXCURSUS not counting RAG TAG and BOBTAIL (as seen on TV)

    COD 5dn BATHING MACHINES – as used by Jonathan Swift. He mentioned one at Worthing in his poem “The Ladies Dressing Room”- 1732

    WOD 11ac CONFETTI – which is what 27950 has become!

15. Yep, another 19d failure. Just throw the letters up into the air and where they land, bung ‘em in. Which I did, wrongly. I was not 1ac. BOTCHY was POI, as I had forgotten bothy, but it came back finally. Otherwise lots of nice misdirection and some good clues. I liked DRACULA, NEAR MISS and HORSEBOX. Thanks Jack as ever.
16. 17.50 but a DNF. Undone by 19 dn though I did work out it was an anagram of a haunt and l.

    I’m with the setter on that subject. I don’t doubt some on here will speak fluent nahuatl, personally speaking I only get close after at least two bottles of vino- but really?

    Spoilt what was otherwise a really good puzzle.

17. I think that I may have a shrewd idea who set this puzzle.
    The obscurity at 19d has really dampened my spirits this morning.
18. DNF… 13:02 but with the wrongly guessed NAHTAUL (like some others, I see). Later I realised a lot of Mexican words end in TL… but too late. I liked BIRDBATH and CONFETTI, but that clue spoiled it for me.

    Edited at 2021-04-13 08:19 am (UTC)

19. …cheated with both EXCURSUS and NAHUATL which are both new to me.
20. Perhaps doing (too) many advanced cryptics does help after all: familiar with NAHUATL and ISINGLASS, but confess to not knowing EXCURSUS, thankfully clued kindly. Liked the CONFETTI & Lit., not so sure about how well the BATHING MACHINES works … (but then you don’t see many of them these days). Some crackers in amongst it all, and many a slippery def brought multiple smiles, so thanks to setter and congrats to blogger for untangling it all.
21. 32m but looked up 19d as whatever I put in would have been a mere guess. Enjoyed many of the other clues, though had a doubt about met/sat and pole/bar — I can’t imagine a bar vaulter as the same as a pole vaulter, but probably just me. Thank you, Jack and setter.
22. I agree with all those who criticise the NAH… clue because it’s an obscure word clued by an anagram. But I’ve discovered that a nice little wrinkle, as Captain Mainwaring says, is: if you know more or less what the letters are and take a guess at the answer, then google it, Google will correct you if they are in the wrong order and help you to get the right order.

    The setter was sensible with the wordplay for EXCURSUS but not with that for 19dn.

    Edited at 2021-04-13 09:59 am (UTC)

23. A good puzzle, spoiled for me by the obscurity at 19d. I zipped through the puzzle until I reached the SW and then the teeth extraction began. On finally being left with 19d I guessed NAHTAUL and looked it up to see if it existed and, as wilransome notes, was corrected to the unlikely looking NAHUATL. 24:40 with a look-up. Thanks Jack.
24. I thought this was a marvellous puzzle (BIRDBATH, CONFETTI, BATHING MACHINES – where I hadn’t spotted the &lit nature until coming here)… until getting to the hideous clueing of an obscure foreign word with an anagram. NAHTAUL for me as well, not long after dredging bothy from the memory banks. 7m 58s with that error.

25. Very much enjoyed BIRDBATH, HORSEBOX and BATHING MACHINES. Failed on NAHUATL.

    Thank you, jackkt and the setter.

26. I didn’t mind Nahuatl. I’d vaguely heard of it and once I could see it was an anagram I could work it out. Confetti gets my cluse of the day.
27. I wish there was a way of knowing there’s a clue like that in a puzzle before you start. I’d have saved ten minutes of my day and done the Guardian instead.
    1. I had a rare dip into the Guardian today and found it even more frustrating, with the impossible ‘Brainbox outspoken in row (5)’ & S?U?L to fill.
       1. Hmm. I’d say the answer has to be SCULL but it’s not 100% clear.
          1. I honestly can’t remember. It was whichever one I didn’t put, alas.
             1. I solve the Graun on paper so when I get to it my answer will be correct 😉
          2. Lots of comments to that effect in the Grauniad blog, but to me only one answer works. It’s clearly the brain box which is outspoken, so you’re after a homophone of that, surely.
             1. You can read it the other way round, so the clue is saying something like ‘a word for a brainbox which is voiced when you say a word for row’. I agree though that this is a much less natural reading so I was pretty sure SCULL must be the answer.

                Edited at 2021-04-13 04:55 pm (UTC)

28. Fortunately I decided that NAHUATL looked marginally more Central-American-Y than other possibilities but I agree that’s it’s a poor clue.

    Just adding to last week’s discussion on BIFFING, and finding an equivalent for getting an answer based solely on checkers, I can offer…

    CLOUTING, which sort of maintains the spirit of biffing (Checking Letters Only Used There).

    Or “I had to bifocal that one” Bunged In From Only Checking Letters.

    Fingers Crossed, Used Checkers, maybe not so much.

29. Nothing to add to the general grousing about NAHUATL which, for me and I imagine for most solvers, reduced an otherwise good crossword to a pointless guessing game.
30. I suppose it’s cheating to use an anagram solver, but I tried it on ‘ahauntl’ and still didn’t get Nahuatl! But then I started Googling various permutations, and when I entered the letters ‘nah…’ Nahuatl came up in the autocomplete suggestions.
31. I knew NAHUATL, but at the last minute looked at EXCURSUS and said “that’s not correct, it’s EXCURSES, isn’t it?” and changed it without looking at the wordplay. Mind you I did better than Monday where I solved the puzzle after a pretty good session of day-drinking and managed 11 errors.
32. Glad to have finished at all as my computer froze for a few minutes, mid-puzzle. I got lucky with Nahuatl but agree, again, with jackkt about the unfairness of anagrams for obscure words. Still, 20’s prompted me to dig out my Bothy Band CD, so all is forgiven.

    Thanks to Jackkt and setter.

33. This started so well in the NW followed by an enjoyable increase in difficulty. This was a good puzzle. Until I reached that one. And the other one, EXCURSUS. I looked both up, before finishing in 45:25
34. Stormed through the top half and then slowed down dramatically through the bottom half until, like Jack, I was left with 19ac and 19dn.
    Eventually saw “Negation” — closed my eyes for 5 minutes and decided it must be “Nahuatl”.
    I agree that “possibly” is not a great anagrind, but I’m much happier than all those who plumped for “Nahtaul”!
    I thought it might be an &lit with “Nahuatl” being an Aztec spirit!

    Edited at 2021-04-13 02:45 pm (UTC)

35. I was very pleased to get NHO EXCURSUS and the clever but difficult BOTCHY. ISINGLASS another unknown solved.
    Like so many it came down to 19d for me: I started with NAHTUAL; did not look right so changed it to NUHTAAL. A very annoying clue.
    BIRDBATH was my favourite.
    David
36. Frustrated with myself after mistyping ISONGLASS which left me with an impossible finish. And I knew NAHUATL perfectly well, so at least for me it wasn’t an unknown clued by an anagram.
    I had to trust in BOTCHY because it fitted the cryptic. Looked very unlikely otherwise.
37. ….NAHUATL as the language of the Aztecs, but assumed it was dead, like Latin. What I hadn’t heard of were BOTCHY and EXCURSUS.

    I agree with Bolton Wanderer regarding CONFETTI. Surely “at exit from” would have been better ? I only parsed DEMITASSE afterwards.

    I didn’t really enjoy this puzzle, and my mood wasn’t helped by putting “inteemix” into my online transcription. At least I was doing something else as the clock ticked up to my paper finish time.

    FOI AMUSED
    LOI EXCURSUS
    COD BARBARIC
    TIME 9:15

    1. I agree with Bolton Wanderer regarding CONFETTI. Surely “at exit from”

       But that wouldn’t give you the required letter C…

       1. Fair point !
38. I thought this a really good puzzle .. some fine surfaces and neat clueing. Unlike Waitangigate, I much preferred 19dn. By an amazing coincidence, I knew the word
39. I didn’t hate That Clue, but I made heavy weather of finishing the puzzle thanks to my own combination of wrong thinking around it (I knew this was the language which gave us avocado – see above – and that it ended in -TL, but then put in NAUHATL, which meant I’d given myself a bum steer when it came to getting BOTCHY). Unravelled it all in the end.
40. A quick finish on the quick cryptic and the necessity to sit at the kitchen table by the window watching for a delivery meant I had a go at this. I really enjoyed it, I loved the way it floated around inside my head with answers coming from who knows where.

    The 15 x 15 always takes me a long time so I don’t attempt them every day. This was going really well, I had done about half when I was interrupted by the delivery. The other half, particularly the southwest, took much longer, but I got there in the end – almost. I had to look up Nahuatl in the concise OED. But for this puzzle I wouldn’t have needed to. Thanks, Jack, and setter. GW.

41. 24.41. I struggled to get Nahuatl but recognised it when it arrived. I didn’t struggle to get excursus but didn’t recognise it when it arrived. Couldn’t find the equivalence between sat and met when solving demitasse but the rest seemed clear. Spent too long thinking of S and N for poles rather than bar bar in barbaric. I liked bathing machines and birdbath. A satisfying puzzle with some nice touches.
42. Having only found time for the crossword late in the day, I’m commenting anyway as I’m rather pleased with myself. Having never heard of nahuatl, I still rather liked it as a clue with a reasonably obvious anagram and a large hint from guadalajara that we were dealing with something Mexican which gave a likely atl ending.
    Hadn’t heard of isinglass but it was clearly clued.
    Enjoyed this and feel encouraged by it.
    Thanks to the setter for an interesting puzzle and to jackkt for explaining the bits I couldn’t work out (such as sat).
43. It’s heard in prime locations of Ana’s house party in León
    1. Brilliant!

       (except that gives NAHUATLO)

44. I enjoyed this one, but DNF’ed thanks to 19d. I guessed it was an anagram and referred to some obscure Mexican language, but I’ve not heard NAHUATL before and I don’t allow myself to look anything up. I suppose I should have randomly arranged the letters I had left and might well have got it right, but instead I just sulked. It was a long time too before I decided that BARBARIC must be the answer to 15d. “Wicked” as a synonym for “barbaric”? I don’t think so – it’s not even close; “cruel” or “savage” would have been acceptable and would have worked just as well in the clue.

    Edited at 2021-04-13 11:05 pm (UTC)

45. I was quite enjoying this up until my last pair — the unknown Excursus and Nahuatl. Left a bit of a sour taste. Invariant
46. I don’t care about 19d NAH-whatsit because apart from that – which is plainly beyond even specialist knowledge – I finished this in about 40 minutes and am well chuffed. Very enjoyable with a couple of clues that made me smile.
47. NAHAUTL gave me slight pause, even though the word was not unknown. I’m sanguine, of course, because I got it, but if one only sees that it’s an anagram, remembers (as I did) or guesses (as some have, from other words from those parts) that the T goes before the L, which the wordplay places at the end, and if you have the crossing letters, then you’ll have N_H_UTL and there are only two letters left… which are identical!
    So not that hard, given those conditions.
    If you don’t know the word, of course, it’s not going to be one of your first answers! I vaguely knew it, but it was still my POI.
    LOI was BOTCHY, guessing at BOTHY.

Comments are closed.