The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29348.
I think this may be a Marmite puzzle, with the interlocked cross-references which some find annoying or worse, and frequent use of what might be described as approximate homophones – I have followed here the use of the term “aural wordplay”; I find them hilarious, but others may not agree. Even if you are on the nay side, I hope you see the skill with which the various cheeses are introduced. As often with Paul’s puzzles, I found the clues impenetrable at first glance, but very satisfying as they gradually revealed themselves. With Monday’s Picaron, the Guardian is on a laugh-out-loud roll.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | ON AVERAGE |
Figure holding publication on prayer – usually about that (2,7)
|
| An envelope (‘holding’) of AVE (Maria, ‘prayer’) plus RAG (‘publication’) in ONE (‘figure’). | ||
| 10 | SMILE |
Show teeth, perhaps, first one extracted in a figure of speech (5)
|
| A subtraction: S[i]MILE (‘a figure of speech’) minus the first I (‘first one extracted’). | ||
| 11 | ENTITLE |
Body cut, third of league qualify (7)
|
| A charade of ENTIT[y] (‘body’) minus its last letter (‘cut’) plus LE (one ‘third of LEague’). | ||
| 12 | STAUNCH |
25 stem (7)
|
| Double definition, the second being an alternative to stanch. | ||
| 13 | OTTER |
Animal, 19 with 22 down? (5)
|
| Ouch! ’22 down’ is RICK, giving an aural wordplay on RICOTTA (the answer to ’19’ is SAY CHEESE) | ||
| 14 | PARAGRAPH |
Some words, on leaving model, hit hard (9)
|
| A charade of PARAG[on] (‘model’) minus ON (‘on leaving’) plus RAP (‘hit’) plus H (‘hard’). Excellent clue. | ||
| 16 | RUMPELSTILTSKIN |
Wicked spinner with Kent is still upset by cut (15)
|
| A charade of RUMP (‘cut’ of beef, say) plus ELSTILTSKIN, an anagram (‘upset’) of ‘Kent is still’. In the fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold for a maiden, and demands her firstborn in payment. | ||
| 19 | SAY CHEESE |
10 from our gigolo only beginning to do this? (3,6)
|
| I have an awful feeling that the wordplay is ‘from our’ G (‘gigolo only beginning’ – giving a soft G) – hence fromage, near enough. | ||
| 21 | FILLY |
Nag, 19 with 4? (5)
|
| Another outrageous aural wordplay on CAERPHILLY (the answer to ‘4’ is CARE and to ’19’, SAY CHEESE). | ||
| 22 | RUSTLER |
Saint imprisoned by king, say, one taking stock (7)
|
| An envelope (‘imprisoned by’) of ST (‘saint’) in RULER (‘king, say’), the ‘stock’ being cattle. | ||
| 23 | GEORGIA |
Birthplace of assassinated King, republic (7)
|
| Double definition, the first being a reference to Martin Luther King Jr. and his birthplace in Atlanta. | ||
| 24 | CLASS |
Polish collection (5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 25 | STEADFAST |
True – ’s very quick, by the sound of it? (9)
|
| An aural wordplay on ‘S DEAD FAST. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FORECOURTS |
Reportedly, a gallon where cars stop for petrol? (10)
|
| An aural wordplay of FOUR QUARTS (‘a gallon’). | ||
| 2 | FACTOTUM |
Particular corporation after old odd-jobber (8)
|
| A charade of FACT (‘particular’) plus O (‘old’) plus TUM (stomach, ‘corporation’). As in Largo al. | ||
| 3 | FETTER |
19 for restraint (6)
|
| An aural wordplay of FETA (the answer to ’19’ is SAY CHEESE). | ||
| 4 | CARE |
Tesla, say, on electronic charge (4)
|
| A charade of CAR (‘Tesla, say’) plus E (‘electronic’). This blog is in my care/charge. | ||
| 5 | TEA SERVICE |
Tough one overcoming evil, fragile thing? (3,7)
|
| A charade of TEASER (‘tough one’ like this puzzle) plus VICE (‘evil’), with a somewhat loose definition. | ||
| 6 | ESCARGOT |
Key dialect for slow mover (8)
|
| A charade of ESC (‘key’ on a computer keyboard) plus ARGOT (‘dialect’). | ||
| 7 | VIENNA |
Mathematician touring Hanoi finally, a capital city (6)
|
| A charade of VIENN, an envelope (‘touring’) of I (‘HanoI finally’) in VENN (John, ‘mathematician’ who introduced Venn diagrams); plus ‘a’. | ||
| 8 | YEAH |
Certainly 19 with 23 down? (4)
|
| An aural wordplay of GRUYÈRE – ’23 down’ is GREW, we have YEAH here, and ’19’ is SAY CHEESE. | ||
| 14 | PASTEURISE |
Disinfect food with a tissue, pre-cooked (10)
|
| An anagram (-‘cooked’) of ‘a tissue pre’-. | ||
| 15 | HAN DYNASTY |
Very old house nearby, squalid (3,7)
|
| A charade of HANDY (‘nearby’) plus NASTY (‘squalid’). | ||
| 17 | ECHOLESS |
Gaps in fences regularly seen without reflection? (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of HOLES (‘gaps’) in ECS (‘fEnCeS regularly’) | ||
| 18 | KILOGRAM |
Metric unit I record in score that’s backed up (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of I LOG (‘I record’) in KRAM, a reversal (‘backed up’) of MARK (‘score’). | ||
| 20 | YES-MAN |
Unknown tag lifted, holding lead on springer spaniel (3-3)
|
| An envelope (‘holding’) of S (‘lead on Springer’) in YEMAN, a reversal (‘lifted’ in a down light) of NAME (‘tag’) plus Y (mathematical ‘unknown’). | ||
| 21 | FJORDS |
Inlets where jay enters shallow waters (6)
|
| An envelope (‘where … enters’) of J (‘jay’) in FORDS (‘shallow waters’). | ||
| 22 | RICK |
Wrench in heap? (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 23 | GREW |
Rose coming up in flower garden (4)
|
| A hidden (‘in’) reversed (‘coming up’ in a down light) in ‘floWER Garden’. |
[I had mentioned a few days ago that I was going to calculate the frequency with which crossword answers would repeat in consecutive puzzles (e.g. FLAGRANT recently). Well I did, and discovered something interesting. To be clear, I did not look at clues or intermediate concepts (e.g DR NO this week), and only looked at weekday Cryptics.
I’ll spare you the maths, but I found using three different models that you should expect to see an answer occur in consecutive regular Cryptics once every 2 months, on average. This doesn’t seem too unreasonable. I then went and looked at how often there were such repeats, over the last 24 years. It turns out the repeats occurred once every 5 months, on average. So were my sums wrong? No, I don’t think so. What I think was happening was that the editor was spotting the repeats in previously earmarked puzzles and shuffling them around, so that consecutive repeats wouldn’t happen so much. Well, some of us wondered what the editor actually did; now we know!]
Cheesy puns. I am surprised Paul didn’t use Past Your Eyes for the cheese connected 14d.
I didn’t get 19 until very late in the night.
Thanks, Paul, much appreciated; and PeterO for some of the cheeses
And so to bed, again
Thanks, PeterO. I got all the answers while completely missing the cheesy puns. They were bad even by Paul’s standards, though very clever when you explained them.
As for this puzzle, I agree with PeterO – laugh out loud, and the “homophones” with Paul are to be treated as only nearly approximately sort-of similar in sound.
HANDY NASTY was a good spot.
My main difficulty was trying to remember if it was EL or LE in the long one (before ECHOLESS came in).
I couldn’t parse SAY CHEESE but I’m sure you’re right PeterO with your parsing. I wondered whether Fromage needed a foreign indicator but “Fromage Frais” is in Chambers.
My only other question mark was the (very) stretchy definition for TEA SERVICE, one among thousands of fragile things.
Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed the cheesy puns. 🙂
Dr.WhatsOn@4
As for this puzzle, I agree with PeterO – laugh out loud, and the “homophones” with Paul are to be treated as only nearly approximately sort-of similar in sound. 🙂
Fully agree. It was fun. Aural wordplay: all right. we can use that phrase.
SAY CHEESE
I could guess FROMAGE was the cheese in Paul’s mind but searched for a pronunciation (an alternative) somewhat close to ‘from our g’. Nearly, approximately, loosely, sorta, kinda…FROMAGE sounds like from our g!!! That said, I liked it (some cruciverbal equivalent of Stockholm syndrome?).
TEA SERVICE
I liked PeterO’s comment describing ‘fragile things’ as ‘a somewhat loose definition’ more than I liked the def itself.
Top faves: OTTER, PARAGRAPH, FORECOURTS, HAN DYNASTY and ECHOLESS (with all those gaps, the fences won’t echo for sure).
Thanks Paul for the great puzzle. Thanks PeterO for the exceptional blog!
A wicked romp from Paul, grew yeah indeed! and thanks Peter, I needed you for fromage. 11ac’s def and answer need different prepositions, ‘for’ and ‘to’, a mere quiblettino. Never heard quarts said like courts tho.
Worse than weevils
Worse than warts
Worse than corns to bear
Worse than having several quarts
Of treacle in your hair.
N. Lindsay (approx).
Cheesy aural wordplay is a great treatment for my insomnia! Omitted by Paul but perhaps worth consideration are ROCK 4, LESS STIR and STEEL TUN.
Yes, definitely a bit of a chequered experience with this Paul offering this morning. A bit of a perhaps or maybe with both CLASS and RICK. And I’m one of those people who struggle to bare my teeth when I SMILE. Struggled to eventually get the clever ECHOLESS. And the last two in were HAN DYNASTY and FILLY amongst the several soundslike Paulisms. Which for me do bring smiles rather than grimaces. The only one I couldn’t parse, however, was GEORGIA. Had lots of fun with this…
grantinfreo@7
ENTITLE
11ac’s def and answer need different prepositions, ‘for’ and ‘to’…
I didn’t get you.
ON AVERAGE
Def: Usually ‘about that’? What is the ‘about that’ for?
Does ‘about that’ also mean ON AVERAGE in a way?
Naughty Paul! Rattling the cages of the homophone police!
I loved it.
Thanks both.
Struggled with this and abandoned it with more than a quarter of the the grid unsolved…I see now it was all quite clever, but the homophones would have been beyond me, unfortunately.
To Paul and PeterO, thank you both
Theme helped me a bit once I solved/guessed SAY CHEESE = smile but I could not parse it. I also could not parse 8d and 21ac although Philadelphia/Philly cheese occurred to me. I did not make the leap to Caerphilly which I only know from Harry Potter as a Quidditch team – the Caerphilly Catapults. But maybe I saw it on some train station departure boards in the UK too.
Favourite: ESCARGOT.
New for me: John Venn (1834–1923), English logician (for 7d).
Thanks, both.
There were quite a few comments about FORECOURTS on the Guardian blog but I can’t see or hear what the problem is. Is it dialect? It seems to me that the rhotics are there for those who say them, and not there for those who don’t. fore and four and courts and quarts are true homophones for me.
As for the other ‘aural puns’. I thought they were clever, funny even.
grantinfreo @7: How would you expect quarts to be pronounced?
Thanks for explaining 19a, I did it get this at all.
FORECOURTS I didn’t have a problem with, when I had enough crossers to see it. Couldn’t parse SAY CHEESE, which went in very late, but I did see CARE FILLY, forgot to go back and check RICK OTTER, which I’d got earlier, sort of saw GREW YEAH to get YEAH, my LOI.
Another Paul that looked impossible but came together once I got a foothold, in the SE corner, starting from PASTEURISE, so I’m glad it wasn’t clued as past your eyes.
Thank you to Paul and PeterO.
Sheesh, as Yank might say. Forecourts? Steadfast? Really? And since when did French words go unclued as such?
pdm@15
FORECOURTS
I liked it a lot. There may be a minor difference in pronunciation between quarts and COURTS. Nothing worth mentioning for our purposes (we have seen fromage and more!).
grantinfreo@7
ENTITLE
You meant ‘ENTITLE to’ vs ‘qualify for’. Right?
As a transitive verb,
ENTITLE means (Collins)
to give (a person) the right to do or have something; qualify; allow
No prepositions. No problems.
I like Paul’s ‘puns’ though one or two were more approximate than usual – for me, especially fromage and FORECOURTS – I’m definitely with ginf@7 there. (I pronounce quarts as ‘kworts’ and courts as ‘koarts’). And I agree with PeterO that Paul puzzles sometimes look impossible at first, but are generally solvable with patience and lateral thinking.
Thanks both.
I made the first comment on the G thread with ‘hilarious homophones’ as mentioned by Peter and it still sums it up for me. RUMPLESTILTSKIN and HAN DYNASTY were superb. Late night laughs all round.
DrW @1: the third time I’ve seen TEASER very recently and I mentioned Dr No in the blog yesterday. Thanks for your clever research.
Ta Paul & PeterO.
Let’s just say I love Marmite so this was right up my street. Top ticks for all the cheeses. I did have visions of steam coming out of Muffin’s ears 🙂
Cheers P&P
And I might just start every day with this ear-worm: Louis Prima’s Just a GIGOLO
Bodycheetah @23: SAY CHEESE Muffin (very tasty) 😉
Justigator@16, like kworts, whereas courts is like korts, with no w.
KVa@10. This will qualify me for. This will entitle me to.
I spose you could say This will qualify me to, but I don’t like it much …
Outrageous! I had to laugh.
As Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have remarked when asked his opinion of a recently published book: ‘Those that like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like’. I didn’t, I’m afraid – too much clue interlinking for my taste, and Paul’s over-fondness for increasingly tenuous ‘aural wordplay’ is now producing sighs and shrugs rather than smiles or even groans. There are also some extremely vague definitions here (a bone china TEA SERVICE is not particularly fragile). Bring back the smut, I say 🙂
Cleverly put together though, and RUMPELSTILTSKIN and HAN DYNASTY are superb clues.
Thanks nevertheless to JH and to PeterO
Tough. With such a large collection of “aural wordplays” it would be amazing if all of them worked for everybody – the ones that didn’t for me were courts/quarts and steadfast/s’deadfast. But that isn’t the point: they are not supposed to be perfect, just fun. I found this a particularly frustrating example of Paul’s cross-reference style, and did eventually give up and reveal SAY CHEESE, but the only real complaint I have is the very vague definition for TEA SERVICE. HANDY NASTY (visual rather than aural wordplay) made me laugh.
grantinfreo@26: agreed about courts/quarts: surprised to find myself apparently in a minority.
What an absolute treat for this cheese lover. Thanks PeterO for parsing a few I failed to. Great start to the day, laughing quite so much, so thanks to Paul for bringing cheer.
KVa@20, I like the sentence test, ie see if I can substitute ’em in a sentence …
Could someone please explain how 20d yes-man = spaniel?
BaldyB @34: spaniel is another word for toady, sycophant, boot-licker etc.
PeterO, slight typo in your STAUNCH explanation.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
I can’t complain about the cheese “aural wordplays” as I didn’t even notice them – admittedly that left me puzzled on several parsings. SAY CHEESE was next to last in, in fact.
However COURTS sounds like “quarts”? Surely not! How sloppy is somepeople’s enunciation?
Then there was the cheese factory that exploded…..they’re still picking up debris
(Say it fast)
This was the Paul I used like(I don’t like marmite or its Oz equivalent)
Fourquartz reminded me of the Ronnie’s
Great blog too, Peter
And does cheese improve from age(Ill get me coat )
Muffin@36 they sound exactly the same if you’re from Sarfend-or Sarf Lonnon esp if you didnt get into RADA
Panthes@37: Groan! Come on, bear it (also said fast).
My SO and I refer to a brand of cream cheese as Philly. Add a delphinium and there’s another clue for 21a.
Thank you, Paul, for this hilarious cheeky cheesy puzzle, and PeterO for the blog. It was in disbelief that I finally managed to parse 19ac.
And all without small horses in masks or Cypriot cheeses greeting themselves in the mirror! Spent too long wondering how 4 down could approximate to Delphia, and assuming FORECOURTS was going to end in an equally dodgy P(O)INTS.
Some of the recent comments show that Paul has in fact been remarkably restrained in his cheesy puns, and has chosen them very caerphilly.
Full marks to Paul for being innovative. And I loved TEA-SERVICE (third use of teaser in this sense in last week should interest Dr.What’sOn @1). But I found it a hard grind. I think probably because the almost-near-homophone clues were so often without supporting wordplay (necessarily – even Paul might frown at duplicated wordplay, though I know some as wouldn’t). And it doesn’t help being a French-speaker… I always think apologies for OTTER etc are due to those who pronounce the letter R, unlike us in the degenerate E or SE of England. Little note about SPANIEL: there is a wonderful set of stories about such people (‘nodders’) in Hollywood by P.G.Wodehouse in one of the Mulliner books. Quite anticipates those beautiful creations in Reginald Perrin and W1A.
copster @38… I couldn’t resist.
gladys @43, 🙂
My unblasphemous !rish uncle: “Cheese is priced! … (at one and four pence a pound today)”
Frasier Crane: “I just hate to see you like this. I Camembert it!”
Very clever.
Hated it.
‘Nuff said.
RUMPELSTILTONSKIN has already had two outings in March:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2024/03/09/independent-11673-by-knut/ and https://www.fifteensquared.net/2024/03/11/independent-11674-by-twin/
This makes 3 times in four weeks.
[FrankieG @48
I saw what you did there 🙂 ]
I never expect a Paul creation to be easy. Some of the little beggars take me days and if I still haven’t completed one after a week, then I stop. Life’s just too short.
At least I managed to finish this one before lunch, which I count as a resounding success.
As always with Paul, most were guess-first, parse-second, and some were only half-parsed. So a hugely grateful virtual hug to PeterO for the help finishing ENTITLE & FACTOTUM.
As for the cheesy-puns: they sailed right over my head and were largely guesses.
(There really aren’t that many 5-letter animals beginning with O, nor 5-letter horses beginning with F.)
I’m another who pronounces quarts as “kworts”, but I guessed the clue from the FORE part & the looseness didn’t bother me. Aural wordplay is fine by me – everyone pronounces stuff differently anyway.
The interlinked aspect is harder to bear. Needing answer A to solve clue B, answer C to solve clue D, and answer D to solve clue A is always a pain.
As are loose definitions. TEA SERVICE as “fragile thing” and PARAGRAPH as “some words”? Hmmm….
But still, I got there. For once, Paul didn’t defeat me. Heh-heh!
Thank you Paul for the challenge, and a 21-gun salute to PeterO for untangling things.
I’m one of those who find cross-reference clues a chore so this elicited a groan on first pass. Fortunately all the crossers for 19a were in place for the solution to leap out. (The parsing took a whole lot longer!) All the rest fell into place relatively quickly.
Kicking myself for not parsing GEORGIA.
Thanks for the explanation of that and the blog PeterO.
Very unfriendly for speakers of rhotic dialects. To me, “our” ≠ A; “yeah” ≠ YÈRE; OTTER ≠ otta; FETTER ≠ feta. I was trying to think of a cheese called something like Otterick. The only one of those that I could parse, with a groan, was FETTER.
And I agree with muffin that courts is not a homophone of quarts. I was proud to have gotten FORECOURTS right away despite that and despite the word being unknown this side the Atlantic, at least as having anything to do with gas/petrol stations.
I have come across British “poodle” = sycophant, but not “spaniel”.
If you’re Welsh speaking you would call it cayerfili, more or less, but if you’re English speaking from Cardiff, you would say carefili.
FORECOURTS was my first one in, even though I say KW for qu. Near enough for jazz as the uninitiated used to say
Very slow going at first, and I had no hope of parsing SAY CHEESE. But once the punning theme started to emerge it brought lots of smiles. Thanks to Paul and PeterO.
What’s the best cheese for enticing a bear out of its cave?
Thanks PeterO.
We on team brooks loathe marmite 😉
I do love a Paul puzzle! This had a higher than average groan quota.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Never have I heard anyone pronounce ‘quarts’ as in 1d. I’m reminded (though whether it’s a fair comparison is another matter) of one of the panellists on a UK satirical news programme who pronounced ‘questionnaire’ as ‘kestionnaire’, and got quite a ribbing from the other guests and studio audience…
A couple I couldn’t parse – even a lover of aural wordplay (thank you) like me failed with SAY CHEESE, and like Steve @51 I am annoyed with myself for not getting GEORGIA (though it won’t remain on my mind)(see what I did there?).
I think almost as enjoyable as the puzzle itself was the thought of members of the homophone police gradually turning puce at the thought of RICKOTTER, CAREFILLY, FETTER, GREWYEAH, to say nothing of FOURQUARTS.
Thank you Paul for the fun and PeterO for the explanations
Nobel laureates would agree that some of this aural wordplay is a Linus 🙂
Komornik@44 Yes I noticed that one. If you’re going to count parts of words, inflections, nearby but not adjacent days, etc, the frequencies are going to go way up.
Thanks to Paul for a real work out today which although not that enjoyable to do was satisfying to finish.
A very slow start followed by some inspired guessing helped by a number of the crossers.
Too many clever favourites to list.
Thanks also to PeterO for the blog.
Well, it’s the correct day to bring 23 across to mind, as everyone who was listening to U2 in 1984 knows. Whether it’s the appropriate place, is another question entirely.
Grantinfreo @26 if quarts is pronounced kworts because qualify is pronounced kwolify then quarter would have to be pronounced kworter. I’ve never heard that.
Vinny @52: from Midsummer Night’s Dream, act 2, scene 1 (Helena, to Demetrius):
Use me but as your spaniel—spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me. Only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
I agree entirely that Paul’s ongoing warfare with the letter R got in the way of the enjoyment here. But I’ve long ago stopped complaining about that. It’s not a Paul puzzle without a non-rhotic homophone, and it’s not a Paul puzzle without a cross-referenced clue. So this one was….unambiguously authored by Mr. Halpern.
Ravenrider @62: ever crossed the Atlantic?
[I’m sure we had a Chem text by Linus P in matric year,, Gervase@58. Can’t think of a cheese to go with it 🙂 ]
Ravenrider @62
Where do you live? I’ve never heard “quarter” pronounced any way other than “kworter”!
Yep, quarter, like kworter, is all I’ve everheard, Ravenrider@62, what else could it be! And snap muffin!
Less flippantly, down in New Orleans, the old-town area is called the French Quarter, or just the Quarter to locals. They do have a broadly non-rhotic accent, so that’s drawled as something like “the Kwatah.” But the basic 25-cent coin (the smallest unit of currency that still counts as real money) is pronounced, everywhere in the US, “a kworter.”
Very naughty, in an Araucarian sort of way. Loved it.
Afraid I really disliked this one – am I a member of the “homophone police”? If so I only discovered that today. Normally I look forward to Paul’s crosswords, really liking his clueing and penchant for cross-referencing, but every one of today’s homophones was just plain wrong, with the arguable exception of RICK-OTTER. So we had the simply ridiculous FORECOURTS and STEADFAST (thanks for the help on parsing that one by the way, I needed it, the homophone was so bad), the sloppy/lazy FETTER and (my pet hate today) CARE-FILLY. You can pronounce that as the Welsh do, or as the English do, but neither is even close to that homophone. Ugh!
Thank you to Paul and PeterO – whose excellent blog I really needed!
Apart from FOURQUARTS, I thought the examples of ‘aural wordplay’ were fine and amusing, despite being far away from my own accent.
As Gladys@30 says, “they are not supposed to be perfect, just fun.”
And as Wellbeck@50 says, “everyone pronounces stuff differently anyway.”
However, with GREW YEAH, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this:
“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”
(The inimitable PG Wodehouse, of course!)
Ravenrider@63 – you’ve never heard “quarter” pronounced “kworter”? That’s the only way I’ve ever heard it pronounced.
I’m with Neil@57 in enjoying the huffing of the homophone police almost as much as the homophones themselves, and today has been a joy on both counts. It’s particularly fun to see the number of people who cannot recognise that inserting a w after qu (quwarts; quwarters) is a regional variation (/affectation) and sounds as ridiculous to some of us as we clearly do to them.
How does the wordplay work for SAY CHEESE? I get that it’s supposed
I’m with ginf@7 on courts/quarts.
paddymelon@15 rhoticism doesn’t come into the homophone pairs you mention, since R is present in both the written and the “spoken” versions four/fore and courts/quarts. (Unlike, say “pour” and “paw,” where it’s present in one word but not the other, so the homophone only works if you don’t pronounce the R.) So “four” and “fore” work for rhotic me, but “quarts” and “courts” don’t because of the W sound in “quarts.”
Justigator@16 I for one pronounce “quarts” as “kwartz” and the w sound isn’t in “courts.” And nobody that I know of calls gas stations FORECOURTS this side the Atlantic, so that clue was impenetrable.
Thanks to Paul for the fun and PeterO for help when I desperately needed it.
HoagyM @71 et al (not Largo)
I feel that you protest too much. I think many people would have to pronounce STEADFAST and ‘S DEAD FAST very caerfilly (sorry) to distinguish them (and that would preclude the use of ‘S). As for the cheese, my ear says that the English pronunciation is much nearer to Paul’s interpretation than my pun, certainly not “not even close”.
Without giving away too much, the blog might have been titled “Wot no Stinking Bishop?”.
Thank you Paul for the emmental work out, and PeterO for blog & parsing 19.
The aural wordplay was more than gouda nough for me.
PARAGRAPH is a gem.
Loved it except for FORECOURTS which is awful…
I went the easy way to 21ac for some reason it screamed Philadelphia (the cream cheese ) at me, always referred to as Philly.
Paul is getting worse with his homophones! After two eggs, whale meat again et al makes you wonder what’s coming next! Still great fun Mr H
Ee damn that was tricky. Was tempted to junk it but churned away in my cottage and got through. Needed help parsing 19A but otherwise being familiar with Paul’s oeuvre I recognised the “aural wordplay”. Don’t think it matters what one’s own pronunciation might be, it’s enough to know that many people might pronounce a phrase (approximately!) as Paul suggests.
Thanks PeterO & Paul.
Absolutely no idea about this.
Thanks both.
Thanks for the blog , a crossword designed just to annoy me. The fifth theme in six days, clue numbers all over the place, lets not bother writing proper clues with a real definition and clever wordplay , just find a word that vaguely sounds like another word. Time for Paul to be given the wordsearch instead.
Can we please stop disparaging references to ‘homophone police’. I suspect most of the scoffers are non rhotic speakers with accents close to modern RP. Don’t be so linguistically imperialist! Personally, I don’t mind if the sound correspondence isn’t exact, but there has to be more to the wordplay to make it what I would consider a good clue (‘Yul never wore cologne’ is clever).
Many people dislike Spooner clues, often because the words in the clue and the transmuted version are not both valid and current phrases. That’s what I found unsatisfying about many of the examples in this puzzle: ‘care filly’ and ‘grew yeah’ are utterly meaningless. This I would consider to be more ‘schoolboy humour’ than any number of references to excretion, underwear or anatomical features!
Well Ravenrider. Like others, I’m itching to know where in the world “quarter” is pronounced without a “w” sound. Can you please enlighten us?
[I’ve been thinking hard, but still the only “qu” word I can think of that isn’t pronounced “kw” is “quoit”. Can anyone come up with any more?]
MattS@74 – I’ve never heard “quwarts; quwarters” any more than I’ve heard “korts; korters” (at least in terms of how they appear on the page).
Gervase@84 – agree re ‘homophone police’.
muffin @86: Words that have come into English via French or Spanish, such as quay and quinoa
Roz @83: I thought the ridiculousness of the puzzle might have made you laugh, rather than see it from a purist’s point of view.
[ Quran – but not English and a proper noun]
{ AlanC maybe at some stage yes, but I was not doing the Guardian crossword when i was 7 years old ]
SAY CHEESE
This is not a complaint. I want one of you to let me know if what I have understood is correct:
Formage: The ‘o’ is pronounced like the ‘o’ in gold, the ‘a’ as in father and the ‘ge’ as in garage.
Is this correct?
(not worried if it doesn’t sound exactly like ‘form our jee’–that’s accepted as near enough)
Roz@91
😀
Doesn’t matter I don’t share your view. Liked your comment.
[Thanks Gervase. I have only recently connected a word I’ve with the spelling “quinoa”!]
[Roz @91: well that does surprise me 😉]
me@92
Sorry. Fromage
quiche: French?
Many resorts to Check but pleased to say no Reveals despite being tempted. Not yet having 3d was very tempted by FETA for 8d i.e. cheese grew and became fatter (since dodgy pronunciation was obviously part of the game), then by YEAR since that’s how people say it who pronounce the first bit as 23d, but got there in the end.
KVa @95
You have probably heard the “how much for a quickie?” joke.
[ AlanC I started when I was 8 ]
[KVa @92: Your typo of ‘formage’ instead of the proper French ‘fromage’ is interesting. The word comes from the Latin expression ‘caseum formaticum’, ie formed (shaped) cheese. In Italian the word is ‘formaggio’ but in French the O and R have switched – metathesis is the technical term]
muffin@97
Yes 🙂
Gervase@99
Thanks for the info.
Gervase (or maybe St-Gervais today?) I am with you about homophones.
Well, what a week! On Monday, I confess I thought Picaro(o)n was the new king. Then, on Thursday, Paul pops this one out to remind the young pretender he’s not abdicating yet! Superb, witty puzzles by both. Thank you!
How about Queue…?Muffin@86…
Loved it.
Slightly disappointed that there was no FAIT ACCOMPLI, or indeed bear encouragement (as per several comments).
Thanks to the wicked spinner and PeterO.
Good puzzle. Don’t want them all like this, but fine with some.
I get out plenty, thanks
@Hermano 104 Roz and Gervase various, Paul often makes me think of an old acquaintance who used to respond to clunky humour ‘I get it now, it’s like a joke only not funny’.
I realized early on that the wordplay was supposed to be outrageous, and worked from there. I’m used to the Paul McKenna puns in Mephisto, so nothing surprised me any more. Same thing with the UK-centric clues – sitting in Connecticut, I put in forecourts without a second thought.
My solving time was not great, but I did finish….with Gruyere. Yes, non-rhotic speakers have to put their Rs somewhere!
In the UK, a working garage doing repairs would often have some petrol pumps on an area in front. This was known as the forecourt.
I don’t like Marmite.
Solving Paul’s puzzles reminds me of reading Salman Rushdie. There’s some good stuff there if you’re prepared to wade through a lot of showing off. Thanks Paul and PeterO.
[Dermot @111
Are you possibly related to Mrs. Trellis of North Wales?]
@111 Dermot Trellis. Nail on head.
I’ve lurked on here for some time to fill in the frequent gaps in my attempts to complete (and understand) the Guardian crossword. I was moved to post for the first time as this is, I think, the hardest one I’ve completed more or less unaided – made harder by the fact that 10, 19 and the various cheese components were my last ones in as I’d failed, as usual to spot the theme.
Thanks in particular for pointing out fromourg/fromage – as the French would have it – c’est cheese!
Thanks for the illumination of a few that still puzzled me. The filly I thought was the homophone for Phildadelphia cheese, often abbreviated as Philly….
and to add, the grumpiness displayed here by some. It’s a crossword puzzle, a totally useless and trivial pastime and many highly intelligent people quite reasonably scorn all crosswords, they’ve better things to do. I usually find Paul a bit too difficult for me, but sometimes I do cope, and this was one. I thought this puzzle was very clever and amusing, almost absurd. But there you are, tastes in hew more vary and for once I was on his playful wavelength. .
I can smile at ” the beer that’s so strong that two pints make one cavort” so I can put up with courts/quarts.
For people who did find this amusing I suggest you track down a box set of the complete works of Little and Large, positively Swiftian in its rapier-like wit.
I didn’t get very far with this yesterday. This morning, after Marmite on toast I tried again and almost finished it.
Loved the HANDY NASTY. Hated the GREW YEAH.
Roz@119😀😀😼😼
I enjoyed this although didn’t quite get all the parsing. Homophones never work for everyone, especially in such a diverse group as the Guardian solvers. I’m from Yorkshire originally, spent time in Liverpool and now in Hampshire. Steadfast works in a Scouse accent.
One annoyance is the tone of some comments. Roz@118 manages to insult not just the people who enjoyed this but also a successful comedy duo and their fans. Nice. As my mother would have said, if you can’t say anything good, say nothing.
Late thanks PeterO, like the last few Paul puzzles this took a while but for me was well worth unravelling, needed you for the justification of SAY CHEESE which I got from reverse-solving a couple of others and then helped with RICK and YEAH. Embarrassed at how long it took me to get to VIENNA but this did set me down a happy wormhole of Edwards-Venn diagrams which I remembered from school (when i wasn’t busy watching Little and Large of course), and maybe something to cheer you up Roz – if you can access New Scientist 13 Aug 2012 you will find yourself immortalised, sort of, in one (diagram, not L+L sketch):
https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/venn/
(there is also an article on the 11-set example on 10 Aug 2012.)
Thanks Paul!
Am I the only one who had RIYADH for 7 down? Made quite a pickle of the top corner for me…
Thanks all!
Bit late to the party here but for 19 I get ‘from a G O’ or Fromaggio…
TIRANA didn`t help either.