A rigorous workout today from Bobcat, with precise but sometimes complicated clues . . .
. . . but with at least the assurance of the customary feline nina helping out.
I do not know how to parse 10A, but I have given it the old college try. I think I have it now.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | AU REVOIR |
A flower to see in France? I’m going there (2,6)
|
| A + URE (flower, i.e., river) + VOIR (to see in France, i.e., in French), the definition properly punctuated being: “I’m going” there, i.e., in France. | ||
| 9 | ACAPULCO |
Active California couple endlessly dancing in city (8)
|
| A (active) + CA (California) + anagram of (dancing) COUPL[E] minus last letter (endlessly) | ||
| 10 | ABET |
Help or, for one paying attention, insight (4)
|
| 11 | HOUSE OF CARDS |
Fraud chooses to run inherently unstable scheme (5,2,5)
|
| Anagram of (to run) FRAUD CHOOSES | ||
| 13 | BLAMED |
Strike hard to break plot Trump’s damned (6)
|
| LAM (strike hard) inside (to break) BED (plot), with “Trump’s” indicating that this an American usage, meaning “confounded” | ||
| 14 | FULL MOON |
Doctor’s charging not restrained? That’s a regular occurrence (4,4)
|
| MO (doctor) inside ([is] charging) FULL-ON (not restrained) | ||
| 15 | RAILING |
Trail in Glamorgan goes round fencing (7)
|
| Hidden in (goes round) [T]RAIL IN G[LAMORGAN] | ||
| 16 | GRANTOR |
One making allowance for soldiers led by Ulysses? (7)
|
| GRANT (Ulysses?) + OR (soldiers), with “led by” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 20 | TRAPDOOR |
Crosspiece held back cover for opening (8)
|
| {ROOD (cross) + PART (piece)} all reversed (held back), with a spacing misdirection | ||
| 22 | PISCES |
House in bits, trail of debris covering central source of explosion (6)
|
| PI[E]CES (bits), with last letter of (trail of) [DEBRI]S substituted for (covering) the middle instance of the first letter of (central source of) E[XPLOSION], referring to astrology | ||
| 23 | INTERMINABLE |
Seemingly endless output from Bernini working with metal (12)
|
| Anagram of (output from . . . working with) {BERNINI + METAL} | ||
| 25 | RUTH |
Book on sport’s extremely thorough (4)
|
| RU (sport) + outside letters of (extremely) T[HOROUG]H, in the Old Testament | ||
| 26 | EXCELLED |
Out of prison, journalist was exceptionally good (8)
|
| EX (out of) + CELL (prison) + ED. (journalist) | ||
| 27 | ARCADIAN |
Rustic Scots islander gets acre for nothing (8)
|
| [O]RCADIAN (Scots islander) substituting (gets . . . ) A (acre) for O (nothing) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | UMBRELLA |
Cover length cloaked in shadow (8)
|
| ELL (length) inside (cloaked in) UMBRA (shadow) | ||
| 3 | EAT HUMBLE PIE |
Earl possibly imputable — he is to suffer abasement (3,6,3)
|
| E (earl) + anagram of (possibly) {IMPUTABLE HE} | ||
| 4 | OPIUM DEN |
Recreational facility having dope in much supply (children excluded) (5,3)
|
| Anagram of (supply) {DOPE IN MU[CH] minus (excluded) CH. (children)}, with the whole clue arguably reading as &lit in support of the definition | ||
| 5 | RAKE-OFF |
Roué on vacation, getting his bit on the side? (4-3)
|
| RAKE (roué) + OFF (on vacation) | ||
| 6 | EARFUL |
Weepy’s not tense — too much talk (6)
|
| [T]EARFUL (weepy) minus (not) T (tense) | ||
| 7 | SLUR |
Slight noise made by consumer finishing early (4)
|
| SLUR[P] (noise made by consumer) minus last letter (finishing early) | ||
| 8 | POISONER |
Convict’s right, in the first instance, to give way to old potential killer (8)
|
| P[R]ISONER (convict) substituting (to give way . . . ) the first instance [of] R (right) for ( . . . to) O (old) | ||
| 12 | ADMINISTERED |
Naked woman, finding clergyman on couch (minus head), ran (12)
|
| [L]AD[Y] (woman) minus outside letters (naked) + MINISTER (clergyman) + [B]ED (couch) minus first letter (head) | ||
| 15 | RETAINER |
Keeper from Orient regularly put off by opposing players breaking into song (8)
|
| Alternate letters of (regularly put off) [O]R[I]E[N]T + {N + E} (opposing players, in bridge) inside (breaking into) AIR (song) | ||
| 17 | REPUBLIC |
Memorial probed by local government type (8)
|
| RELIC (memorial) around (probed by) PUB (local) | ||
| 18 | OPERETTA |
Latte reportedly served up part way through light entertainment (8)
|
| Hidden in (part way through) [L]ATTE REPO[RTEDLY] inverted (served up) | ||
| 19 | GRENADA |
Gullible American lawyer taking off east, lands in Caribbean (7)
|
| {GRE[E]N (gullible) + A (American) + DA (lawyer)} minus (taking off) one E (east) | ||
| 21 | ORMOLU |
Alloy of gold and molybdenum initially lacking use (6)
|
| OR (gold) + MO (molybdenum) + first letters of (initially) {L[ACKING] + U[SE]} | ||
| 24 | TACK |
Equestrian gear in bad taste (4)
|
| Double definition |
I found this difficult due to some complicated clues and the occasional need for knowledge I did not have, not to mention some dodgy definitions.
There was a good variety of precise clues, and I ticked EARFUL, INTERMINABLE (liked Bernini the sculptor), EXCELLED (liked ‘out of prison), and OPERETTA (took me ages to see it).
Just as I was thinking I might not finish, I spotted COU_AR down the middle, and the missing G saved me. I completed the puzzle with a wild guess at the unparsed PISCES. ABET also went unparsed.
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
Harder than usual from Bobcat but enjoyable nonetheless
It’s a blamed long time since I heard anyone use it — Pa Kettle maybe? And took a minute to twig to Ulysses S for 16a. Enjoyable puzzle, ta B and C.
This was a slow-burner for me and, like Martyn, it took the very helpful feline nina to prise things open. When all’s said and done, though, I enjoyed the puzzle ticking quite a few such as AU REVOIR, HOUSE OF CARDS, RAKE-OFF (for the definition), PRISONER and ORMOLU.
ABET was my LOI as for ‘help’, I kept thinking ‘aid and abet’; I think Cineraria’s idea of incite/insight works.
Thanks to him and Bobcat.
I think Cineraria’s second shot at ABET is probably right, given that the Chambers definition is “to incite by encouragement or aid (usu. to commit an offence)”. But I’m not keen on “for one paying attention” as a soundalike indicator. You can pay attention by watching too.
Another one here with an unparsed “abet”. I’m not convinced a soundalike can include such a significant shift in the stress (record and present as noun and verb are not soundalikes). Also another one saved by seeing the nina which gave me “grant”.
27ac reminds me of when I visited Orkney a few years ago and messaged a couple of friends with “Et in Orcadia ego”. I’m probably not the first, or last, to make that connection, however.
Good fun and thanks for the blog Cineraria, and the puzzle Bobcat.
Wow this was a struggle and finally a dnf for me. PISCES undid me. Was pleased to have got ORMOLU from the wordplay. Couple of parsing queries (including ABET) which the blog has now cleared up. Tx Cineraria.
Thanks for the blog , pretty tricky but good clues . Unusual grid with eight words having double unchecked , but half were checked in total and it made first and last letters checked which is always slightly easier .
PISCES and POISONER very precise for the letter removal . Good to see OR=soldiers ( not men ) for GRANTOR .
Comment #9
I still do not understand ABET. Yes some good clues but others were too contrived to be satisfactory .
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria.
Roz@8 Can you explain a bit more? I see what you mean about the 8 with double unchecked but then you lost me!
Fud@11 look at 9Ac – ACAPULCO – PU unchecked , 8 letters , four checked which is fair but the PU means the first A and last O are checked . First and last letters make solving a bit easier . Same for the other seven .
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
1ac: The definition seemed a bit of a stretch to me. French people may say au revoir when they are going, but it actually means “until I see you again”, which is not quite the same thing.
10ac: Collins online gives abet as meaning “to assist or encourage, esp in crime or wrongdoing” in British English, and has “incite” explicitly in the definition in American English. This clue reverses the usual “soundalike” process. Instead of a clue word defining a word which sounds like the answer, it is a word (“incite”) which sounds – or, at least, is supposed to sound – like the clue word (“insight”) which defines the answer.
22ac: PISCES about as far away from a topical clue as you can get for the time of year.
12dn: I think “Naked woman” = [l]AD[y] is something that needs to be used with discretion. “Naked” is in itself a somewhat cryptic indicator for removal of the two ends of a word, which is fine when it is used directly, but, when it is used indirectly, there is a risk that it will be asking too much of the solver.
I’m another who was defeated at the end by PISCES, and who did a bung-and-shrug for ABET. I think if pretty much everyone here had trouble parsing it, it’s not us* that’s the problem.
The one the Nina helped me with was FULL MOON; I already had General Grant when I saw the cougar lurking there.
*Edit to add the footnote: grammar pedants will insist on “we” there, but there’s not a dialect of English on the planet where that sounds natural.
ginf @3: Fun factoid: the S. in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything. He shares that distinction with another president, Harry S. Truman.
Thanks Bobcat. I thought this was more challenging than usual for a Bobcat crossword. I found myself using the check button toward the end of the solve for several solutions and I eventually revealed PISCES. I was another who couldn’t parse ABET, although I have no problem with the clue after it was explained. Favourites included HOUSE OF CARDS, GRANTOR, RUTH, TRAPDOOR, and the Nina. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
I liked Ulysses and HOUSE OF CARDS. I don’t think “for those paying attention” is a great soundalike indicator.
mrpenney@14 I tend to think of pronouns in sentences like this as disjunctives, like the French “moi”. Us in your example is a complement not a subject. Compare “We are it” to “It is us”
Roz@12 Ah I see now. Tx that makes sense.
We found 22ac utterly impenetrable, although our first guess at ‘prefab’ (house in bits) helped us to get ‘pub’ for ‘local’ in REPUBLIC. We got everything else eventually, although we couldn’t see the parsing of OPERETTA. ACAPULCO and RAILING were our favourites.
Thanks, Bobcat and Cineraria.
Big Al@19 I tried to make “prefab” work as well.
Cineraria and JOFT@6 According to the pronunciations given by Chambers Dictionary, INCITE and INSIGHT are homophones of each other.
Bagpuss@21: Please look again. In my copy of Chambers, INCITE has the stress marked on the second syllable, and INSIGHT (both definitions) has the stress marked on the first syllable. That is why I marked it as a homophone “sort of” in the blog. I would agree with JOFT@6 on this one. I found this clue confusing (as exemplified by the strikethroughs in the blog).
Bagpuss@21: Which of the two words does Chambers allow to be stressed on either syllable? I will not be able to check my own copy until I get home, which I expect to be on Sunday.
Edit: I am raising the same doubt as Cineraria@22, while taking the opportunity to explain why I used Collins online in my earlier comment.
Mrp@15 – presumably neither was given S. as a middle name by their parents and so they made up the S. Either way, do you know why?
First name- initial – family name does seem a very American thing, but to the point of faking it?
Martyn@24: According to Wikipedia, his birth name was “Hiram Ulysses Grant,” he went by “Ulysses” as a young man, and he was enlisted at West Point as “U. S. Grant,” which evidently stuck.
My reference point is the Chambers Dictionary app. My understanding is that this is what is generally referred to as the “2016” edition”.
The word headings are given as
incite /in-sīt’/
insight /in’sīt/
There is a feature of the app which lists homophones of words which are entered. I took a screenshot of what appears when “incite” is entered, but, unfortunately, have not been able to find a way of pasting it here. What it lists is IN SIGHT and INSIGHT.
Martyn: As for Truman, appareltly his parents couldn’t decide which grandfather to use for his middle name, but both had names starting with S, and they just left it at S.
Bagpuss@26: page xv of the printed Chambers tells us that “Guidance on stress patterns in words of more than one syllable is given by use of the stress mark (‘) which follows the syllable that has the main accent …”. So what Cineraria says @22 is correct.
Thank you, Hector. It seems that the Chambers app may contain some inconsistent features.
10ac (the saga continues): From comment 26, it becomes apparent that the homophone can be made to work if we take “insight” in the clue as “in sight”, using that ghastly device which Cineraria politely calls a spacing misdirection, Roz and some people following her call fission, and I describe accurately as the unsignalled splitting of a clue word. It shows yet again why I find that device deeply unsatisfying.
20ac: There is no need to involve the ghastly device here as “crosspiece” actually means “cross piece”.
Some of the misdirection was stretched. But having read this blog i see it now as fair, though i am with #13 re:12dn. But had a lot of fun! Never heard of rake off as anything but always learning. Them you all
Agree with PB@30 – unsigned splitting of a word is ghastly
DNF because of Pisces which I thought horrible
One of my least favourite setters by long chalk. Too many convoluted clues / over- wordy. I don’t mind clues where the definition is a bit of a stretch, or where the word play is a bit of a stretch. But when both are impenetrable, then it’s unfair in my book.
Took me longer than usual but was a fun challenge. COUGAR helped towards the end! Thanks, @BOBCAT.