A fine Quiptic from Pasquale this morning. If my blog appears terse, it’s because it’s all so clearly clued that there’s not much else to say other than bravo for a well-pitched puzzle.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
4 Dog in street running wild
SETTER
(STREET)* with ‘running wild’ as the anagrind.
6 One of a bygone age found up a tree
ANCESTOR
A cd, with the ‘tree’ being a family tree.
9 22 ultimately ruined our planet
DEARTH
A charade of D for the final letter of ‘ruined’ and EARTH. DEARTH is a synonym for SHORTAGE, the solution to 22ac.
10 Group needing a role isolated from others
SET APART
A charade of SET, A and PART.
11 Old right-winger and that revolutionary leading ceremony
THATCHERITE
A charade of THAT, CHE [Guevara] and RITE.
15 Fruit very large found across farm complex?
ORANGES
An insertion of RANGE in OS for ‘outsize’ or ‘very large’. The insertion indicator is ‘found across’
17 Girl about ten gets device for picking up signals
ANTENNA
An insertion of TEN in ANNA. The insertion indicator is ‘about’.
18 Chart with names provided as a matter of course?
LEADERBOARD
Another cd. The ‘course’ is a golf course.
22 Brief period that may produce famine
SHORTAGE
A charade of SHORT and AGE.
23 Alarm should be loud, correct?
FRIGHT
A charade of F for the musically ‘loud’ and RIGHT.
24 Magnificent little man performed on second piano
SPLENDID
A charade of S, P, LEN and DID.
25 Ready, when troubled, to embrace learner with affection
DEARLY
An insertion of L in (READY)* The insertion indicator is ‘to embrace’ and the anagrind is ‘when troubled’.
Down
1 The fellow twitching, having caught cold, becoming feverish
HECTIC
An insertion of C in HE and TIC. The insertion indicator is ‘having caught’.
2 Rude in food shop, provide grub not right
INDELICATE
A charade of IN, DELI and CATE[R]
3 Dissolute ten-year period not without love
DECADENT
A charade of DECADE and N[O]T.
4 What could make one staid?
SEDATION
(ONE STAID)* with ‘what could make’ as the anagrind. A cad.
5 Reckless person showing sign of sorrow far from home?
TEARAWAY
A charade of TEAR and AWAY.
7 Walk when there’s no parking for vehicle
TRAM
TRAM[P]
8 List revealing old books collected by artist
ROTA
An insertion of OT for Old Testament in RA. The insertion indicator is ‘collected by’.
12 Recollected tales again in English region
EAST ANGLIA
(TALES AGAIN)* with ‘recollected’ as the anagrind.
13 Put in harm’s way, stop getting cross
ENDANGER
A charade of END and ANGER.
14 Criminal activity? I attempt to go after gang
BANDITRY
A charade of BAND, I and TRY.
16 Component of toothpaste could bring a tingle somehow to end of tongue
GELATINE
A charade of (A TINGLE)* and E for the last letter of ‘tongue’.
19 Report of e.g. Shakespeare being banned
BARRED
Aural wordplay (‘report of’) of BARD.
20 Goddess is making repeat appearance
ISIS
A repeat of IS.
21 What sounds like only person
SOUL
Aural wordplay (‘what sounds like’) of SOLE.
Many thanks to Pasquale for this week’s Quiptic.
Thanks Pasquale and Pierre! Not sure I get why LEN is “little man” in 24A.
schizophoenix@1. ”Little man” is an abbreviation of Leonard, I believe. A diminutive. We’ve had little girls with other setters before, eg Vi for Violet.
Thanks Pierre.
I think that the device in SEDATION was a bit above the usual Quiptic fare.
I had no idea that GELATINE was a component of toothpaste. I thought there were so many other harmful ingredients in toothpaste, but on looking it up, it matters to vegans.
LEADERBOARD my LOI. I didn’t get it, of course.
Thanks Pasquale for a perfectly pitched Quiptic & Pierre for the blog.
Can anyone enlighten me as to why ‘farm complex’ in 15 becomes RANGE?
GrahaminSydney @4 RANGE is a name for farm buildings – as in the song “Home on the Range”, I think originally from the UK as I’ve read it in older books.
Ron the jazz cat @5 the convention is a question mark or other indication of maybe / perhaps / possibly for a definition by example (DBE), which often happens in cryptic clues, but that trick isn’t being used here.
Paddymelon @3 – the ingredient we have to look out for in toothpaste is gluten, because that gets used as a thickening agent too, which isn’t great for coeliac. There aren’t many toothpastes made gluten-free.
I found this a clearly clued Quiptic, as always, from Pasquale. Thank you for the blog Pierre.
Thanks for the explanations. I hope I am not the only one who found this pretty difficult.
You’d all laugh if I told you some of my answers/logic.
This was generally very clearly clued, for which I am grateful because I found it harder than usual, though I can’t quibble with the clueing and there was plenty to enjoy. Challenges included SEDATION, the CDs LEADERBOARD and ANCESTOR, together with THATCHERITE and HECTIC. For me INDELICATE (my loi) was tough even with all the checkers – though I think that’s because I don’t take it to be a synonym of “rude”. The ending “CATE” is relatively uncommon for “-A-E” so it took me a good while to try to apply it.
Thanks both
Excellent Quiptic. It was a joy to read Pasquale’s beautifully written clues. The puzzle was neither too hard nor too easy and I would happily recommend it to a beginner.
Some of my favourites were SETTER, SPLENDID, BANDITRY, ANCESTOR.
I was not 100% sure on how to parse 18ac (the course bit) – thanks for the explanation, Pierre.
Really enjoyed this one. Have been a fan of Pasquale since I started attempting this category and have spent a long time trawling through old ones, and found Pasquale’s offerings more approachable and enjoyable than many others for learners. Thank you Pierre for filling in the gaps on the parsing.
Very enjoyable, and perfect as a quiptic. One of those rare occasions where I have no “Huh?” list, no NHO list and no quibbles.
I’m one of those who found this towards the more challenging end of quiptic, but still very enjoyable. On completion of a few of the clues I can see that I made harder work of them than I really needed to. SPLENDID feels to me like a very cryptic clue, but obviously there do tend to be one or two of them in many quiptics.
I thought this was on the hard side. It had some tricky wordplay that is a few levels above what’s been in the QC. I know it’s been a more straightforward week with the main crosswords but in my opinion wouldn’t have looked out of place replacing one of them. Once again I found it harder than the Everyman. Maybe it’s just because dry January has come to an end and my brain wasn’t at its peak.
Couldn’t parse ANCESTOR just not twigging the second cryptic definition but got it from the crossers. Thanks for the definition
Liked: THATCHERITE, BANDITRY
Thanks P&P
great crossword! first read- through was like an exam in school, thinking, Gawd., second not much better…but, little by little every single word fell into place( with a couple of bludgeons) That’s the perfect crossword for me. Thanks
Pasquale is a class act, so I’ll turn a blind eye to the weakness of “len”=“little man”.
Besides, it’s more than compensated for by the pithiness of ENDANGER, SHORTAGE and FRIGHT.
Thank you Pasquale and Pierre
Re @9 michelle I am a beginner at this and have to say I struggled with both many of the clues and, to be honest, many of the explanations here. Not one I enjoyed much at all, sadly.
Thanks to Pasquale and Pierre for today’s offerings. I thought this was an excellent example of a quiptic, and my thanks to Pierre for providing the crossword definition explanations I am still learning!
Some really lovely clues in my opinion, personal favourites were Oranges, Antenna, and Tearaway.
@16 Mac, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy today’s but hopefully you keep going with it. 6 months ago a lot of these would have gone straight over my head but I’m glad I’ve stuck with it.
A well-pitched Q indeed, not a write-in, not impossible either. Like others I only got a couple first time round but it gradually fell into place.
My first look through found nothing and so was feeling this might have been too challenging. Second pass through I solved a few all over the grid and then was able to make steady progress to the end. LEN for ‘little man’ confused me so glad it was explained here and had no clue about how LEADERBOARD worked, so ditto. My only quibbles were ANGER for ‘cross’, which didn’t feel grammatically correct, and too much use of whole words lifted from the clue into the solution – although that turned out to be only 2 instances 😄. Agree that SEDATION was perhaps a step up from Quiptic but was able to spot it. Thanks Pasquale and Pierre.
I found this hard and managed to get half way through before reaching for the blog! Very enjoyable nonetheless. Thank you.
I found this one satisfying. I figured out most of the answers and the parsing (sometimes retrospectively). Four-letter words can be the most troublesome; I had to reveal ROTA and SOUL. I’m definitely improving in recognising insertions and picking up on what ‘ultimately’ and ‘initially’ indicate. ‘Len’ for ‘little man’ seems very odd; SPLENDID was one I got but couldn’t parse.
I’m one of those people who gets grumpy when “girl” or “man” is used to mean “any of the hundreds of names commonly given to women or men, respectively”, and the Don has done that twice here. Otherwise, no complaints.
It’s interesting that Pasquale sets so many Quiptics, since his mainline cryptics are usually on the difficult end. But I think he has an easier time adjusting his difficulty level than other setters for a simple reason: his hard puzzles are hard mostly because he always includes a few obscurities, but they’re also always clearly and precisely clued. So all he has to do to tone it down is just eschew the ten-dollar words. (What’s the equivalent UK phrase for that? Ten-pound words?)
thecronester@19, sometimes you have interpret a whole phrase together in order to “make it work”; here, for example, “stop (the) getting cross” = “end (the) anger”.
mrpenny@22 and others, regarding names, for me it depends on how much of the solution they constitute. For SPLENDID it was only a quarter, so fair enough I think, since there are enough other components to identify the likely solution and then back-parse as confirmation.
Thanks Pasquale and Pierre
I didn’t parse ANCESTOR, and don’t think it’s a good clue (sour grapes?). I think “component of toothpaste” is a peculiar definition for GELATINE – it’s very minor, if present at all, and there are far fairer definitions possible.
I thought this was quite tough for a Quiptic. I really liked SHORTAGE, DEARTH, DECADENT, THATCHERITE and ANCESTOR. Many thanks to Pasquale and Pierre
Ron the JC @5, I don’t claim to be an expert, but based on my experience, I’d say the answer to your query is ‘sometimes’. I think adding a ? would have made the ANCESTOR clue better, others may disagree.
mrpenney @22, ten dollar words is a great idiom. I really can’t think of a UK equivalent but there should be!
We thought at first that this was a bit tough for a quiptic, having solved only four of the acrosses. But then we got practically all the downs with no trouble and filled in the acrosses easily enough, wondering why we didn’t get them first time. Lots to like in the end; favourites were ANCESTOR and BANDITRY.
Thanks, Pasquale and Pierre.
A splendid puzzle – thanks Pasquale and Pierre.
Loved THATCHERITE. Which is something I never thought I’d ever write.
I was going to make a similar comment in the blog, Jules42, but counted to ten instead.
For 8 does anyone understand why “artist” becomes “RA”?
Penny @30
It’s very common in crosswords. It stands for “Royal Academician” – i.e. member of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Ah right, thank you!
AP @ 23. See what you’re saying but not convinced 😄
I only got one horizontal clue before moving on to the vertical clues, and was convinced that a humiliating (if there were anyone watching) defeat was ahead of me.
Thankfully things started to fall into place pretty quickly after that. Still, it was a hard one for me – the first I haven’t finished in many weeks. I got stuck on 2 (INDELICATE) and 18 (LEADERBOARD).
I did not enjoy the word play in 24 (SPLENDID).
Thanks S&B
Shanne@6 sorry for the late reply. I grew up on a farm in the UK and never have I heard the buildings or any other part of a farm referred to as “the range”. So certainly not British English. Maybe US as the song possibly relates to a (cattle?) rancher and the phrase “open range” is well known. I knew it had to be “RANGE” from the cluing but “farm COMPLEX” was (and still is to me) troublesome. Just farm or ranch would have been sufficient IMHO.
This is really instructive in showing that admirably clear clueing doesn’t translate to easy answers. I thought some of these were pretty tricky – ANCESTOR was a particular dislike; 1 and 2D seemed very convoluted.
They were all totally fair, though – and it’s clear from this that many of these clues were well-liked by others. I guess that some of the cryptic definitions can be like that!
Really excellent work on the blog – that’s really helped me understand the parsing.
Very nearly a finish for me, only 6a and 2d defeated me. I suspected 2d might have something to do with a family tree but I didn’t think of ancestor.
The only thing I didn’t understand was little man=LEN, but that has been explained in the comments.
Thanks Pierre and Pasquale.
Belated apology for RANGE. Was I thinking of RANCH? Glad the rest was mainly OK
Had to reveal TRAM, but I forgot about the trick of removing a letter. I shall remember next time! And I also had to reveal SPLENDID, which now that I read the explanation I think is… well, not good manners to be rude, but if I weren’t well mannered… 🙂
I enjoyed the rest though, oh except for LEADERBOARD which I have never heard of.
Excellent. Just the right level of challenge for a Yank.