Not too challenging a Friday offering, though a couple of clues took a bit of working out. Thanks to Harpo.
This setter (Monk in the Independent and FT) often includes a Nina or other theme in his puzzles, but I can’t see anything here, other than a presumably-coincidental OSLO in row 2. XYLOPHONE made me think we might be in for a pangram, but J and Z are missing.
There is one after all – see comments.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | VIDEOCASSETTE | Detectives so worried about a former data-storage platform (13) A in (DETECTIVES SO)* |
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| 10 | XYLOPHONE | Set of wooden bars cut between axes and whetstone (9) LOP (cut) between X Y (axes on a graph) and HONE (a sharpening stone – I didn’t know this could be a noun) |
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| 11 | OBESE | Stout or beer seen regularly (5) Alternate letters of Or BeEr SeEn |
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| 12 | OUNCE | Cat bound to scratch head (5) A headless bOUNCE (to bound) |
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| 13 | EMBROIDER | Elaborate cycling honour and ring cyclist maybe accepts (9) MBE (honour) “cycled” by one letter + O (ring) in RIDER |
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| 14 | DITHERY | Hesitant setter would back lines on article (7) Reverse of I’D (the setter would) + THE (definite article) + RY (railway) |
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| 16 | DRIVING | Energetic daughter splitting (7) D + RIVING |
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| 18 | NONPLUS | Confound what could be seen as negative? (7) A negative number is NON-PLUS (so is zero, but the “could be” gets Harpo off the hook) |
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| 20 | OSSICLE | Peeling away front, disclose broken bone (7) Anagram of [d]ISCLOSE |
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| 21 | LEGENDARY | Very famous cricket side totally gutted, eleven runs in 24 hours (9) LEG (side of the pitch in cricket) + E[leve]N + R in DAY |
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| 23 | PAGES | Summons Pope intermittently filled out? (5) “Pope” intermittently is PP, which is an abbreviation of PAGES |
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| 24 | SCI-FI | Literary genre evident in podcaster’s Athenian letters (3-2) Homophones of the Greek letters PSI and PHI |
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| 25 | IMPLOSION | Naughty kid is turning into fool, collapsing inwards (9) IMP (naughty child) + reverse of IS in LOON (fool) |
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| 26 | AFTER A FASHION | In one sense, food flipped in hot fat remains revolutionary number one (5,1,7) Reverse of FARE (food) in AFT (anagram of FAT, indicated by “hot”) + ASH (remains) + reverse of NO 1 |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 2 | ISLINGTON | Harpo pitches books around north London borough (9) I SLING + reverse of OT (Old Testament) + N[orth] |
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| 3 | ELPEE | Some steeplejack’s climbing record (5) Hidden in reverse of stEEPLEjack; a spelt-out version of LP |
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| 4 | COOKERY | I’m here to host two kings separately for cuisine (7) K and R (kings) COOEY (I’m here!) |
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| 5 | SEEDBED | Fostering environment created by dame and duke supporting diocese (7) SEE (diocese) + DBE (Dame of the Order of the British Empire) + D[uke] |
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| 6 | ECONOMICS | Chiefly moot ‘science’, for the most part blurry? (9) Anagram of MOO[t] SCIENC[e]; it’s an &lit/clue-as-definition, referring to Economics not being regarded as a true science (Thomas Carlyle called it “The dismal science”) |
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| 7 | TWEED | With time, perhaps dock material (5) T + WEED (dock being an example); as I love to point out whenever the opportunity arises, the name tweed arose from a misreading of “tweel”, a Scots variant of “twill” – no connection with the River Tweed |
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| 8 | OXFORD ENGLISH | Shoe tongue, one that’s a bit stiff? (6,7) OXFORD (type of shoe) + ENGLISH (language, tongue) |
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| 9 | RETROGRESSING | Poor girl almost regrets son going back (13) Anagram of GIR[l] REGRETS SON |
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| 15 | EGLANTINE | Fragrant plant, say, a linnet damaged (9) EG (say) + (A LINNET)* |
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| 17 | INCOGNITO | Having ditched ‘Mike’, coming into new assumed identity (9) Anagram of COMING INTO less M[ike] |
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| 19 | STAMINA | Dispelling onset of ennui, inspires rising energy (7) Reverse of ANIMATES (inspires) less E[nergy] |
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| 20 | OLYMPIA | Half of African country welcomes retiring setter’s large source of games? (7) Reverse of MY (setter’s) L[arge] in half of ethiOPIA |
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| 22 | GRIEF | Composer lowering final note causes trouble (5) GRIEG with the final G lowered to F |
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| 23 | POOCH | Dog muck held up by child (5) POO (muck) + CH |
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This was enjoyable. Many thanks for the blog. I think you’ve accidentally the wrong definition in 8 down.
Thanks – now corrected. A
Thanks Harpo and Andrew
Rapid solve, as 1a and 8d were write-ins. ECONOMICS and DRIVING last to fall. Favourite STAMINA.
I didn’t like ELPEE – there’s nothing to indicate that LP is spelled out.
Actual science fiction fans would always use SF rather than SCI-FI.
ECONOMICS took a long time because of the construction. That type of clue, with the fodder and definition mangled up, put me off cryptics when I was younger.
I took too long over VIDEOCASSETTE and RETROGRESSING was last one in as I didn’t know the word.
I enjoyed piecing it all together though. Favourites include EMBROIDER, INCOGNITO and LEGENDARY.
Thanks Harpo and Andrew.
muffin@2 I agree, surely nobody has ever written “elpee” instead of LP; the latter never has dots as it should strictly speaking. I was wondering whether that means technically it is not an abbreviation, which would make it an odd case of a word with no vowels in its written form. The OED says it is an abbreviation, but slightly further down the page LSD caught my eye, because it is not an abbreviation. Makes you wonder how they decide these things!
I agree with Andrew’s comments, but there were one or two I couldn’t parse. I thought the clue for economics a little clunky. I had never encountered noticed DBE as an honour; assuming that’s the same as MBE it doesn’t really need a female form, though as the whole system is archaic it’s no surprise to find it does.
ravenrider @4 – DBE is Dame Of The British Empire. MBE is Member of The Order Of The British Empire.
Struggled with my last two – same two as Martin – VIDEOCASETTE and RETROGRESSING – but mainly because I try to do most anagrams in my head – which gets tricky with the very long ‘uns. I was deceived by the def with the first and simply could not bring the right ‘going backwards’ word to mind with the second. Oh – and PAGES was unparsed: cunning and I don’t think I’d ever have worked out what was going on there. Lovely surfaces throughout making it hard to choose favourites: XYLOPHONE, EMBROIDER, OSSICLE, LEGENDARY (COTD), COOKERY and INCOGNITO is not a desperately long list.
Thanks both
I thought this was an excellent workout – a few early solves followed by a fair amount of head-scratching made for an enjoyable Friday. No great objections here to ELPEE, but I did read the New Musical Express cover-to-cover in my teenage years. Favourites included XYLOPHONE and EGLANTINE.
Thanks to Harpo and Andrew.
Unlike Andrew, SueB@1 and muffin&2 I found this hard. I was not on the right wavelength at all. A lot of bung and hope answers, many of which turned out to be wrong. Had to use the check button frequently.
That said it was a good and fair puzzle. Like muffin@2 I didn’t like ELPEE at all. Nho Oxford English other than in reference to the dictionary nor hone as a noun. I also disliked SCI-FI eventually deciding the sci was the letter xi rather than psi. Neither works in my opinion.
Favourites NONPLUS, SEEDBED and OLYMPIA.
Thanks Harpo and Andrew
Muffin @2 and Ravenrider @4:
Chambers, as you might expect … lists ELPEE … (mine is 2006 – 10th Edition)
Long playing record: a phonetic representation of LP
Online dictionaries offer examples of written usage …
It’s hard work keeping up with our beautiful, ever-changing and frequently surprising English language, isn’t it ….
Couldn’t work out whether to behead Pounce or Bounce to get the cat. Not that it mattered…
Muffin @2 and Ravenrider @4:
Chambers, as you might expect … lists ELPEE … (mine is 2006 – 10th Edition)
Long playing record: a phonetic representation of LP
Online dictionaries offer examples of written usage …
It’s hard work keeping up with our beautiful, ever-changing and frequently surprising English language, isn’t it ….
Nice puzzle; elpee was quite common at one time, for us oldies.
Whether or not “elpee” exists isn’t the point. The standard abbreviation is LP, for long-playing; there isn’t an indication in the clue to spell it out.
Lots to like here, with LEGENDARY, INCOGNITO, GRIEF and COOKERY being my faves. I also love PAGES but alas the parsing eluded me during the solve; very clever indeed!
In counterpoint to muffin@2, VIDEOCASSETTE – which I don’t much like it being one word – was my loi after giving it a severe bashing with the anagram helper. OXFORD ENGLISH was my second one (pencilled) in but I didn’t and can’t quite see how it works; if “one” refers to tongue/language then the clue is a failed &lit because shoe plays no part in the def. Likewise I’m not convinced by ECONOMICS due to “chiefly moot”. Maybe I just find this apparent “not-quite-CAD” clue type a bit messy and unsatisfying.
AFTER A FASHION was technically clever. I got it from def and checkers though. I wonder if anyone got it from the wordplay!
Thanks both
muffin@13, I’m not sure I follow your logic there. If ELPEE is a word – which it seems it is – then that’s the solution to the definition “record”. The fact that other potential solutions exist – including LP, vinyl, disc, EP and even EEPEE if that’s also a recognised word – is irrelevant.
I don’t see what is ‘stiff’ about OXFORD ENGLISH. I rather hope it’s what I speak.
Very difficult and challenging puzzle.
Favourite: GRIEF (loi).
I could not parse 13ac, 23ac, 19d.
News for me: OSSICLE.
AP @15
The record is an LP. ELPEE isn’t an abbreviation for “long-playing”; in fact, I can’t see why anyone would use elpee instead of LP (though I accept that dictionaries say people have done so!)
ELPEE: Long Long Player?
I didn’t know a dame was a DBE. Or that dock is a weed. So my horizons have been expanded.
Given that I failed on some of Harpo’s quiptics completing this was nice. Lots of good clues. I couldn’t parse PAGES but it’s very good; I also liked NONPLUS, EMBROIDER, XYLOPHONE, STAMINA, GRIEF and OLYMPIA. In OXFORD ENGLISH, a different part should be underlined as the definition. Thanks Harpo and Andrew!
Oh, and I don’t think a CASSETTE is a platform. In computing surely platforms are services or systems, whereas a cassette is a plastic box in your hand. And did we even have the word ‘platform’ in its e-commerce sense when VHS ruled the world?
Well, ELPEE was a genuine jorum for me – thrilled to find it in both Collins and Chambers, with its own entry. A clever clue, I thought.
I discovered ’emcee’ and ‘deejay’ in just the same way, years ago – from crosswords. I don’t remember any objection here to either of those.
Another thing I learned today was that spelling of COOEY – a great clue which made me laugh when the penny dropped (as did 13ac when I realised that ‘elaborate’ was a verb.)
I really enjoyed teasing out all the parsing: I had ticks for all the long ones + NONPLUS, LEGENDARY, IMPLOSION, ECONOMICS, INCOGNITO, STAMINA, OLYMPIA and GRIEG.
Many thanks to Harpo – once again you have made me think I really should try a Monk – and to Andrew.
muffin@18, I agree that I can’t see why anyone would use elpee instead of LP. But regardless, the def is simply “record”; there’s no mention – explicit or implicit – of LP or “long-playing”.
I haven’t looked it up but I assume the dictionaries say that an elpee is a type of record. Hence the clue is sound.
Or are you saying that an “elpee” isn’t a record and hence doesn’t match the def?
Personally I’m not a user of, nor fan of, words derived from spoken-out initialisms. (Thank goodness there’s no “elesdee”!) Not even of the spoken-out versions of letters, such as AITCH which turned up the other day. They sometimes have their place though. I see no motivation at all for “tee-shirt” instead of T-shirt but the derivative “tee” which you see in clothes shops seems reasonable. (Better than just “T”, certainly.)
I parsed STAMINA as the reverse of ANIMATES minus E from the onset, therefore the first letter of ennui, with energy being the definition. I really enjoyed this and like Eileen, COOKERY made me chuckle. I also smiled at the image conjured up by ISLINGTON. VIDEOCASSETTE and XYLOPHONE were my favourites.
Ta Harpo & Andrew.
I think I might put a pound in the pot every time an OUNCE appears in our Guardian Cryptic.
SCI-FI was the last one in with a bit of a shrug as I have always, for whatever misguided reason, pronounced the Greek letter Psi with two syllables, uttering the P and then the Si bit. Clumsily put, I realise. I do like the word LEGENDARY, though it’s a bit overused in today’s world in my opinion to extol certain individuals and what they have achieved. And I would have to say that ISLINGTON is my favourite London borough. Plenty to admire and enjoy today, full Marx to Harpo therefore…
I agree with Muffin@2, both in the ELPEE-not-being-indicated-as-a-soundalike, and on the SF vs Sci-Fi point. When I were a lad it was always SF. Sci-Fi appeared as an egregious Americanism, but I’m afraid the battle is lost.
Having recently been given a whetstone, I discovered that sharpening and honing are two different things (honing is simply to remove burrs from a sharpened blade). However the dictionaries don’t tend to distinguish them.
8d: surely the definition is “stiff” rather than “shoe”. Typo in the blog dare I say?
I parsed STAMINA like AlanC @25.
I should also add SEEDBED to my list of likes. I enjoyed that one.
Ronald@26: “full Marx to Harpo” — Bravo! Ha ha ha… excellent.
Sorry Andrew I don’t see how “could be” lets him off the hook for nonplus. Zero is not a negative number.
1ac was not a write in for me – almost my last one in.
I agree with Phil @8 about phi and psi.
Otherwise all good
Thanks both
Like AP @14, I was puzzled by 8D: how
is Oxford English “a bit stiff”? Is this perhaps referring to upper lips? And if so, surely that (long-defunct) trait is not solely confined to Oxford, nor, for that matter, to those who speak RP.
For 8A, I “scratched the head” of POUNCE, rather than BOUNCE – since cats tend to do more pouncing than bouncing. That being said, ours does little of either, preferring to lie on his back in the warm sun. But then, cats rarely do what you want…
I wasn’t wild about ELPEE, and understand muffin’s objections.
POOCH made me grin
Thanks Andrew and Harpo
Thanks Andrew. Like Daveellison @30, I didn’t follow your explanation that NON-PLUS means zero. I read it more straightforwardly as “not positive”, hence negative.
Me @31: I meant 12A.
Daveellison@30: But the clue doesn’t hinge on whether zero is negative or not — the clue simply asserts that ‘non-plus’ could be seen as negative, and it most surely could. Just as ‘non-friendly’ could be seen as standoffish, or ‘non-shiny’ could be seen as matt and so on.
Agree with Jonathan @32 and pserve_p2 @34, seems pretty straightforward to me.
Could HANGOVER – made up from the first and last letters of the long solutions in the corners – be a Nina indicating that a good time was had by all the night before writing this? If so, even more hats off for a lovely, satisfying challenge.
AP@16 and Wellbeck@31
Re 8d – I see it as referring to the type of English/language not the speaker. As an Australian, I am probably not qualified to comment on Oxford English being ‘a bit stiff’ but I imagine that the setter means that Oxford English as well as RP, Queen’s English and BBC English are at the more formal/’stiff’ end of the spectrum as opposed to various regional dialects of English both in vocabulary and pronunciation?
With a quick Google search, I was given this AI overview:
“Oxford English” generally refers to Received Pronunciation (RP) or Standard Southern British English (SSBE)—the regionally neutral, “posh” accent historically tied to elite education and broadcasting.
At a stretch, for the clue/answer we can perhaps think of stiff, formal, posh as being synonyms? I am fine with the clue and the answer 😉
Good spot Mitz. Or OVERHANG maybe?
Would Paul have clued ELPEE as Spanish Number 1?
Lots to enjoy here although for once my LOI VIDEOCASSETTE was definitely not a favourite. Probably just sour grapes
LEGENDARY gets bonus points for combining real and fake cricket references 🙂
Cheers H&A
like Ronald@26, I was always taught to pronounce the “p” in psi so it didn’t work for me as a homophone in Sci-Fi
michelle@37 indeed that’s how I interpret it. My “objection” is that, in that case, “one” refers back to tongue (which is the wordplay for ENGLISH) but not to “shoe tongue”; and so the definition encompasses some but not all of the wordplay. This seems messy to me.
In a CAD the definition would encompass the whole of the wordplay (either directly or, as in this case, indirectly via pronouns such as “this”, “that” and “one”). So the clue – and that for ECONOMICS – is not a CAD.
I don’t know what clue type it is. Certainly we don’t see it often. This may be because it’s regarded as bad form. I’d be interested to hear what other setters have to say.
I didn’t know an ounce was a cat but sometimes it’s the only word that fits. Thanks for the puzzle and blog.
Bodycheetah@39…yes, Paul would definitely consider it…ha ha ha to that as well, very clever…!
epop @42
OUNCE is a name for the snow leopard. It’s nearly as frequent in crosswords as the Ide fish!
Eileen @45
The LOP is between the axes and the HONE
I forgot to say @10 that I was struggling with XYLOPHONE. No one else has mentioned it so perhaps I’m being dim – but how does ‘LOP (cut) between axes’ give XYLOP?
X and Y are the axes on a graph Eileen.
Ha – Of course I see it immediately on posting: it’s LOP between axes and HONE – I was looking at the blog rather than the clue!
Thanks, all the same, Martin!
I’ve edited the blog to clarify this. A
OUNCE is one of those words only ever seen in crosswords. And it appears so often I assume it’s a setter’s little joke.
As a former resident of the People’s Republic of Islington, I got off to a flying start.
@muffin #2 I’m a regular reader of sci-fi and would never say SF.
Thanks both.
Comment #49
Mitz#36 and AlanC#38 — OVERHANG appears in the grid’s only 8 overhanging cells, i.e. first/last-letter unches.
Thanks Harpo, very nice.
Unlike our esteemed blogger or several others, I found this far from easy. I might generously describe my progress as slow but steady, getting there in the end.
I remembered OUNCE from the last time it came up, which was satisfying. I join the quibblers about ELPEE: “it’s in the Chambers”, I have said before, might be necessary but is not sufficient. And I have never seen “COOEY”, only “COO-EE”.
ravenrider@4: LSD is short for Lysergic acid diethylamide, but the short form is from the German Lysergsäurediethylamid (apparently, don’t ask me why), so while it is a shortening, it is not really an abbreviation. With its penchant for compound words, I imagine that happens a lot in German.
Thanks AlanC#51 🫡.
Meant to add earlier that ELPEE is not only clued about as easily as is possible but is also confirmed in the dead-tree Collins, Chambers and SOED, and the online freebie Collins and Wiktionary. I genuinely can’t think of a 15×15 editor, past or present, who’d so much as raise an eyebrow with it.
Can anyone give me a context in which one would choose to write elpee rather than LP? It seems daft.
I got ECONOMICS largely through the crossers, and mentally labelled it as a very clunky attempt at an &lit. Which is a shame, because good &lits are cryptic gold, and make you want to write them in your little black book and tell your grandchildren. Or not.
Very entertaining. GRIEF and PAGES were clever devices.
There seem to be a lot of unnecessary moans today. Chambers gives si as one pronunciation of psi. As the blog says, “one that’s a bit stiff” is the definition for OXFORD ENGLISH, with just a hint from “tongue”, so a suggestion of an extended definition. As others have said, ELPEE is in the dictionaries in its own right so doesn’t need any “spelling out” indicator.
Many thanks Harpo and Andrew.
muffin#54 “The LP played his favourite Beethoven elpee” (Lord Provost).
Lovely puzzle, enlightening blog, entertaining comments. Thanks all. Re ounce- my mind goes straight to Oberon’s spell on Titania in M Night’s Dream
‘Be it ounce or cat or bear
Pard or boar with bristling hair…’
muffin@54: FWIW, according to Google’s ngram viewer, “elpee” had a “moment” around 1961 but even then its frequency was tiny compared to LP. While one cannot disagree that it is straightforwardly clued, IMO it could generously be described as “archaic”, “rare”, or “obsolete”.
Pace Harpo above (and thanks for stopping by), I will go to my grave insisting that appearing in Chambers et al. is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Some extremely obscure words could be “justified” on that basis.
… and “An Elpee and Two Epees” by Ivor Cutler.
Jacob#59 — ta muchly for bringing to my attention the Ngram viewer. A supremely nerd-worthy distraction from setting clues when the Muse departs and when it’s too wet to walk the dog.
BTW, notwithstanding that both Collins and Chambers flag ELPEE as being informal, this whole debate is surely fruitless (and notably absent from the Guardian site itself) as by extrapolation it invites retrospective deconstruction and querying of countless past entries.
It’s surely understood by all who visit here that if a clue is grammatically sound and its answer available in two or more sources then it’s fair game; the issue of whether or not it’s “public-friendly” will have been decided pre-publication by the editor, who has to strike a balance and well understands that one setter’s meat could well be another solver’s NHO.
Lord Jim@56, one what that’s a bit stiff?
Like PhilB@8 and Jacob@52, I found this difficult. I’d decided to start in the south-east corner, and had got absolutely nowhere. So when I switched to the north-west, I was delighted to get ELPEE, which helped me to get XYLOPHONE and then OXFORD ENGLISH.
(I always try to remember now that “axes” is the plural of axis and therefore often gives XY, and that “shoe” often gives OXFORD.)
I understand the objections to ELPEE, but I was just glad to get a start!
On a similar theme, I share the point raised by AP@24. I believe that a T-shirt is so called because it is shaped like a T. So tee-shirt and tee are just wrong.
I hadn’t spotted it, but I agree with Blaise@10 and Wellbeck@31 that pounce is better than bounce. Except for Tigger.
And I agree with Lord Jim@56 that the devices used in the clues for PAGES and GRIEF are clever. (As was Ivor Cutler.)
Loved the clues for LEGENDARY, OLYMPIA and ECONOMICS.
Thank you Harpo and Andrew.
Another thing I learned today – the eglantine rose is very beautiful.
In one sense, food flipped in hot fat remains revolutionary number one (5,1,7)
“Reverse of FARE (food) in AFT (anagram of FAT, indicated by “hot”) + ASH (remains) + reverse of NO 1“
AFTER A FASHION
I’m sorry to disagree with our esteemed blogger but FARE is not within FAT, it is clearly after it. So how does the clue actually work?
Andrew @47
I’ve only just seen your comment: my sincere thanks for that – and my apologies.
I didn’t have any problems with 10ac when I solved the puzzle but, when I later reread the blog, which I often do, for a puzzle that I particularly enjoyed, it suddenly didn’t make sense. As you realised, I was confused by your ‘+’ – absolutely nothing wrong with that (I often do it that way myself) – and didn’t notice the ambiguity. (Call me NONPLUSed? – I have my coat ready. 😉 )
Jamesnkr@64, FARE< is in between (FAT)* ASH, i.e. the "in" refers to (FAT)* ASH together and not to (FAT)* alone.
Comment #67
Jacob @52 thanks for pointing out Lysergsäurediethylamid . I only have the concise OED and it just notes that it was originally an abbreviation. That piqued my curiosity so I went to wikipedia, which informed me it was first synthesised by Swiss Chemist Albert Hoffman (hence the German name), it was his 25th attempt to synthesise a type of drug called an analeptic, (hence it was understandably referred to as LSD-25 originally), and its “interesting” use was discovered when he accidentally gave himself a dose 5 years later. You live and learn!
I hope others find this interesting 🙂
Lovely crossword – some really good clues. Many thanks to Harpo.
Particularly loved XYLOPHONE – as a carpenter and maths geek, it tickled me pink.
Woke up at 5am and couldn’t sleep, so took it on and got it done in about 30-40 minutes.
Which is where I’m going to yet again say, not a good Friday crossword.
I expect Fridays to be second only to the prize.
I should be wasting hours or even a weekend on it.
I should be feeling at my dumbest on a Friday, not on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
I’d have said this was good Tuesday/Wednesday fodder – the wordplay works easily and not too many obscure words/phrases (and those that are in parse easily enough to get). I can even go for ELPEE with the way it was presented.
Should have switched this with Paul’s Wednesday, IMHO.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s prize, which by the trend of things means it’ll last long enough for me to sit on the toilet 🤦♂️😂
Ronald@26. You’re not misguided. That’s how it should be pronounced. It actually is when it occurs later in a word, like Cyclops.
I enjoyed this very much and was thrilled to finish a Friday crossword. I solved most of the longer answers quite easily from definitions and a few crossers – the parsing of AFTER A FASHION escaped me completely – and that helped. I thought NONPLUS and PAGES were clever and fun. I can’t understand the fuss about ELPEE at all.
Zoot#70 — what about psilocybin sɪləˈsaɪbɪn and related words psalm and psalter etc? These all have Greek etymology. As a general rule, I think one can assume that setters(, testers) and editors check, inter alia, this sort of thing before going to press!
Thanks to setter and blogger.
I got ELPEE quite early. It did briefly make me think along the lines of DEEVEEDEE for the former data storage platform though…………
Thanks Harpo for an excellent crossword. I had many favourites including 1a, OUNCE, DRIVING, SCI-FI, ECONOMICS, and GRIEF. I was unaware of ELPEE but it was clued so clearly I was OK with it. (If I complained about every word that was new to me my posts would become tediously long.) In any event my only disappointment was not spotting OVERHANG even though I looked far and wide for a Nina. Thanks Andrew for the blog.
Eileen @23: By all means you should try a Monk crossword. There’s one in Wednesday’s FT that I’m sure you would like.
Eekimus @69
I would suggest that the Crossword Editor’s successful execution of a two year, solution-based treasure hunt to celebrate the 30,000th cryptic is evidence enough that he is focused on the job in hand. The fact that the Quick Cryptic was also bedded in during that time would tend to support the hypothesis. Although guidance exists on what to expect from Quiptics and Quick Cryptics, I have never seen anything official telling us what to expect on any given day. They generally fall into a rough pattern, but there is always variance. That is further compounded not only by the relative strengths of the solver, but also by their personal expectations on what suits the day in question. When, in your case, that ranges from an unacceptable “15 minute” Vlad Prize to an “unsolvable” Wednesday Paul, the chances of the editor suiting your preferences every time are slim to none. I hope you are able to enjoy at least some of tomorrow’s puzzle away from the confines of the lav.
Music writers would use “elpee” when writing in a sort of deliberately mannered way that used to be common in the profession. It would be used in the same sort of way as “sticksman” (drummer), “sophomore” (second) and “chops” (musical ability).
No objections to ELPEE from this Ivor Cutler fan!
Not too hard. The e to be dispelled from animates in 20d is surely the first letter (onset) of ennui, with ‘energy’ just being the definition? Otherwise what’s the word ‘ennui’ doing in the clue?
The NON-PLUS end of a battery ‘could be seen as negative’.
Didn’t parse PAGES as I was looking for an -iSh word for portly.
Parsed STAMINA as AlanC@25.
I thought this was pretty fine for a Friday. Thanks!
LP is simply an abbreviation of long player or playing (record). Elpee makes no sense.
Martin @76 – In the back of my mind, I seem to recall reading something by Hugh Stephenson (previous Guardian crossword editor) that he did try to set various days at specific levels, but I can’t remember where I read it.
I personally long for a time when comments in the form of “[INSERT ADJECTIVE] puzzle for a [INSERT DAY]” are an extinct beast, dinosaur-related as they are. We know what to expect from Mondays, but apart from that there is no pattern, and has not been for a long time.
But speaking of Mondays, don’t get me started on “nice gentle start to the week”…
Had to reveal 1a, just could not see it.
Revealed 3 more in disgust.
Not my finest hour.
Thanks both…
Thanks for the blog , very neat set of clues and yes the Monk on Wednesday was equally good . I view ELPEE as just like EMCEE = MC , a way of spelling out the letters if you want to . John Perkin always aimed for 2 easy , 2 medium , 2 hard puzzles each week but never getting harder as the week progressed . His typical pattern was Mon , Thur , Tue , Fri , Wed , Sat .
Bunthorne , Fidelio etc would usually be on the Wed if they were not the Prize setter . It suited me , afternoon on the beach for a hard crossword .
Thanks Mitz @83. I actually intended to seek your insight in my post @76.
Thanks also Crispy @82 I had looked around and Roz @85 I’m all for flexibility.
Mitz @83 – Hurrah!
Harpo/Monk, I agree with all the points you made about ELPEE, the acceptability of words and definitions, and the so many different likes and dislikes of various solvers. To paraphrase your last comment @ 61 (Frank Muir, not me) “One man’s Mede is another man’s Persian”.
Thank you, Harpo, for the fun(Eileen, I too heartily recommend Monk’s puzzles in the FT) and thanks, Andrew, for seeing us through the tricky bits.
Apart from everyones qualms about 3d , enjoyable. My loi I guesed as stepbed as I had never heard of DBE. I put it down to me being tired. Thanks Harpo
Eekimus@69 My, you are clever!
I’m sorry, it’s just ridiculous. Apart from ironically, why on earth would you ever write elpee rather than LP (despite what dictionaries might say)?
Thanks both and I’m licking my wounds but nothing strange there – ah well.
Eileen@23: I remember nearly bursting an eyeball in reaction to ‘KAYO’ but it was many years ago when I was a freshly retired novice (not so fresh and I’ve gained some vices in the meantime). I was referred to no less an authority than PG Wodehouse and sent to the bold corner without supper by other contributors. I have to say that the same orbital pressure build-up occurred (á la muffin) when I spotted ELPEE but you learn that arguments are like fair maidens (some are lissome others winsome) – at least Harpo@53 confirms that it’s in the aweedy.
Muffin @91 You could say the same for emcee or deejay. Language (thankfully) doesn’t have to be logical. The fact that writers have used elpee, which is why it’s in the dictionaries, is all we need to know.
I’ve been mulling about writing along these lines for some while now, but the comments on today’s Harpo have finally pushed me over the edge.
I have been commenting less and less over the last couple of years, but am seriously considering just reading the blogs, ignoring the comments, and not posting at all.
The reasons?
When I first came across the site it was a useful resource, helpful in resolving tricky parsings, and with constructive btl discussion.
These days I find ever more
– Tendentious nitpicking over minutiae that are of zero relevance to anyone in real life
– Self-appointed experts complaining that a crossword doesn’t meet their own expectations of what a crossword should be
– People refusing to accept that inclusion in a dictionary isn’t enough to justify the setter using it
– The endless, pointless wittering over puns (aka ‘homophones’) that do’t work for particular solvers
– The apparently increasing narrow-mindedness of commenters whom I used to think had interesting perceptions
– The insistence on specialist meanings which are much narrower than those in day-to-day use
For the most part I shall now observe in silence.
So long, it’s been fun, and thank you
saw “elpee” & binned it off; too much going on at work for me to try to get into the mind of a setter for whom this is acceptable. no.
even the kids who say “vinyls” don’t bother me as much as that.
I’m just sorry I’ve come here too late (blame the football) to help everyone push simon over the edge.
I am absolutely & totally with muffin & the others on “elpee” & similarly spelled out abbreviations.
I mean, the issue I have with it is right there in that sentence- it’s ALREADY an abbreviation…. why are we adding letters back in again?
& as for its inclusion in a reasonably tricky crossword like the grauniad cryptic… there are thousands of other words the same sort of shape.
Simon S@94: Yes, yes & yes. Thank you for spelling it out.
Well, the mood has rather soured around here. Having just started to engage more actively with the site, I hope I’m not bound for the same bitter fate as Simon S.
I had fun solving; apart from AFTER A FASHION, which I biffed, most answers I had to work up to from the wordplay, which I find more satisfying.
I can understand why some didn’t like ELPEE since it’s not a word we’re likely to encounter, and such rarities are normally reserved for things like the Listener; but I was surprised by the level of revulsion it provoked in some commenters.
Thanks Harpo and Andrew.
Thank you SS#94, R#96 and VG#97 for standing firm at the helm in an utterly pointless storm, all of which bears the classic hallmarks of Sayre’s Law. There’s something other than rationality afoot when slating mainstream dictionary entries — and whether or not setters/editors are OK with them — is the weapon of choice.
Monk @98:
Blogs in general bring this quote to mind:
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.
Monk#98, Sayer’s Law certainly applies here as it does so often in this blog. It’s almost but not quite as prevalent here as it is in academia. I first heard of it at my former workplace from our Provost, who remarkably managed to keep his perspective while the intense arguments proliferated.
The difference for me, now that I’m retired, is that I can enjoy it as an amused spectator, lightly musing occasionally on the trivial vitriol. SimonS#94’s enumeration is spot on.
Digger, 77:
Yes, that’s my recollection too.
Music writers would often use it, sometimes to illustrate the artist’s quaint speech in ben trovato quotations such as “I ‘ope that my helpee sells well”
I’m in the same boat as Simon S, I’m afraid. I rarely comment or read the comments now because the quibbling really grinds me down. Tackling cryptic crossword is a trivial pastime and I imagine that most people would think commenting on a blog about crosswords more trivial still. But we do both because we find it enjoyable. Taking time out of one’s day to complain about crosswords, I’m afraid I just don’t get it.
Oh dear!
(In my experience here, any ‘quibble’ that doesn’t receive mostly unanimous support is invariably vacuous as well as pointless)
This doesn’t prevent me thanking the setter for the entertainment and the blogger and commenters for the enrichment (greatly welcomed as a distraction, albeit only partial, from a foot injury as painful as anything I’ve known – or could imagine!)
BTW, Andrew – In your parsing for STAMINA, you inadvertently wrote “E(nergy)” when you’d clearly intended to write “E(nnui)”
(I’m only mentioning this for the sake of any future inlookers – and your reputation as an exemplary solver and blogger!)
Still a bit behind after taking two days for Paul’s Wednesday puzzle, got this Friday puzzle done on Saturday morning
Thank you Harpo for an enjoyable puzzle. Favourites were 10a XYLOPHONE for “Set of wooden bars”, 26a AFTER A FASHION for the convoluted wordplay (despite the poor surface), 4d COOKERY for “I’m here” = COOEY
6d Hear hear for the surface! The infinite growth model of traditional ECONOMICS is responsible for the climate mess we’re in
I needed all the crossers for 1a VIDEOCASSETTE
Couldn’t parse 23a PAGES
Mitz@36 Well spotted! And thanks Harpo@50 for confirming
Thank you Andrew for an excellent blog!
Yet again, a crossword clue with cricketing references. I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
Simon @94. Think of this place as like a pub. Or a church hall after communion. Or a communal bath after rugby. People will inevitably discuss what they experienced as they made their way to the end. If you don’t like chat then don’t contribute. Internet chat fora are always like this. And they always come across as harsher than real life owing to the lack of perceivable nuance. You can’t see the face of your anonymous correspondent.
Iain@106 , I thought you would be bowled over .
Simon @94. That’s a good list. If we were to create profiles in this forum, a couple of people could copy and paste it as their modus operandi.
DoI: I think I sort of know the setter, having worked with him decades ago.
Anyway, I can’t really understand the objections to “elpee”. It’s true that “lp” is more usual, but “elpee” is definitely found in writing. As people have pointed out, the old “inkies” (your NME, Melody Maker, Sounds etc) used to use it quite a lot, possibly desperate for a bit of “elegant variation” from “album”, “lp”, “long player” and so on.
And nowhere does it say setters have to use the most common forms of words (though someone always complains when they don’t, for some reason).
“elpee” is in Chambers on line, a simple search. I did not even bother to check hard copy. People used to write it that way to be vaguely amusing.
There’s a theme, on that note. The outer four long answers, and the “LP”, at least. I guess having them (well, “retrogressing,” LP, and VC) I expected more. There aren’t.
“Totally” in 21A serves no purpose.
Late getting here, but I have to say that I still don’t really understand the definition for 8dn (OXFORD ENGLISH).
On the other hand, I’m fine with ELPEE. I’d never seen it before, but according to the dictionaries it was at one time used to mean LP in the sense of a long-playing record. So as long as we don’t object to the use of old-timey expressions — which we certainly accept in lots of other contexts in crosswords! — I don’t see a problem.