Friday, January 29, 2010 (DT 26058)

This puzzle was originally published Tuesday, October 13, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

If today's puzzle were a hole on a golf course, I think it would be a moderately easy straightaway par four, with very few hazards to catch one's ball.

Today's Glossary

Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle

copper - noun 2 Brit. coins of low value made of copper or bronze.

deal - noun fir or pine wood (as a building material).

mega - adjective informal 1 very large. 2 excellent.

penny - noun (pl. pennies (for separate coins); pence (for a sum of money)) 1 a British bronze coin worth one hundredth of a pound. 2 a former British coin worth one twelfth of a shilling and 240th of a pound. 3 N. Amer. informal a one-cent coin.

Today's Links

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 26058].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

1a Coppers accepting a new punishment (7)

A copper is a penny (British coin). According to Oxford (see definitions Today's Glossary), it would seem that the proper term for two coppers would be two pennies (which would have a value of two pence). However, let's not split hairs - the setter clearly intends for us to see coppers as pence.

Canada and the U.S. (as well as other countries) each have a coin that is popularly (if unofficially) known as the penny. According to Wikipedia, the official name for the U.S. penny is cent (U.S. Mint) or one-cent piece (U.S. Treasury) and the official name for the Canadian penny is one-cent piece (Royal Canadian Mint).

Canada used British currency prior to introducing its own in the mid-nineteenth century. Apparently Canada originally had both a one-cent piece and a two-cent piece. The value of the former was equivalent to a British half-penny, and the latter was worth the same as a British penny. Likely due to this equivalence in value, the Canadian two-cent piece was known as a penny. When the two-cent piece was discontinued, the name penny became applied to the one-cent piece. This may have, at least in part, been due to influence from south of the border where the U.S. one-cent piece was popularly known as the penny.

I know from stories that I heard my mother tell that British currency continued to circulate in Canada side-by-side with Canadian currency well into the twentieth century. In particular, she spoke of a store-keeper who was notorious for cheating kids who bought candy at his establishment - he would give them only one-cents worth of candy for a British penny despite the fact that the coin was worth two-cents. Long gone are the days when a penny could buy something of value.

16a Small talk on journalist's spread (9)

Gazza doesn't like the use of "on" in this clue, commenting "On, as a directive, should really only be used in a down clue." This is probably based on a feeling that on means on top of. However, one does often see this construction in an across clue, and I think that one might make a case that a part can be added on the side of something just as well as on the top of something (e.g., a holster on my hip).

After writing the above, I see that the subject of "on" in across clues is discussed on Big Dave's Blog (including a couple of contributions from Anax, himself a setter of cryptic crosswords, although he is not the compiler of today's puzzle). That discussion revolves around "on" (and other similar words) as used in British place names.

5d Excellent compiler with good answer (4)

The setter of today's puzzle appears to blow his own horn in this clue. The compiler is the setter of the puzzle, and he is referring to himself in the first person (ME) followed by (with) G (good) A (answer).

It would appear that mega may be used as a standalone expression meaning either very large or excellent in Britain. I might well use it in the former sense but generally only as a prefix.

18d Where deal may be cut? (8)

I initially thought the answer to this cryptic definition might be sawmills. I was on the right track, but the answer turned out to be SAWHORSE.

In Britain, deal means "fir or pine wood (as a building material)" or, presumably, what we in North America would call lumber. In Britain, lumber has a totally different meaning, being "disused articles of furniture that inconveniently take up space".

I can just imagine the image that might be conjured up in the mind of a Brit upon hearing a North American say "I built my house out of lumber".

Signing off for today - Falcon