Monday, August 29, 2011 - DT 26569

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26569
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, June 3, 2011
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26569]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ★★	Enjoyment - ★★★★
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - incorrect prior to use of puzzle solving tools █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog
Notes This puzzle appears on the Monday Diversions page of the Saturday, August 27, 2011 edition of the National Post

Introduction

For myself, this puzzle proved to be quite a bit more challenging than the two stars for difficulty that Gazza awarded it. In large measure, I would attribute that to the fairly extensive number of British expressions in the puzzle - especially the abbreviation of the Roman name for York which today is used as a post-nominal abbreviation for the University of York. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just having an off day.

Today's Glossary

Selected abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions appearing in today's puzzle.

[An asterisk beside an entry merely indicates that it has been taken it from a Cumulative Glossary of entries which have previously appeared, in either this blog or its companion blog, the Ottawa Citizen Cryptic Crossword Forum.]

Appearing in Clues:

Meanings listed in this section may reflect how the word is used in the surface reading of the clue. Of course, that meaning may be contributing to the misdirection that the setter is attempting to create.

cheers - exclamation informal 3 chiefly British expressing gratitude or acknowledgement for something: Billy tossed him the key . ‘Cheers, pal.’

china - noun 2 British informal a friend. [from rhyming slang china plate ‘mate’]

*maiden - noun 2 (also maiden over) Cricket an over in which no runs are scored [see definition of over in Appearing in Solutions section below]

prosy - adjective (especially of speech or writing) showing no imagination; commonplace or dull: he junked most of the prosy script his handlers had written for him

Note: The setter uses a bit of cryptic licence in today's puzzle. As Gazza points out in his review, "Prosy, which actually means commonplace or dull, is used here in the cryptic sense of prose-like."

[The University of] York (informally York University, or simply York, abbreviated as Ebor. for post-nominals) - an academic institution located in the city of York, England.

Appearing in Solutions:

[Sir Henry] Bessemer - (1813–98), English engineer and inventor. By 1860 he had developed the Bessemer process, the first successful method of making steel in quantity at low cost.

crib - verb 1 [a] British informal copy (another person’s work ) illicitly or without acknowledgement: [i] he was doing an exam and didn’t want anybody to crib the answers from him [ii] he often cribbed from other researchers [b] archaic steal: a brace of birds and hare, that I cribbed this morning out of a basket of game

creek - noun [a] chiefly British a narrow, sheltered waterway, especially an inlet in a shoreline or channel in a marsh: a sandy beach in a sheltered creek [b] North American & Australian/NZ a stream or minor tributary of a river

*Cu - Symbol the chemical element copper

cumber - verb dated [a] hamper or hinder: they were cumbered with greatcoats and swords [b] obstruct (a path or space): the road was clean and dry and not still cumbered by slush

ENT - abbreviation ear, nose, and throat (as a department in a hospital).

heath - noun 1 chiefly British [1^st entry] an area of open uncultivated land, typically on acid sandy soil, with characteristic vegetation of heather, gorse, and coarse grasses: [i] horses were being exercised on the heath; [ii] the marshland gave way to heath and sandy scrub

ladder - noun 2 British a vertical strip of unravelled fabric in tights or stockings: one of Sally’s stockings developed a ladder verb British (with reference to tights or stockings) develop or cause to develop a ladder: (as adjective laddered) [i] her tights were always laddered; [ii] they laddered the minute I put them on

laver¹ (also purple laver) - noun an edible seaweed with thin sheet-like fronds of a reddish-purple and green colour which becomes black when dry. Laver typically grows on exposed shores, but in Japan it is cultivated in estuaries. [Porphyra umbilicaulis, division Rhodophyta]

laver² - noun archaic or literary [a] a basin or similar container used for washing oneself. [b] (in biblical use) a large brass bowl used by Jewish priests for ritual washing.

mantua - noun a woman’s loose gown of a kind fashionable during the 17th and 18th centuries.

over - noun Cricket a sequence of six balls bowled by a bowler from one end of the pitch, after which another bowler takes over from the other end [see also definition of maiden in Appearing in Clues section above].

RU - abbreviation 2 Rugby Union.

sheath - noun [5^th entry] chiefly British a condom.

ta - exclamation British informal thank you: ‘Ta,’ said Willie gratefully

*Tommy - noun (plural Tommies) informal 1 a British private soldier [pet form of the given name Thomas; from a use of the name Thomas Atkins in specimens of completed official forms in the British army during the 19th century]

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

This commentary should be read in conjunction with the review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, to which a link is provided in the table above.

19a   Performer frowning in the auditorium? (4)

This is yet another homophone clue that does not transport well across the Atlantic. The definition is "performer" with the solution being DOER. The wordplay is sounds like (in the auditorium) DOUR (frowning). In the U.K., the two words are pronounced similarly - with doer being pronounced [ˈduːə] and dour [dʊə] (or [ˈdaʊə]). In North America, doer is pronounced [dr] (do-er) while dour is pronounced [dr] (rhymes with tour) or [dour] (rhymes with sour). For those of you who don't read phonetics, just follow the links and listen to the speech samples (although, to my Canadian ear, the American pronunciation of doer found there seems to sound more like door than doer).

Regarding the North American pronunciation of dour, the American Heritage Dictionary states " The word dour, which is etymologically related to duress and endure, traditionally rhymes with tour. The variant pronunciation that rhymes with sour is, however, widely used and must be considered acceptable. In a recent survey, 65 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the traditional pronunciation, and 33 percent preferred the variant."

4d   Choose not to join in, being top maybe (3,3)

The wordplay here is a reverse anagram. In a regular anagram type clue, the clue contains an anagram indicator and fodder (the letters on which the anagram indicator operates) and the answer to the anagram is found in the solution to the clue. In a reverse anagram, the answer to the anagram is part of the clue and the anagram indicator and fodder are contained in the solution to the clue.

In case at hand, the definition is "choose not to join in" with the solution being OPT OUT. The phrase "top maybe" suggests that the word "top" could be an anagram of OPT - which might be clued in a cryptic crossword as "opt out". Thus the answer to the anagram (top) is found in the clue and the anagram itself (opt out) is contained in the solution - in fact, in this case, it constitutes the entire solution.

By the way, readers of yesterday's blog dealing with the London Sunday Times cryptic crossword published in the Ottawa Citizen may recognize that I have shamelessly recycled text from that posting. That puzzle also contained a reverse anagram clue.

Signing off for today - Falcon