Thursday, November 10, 2011 - DT 26634

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26634
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, August 18, 2011
Setter RayT
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26634]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
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 █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog

Introduction

We have quite an enjoyable offering from RayT today, but one on which I needed a fair bit of assistance from my electronic aids.

Notes on Today's Puzzle

This commentary is intended to serve as a supplement to the review of this puzzle found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, to which a link is provided in the table above.

13a   Sound of bird could alert him? (5)

This is a homophone (sounds like) clue which relies on the word "miner" being pronounced with the soft British 'R' so that it sounds like 'mynah'. The clue alludes to the "canary in a coal mine"⁷. "Well into the 20th century, coal miners in the United Kingdom and the United States brought canaries into coal mines as an early-warning signal for toxic gases including methane and carbon monoxide. The birds, being more sensitive, would become sick before the miners, who would then have a chance to escape or put on protective respirators." However, I seriously doubt that it was the singing of the canaries that alerted the miners to danger, but rather the thud as they hit the bottom of the cage after having toppled off their perch.

16a   Game girl who’s striking, holding a weapon (9)

Bagatelle can be either of two games. The first is a game similar to pinball (or perhaps just another name for pinball). The Oxford Dictionary of English defines it as "a game in which small balls are hit and then allowed to roll down a sloping board on which there are holes, each numbered with the score achieved if a ball goes into it, with pins acting as obstructions"⁵, while Collins English Dictionary defines it as "a board game in which balls are struck into holes, with pins as obstacles; pinball"⁴. The second is a table game (also known as bar billiards) played in British pubs, in which short cues are used to pocket balls into holes scoring various points and guarded by wooden pegs that incur penalties if they are knocked over.

Big Dave uses the phrase "the abbreviated form of a machine gun" as his hint for GAT. The slang expression gat does derive - directly, or indirectly - from Gatling gun⁵ (an early type of machine gun developed during the US Civil War). Most sources seem to suggest that the term arose as gangster slang and dates from the prohibition era (the 1920s and early 1930s) in the United States. Wiktionary claims that it is additionally an archaic slang term for a Gatling gun which was used in old westerns. However, that may just be a case of early 20^th century screenwriters misapplying what was then current-day lingo to a past period of history. The American Heritage Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English all define gat to mean a pistol or revolver (despite its etymology) while Wiktionary says it is "Any type of gun; usually in reference to a pistol". A couple of entries on the Urban Dictionary claim that gat was coined during prohibition as a term for any gun but specifically the Thompson submachine gun (or Tommy gun). Personally, I place very little credence in this latter claim (the Urban Dictionary being a collection of entries submitted by members of the general population with seemingly no academic review) and I certainly could find no reputable source to support it. The Online Etymology Dictionary perhaps gives a hint as to the evolution of the word. It defines the word gat to mean a revolver, and dates it to 1904 (pre-prohibition). It also says that the etymology is a "slang shortening of Gatling (gun)". Furthermore, it goes on to say that "by 1880, gatlin was slang for a gun of any sort". So, it would seem to make sense that the word Gatling meaning a specific type of machine gun (from the 1860s) might first have been shortened to gatlin which came to mean a gun of any sort (by the 1880s), and - in a second stage of evolution - was further shortened to gat in the early 1900s. The word would now seem to have pretty much lost its sense of a gun of any sort and refer almost exclusively to a pistol or revolver.

21a   Fancy one compiler concealing a trap (7)

Those who read my blog on Tuesday should easily recognize that a gin⁵ (or gin trap) is a British term for a leghold (or foothold) trap⁷. The word "setter" or "compiler" in a clue is often a reference to the creator of the puzzle and must be replaced by a first person pronoun such as 'I' or (in this case) 'me'.

24a   Country’s old money (7)

Guinea⁵ is a country on the west coast of Africa. A guinea⁵ is a sum of money in Britain equal to £1.05 (21 shillings in pre-decimal currency), now used mainly for determining professional fees and auction prices, as well as a former British gold coin that was first minted in 1663 from gold imported from West Africa, with a value that was later fixed at 21 shillings (replaced by the sovereign from 1817).

2d   ‘Guard dog, roll over!’ (7)

In Scots legal parlance, a curator⁴ is a guardian of a minor, mentally ill person, etc.

4d   Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’ with huge exhibitionist (5)

RayT is known for two things - the creation of slightly risqué clues and references to the British rock band Queen. Here Queen also refers to the ruling British monarch whose royal monogram is ER (Elizabetha Regina). In Britain, OS (outsize⁷) is the term applied to clothing proportioned for exceptionally tall or heavy people. In North America, the comparable terms would be 'plus size' for women's clothing and 'big and tall' for men's clothing.

Here, exhibitionist³ is used (at least in the cryptic reading) in the sense of someone who deliberately behaves so as to attract attention rather than someone having a psychosexual disorder marked by the compulsive exposure of the genitals in public.

5d   More unstable column supporting toilet (7)

Anyone who read my review of last Friday's puzzle will know that a toilet in Britain is often referred to as a loo⁵.

10d   Doctor treats here with case of lolly involved (6,6)

Harley Street⁷ is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.

References: 
¹ - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition
² - Search Chambers - (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)
³ - TheFreeDictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary)
⁴ - TheFreeDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)
⁵ - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary of English)
⁶ - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford American Dictionary)
⁷ - Wikipedia
⁸ - Reverso Online Dictionary (Collins French-English Dictionary)

Signing off for today - Falcon