Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - DT 26679

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26679
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, October 10, 2011
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26679]
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 █ - 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
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26678 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, October 8, 2011

Introduction

Today we get a rather gentle offering from Rufus. I seemed to find the right wavelength quickly and made fairly short work of it. Although the Spanish gooseberries at 21a did cause a momentary holdup, I recognized the Spanish word from the checking letters. After checking the British expression in the dictionary, it dawned on me that I had actually encountered this term in a previous puzzle.

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.

9a   Track a bird (4)

In the "proper" solution to this clue, track is a noun (used in the railway context) and bird is specifically a small wading bird. However, some of the Brits interpreted the clue a bit differently, arriving at a slightly risqué result. They saw track as a verb (meaning to follow) and bird^[5] in the British slang sense of a young woman or a man’s girlfriend. I was spared that outcome, since going methodically through the alphabet brought me to R before I could get to T.

16a   They admit being swingers (5)

My first attempt of DOORS was proven to be incorrect once the intersecting down clues had been solved.

17a   Large family, many in jail in America (4)

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, the can^[5] (meaning prison) is a North American expression (thus "jail in America"). The use of terms such as "many" or "a large number" to represent an unspecified large Roman numeral - e.g., L (fifty), C (one hundred), D (five hundred), M (one thousand) - is a cryptic crossword convention.

21a   Spanish gooseberries (7)

In Britain, a gooseberry^[5] is a third person in the company of two people, especially lovers, who would prefer to be alone ● they didn’t want me playing gooseberry on their first date. Duenna^[5]  would seem to be a Spanish word that has been adopted into the English language. It can mean either (1) an older woman acting as a governess and companion in charge of girls, especially in a Spanish family, or, more generally, (2) a chaperone.

29a   Introduce force, showing initiative (10)

Canadian readers will likely not have a problem with the latter part of this charade. However, American readers may think that it should be spelled prize^[5].

5d   They are able to identify trite Latin quotations (4)

A tag is defined in various dictionaries as (1) a frequently repeated quotation or stock phrase (his writing is full of tags from the Bible and Shakespeare)^[5], (2) a brief quotation used in a discourse to give it an air of erudition or authority (Shakespearean tags)^[3]. or (3) a brief quotation, especially one in a foreign language (his speech was interlarded with Horatian tags)^[4].

23d   A very strong atmosphere of romance (6)

In music, the notation ff (fortissimo)^[5] means very loud.

25d   Talk of Tom in Paris (4)

There was some objection raised to this clue by a visitor to Big Dave's blog, suggesting that the clue is unfair to those who don't understand French, chat^[8] being the French word for cat.

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)
^[9] - Infoplease (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

Signing off for today - Falcon