Thursday, August 9, 2018 — DT 28700

Prologue

On Friday, August 3, 2018, the National Post skipped puzzles DT 28694 and DT 28695. Unfortunately, this date happened to coincide with the first day of a camping vacation in an area with very limited Internet access. In anticipation of my retreat from civilization, I had prepared a number of reviews in advance based on the long-established publication pattern^* of the National Post. As a result, my reviews appeared several days late from August 3 to August 13. I have retitled the reviews to reflect the date on which the puzzles were published by the National Post.

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^* Prior to August 3, I believe that the National Post had not skipped a puzzle since Tuesday, December 19, 2017 on which date two puzzles (DT 28529 and DT 28530) were skipped.

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28700
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, March 30, 2018
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28700]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Deep Threat
BD Rating
Difficulty - ★★	Enjoyment - ★★★
Falcon's Experience ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ 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 █ - solved but without fully parsing the clue █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by solutions from Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - yet to be solved

Introduction

Today's puzzle was published in the UK on Good Friday and — given that the setter is Giovanni — many braced themselves for a torrent of religious themed clues. However, the Don restrained himself admirably and served up a mere sprinkling of such clues, not out of line with his usual quota.

I note that this puzzle contains two instances of clues (23a and 18d) where the definition is phrased in the form of a cryptic question. While I have seen this style of clue before, it is fairly rare — and rarer yet to spot two in one puzzle.

As is customarily the case, the National Post will almost certainly carry the puzzle exactly as it originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph — warts and all (see following section).

I invite you to leave a comment to let us know how you fared with the puzzle.

Error in Today's Puzzle

Although I am writing this in advance of publication, I expect that 20d in today's puzzle will appear in the National Post as:

• 20d   Catholic head of school with a set of beliefs exuding love (6)

This is the wording that was initially published in the UK. However, on the Telegraph Puzzles website, the clue was later amended to read:

• 20d   Holy head of school with a set of beliefs exuding love (6)

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.

Click here for an explanation of conventions and symbols used in explaining the parsing of clues.

The purpose of this article is to explain the conventions and symbols that I use on this blog in explaining the parsing of clues.

Legend: The following symbols are used in reviews: "*" anagram "~" sounds like "<" indicates that the preceding letters are reversed "( )" encloses contained letters "_" replaces letters that have been deleted "†" indicates that the word is present in the clue

The review of a clue takes the following general structure:

#a/d   Clue containing parsing markup (num^*)

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^* num = numeration

Explanations pertaining to the wordplay (or first definition in a double definition)

(Horizontal separator)

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Explanations pertaining to the definition (or second definition in a double definition) and solution.

Explanatory Box

An explanatory box provides additional information about the clue. In most cases this information will not necessarily help in solving the clue but provides information about the clue. In the case of the weekday syndicated Daily Telegraph puzzles, such information is often intended to help the North American solver appreciate how the clue may be perceived by a British solver. These boxes may also provide information on people, places, films, television programmes, works of art and literature, etc. mentioned in the clue. Although the titles of these boxes will usually be drawn from a standard list, I do occasionally throw in a title specifically suggested by the subject at hand. The standard titles include: Scratching the Surface - an explanation of the surface reading of the clue Delving Deeper - in-depth information pertaining to a subject mentioned in an explanation The Story Behind the Picture - for weekday puzzles, information about an illustration found on Big Dave's Crossword Blog What did he/she/they say? - for weekday puzzles, an explanation of a remark made in a review or comment on Big Dave's Crossword Blog What are they talking about? - for weekday puzzles, an explanation of a discussion on Big Dave's Crossword Blog One box that may provide information that could prove helpful in solving the clue is the following: Here and There - for weekday puzzles, discusses words whose British meaning differs from their North American meaning

Note that there are many types of cryptic crossword clue and it is not my intention to exhaustively go through all of them here. I will only deal with clue types to the extent necessary to explain the conventions and symbols used on the blog. Furthermore, be aware that, in the world of cryptic crosswords, there seems to be an exception to every rule.

With one exception that I can think of, cryptic crossword clues provide two routes to the solution. These are commonly referred to as the definition and wordplay. While these terms serve well for most clues, there are some cases where the more formal terms of primary indication and subsidiary indication may be more appropriate.

Most cryptic crossword clues consist of a definition (primary indication) and wordplay (subsidiary indication). The definition may be a "precise definition" (a definition that is either taken straight from a dictionary or at least phrased in a non-misleading fashion) or it may be a "cryptic definition" (a definition misleadingly phrased so as to misdirect the solver either with respect to the meaning of the definition as a whole or to an incorrect sense of a word used in the definition).

The only type of clue that I can think of where there are not two ways of finding the solution are those in which the entire clue is a cryptic definition.

I identify precise definitions by marking them with a solid underline in the clue and cryptic definitions by marking them with a dotted underline.

In clues in which both definition and wordplay are present, the two parts of the clue combine to provide an overall meaningful statement (the surface reading) which usually bears no relationship to the underlying cryptic reading of the clue. In some cases, an extra word or phrase will be inserted into the clue to create a meaningful link between the definition and wordplay. I define clues which contain such a link word or link phrase as having an explicit link and clues which contain no link word or link phrase as having an implicit link.

I mark the existence of an explicit link by enclosing the link word or link phrase between forward slashes (/link/) and mark the existence of an implicit link with double forward slashes (//) positioned between the definition and wordplay.

Examples

A few examples may help to illustrate these points more clearly.

The first example is a clue used by Jay in DT 28573:

• 4d   Fellow left work // a failure (4)

Here the definition is "a failure" which is marked with a solid underline to show that it is a precise definition. The wordplay parses as F (fellow; abbrev.) + L (left; abbrev.) + OP (work; abbrev. used in music) which gives us the solution F|L|OP. The double forward slashes (//) between the definition and wordplay indicate the existence of an "implicit link" between the two parts of the clue (that is, no extra words are inserted into the clue to form the link).

The second example is a clue used by Giovanni in DT 28575:

• 29a   Female going to match // travels with mother in advance (10)

Here the definition "female going to match" is cryptic (the setter is attempting to misdirect our thoughts to a sports event rather than a marriage ceremony) and thus is marked with a a dotted underline. The wordplay is {RIDES (travels) + (with) MA (mother)} contained in (in) BID (advance) giving us the solution B(RIDES|MA)ID. As in the first example, the double forward slashes indicate the presence of an implicit link.

The third example is a clue used by Rufus is DT 28583:

• 18d   Knight caught by misplaced big blow /is/ staggering (8)

Here the definition is "staggering" which is marked with a solid underline to show that it is a precise definition. The wordplay parses as N ([chess symbol for] knight) contained in (caught in) an anagram (misplaced) of BIG BLOW producing the solution WOBBLI(N)G. Finally, forward slashes mark the link word (/is/).

I also use distinctive underlining to mark &lit.^[7] and semi-&lit. clues. Note that the reviewers on Big Dave's Crossword Blog generally prefer to refer to these clue types by the less pretentious names of all-in-one or semi-all-in-one clues respectively.

In an &lit. clue^[7] (or all-in-one clue) the entire clue provides not only the definition (when read one way), but under a different interpretation also serves as the wordplay.

In future, I will mark such clues with a combined solid and dashed underline. Although this is a departure from past practice, it would seem to make more sense than using a dotted underline as I have in the past). Henceforth, the dotted underline will be reserved for cryptic definitions.

In a semi-&lit. clue (or semi-all-in-one clue), either:

• the entire clue acts as the definition while a portion of the clue provides the wordplay; or
• the entire clue acts as the wordplay while a portion of the clue provides the definition.

For these clues, I will mark the definition with a solid underline and the wordplay with a  dashed underline. This means that a portion of the clue may have a solid underline, a portion of the clue may have a dashed underline and a portion of the clue may have a combined solid and dashed underline.

One final clue type is what I characterize as a cryptic definition comprised of a precise definition combined with cryptic elaboration. For example, in DT 28560 (setter unknown) the following clue appears:

•  26d   Heroic exploit, whichever way you look at it (4)

As the entire clue is a cryptic definition, it is marked with a dotted underline. The 'precise definition' is "heroic exploit" and is indicated by a solid underline.

Given the numeration, the precise definition could give rise to at least two solutions, DEED or FEAT. However, the 'cryptic elaboration' ("whichever way you look at it") indicates that the solution is a palindrome thereby immediately eliminating one of the two obvious choices.

Note that the part of the clue that I have called 'cryptic elaboration' does not provide a second independent route to the solution (as the wordplay would do in most other types of clue). Rather it merely provides a piece of additional information (elaboration) related to the 'precise definition'.

Again, this approach is a departure from past practice, but like the other changes mentioned previously is intended to remove inconsistencies in the way that I have been applying parsing markup to clues. The markup rules that I have been using until now evolved bit-by-bit over a long period of time resulting in some degree of internal inconsistency.

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Across

9a   Retired WI batsman eats very // little grub (5)

WI^[5] is the abbreviation for West Indies.

Brian Lara^[7] is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time.

"very" = V (show explanation )

The abbreviation v (or v.)^[1,2,5,10] stands for very. Although this definition is found in most of my British dictionaries, it does not appear in any of my American dictionaries. Unfortunately no explanation is given as to the specific context in which one might encounter this usage. The only possibility that I can imagine is when combined with G as a grade of VG (very good) on school tests or assignments.

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10a   English drunkard, Heather, collected // items of mysterious nature (9)

The word "collected" is a charade indicator; i.e., one must collect together the three elements given in the clue to form the charade.

Erica^[5] denotes a plant of the genus Erica, especially (in gardening) heather.

11a   A group of soldiers housed in brand-new // tower (7)

"group of soldiers" = RE (show explanation )

The Corps of Royal Engineers^[7], usually just called the Royal Engineers (abbreviation RE), and commonly known as the Sappers^[7], is a corps of the British Army that provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces.

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A minaret^[5] is a slender tower, typically part of a mosque, with a balcony from which a muezzin^* calls Muslims to prayer.

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^* A muezzin^[5] is a man who calls Muslims to prayer from the minaret of a mosque.

12a   Our good Parisian backing British // member of royal family (7)

The masculine singular form of the French adjective meaning good is bon^[8].

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Bourbon^[5] is the surname of a branch of the royal family of France. The Bourbons ruled France from 1589, when Henry IV succeeded to the throne, until the monarchy was overthrown in 1848, and reached the peak of their power under Louis XIV in the late 17th century. Members of this family have also been kings of Spain (1700–1931 and since 1975).

13a   Best people // yell when leader is got rid of (5)

14a   Quiet person taking things easy, keeping near // church member (9)

"quiet" = P (show explanation )

Piano^[3,5] (abbreviation p^[5]), is a musical direction meaning either (as an adjective) soft or quiet or (as an adverb) softly or quietly.

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Presbyter^[2] denotes:

• (in the early Christian church) an administrative official with some teaching and priestly duties
• (in episcopal churches) a priest
• (in presbyterian churches) an elder

What did he say?
In his review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Deep Threat writes The answer is an elder in one of the Nonconformist churches .... A Nonconformist Church[5] is a Protestant Church [such as the Presbyterian Church] which dissents from the established Church of England.

16a   Becoming popular again? // That wouldn't affect Abba (6,1,8)

19a   Bitter // scorn -- our aunt's beginning to be horrible (9)

21a   Cleric I had written about, // footballing cheat (5)

In soccer [and at least one other sport], dive^[5] is an informal term meaning (of a player) to deliberately fall when challenged in order to deceive the referee into awarding a foul ⇒ Stein was booked for diving.

23a   Fuss in horses' accommodation -- // lead the horses out to these? (7)

I have marked the definition as cryptic as I believe it is a somewhat cryptic expression of "a place to which one might lead horses". Compare the markup at 18d, a clue with a similar structure.

A mews^[5] is a group of stables^*, typically with rooms above, built round a yard or along an alley.

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^* Today these have largely been converted into dwellings.

25a   Trick needed to cross slope -- // something climber uses (7)

A crampon^[5] is a metal plate with spikes fixed to a boot for walking on ice or rock climbing.

27a   See rhino moving around lake, // where land and water meet (9)

28a   See 17 Down

Down

1d   Fruit /in/ shapeless mass page brought forward (4)

"page" = P (show explanation )

In textual references, the abbreviation for page is p^[5] ⇒ see p 784.

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2d   Female organised church /in/ the country (6)

"church" = CE (show explanation )

The Church of England^[10] (abbreviation CE^[10]) is the reformed established state Church in England, Catholic in order and basic doctrine, with the Sovereign as its temporal head.

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3d   Marriage possibly over /in/ US city (10)

In the Christian church, a sacrament^[10] is an outward sign combined with a prescribed form of words and regarded as conferring some specific grace upon those who receive it. The Protestant sacraments are baptism and the Lord's Supper. In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches they are baptism, penance, confirmation, the Eucharist, holy orders, matrimony, and the anointing of the sick (formerly extreme unction).

"over" = O (show explanation )

On cricket scorecards, the abbreviation O^[5] denotes over(s), an over^[5] being a division of play consisting of 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.

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Sacramento^[5] is the capital of California, situated on the Sacramento River, north-east of San Francisco.

4d   Pound // to dine in revolutionary inn (4,2)

5d   Thus doctor hugs US brother /in/ hat (8)

"doctor" = MO (show explanation )

A medical officer^[5] (abbreviation MO^[5]) is a doctor in charge of the health services of a civilian or military authority or other organization.

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In southern US dialect, brer^[5] (meaning brother) is used as an informal title before a man's name ⇒ Brer Rabbit.

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A sombrero^[5] is a broad-brimmed felt or straw hat, typically worn in Mexico and the south-western US.

6d   Fellows given superior // list of options (4)

"upper class | of the upper classes | posh | superior | acceptable" = U (show explanation )

In Britain, U^[5] is used informally as an adjective (in respect to language or social behaviour) meaning characteristic of or appropriate to the upper social classes ⇒ U manners.

The term, an abbreviation of  upper class, was coined in 1954 by Alan S. C. Ross, professor of linguistics, and popularized by its use in Nancy Mitford's Noblesse Oblige (1956).

In Crosswordland, the letter U is frequently clued by words denoting "characteristic of the upper class" (such as posh or superior) or "appropriate to the upper class" (such as acceptable). 

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7d   American agents sound sheepish eating dry // doughy stuff (8)

"American agents" = CIA (show explanation )

The Central Intelligence Agency^[5] (abbreviation CIA) is a federal agency in the US responsible for coordinating government intelligence activities. Established in 1947 and originally intended to operate only overseas, it has since also operated in the US.

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"dry" = TT (show explanation )

Teetotal^[5] (abbreviation TT^[5]) means choosing or characterized by abstinence from alcohol ⇒ a teetotal lifestyle.

A teetotaller^[5] (US teetotaler; abbreviation TT^[5]) is a person who never drinks alcohol.

The term teetotal is an emphatic extension of total, apparently first used by Richard Turner, a worker from Preston [England], in a speech (1833) urging total abstinence from all alcohol, rather than mere abstinence from spirits, as advocated by some early temperance reformers.

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Ciabatta^[5] is a flattish, open-textured Italian bread with a floury crust, made with olive oil.

8d   Uncle /is/ lowly man with no money ending in gutter (10)

"lowly man" ⇒ 'pawn' = P (show explanation )

In chess, P^[10] is the symbol for pawn.

A pawn^[5] is a chess piece of the smallest size and value, that moves one square forwards along its file if unobstructed (or two on the first move), or one square diagonally forwards when making a capture. Each player begins with eight pawns on the second rank, and can promote a pawn to become any other piece (typically a queen) if it reaches the opponent’s end of the board.

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Uncle^[5] is an archaic informal term for a pawnbroker.

13d   Old male caught in embrace /brings/ dishonour (10)

Embrace^[5] is used in the sense of to include or contain (something) as a constituent part ⇒ his career embraces a number of activities—composing, playing, and acting.

There are two instances of OM in the solution. Make sure you focus on the correct one or you will struggle to parse the wordplay.

15d   Something on meal table, // a crude base that's rickety (5,5)

Bread sauce^[2] [seemingly a British term] is a thick milk-based sauce made with breadcrumbs and seasoning, eaten especially with turkey or chicken.

17d and 28a   Legal stitch-up in which you suppose some might get jumpy? (8,5)

I have chosen to mark the entire clue as a cryptic definition which has a precise definition embedded within it.

Stitch-up^[5] is an informal British term for an act of placing someone in a position in which they will be wrongly blamed for something, or of manipulating a situation to one's advantage  ⇒ (i) he called the deal a stitch-up and said other companies were prevented from submitting higher bids; (ii) to put it bluntly, the election was tantamount to a stitch-up.

18d   A firm has us twitching -- // is it good if we can hear? (8)

I have marked the definition as cryptic on the basis of it being a cryptic expression of "something that must be good in order for us to hear". Compare the markup at 23a, a clue with a similar structure.

Although I personally would never employ the singular form of the word in this sense, the definition from Oxford Dictionaries (see below) clearly indicates that either the singular or the plural form can carry this meaning (and provides usage examples employing both forms). Thus if we can hear, the acoustic (or acoustics) must be good.

Acoustic^[5] (usually acoustics) denotes the properties or qualities of a room or building that determine how sound is transmitted in it ⇒ (i) the Symphony Hall has perfect acoustics; (ii) The Cathedral is a beautiful venue for concerts and recitals and all musicians who play there comment on the wonderful acoustic of the building.

20d   Catholic // head of school with a set of beliefs exuding love (6)

The wording above is what appeared in the printed edition of The Daily Telegraph and initially on the Telegraph Puzzles website. It is almost certainly the version that will be carried by the National Post (I am writing this in advance of publication). The clue on the Telegraph Puzzles website was later amended to read:

• Holy // head of school with a set of beliefs exuding love (6)

"love" = O (show explanation )

In tennis, squash, and some other sports, love^[5] is a score of zero or nil ⇒ love fifteen. The resemblance of a zero written as a numeral (0) to the letter O leads to the cryptic crossword convention of the word "love" being used to clue this letter.

Although folk etymology has connected the word with French l'oeuf 'egg', from the resemblance in shape between an egg and a zero, the term apparently comes from the phrase play for love (i.e. the love of the game, not for money).

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As Deep Threat explains in his review, the solution "does not mean ‘catholic’ (which means ‘universal’ or ‘orthodox’). The definition should be something like ‘holy’ or ‘religious’." You can read Giovanni's mea culpa at Comment #20 on Big Dave's Crossword Blog.

22d   Mist, // very limited, above a stream (6)

"very limited" ⇒ 'abbreviation for very' = V (show explanation )

The abbreviation v (or v.)^[1,2,5,10] stands for very. Although this definition is found in most of my British dictionaries, it does not appear in any of my American dictionaries. Unfortunately no explanation is given as to the specific context in which one might encounter this usage. The only possibility that I can imagine is when combined with G as a grade of VG (very good) on school tests or assignments.

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24d   Sign /of/ more than one female losing head (4)

26d   Do for one! (4)

Do^[5] (a variant spelling of doh^[5]) denotes either:

• (in tonic sol-fa) the first and eighth note of a major scale
• (in the fixed-doh system) the note C

Key to Reference Sources: 

^[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)
^[10] - CollinsDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)
^[11] - TheFreeDictionary.com (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)
^[12] - CollinsDictionary.com (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)
^[13] - MacmillanDictionary.com (Macmillan Dictionary)
^[14] - CollinsDictionary.com (COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary)

Signing off for today — Falcon