Monday, December 17, 2018 — DT 28794 (Published Saturday, December 15, 2018)

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28794
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28794]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By   Kitty
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

This was fairly gentle when compared to Friday's workout.

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

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

1a   Interrupt study on source of bacteria /and/ eat (5,5)

Read^[5] is used in a British sense meaning to study (an academic subject) at a university ⇒ (i) I’m reading English at Cambridge; (ii) he went to Manchester to read for a BA in Economics.

6a   Result of injury // that's almost frightening (4)

9a   Singer backed by company /offering/ headgear (7)

A coronet^[5] is a small or relatively simple crown, especially as worn by lesser royalty and peers or peeresses.

10a   Places haunted /by/ engineer types? (7)

Dictionaries show RE^[1,4,5,10] as the abbreviation for Royal Engineers^* (rather than Royal Engineer) and, consequently, we usually see the letters "RE" being clued by the word "engineers". However, perhaps the abbreviation can be applied to an individual member of the corps as well as to the corps collectively. Another possibility would be to interpret the wordplay as a phrase with "engineer types" being used to clue "RE sorts".

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^* 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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Haunt^[10] is used in the sense of to visit (a place) frequently. Resorts are certainly places that are visited frequently (virtually everyone there being a visitor) — but the visitors are not always the same individuals.

12a   Part of kitchen // sapping poet full of love (8,5)

"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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Draining board^[5] is the British name for a drainboard, a sloping grooved board or surface on which washed dishes are left to drain into an adjacent sink.

14a   The heartless member has spoken // of such lords (8)

"member" = MP (show explanation )

In Britain (as in Canada), a politician elected to the House of Commons is known as a Member of Parliament^[10] (abbreviation MP^[5]) or, informally, as a member^[5].

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The Temporal Lords are the members of the peerage who sit in the British House of Lords. (show more )

In the UK, the House of Lords^[5,7] (or, more informally, the Lords^[10]) is the higher chamber (or Upper House) of Parliament, composed of peers (Lords Temporal) and bishops (Lords Spiritual). The formal title of the House of Lords is The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.

The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England. The Lords Temporal make up the rest of the membership; of these, the majority are life peers with the remainder being hereditary peers. The former are appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Membership was once an entitlement of all hereditary peers, other than those in the peerage of Ireland. However, since 1999 the right to membership has been restricted to 92 hereditary peers.

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The Story Behind the Picture

Kitty illustrates her review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog with a picture of English actress Jodie Whittaker[7] in the role of The Doctor in the British TV series Doctor Who[7]. She plays the thirteenth and first female incarnation of The Doctor who is a Time Lord, an extraterrestrial being, to all appearances human, from the planet Gallifrey. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. The connection with this clue is that temporal travel is another name for time travel.

15a   Hot // line in forged notes (6)

"line" = L (show explanation )

In textual references, the abbreviation for line [of written matter] is l.^[5] ⇒ l. 648.

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17a   Wages must cover most of crowd /in/ Rome office (6)

19a   Disadvantage /of/ drink with team? (8)

"team" = SIDE (show explanation )

Side^[5] is a British term for a sports team ⇒ there was a mixture of old and young players in^* their side.

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^* Note that, in Britain, a player is said to be "in a side" rather than "on a team" as one would say in North America.

In North America, the term side^[3] is used in a very general fashion that can denote one of two or more opposing individuals, groups, teams, or sets of opinions. While this same general usage is also found in the UK, the term side^[5] is also used there in a much more specific sense to mean a sports team, as we can clearly see from the following usage examples ⇒ (i) Previous England rugby sides, and England teams in many other sports, would have crumbled under the weight of such errors.; (ii) They'll face better sides than this Monaco team, but you can only beat what's put in front of you.

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21a   How to start a childhood romance? (4,4,1,4)

24a   Those worried about left and right // keep arm in this (7)

I would beg to differ slightly with Kitty on the wordplay. The anagram does not surround abbreviations for left and right. Rather the anagram surrounds the abbreviation for left and then the abbreviation for right is tagged on at the end.

25a   Tedious working // alfresco (7)

26a   Free, free at last // to travel (4)

27a   Evaluation /of/ agreement covering awful mess (10)

Down

1d   Responsibility /for/ cash in America (4)

I was not familiar with the poker term and thus never knew the true origin of the related expressions.

A buck^[5] is an article placed as a reminder in front of a player whose turn [or responsibility] it is to deal at poker.

Pass the buck^[5] is an informal expression meaning to shift the responsibility for something to someone else ⇒ elected political leaders cannot pass the buck for crisis decisions to any alternative source of authority.


The buck stops here (or with someone)^[5] is an informal expression denoting that the responsibility for something cannot or should not be passed to someone else ⇒ in the past you could spread the blame, but now the buck stops here.

2d   Act married after misrepresentation of real // rank (7)

Earldom^[5] denotes:

• the rank or title of an earl
• historically, the territory governed by an earl

An earl^[5] is a British nobleman ranking above a viscount and below a marquess [in other words, the third highest of the five ranks of British nobility — duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron].

3d   Bounder to seek trial here? (8,5)

Scratching the Surface
Bounder[5] is a dated informal British term for a dishonourable man ⇒ he is nothing but a fortune-seeking bounder.

4d   Decay rampant and in American // buildings (8)

A rotunda^[5] is a round building or room, especially one with a dome.

5d   Garment // from India prone to be revealing (5)

This would seem to be a "belt and suspenders" situation (or, as the Brits would say, a "belt and braces"^[5] situation. Either "from" or "to be revealing" on their own would indicate a hidden word but the setter chooses to give us both.

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^* To the Brits, suspenders^[5,10] are  elastic straps attached to a corset, belt or garter, fastened to the top of a stocking to hold it up. These are known in North America as garters^[5].

7d   Cut short // story aired in support of dog (7)

8d   Dire scenes played out /in/ such homes (10)

11d   Confirms // advance on stint at sea fighting (13)

Sub^[5] is a British term for an advance or loan against expected income ⇒ ‘I've got no money.’ ‘Want a sub?’.

13d   What man's partner may be? // Protest he must be upset about origin of money (10)

What she would be if she had not borne his children.

16d   Excited, as to come // out (8)

18d   Cream were first /to get/ drunk (7)

Scratching the Surface
One might possibly take Cream[7] to be a reference to the 1960s rock trio made up of drummer Ginger Baker, guitarist/singer Eric Clapton and lead singer/bassist Jack Bruce.

20d   Taking some despite miserable // list (7)

22d   Monsters // turn up with Dr Seuss regularly (5)

Scratching the Surface
Dr. Seuss[5], pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904–1991), was a US writer and illustrator best known for his numerous children's books, particularly The Cat in the Hat (1957).

23d   Worst // gamble accommodating son (4)

Worst^[5] is used as a verb meaning to get the better of or defeat ⇒ this was not the time for a deep discussion—she was tired and she would be worsted.

Ironically, in this sense worst is a synonym of best^[5] which, as a verb, means to outwit or get the better of (someone) ⇒ she refused to allow herself to be bested.

Auto-antonyms

In her review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Kitty wonders Is there a name for synonyms which are also opposites?. I don't have a name for the two words as a pair, but in the past I have described the individual words as "auto-antonyms" — that is, they are their own antonyms. Now I learn from Jose at Comment #6 on Big Dave's Crossword Blog that the proper name is contronym[5] (or contranym). Other examples that I can think of are "cleave" and "sanction" [I see that my latter example has also been used by Oxford Dictionaries Online].

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