Enigmatic Variations 1606 (Hints)
Mind Your Language by Ovid
Hints and tips by The Numpties
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We have a new EV setter name: welcome to Ovid. We met Ovid in a Magpie B crossword, ‘Pieces of Eight’ last year. Yet again for a debut crossword this is quite a challenging solve.
Preamble: A change of regime has led to a new political correctness. Six clues have no definition and their answers must be altered to comply with the new requirement to MIND YOUR LANGUAGE. Extra letters generated by the wordplay of down clues spell out a further instruction affecting 12 cells. Numbers in brackets refer to entry lengths. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended. One answer is an abbreviation and 20d is in Collins.
We were told that we would discover six answers with no definition and that we had to alter those in what seemed to be a way connected with language. The comment about numbers in brackets suggested to us that those alterations might lead to words of a different length from the clued answers. We were also looking for an instruction provided by extra letters generated by the wordplay of down clues – so we began with our solve, attempting the across clues first.
Across
11 Arbroath ravaged when wild boar escapes (7)
The words ‘ravaged’ and ‘wild’ suggested anagrams to us. We removed that ‘wild’ boar from ‘Arbroath’ and considered the disaster that was left.
17 This country beat South Africa in eastern America (8)
A country was clearly the answer. South Africa is useful for crossword setters because of a pair of convenient letters that it gives and, of course, America produces a letter too. We had to find a short word for ‘beat’ and link it all together with ‘in eastern’.
21 Perform centrepiece of festivities with energy (6)
Take a short word for ‘perform’ and an even shorter ‘energy’ and do a bit of counting to find the centrepiece of ‘festivities’.
31 Grass to finally come to Spain (6)
There are four clue elements here to produce this short word for grass (not the informer type!)
34 Laments when qualified teacher meets small (Scottish) private secretary (7)
Three wordplay elements here: the letters for that qualified teacher, Scotland’s ‘small’ and letters for the private secretary. Those elements produce a rare term for ‘laments’.
35 League long ago backing King’s servant (5)
We ‘backed’ the ‘league’ and an ‘obsolete or poetic’ word for ‘long ago’ to give ourselves a five-letter word that didn’t seem to appear in any of our crossword resources. Somewhat puzzled, we decided that this would become clear at the end of our solve (as it did! We found that the answer is in one of those special sections at the end of Chambers.)
Down
4 Sure, Sonny’s old partner has almost complete blemish (7)
We needed to prompt ourselves that in these down clues, we were looking for an extra letter. We are old enough to remember who Sonny’s partner was and we added that blemish to her (omitting a letter of it – it was ‘almost complete’!)
7 Lament local cow over repository for remains (5)
Lamenting again! Not such an obscure word this time. I set a weekly crossword for the Farmers Guardian and am frequently amused by terms for cows and sheep in the regions. Here the local word is more familiar as a term for a pet cat. Of course, the repository for remains is the one that so frequently turns up in crosswords.
18 Military intelligence report on live bacterium (7)
Another clue with four small wordplay elements. Take the term for Military Intelligence, a short word for ‘report’, an even shorter ‘on’ and complete the word with a brief term for ‘live’ to give the bacterium.
27 Will’s two-year-old deer irritated railway in America (5)
We didn’t attempt to make sense of the clue – we just used a term for ‘irritated’ and added a short word for a US railway to it. Chambers confirms that this Elizabethan beast has got to its third year.
30 Scots rising rapidly restore yard (4)
You need to solve this, maybe, to help confirm that 35 across clue. Think of the proof-reader’s term for ‘restore copy that was deleted’ and add the ‘yard’ to find a word that, in Scotland, can be ‘rising rapidly’.
We spotted six answers, generously placed almost symmetrically, that had only wordplay. The letters that were appearing in the cells in question (which didn’t in any of the six answers, correspond with the word-count of the clue we had solved) suggested to us how we needed to mind our language. The interesting words that were being used here took me back to my university linguistics course of many years ago. What a rich language English is with its many sources! We needed to consider the way we had adapted those six entries in order to recognise what we needed to do to respond to the ‘further instruction affecting 12 cells’ that was spelled out for us by those extra letters generated by down-clue wordplay.
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I’m a bit ambivalent about this one. The grid-fill was pleasant enough, with enough gimmes [often anagram-based] to get cracking and I was lucky to spot 2 of the 6 early on and twigged the pattern. However, the endgame seemed a bit of an add-on, despite the title. Not being familiar with the subject of the final instruction I spent some time scouring the grid [mea culpa] for what turned out to be rather obvious in retrospect. It could have been worse- I could have Googled it and spent half an hour wading thro’ acres of text. I think I’m with Cromwell here.
Thanks to Ovid and The Numpties.
A bit of a tricky one. Most clues quite fair but a few requiring a stab on the dark. I would guess that I also had the same same 2 of 6 as Halcyon and just needed to identify the other 4. As for the 12 letter instruction, having the extra letters again it was another stab in the dark which worked first time. I suspect this was the original focus of the puzzle and the six changes were worked in as it was put together.
Thanks to the Numpties and Ovid