QPP 126 (Review)

19 comments on “QPP 126 (Review)”

1. Congratulations to KiwiColin. Thanks to CS for the review and thanks again to Phibs for a most enjoyable puzzle.

2. Well done KiwiColin. I must take issue with CS over her use of the terms ‘easy’ and ‘obvious’. It took an age for the light to finally dawn! Thanks to her and Phibs.

   1. you’ve used your full name rather than your alias which sent you into moderation

      Compared with previous Phibs MPP/QPP, where I have been known to stare at the grid for hours and hours, once I had spotted all the trees hidden in the Down solutions, for me anyway, the answer to the question was obvious

3. Well done Kiwi Colin and thanks to CS for the review.

   I had two incorrect answers, one in each direction and intersecting, but, if I had stared at the grid for longer, it shouldn’t have stopped me getting the answer to the riddle.

   And, of course, phanks to Phibs for the challenge.

4. Congratulations to Colin – whoever’s taken over Mrs BD’s role with the electronic hat has served you well!
   I did initially think that Phibs might have been leading us down a blind alley as the answer seemed to be very obvious once a couple of ‘down’ answers were in place but perhaps that was exactly his little joke.

   Thanks to him and to the hat organiser.

5. My congratulations to KiwiColin and everyone else with correct entries, although it was not the toughest of riddles to solve after completing the grid! The shared feature became evident to me in the south section of the puzzle, with some more familiar varieties being hidden there. Many thanks to Phibs for designing the challenge for us, which was very nicely constructed – my favourite clues being 24a, 8d and 19d. Thanks also to CS for her review, and the powers that be for hosting a fun competition :good:

6. Thank you Phibs. We did get the correct answer but we did have 2 incorrect answers in the NE corner. Congratulations to Kiwi Colin and thanks also to CS.

7. Thanks again to Phibs for the excellent puzzle and thanks to CS for the explanations.
   Many congratulations to KiwiColin for his win.

8. Well done Colin, and thanks to Phibs and CS.

   Can someone explain 2d to me? I get how the wordplay is working, with the 2 homophones, but where’s the definition? It doesn’t seem like an &lit to me, but there’s nothing else left in the clue.

   1. I took it to be a kind of paradoxical &lit where the whole clue is saying if someone says ‘mishear’ and you think they’ve said ‘miss here’, then you mishear it. So the whole clue is also the definition. That certainly works for me.

      1. Mishear in the sense of misunderstand/misperceive, I should have added.

      2. Hmmmm, it still doesn’t quite work for me. If that’s the explanation, it feels a bit same-sidey – both the definition and the wordplay are about mishearing those same 2 words in the same way.

9. What a happy surprise on opening the site this morning.
   I promise that I will bask in the honour and glory all day.
   Thanks to everyone involved.

10. Heartiest congratulations to KiwiColin on winning the Quarterly Prize Puzzle No 126 and congratulations also to all those who arrived at the final answer. Thanks also to Phibs for the magnificent puzzle, to CS for the excellent review and to Mr K for hosting the event. As I was very much preoccupied with work like office duties from Monday to Friday and coming late every evening, writing reviews for a DT and an ST, visiting my sisters twice, teaching Portuguese at an institution on Saturday and compiling for a Rookie Corner puzzle which I have completed, I had wanted to solve this puzzle last Sunday. I did solve it, though it took me almost three hours to complete it to my satisfaction and without any mistake. But when it came to the final question, I made the mistake there. Although I understood the preamble, I took it very lightly and quickly decided that RUMP STEAK as in 4d was the ideal answer because it was the only answer with two words in the down clue, all the others were with one word each. Although I submitted my answer much later, I did not think at any point of that plenty of time to have another round of scrutiny as I was pretty comfortable with the chosen one. Since I am now regretting about it, I have to be serious next time. But I feel that, on my part, there is still much to learn in crosswords, particularly the proper underlining of definitions. A cryptic definition has the whole clue underlined. There is also an all-in-one / &lit clue. In 2d, for example, I had thought of the whole clue being underlined. When I take ‘pick up’ as the homophone indicator, ‘young lady’ as MISS and ‘in this very place’ as HERE and the homophonic consequence takes to MISHEAR which synchronises or matches with ‘pick up’ as the definition, I have exhausted all the words in the wordplay, so what is left to be underlined? Thus, I would have thought of ‘better to underline the whole clue rather than not to underline it at all’. Again, if I underline ‘pick up’ which coordinates with MISHEAR, I am accepting the rest as the wordplay, thus giving MISSHEAR from ‘young lady in this very place’ that remains unjustifiable. I am yet to be enlightened on this, and perhaps duncanjwitham too. On the other hand, in 23d, ‘very much’ as SO, ‘like’ as AS, ‘drinking’ as taking in or inserting that acts as insertion indicator and ‘King’s Head’ as K that is going inside AS, making SO A(K)S i.e. SOAKS. Wordplay part over. The rest ‘We do’ is the definition SOAKS. I feel okay with underlining ‘We do’ as the definition as I take the two words to understand as ‘We very much like drinking’ where ‘do’ takes to indicate ‘very much like drinking’. It would look absurd if we underline both ‘Very much like drinking’ and ‘We do’ and get doubly satisfied. Then the wordplay reduces to ‘King’s Head’ which is again absurd. I understand that underlining has to be either on any one side or in full that fulfils the definition. BRS describes a SOAK as a heavy or habitual drinker. So, it’s a common noun and the plural is SOAKS. I feel fine with underlining only ‘We do’ as the understandable definition of SOAKS. But still, I would be happy to be enlightened as to why the whole clue has to be underlined in toto. I have seen many clues with the word ‘here’ as underlined and the answer after justifying the wordplay can be any place such as London, Paris, New York or Timbaktu.

    1. Sorry for one typo. Please read MISSHEAR from ‘young lady in this very place’ that remains unjustifiable as MISSHERE from ‘young lady in this very place’ that remains unjustifiable.

11. Congrats to KiwiColin, and my thanks to CS and everyone who attempted the puzzle, in particular those who have commented here :good:
    I think that Rahmat Ali makes some good points to which I will attempt a separate response…once I’ve got the latest EV blog done and dusted…

12. Regarding definitions in clues, the convention of underlining them is a relatively new thing, intended to make it easier to explain to blog readers how individual clues work.

    This is fine for clues where there is a definition at one end and a cryptic wordplay at the other, eg “King among family” for KIN (K IN), or those which consist of just a single cryptic definition (although these are no longer allowed in barred puzzles). The first problem arises with ‘double definition’ clues, eg “Guide young ox” for STEER; logically, the two definitions would be separately underlined, ie Guide young ox, but in themed puzzles the second definition is considered to be wordplay, which would suggest that only one definition should be underlined (but which one?)

    In an &lit (all-in-one) clue such as “It could make me a lord” for EARLDOM (anagram of ME A LORD), it would be reasonable to underline the entire clue; it isn’t a definition that could be found in a dictionary, but it’s still a concise indication of the answer. The clue “Ten squeezing into one at rank?” for TAXI (X in anagram of I AT) would usually be considered an &lit, but the last three words are a perfectly good definition, and the others certainly don’t serve to make it more precise. Which words should we underline?

    Things become even more complex with what are usually termed self-referential clues; there were a couple in my puzzle, and another would be “King worried his daughter-in-law” for KATE (K ATE). There is no combination of words in this clue which could be treated as the definition and therefore underlined – the element of the clue which isn’t wordplay is ‘his daughter-in-law’, but it is the cryptic part which provides vital context. The best we can do here is probably to underline ‘his daughter-in-law’, but we have to accept that there are times when it is simply not possible to break the clue into discrete pieces which can be meaningfully labelled.

    With my MISHEAR clue, I think Twmbarlwm’s explanation was pretty close to my own. One might ‘pick up’ the word MISHEAR as MISS HERE (‘young lady in this place’). This is the cryptic wordplay, and does not involve the meaning of the answer. But if you do catch the answer incorrectly, then you MISHEAR. It is therefore a self-referencing clue, and I included it because it seemed a bit unusual – so I can understand why it wasn’t to the taste of some solvers.

    1. Crikey, Phibs, that’s certainly food for thought!

       1. Thank you so much, Phibs. I have read your explanations. But I think I’ll still have to read and reread those for my better understanding.

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