EV1657
Dictum by proXimal
Setter’s Blog
Jumbled words in across clues are alcoholic drinks; those in down clues are non-alcoholic. Extra letters give
A DRUNK MAN’S WORDS ARE A SOBER MAN’S THOUGHTS.
I’m often drawn to Latin phrases for use in barred puzzles, as they can remain hidden for longer than those in English where some recognition of emerging spelling patterns comes more quickly. Like most people, I suspect, I’d hear of IN VINO VERITAS but only found IN AQUA SANITAS as an extension to the phrase once I’d done some research. With both being thirteen letters long, it seemed the most natural thing to either have them as entries in a 13×13 grid or to have them generated e.g. as letters latent from top and bottom half of such a grid.
Finding a similar dictum in English (above) with a length which could be produced using some gimmick generating a letter per clue with a reasonable number of clues for a 13×13 grid meant that I could have a single gimmick and have the Latin phrases as unclued entries with some unchecked letters to be filled in. The gimmick I chose of anagrammed thematic items plus an extra letter which generates the message is one I have used in Inquisitor puzzles but never before in the EV; I quite like it, as it is not seen often and I think the unscrambling of thematic elements would be enjoyable for solvers. As the ‘drunk’ part of the dictum was generated in the across clues and the ‘sober’ part in the down clues, I chose to use jumbled alcoholic drinks for across clues and jumbled soft drinks as superfluous words for down clues, giving the same balance as provided by the English and Latin phrases.
With no gimmickry happening in the grid apart from two unclued entries, it meant I could fill the grid very easily with a minimum of obscure entries. I decided to have a couple of long entries as Easter eggs – WINE BOTTLE meeting the VINO phrase and WATER GLASS meeting the AQUA phrase — as I was not as restricted as is normally the case with my puzzles. Less complex than my usual puzzles, but hopefully enjoyable.
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A full review of this puzzle can be seen over on fifteensquared.