A Puzzle by Hodd
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The puzzle is available by clicking on the above grid.
As usual, the setter will be delighted to receive feedback from you, the solvers. We do ask that you remember that for most setters this is a new experience, so please only offer constructive criticism.
Welcome back after a long break to Hodd. This was tough but tractable. The only downside was an overuse of acrostic clues. The commentometer reads as 3.5/29 or 12.1%.
Across
1a Plant with names in honorarium (Lat.) (6)
FENNEL: The abbreviation for name twice (names) in a three-letter word for an honorarium and the abbreviation for Latin.
4a Cause is obvious – lacking experience in video game (6)
ELICIT: An eight-letter word meaning obvious without (lacking) the abbreviation in video games for experience. The abbreviation is given in the OED though it is not in Chambers or Collins.
9a Which word conveys the action in Dover Beach? (4)
VERB: The answer is hidden (in) in the last two words of the clue.
10a A modification to protect his wooden leg? (10)
PROSTHETIC: An anagram (a modification to) of PROTECT HIS.
11a Extremely acidic Brut imbibed accidentally, initially causing revulsion (6)
PHOBIA: The most acidic rating on the Ph Scale followed by the initial letters of the third to fifth words of the clue.
12a South West Water’s ruthless chairman is something else, primarily a piece of work! (8)
EXERCISE: A three-letter word for a river in the South West of England followed by the initial letters (primarily) of the fourth to eighth of the clue. Having two acrostic clues in a row is not ideal.
13a Add a short line which clarifies if one has resigned or is working again (9)
HYPHENATE: What you need to add to get from resigned to re-signed (working again).
15a Mosquito making a comeback in East Anglia (4)
GNAT: The answer is hidden (in) and reversed (making a comeback) in the final two words of the clue. Try to avoid repeating wordplay indicators. In was used as a hidden word indicator in 9a.
16a Poet deleting line in passage (4)
PATH: The surname of the poet Sylvia without (deleting) the abbreviation for line.
17a Cairo’s crumbling pyramids – of limestone originally – included as world heritage site (9)
ACROPOLIS: An anagram (crumbling) of CAIRO includes the initial letters (originally) of the third to fifth words of clue. Three acrostic type clues in a crossword is probably too many.
21a One who can read The Tanakh in its original language hears bit mistranslated (8)
HEBRAIST: An anagram (mistranslated) of HEARS BIT.
22a Sea air? (6)
SHANTY: Cryptic definition of a song sung by sailors.
24a Bear two soldiers and a priest inside (5,5)
GIANT PANDA: The two-letter abbreviation for an American soldier and a three-letter soldier animal followed by the AND A from the clue includes the abbreviation for priest.
25a Captured by photographer about to turn on display (4)
BARE: The answer is hidden (captured by) and reversed (to turn) in the third and fourth words of the clue.
26a Apes fraternise noisily on motorway (6)
MIMICS: A homophone (noisily) of mix (fraternise) after (on) M1 (motorway).
27a Where Aristotle laboured to solve my clue (6)
LYCEUM: An anagram (to solve) of MY CLUE.
Down
1d Shelf rearranged with inane literary material (7)
FLESHLY: An anagram (rearranged) of SHELF followed by the outer letters (inane or empty) of literary.
2d Old money supports return of a northern magnate (5)
NABOB: The short name for an old shilling underneath (supports) a reversal (return) of the A from the clue and the abbreviation for northern.
3d Throw light on former girlfriend lap dancing at home (7)
EXPLAIN: A two-letter word for a former girlfriend followed by an anagram (dancing) of LAP and a two-letter word meaning at home.
5d That woman’s on the loo in a state of agitation (6)
LATHER: A three-letter word meaning that woman’s after (on) the informal term for a latrine (loo). In a down clue, A on B means A above B, not A after B.
6d Climax of full moon party? Not half. but not quite! (9)
CRESCENDO: The name of a phase of the moon with the final letter removed (not quite) followed by a two-letter word for a party. I think that having used full moon, then referring to it as not-half to indicate an earlier phase of the moon does not work. Also putting the wordplay relating to the phase of moon at so far removed from the full moon is not ideal.
7d Suddenly realises the answer, and sticks to the act (5,2)
TWIGS IT: A five-letter word meaning sticks followed by a two-letter word meaning the act.
8d Keeping animals indoors is akin to wild cats doing time (13)
DOMESTICATING: An anagram (wild) of CATS DOING TIME. I don’t think that “is akin to” really words as the link between the definition an wordplay.
14d Make a change to rhyme tone with none, for example? (9)
HETERONYM: An anagram (make a change to) of RHYME TONE.
16d Excess one’s tight-lipped about prior to starting (7)
PREMIUM: The letter representing one with a three-letter word meaning tight-lipped around it preceded by (starting) a three-letter word meaning prior to.
18d Vault over ship on mouth of river (not taking the short way) (7)
OSSUARY: The abbreviations for over and steamship on a seven-letter word for the mouth of a river from which is removed a the abbreviation for estate (short way or road name).
19d Caretaker-manager between Italy and Malta (7)
INTERIM: A five-letter word meaning between followed by the IVR codes for Italy and Malta.
20d Braveheart is one portrayal, inaccurately cast if you consider the leads (6)
BIOPIC: The initial letters (if you consider the leads) of the first six words of the clue. A fourth acrostic is really pushing it.
23d Don’t speed, or risk giving up £1000 (5)
AMBLE: A six-letter word meaning risk or bet without (giving up) the abbreviation for grand (£1,000).
Welcome back to Rookie Corner, Hodd. Your alias was buried in the depths of my memory and I checked back to find that your previous submission was just over five years ago!
I found this very challenging but I did enjoy the battle even though I failed to parse three answers completely and I think the definition for 14d is wrong. A heteronym is a word with the same spelling as another word with a different pronunciation and meaning, e.g. row but none/nun are homophones.
My unparsed answers were:
4a – the wordplay appears to require the removal of XP from “explicit”. However both Chambers and Collins only give “extreme programming” as the definition for XP.
6d – the construction seems to be “crescent” minus T plus “do”. I can’t fathom out why the clue mentions a “full” moon, nor what the instruction is to remove the T from “crescent”.
18d – this involves removing “EST” from estuary but I can’t see how the part of the clue in brackets is an instruction to do this.
I had a lot of ticked clues with 13a, 22a & 26a my podium selection.
Many thanks and well done, Hodd. Don’t leave it so long before your next submission and please dial back a little on the difficulty.
In 18d I assume that “not taking the short way” is an intruction to remove (w)EST.
That was all I could think of but I rejected it as implausible.
I just took ‘crescent’ to be something less than half the size of a full moon and ‘not quite’ to mean truncate it.
6d. Apart from crescent – T + DO, I can’t fathom this either. Maybe we’ve missed something very clever/subtle? Further confused by the abberrant full stop (after “half”) in the clue and the typo in the answer in the grid.
Hi Jose, thanks for taking the time. 6d was not a good clue, please see my reply to Dave. I have no idea how I let the aberrant full stop through. However, I don’t think there was a typo in the grid. Could you point to it?
Hi Dave, and many thanks for spending time on my grid, and for your very thorough feedback. I’m very encouraged to know that you’d welcome another submission, and I’ll certainly dial back the difficulty, which was highlighted by many commenters.
I’ll use this space to add my comment to the clues that have raised issues from yourself and other commenters below.
The first paragraph is long (my apologies for that) and the TL;DR is “it was a very bad non-functioning clue”.
14d: I’m not sure how, in retrospect, I let this clue stand. I think when I latch on to an idea, and find a way to make it sort-of work, I don’t spend enough time reconsidering if it’s a good or fair clue, maybe because I’m relieved to be able to move on. On this occasion it wasn’t even right. I did have the correct definition of “heteronym”, but what I ended up with was highly convoluted and now that I research it again not even correct. I was pleased with the idea of “rhyme tone” with something. Then I scoured the language for something that might look like it rhymes with “tone” and which was also a heteronym. “None” was found, quite literally. I thought I could support it as a variant of “nones” (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/nones) but now I look again that doesn’t exist in the singular to mean the same thing. Apologies all round, and I’m very disappointed that I should subject you to that. Let’s move on.
4a — In my “experience”, this is a commonly accepted abbreviation. But it’s not in Chambers (I don’t remember if I checked at the time), and I’m going to apply the same rules I apply to clueing as I do to solving from now on.
6d — The attempt here was, as Prolixic and others have noted, full moon party, not half and not quite = crescen(t) + do. It’s just not right to have the “not half…” part coming after the “party = DO” part. Another example of me getting carried away by my first idea.
18d — Prolixic’s parsing wasn’t my intention. River mouth = ESTUARY. “EST” is a Chambers-supported abbreviation of “Estuary” (I was surprised to find). So “…mouth of river (not taking the short way)” = (est)UARY.
5d — I have learnt from Prolixic’s comments (many thanks again!) that “on” in a down clue works differently to “on” in an across clue. You live and learn, especially when living on Rookie Corner.
I found this to be pretty tough but an enjoyable challenge – thanks Hodd.
I share RD’s doubts about 14d and 18d. I also think that ‘inane’ in 1d is a bit of a stretch (though I suppose it can mean empty) and the two halves of 5d seem to be in the wrong order.
My ticks went to 13a, 24a, 26a and 20d. My favourite clue is 12a (primarily because I live in the area of the appalling SWW!).
Hi Gazza, and my sincere thanks for giving me your time. I think I might have been surprised to find “inane” meaning “empty”, but it’s there as definitions 1 and 2 in Chambers. Perhaps unfair of me to use its meaning in this context, but (and this is a common problem I encounter when writing clues) I wasn’t sure if it was just a gap in my vocabulary. Commiserations on living with SWW; I share your pain!
Welcome back after a very long interval, Hodd.
I share most of the reservations of RD and Gazza and would add that “akin to” seems to be surface padding in 8d and the use of two consecutive adverbs (three in total!) in the clue for 11a seems very avoidable.
Overall though, a very accomplished puzzle with generally convincing surfaces even if a few of the clues (21a, for instance) would benefit from a little pruning in length. My joint-favourite clues were 10a and 22a.
As RD says, I hope that the gap between this submission and your next puzzle will be much, much shorter than the gap between your previous puzzle and this crossword. Many thanks, Hodd.
Hello Silvanus, and thanks for the feedback and encouragement. I hope to have another (more tightly clued) grid up on RC soon.
“…akin to” certainly is padding. I think it’s reasonable to believe that if I’d just spent a bit more time refining the clue, I could have made it more concise and definitely better. I was so pleased to find “cats doing time” as an anagram that I lost my composure.
11a is rather an unpleasant read, I agree.
21a — I agree, could definitely be shorter. I felt when writing it that the long definition was justified by the overall surface.
Welcome back to the Corner, Hodd. Sadly, I had to resort to ‘reveals’ on too many occasions and it’s interesting to see that all the comments thus far have come from our higher echelon of solvers – perhaps you need to dial back the difficulty to attract more solvers? My picks from this one are 1,10&24a with a smile for the action on Dover Beach.
Many thanks for the puzzle, I hope we see you again within a much shorter space of time!
Thank you, Jane, for spending the time on my grid, and I’m sorry that the difficulty level was off. It certainly wasn’t my intention, and I don’t find it any fun to slave away at clues that aren’t worth the while. I need to get much better at gauging my own work. Thank you very much for the encouragement and for expressing a wish to see me again!
Thank you, Hodd, although we did have to reveal several letters. Favourites were 17a, 24a and 2d. We look forward to the review tomorrow.
Thanks Hilton! As others have also noted, it was too difficult overall. Useful feedback which I will bear in mind.
Many thanks for the review, Prolixic. It made for very interesting and informative reading.