EV 1736 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1736 (Hints)

Crack Up by Shark

Hints and tips by Phibs

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With very little to offer Claude in terms of today’s puzzle, I asked, “Why would a setter of themed crossword puzzles choose to call themselves Shark?”

Claude had plenty to say for himself on this topic. Edited highlights follow.

“A crossword setter’s pseudonym often carries a hidden layer of wordplay or thematic meaning. A shark is a predator, and a crossword setter is essentially trying to outwit and “catch” the solver. There’s a playful adversarial relationship in cryptic crosswords especially, where the setter delights in tricking you.

A “card sharp” is sometimes spelled “card shark” – but more importantly, the word SHARK contains hidden wordplay potential. However, the more elegant explanation is that shark is an anagram of KARHS… no, that’s not it. SHARK is an anagram of HARKS, but more relevantly – a setter who uses the name Shark may be affiliated with a particular publication or setting tradition where the name signals something specific.

Setter pseudonyms are often chosen because the name itself is a cryptic clue to their real name or identity. “Shark” could be a cryptic indicator – sharks circle, fin, attack, or prey – or it could be an anagram or hidden word pointing to the setter’s actual name.”

Sorry, Claude, but in the words of Shania Twain, “That don’t impress me much.”

Preamble: Single letters in six cells clash; solvers must pick the letters that spell out a thematic word reading around the grid. The middle cell must be filled such that a three-word phrase can be formed including the thematic word. The person credited with describing this process (8 symmetrically arranged cells) must be highlighted. Solvers must also highlight five contiguous characters associated with the theme who might make them CRACK UP (24 symmetrically arranged cells), with one cryptically represented. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; 2 and 8 are confirmed in ODE.

No clue gimmicks, but six clashes between across and down entries; although the preamble doesn’t explicitly state this, the letters chosen for entry in these cells should be the ones which make real words reading in both directions. So if the first letter of ACROSS clashed with the second letter of DOWN, the letter entered would be A, producing ACROSS and DAWN. Since we don’t know where the clashes will appear, we need to work in pencil and mark the ‘clash winners’ in the grid, perhaps by circling them.

Across

9a  Yankee entering interior quadrangles (8)
The letter corresponding to ‘yankee’ in the International Radio Telephony Spelling Alphabet ‘enters’ a word that you might think would be indicated by a plural, but for which Chambers gives a meaning of ‘interior’. The resulting compound looks a bit strange until you break it down into its component parts of three and five letters.

22a  Compensation from a surgeon associated with hands (6)
The wordplay yields a single letter followed by two letters which are themselves receded by three letters (ie 1+3+2). The two letters derive from the degree ‘Doctor of Surgery’ (also abbreviated as DSurg and DCh).

26a  Veteran to make a fool of rank – no right! (5)
The key to the wordplay here is the six-letter word meaning ‘[to] rank’ or ‘classify’, which inevitably makes me think of a box of mixed chocolates.

29a  Traffic jam initially with fervent manner here? (9)
A couple of letters selected from words in the clue are followed by a word for an anointing or a deep spiritual feeling which has a transferred sense approximating to ‘fervent manner’. The entire clue stands as a loose indication of the answer; remember that in barred puzzles hyphenated answers are enumerated as single words, so X-RATED would be shown as (6).

38a  Cut in half opening of each armhole in Shetland (4)
A six-letter word meaning ‘cut’, as one might cut down long grass, loses its second half and is followed by a single letter selected from a word in the clue. I sometimes wonder whether setters who use the names of specific places to indicate a general geographic classification (here ‘Scottish’) know whether the word actually occurs in that particular locale, but it adds some welcome variety to clues.

40a  Worry about AI dance music beginning to show bit of shock? (12)
A (6+1+5) charade where a single-letter selection is sandwiched between a type of dance music (which is also the stem of the answer) and something which might be part of the sort of shock associated with, say, Dennis the Menace.

Down

2d  Pregnant cycling to get by labour – relief! (7, two words)
A ‘cycling’ three-letter word is followed by a word of four letters, while the answer is split (2,5).

8d  Maybe Ctrl & Alt & Del with engines (e.g. Steam) down under (6)
Kudos to anyone who got the answer from the wordplay as it stands. If you imagine that the clue reads “Maybe Ctrl, Alt, Delete with engines down under”, then you need to identify what ‘Ctrl’ and ‘Alt’ are and where they are typically positioned relative to, say, ”Esc’ and ‘Print Screen’. Turn this into a (3,4) phrase, and then remove a single-letter abbreviation. As with 2d, the answer appears in ODE and OED, but not in Chambers or Collins.

18d  Cheats in ceilidh…heartless boyfriends! (4)
There really ought to be a question mark after ‘boyfriends’, because it is an indication by example of the five-letter plural of a term for a person one has an engagement with. For ‘in ceilidh’ read ‘in Scotland’, the answer being a Scots form of an English word which could informally mean ‘cheats’.

28d  Hiding ace in child’s card game (6)
A single-letter abbreviation is ‘hidden’ inside a word for toddlers (or communists of a particular persuasion).

30d  Irish writer starting short third letter with Dear ___ (5)
One spelling of the name of the third letter of the alphabet missing its own last letter follows a term of endearment for a loved one, as in “you’re a dear” (and something by which CS Lewis was surprised).

Definitions in clues are underlined

Reading clockwise round the grid from the ‘clash cell’ in the leftmost column reveals the six-letter thematic word. Knowing that the central cell is involved, it seems reasonable to assume that the four cells hosting it will be relevant, and reading them clockwise should result in a 💡light bulb moment. From there it is a short hop to identifying the surname of the person (unless you already know it). My technique for locating something like this in the grid is to choose one of the less common letters (I opted for the third letter), find each instance of that letter in the grid, and identify the one that has the two necessary letters among the eight (or less) surrounding it. You may know the five characters or, like me, you may only know where they are to be found; a bit of googling will make up for any knowledge deficit. Counting the number of letters in the five names suggests that we can get down to 24 by representing one of them as a single-letter abbreviation. Once again, pick a letter, find the right instance, and navigate your way around the grid. Highlight the 32 cells, admiring the neat patterns that result, and enter a single letter in the central cell to produce the missing first word of the theme. Job done.

The clues were generally friendly, and the absence of clueing gimmicks meant that the six clashes could be comfortably dealt with. The endgame didn’t demand any significant mental leaps.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾🥾/🥾🥾🥾 (Suitable for anyone except barred puzzle novices)

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