EV 1715 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1715 (Hints)
The Wrong Sort by Wicksparrow
Hints and tips by Gabriel / Jpeg

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A puzzle titled “The Wrong Sort” makes us instantly think of anagrams or, perhaps, of Winnie the Pooh and “The Wrong Sort of Bees.” Gemini, on the other hand, was extremely confident in predicting that this refers to “The Wrong Sort of Snow,” a phrase famously associated with the former UK Transport Secretary, David Blunkett.

Preamble: In 36 clues, an extra word must be removed before solving. Of the first letters of these, in clue order, 18 spell the name of a writer (Set W) and the rest give a cryptic representation of the title (Set T) of one of his works. A six-word phrase from the work (cited on Wikiquote) must be illustrated by completing 1a (two words) and 42a (three words). The latter is THE WRONG SORT and must be corrected, always leaving real crossing words. For a similar error in Set T, solvers must change two unchecked letters in one entry to produce the correct word (6). All unchecked letters in these three thematic entries, both before and after changes, could spell I DISMISS AI PRIZE GOAL.  Finally, solvers must highlight three examples of 1a (19 cells). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

This preamble is somewhat complex. There are 36/42 clues with an extra word, so we have to watch our counts for those without one. Those letters comprise two different representations and it is unclear if the two sets are intermingled. Additionally, we are representing a 6 word quote with 5 words in the puzzle.

Clues:
Across
11 Flooded valley circled by golden eagle (4)
Because the definition usually comes first or last, the practice of underlining here makes the extra word obvious. The wordplay relies on a containment indicator – there were multiple candidate 4 letter words fitting the definition and the partial letters we had at this point.

27 Headband isn’t commonly worn by each revolutionary (6)
This particular headband is ancient and the definition could also be worn. The wordplay requires reversing an abbreviation inside of a reversed slang contraction.

30 Spearman of staggering grade (5)
The wordplay is straightforward, but the definition was not. You might need to search the appendix of the BRB for a name derived from two Old English terms that does indeed mean spear-man.

40 Hackney poet’s recreated East London verandah (5)
East London is a regional speech indicator, but not Cockney. The wordplay has a pretty clear anagram indicator.

41 Naked author’s critical initiation (4)
According to our BRB the definition is only one type of the answer, so “initiation for one” might be clearer. For the wordplay you will want to remove the outermost letters from a word.

Down
4 Elders for the most part want positive Highland crop (4)
There are tasty recipes for the crop in question. The WP requires dropping the last letter from a word plus a one letter abbreviation.

6 Lack of concentration perceived as internal stress? (11)
The wordplay for this fairly common answer is just a homophone of a couple of synonyms, the second of which is a longer word that is particularly relevant to Gemini and other LLMs we use when trying to decrypt these themes.

10 Song, say, in Eritrean, recalled African land (7)
It took us a long time to figure this one out as we were thrown off by the extra word. Solving 33a helped us a lot as that clue refers to this one. The wordplay turns out to be a reversed charade of three terms, a short word, an abbreviation, and an even shorter word.

17 Races about, taking in one of the Home Counties (6)
Not being from the UK made this one harder for us. A commonly-used-in-cryptics two-letter foreign word is contained in a shortening of a UK location, leading to a plural noun.

24 Said grace jokingly before nourishment (7)
We are looking for a plural noun for the definition. Remember that ”said” can be interpreted as “sounds like.”

26 Cold treats are pinched by Italian on arrival from the South (6)
The cold treats in question are also Italian. As this is a Down clue, the WP requires reversal, in this case of both a sporting term and a two-letter abbreviation, both “pinching” (containing) a 1 letter-abbreviation.

32 Follows aged suspects abandoning steamship (4)
An archaic word for the definition, a shortening of a not-so-archaic verb, is required. Remove a common abbreviation for steamship from the middle of a valid but nowadays somewhat colloquial synonym.

Definitions in clues are underlined.

We needed a lot of help with the endgame. The top row was easier to figure out than the bottom, but one of the letters from the unchecked letter phrase helped eventually there. Knowledge of a particular foreign language helps and might even be required. Don’t forget to make all the changes and highlight the three words representing the phrase.

Some tricky to parse clues, a somewhat obscure theme, and there are multiple aspects to the preamble and endgame.

Toughness: 4 out of 5 on the difficulty scale – we found it very hard to untangle the message.

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