Enigmatic Variations 1743 (Hints)
Moral Tale by Stick Insect
Hints and tips by Gabriel / Jpeg
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Stick Insect is presenting us with a challenge relating to some kind of Moral Tale. Our favourite AI seems quite convinced that the preamble completely gives away the tale in question, a well-known fable involving animals. Is it on a solid foundation this time?
Preamble: In two thirds of clues, a letter must be evicted before solving. In clue order, these letters give three extracts of dialogue from a MORAL TALE. In line with one character’s actions, two items in the grid must be scattered into cells which are blank in the initially filled grid, creating all real words when blank cells are ignored. The surviving third item must be highlighted. Lengths in brackets show the space available in the grid. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; 36 across and 44 are in ODE.
This puzzle presents a few challenges: ⅔ of the clues have an extra letter that could be in either the definition part of the wordplay part. Some unknown number of answers are shorter than the allotted grid entries, and there is nothing saying that the two categories are mutually exclusive.
I’ve mentioned this before but ODE is the Oxford Dictionary of English (easy to find online) as opposed to OED (which is hard to access online) – that said, I’ve learnt that wiktionary is pretty comprehensive.
Clues:
Across
1 Are dachas housing communist? (4)
Not a hard clue but you’ll note that the answer is (3) and we recalled that some “cells which are blank” are in the initial grid.
18 Not decent river, not acceptable growing in rubbish (7)
This botanical adjective can be formed as a charade of an adjective and a proper name (also of a mountain chain) lacking an abbreviation.
20 Goddess in quiet Indian industrial action (6)
Put a goddess (not Indian!) inside of a short verb to get this rather intimidating kind of action.
34 Part of flower company acreage includes ruin (7)
This flower part (also a Japanese car model) can be formed from putting a verb synonym between two abbreviations.
40 Proportion, if found in admin, produces wonder (5)
The answer is hidden in an unshortened synonym for the last word.
Down
2 Upset chest at emporium containing food (4)
Sometimes the hardest wordplays to work out are the easiest. Just remember that, in addition to the answer, there might be an extra letter lurking. The answer to the definition here is an informal plural one.
4 Across Hungary, sire is misused title of respect (4)
This title is from a land far from Hungary (though shout-out to Magyar!), but the wordplay is just an anagram surrounding an abbreviation.
7 Electronic highway has announced true copy for lawyers (7)
Combine a modern abbreviation with a homophone to get this legal term.
22 60% of court annoyed with his act related to hearing (8)
An anagram of a part of a word and two shorter words yields this adjective.
23 Drive made Perth church short of one thousand (3)
Remove one of two common numerical abbreviations from a Scottish noun to get a verb. Consider how the underlined definition might yield a verb.
35 Getting up lather, shaving right popular (5)
The answer for the definition is something you might have done (or had a bit of one) this morning before solving the puzzle. The wordplay is slightly tricky: a charade of a 4-letter synonym that is “de-tailed” and a very common two-letter synonym. The definition also needs an interloper evicted. The trick involved figuring out if the “de-tailer” indicator was prefix or postfix.
Definitions in clues are underlined.
Well well well, our favourite LLM got this one absolutely correct! Once we got the 13-letter clue and a couple of crossing letters, enough of the rest of the grid fell into place. Of course, having the correct theme in mind made it easier to figure out both the extra letters and what to look for in the grid. Without that help finishing this would have been trickier.
Difficulty: 2 out of 5, though maybe 3 out of 5 if we hadn’t had the theme guessed.
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Again I take issue with the difficulty assessment. The main problem was not knowing if empty cell answers were simply too short or if the blank could be anywhere within. I had an additional problem in the NE quarter where 16a doesn’t seem to work properly. Unless I’ve blundered the substitution is the wrong way round? Gabriel?
I’ve a completed initial grid, the theme is spelled out clearly by the 3 quotes. The 3 items are clear but I am short of a blank cell to accommodate the last scattered letter [one of 3 shared potentially with 2 other blanks].
Thanks to Stick Insect and Gabriel.
The three items indeed have repeated letters as you note (10/15). 16a doesn’t play a role directly in the blanks/scattering but both 9d and 10d do. Hope that’s a helpful push.
I should add you only need to scatter the first two items (exactly 10 letters) – the last item doesn’t scatter for technical reasons.
Thanks, but my problem lay in the opposite corner. Now sorted.
Still concerned 16a is a dud clue.
I see what you mean about 16a – the wp can be interpreted in two ways I suppose. It’s intended to generate the definition by observing that if you change its letters, you’ll get a synonym for a two-word term.
I can’t see what the second way is. “Getting a for b” means replace b by a doesn’t it?
Hello, I regularly look to this site for inspiration but haven’t posted before now.
I am surprised that the NE section isnt really covered in the clue guide since for me at least it is by far the hardest part of the puzzle.
Welcome to the blog, Chris.
Thank you, I’m sure it will all fall into place of I could just solve 17a, a gentle nudge would be appreciated.
Think period in Ancient Rome.
How did I not see that, thanks.
I agree re 16a…but it had to be the definition as I read it. I only found 8 blanks…assumed that you didn’t need to use the same letter twice. But I am absolutely stumped by 10d and 14a . Nice theme and fun endgame! Thank you all!
14a: think of the mathematical meaning of prime [numbers].
10d: think of a leader whose wife was a musical.
Thank you…I was thinking of him and his wife…but I’ve obviously got an R in the wrong place! ???