24 thoughts on “DA Confusions Resolved for the 14/15th of May, 2010”

1. am having trouble with 2D & 9A. i’m also questioning my answer to 1A, does 2D start with b.

2. JJ: no, 2D does not start with B, but I suspect that you are correct with the last four letters for 1A: you need a 2-letter word that means “thoroughly”.
   9A includes a pretty obscure word in the indirect clue which is a style of Indonesian music

3. The most popular and famous form of Indonesian music is gamelan

4. haiku, thank you, so that’s it.
   spiros, thank you, a p in that wraps it up

5. I had trouble with having a wrong word in place for 1A as well – in my case it was “wasted”. which seemed to fit both ‘drunk’ and, slightly less snugly, “thoroughly exploited”.

6. BTW, does anyone else think DA might have made a slip on 19D? My understanding is that “female herbivore” would be more accurate than “young herbivore” – I don’t think there’s any particular connotation of youth associated with the answer.

7. Definitely a bit of a slip up I’d say.

   Luckily, though, although the young was misleading, it wasn’t actually an error: a female herbivore is always a a young herbivore at some stage or another.

8. Does fiddle = adjust???

9. Some really good clues: my favourites were 14A, 15D.

   AS, your queries above:
   17D is ELDRITCH. Quite a neat clue (‘eld + ritch)
   28A is THREADED. (ad inside three D)

   Agree with a couple of whinges above:
   19D: “young” herbivore? Despite AS’s valiant attempt to excuse it, this has gotta be bullshit.
   10A: Like DG, I thought fiddle=adjust was a bit dodgy.

   And there’s more:
   12A: Handbag = male companion. I’d never heard of this meaning before (I must get out more). It was pretty hard to find with Google too, with other slang meanings of “handbags” outnumbering this one.
   18A: Didn’t like the use of “mid-off” to indicate “half off”. To me, “mid” indicates middle, not half. There’s a subtle difference.
   4D: Unusual plural. I think it’s usually Delphiniums, but I did find one reference to Delphinia, so I suppose it’s OK.
   8D: This looks like “see” = VISIT, “stab” = GO. They’re OK. But “horse” = H? This kind of abbreviation is a pet hate of mine.
   20D: Don’t like “Human Nature” = BOY BAND. We’ve had a few comments recently about going from the general to the specific (OK) and vice versa (not OK, unless accompanied by “say” or “for example”, or etc). I suppose the “?” is DA’s version of “say” or “for example”, but since he uses “?” a lot, it’s not particularly helpful.
   23,13D: Having trouble explaining this one. Is it “nick” = PALM and “hitched” = RODE. If so, I’ve not heard of this meaning of “palm”, presumably “nick” as in “steal”. And “hitched” = “rode” doesn’t seem quite right to me, either (to hitch doesn’t mean to ride; it means to obtain a ride).

10. re 8D. H stands for heroin, for which horse is another name.

11. Good reason I never got eldritch — I knew of the word as a surname, never as a word that means something in particular.

    DG, fiddle does mean adjust, as in to fiddle with. The one quibble is, as far as I’m aware, fiddle meaning to adjust always takes another word with it (i.e. fiddle with, fiddle around).

    RB, on 18A I agree, but I like the cricketing terms being used so I’m willing to let it pass through to the keeper.

    20D, I’m OK with going from specific to general as long as the specific to general step is something distinctive, i.e. Ivan Milat = murderer rather than Ivan Milat = man.

    On 23,13D, hitched = rode is bullshit for mine.

12. Thanks NF. Didn’t know that. I withdraw my whinge about the abbreviation.

13. also last time I checked Bambi was male, obviously buck didn’t fit in the grid quite as well

14. Good work, Caitlin. The internets seem to support you.

    How odd that it should become a name for females and the titular name of the sex bomb in a hilarious Prince song (the chorus goes: Bambi, can’t you understand, Bambi, it’s better with a man)

15. Re Bambi – well spotted Caitlin.
    AS, re fiddle/adjust, as you point out, “fiddle” needs a preposition such as “with”, but also it carries a different meaning in that it implies meddling or lack of knowledge.

16. Sure, fiddling and adjusting might have different connotations, just as short and vertically challenged do, but both words describe fundamentally the same thing.

17. Give me a sentence where ‘adjust’ (BY ITSELF) can replace ‘fiddle’…….

    H for horse is fine. If you see racehorse listed in a caralogue/ formguide etc you’d see things like:

    4yo ch H (4 year old chestnut horse)
    5yo b G (brown gelding)
    3yo gr F (grey filly)

18. Except for the preposition, which we’ve already noted makes the clue a little dodgy, “I adjusted the books” is only a short euphemistic step away from “I fiddled with the books”.

19. Actually, in the example just given, the preposition isn’t required. A similar example is “he fiddled the figures”. But I still maintain that “adjusted the figures” is different in that it carries no implication of impropriety whereas “fiddled the figures” does.

20. My 86 year old mom helped me with handbag and eldritch. Together we got the lot out over a morning cup of coffee. Hitched = rode is not that much of a stretch, and maybe crops up in Me and My Bobby McGee. And maybe the and in Boy Band comes from DNA?

21. Peter,

    With = And.

    Am I the only one to have never heard of Miro? Id expect few wouldve heard of any surrealists other than Magritte or Dali (who I tried in vain to put in the answer). Maybe my general knowledge and interest in surrealism isnt as strong as I thought.

22. Funnily enough, I’d heard of Miro but not Magritte.

23. Help, help ! 2D ?

24. re. 2D … got it !