Confused? Perplexed? Your Saturday crossword a large question mark?
Have your perplexities worked out here.
28 thoughts on “DA Confused Me on the 18/19th of June, 2010”
I’m stuck on 11A, 27A – any hint welcome.
One whinge re 1D, a fault IMO to which DA is occasionally prone: the definition part of the clue is much too specific a case.
I’ll swap you a 27 A for a 23D.
27A -Think hair dye.
Stuck on 11A as well.
And what is the explanation for 7D?
Hints:
11A: it’s an oblique definition
23D: you can also drink out of these
7D: This is an allusion to possible wordplay
Sorry, re 11A, i mean the definition part of the clue is oblique, not that the entire clue is an oblique definition
I’m still stuck trying to understand 23D
how does 5A work?
Re 5A: weak = POOR, Swan = COB , POOR seizes COB = PO-COB-OR, and then the whole is reflected
Re 11A – it’s not just the definition that is oblique! I can’t get it, I’m afraid.
Re 11A: dee is English river, Jay is bird, jerking vinyl records back & forth is scratching.
23D: mugging for a photgraph is what celebrities do, apparently
Learned from this crossword that stir is a term for prison and sept a word for clan
I give up on 7D – it can only be 2 answers but the wordplay is beyond me & I look forward to someone helping
7D: “sleeping in” is a containment indicator. shed = SHED
Thanks to all for the clues. Actually got DEEJAY lying in bed last night – dunno how I missed it for so long. Nice clue.
Macquarie tells me that there is indeed a verb ‘to HENNA’. Well, I’ll be.
Sept was new to me, too.
While I got MUGS fairly early because ‘to mug’ is to overact ridiculously on stage or screen, the paparazzi-ambush bit still seems … meh. As, OK, many paparazzi targets are in fact actors, and a mug-shot is a photograph under other circumstances … it’s all a bit vague.
sept was new to me too
AG, think “mug” as in to mug someone on the street for their wallet
Apologies if I am completely missing something, for the life of me I still can’t don’t understand 7D at all?
I’m with Caro.
CAT sleeping in SHED = S-CAT-HED
Yes, mic is right, I think. scathed = injured. As AG notes re. 1D, dubious definitions are DA’s achilles heel.
(Or do others think that injured => scathed, and pages => hired hands are fair & reasonable?)
Ooh okay thanks mic. I just found stumbled upon this site and am sure I will be a regular visitor for the ones I just can not get my head around.
how do you get 27a and 16a?
27 A – Chook = Hen, repulsed (reversed) Senior teacher = Dean
Gives Hennaed
16 A, I make out to be Falls and Faints (keels over) losing heads to give All Saints, but I don’t know why the ‘quietly’ is there.
i do. F means loud. quietly negates this (for ‘falls’). Then ‘faints’ loses its head.
Thanks BTW
I am ok with “pages” (in US corporate speak, like interns) as hired help. Less sure about “scathed”; in fact, never read or heard it used before, as opposed to everyday usage of “scathing”; presumably it is archaic, presumably a “scathe” is a cut or scar.
while ‘scathed’ is not a familiar word to my ear, ‘UNscathed’ certainly is
just as ‘ruthless’ is familiar to me, i rarely outside of crosswords see reference to ‘ruth’ itself
norma khouri and houri both required my googling
and it wasn’t until i consulted a dictionary that i believed ‘para’ is an accepted shortening of ‘para’graph’
I suspect that both the Scots and the Welsh would lay claim to a Dee river before the Poms …
Yes, totally forgot about unscathed & agree re river ownership
Perhaps scathed is something like gruntled …
This was a ripper crossword! Many many great clues! I particularly liked ROYAL FLUSH. But I do have a couple of queries:
10A: The full clue is “Champion on board with openers, keeping extremely loyal after (5,6)”.
The best I can do is:
“Champion on board” = KELLY SLATER
“openers, keeping extremely loyal” = KEL or maybe KELL
“after” = LATER
So how do you explain the LYS or YS?
6D: Full clue is “I arrive up north by way of the country (7)”.
My explanation is:
“I arrive up” = I LOB up = BOLI
“by way of” = VIA
“the country” = BOLIVIA
So what’s the purpose of the word “north” – it seems superfluous to me since the clue already contains “up”.
Re discussion on “injured” = “scathed”, I thought this was OK. Unusual word maybe, but an accurate synonym.
Re “pages” = “hired help”, I agree with AG (very first comment above). He says “One whinge re 1D, a fault IMO to which DA is occasionally prone: the definition part of the clue is much too specific a case.”
re 10a, openers are keys, containing ll (extremely loyal), then later for after as you said
Of course! Thanks JK. Because “keeping” starts with a “k”, I was fixated on “openers” meaning the first letter of each of the next three words (K,E,L); or the first two letters of “keeping” (KE) followed by LL (extremely loyal).
Can you shed any light on my query about “up north” in 6D?
I too was misled by the “openers’ part of the clue & assumed it referred to first letters of words when I first thought about the clue. There is a lot of this in DA – singers for birds, openers for keys, strides which could be steps or trousers, ambiguous or hidden anagram indicators. All part of the fun of course.
I tend to agree re 6D. Either the up or the North is redundant. My only other thought is that the clue flows better as a sentence with both words in and would have sounded clunky with either of them missing.
I’m stuck on 11A, 27A – any hint welcome.
One whinge re 1D, a fault IMO to which DA is occasionally prone: the definition part of the clue is much too specific a case.
I’ll swap you a 27 A for a 23D.
27A -Think hair dye.
Stuck on 11A as well.
And what is the explanation for 7D?
Hints:
11A: it’s an oblique definition
23D: you can also drink out of these
7D: This is an allusion to possible wordplay
Sorry, re 11A, i mean the definition part of the clue is oblique, not that the entire clue is an oblique definition
I’m still stuck trying to understand 23D
how does 5A work?
Re 5A: weak = POOR, Swan = COB , POOR seizes COB = PO-COB-OR, and then the whole is reflected
Re 11A – it’s not just the definition that is oblique! I can’t get it, I’m afraid.
Re 11A: dee is English river, Jay is bird, jerking vinyl records back & forth is scratching.
23D: mugging for a photgraph is what celebrities do, apparently
Learned from this crossword that stir is a term for prison and sept a word for clan
I give up on 7D – it can only be 2 answers but the wordplay is beyond me & I look forward to someone helping
7D: “sleeping in” is a containment indicator. shed = SHED
Thanks to all for the clues. Actually got DEEJAY lying in bed last night – dunno how I missed it for so long. Nice clue.
Macquarie tells me that there is indeed a verb ‘to HENNA’. Well, I’ll be.
Sept was new to me, too.
While I got MUGS fairly early because ‘to mug’ is to overact ridiculously on stage or screen, the paparazzi-ambush bit still seems … meh. As, OK, many paparazzi targets are in fact actors, and a mug-shot is a photograph under other circumstances … it’s all a bit vague.
sept was new to me too
AG, think “mug” as in to mug someone on the street for their wallet
Apologies if I am completely missing something, for the life of me I still can’t don’t understand 7D at all?
I’m with Caro.
CAT sleeping in SHED = S-CAT-HED
Yes, mic is right, I think. scathed = injured. As AG notes re. 1D, dubious definitions are DA’s achilles heel.
(Or do others think that injured => scathed, and pages => hired hands are fair & reasonable?)
Ooh okay thanks mic. I just found stumbled upon this site and am sure I will be a regular visitor for the ones I just can not get my head around.
how do you get 27a and 16a?
27 A – Chook = Hen, repulsed (reversed) Senior teacher = Dean
Gives Hennaed
16 A, I make out to be Falls and Faints (keels over) losing heads to give All Saints, but I don’t know why the ‘quietly’ is there.
i do. F means loud. quietly negates this (for ‘falls’). Then ‘faints’ loses its head.
Thanks BTW
I am ok with “pages” (in US corporate speak, like interns) as hired help. Less sure about “scathed”; in fact, never read or heard it used before, as opposed to everyday usage of “scathing”; presumably it is archaic, presumably a “scathe” is a cut or scar.
while ‘scathed’ is not a familiar word to my ear, ‘UNscathed’ certainly is
just as ‘ruthless’ is familiar to me, i rarely outside of crosswords see reference to ‘ruth’ itself
norma khouri and houri both required my googling
and it wasn’t until i consulted a dictionary that i believed ‘para’ is an accepted shortening of ‘para’graph’
I suspect that both the Scots and the Welsh would lay claim to a Dee river before the Poms …
Yes, totally forgot about unscathed & agree re river ownership
Perhaps scathed is something like gruntled …
This was a ripper crossword! Many many great clues! I particularly liked ROYAL FLUSH. But I do have a couple of queries:
10A: The full clue is “Champion on board with openers, keeping extremely loyal after (5,6)”.
The best I can do is:
“Champion on board” = KELLY SLATER
“openers, keeping extremely loyal” = KEL or maybe KELL
“after” = LATER
So how do you explain the LYS or YS?
6D: Full clue is “I arrive up north by way of the country (7)”.
My explanation is:
“I arrive up” = I LOB up = BOLI
“by way of” = VIA
“the country” = BOLIVIA
So what’s the purpose of the word “north” – it seems superfluous to me since the clue already contains “up”.
Re discussion on “injured” = “scathed”, I thought this was OK. Unusual word maybe, but an accurate synonym.
Re “pages” = “hired help”, I agree with AG (very first comment above). He says “One whinge re 1D, a fault IMO to which DA is occasionally prone: the definition part of the clue is much too specific a case.”
re 10a, openers are keys, containing ll (extremely loyal), then later for after as you said
Of course! Thanks JK. Because “keeping” starts with a “k”, I was fixated on “openers” meaning the first letter of each of the next three words (K,E,L); or the first two letters of “keeping” (KE) followed by LL (extremely loyal).
Can you shed any light on my query about “up north” in 6D?
I too was misled by the “openers’ part of the clue & assumed it referred to first letters of words when I first thought about the clue. There is a lot of this in DA – singers for birds, openers for keys, strides which could be steps or trousers, ambiguous or hidden anagram indicators. All part of the fun of course.
I tend to agree re 6D. Either the up or the North is redundant. My only other thought is that the clue flows better as a sentence with both words in and would have sounded clunky with either of them missing.