17 across: Close third in fair tourney (5)
How does the wordplay mean joust?
21 thoughts on “Confusions, Confusions on the 15/16th of October, 2010”
For Peter:
11a: a.m., then the fist and last letters of EditioN, then the corner kick of a soccer match.
Ta, obviously I missed this kick.
By dinner time 87 y.o. mom had most of it out but for did not know the modern terms 7D & 8D, and (being a Canadian) wrote airball for 24A.
I give up. Got the dog in 23A, thanks to google, but the word play is a mystery. Marker turned tail ? Is marker a sharpie, turn tail = Shar Pei, or am I barking up the wrong tree.
JJ, a Sharpie is a brand of marker so you’re spot on.
Maybe I should have googled Sharpie. When I was younger Sharpies were people you avoided walking down George St. late at night.
Offtopic, but I only knew the name through a stand-up comedian’s joke: “Sharpie – the pencil that writes 10,000 words” So I bought one, but mine only wrote 9,998 words. Then when I took it back to the shop the man told me what the other two words were….
Wordplay explanations, please, for 15A (the last bit, that is – DENSE = FIR ??), and 15D.
AG,
15A: dense = FIRM, with M to the front
15D: i had to confirm that BIER was indeed a word
Never heard of Shar Pei or Sharpie (except the kind mentioned by JJ earlier), so I struggled with that one. For 11A, I had a different take on sidekick = corner, thinking that it might have been a boxing reference to the cornerman.
Some nice clues – my favourites were 14A, 8D, 20A, 3D, 7D.
I, too, thought of a sidekick as someone who is in your corner, but Ian is obviously on to a better line of reasoning. Yes, a good one again. Enjoyed 3D, 7D and 13D. Took ages to get 8D, but now I know that there’s a name for that (even though all the references to it that came up on Google seemed to make it one 7-letter word, not 4,3.)
First time for ages I have managed to get a DA out. Very satisfying. Last clue was 23A which I had to google. I’ve never heard of Sharpie either. Proud of getting 15A purely from the wordplay and the DA-like definition. Re 5D, shouldn’t the clue specify (5’1,3) not (6,3)?
17A Close third = o, in just (fair) = Joust
Great crossword,loved 14D Only problem I have is with 25A,answer is E-text, but what is meant by ‘Kindle’. Is this a computer term?
Incidentally a big thankyou to whoever alerted us to DA on TV, Letters and Numbers, 6.00pm SBS. A great show for puzzle enthusiasts.
Yep, BH, KINDLE is a technology-related term, although the answer is slightly misleading because it’s really an e-reader rather than an e-text.
Can someone explain the wordplay in 14A? Can’t see what it has to do with speeches and sheds.
Maybe I’m a bit DENSE… or is that FIRM? Poor synonym in my view. Maybe HARD or SOLID are better options?
14a: Speech = oration, take away at = Orion
NC: We’ve had this debate before. When the apostrophe indicates possessive case (as in Hooke’s), it’s quite common not to show the apostrophe in the word lengths.
BH: I’m a fan of Letters and Numbers too.
mrigeoy: 14A is a beauty, but it took a while for the penny to drop.
‘speech’ = ORATION
‘at shed’ is an instruction to remove ‘at’, thus giving ORION
And I thought dense = firm a poor synonym too (15A).
Thanks for the explanation Ian and RB. You’re right RB, it is a great clue. Wish I had been able to work out the wordplay, would have been one of those aha! moments.
Good puzzle; only quibble is Hooke’s law. Being a physicist, it is a part of my life and the apostrophe is not optional. So it did throw me.
I used to complain about the missing apostrophe, but it’s apparently the cryptic convention that apostrophes are only included in the letter count when it marks a contraction, not a possessive.
Thus, ISN’T SHE LOVELY would be marked (3’1, 3, 6), while AARON’S ROD would be marked (6, 3)
I’m not sure I agree with the convention, but a convention it is nonetheless, and one I think DA always follows.
Thanks all for the explanation about the missing apostrophe. I have been overseas most of the year and haven’t caught up with all the archived posts yet.
“shed” is one of my favourite wordplay instructions, so the first thing I did for 14A was try to think of a word to remove “at” from, which made the clue relatively easy.
For Peter:
11a: a.m., then the fist and last letters of EditioN, then the corner kick of a soccer match.
Ta, obviously I missed this kick.
By dinner time 87 y.o. mom had most of it out but for did not know the modern terms 7D & 8D, and (being a Canadian) wrote airball for 24A.
I give up. Got the dog in 23A, thanks to google, but the word play is a mystery. Marker turned tail ? Is marker a sharpie, turn tail = Shar Pei, or am I barking up the wrong tree.
JJ, a Sharpie is a brand of marker so you’re spot on.
Maybe I should have googled Sharpie. When I was younger Sharpies were people you avoided walking down George St. late at night.
Offtopic, but I only knew the name through a stand-up comedian’s joke: “Sharpie – the pencil that writes 10,000 words” So I bought one, but mine only wrote 9,998 words. Then when I took it back to the shop the man told me what the other two words were….
Wordplay explanations, please, for 15A (the last bit, that is – DENSE = FIR ??), and 15D.
AG,
15A: dense = FIRM, with M to the front
15D: i had to confirm that BIER was indeed a word
Never heard of Shar Pei or Sharpie (except the kind mentioned by JJ earlier), so I struggled with that one. For 11A, I had a different take on sidekick = corner, thinking that it might have been a boxing reference to the cornerman.
Some nice clues – my favourites were 14A, 8D, 20A, 3D, 7D.
I, too, thought of a sidekick as someone who is in your corner, but Ian is obviously on to a better line of reasoning. Yes, a good one again. Enjoyed 3D, 7D and 13D. Took ages to get 8D, but now I know that there’s a name for that (even though all the references to it that came up on Google seemed to make it one 7-letter word, not 4,3.)
First time for ages I have managed to get a DA out. Very satisfying. Last clue was 23A which I had to google. I’ve never heard of Sharpie either. Proud of getting 15A purely from the wordplay and the DA-like definition. Re 5D, shouldn’t the clue specify (5’1,3) not (6,3)?
17A Close third = o, in just (fair) = Joust
Great crossword,loved 14D Only problem I have is with 25A,answer is E-text, but what is meant by ‘Kindle’. Is this a computer term?
Incidentally a big thankyou to whoever alerted us to DA on TV, Letters and Numbers, 6.00pm SBS. A great show for puzzle enthusiasts.
Yep, BH, KINDLE is a technology-related term, although the answer is slightly misleading because it’s really an e-reader rather than an e-text.
More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
Can someone explain the wordplay in 14A? Can’t see what it has to do with speeches and sheds.
Maybe I’m a bit DENSE… or is that FIRM? Poor synonym in my view. Maybe HARD or SOLID are better options?
14a: Speech = oration, take away at = Orion
NC: We’ve had this debate before. When the apostrophe indicates possessive case (as in Hooke’s), it’s quite common not to show the apostrophe in the word lengths.
BH: I’m a fan of Letters and Numbers too.
mrigeoy: 14A is a beauty, but it took a while for the penny to drop.
‘speech’ = ORATION
‘at shed’ is an instruction to remove ‘at’, thus giving ORION
And I thought dense = firm a poor synonym too (15A).
Thanks for the explanation Ian and RB. You’re right RB, it is a great clue. Wish I had been able to work out the wordplay, would have been one of those aha! moments.
Good puzzle; only quibble is Hooke’s law. Being a physicist, it is a part of my life and the apostrophe is not optional. So it did throw me.
I used to complain about the missing apostrophe, but it’s apparently the cryptic convention that apostrophes are only included in the letter count when it marks a contraction, not a possessive.
Thus, ISN’T SHE LOVELY would be marked (3’1, 3, 6), while AARON’S ROD would be marked (6, 3)
I’m not sure I agree with the convention, but a convention it is nonetheless, and one I think DA always follows.
Thanks all for the explanation about the missing apostrophe. I have been overseas most of the year and haven’t caught up with all the archived posts yet.
“shed” is one of my favourite wordplay instructions, so the first thing I did for 14A was try to think of a word to remove “at” from, which made the clue relatively easy.