Irish Times Crossword (Crosaire)

Spike440

I be disgusted if it came out that anyone other than Crozier was setting the crossword. He's an institution at this stage. I really just think he varies the difficulty depending on the day. Also, the grid he uses for Tuesdays is the most difficult because it doesn't yield the first or last letter for most clues.

Does anyone have 21d or 30a today? And what do people think of my answer for 9d?

Spike440

Ah wait, 30a is

BEDSITTERS

and 21d is

SPRITES

.

Last one: 9d

PILFERED

. Not too happy with this one...

bothyhead

9d based on the checked letters, the answer looks more like

differed

bothyhead

Spike440 wrote: »

Also, the grid he uses for Tuesdays is the most difficult because it doesn't yield the first or last letter for most clues.

I've never paid much attention to the grid patterns. Does he have one for Monday, another for Tuesday, etc ... ? If he does, well spotted!

Spike440

Yes he does. The more I think about it, I think that the different grids are responsible for the variation in difficulty. Take today's for example, it was possible to get the first letter in the vast majority of answers from another answer.

As I look at it I would say it's also related to the composition of the completed grid. If you have an incomplete clue but the letters you have are consonants, the answer is easier to work out. An awful lot of today's had consonants in the common squares. I think that's why it took me so long to get 30a.

Maybe it's just me?

Laurent

20 A

bedsitters

9 D

differed

Laurent

21 D sprites

bothyhead

Spike440 wrote: »

... As I look at it I would say it's also related to the composition of the completed grid. If you have an incomplete clue but the letters you have are consonants, the answer is easier to work out. An awful lot of today's had consonants in the common squares...

You've made a very valid point there. If the common squares contain consonants, it makes it easier to guess a partially filled in answer; however, if it contains a vowel, it's practically no use to you (especially if it's an e).

And as you also mentioned, sometimes you might have a series of down clues which give you odd letters of an across clue, and at other times the even letters. Obviously the odd letters are the easier ones, specifically if it's the first letter.

This might be of interest to you: in crossword parlance, the common squares are known as 'checked letters' and the others as 'unchs' (unchecked)

bothyhead

1a -

full house

9a -

delete

10a -

mattress

11a -

motive

12a -

revere

2d -

unawed

3d -

letter

4d -

opened

6d -

renown

bothyhead

14a -

enow

a new word to me
16a -

sneeze

26a -

usage

31a -

usages

(hmm, strange)

5d -

sisters

11d -

moses

23d -

mumbled

27d -

auntie

28d -

eaglet

29d -

verges

Spike440

Re: 31a

we=US Times =AGES

bothyhead

Re 31a ... Yeah, I saw that. I just thought it was strange that

he used the same word twice

Going back to what was mentioned yesterday: today's check letters are mostly consonants, which makes guesswork easier.

Spike440

Yes except for 8d which took me a while.

The remaining ones are:

15a -

RIDER

18a -

LAMBENT

21a -

ASCETIC

24a -

CANNOT

30a -

REAM

32a -

JAILED

33a -

LITTLEGO - apparently an old Greek and Latin qualification

34a -

CALLOW

35a -

ADVERTISE

He loves putting this word in this position. It comes up as 35a in this grid all the time.

7d -

PENITENT

8d -

REVERENCE

13d -

RIME

17d -

BLACKJACK

love this one
19d -

MANDIBLE

20d -

NOTED

22d -

COGS

25d -

OREGON

bothyhead

I have to confess that I'm totally stuck with the remainder of the clues. However, the day is young!

Laurent

I am humbled ! After my success yesterday, and thinking that someone other than Crosaire had set the x-word, to day I have regressed to the point that I have to agree that this one was from the pen of the master! I managed 8, and most of them had (?) after them. I will continue to practice, and try and get a bigger dictonary. Still looking for the meaning of "lambent" !

Spike440

18a

lam·bent [lam-buhnt]
–adjective

1. running or moving lightly over a surface: lambent tongues of flame.
2. dealing lightly and gracefully with a subject; brilliantly playful: lambent wit.
3. softly bright or radiant: a lambent light.

Spike440

I thought 24a was a bit simplistic.

bothyhead

Laurent wrote: »

I will continue to practice, and try and get a bigger dictonary. Still looking for the meaning of "lambent" !

Lambent = softly bright or radiant (like a candle flame)

With regard to dictionaries, these 3 are fine:

1. (New) Oxford Dictionary of English [NODE] (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary [OED])
2. Chambers Dictionary (not the Chambers 21st century dictionary)
3. Collins English Dictionary

Keep away from Gem / Pocket / Concise versions.

I own numbers 1, and 2, and friend uses # 3 (which I glance at from time to time.) My favourite of all of them is Chambers - which is the one recommended for most of the advanced British crosswords (Mephisto in the Sunday Times, for example.) However, if English is not your first language (are you French?) then the other two might be a better choice.

A comparison:

• Both the Oxford and Collins contain more encyclopaedic and proper noun entries than Chambers.
• The definitions in Oxford and Collins are at times much clearer than Chambers.
• The paper in the Oxford is ridiculous thin (numerous pages in mine became creased through normal usage)
• The Oxford has loads of usage examples (as well as a definition, a small sentence is given on how to use the word). Collins has some usage examples as well; Chambers has none.
• For pronunciation, Chambers uses a technique where it re-spells the word; the others use the International Phonetic Alphabet. For me, the Chambers is far more intuitive in this respect - the IPA involves learning funny symbols and the sounds associated with them
• Oxford and Collins tend to list words as their own entry, where as in Chambers, words tend to be grouped together under their common root. For instance, Linen and linenfold appear as two separate entries in Oxford, where as they both appear under Linen in Chambers.
• Words are slightly easier to find in Oxford & Collins
• You learn far more by using Chambers. Because you have to drill down through the headword, you discover other words on the way

Chambers tends to be very quirky, and at times has some humours definitions. I was looking up 'potato' the other day and one of the ones given was: "someone who sits for hour after hour with vegetable-like inertia" Even though Chambers is my favourite, I would like to stress that the other two are very fine books as well.

Collins:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Collins-English-Dictionary/dp/0007228996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221225165&sr=1-1

Oxford:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Dictionary-English-Catherine-Soanes/dp/0198610572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221227364&sr=1-1

Chambers: 11th ed, 2008
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chambers-Dictionary-2008/dp/0550102892/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221227471&sr=1-1

Reviews of Chambers: (the 10th ed)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/product/0550101853/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?_encoding=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Sample page from Chambers:
http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/books/sample_pdfs/tcd.pdf

Sample page from Oxford:
http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-861057-2.pdf

By the way, they're all big books - perhaps 12" x 9" x 4" (H X W x D), and weighing more than a kilogram.

bothyhead

Spike440 wrote: »

I thought 24a was a bit simplistic.

+1

FruitLover

Spike440 wrote: »

I thought 24a was a bit simplistic.

It took me a while to write it in, as I wasn't convinced that it could be that simple...

stepinnman

Laurent wrote: »

I am humbled ! After my success yesterday, and thinking that someone other than Crosaire had set the x-word, to day I have regressed to the point that I have to agree that this one was from the pen of the master! I managed 8, and most of them had (?) after them. I will continue to practice, and try and get a bigger dictonary. Still looking for the meaning of "lambent" !

I actually could barely do yesterdays Crosaire and got all but 4 today in one sitting! In fairness I was sitting at Sean Dunnes Planning Appeal all day so I had plenty of time to concentrate!!

Laurent

Bothyhead, thank you yery much for your information concerning dictonaries. It looks as if Amazon will be hearing from me.
As to nationality, I have the best of both worlds, -- Irish based in France ! Though I do miss the wit and humour of Ireland.

bothyhead

Laurent, I was just looking that sample dictionary pages that I linked the other day. On screen the typeface look a bit blotchy, or perhaps a bit dark. I can assure you that they are perfect in the physical books.

Spike440

I thought that Saturday's was quite straightforward aside from 22a which I guessed correctly as ASSEGAI - some sort of African spear. There were a troubling number of clues without definitions thought which slowed things down a bit.

Spike440

8a -

FAMILIAR

9a -

OTHERS

10a -

MADCAP

11a -

UNSORTED

12a -

CEDARS

13a -

HALIBUTS

15a -

OATS

17a -

BASKING

19a -

PRESIDE

22a -

EASE

24a -

DIAMONDS

27a -

DILATE

29a -

UNSTABLE

30a -

LITTER

31a -

STROKE

32a -

TEN TO ONE

1d -

PALATE

2d -

JIMCRACK or GIMCRACK

3d -

DIAPASON

4d -

BROUGHT

5d -

FOSSIL

6d -

CHERUB

7d -

ARRESTED

14d -

ASPS

16d -

AGED

18d -

ALIENATE

20d -

REDOLENT

21d -

SOLUTION

23d -

ASCENTS

25d -

METHODS

26d -

NOBLES

28d -

THE END

hivizman

Well done, Spike.

I'd go with

JIMCRACK

for 2D, which is given in Chambers Dictionary as an alternative spelling under

GIMCRACK

.

Most unsound clues of the day were 11A, which would have been less bad if worded as "Kind of in the nude, confused?", and 4D, where I can't see a definition and I don't think that

BROT

can be derived from "little brother".

Spike440

Yes 4d is interesting because it has no definition but three cryptic parts:

little brother =

BR or BRO

should be =

OUGHT

coarse inside =

ROUGH

bothyhead

I'm on the lookout for a good thesaurus. I've been looking at some sample pdfs, and am leaning towards the Oxford Concise. Has anyone any experience with this or others? - thanks

hivizman

Spike440 wrote: »

Yes 4d is interesting because it has no definition but three cryptic parts:

little brother =

BR or BRO

should be =

OUGHT

coarse inside =

ROUGH

That's a better analysis - I was trying to get

UGH

for "coarse" inside

BROT

for "little brother".

hivizman

bothyhead wrote: »

I'm on the lookout for a good thesaurus. I've been looking at some sample pdfs, and am leaning towards the Oxford Concise. Has anyone any experience with this or others? - thanks

I tend to use Roget's Thesaurus, published by Penguin (not the current edition, though) for help with writing. I also have an old (1991) edition of Chambers Thesaurus, which I don't particularly like - tends to be better for abstract concepts than more concrete terms, but word lists are a bit limited. For crosswords, I use an old (1993) edition of Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary, but I'll have to drop a hint and see if someone will get me the new edition (published by Collins and just out in paperback) for Christmas.