The official bored-at-work cryptic crossword pass it on thread.

araucaria or ximes had a quote about how the solver ought to be permitted 'a reasonable shelf of reference works'. eh. also, you know, sometimes you have PSALMANUGGLE or something and just need to go 'is this really the name of an extinct marsupial or am i wrong'

those kind of things should be kept for listener-type xwords imo. araucaria annoyed me today with a word for hartebeest which actually means wildebeest, except in some 200 year old taxonomy.

oh come on, who hasn't gotten wildebeest/hartebeest mixed up lately? hot topic imo

xxp you're forgetting the 'visit'.

to think positive - theo visit = inkpot.

leaves us with 'poe' from positive....

ha!

ok motivated to revisit the others now

(sterling work btw)

there a word for 'shame' with 'oner' in the middle?

i think the phobia = hate thing is right - e.g. xenophobia, homophobia, generally manifest as hate not fear.

dis oner

Well done ledge.

I have been failing to find synonyms for embarrassment with "oner" in the middle for some time now, but I totally misread the inkpot one, so I don't trust my own judgement any more.

i'm gonna investigate as to whether as 'oner' orginated as a debt of shame? seems the most promising lead (working backwards from onerous)

don't keep us in suspenders

i got nothing

Chambers gives 'a big lie' as a definition of 'oner': is that what's given in embarrassment?

bit of a stretch.

not as much as trying to make 'er' = embarrassment, granted

darra was maybe on the right track. from teh oed:

oner, v.

Obs.

Forms: lME onyr, lME-15 oner. [< classical Latin oner{amac}re ONERATE v. Compare EXONER v., ONERATE v.]

trans. To oppress or burden; to charge; spec. to levy a charge on.
a1500 W. LICHEFELD Complaint of God (Caius) 400 in Anglia (1911) 34 520 Full sore schulde thy enmyes be desesyd, And thou my{ygh}thtyst oner [c1450 Lamb. 853 ouer] them, as i onyr [c1450 Lamb. 853 ouer] the may. 1545 St. Papers Hen. VIII V. 409 Who be extreme in takinge of gressoms, and oneringe of rentes. 1545 G. JOYE Expos. Daniel (viii.) f. 145, Beholde withe how fewe single pure and easye institucions cryste orned & not onered his chirche. 1581 Protocol Bk. J. Scott (Edinb. Reg. House) f. 112, The landis of Ower Carinbie..is onerit and burdanit with ane {ygh}eirlie annuell rent [etc.]. a1600 (?c1535) tr. H. Boece Hist. Scotl. (1946) IV. iii. f.129, [The Romans] had neuer onerit thame with sic chargis as victouris mycht of resoun put to pepill vincust

but i can't find anything to link that to shame/embarrassment specifically, as opposed to just 'burden of debt'- all the stuff you'd expect about legal terms in filing for bankruptcy etc, but it still seems like we're stretching to me.

not as much as trying to make 'er' = embarrassment, granted

'Er' (ie 'errrrrrrr') as something spoken/given in embarassment feels ok, though - it's just I can't parse the clue to get the 'on'.

(These clues are horrible by the way - I'd be angry at them - messy, a bit confused.)

i'd have agreed with you on the clues until ledge pulled the rug under our feet with positive theo, now i'm wary

I knew ledge would come good. Shall I post more, or do people want to crack on with morbid fear/ given in embarassment?

no more fear and embarrassment for me (i wish)

more pls

Isn't morbid fear parsed? It's just a really awkward clue, somewhere between double definition and &lit.

More!

> Beholde withe how fewe single pure and easye institucions cryste orned & not onered his chirche.

were they having a sale on 'e's?

A blooming spanish bayonet perhaps (5)
Firth of Forth rock fish (4)
One up on a major saddle (3)
Old enough to start earning immediately (4)
Practically everything here seems to be £1.99 (6,3)

wait I really DO get #4 this time!

lhppn
onff
pby
rabj
arneyl nyy

ha i'm not touching those this morning, i think i broke my brain last night

the major saddle is fairly straight fwd- one up on a major, a geographical feature between two hills.

rabj is an archaic word for enough, first letter just stands for earnings (this may be an economic/accounting common abbrev but tbh i'm not sure)

#1 - Spanish Bayonet is a variety of the answer

sorry, of lhppn

onff is double def.

practically everything is straightforward enough, but tbh the nyy part i would have expected to be the roman numerals for 200 to make any sense. i'm prob missing something fairly straightforward

yy = old ££

ah ok

first letter just stands for earnings (this may be an economic/accounting common abbrev but tbh i'm not sure)

'to start' tells you just to use the first letter.

xxp congrats to woof for writing that far more succinctly and coherently than i could ever have done.

fairy nuff

Oh wow - forgot that 'yy' usage!

So those are all done now!

More?

no, i'm busy!

xxp - ty, cncsn is the aim.

I too am trying to be busy. But I guess some more could just sit there, and no-one would have to look at them if they were worried abt getting the sack say.

oh bollocks that's not how it works and you know it

Junkie's dead: dictionary contains the answer? (6)

addict

Quite right. Must stop. Prob shouldn't be scribbling 'junkie' and 'addict' on the corner of proofs I'm meant to be correcting.

wait why did it stop?