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

xxxp

Yeah, he's one of the truly great setters I think - he and Paul are my daily favourites.

Love Ximenean/Non-Ximenean setters beef:

Pasquale and I eventually meet for supper in a pub south of the Thames. I ask him about his criticism of Araucaria, and his face lights up. "I've got the prize puzzle," he says, "on Saturday. Have a look at it. It's my comment on some of Araucaria's clues."

The prize puzzle in the Guardian is mostly set by Araucaria, but sometimes others get a look-in. Bunthorne may have one a month. Enigmatist from time to time. Occasionally Paul. And now Pasquale.

"Do the puzzle," he says. And then, as all setters do from time to time, he has a moment of doubt about the clue. "It's a quotation," he adds, "a bit obscure. But it is in the dictionary. I think people will get it. I think it will be all right." ("All right" is an expression setters use frequently, as a euphemism for "fair".)

And so I get the paper and look eagerly for the clue, which is: "See cluer's use of rare, silly pseudo-lingo - absurd nonsense from 4 (10, 5, 5, 5, 9)". I can see the reprimand. Silly pseudo-lingo and all that. But the quote? I have a moment of doubt. If this is to be a good clue, then both the solution and the surface meaning must feed each other. It will not do for the answer to have nothing to do with "cluers" and their (alleged) silly pseudo-lingo. It must somehow complete the story.

And when I get it, of course, it does.

The answer to 4 down in this puzzle is Chomsky. So we can put that into the clue: "See cluer's use of rare, silly pseudo-lingo - absurd nonsense from Chomsky (10, 5, 5, 5, 9)". Something Chomsky said, then, and an anagram indicated by "absurd".

The answer is COLOURLESS GREEN IDEAS SLEEP FURIOUSLY, an anagram of "See cluer's use of rare, silly pseudo-lingo". This, many Guardian solvers will know, is the sentence with which Noam Chomsky announced his arrival as a force to be reckoned with in the field of linguistics, the example he chose to demonstrate that sentence might be grammatical without being meaningful. The reprimand is complete. "Good grief," says Araucaria when I ask him. "Was that about me? I did solve the puzzle - I don't always - but it passed me by completely."

Grauniad today was horrible. Mostly just 'cause it was hard and deliberately extra-misleading, but the few unfair or tortuous clues really rubbed salt in.

Spendthrift has expression of amusement in constant attendance (10)

Profligate

haha brilliant

btw, if sailor/seaman isn't AB, it's usually tar. if you do loads of cryptics, you learn to recognise these things (see also GI or ant for soldier)

i have no probs with AB or GI or ant but the former is probly quite britishes-centric

Thanks again for all your input. It helps me realize that there are a TON of permissible single and double letter abbreviations (I've mostly just run into simple ones like cardinal directions) and many are going to be eye-rollingly obscure to an American neophyte.

And also "deliberately extra-misleading...unfair or tortuous clues" may very well prevent me from solving some puzzles altogether. All good to know.

As a relative beginner myself, I find the Observer Everyman crossword pitched at a good level, and is definitely helping with harder (e.g. Guardian daily cryptic) crosswords.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/everyman/

Yes! It was an entry drug for me.

thirded, although i actually learnt at my parents' knee with the lol oxford mail.

my dad swears he only gets the Daily Mail for the crossword, which is where i learnt, but it used to be a pretty dope crossword, a lot harder/funner than the Telegraph/first half of the week Graun

I didn't appreciate the Guardian ramped up in difficulty over the course of the week...

i haven't done them with any studiousness for years, but monday-tuesday used to be pish, sometimes you'd get an Auraucaria on a Wed if you were lucky, thursday thru saturday were worth fucking with

iirc (haven't been daily solver for a while) it thought of it as follows:
Mon: almost always Rufus - easy, jokey (but annoying, stopped doing it)
Tues-thurs: unpredictable
Fri: harder
Saturday: themes, stunts, games; often hard.

but xpost Noodle's version sounds about right too, maybe it always Thursday that Enigmatist would turn up and slap me around.

irish times crosaire is what i was raised with and stick with

(xposts) Just took my first stab at an Observer Everyman. Not too bad, and the few I didn't get I could at least see how the setter came up with the answer. (Is "the classic English humorous book, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome" really classic, like, you know the name of the dog in it?

One I'm still unclear on:

Settler on island wearing revolver (8)

colonist

on island = on is, another shitty abbreviation imo

And revolver is Colt?

yep

"wearing" tells you that the colt is wrapped around the "onis" bit

Yeah, I actually figured out the 'wearing' but ON IS threw me, and Colt for revolver just seemed like, really?

oh the name of the dog in 3 Men in a Boat is Montmorency, and I've never read the book. it is pretty classic among Britishes who like Literature i think.

Fredericks, say, involved in a run out from gully (6)

(i mentioned that one above - cheating spanish words)

today's guardian, one for all you abbreviation haters:
Smooth on the feet at 50, in love with life's extremes: classy gent (8)
(one of 3 i have so far)

I still have to have this page to refer to when I do most clues:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword_abbreviations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Fredericks

"Roy Clifton Fredericks (11 November 1942, Blairmont, British Guiana – 5 September 2000, New York, U.S.) was a West Indian cricketer who played from 1968 to 1977."

so ROY "involved in" A RO = ARROYO = gully in spanish.

Fuck's sake, that's ridiculous. I don't even know American sports names and I'm supposed to know a West Indian cricketer, leave aside the Spanish.

That whole Wikipedia entry might as well be written in Martian afaic.

arroyo is used in English often enough to be fair I think but Roy Fredericks is ridic and I'm a cricket fan

No, I'm with you on ARROYO. I'm drawing the line at A RO being appended to a name I'm supposed to guess from RUN OUT. That's several levels of O_o

Listen to me, the expert after doing these things for six months...

well it's from an English paper isn't it? My only thought for Fredericks was Frankie but then i started wondering if it was some kinda pun on Freds or something

Dan Peterson, your l0u1s jagg3r routine may start to weary in a bit.

Sorry, I retract my testiness (and it's actually more astonishment if anyone deciphered that one.)

Run out = cricket. I *am* genuinely trying to learn.

why so cranky jr&b?

"seasonal allergies"

one thing I wd say, Dan, as a serial non-finisher of crosswords, an awful lot of clues from most setters don't require impossible knowledge (although you'll fear that each one you can't get does) and that with a bit of momentum in a puzzle, you'll probably surprise yourself with how much you can do. And well, when I see the next day that the clue needed some knowledge I didn't have, then I tend to shrug my shoulders. The worst ones are the ones you know you should have got and cause you to shout damn you all to hell in public. What I'm saying is that a good deal of satisfaction is to be gained from just getting a lot of clues - completion is immensely satisfying, but rather like cricket (wtf that Roy Fredericks clue?) the process can be enjoyed without there being a decisive ending.

^^^ gradually getting this, yes. I'm used to US crosswords, where even if a solution is ridiculously arcane, a dictionary or some googling for the name of an obscure actor or athlete can help me complete the puzzle. I realize from online comments re: the Everyman puzzle that there are certain clues/solutions/bits of wordplay that have puzzlers far more experienced than I unable to solve, or arguing why an answer is what it is.

Of course I say that, but not being able to get a couple of clues can also drive you to the verge of madness.

> (wtf that Roy Fredericks clue?)

yes, was a bit of a stinker. but there are always two parts to every clue and you often have some of the letters from other solutions. had i known that an arroyo was a gutter then i wouldn't've needed to know the history of west indian cricket.

have started the last two guardian crosswords online (only buy paper on friday and that's usually beyond me). not doing too well. few cricket questions on those as well. Dicky Bird etc.

yeah wasn't really happy with that use of dickie bird. a dickie-bird is, traditionally, a small bird. so what's a great small bird? just doesn't work, imo.

great tit? (tit also being small bird, great tit being a kind of tit)

doing these online using the guardian's applet thing i've realised you can brute force it using the 'Check' button - just fill it all in with As and press check - all the correct As will remain in place...

tit would work, but it's not the answer.

bring it to the relationship probs thread son

was a blatant attempt for quoted-out-of-context glory tbh

could have made it a little more graceful in deference to thread imo

stick a bit of that lubricant up your bum backwards, you fruit (7)

didnt solve it, lol'd anyway

--L-A--

sultana

^