Notes for Azed 2,780

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,780 Plain

My difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

The puzzle can be found at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/91ecefbd-6054-474d-bf03-c9579750d096/file/puzzle.pdf

This was a pleasant enough diversion, but it seemed a little short on the misdirection, wit and originality which Azed’s puzzles used to display in abundance. A count revealed that there were nine anagrams, although it felt like more, and the repetition between clue and answer at 10a should surely have been picked up somewhere along the production line. To be fair, though, most of the surface readings made sense, and I didn’t identify any clues that were clearly unsound.

Please don’t forget to have a look at the first edition of the Clinic’s monthly Digest, and in particular to register your vote in the poll relating to enumerations of multi-word and hyphenated answers in barred puzzles. If the outcome shows that a change is strongly supported, this is something which we will take up with the relevant editors (there aren’t too many of them).

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 27a, “Chemicals gypsy found in hop stems (8)”. The wordplay has a three-letter word for ‘a gypsy man’ being contained by (‘found in’) a word for hop stems, the answer being the plural of a particular chemical element. All fine, but what about that plural? The theory says that uncountable (or ‘mass’) nouns have no plural, since by definition they cannot be counted, so words like ‘boxing’, ‘oneness’ and ‘magnesium’ have no plural form, and nor does the word here. Of course, it’s not as simple as that – many ‘uncountable’ nouns (eg ‘kindness’, ‘honour’) are frequently seen in the plural. And a search in the Chambers app for ‘ar??ns’ yields ‘argons’, a word which surely does not exist except in the mind of the app, which allows any regularly formed plural of a noun which has no irregular plural explicitly shown (so at least ‘sheeps’ is ruled out). This approach feeds through to automated grid-filling software, which goes some way towards explaining why so many questionable plurals appear in puzzles, particularly barred ones. I avoid plurals like these, although there is often justification to be found if you look hard enough: a Google search for ‘nouns with no plural’ yields an article which tells us that “Some uncountable nouns are abstract nouns such as knowledge, advice, and effort. We cannot count these things. The singular form already expresses plurality.” But we often talk about someone’s best efforts, you could receive several payment advices, and James Russell Lowell wrote that “With Dante wisdom is the generalization from many several knowledges of small account by themselves.” A further web search suggests even the plural at 27a is not unknown in chemistry circles, so I think that all we can do is – like the Chambers app – accept (or at least tolerate) the correctly formed  plural of any common (rather than proper) noun.

Across

12a Branch I got in tangle making large wardrobe (7)
A three-letter branch is followed by the letter I (from the clue) contained by (‘got in’) another word for the coarse seaweed known as ‘tangle’.

14a Stalk to check, one circling equipment (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to check’, as one might check the flow of something, and a single-letter word meaning ‘one’ are put around (‘circling’) a three-letter word for ‘equipment’.

15a The old proceed, fluttered by the sound of it (4)
A homophone (‘by the sound of it’) for a word meaning ‘fluttered’ or ‘directed a current of air upon’.

22a Bit of crab? That was useful round island (8)
The first letter of ‘crab’ (‘That‘, ie ‘bit of crab’) is followed by a six-letter word meaning ‘was useful’ containing (’round’) the usual singe-letter abbreviation for ‘island’.

26a Groom, bashful husband leaving church (4)
There’s an ‘invisicomma’ here between ‘bashful’ and ‘husband’, because it’s a three-letter word for ‘bashful’ with the usual abbreviation for ‘husband’ departing (‘leaving’) that is followed by the two-letter abbreviation for the established church of England. The alternative ‘bashful husband leaves’ would have been preferable, but it would have made the surface reading less satisfactory.

29a Distinctive character of wine I fed to rogue (7)
The letter I (from the clue) is contained by (‘fed to’) a ‘rogue’ in the sense of a little rascal.

30a Operatic episode presented by clubs in Indian army (5)
The usual abbreviation for the suit of clubs is contained by a word for ‘in India, an army, especially used of paramilitary political organizations representing various castes.”

Down

1d Cavalry essential? Armies short of tons (4)
A five-letter word for ‘armies’ is deprived of the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’, thus producing a word which always make me think of a particular member of the Cartwright family in the TV show Bonanza, a name which stuck firmly in my memory because it seemed so unlikely (there was no-one at my junior school called anything like that). I don’t think I understood at the time that it was a nickname, the ‘real’ first name of Dan Blocker’s larger-than-life character being Eric – did anyone ever call him that?

2d Huge old fossil in Spanish country house, headless, look yonder (10)
A six-letter word for a country house in Spain or Portugal, missing its first letter (‘headless’), is followed by an adverb meaning ‘in that place’ (though as an interjection Chambers only gives it as ‘expressing reassurance, sympathy, satisfaction, approval, encouragement, finality, accompanying a blow, to comfort, etc.’

4d Forming packed mass about royal on board? (6)
A charade of the two-letter abbreviation for the Latin word meaning ‘about’ or ‘around’ and the name of one of the ‘royals’ on the chessboard.

7d Mulled wines scald with matches (8)
A four-letter Scottish and Northern English word for ‘scald’ (which could also have been indicated by ‘scheme’) combines with a word for the sort of ‘matches’ that might be played in the FA Cup.

13d Earn renewed activity around century, being born anew (10)
An anagram (‘renewed’) of EARN is followed by a five-letter word for an area of activity (“That’s really not my ?????”) containing (around’) the single-letter abbreviation for ‘century’. The word ‘being’ in the definition is a gerund (verbal noun), as in “Being born anew could be a good thing”.

17d Soak in foreign river and atmosphere climbing in SA city (8)
The three-letter word for ‘soak’ much loved by crossword compilers is contained by a two-letter ‘foreign river’, the combination preceding a reversal (‘climbing’) of a three-letter word for ‘atmosphere’.

19d Comment in school – owlish observation? (7)
A four-letter word for the sort of comment that might relate to ‘lit’ is contained by the three-letter abbreviation for ‘school’. To describe the answer as an ‘observation’ might be a bit of a stretch, but the Chambers definition ‘remark’, when coupled with the question mark, probably puts it in the realm of acceptability.

21d Once almost got up in clothes displaying sobriety (7)
A two-letter obsolete (‘once’) spelling of a word meaning ‘almost’ is reversed ‘got up’ in a five-letter word for clothes or clothing.

(definitions are underlined)