Clinical Data – Deletion Indicators
I had for some time felt that the list of deletion indicators was in need of reassessment, particularly in respect of passive departure indicators such as ‘rejected’, where it was not clear how they would be used in a clue – eg would “Burn piece of furniture I rejected” be valid for CHAR (CHAIR – I)? Prompted by a similar observation from a regular correspondent, I have significantly reworked the table, in particular by:
- Adding prepositions where appropriate, so ‘rejected’ is now ‘rejected by’.
- Adding a column showing a likely usage, so for ‘rejected’ this is ‘Y rejected by X’, in other words the substring Y is ‘rejected by’ the starting string X. Note that the entries in this column are typical examples, but many other constructions are possible, such as ‘X having rejected Y’.
- Adding a search term ‘*T’ to a hidden searchable column. Typing *T in the Search box will filter the list to show only the transitive senses of the verbs indicating departure or expulsion (so ‘quitting’ but not ‘expelled by’); to find, for instance, all the transitive departure indicators, one can sort by indicator type and then use the *T filter.
The wordplay in “Burn piece of furniture I rejected” for CHAR contains what is often termed an ‘invisicomma’ between ‘furniture’ and ‘I’; the solver is being asked to infer a comma which is not there, because in order to be grammatically sound the wordplay needs to read ‘assertion, I rejected’ (or, alternatively, ‘assertion with I rejected’). The comma isn’t there, of course, because it would adversely affect the surface reading, but that is surely something that the setter should have dealt with, rather than presenting the solver with an unsound cryptic reading – in the example, the addition of the missing comma (“Burn piece of furniture, I rejected”) renders a previously natural reading nonsensical. The invisicomma is becoming more common in puzzles, but several editors will still not accept it, quite rightly in my opinion.
I would like to think that the new list is an improvement on the old one, but I would welcome your views. And please let me know if you spot any errors.
And is there not an implied comma in ‘All Creatures[,] Great and Small’?
😀 I think Cecil Alexander meant to imply a repetition of ‘all creatures’ following the ‘and’. His source material, Psalm 104 vv 24-25, features the rather splendid ‘things creeping innumerable’.
I employ the “invisicomma” routinely; as Doctor Clue points out, a grammatically correct surface renders the cryptic reading “nonsensical.” Please give us setters licence to bend grammar a bit; rules that are too strict threaten to shrink the universe of possible clues to a singularity. In my defence, I cite Doctor Clue themself, writing about another topic:
“By convention, adjectival anagrinds can be placed either before or after the fodder on which they act… this is contrary to typical English usage, but it is not unknown…[i]t’s important to make the distinction between what is commonly encountered in ‘real world’ English and what could legitimately arise, so I think the foregoing is sufficient justification, but since adverbial anagrinds are generally accepted although they cannot legitimately act on a noun expression, there is in any event a requirement for solvers on occasion to make certain inferences…[t]he same applies to letter selection indicators, eg ‘sunny hollow’ for SY.”
Conventional usage in cryptic clues often differs from “real world English”, as noted above, and, as the Doctor states, the solver must make certain inferences. The “invisicomma”, to my view, is a minor inference that even inexperienced solvers are accustomed to making. I find it far less offensive than postnominal adjectives used as anagram indicators.
Hi Dr Daniel
The first thing to say is that in making the changes to the list I have not removed any indicators which might form part of an ‘invisicomma construction’, and I make the point that ‘many other constructions are possible’. I leave it to the setter to decide what those might be, and I would expect their choice to be governed by what their particular audience will be comfortable with (which is likely to align closely with what the editor will allow). If those who solve your puzzles will not be put out by the invisicomma, then all is well.
Perhaps I should therefore have confined my observation to the factual ‘several editors still will not accept it’, but the invisicomma is something that is relatively unfamiliar to me and which I regularly fail to spot (or do I mean ‘not spot’?). I have no problem with the postnominal adjective because it is a grammatically valid construction – one of the most popular TV programmes in the UK currently is ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. That said, there is no doubt in my mind that expecting the solver to infer something unstated (eg the invisicomma) is far less of an issue that expecting them to ignore something (such as a word or a punctuation mark) which invalidates the cryptic reading; this applies to one particular construction that I use myself because it is accepted by the editors and solvers of the puzzle series for which I set…but that is a discussion for another day.