Notes for Gemelo 21

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Observer barred 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.

Previous Puzzle – Gemelo 20

A substantial majority of voters (21) put the difficulty of Gemelo 20 at 3, with seven solvers rating it as a 4 and the remaining four as a 2. I thought that it contained plenty of accessible clues, and the rating – one of the lowest so far – seemed just about right.

Gemelo 21 – Half & Half

This puzzle is available at https://cdn.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/media/documents/obs.GEMELO.20260118.pdf.

Solver difficulty rating

3.9 based on 29 votes (voting is now closed)

In summary: after drinking spiked tea, Gemelo has become slewed in Seattle and has started dividing answers between two grid entries, one across and one down. The across clue in these instances contains a definition, plus wordplay for the across entry only; the down clue has just the wordplay for the down entry (no definition). Nine across and nine down entries are affected, and there is no requirement for the individual entries to be real words. So if the clue to 18a were “Very liberal answer (3)” and that for 24d were “One enthralled by upper-class fashion (5)”, the entry for 18 would be SOL [SO L] and that for 24 would be UTION [I in (U TON)]; the definition ‘answer’ for SOLUTION  spans the two. We would not expect to see links between definition and wordplay in the partial across clues, because the answer and the string yielded by the wordplay are different. A good pair to start with would be 30a and 27d, where five two-letter abbreviations in sequence produce the (4,6) answer which is split across the two lights.

We have the novelty of a 21-letter answer, which I suspect may have been Gemelo’s starting point. Below the notes on individual clues I have added a checklist showing the nine pairs of ‘half & half’ clues.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 2d, “Extremely wordy dance music almost edged carnival”. The wordplay is covered below, but the aspect I want to focus on here is the definition, ‘extremely wordy’, and for the purposes of this causerie I’ll change it to ‘extremely large’, with the answer being BIGGEST. Setters often find themselves having to clue superlatives like BIGGEST and comparatives like BIGGER, and will usually try to avoid using like-for-like definitions, such as ‘largest’ and ‘larger’. For superlatives, the standard options are ‘most’ and ‘extremely’, along with a few approximate synonyms of the latter such as ‘supremely’ or ‘superlatively’. Since ‘extremely’ can mean ‘in the highest degree’, it seems to me entirely fit for purpose, as do the others; I would not accept ‘very’ or ‘remarkably’, which carry no suggestion of being unparalleled, although ‘exceedingly’ might be considered valid.

When it comes to comparatives, the setter has less choice, with ‘more’ and ‘rather’ typically being selected over the rather dull ‘comparatively’; there aren’t many other single-word possibilities. However, whilst I have no wish to reduce the options available to setters (think turkeys voting for Christmas), I am not at all keen on ‘rather’. None of the definitions in Chambers seem to support its use to turn an adjective into a comparative. If we say “the pile became rather large”, there may be a clear implication that the pile became larger than it was before, but the meaning is that the resultant pile was really quite large, and “the pile was rather large” suggests nothing more than this.  “The pile became larger” or “the pile was larger” on the other hand, simply mean that the pile had grown, without telling us how it now compared size-wise to other piles. Hence I won’t use ‘rather’ to indicate a comparative in my own clues. An alternative phrasing such as ‘increased in size’ would be acceptable, being equivalent to ‘larger’ but not ‘rather large’.

Across

1a Really early to adopt alternative technology after phase one (12)
A six-letter word meaning ‘early’ or ‘at an appropriate point’ containing (‘to adopt’) the abbreviation for ‘alternative technology’ follows (‘after’) a three-letter word for a phase, as of a journey or a triathlon, plus the Roman numeral representing one.

9a Unit in army base divides cellar contents (4)
A three-letter abbreviation for the regiment of the British Army which shares its motto with Derek Trotter contains the letter which represents the base of natural logarithms (ie ‘[which] base divides’). Thinking about cellars which aren’t below ground should enable identification of the missing segment. Note that the enumeration should read (4, 2 words).

10a Make steel that is following current standard (8)
The two-letter abbreviation of the Latin phrase for ‘that is’ follows the abbreviation of the same length for a particular type of electric current, the combination preceding a four-letter word for ‘standard’ or ‘speed’.

17a Judge watercolourists over group of flowers (6)
A four-letter term for a magistrate in Muslim countries (not the version beginning with K) and the two-letter abbreviation for the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours are reversed (‘over’) to form the first part of a nine-letter word.

18a Develop too much content for novel (3)
The word ‘novel’ deprived of its first and last letters (ie ‘content for novel’, although I think that ‘contents’ is the correct word in a cryptic context) forms the grid entry; the remaining six letters constitute a strange down entry which begins with the abbreviation for a ‘superior make of car’. The note continues at 22d.

23a Small amount of east London covering different districts (3)
The Cockney version of a four-letter word for a small amount or an insinuation is to be entered here. For the rest, see 14d.

25a I cheer speaker overcoming resistance with volume (6)
A six-letter word for a speaker has the usual abbreviation for ‘volume’ replacing (‘overcoming’) one instance of the usual abbreviation for ‘resistance’.

26a Intention of game that separates two kinds of American (6)
The game which separates a single-letter abbreviation for ‘American’ from a two-letter abbreviation with similar meaning is not RU, RL or GO but a three-letter ‘old and widespread game, perhaps originally Chinese, in which two players take alternately from heaps or rows of objects (now usu matches).’

33a Belief in State Assembly ultimately lost in the broadcast (12)
An anagram (‘broadcast’) of ASSEMBLY without its last letter (‘ultimately lost’) and IN THE yields just the first part of a very long word, if not quite as long as the 28-letter one which describes the movement opposed to its antithesis.

Down

2d Extremely wordy dance music almost edged carnival (8)
A five-letter style of electronic dance music (and also the name by which an iconic stadium in Brisbane is commonly known) without its last letter (‘almost’) is followed by a six-letter word for a carnival (or a Ford car) from which the outer letters have been removed (‘edged’).

5d Moroccan house surrounding garden one’s raised above the ground (6)
I had to work back from the answer on this one, where a four-letter word for ‘a traditional Moroccan house or palace, built round an interior garden’ (a relatively recent addition to Chambers) and a two-letter word equating to “one’s”, in its sense of ‘one is’, are reversed (‘over’).

8d Local spat certainly nuisance for flock (6)
A three-letter word meaning ‘certainly’ (technically an adverb, though sometimes termed a ‘sentence substitute’) and a three-letter word for a wingless fly that infests sheep (‘nuisance for flock’) produce a dialect (‘local’) word meaning ‘spat’.

13d Stuff lost at sea rarely reached without birds (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘reached’ or ‘gained in contest’ contains (‘without’ – I still don’t like it, but at least I’m ready for it now) the term for birds as a class of vertebrates.

14d Layer next to skin not needed in Lanzarote, anyhow (7)
If the ‘skin’ of a word refers to its outer letters, then the layer next to the skin comprises the second and penultimate letters, and it is these letters which must be removed from (‘not needed in’) LaNZAROtE prior to its rearrangement (‘anyhow’). This completes the clue that began at 23a.

18d Statisticians set to accept rule in the pipeline (8)
The abbreviation for the Office for National Statistics is followed by a four-letter word for a set of people working together, into which the usual abbreviation for ‘rule’ has been inserted (ie ‘set to accept rule’). The answer is hyphenated, 2-6.

21d Religious figure carrying round Anglo-Latin of part of speech (6)
A three-letter ‘religious figure’ of the sort that might readily be spotted in Call the Midwife, containing the letter indicated in cryptic clues by ’round’, precedes the abbreviation for ‘Anglo-Latin’.

22d Standard charge to retain independent nurse (6)
In this continuation wordplay for 18a, the abbreviation for ‘recommended retail price’ (‘standard charge’) containing (‘to retain’) the usual abbreviation for ‘independent’ is followed by the abbreviation for ‘Enrolled Nurse’.

(definitions are underlined)

Checklist of paired clues

9 across is paired with 29 down; 11 with 3; 17 with 7; 18 with 22; 20 with 6; 23 with 14; 30 with 27; 32 with 1; 33 with 4.