February 24 2011

The Loroso Report - Jejune to Oche

images We we start with Jejune, a word for over-simple, and finish where dart throwers start. Though there’s nothing over-simple about the nuanced notes of Dean Mayer, code-named Loroso. Here below is the UK master’s commentary on the next Brainstorm clues. Savour.

JEJUNE: In Paris, I twice ran over a pedestrian (SK)

This is another clue I’d scribbled notes for while on the plane to Italy and realise now, reading them again, I made a small error (I blame the cramped conditions). I’d put big ticks marks all over place – super, misleading, clever, brilliant… and now I’ve noticed one tiny little bit that just takes a little shine off it. Everything is excellent here, but the word ‘ran’ really needs to be changed to ‘run’ to make it top drawer material. The clue tells us that JE and JE are being run around UN – because the past participle ‘ran’ can’t be used arbitrarily in a clue you really need to use the present tense ‘run’ instead. Nevertheless, stormingly good effort; keeping all the components in French while only indicating this once is a great (and entirely fair) touch, and the misleading ‘pedestrian’ is reet bonzer, as they say in t’Yorkshire outback.

MYRMIDON: Loyal soldiers continued to mutter vociferously (SimonL)

Top marks for effort and equal top marks for a brilliant surface image. I’m tempted to put this in the Very Strong Contender category, but find myself hesitating because I’m not sure how closely homophonic MYRMIDON and MURMURED ON are. Mind you, even if I can be convinced that they are close enough, I’m not sure that ‘vociferously’ isn’t overstepping the bounds of fairness as a homophone indicator – being vociferous is more about forcefully driving a point home than actual pronunciation.

NEPENTHE: Calming agent penned the novel without drafting preface (Mauve)

99% is just about the right (admittedly rather concise) evaluation for this effort. It has a lovely story concept which is convincing, although perhaps not totally. By my own measures of setting technique it actually gets 100%, but there are some editors who get a bit funny about indicators such as ‘drafting preface’ – they insist that to be totally correct the presentation would have to be ‘preface of drafting’ or ‘drafting’s preface’. It seems odd to me. In November every year I have to waste money on something called a TV licence. It isn’t a TV’s licence or a licence of TV. It’s a TV licence. Of the entire batch of clues I don’t think this will make the top three, but it’s still a very fine effort.

NEPENTHE: Drug one, heading off to penthouse – hideous (Boniface)

This is a really great idea. The surface reading isn’t thoroughly smooth (punctuation has an unfortunate habit of spoiling it) but there’s certainly a good story in there. The first piece of wordplay, the letter subtraction, is good although some editors favour the form ‘one’s heading off…’ The use of the link word ‘to’ is another one where opinion is divided. It can be argued here that it indicates that wordplay component A leads ‘to’ wordplay component B, but some solvers strongly dislike it and claim it can be unfairly misleading. The final part is outrageous but, equally, outrageously funny. As fair warning to the solver it would be better to use an exclamation mark at the end, perhaps in brackets.

NEPENTHE: Elixir recipe: ethene with traces of nitrogen and phosphorus (Philth)

Full credit here for taking a difficult word and giving it a very obvious anagram treatment, but the anagram indicator ‘recipe’ is one that doesn’t quite work. The word only exists as a noun and its placement here – to be a valid instruction, anyway – would require its operating as a verb. An easy fix would be to start with ‘Elixir recipe (or Elixir’s recipe) of ethene…’, which would be OK. It’s only a minor quibble in a perfectly solid, if unspectacular, clue.

NEPENTHE: Tackle the Nepean without a drink to forget (JD)

This is almost identical in that its anagram indicator is the weak link, albeit for a different reason. There is a sense in which you could interpret ‘tackle’ as ‘unravel’ (tackle a problem) but it’s extremely specific, and even then the concept of ‘tackling a problem’ has more to do with simply finding a correct way to do/complete a task than actually jumbling up or rearranging things. To its credit, the clue does have a very tasty removal of the letter A from the fodder, which is just the kind of thing that earns a pat on the back from solvers.

OCHE: Pseudo Echo on the pub floor (Boniface)

I like this clue but if I was an editor I wouldn’t run it. ‘Psuedo Echo’ is marvellous (the band for whom I play bass has Funky Town as a potential addition to the set list) but it’s the way the definition has been presented that’s problematic. When I say that crossword editors look for definitions which are as they would be presented in a dictionary, I’m also saying that this is a fairly recent change which actually hasn’t happened universally. At one time you would typically see a placename defined in terms of its location in the vague for of ‘in…’ – so if the answer was PARIS the definition part of the clue would just be ‘in France’. In the great majority of cases it now has to be ‘city in France’ or the far more difficult (for Americans) ‘capital of France’. So in this clue we have OCHE being defined as ‘on the pub floor’ – not precise enough, I’m afraid.

Comment freely below. Tomorrow: Paraph to Spurtle.

Comments

Anthony Douglas — 24 February at 12:16AM

He must be enjoying the vino to think 'ran' is a past participle! Surely there's no law against past vs present tense!!

Anax — 24 February at 12:30AM

Hi Anthony
Different perspectives/cultures again I'm afraid. Yes, in UK cryptics you can't use/switch to past tense without reason. Just one of those things.

dg — 24 February at 01:42AM

This is certainly a great exercise and I wish I had found time to be part of it. I do wonder if words such as 'right' are applicable. It's fascinating to realize the integral involvement of editors - which I'm sure is connected to the audience's expectations. No one person invented the cryptic crossword 'genre' and editors and solvers must have had quite a bearing on their evolution, even from newspaper to newspaper.

So what's 'right' is mainly, if not completely, a consensual opinion and isn't just decided by the setter willy-nilly. So when someone is setting clues audience /editor must be taken into account (same as in any form of communication) and 'right' is shorthand for 'acceptable for the punters'.

Ximenean ('strict') vs Libertarian - would all setters from either group say pretty much the same thing? Or would other professional setters still critique these clue rather differently?

And Anax, if you're (or anyone is) still reading do your clues in one paper vary that much in design to the other?

(Sorry if this sounds 'rambly')

SK — 24 February at 08:05AM

You learn something new every day...I had no idea that past tense is (was?) verboten (and not sure I understand why), but c'est la vie! I must accept the judge's verdict.

Mauve — 24 February at 08:39AM

Point well-made dg. All this feedback is gold because we're discovering the inner machinations of the Times Crossword's setter-to-editor-to-publisher process. That's fascinating. And eye-opening.

Loroso is (mainly) passing on information to us from his depth of experience. Right or wrong doesn't come into it.

Boniface — 24 February at 09:38AM

A couple of observations:

1. "...crossword editors look for definitions which are as they would be presented in a dictionary... this is a fairly recent change which actually hasn’t happened universally"

Thank God for that. It would make so many clues mechanical... and a bit of a doddle for those with large vocabs. So I still favour a bit of poetic licence here, so long as it's reasonable. In relation to OCHE, it looks like I might have been better to put "Pseudo Echo lineup on the pub floor." Nice picture BTW!

2. I wanted to ask a question about putting a screamer in brackets at the end of a clue, as Anax suggests for my Nepenthe. I haven't often encountered that device, and would like to know when it's appropriate (and when the brackets can be removed). Also, can a question mark go in brackets and when is that appropriate?

3. The comments on the use of the right tense are interesting and are something that I'll look out for in flawing my own clues in future. Object lesson!

4. "Being vociferous is more about forcefully driving a point home than actual pronunciation." Jeez that's a bit tough IMHO - just look at the Latin derivation jumping out of 'vociferous' for a start.

Another great batch of pointers though, thanks once again to Anax and DA for this.

Anthony Douglas — 24 February at 10:06AM

SK, I don't know whether you deliberately went with 'verboten' (past participle) then 'c'est' (present tense), but it sure worked for me!

If you are following the thread, Anax, a follow-up question, if I may. What constitutes sufficient reason to switch tenses? In this case, I'd argue that the past tense makes the surface reading work better - the past tense version reads like 'oh, that's bad luck' where the present tense is more 'got him, he deserved it, I think I'll run over him again' which just seems less plausible.

In short, ISTM that you'd only use the past tense if those particular letters were required for the wordplay...and so a past tense would flag itself as fodder immediately.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick again?

dg — 24 February at 12:28PM

Hmm and code-switching from English to German to French :)

Mauve — 24 February at 01:25PM

Anthony, yes, that sounds right about past tense flagging itself as fodder.

I've already posted that I thought SK's jejune clue would win, but when Loroso pointed out that it should have been run, not ran, I immediately thought 'of course!'

I didn't know why, but reading it with 'run' sounds more correct, or more Times-like maybe.

And now I think the reason is that present tense is the default state, and anything deviating from present tense does indicate fodder, no matter how loosely.

An example is my nepenthe clue above that had to be in past tense for the anagram to work, but the past tense does indicate that it's an anagram.

SK — 24 February at 03:43PM

You're right Anthony....I used the past tense as I thought it sounded more plausible (ie recounting my efforts at trying to drive around the Arc de Triomphe), as present tense just sounded a bit wierd...and boastful. But I was blissfully ignorant of the crime I committed (the clue, not the actual hit-and-run), so will store that bit of info and take note for when I next do a Times crossword.

This whole exercise has been a fascinating learning experience...great to get a chance to understand the different perspectives and protocols. We are indeed fortunate.

— 24 February at 06:01PM

I'll add to the chorus of people that are finding this totally fascinating. DA, I know your clues fall into the looser style of crossword setting, but is there a well defined set of grammatical rules that the editors at SMH/Age strictly apply?

Or are you given some fudging room in marginal cases? Have you found that the process has changed as crossword editors have come and gone?

Simon L — 24 February at 06:02PM

Sorry that last one was me

DA — 24 February at 07:59PM

Thanks for keeping the chat so lively, and apols for my 'silence' today - have been kept away from the keypad.

Just in brief response to your query Simon, while the rules of grammar (and the need for definition to accord in case, tense and mood with its solution) don't flinch, there is a degree of style flexibility that Fairfax affords.

Editors of course are vital to this filtering, and different custodians will set their own standards within the house regime. I'm all for clues being challenged at proof phase for reasons of possible solecism, clarity, fairness and taste. It's the key to making a good puzzle better.

Just as this exercise will see us all lift the bar, and show an acuter awareness of the genre's rules and etiquette. More of this, and other queries raised, later.