Enigmatic Variations No.1155 – Reductions by Oxymoron

Oxymoron gives some hints about the possible construction of the puzzle here, by calling it REDUCTIONS, and telling us in the preamble of “a shortage of space” and “clashes”, and warning us that the number of cells given in grid entries may not be the number of letters in answers to clues.

All well and good.  That still leaves a lot of questions.

Difficulties with the clues in certain areas, along with the norms of Enigmatic Variations helped to highlight the NW-SE diagonal as the location for the clashes.  The identification of the word was helped by the theme – it turns out to be ‘ABBREVIATIONS’.

That’s just the start of the solution, though.  Identifying the abbreviations was a bit harder, although the preamble makes it pretty clear how this is to be done.  The letters removed from one or two clues are the additional ones required to form the word of which the letter in the square is the abbreviation.  For example, OL is to be removed from VOLATIC and T from TEERS, with a V remaining in the square.  This gives V(OLT).

Unfortunately, I’ve been rather beaten by parsing a few of the clues (8dn in part because my copy of the puzzle is now unreadable along the fold, so I’m unsure of the wording of the clue!)  This means, firstly, that I’m not entirely sure that my abbreviations are all correct.  I’m also unsure of the entry in 17dn, although I assume it must be PRESA, as this is the only word that fits, so far as I’m aware.

Anyway, the clues to have bested me are 24ac, 39ac, 8dn, and 17dn.

Nevertheless, a lovely puzzle, with all the attributes one would expect from a veteran setter.

Notation
(xxx) = definition
[xxx] = (anagram/homophone/container/etc.) indicator
XXX* = anagram
< = reversal
TEERS = letter to be altered

Please post a comment if the explanations are not clear.