Inquisitor 1379: Snobs by Lato

31 comments on “Inquisitor 1379: Snobs by Lato”

1. Floreat etona!
   Well,yeah, right.
   I got most of the writers, more or less completed the grid,but couldn’t see the logic at work.
   I didn’t understand why Etonian was split into two words. Spent ages trying to find Etonian link between writers or fictional characters they created. Eventually worked out that the two entries needed to be read as
   E-to-Nian, with “an” being a defining suffix.

   Kenmac,great blog as always. I just assumed the Title was just a play on Eton and making the right associations.¿

2. I filled the grid, found the real Etonians, got the two-initial writers and suspected BARTON FINK, but am staggered by the reveal of the derivation of FINK.

   Well done Kenmac!

3. Certainly the easiest for a long time, and for the first time in weeks (if not months) I got more than just a couple of answers. Still didn’t finish it, and I hadn’t quite got the theme. Realised there were writers known by their initials, but I did wonder if the Simpson was OJ. 🙂

   However, I was stuck in the bottom right corner because I’d solved 37ac as ENGINE – GEN for knowledge reversed with the E missing inside EINE. That seems to me to be a valid reading of the clue.

4. jon surdy,

   you may like to know that you have an honorary mention in the IQ commentary this Saturday (11th)…

   John

5. ME NO LI KE IT.
   TA, KM.
   – HG

6. I rather enjoyed the clever way that the final four letter group was revealed and the fairly gentle clues. Li Tai-Po was no problem (although he was a PATIO for a while) but I’d not heard of NF Simpson.

   I didn’t help myself by scribbling in PRESTO instead of PRONTO at 39a and, like dormouse@3, I also had ENGINE at 37a for a while.

   Many thanks to Lato and to kenmac for the blog.

   One thing I don’t understand. What exactly ‘is confirmed in the ODE’ ? Is that a typo for OED, a sneaky reference to Gray’s ode or something else entirely ?

7. BF@6 – I think ODE refers to the Oxford Dictionary of English, which I don’t have either…

8. JohnLowe@7

   Thank you. That makes more sense. I still wonder how/what it will confirm.

9. Re: 6, 7, 8 – I used to wonder this and I think that this page may explain: http://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-English-Dictionary-and-Dictionary-of-English

   I have ODE on my iPhone and I found TAI PO under the heading of:
   Li Po
   (also Li Bo or Li T’ai Po)
   (AD 701-62), Chinese poet.
   Typical themes in his poetry are wine, women, and the beauties of nature.

10. Chambers (2011) and the ODE [not OED] are the two sources for answers to clues in the Inquisitor, the latter mainly because of its listing of proper nouns. With the exception of well-known phrases, topicalities and well-known given names, clue answers should always be verifiable by either or both of these two sources, unless the preamble states otherwise. Li T’ai Po is in ODE.

    No one has yet convinced me of the need to move on from Chambers 2011 to the more recent, and in my view much inferior, edition.

    I’m sticking, therefore, with the rules laid down my predecessor.

    [Discuss…]

    John

11. All@7,9,10 and kenmac in the blog

    Thank you.

    The thump you just heard was me hitting my head on the table. I’ve been trying to work out what dictionary could give ‘Eton Ian’ as a two word phrase. Ahem. I’ll get my coat …

12. I am still Chambers 10th edition. On the very rare occasions when it doesn’t deliver, I just search online. But I’ve put the ODE on my Father’s Day gift wish list.
    John H, thank you for tip off. I blush.

13. To continue my post @12, if I arrive at an answer through wordplay but don’t know that word – and can’t find it in the BRB – I go to google. Then,just enter the word. If this doesn’t work I enter ‘define [WORD]’. This can return useful results from various online dictionaries. But I suppose everyone knows that.
    Oh, and just a word about sites such as Chambers Word Wizard. Yes, guilty (who isn’t?). But as we all know, these are of very limited use. Especially if the required answer has to be altered thematically in some way before being entered in the grid.
    I assume that most if not all solvers use online help – and that all setters know this. Which is why they, the setters, focus their deviously twisted minds on finding increasingly sly and cruel ways to thwart and torment us. God bless them.
    If anyone managed to crack SNOBS puzzle without online help, I take my Trilby/Fedora off to them.

14. Following jon surdy’s theme, I still use “The Chambers Dictionary and Thesaurus on CD-ROM v1.0” from 2003. I’m not sure what edition that corresponds to, but it is sadly no longer available. It is brilliant for searches though. I have Chambers 13th edition on my tablet, which was a low-cost option (about £3 I think) – not so powerful as the on-line for searches, but I highly recommended it. I have no ODE/OED dictionaries, and no plans to get any of them. The ODE is available on tablet from the Google Play store at the exorbitant price of £13.18 if you want it that badly – you also get a free 30 day trial. I must say that the trial version yielded no results for Tai Po, though it did yield results for Li Bo/Po. I’d save your money and use Google!!

15. I came very close to finishing this, but had put in “folic” for 31d which messed up my bottom right hand corner. I had considered Eton Ian but couldn’t make any sense of it. I got the names of the writers and understood that they were known by two initials.
    Does the preamble mean that each of the letters E to N appears somewhere twice? I may be being thick, but I don’t understand how Barton Fink comes into it. Aargh!

16. Years ago I bought- and still have – The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. This was the full version, but in two chunky hard back volumes. The type is very small and the boxed set came with a powerful magnifying glass. To be honest, I think I have used the magnifying glass more often than the dictionary.
    I also remember when you could phone OWLS (Oxford Word & Language Service) and speak directly to somebody about word meanings and usage. No recorded voices, no press button one.And it was free.

17. I think this might be the first time I have read the blog and still have absolutely NFI what this puzzle was on about, despite me filling the grid pretty quickly

    Not sure me and Lato would do well stuck in a lift together but thanks anyway

18. Starburst @17 – oh dear does that mean my blog isn’t clear enough or does it imply that this particular puzzle just didn’t float your boat?

    If the former, then I apologize and I’ll do anything I can to make it clearer.

    As for meeting Lato in a lift, I think that there’s probably a good chance that he’ll be in Cambridge on April 25th so you can go along and spend the afternoon ignoring him. 😉 Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it but you’ll find more details here: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2015/03/30/cambridge-sb-25-april-2015-update/

19. @Kenmac

    My main beef is with the puzzle itself, so apologies there – though I have to confess I am still none the wiser as to what the ‘IANs’ of ‘E-TO-N-IANs’ is meant to signify. If it’s what I think it is, then my beef is definitely with the puzzle, or more accurately, the preamble.

20. Starburst@20

    I wonder if you have the same problem that I did (at least until a few posts ago). You’ve split ETONIAN into its 34a and 38d components and are wondering what the heck ETON IAN is supposed to mean ?

21. Oh, I get it now. There are two of each letter in the initials of the writers, with the exception of F I K N, leading to Barton Fink I suppose. Still don’t see the relevance to Eton or writers known by initials, mind you I have never seen the film!
    Thanks for the blog, and also for the puzzle. I always enjoy them, even if I only manage one clue some weeks ????

22. ETONIAN is a red herring. 34A should be read as E to N. This refers to the alphabetical range of the writers’ forename initials. 38D should be read as ‘-ian’. This is a suffix indicating relationship or similarity. So, all the writers share a relationship in that they have initials ranging from E to N.

23. I was enjoying this puzzle until I came to the last two thematics, which were inevitably (Li) TAI PO and BARTON (Fink). After the clever use of pairs of initials from E to N, the use of a Chinese family name and a 4-letter surname as “associations” meant the ending was a bit of damp squib for me. This does not alter my view, expressed here a few weeks ago, that this has been a vintage year, so my thanks to the editor and setters. The latest one by Serpent has completely beaten me!

    In the discussion about online resources, I don’t think anyone has mentioned OED Online. It costs, but most public library services subscribe and give their members a password enabling them to access it for free. I find it invaluable for tougher puzzles which use very obscure words. If your local library has not closed, I’d recommend anyone to ask if they subscribe. You’ll probably find they also subscribe to other useful, paid-for online reference services, e.g. Britannica, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Grove’s Dictionary of Music, plus foreign-language dictionaries.

24. I enjoyed the PDM of reading ETON as “E to N”, and like others ended up stuck on what had to be TAIPO plus the mystery answer. Eventually I twigged the bit about each E-N association appearing twice, counted them and was left with the remaining FIIKLN, to give one two-letter and one four-letter “association” — we had fair warning that one of them was both longer than the rest and differently placed. After a minute, FINK leapt out and led to a dim memory of BARTON (never seen the film, though), giving Li T’ai Po by elimination. Google confirmed.

    No one is going to believe that for some forgotten reason I have a 1922 collection of translated Chinese verse with much by Li T’ai Po under exactly that version of his name.

25. I’d just like to second the recommendation of Terrier@23. My library card gives me access to a huge number of reference sites including the OED. I just went to check the list and discovered that I do, in fact, have access to a lot of Listener puzzles in the form of the Times Digital Archive. Woohoo ! Thank you for making me check.

26. Terrier. Thanks for that info. I didn’t know.
    David Langford, that must be a fairly rare book. Maybe worth something?

27. jonsurdy: A few quid at Oxfam, as I remember. The title is Fir-Flower Tablets. Plenty of copies at AbeBooks from around £25 to Very Silly Prices for 1922 editions; also modern facsimiles and even ebooks.

28. I don’t get much time to do IQs but I always make time for Lato’s puzzles. I thought this was brilliant. I’d heard of Tai-po as one of my heroes, Gustav Mahler, based a lot of his liberetto for his Das Lied von der Erde on Chinese texts by Tai-po. I also don’t think Barton Fink is too esoteric: I’d heard of it. From the preamble each author’s initials were needed twice and it soon became apparent to me that the longer association had to comprise four letters. I’m no barred-grid expert but I completed this in a few hours.

    Great stuff and very clear blog.

29. If anyone is still reading this, is there somewhere on this site for off-topic discussions? For example jonsurdy @15 of IQ1367 “I am going to start a thread on message board for anyone who might be interested in continuing conversation.” Or perhaps John Henderson in “The ‘Listener’ Dinner – 2” printed alongside IQ1381: “I’m keen to hear views from the solving floor,” (on Numerical Puzzles).

    Or do these happen elsewhere?

30. John Lowe @29: There’s the “GENERAL DISCUSSION” tab on this website (which I’ve never looked at).

    Otherwise, there’s the popular ‘Derek Harrison’s Crossword Message Board’ at http://boards2go.com/boards/board.cgi?&user=dharrison – that seems to be rather Listener oriented, with a bit of Azed chat as well & some general stuff.

31. Thanks Lato, super puzzle. I had completely finished this puzzle, including Barton Fink, and still did not understand who Eton Ian was. Thanks Lato.

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