DEFINITION ticks several boxes in the list of classic EV devices – misprints in definitions giving some thematic material (a song title and part of a line from it) followed by the removal of some letters from the grid, and the drawing of a shape in their place. Plus, a little twist in the tail, with the last two misprinted letters leading to some more thematic material…
But despite its classic devices, and the relative ‘antiquity’ (?!) of the song, the theme is right bang up-to-date, if you ‘follow’ my drift…
My initial approach was to run through and see if any misprints jumped out at me, to try and get a foothold. I made reasonable progress, starting from the bottom up – ‘gent on horseback’ had to be ‘went’ to get RODE; ‘Hag understanding’ had to be ‘had’ to get ‘KNEW… However, I didn’t help myself by misinterpreting the preamble and writing down the correct letters – W from ‘went’, D from ‘had’ – rather than the misprinted letters themselves, as stated, so G and G were the letters required for these two.
Once I had got past this little faux pas, things proceeded nicely – 24, 25, 26 had ‘…OBI…’ – is this going to be a Star Wars theme? But no, the first few clues eventually had to be ‘ROCKIN’ ROBIN’ – which I knew vaguely as a Michael Jackson, or Jackson 5, song from the Seventies (relative antiquity?!). A little e-research was required to refresh my vague knowledge of the lyrics, and all was revealed. The song includes the lines:
‘…all the little birdies on Jaybird Street,
Love to hear the robin go…tweet, tweet, tweet…’
The last two misprinted letters were H and G, the start and end of HASHTAG, which is used as some sort of identifier in the act of tweeting, m’lud. (I have to admit I am not particularly a member of the twit-erati – I did join up and send three tweets, but I soon lost interest…maybe because I find it hard to limit myself to 140 characters! And I’m not completely sure when you would use a # as opposed to an @…)
Now for the clever, ‘how do they do that’, moment – all occurences of the letters of HASHTAG – A, G, H, S and T – had to be removed and a shape drawn in their place. At first I thought this might be the Twitter bird symbol, but that would need more than four lines – and in fact it was, appropriately enough, a ‘hash’ sign:
I’m sure I have seen similar devices before, where all occurrences of a letter, or a set of letters, can be joined up or drawn through to make a relevant shape, but it never ceases to amaze me how a setter can add this level of complexity to the creation of a grid – on top of the mindboggling effort of trying to get all the spaces filled in the first place!
All in all, a nice theme and denouément, great grid construction, and overall reasonably challenging, but not too difficult clueing. Very enjoyable – thanks, Xanthippe.
Now for the 140 character version:
@Xanthippe #EV1156 Misprinted letters = MJackson song ‘Rockin’ Robin…go tweet*3’. ’ Hashtag’ letters removed make hash #. #Wow! @mc_rapper67
Finally – I wasn’t sure of the misprint/parsing of DOWRY at 42 across – grateful for any enlightenment here, and/or for any other errors or omissions below…
(Thanks to Xanthippe for clearing this up – DOT has a second meaning as ‘marriage portion’, or dowry..)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Length | Solution | Misprinted letter | Clue (definition underlined, misprinted word in Logic/Parsing |
| 1 | (8) | FREEZE-UP | R | FREE_UP (release from commitment) around ZE (zone, or area, losing ‘heart’) |
| 7 | (5) | ORLOP | O | Run into game over O_LOP (polo, game, ‘over’) around R (run) |
| 11 | (4) | ROME | Capital Mike’s invested in source of koi carp, maybe? (4) / RO_E (source of koi carp, maybe) around M (Mike) |
|
| 13 | (3) | ONE | C | ON (beside) + E (Ecstasy) |
| 14 | (3) | IRE | K | Father’s mislaid special (S)IRE (father), mislaying S (special) |
| 16 | (6) | ROSERY | Sorrel almost destroyed Yankee flower garden (6) / ROSER (anag, i.e. destroyed, of SORRE(L), almost) + Y (Yankee) |
|
| 17 | (4) | AMEN | I | Name, possibly, for anag, i.e. possibly, of NAME |
| 18 | (4) | EIRE | N | lake ERIE, reflected |
| 19 | (7) | NOUGHTS | 35s new shotgun (7) / anag, i.e. new, of SHOTGUN |
|
| 21 | (6) | GATHER | R | Teen head girl oddly twisting anag, i.e. twisting, of odd letters of ‘TeEn HeAd GiRl’ |
| 23 | (7) | BEDAZED | Stupefied periods, we hear, in the sack (7) / BE_D (the sack) around DAZE (homophone, i.e. we hear, of days, or periods) |
|
| 27 | (7) | EYESORE | O | Look at underside of boot, swapping left for right EYE (look at) + SORE (SOLE, underside of boot, swapping L for R) |
| 30 | (6, two words) | POT HAT | Capital cover for Spooner’s fiery Irishman (6, two words) / The Rev Spooner might have said ‘HOT PAT’ (fiery Irishman!) |
|
| 31 | (7) | STAGIER | B | S (contraction of IS) + TAGIER (anag, i.e about, or TEARI(N)G, without N – north, or one ‘direction’) |
| 35 | (4) | ZERO | I | Z (SI unit of impedance) + O (first letter, source, of Oscillation), around ER (half of wiRE, back) |
| 37 | (4) | NUNS | N | Students receiving new blue tits NU_S (National Union of Students) around N (new) |
| 38 | (6) | END-ALL | Origins of life lost and earth obliterated – apocalypse (6) / anag, i.e. destroyed, of LL (first letters of Life and Lost) + AND + E (earth) |
|
| 39 | (3) | EYE | L | Was brood hidden word in ‘fridgE Yesterday’ |
| 40 | (3) | EVE | O | EVE(R) (continuously, short) |
| 41 | (4) | REDE | V | Russian, second in February RED (Russian) + E (second letter of February) |
| 42 | (5) | DOWRY | E | Bitter dock’s half eaten in front of dot DO (DOck half eaten) in front of WRY (bitter) |
| 43 | (8) | REED-WREN | T | NE_W DEER (young, hoofed, animals) around (crossing) R (river), all heading west. |
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Length | Solution | Misprinted letter | Clue (definition underlined, misprinted word in Logic/Parsing |
| 1 | (6) | FRIEND | O | US bud F_END (ward off) around RI (Rhode Island) |
| 2 | (4) | ROJI | H | Portions of sushi Jo rolled up in Tokyo garden reversed hidden word (portions of…up) in ‘sushI JO Rolled’ |
| 3 | (7) | EMBRUED | E | European doctor was sorry for dyed E (European) + MB (doctor) + RUED (was sorry for) |
| 4 | (8) | ZOOPHAGA | All of the meat eaters down under turned up hot at stove after work (8) / ZO (Oz, or Down Under, turned) + OP (Opus, work) + H (hot) + AGA (stove) |
|
| 5 | (6) | ERSATZ | Substitute stripped here (seated zone) (6) / (H)ER(E) (here, stripped) + SAT (seated) = Z (zone) |
|
| 6 | (4) | PORK | A | POR(T) (obsolete for gate, or portal?) + k (last letter of plank) |
| 7 | (4) | ONYX | R | ON(L)Y (just, knocking out L – line) + X (ten) |
| 8 | (6) | REASTY | Rancid meat with edges decaying under cooker’s base (filthy place) (6) / R (‘base’ of ‘cookeR’) + (M)EA(T) (meat, with edges ‘decayed’) + STY (filthy place) |
|
| 9 | (4) | LIMB | T | Unfinished fruit – British LIM(E) (‘unfinished’ fruit) + B (British) |
| 10 | (6) | PENURY | H | PEN (writing) + (F)URY (rage, removing, or finishing, F – folio) |
| 12 | (10) | MERSEYSIDE | E | anag i.e. ground, of IE MESSY RED |
| 15 | (7) | REFEREE | R | Note iron drum (a litre short) – you may need one for your CV RE (note, do-re-mi) + FE (Fe, iron) + REE(L) (drum, short of L – litre) |
| 20 | (7) | OBLOQUY | See queen pinched by naughty boy, it’s a disgrace (7) / OB_Y (anag, i.e. naughty, of BOY) around (pinching) LO (see, interjection) + QU (queen) |
|
| 22 | (8) | ASSAILED | Attacked fool was unwell (8) / ASS (fool) + AILED (was unwell) |
|
| 24 | (7) | BRIEFER | O | BRIE (cheese) + FER (ref, 15D = referee, raised) |
| 25 | (6) | OPENED | B | O_ED (Oxford English Dictionary) around (delved into by) PEN (author) |
| 26 | (6) | CHASER | I | First of horse races churned anag i.e. churned, of H (first letter of horses) + RACES |
| 28 | (6) | ETHANE | Spain’s after French and Chinese gas (6) / ET (and, in French) + HAN (native Chinese people) + E (Espana, Spain) |
|
| 29 | (6) | BROKEN | N | Worn out anag, i.e. screws, of ON KERB |
| 32 | (4) | KNEW | G | homophone (i.e. radio broadcast) – KNEW (had understanding) sounds like NEW (recent) |
| 33 | (4) | BEVY | O | regular letters from ‘BakEry VerY’ |
| 34 | (4) | ONER | H | Old note with representation of HM Cryptic Definition – O (old) + N (note) + ER (representation of HM, Her Majesty?) |
| 36 | (4) | RODE | G | Sound of highway and homophone (i.e. sound of) – RODE (went on horseback) sounds like ROAD (highway) |
Thanks for the excellent blog mc_rapper67. The misprint in the ‘doe’ clue was ‘dot’ with ‘of’ being part of the wordplay.
Xanthippe
I really enjoyed this. A good start to the EV year. I was impressed with the grid construction given the constraint of the positioning of the H, A, S, T and Gs.