The news in clues
Ecstasy, take a back seat. For the foreseeable, the use of “drug” in a clue to indicate an E in an answer seems likely to be sidelined in favour of another E-word. In last week’s Guardian puzzle by Picaroon (you can Meet the Setter here), many clues referred to eighteen down …
18d Back continental way: tolerant, embracing a unionist (8)
[ a word for a road (“way”) in a continental language, spelled backwards + synonym for “tolerant” around (“embracing”) A ]
[ RUE backwards + OPEN around A ]
… that is, EUROPEAN. And so we had clues such as this one …
29ac Johnson and Cameron, say, bringing in sadness primarily for 18s (9)
[ a group epitomised by Boris Johnson and David Cameron, around the first letter of SADNESS ]
[ ETONIANS around S ]
… which recalled the dodgy comment attributed to Macmillan about Thatcher’s cabinet containing “more ESTONIANS than Etonians”, and this pithy summary …
28ac The 18 farewell? (5)
[ “the” in a European language + synonym for “farewell” ]
[ LE + AVE ]
… of LEAVE. On the same day, Ray T in the Telegraph took a similar theme, in clues such as this trip …
2d Country leaving EU shower – start of European state? (7)
[ a country leaving the EU + synonym for “shower” + first letter (“start”) of EUROPEAN ]
[ UK + RAIN + E]
... to UKRAINE.
Latter patter
A sneakily hidden answer (here’s our guide to this clue type) in a puzzle from Paul (and here’s his Meet the Setter):
9ac Somewhat in decline, in effect I’d degenerated, do you understand? (6)
[ some of the letters of EFFECTIDDEGENERATED, backwards ]
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that GEDDIT was popularised from the early 1980s by Private Eye, specifically in the regrettably titled Glenda Slagg column. That name is sometimes used generically to describe a column written by a woman; in 1991, Martyn Harris in the Spectator described Julie Burchill thus:
She ran away to London at 16, went to work on a pop music paper, and now writes the Glenda Slagg piece for the Mail on Sunday.
That pop-music paper was the New Musical Express, which is also the source for Oxford’s earliest citation of GEDDIT, from February 1976:
In 20th-century art Dada was the medium for attacking traditional values. Val..Dada..kyrie – geddit? Well, it was just a thought.
Every so often, this blog likes to help out by suggesting an earlier sighting. This one is, unstartlingly, from Australia – specifically the literary journal Meanjin, which is named after an Indigenous Australian term for the finger of land where central Brisbane sits, and showcases new writing. From 1952:
Like the cap’n uva ship, if y’geddit. He ordna’ be innerfeered with. He was perrf’ckly entidled, if he saw fit, even to compledely ignorre the orrders of the egseggerdive. But in fagt, acourrse, he seldom did that.
Private Eye appears in two other OED definitions. One is carefully rendered as “Pseud’s (also Pseuds’) Corner”; the other is the subject of our next challenge. Its earliest citation in Oxford is March 1975, but Adam Macqueen’s official history, Private Eye: The First 50 Years, gives the origin as March 1973. Again, happy to help, and reader: how would you clue UGANDA?
Clueing competition
Thanks for your clues for CHILCOT. Sir John’s surname certainly lends itself to deft acronyms, such as Ousgg’s “Leadership of court hears indictments, liberally crucifies old Tony?” and Jonemm’s “Cementing his irredeemable legacy, check out Tony heading to the Iraq inquiry”.
The runners-up are Steveran’s “Issue not finally put to bed in inquiry?” and MaleficOpus’s “Old cliche about taking time to release conclusion of committee”; the winner is Thesunneversets’s astonishing “Left taken in by Marx – time for an inquiry”.
Kludos, then, to the Sun; please leave this fortnight’s entries and your pick of the broadsheet cryptics below.
Clue of the fortnight
Despite a gnomic comment under last week’s post, I commend to you a Church Times clue written by the setter known locally as Pasquale ...
Saint inside? He was outside (7)
[ abbreviation for “saint” + synonym for “inside” ]
[ S + WITHIN ]
… and published on St SWITHIN’s day. Ubi et pedibus praetereuntium et stillicidiis ex alto rorantibus esset obnoxius, as they say.
View all comments >