Crossword clues

[Jnyusa]

Hobby,

Hey, nobody tried my other clues yet! (Guess they were a bit too easy.)

Not too easy for me. Still thinking about Hilary. Do they give the number of letters in the answer?

The war horse answer is in German, isn't it? I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to guess halves of German compound words.

And I'm still wondering about that treaty between Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

That's the one that's "pact." The states are abbreviated PA and CT.

I don't get how every word can be used in the answer in yours, Jny.

It hasn't been solved yet. Mith got part of the clue right: that rhyming fellow is Longfellow. But that's only part of the answer.

I just downloaded the Ask Oxford cryptic for November and will have a go at it. The prize is a thesaurus!

Jn

eta: Is the answer to the Hilary clue "first"?

[truehobbit]

Is the answer to the Hilary clue "first"?

Yep!

And the other one is English, too - I made that one up myself. It's an example for the kind of funnily 'wrong' definitions you get in this type of puzzle - I wouldn't give an example in German, that wouldn't help much.

That's the one that's "pact." The states are abbreviated PA and CT.

Oh, I see - I like that one.

Hmmh, as to yours - the whole thing has seven letters, but "Longfellow" is part of the solution?

ETA: I guess one has to take some letters out of "longfellow", and the leftover words of the clue tell you which - but how they do that is another question.

[MithLuin]

Well, "fellow" is in the clue, so maybe you only need "long?" (and the rest of the clue gives you the other 3 letters)


I only knew "ta" because my sister used it in Scrabble once for a triple word score. I challenged, and was informed by the dictionary that it was "British baby talk for 'thanks'"

[Jnyusa]

Well, "fellow" is in the clue, so maybe you only need "long?" (and the rest of the clue gives you the other 3 letters)

Yes, that's right. One part of the rest of the clue gives you the other three letters, and the other part of the rest of the clue gives you the definition.

Proper cryptic, yes?

Hobby, I'll take another crack at the war horse. I'm waiting for brownies to come out of the oven, so I'll keep thinking about it until the brownies are ready to eat.

Jn

[vison]

Well, "fellow" is in the clue, so maybe you only need "long?" (and the rest of the clue gives you the other 3 letters)

Yes, that's right. One part of the rest of the clue gives you the other three letters, and the other part of the rest of the clue gives you the definition.

Proper cryptic, yes?

Hobby, I'll take another crack at the war horse. I'm waiting for brownies to come out of the oven, so I'll keep thinking about it until the brownies are ready to eat.

Jn

Great minds think alike, Jnyusa. I made chicken soup with matzoh balls for dinner and brownies for dessert. Both were yummy.

And I still can't solve your puzzle....

[Aravar]

Yes, it's real, but to stick the word "run" into the clue, so that people will know they need to stick an 'r' somewhere in the solution is incredibly far-fetched! That's what I mean by contrived. If you don't know the conventions, it seems to be impossible to solve the puzzle.
How do people learn the conventions in the first place?

I think part of the problem is cultural. In Britain it's not obscure to have run being R. If you're not familiar with cricket it will look terribly contrived. In the same way Jn and Mith have shown that 'TA' for thanks is obscure for an American, on the other hand PACT is easy for them. You didn't pick it up, presumably, because US state abbreviations aren't as familiar to you.

I clue that works for me and wouldn't be any more obscure than the PACT one is

'Two gongs for a Japanese City (4)'

While everyone might get the answer, I doubt that a non-Brit, and certainly someone not from the Commonwealth would get the 'Why'.

PROLONG is the answer to JN's clue. It means stretch it out. Pro means for and we've already explained LONG.

Is CHARGER your warhorse one, charger being a warhorse and charges being used in artillery?

[Jnyusa]

I made chicken soup with matzoh balls for dinner and brownies for dessert. Both were yummy.

Your brownies turned out better than mine, for sure. I never remember until after the batter is mixed that you have to preheat the oven, so instead of waiting for the oven to come up to heat, I stick them in while it's heating and just add a few minutes on to the time. But then the top cooks faster than the bottom. So if they're done on top, they're mushy on the bottom, and if they're done on the bottom they're burned on top.

I just ate three of them and that was one too many.

Aravar, yes, Prolong it is. And that's a good guess with charger!

This one was in an internet cryptic that I actually managed to finish last week. The word "nothing" appeared in about five clues and I finally figured out how to interpret it.

Nothing more than a girl can bring down a heifer. (5)

I had penciled in "horse" but that didn't fit the crosses. This one has a US cultural bias too, and that threw me off a bit because it was a British puzzle.

Jn

[truehobbit]

I think part of the problem is cultural. In Britain it's not obscure to have run being R. If you're not familiar with cricket it will look terribly contrived. In the same way Jn and Mith have shown that 'TA' for thanks is obscure for an American, on the other hand PACT is easy for them. You didn't pick it up, presumably, because US state abbreviations aren't as familiar to you.

No, I think the problem is that no one unfamiliar with cryptic conventions would assume, from reading the word "run" in the clue, that you are meant to use the abbreviation for it as a letter in the solution. Similarly with PA and CT - there was nothing in the clue that told you you needed the abbreviations.
In my clue, while "ta" may be better known to British people, it said "short thanks" - so even without knowing any conventions you could figure out that you needed a short form for "thanks".
That's what makes the difference for me between a puzzle that is fun and one that's contrived.

Is CHARGER your warhorse one, charger being a warhorse and charges being used in artillery?

Nope. But that's part of it. It wouldn't be funny if it were "charger" because that would simply fit the definition of 'war horse'. Like I said, it's usually compound nouns, because they are more easily misinterpreted.


Btw, I just spoke to a new colleague of mine on the phone who sounds exactly like you, Aravar! That is, the accent is a little different, but the melody and rhythm of the language is the same - I've never seen him, so I get quite confused when I listen to him, somehow picturing you at the other end.

[MithLuin]

No, if "Pennsylvania" were mentioned in a regular crossword, Americans would consider both "Penn" and "PA" The postal abbreviations of the various states are considered common knowledge and obvious...so in a "cryptic" crossword, it seems unnecessary to specify that you need abbreviations. I figured out "pact" immediately.

A shortened form of thanks makes it clear that you need slang, but if you've not heard of "ta" meaning thanks, it's hard to solve.

[truehobbit]

This strikes me as odd. People who read "Pennsylvania" think of the abbreviations of the word rather than of any characteristics Pennsylvania has? If I read "Köln" in a clue, I'd think of the things that are connected with Cologne, certainly not the fact that it's abridged as "K".
I can't imagine that these aren't rather crossword conventions that are so generally known that someone who does crosswords regularly would know what the author is after - I wonder if someone who's never seen a crossword in their life would also think "PA" rather than "forest" or "William Penn" or whatever else Americans might associate with the state (some kind of food or drink? some kind of characteristic of the inhabitants?).

And a shortened form of a word needn't be slang - it just so happens that 'thanks' is habitually abridged to 'ta' nowadays.
For the Pact-clue, I think it should have said: "In short, Pennsylvania and Connecticut make a treaty".
This would enable someone who's never done a crossword before to recognise the intention from the clue, which is what a clue is supposed to do.

[MithLuin]

People habitually say "I have relatives in PA" or whatever. "PA" is the abbreviation for Pennsylvania. Other states may not have such commonly-used abbreviations, though. People seldom refer to Maryland as "MD" in speech, for instance. That's the difference between having a 2 syllable name and a 4 syllable name .

As for food, that is more narrow than the state. Thus, it's Philly cheesesteaks (and cream cheese, now that I think about it), Hershey chocolate, ice cream from the State College creamery, York pepperment patties, pretzels from Hanover and Lebanon bologna.

Since I'm not someone who does crosswords (habitually or otherwise ), I'm not going to know a thing about crossword conventions. I guess they can put (abbreviation) after the clue, if that's what they mean.

But I do know postal abbreviations, because they are used so much. Some words are like that - traffic reports on the radio always refer to "the JFX" which stands for "the Jones Falls Expressway."

A (simple) German example:

Main train station (3)



(It's not my fault I don't know your language!)

[truehobbit]

I guess it's just that Americans love two or three letter abbreviations. Like calling me "TH".
Although, strangely, you never get called "ML", do you?

No one here would actually say Hbf, although everybody knows what it means.

So - no guess on my clue, then?

[MithLuin]

Nope, no one has ever done anything about the fact that the L is capitalized. I am either "Mith" or "Mithluin" with the ocassional "Mithy." (As there are 2 other TORcers who use "Mithy" I do not encourage that.)

Sorry I couldn't come up with a better example in German - and you all are quite right not to use "Hbf" while speaking. Hauptbahnhof is just too much fun to say!

As for yours:
"war horse that is part of the artillery"

hmmm...artillery means guns and cannons
You've already said that charge/charger had something to do with it....

And it's a compound word...

Dodge Charger is a car.
chagrin is a word...
gun shy
supercharged
Master Card
surcharge
overcharge

I don't know...

[Jnyusa]

Battery charger? That's not compounded in English but it probably is in German.

I can't imagine that these aren't rather crossword conventions that are so generally known that someone who does crosswords regularly would know what the author is after

Yes, I agree that this is the whole of it, Hobby. You have to do the puzzles regularly and read books or websites that explain how to do the puzzles and what the conventions are.

I think that with a simple crossword, most people could get most of the clues because they are ordinary words. But the New York Times Sunday puzzle, even though it's crossword and not cryptic, would be impossible for someone unfamiliar with all the conventions.

Jn

[vison]

Battery charger? That's not compounded in English but it probably is in German.

I can't imagine that these aren't rather crossword conventions that are so generally known that someone who does crosswords regularly would know what the author is after

Yes, I agree that this is the whole of it, Hobby. You have to do the puzzles regularly and read books or websites that explain how to do the puzzles and what the conventions are.

I think that with a simple crossword, most people could get most of the clues because they are ordinary words. But the New York Times Sunday puzzle, even though it's crossword and not cryptic, would be impossible for someone unfamiliar with all the conventions.

Jn

Sometimes it takes me all week to do it. And, sometimes, I don't get every word.

[truehobbit]

Battery charger?

Yeah!

(A compound noun is a noun that consists of more than one word, it doesn't matter if it's written as a single word, hyphenated or as two words. )

[TIGG]

This one was in an internet cryptic that I actually managed to finish last week. The word "nothing" appeared in about five clues and I finally figured out how to interpret it.

Nothing more than a girl can bring down a heifer. (5)



Jn

easy : LASS0

lasso

[Inanna]

"heifer" is a young cow before she has had her first calf....

and thats all I have to say.

[vison]

Brilliant, TIGG!!!! Most excellent.

I guess I misunderstood the use of the term "compound noun", because I tossed both those words around and couldn't make sense of them. Should have paid more attention. Good puzzle, though.

[Jnyusa]

The TIGG has it!

vison, the compound noun was Hobby's clue ... battery charger.

Hobby, I don't think that would be considered compound in English, though. I think battery would be considered an adjective modifying charger, because things other than batteries can be charged. I always think of compound words as single words with two parts or hypthenated, like lighthouse. That was a good clue for the solution, though!

That 'o' in lasso is one of those conventions, whereby numbers are substituted for letters they resemble, or converted to Roman numberals. It took me forever to figure it out.



Ugly bugs, they need minding to grow into pounds when stirred in the ocean under different phases of the moon (10)

Jn