Wednesday 15 December 2010

No 10025, Wednesday 15 Dec 10, Nita Jaggi

NJ is back to her wayward wily ways!!
ACROSS
1   - Sri Lanka's wood screen (5) - {CL}{OAK}
4   - Move outward in the front direction provided for the circuit component (7) - {D}{IF}{FUSE}
10 - It may be used as a fabric stiffener (6) - STARCH [CD]
11 - Black Houston leaders are remorseful about leaving the note (8) - (-te+ho)HORRIBLE


13 - Titles of team leaders are accepted in place of an official in front (8) - CAPT(-a)I(+o)ONS
14 - Hymn tune read aloud behind the church (6) - {CH}{ORAL}
16 - Late morning test (4) - {EX}{AM}
17 - Surgical measure to sacrifice a limb (10) - AMPUTATION [CD] Sacrifice!!!
20 - Puts bright light in the city (10) - PITTSBURGH* Light is an AInd?
21 - Rare-coin rating penalty (4) - FINE Anno pending
24 - Household spirit in lowa is the first to tighten the rope (6) - {LAR}{IA}{T}
26 - Measure taken by a holy man protecting the Italian in the preservation process (8) - {EN}{S{IL}AGE}
28 - Searched thoroughly covering the popular military force (8) - {COMB{IN}ED} What military force is this?
29 - Oil worker in the mart is tired (6) - ARTIST [T]
30 - Follows a match heartily in the evening hour at dusk regularly (7) - {A}{TT}{EN}{D}{S} How do we get EN, if it is from heartily in the evening it should be ENI
31 - College heads of the French hold a Norwegian leader (5) - {DE{A}{N}S}
DOWN
2   - Student planted a thorny shrub (4,5) - {L}{EAD PLANT*}
3   - Leave no narcotic substance in an Eskimo region (6) - ARCTICno*
5   - Princess puts up an incomplete temple figure (4) - {ID<-}{OL} Anno for OL pending
6   - Salutation part of face (8) - FOREHEAD [DD]
7   - Bears attacked with a sword (5) - SABER* Attacked is an AInd? Didn't know Sabre could be spelt this way also
8   - He caught spy disturbing Cupid's love (6) - {PSY(C)HE*}
9   - Speculator is dropping a short line in the German city (6) - {BER}{LINe} Anno for BER pending (Addendum {BEaR}{LINe} - See comments)
12 - Attract an Englishman held up for an hour in an outhouse (7) - {E}{NAM<-}{hOUR}


15 - Rising opposition leaders dismissed from organised groupings (7) - SURGINGop*
18 - Start off to check forgery (9) - lIMITATION
19 - Specifically the gallery exhibits the popular element (8) - {AS}{TAT{IN}E} Don't remember this from Chemistry
20 - Written contract will curtail an old disease in the borders of the city (6) - {POLIo}{CitY} Why is Polio an old disease?
22 - Chooses the Spanish sect in trouble (6) - {EL}{ECTS*}
23 - Angry cry of disgust at a competition out on road (6) - {FIE}{RaCE} is the only thing I could think of, to fit the crossings. Not sure of Anno.
25 - Track official returns an invoice word (5) - REMIT <-
27 - No more of the French notice (4) - {DE}{AD}

41 comments:

  1. Hi
    Had to Google AS-TAT(IN)E for confirmation. EN-S(IL)AGE was more familiar since I used the word in one of my agricultural projects on Guar gum. COMB(IN)ED and ARTIST were best in my opinion. CGB will like the FINE. BE(-a)R-LIN was nice too.

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  2. 21 - Rare-coin rating penalty (4) - FINE Anno pending

    Fine is a grading for coins, hence ref to CBG above:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_grading

    28 - Searched thoroughly covering the popular military force (8) - {COMB{IN}ED} What military force is this?

    IN is both popular and Indian Navy

    9 - Speculator is dropping a short line in the German city (6) - {BER}{LINe} Anno for BER pending

    Please refer first post

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  3. Deepak you have come out with two hilarious hospital cartoons and NJ has come up with two refs for the post mortem patients 'late' in 16a and 'No more'in 27a.

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  4. Kishore,
    In 28D COMBINED leads to 'Military force' as the definition, that is what my query is.
    IN comes from popular and COMBED from Searched thoroughly.

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  5. 23 - Angry cry of disgust at a competition out on road (6) - {FIE}{RaCE} is the only thing I could think of, to fit the crossings. Not sure of Anno.

    Fie is a cry of disgust
    Competiton on road= race
    a out= deletion of a

    But I had put down SIRREE here, again without a proper anno but fitting the def.

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  6. Deepak, 839: Probably joint chief of staff ;-)

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  7. Sorry, CGB not CBG in 834

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  8. 23D, I think it's...

    FIE - a cry of disgust
    RACE - competition

    out on road = removal of A from RACE

    So, FIERCE

    Reckon Road = A is a standard

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  9. 30 - Follows a match heartily in the evening hour at dusk regularly (7) - {A}{TT}{EN}{D}{S} How do we get EN, if it is from heartily in the evening it should be ENI

    A (maTch heartily) TEN (evening hour) DS (dusk regularly)

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  10. 7A, I think attacked is OK as anagram indicator.

    I think SABRE is spelled as SABER too. Former would have been better for this crossword 'cause it's the British spelling.

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  11. Horrible sums up the feeling of solving the puzzle today.

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  12. Bhavan,
    I had the same thought and forgot to put it in my opening line.

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  13. Col. & Bhavan have summed up today's CW correctly.I could not get through the bottom half at all.
    Looked up the Periodic table to confirm that Astatine is indeed an element.

    Though I filled in 'cloak' for 1A, I cant understand how CL is short for Srilanka (old name Ceylon?)

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  14. hi

    i put NAMASKAR in 6d and waited eternally. all my other doubts were answered in the blogs above. i dont use the word horrible but totally CONFUSING like the clue 28 a.

    mathu

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  15. 28 a

    I think by combined, she means one similar to Military of the European Union.
    http://www.answers.com/topic/combined-force

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  16. I thought today's puzzle was nice.

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  17. 23 d
    Angry cry of disgust at a competition out on road (6) - {FIE}{RaCE}
    I think the anno is correct.
    Fie -used to express mild disgust.
    "a" has been used as an abbreviatiion for road recently.
    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_designation_or_abbreviation

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  18. Can some one answer the following questions.

    1) How do we get EN for Measure taken in 26A?
    2) Why is DE used for the in French? Google translate gives me only le,les and la for 'the' in French.
    3) Why is popular represented as IN?
    4) @Kishore 844, match heartily should represent "ATC" right? If Col's anno is correct, why does TT represent match? Is it referring to table tennis?
    5) Why does outhouse represent cutting off h from hour in 12D?

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  19. 2)In French,
    Of the - DE
    The- LE
    3) "In" means popular or fashionable(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/in)
    5) outhouse means deleting h from house.
    1)I dont know the expansion of EN (From endurance?) . Someone please help.

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  20. Benkiman,

    1. Definition of EN: (from Merriam-Webster)

    "the width of a piece of type half the width of an em."

    2. DE would be "of French." So reckon 27D is not technically right. But 31A is all right 'cause the clue says "of the," which is DES in French.

    3, Popular = in, like "in thing," "fashionable" etc

    4. I go with Kishore's anno. A match heartily = A T (middle letter of "match") TEN (evening hour) DS (alternate letters in "dusk."). TEN = evening hour is a bit odd IMO.

    5. outhouse = removing/ outing H (abbr of house) from hour.

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  21. Sorry. hour in an outhouse means h (House) out from Hour.

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  22. TEN evening hour? Then what is 10 am :)
    Thanks VJ for EN.

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  23. Ajeesh, on TEN :) That's exactly how I felt...

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  24. VJ @ 11:20,

    Pardon me for saying so, but you must be the only one today with that opinion!!

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  25. When with NJ, think like NJ does ! That is all I am trying to do, not justify NJ or otherwise) and I fully agree with Deepak's 1313.

    On the same lines, for example, the word 'evening' (the whole world does not go to bed as early as we do ! )

    a. is informally used for night
    b. is used for period from afternoon till sunset/dusk read with sun does not set even at 10pm (why 10, even an 12 midnight) in some parts of the world...

    For more details:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening

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  26. Ajeesh, when using the dash in typesetting there were two types of dashes, the shorter one called the en-dash and the longer one the em-dash.

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  27. Amputation cartoon was just hilarious,I could not help laughing out loud! Probably,that is what we all are after doing today's NJ special-totally cut up!!

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  28. So for NJ all the numbers from 1 to 12 are coming under evening hrs :)
    13 A. Which "a " is getting replaced? a ( abbreviation of accepted) or from " an" ?

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  29. 7D - VJ is correct. SABER is American spelling.

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  30. Ajeesh 1344: Abhi shaaam jawaan hai !

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  31. @ Col 13:13 and VJ 11:20 - I'm going to spring a surprise here and say that I actually enjoyed NJ's offering today... much more so than usual. Now... I might add that I did have a LOT more time on my hands today and maybe I'm just tuned in to NJisms. :) Usually, it takes me a good 2-3 days to get over NJ and into the next setter. hehe

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  32. Thanks Kishore for en and em.
    Princess puts up an incomplete temple figure (4) - {ID<-}{OL}
    Can it be
    {ID<-}(-scho){OL} ?

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  33. @Kishore 13:35 - Exactly! That's the only time when I have success w/ her CWs!! And when I read the blog and see the questions asked, I have to think, "What the hell was I thinking?!" haha... and of course, the answer is "like NJ". Which explains why I have to go through withdrawal when her turn's over. :)

    To be fair though, I did think that she had more than her usual fare of clever clues... along with her usual complement of "what?!?" clues. :)

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  34. Hari, LOL!!! So it's not like what the Col thought. I got company!!!

    NJ's crosswords are a bit different you know. You gotta begin to like the oddities to be able to remain less critical.

    I think today, there was a fair share of decent clues with nothing much to complain about.

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  35. Ajeesh, IDOL is a bit intriguing ain't it! I tried all kindsa word searches with OL_, OL__, LO_, LO__ and even _OL and it all got me nowhere. I think only NJ can answer this one.

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  36. Ajeessh, yea, LOL, again, I was thinking on those same lines. Well looks like that's all what we can do for now.

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  37. 20 - Written contract will curtail an old disease in the borders of the city (6) - {POLIo}{CitY} Why is Polio an old disease?
    Curtail O (Old) from Polio. So NJ is correct. :) I enjoyed it .LOL

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  38. Folks,

    I am amazed that so many of you can still "enjoy" NJs clues. I get completely disoriented trying to figure out many of them and have stopped attempting her crosswords.

    Good luck to all of you.

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  39. NJ is ENJOY curtailed after determination

    i.e. on de-termination ENJOY becomes NJO
    then curtailed NJ

    Reminds me of a Kabir doha:

    Sadhu aisa chahiye , jaise soop swabhaw ,
    saar saar ko gahi rahe , thota deyeee uDay.

    Paraphrasing into Wild West English: A sage should be like a miner's pan/sieve, he should pick up the gold and throw away the rest...

    btw I have a far-fetched anno for IDOL. The OL may be 'incomplete temple of Olympus/Olympia'.
    I know it is a pretty tall story, and I dont think many of you are that Laridae-ible.

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  40. This comment has been removed by the author.

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