CCCWC March competition voters’ comments on Clue no. 22

CCCWC March competition voters’ comments

Clue no. 22: Going to loo, Roman is desperate

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A clue to IMARI (Printer’s Devilry).
3 comments refer to this clue (from 3 competitors, 0 others)
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Comments on the clue

1.	Why?
2.	Good contrast but the full version has an unconvincing surface and therefore difficult for the solver to work out.

Comments on the competition
1.
It is far from easy to produce satisfactory PD clues, as the (to my mind) rather lacklustre example frequently used for these competitions perhaps suggests. If the exercise is to have any point at all, it is surely essential (a) that the undevilled version should have a credible and reasonably idiomatic surface and (b) that the devilling should produce both plausible sense and a significant[ change in meaning (and preferably in a startling or amusing way) and desirable that the devilled version too should be reasonably idiomatic – at least by the standards of, say, newspaper headlines or telegraphese. In any case, if one of the two versions is to be slightly less credible and idiomatic, it should always be the devilled version. After all, there would hardly be much “devilry” in a printer’s omitting a few letters from a passage, but producing a form of words that says very much the same thing. Unfortunately, the great majority of clues on offer this month fail to satisfy either (a) or (b) above or both. For instance, while 22 does very well with respect to (b), it is hard to imagine a context in which anyone would say or write the sentence in the undevilled version; 27 is a much better take on the same idea, even if Oslo does look a bit out of place in a list with two South American cities. On the other hand, most of the many clues referring to the U.S. Presidential election produce devilled versions that offer very little or no contrast with the undevilled ones. In other cases – eg, 17, 49, 52 – there is a reasonable contrast between the two versions, but it is the undevilled one that fails the credibility test by being unidiomatic – and, in two of these cases, almost nonsensical. I'm afraid that that there were very few clues that I felt deserved points.

Comments on the competition

It is far from easy to produce satisfactory PD clues, as the (to my mind) rather lacklustre example frequently used for these competitions perhaps suggests. If the exercise is to have any point at all, it is surely essential

(a) that the undevilled version should have a credible and reasonably idiomatic surface

and

(b) that the devilling should produce both plausible sense and a significant[ change in meaning (and preferably in a startling or amusing way)

and desirable that the devilled version too should be reasonably idiomatic – at least by the standards of, say, newspaper headlines or telegraphese. In any case, if one of the two versions is to be slightly less credible and idiomatic, it should always be the devilled version.

After all, there would hardly be much “devilry” in a printer’s omitting a few letters from a passage, but producing a form of words that says very much the same thing.

Unfortunately, the great majority of clues on offer this month fail to satisfy either (a) or (b) above or both. For instance, while 22 does very well with respect to (b), it is hard to imagine a context in which anyone would say or write the sentence in the undevilled version; 27 is a much better take on the same idea, even if Oslo does look a bit out of place in a list with two South American cities. On the other hand, most of the many clues referring to the U.S. Presidential election produce devilled versions that offer very little or no contrast with the undevilled ones. In other cases – eg, 17, 49, 52 – there is a reasonable contrast between the two versions, but it is the undevilled one that fails the credibility test by being unidiomatic – and, in two of these cases, almost nonsensical.

I'm afraid that that there were very few clues that I felt deserved points.

CCCWC March competition voters’ comments Clue no. 22: Going to loo, Roman is desperate

CCCWC March competition voters’ comments

Clue no. 22: Going to loo, Roman is desperate