CCCWC November competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 19: One's reluctantly saddled with unwanted war inspired by WMD lie abroad
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A clue to WILD MARE.
5 comments refer to this clue (from 5 competitors, 0 others)
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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| There was less scope for inventive definitions and wordplay this month, and I felt the overall standard wasn't that high. The top five of a dozen or so honorable exceptions were 8 and 41 with good & lit. treatments, 19 (though saddled=mounted is dubious) and 42 for misleading definitions, and 25 for the disguised Wilde reference. Some tortuous wordplay was evident, e.g. in 1 and 37 where the definition was obscured by a homophone, and more so 15 with the multi-step anagram of (HE=MALE=MAIL + MARRIED=WED + 18th=R). Unsolvable I think. I wasn't keen on 16's lack of capitals and punctuation. |
| 2. |
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It seemed to me that unsoundness abounded this month, including several indirect anagrams (e.g. 15,17) and inadequate definitions. On top of this there were many clues with wordplay using related definitions of "wild", which made the clues rather weak, and some unnatural surface readings.
I chose 19 and 25 as my top two clues, although both could also be considered flawed. "From" in 25 is used in the opposite way from convention – i.e. it states "wordplay" from "definition" rather than the other way round. In 19 the definition is a little weak, I think, and "one" superfluous to the wordplay, unless I've missed something. But I liked the surface readings and construction of these two above any of the other clues. |
| 3. |
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| This seems to have been tough, and I haven't given any clue more than 3 points. The many possible definitions make voting tricky. 30 is ingenious, but the surface reading doesn't make much sense, and Boris -> mayor -> mare is a bit of a stretch. Similarly 15's he -> male -> mail as anagram fodder. I'm doubtful about the intended homophone in 10. I'm afraid I can't see what 44 is getting at. I feel 26 doesn't quite work. 3 is amusing, but it could do with a definition as well. 41 is cleverly constructed, although a bit laboured. I feel this and 19 are about the best, although "with unwanted war" doesn't convince. |
| 4. |
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| Not very many strong candidates for the points this month – too many unconvincing surfaces, inadequate definitions and examples of iffy wordplay – but a small handful of good and very good ones, among which 26 (5 points) stood out. The very similar and otherwise accomplished 8 (2.5 points) suffered from the artificiality of the archaism "rime". 11 (4 points) was a neat &lit. 19 (2.5)and 32 (1 point), my other two selections for points, both exploited good ideas (whether or not you agree with "lie" in 19!), but WILD MARE ought really, I think, to have been defined in terms of one of the meanings given in the dictionary rather than as a random phrase. I can, however, well understand the temptation to go with the ambiguity of "reluctantly saddled" in 19 once that excellent idea had presented itself (which is what got it a higher rating than 32). |
| 5. |
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1st (4 points) 11 (I took some time to appreciate this, but it fits together better and better the more I look at it)
2nd (2.5 points) 3 (utterly silly and disobeys the normal rules, but strikingly clever)
3rd= (1.5 points each): a number of clues all of which were almost good but each of which had what seemed to be some blemish): 8 (artificial use of 'rime' not 'rhyme'], 13 (a bit flat), 19 (I had doubts about the soundness of the def.), 34 (rather vague def.), [36} (also a bit flat)
8th (1 point) 32 (I wasn't sure about the way the anagram indicator worked) |
