CCCWC February competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 14: Detective's role disguised in "The Empty House"?
Back to competition result |
All the comments |
Other competitions
A clue to SHERLOCK.
5 comments refer to this clue (from 5 competitors, 0 others)
Move your mouse pointer over any bold clue number to see the clue.
Here is the text
| Comments on the clue |
|---|
| 1. | Like the possibility of solving with either wordplay or &lit. Possibly "The" gets in the way of the wordplay. | | 2. | Neat, but I don't see "empty" justifying omission of a |
|
| Comments on the competition |
|---|
| 1. |
|---|
I'm listing those clues I threw straight out on the first reading and giving the reasons why. It's intended to be helpful. If you're new to the competition, don't let it put you off entering again. Although being criticised isn't pleasant it beats never seeing your clues get anywhere.
And these are only my opinions; if clues in the top ten display the same features, I’m in error, not you. And I also may well have missed something, if you’ve been devious enough.
10 ‘Clouseau’ isn’t a definition to me, it’s an example and needs a ‘perhaps’ or a 'possibly’. (And I know there are those who don't agree)
13 ‘R’ doesn’t equal ‘red’ in Chambers, Collins or XWD – ‘head of red’ would be OK
14 An empty shack would be ‘sk’
28 ‘An actor’ doesn’t seem enough to indicate ‘Sher’. A bit more help to the solver is needed, I feel.
30 That sher = tiger in Hindi/Urdu is not in Chambers nor widely known . Sher Khan was to me merely a name like Kimball O’Hara. ‘Kipling’s tiger’ would do if you could indicate the loss of ‘Khan’ somehow
34 To give just a definition (and a cryptic one at that) of words you want to be anagrammed isn’t fair to the solver. The letters should be in front of the solver, although latitude is given for abbreviations well-known cruciverbally.
36 If money = p it also = S (schillings), s (shillings), R (rupees or rand), L (lire or pounds), c (cents) and K (Krona or Krone or Kwatchi). ‘Piano’, perhaps?
39 'Ellery' (even with ‘Queen’ in the letterplay to give a hint) isn’t adequate as a definition. Would you accept 'Nero' or 'Gideon' if you had them in a clue to solve?
41 ‘In the toilet’ doesn’t suggest an anagram to me
42 RLS is perhaps OK for Robert Louis Stevenson – I can’t accept just RL
50 I like a clue to have letterplay as well as a definition.
51 Shylock was grasping, ruthless and ruthless, yes, but jealous?
52 I can’t make sense of the surface reading.
56 Erle Stanley Gardner really isn’t currently prominent enough to take just his first name and use it for a homophone.
58 I like a clue to have letterplay as well as a definition
60 ‘Who is’ and ‘novels’ are superfluous to the letterplay. And ‘novels’ to the definition. |
| 2. |
|---|
| Dunno about anyone else, but I felt clues using the word "Holmes" constituted a dead giveaway. Likewise "her locks" is pretty obvious in the anagram stakes. Attempts to actually reference the casebook (as in 14, 35) were valiant :^) |
| 3. |
|---|
5 points
5 The definition is a bit of a stretch, but the surface is excellent and amusing and the s.i. (if I put on one side my personal aversion to the “bit of” convention) so neat that the clue deserves top marks
3 points each:
44 I don’t think that this clue would get past Azed as a valid composite anagram, since there is no “break” between the two halves (as he insists is required), but this is not one of Azed’s competitions and the clue is admirably economical and neat.
57 neat and a genuine &lit
2 points each:
24 the wording (“sinister criminal outbreak”) is slightly artificial, but this not a bad &lit
29 the subsidiary indication aspect of this &lit is very well done, the definition aspect slightly forced.
Prox. ac.
4 This is cleverly constructed, introducing Holmes without making it too obvious that it is the definition. The connection between Brandeis and OWH, as fellow liberal members of the Supreme Court, is clear and it seems that OWH was keen on chess, but the surface is weakened by the facts that there does not seem to be any evidence that Brandeis had much interest in the game and that it is somewhat unlikely that a pawn would ever be in a position to take an opponent’s “final pieces”, whatever that might mean exactly.
14 A clever idea neatly executed, but “house” = “shack” is hardly fair, I feel.
26 The topical surface is rather spoiled by the artificiality of the phrase “equine racing’s loss”.
37 If the criterion for a clue’s being &lit is (as I believe to be the case) that every word must make a meaningful contribution to both the definition and the subsidiary indication, then this clue is no &lit, since more than half the words make no contribution to the s.i. at all. What’s more, I don’t think that either “flamboyant” or “slick” is a very accurate epithet for Sherlock Holmes. |
