CCCWC October competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 47: The End is nigh.
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A clue to CLOSE.
3 comments refer to this clue (from 2 competitors, 0 others)
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| Comments on the clue |
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| 1. | Might be better as an exclamation (see clue 50). |
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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A short word with 2 main meanings this month. Derived meanings within these groups tempted exactly one third of setters to offer multiple definition clues, but these were fraught with dangers and rarely successful in the case of the higher multiples. There were 12 double definition clues (2, 4, 17, 21, 27, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 and 50*), 1 triple (51), 3 quadruple (3, 9 and 11), 1 quintuple (16), 1 septuple (37) and even 1 octuplet (5), a whacking total of 19 clues comprising 59 definitions ! 33 of these related to 'near' or 'enclosed', 23 to 'end' and 3 to famous people. One of the main hazards turned out to be the use of link words. When a solver is faced with what looks like a link word, it's reasonable to assume that the clue structure might be one of the following:
(a) Definition from wordplay
(b) Wordplay for definition
(c) Definition equals definition
When a clue contains more than two definitions it therefore seems illogical to have an arbitrary number of link words, for example the 'in' and 'of' in clue 5, the 'of' in clue 3 and the 'for' in clue 51. It's also vital that the surface reading justifies the inclusion of so many different definitions, rather than reading as a string of words telling an improbable or uninteresting tale. In this respect clue 5 was more successful than others (11, 16 and 37). Finally, mixing wordplay with multiple definitions is a definite no-no – clues 2, 3 and 17 illustrate how difficult this can make the solver's task. |
| 2. |
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| The fact that there were six nearly identical good clues – many of the differences being only in punctuation and capitalization – made it very hard to mark this competition fairly, even given the dispensation in the case of the two pairs that were exactly identical. The capital 'E' for 'End" perhaps gives 47 a minuscule edge, but this is arguably counterbalanced by the full stop, where convention would suggest no punctuation (48 and 49) or, in this case, perhaps better an exclamation mark 50; on the other hand, "nigh" strikes me as preferable to "near" in this context. To have given all these clues their due equally would have left little scope to reward others equally good. It might have been marginally better to ignore the punctuation and capitalization and to allow everyone to vote only once for the four clues 47-50. |
