Easy cryptic 2

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• Lego constructor · 2023-11-05T07:35:36.017Z

  Hope you enjoyed this one! Feedback welcome.

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• ads 🤓19:49 · 2023-11-05T10:54:08.380Z

  Nice one!

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-06T13:04:12.931Z

    cheers, glad you liked it!

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• merlinnimue 🤓6:59 · 2023-11-05T14:09:25.164Z

  I ended on 22d, which was a very nice definition... very 32a

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-06T13:04:54.998Z

    great! you were very quick! glad you liked it

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• Aaron Riccio 🤓10:46 · 2023-11-05T15:35:42.247Z

  I really liked 10A, 11A, 12A(!), and 15D. I think 19D is brilliant, and your best, because it misdirects entirely, turning what would be an indicator to some "Quite the opposite!" into the definition.

  If any of the following are intentional choices, all good! If not, these are tricky spots per the cryptic grammar I'm used to.

  5A "Spicy" is an adjective. "TABASCO" is a noun. "Spiciness found in blend of boa scat" might be closer to your intent?

  9A Some people hate seeing hidden words that aren't WITHIN other words (i.e., all of MAXIM being used). "Biggest" for "maximal" is, I think, OK. You also have a lot of identical indicators for hiddens—"in," mostly. I think variety enhances the sense of surprise and delight in a puzzle, but your call!

  17A Grammar's fine here, but the surface could use more sense, I think.

  29A Be cautious of extraneous words like "the." You're saying "From" (hidden indicator) [A] (sign it escapes); unless "from the" is an indicator (which sounds slightly off), this sort of thing can weaken your overall cluing.

  1D Mileage varies on this, but having "MERIT" be part of the answer and having "merit" in the clue for 1A feels redundant.

  22D I see in Britannica that this can be a spelling of TOLSTOY, but I'd personally want to indicate it as "var." or cue the language in which it is more often spelled that way.

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-06T13:14:47.832Z

    Wow, thank you so much for this detailed and constructive criticism!! Much appreciated. Yes, there were too many hidden words in this one with the clue being 'in' – I knocked it off in a rush without going back over the clues.

    In 5A I was hoping to get away with using 'blend' in the definition ("Spicy blend") as well as in the instructions ("blend of ___ ____"). Is this allowed??

    Yes, 9A is lame, I agree – as is 17A

    Good pointers for 29A and 1D.

    For 22D, it's still not totally uncommon to write 'Толстой' as 'Tolstoi' and even used to be the preferred form (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Tolstoi%2C+Tolstoy&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3) but point taken.

    Thanks again for your very useful tips!!

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-06T13:43:44.988Z

    I've changed 9A, 17A, 29A and 1A – better now I think.

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    • Aaron Riccio 🤓10:46 · 2023-11-06T15:33:07.944Z

      Served and warrant is very nice as a misdirect to something negative (criminal warrant) as opposed to something positive (earned). Hope it was clear that I liked your puzzle!

      (And thanks for the info on Tolstoi/Tolstoy!)

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• sjones8888 16:44 · 2023-11-06T05:50:11.077Z

  Thank you very much! I'm new to cryptics and trying to get the hang of them. So an "easy" puzzle is welcome.

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-06T13:15:06.150Z

    Cool, glad you enjoyed it : )

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• El Gordo 42 16:32 · 2023-11-09T16:37:28.777Z

  Fun and fairly easy. 15D just gave me a headache, and it should not have!

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-13T10:35:28.459Z

    Good job! Sorry about the headache!! >_<

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• frostyjhammer 11:46 · 2023-11-09T19:30:08.440Z

  This was very fun, thank you.

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-13T10:35:38.883Z

    Great! Glad you enjoyed it.

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• Aaron 🤓15:26 · 2023-11-11T21:25:35.120Z

  Good fun. Thanks

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-13T10:35:45.907Z

    Cheers!

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• Oliver Hardy 🤓19:40 · 2023-11-13T07:36:28.826Z

  Thank you for a great cryptic. 5A I thought this was clever, despite what earlier comments suggested. Using "blend" in the definition and as an anagrind is a neat trick. 29A Again, despite previous comments, I thought that there is no need to remove "the" from the clue; it was perfectly fine as it was. When clueing a hidden word I don't worry about how many extraneous words are used. There are different styles of crossword compilation; what suits one compiler may not suit another.

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-13T10:38:19.939Z

    Great! Glad you liked it, including 5A. I thought the 'the' in 29A was optional, but maybe more succinct without it. Thanks for the feedback – I appreciate it. I've just published another one which you might like too.

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• K 18:56 · 2023-11-29T20:55:01.467Z

  Hi could someone provide an explanation for 1A, 11A, and 31A? Beginner solver here :)

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-30T05:09:49.114Z

    Hi K! sure i can explain what i had in mind with these ones: 1A) the word "issues" is a clue that it's a hidden word – so XYZ issues ABC means there's a word which is hidden inside XYZ which means ABC: maDE SERVEd

    11A) "gets messy" is an indication that there's an anagram (where you have to scramble the letters around) "rise up" is the meaning and "or it" is what you have to scramble – "or it → RIOT 11A) here 'adjustment' indicated another anagram, so you have to 'adjust' "a moss an" → SAMOANS, which means 'islanders'

    i hope that helped!

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    • K 18:56 · 2023-11-30T13:31:06.938Z

      Thank you so much! Would you actually mind explaining 9A as well?

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      • Lego constructor · 2023-11-30T15:20:49.857Z

        Sure! This one involves a subsutiution. In 'second of three' the 'three' relates to the three occurrences of the letter 'm' in "mammal". 'Eleven' in Roman numerals is 'xi', so you swap the second 'm' of 'mammal' with 'xi' and you get MAXIMAL, which means 'of the biggest'.

        BTW, I think purest cryptic crossword solvers might not like this clue so much because the use of 'second of three' might be a bit too cryptic!

        Hope it makes sense though!

        Let me know if you have any other questions.

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        • K 18:56 · 2023-11-30T17:05:19.842Z

          Ohh that makes sense! Thanks so much for helping me out!

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  • Lego constructor · 2023-11-30T05:35:47.827Z

    oh, and for 1A "deserve" = "warrant" because their meanings overlap when their verbs ('it didn't deserve further investigation' = 'it didn't warrant further investigation')

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