Unfamiliar with DEDUCTS as a verb, I think It would've been nice to check that penultimate letter as it's easy to confuse with DEDUCES, but I guess the ddef is enough
Unfamiliar with that sense of ZODIACS, but its a fair clue
loved the l&s wordplay on DESIRED, though I dont agree with the definition
Good point re DEDUCES – I hadn't thought of that. It's there a way to include multiple answers?
I fixed up the clue for DESIRED as per your comment re definition – good point.
Thanks again for the feedback!
totally true! i've fixed that .. thanks for pointing it out!
Oliver Hardy 39:31 · 2023-11-24T06:32:10.229Z
Thanks for a great cryptic! I really liked 29A - very entertaining. 5A I also have concerns about DEDUCTS as a verb in the double definition. 35A involved much head scratching until I realised that I had mistyped RELAXES as RELAXED - fat finger, small keypad!
All in all a very satisfying puzzle; keep it up!
it seems like 'deducts' meaning 'guesses' really ain't popular! i ran a quick google search for the string "as far as I can deduct" and found loads of entries, so it must just be a case of regional variation. I'm from NZ fwiw
Thanks for a fun solve! Nice to see lots of subtraction clues in one place.
One thing I would try and avoid is redundant words, e.g. “sir” in 21D and “It’s” and “quickly” in 30D. They’re great for building better surfaces but in a perfect cryptic clue every word should have a function in definition and/or wordplay - otherwise your solver might think they’ve missed/misunderstood something.
I hate to disagree with JWords but in a hidden words clue I believe that "redundant" words are there to misdirect, which is the purpose of cryptic clues, and improve the surface reading. Ximinean compilers tend to frown on "padding" words; I thought 30D was perfectly fair.