Detroit is the home of the big three U.S. automakers (no qubbling on DaimlerChrylser, please), which periodically issue recalls of their cars.
You may commence groaning now.
The General Question has been answered. Rather than close this, I’ll toss it over to MPSIMS.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator
tygerbryght, if you think The Times crosswords are hard, try the ones in The Guardian. I consider myself quite adept at cryptic crosswords — in fact I find that any other type of crossword is just annoying and unsatisfying — but those always stump me. I’ve only ever finished it about twice. They tend to have lots of cross referencing clues, of the form “3 Across of the 6’s 12?” so it’s hard to get started. Some days I only get four or five words on my hour-long train journey home.
I’ve just grabbed today’s paper — I haven’t even looked at the puzzle yet, but here’s a few clues to give you a taster:
My brain hurts 
Alas, poor Noah just couldn’t save them all…
God moves in mysterious ways
A number of years ago, I came across the following clue in the NY Times crossword, of all places:
“The _____ mightier than the sword” (5 letters).
It’s an easy one, but becomes slightly more interesting when written down in the puzzle.
PENIS
I only wish I had saved the paper.
:smack:
Good one.
I see you’re all more sophisticated in your taste in puzzles than I am, but I’m going to put this forth anyway. In a Dell (is that a dirty word?) book recently, not only did I not get the answer, but seeing the answer still didn’t explain it to me! The clue is: “Crossword editor’s dictum?” (16 letters). The answer: “NOEFTSENSORABETS”. Sounds kind of like “No ifs, ands, or buts,” but what the hell does it mean, and how could anyone be expected to get that? I know, from the cross words, but geeze . . .
Crossword English 101: 2, 3 and 4 letter words are gold for filling spaces. So completely uncommon 2, 3 and 4 letter words get used…a LOT. An “eft” is a newt’s intermediate stage. An “en” is a printer’s measure. “Abet” as in “aid and abet”. There’s also ern(e) (variant spellings are well-used, too), nee, lo, etc.
MizQuirk, please be assured, you are absolutely correct.
Cryptic crosswords may look obscure, but they’re always fair (well, those that are published in UK newspapers at least).
The example you give is a terrible clue. You couldn’t be expected to solve that without being familiar with the setter.
That was around long before Will used it as a clue. I remember back in the late 60s reading a rather well written article, both witty and erudite, about the impact of romance and desire on major historical events, including particularly wars. The title of the article was that old proverb, but with the blank filled in as a single word and a comma after it.
I always thought “Mightier than the sword” would have been the perfect slogan for Viagra.
All the big crossword buyers won’t allow two-letter words, and that’s a good thing. Of course, you still see “printer’s measures” (EMS or ENS) as a clue. :rolleyes:
And ‘compass direction’ always annoys me too. You may as well just clue it “some combination of N’s, S’s, E’s, and W’s that you won’t get until you’ve solved all the words crossing this.”
Thank YOU! Every time I saw that (back when I was solving xwords a lot), my immediate thought was, “Great…a completely useless cross that won’t help me solve anything transitting it because I need to solve the transits before I can get the damn cross!”
Well, at least you know it can’t be EEN or EES or WWN or WWS.
For what that’s worth.
I’ve seen decent crossword-composers use something like “Boston, from New York” rather than merely “compass direction” as the clue, to avoid just that problem. However, even the generic clue does help – you have reduced the possible letters from 26 to four, two, and two (NESW, NS, and EW respectively) – which will often enable you to identify which of several possible words an intersecting word is – "Mad _" will need to be “man” not “Max” to end on the middle letter of “compass direction” (assuming you’ve established it as MA already) – and that means the first letter of “compass direction” is not “S,” cutting the possibilities to three.
FYI – the cluing is more apt to be the work of the editor than the constructor. Of course, if the editor is really good, he or she will make an effort to get these cheesy entries out of the grid in the first place.
twicks, in a professional huff
Yes, I was exaggerating. I know all that stuff. I still think “compass direction” is a less-than-fair clue.
aspirate To pronounce (a vowel or word) with the initial release of breath associated with English h, as in hurry.
Beethoven’s fifth = the fifth letter of Beethoven.