Sunday, June 13, 2010 (ST 4380)

This puzzle was originally published in The Sunday London Times on May 9, 2010

Introduction

For the most part, it was a relatively easy puzzle today. However, I did get stymied on one clue by failing to take into account some differences between British and North American pronunciation.

Today's Glossary

Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle

Appearing in Solutions

beat - verb 8 move across (land) to raise game birds for shooting. DERIVATIVE beater noun.

British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) - a former British aircraft manufacturer; a predecessor company to British Aerospace (BAe)

desmid - [American Heritage Dictionary] noun Any of various green unicellular freshwater algae of the family Desmidiaceae, often forming chainlike colonies.

River Test - a river in Hampshire, England

solipsist - noun one who espouses solipsism, a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also : an extreme egocentrist

Links to Solutions

A review of today's puzzle by talbinho can be found at Times for the Times [ST 4380].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

9d Inner voice Hamlet blamed for cowardice (10)

The literary reference is to "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all", the 28th line in Hamlet's soliloquy that begins "To be or not to be – that is the question:".

23d Greek character said to be employed to raise birds (4)

Despite recognizing that we are looking for a letter from the Greek alphabet and that "said" is a homophone (sounds like) indicator, I was not able to completely fathom the wordplay. I did consider the possibility that "raise" might be a reversal indicator in this down clue - but that proved not to be the case.

The clue relies on two distinct characteristics of British speech. The first is the British pronunciation of the word "beta" which sounds like bee·ta (compared to the North American pronunciation BAY·ta). You can listen to these two pronunciations here (just click on the British and American flag icons at the top of the entry).

The second characteristic is the British propensity to not pronounce the final R in words, or rather, to pronounce ER as A. Thus the word "beater" is also pronounced bee·ta. We see a clue like this from time to time in British puzzles and I have yet to learn to recognize them. Perhaps those living in the Boston area fared betta'.

Signing off for this week - Falcon