Listener 4238 Typtoing In Grammar's Footsteps

[Ruthrobin]

This has be tremendous fun. Many thank Jaques, I too is typtoing in grammar's footstep's. (Actually finding the message about what solver's mus't do symmetrically helped enormous - smile!)

[Texasetes]

Having read the 'Submission of entries' paragraph of the notes included with the annual statistics, I have discovered that I have been unwittingly transgressing for some time. I'd like to correct the error of my ways and make JEG's life easier, so I have a favour to ask: could someone who has a copy of today's Times please measure the width of the printed grid and report back?

My self-printed grid of 4238 from the website, with Firefox printing at 100%, is approximately 11.8cm. This seems larger than the average grid size used to be in the days when I bought the paper. I wonder how close other combinations of browser/printer come to reproducing grids at the 'correct' size.

Thanks for any assistance.

[Whenland]

Width of printed version 89mm, depth also 89mm. Now back to gardening - not many clues solved here yet!

[Texasetes]

Many thanks, Whenland.

So it looks like I'll need to reprint my 4238 grid at a scale of around 75%. But does that mean that 75% will always give the desired size, I wonder?

There's no obvious indication on the website of the correct size of the grid, so how are members of The Times Crossword Club supposed to ensure week after week that their entries cause JEG only delight?

[How] do other solvers ensure that their submissions follow the guidelines?

[tilbee]

Fun indeed - Jacques done good.

[Ruthrobin]

Texasetes, JEG once explained to me that he enters a document of the correct size with the solver's name on it in the set of correct solutions from which the winners are picked (in the cases where the sent copy can't be entered). He is scrupulously fair and his brother actually picks the winners from the bag of corrects. There are certainly some grids that aren't of that standard size (the snowflake, for instance and last year's Rood crossword).

[IainGrace]

Not started this yet. Still toiling with 4237 but the "less" solecism in the preamble is presumably thematic?

[jim360]

Yeah, lot's of thematic stuff in this weeks' Listener including in the pre-amble.

[Texasetes]

Ruthrobin, it's the standard, rectangular, grids which I'm primarily worried about. Their 'correct size' varies each week (doesn't it?), so for solvers entering self-printed grids the document to be entered in the draw will need to be prepared anyway.

In no way am I casting aspersions on JEG's scruples; I'd merely like to comply with the 'Submission of entries' request included with the statistics.

I'm sure you have a copy of the stats but I'll quote the relevant paragraphs for others who may be interested.

" * Entries from the newspaper are already cut to about 1mm around the grid and address panel into a rectangle (including the prize details), excluding the puzzle's heading, title and clues;
* Netprint entries from The Times Crossword Club facility are similarly treated (i.e. NOT a full A4 sheet) AND THE GRID IS NOT ENLARGED;"

The capitalisation in the second quoted paragraph above implies that the size of the submitted grid carries some importance if JEG's extra work is to be minimised. So how do those of us without access to the Saturday Times know what that size should be, if we can't rely on our browser to scale it correctly?

Sorry to go on about this. If I've not expressed myself clearly this time I'll shut up. But if I'm the only entrant who can be bothered to try to do what's asked of him, then an awful lot of JEG's time must be wasted.

[jim360]

I'll bet that Jaques had some enormous fun setting this by the way!

[tilbee]

Ruthrobin - re your previous comment, how about "cogjto" ?

[freiheid]

There are at least five deliberate errors in the preamble ('each' and 'none' require a singular verb, 'less' rather than 'fewer', the misplaced 'out', the apostrophe). Nice puzzle, though most of the internet doesn't seem to agree precisely with the relevant reference work.

[Scorpius]

I found the jumbles made this pretty tough and was rather grateful for the sophisticated pattern matching of TEA. I wasn't helped by the fact that the wordplay to 7 down also leads to another completely different answer, which was one of my first 'solves'. I cannot explain the first four letters of of 36, but I don't yet have the latest Chambers - perhaps it's in there. I also don't understand "Mainland's" in 32, which seems to contradict Chambers.

Scanning the grid, the s*r was vaguely recognizable (deliberate grammatical error there) so I got the other bit very quickly.

[Ruthrobin]

Texasetes, thanks, yes, I understand your scruples. I, too, living a long way from any reliable Times outlet (have to cross a frontier in the hope that the neighbouring airport will still have a copy when I arrive) use the crossword club facility and it was in that context that JEG spoke to me about the size issue. Clearly the group of us can't know exactly what size each week's grid is but I simply shrink mine to about 9 cm (the grid), shrink the print to size 8 or 9, and trim the address panel below the required arrival date. It was in that context that he explained about having documents ready to put in for entries that were too anomalous to go into the 'hat' in the form they arrived in. He also thanked me for sending a few used stamps each week, as he collects those for a charity. [email protected]

[perseverer]

Scorpius - in 36 you should be trying to explain 3 letters, and for 32 you have to be familiar with the relevant geography.

[Staurologist]

Delightful. The obviously deliberated error's in the preamble maked it clear that us was in for an farrago of suchlikes in the clues. [Incidentally, in the second item on the back page of this week's TLS, JC uses the same trick, in introducing a new book based on Strunk's "The Elements of Style".] I wonder to what extent this factor made it easier or harder to write the clues?? My only, very minor, reservation is that "typtoing" refers specifically to Greek grammar, whereas ....

Ruthrobin's memory for editorial gaffes seems to be rather short. In detail: only recently we have had an impolitic error in the solution to 4224 (LIDO/LINO) and a mega misprint in the grid in 4195. However, mistakes are impressively uncommon and need not cause an uproar.

JEG's instruction to clip the grid to within a millimetre of its life has always seemed rather pernickety to me. If it is merely to make the draw fair, such precision is probably otiose. Since he logs umpty solvers names every week for the sake of the statistics, he could forego this requirement and more simply ask his computer to pick a name at random. Perhaps he has another reason.

[Scorpius]

Staurologist, perhaps you are unaware that JEG will have nothing to do with computers.

[contendo]

I've been taking my time over this one, having moss-killing to attend to. I loved it (the crossword, not the moss-killing). Splendid quote. 9d took me a while to get, but what a lovely clue.
My computer prints the Listener crossword out in landscape format and this one measures 127 sq mms. I have no wish to create extra work for JEG, so can anyone explain to me how to reduce the size, given that my computer skills are pretty basic?

[contendo]

Sorry, 127 mms square, not 127 square mms.

[Ruthrobin]

If you are saving your document, for example, as a Word or rtf (rich text format) document you simply click on the grid and it will appear to have a dotted edge. You can then get hold of (put your cursor on) the little dot that will appear in any of the corners (south-east corner, for example - a small green dot) and drag that inwards - the grid will shrink as you drag, until you have the size you require. If you get hold of one of the arrows that appear at the centre of each side of the grid and drag that inwards, it will shrink the grid just horizontally or vertically.

[Scorpius]

I never print the Listener crossword direct from the site. My routine might look time-consuming but it's very easy and gives me total control over all aspects of the puzzle's appearance, size etc. I highlight, paste and copy the title into a Word document; I then highlight, paste and copy everything else except the grid into the Word document; then I right click over the grid and chose "save image as..", saving it to my desktop; lastly I insert the image in the document using Word's "insert/picture" command. Once the image is in the document it's possible to size it as you want, either by the method described by Ruthrobin, or by right-clicking on the border of the image, choosing 'size' or 'format image', and specifying the exact dimensions required.
By adjusting font size, margins etc I can make sure the puzzle never fills more than 2 pages, and I can keep it on the computer for future reference.